forceman130 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Wouldn't it be wonderful, (Score 1) 507

by forceman130 on Monday December 28, 2009 @08:13PM (#30577414) Attached to: NY Times, LA Times Want Amazon To Collect More State Taxes

if there were no tax heavens anywhere in the world and businesses just paid what they owed like the rest of us. Sure the prices will go up but if this happened from the get go, it wouldn't be an issue. I'm annoyed with companies avoiding paying tax but then using the government system to seek protections or create laws for their benefit.

Except this isn't about companies not paying their taxes, it's about them not collecting taxes that you should pay.

Comment Re:Big Picture: this is no surprise at all (Score 1) 491

by forceman130 on Monday December 28, 2009 @07:40PM (#30577174) Attached to: China Debuts the World's Fastest Train

The counter to that is, while you couldn't find a single trinket that wasn't made in China, the Chinese couldn't find a single Chinese manufacturer to build their high-speed train.

Comment Re:How about patent reform? (Score 1) 304

by forceman130 on Thursday September 10, 2009 @09:37PM (#29385191) Attached to: Facebook Ordered To Turn Over Source Code

If you read the post, he was talking about spending that is being used to kill health care reform, not actual health care spending.

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 327

by forceman130 on Friday August 28, 2009 @09:19PM (#29238609) Attached to: Crime Expert Backs Call For "License To Compute"

The same way painting your car red makes it go faster.

So it does then. As any policeman approaching his ticket quota can tell you, red cars are faster than other colors.

Comment Arbitrary number? (Score 0) 295

by forceman130 on Friday August 28, 2009 @05:27PM (#29236383) Attached to: NVIDIA Predicts 570x GPU Performance Boost

I'm just curious how they came up with the 570x number - as opposed to say, 565x or 593x.

Comment Re:Poor Title (Score 1) 829

by forceman130 on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @08:41PM (#28790087) Attached to: F-22 Raptor Cancelled

The Chinese can't "call in our notes" because for one, they are holding Treasury bills, not IOUs, and second, even if they could the US could just print new money to pay them off. Sure it would wreck our economy, but it would simultaneously wipe out their foreign reserves as well - the economic situation with China now is a lot like the mutual assured destruction nuclear standoff we had with the Soviets.

Comment Re:I've always wondered (Score 1) 615

by forceman130 on Monday May 11, 2009 @09:37PM (#27916507) Attached to: Adblock Plus Maker Proposes Change To Help Sites

Jeez man, stop giving them ideas.

Comment Re:If I wanted to see ads... (Score 1) 615

by forceman130 on Monday May 11, 2009 @09:30PM (#27916461) Attached to: Adblock Plus Maker Proposes Change To Help Sites

What I don't understand is how this helps the website much. I'm not going to click the ad no matter what, so it really doesn't matter whether I see them or not. Unless blocking by ad-block somehow reduces the page view counts for the website - how is ad-block hurting them? They get paid by the click, right, or by some formula based on page-views (I assume, I don't run a website). In either case, me viewing the page with ads but not clicking them, or me viewing the page without ads via ad-block, makes no difference to the website.

Comment Re:I prefer Hulu (Score 1) 267

by forceman130 on Friday May 08, 2009 @08:52PM (#27884165) Attached to: Mininova Starts Filtering Torrents

TV shows available pretty much whenever I want. I watch a 1 minute commercial (or switch to another browser tab for 1 minute), and then I get the entire episode streamed. Just as convenient as torrents.

Unless you want to watch something from last season, which Hulu won't have. I guess that's to drive you to buy the DVD, but really, who's going to get a DVD box set just so they can re-watch an episode of "The Office" the thought was funny?

Comment Re:"UI is everything", but... (Score 1) 342

by forceman130 on Tuesday March 24, 2009 @08:09PM (#27322307) Attached to: UI Features That Didn't Make It Into Windows 7

But if I run two computers side-by-side to get the experience you describe, then I need two keyboards and two mice. Or a switch-box, and how is using a switch-box to change my keyboard between two computers any easier than Alt-Tabbing to a new application?

Comment Re:Meh (Score 1) 731

by forceman130 on Tuesday March 24, 2009 @06:41PM (#27320699) Attached to: Valve Claims New Steamworks Update "Makes DRM Obsolete"

The problem is that even that shiny box you bought at the store is tied to your Steam account, at least in games like Empire: Total War, which use Steam as their DRM method.

Comment Re:sigh (Score 1) 492

by forceman130 on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:32PM (#27233985) Attached to: Office Depot Employee — "We Changed Prices Too"

I have a friend that "Photoshops with The GIMP" but I think he does that one to tweak the Adobe fans in our circle of friends.

So does he "Bring out the GIMP" when he's getting ready to work?

Comment Re:Cruel to Small Businesses Using Google.... (Score 1) 390

by forceman130 on Thursday March 12, 2009 @09:47PM (#27176379) Attached to: Adbusters Suggests Click Fraud As Protest

Your comment started me wondering. Since Google AdWords links tell you the URL they are advertising, is it better for the advertiser if I just typed that URL in manually? Because I read your post to mean that you pay each time someone clicks through to your site from the Google ad (I'm not up to speed on how AdWords works, if you can't tell). So if I type the URL in manually, you still get the business, assuming I buy something, but you don't have to pay?

Comment Re:China will soon lead in space. (Score 1) 345

by forceman130 on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @05:18PM (#27141067) Attached to: China's New Military Space Stations Coming Soon

Yet somehow, even with a changing government, we got GPS and satellite communications, and rovers on Mars, and expeditions to Pluto. The quick answer to news about Chinese space activities is that "soon they will surpass us". How long did it take us to go from manned oribtal flight to where we are now - about 40 years? Granted, the Chinese'll do it faster because it's always easier being the second guy to do something, but it's not like they are going to make up that time in 5 years or anything - some of this stuff you just have to learn by doing, there are no shortcuts for first-hand experience. And, it's not like we are standing still - argue all you like about the relative merits, but NASA's budget is still pretty robust compared to the rest of the world's space budgets.

How many probes have the Chinese sent to the outer planets? How many rovers do they have operating on other planets? How many Earth observation satellites do they have in operation? How many Chinese nationals have flown in space? Seriously, they have a way to go still.

Comment Re:America is falling behind again (Score 1) 345

by forceman130 on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @05:07PM (#27140897) Attached to: China's New Military Space Stations Coming Soon

and this time they are not going to have a bunch of expat Germans with paper-clips on their files to bail them out. I think what is more worrying is that Iran & North Korea may well have manned space flight programs up and running before the USA does. What needs to happen is more Funding for NASA and they need someone with a lot of Political Savy running it (Like James Web in the 60's)

Granted, I haven't checked in the last hour or so, but last time I checked the US has a manned space flight program. You might have heard of it - it's called the "Space Shuttle". Why does crap like this always get modded up?

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