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Comment Re:It is about time (Score 1) 1271

There may be proportionally more Anti-Vaxers who are liberal than are conservatives. But the anti-vaxers are nearly unrepresented in the ranks of Liberal/Democratic elected leaders. As opposed to the anti-global-warming-ists or anti-evolutionists who are leading the Republican party in the US.

Comment Re:New Sign in the Doctors Office... (Score 1) 1271

Flu is dangerous. 20 to 40 million deaths in 1918-1919. annual deaths 250,000-500,000, more in pandemic years. US deaths averaged 40,000/year from 1979 to 2001 (by one measure).

It is true that immunity from the flu vaccine is not 100%. But reducing ones chance of contracting the disease after exposure by 2/3rds is worth it. I've gotten a flu shot every year since I last had the flu (1994).

The Almighty Buck

How Do You Measure a Game's Worth? 188

RamblingJosh writes "Video games can be very expensive these days, especially with so many great games on the horizon. So I wonder: how exactly do you get the most gaming entertainment for your dollar? '... the first thing I personally thought about when approaching this was money spent versus time played. Using Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions as an example: I bought the game for about $30 Canadian, and played it for roughly 85 hours. That comes out to 2.83 hours per dollar spent, a pretty good number. In this case, the game was a lot of fun and it was cheap, and so the system works fairly well. There are so many other things to think about, though. What if the game wasn't so good? What about the fact that it's portable? ... What about the new content? Multiplayer?'"

Comment Re:Movies (Score 1) 1021

I was in High School when Star Wars came out. The first one, before it got retitled "A New Hope" and "Episode 4".

Joseph Campbell's _The_Hero_With_a_Thousand_Faces_ or the PBS Series (with its accompanying book) The Power of Myth both talk about the archtype Epic. Read wikipedia for more.

I saw the Dune movie before I read the book. It worked for me.
 

Comment Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score 2, Informative) 205

I don't believe you can run an .exe file on Linux or MacOSX. You can only do that in Windows.

MacOSX tells me whenever I ask it to run a file downloaded from the net for the first time. The OS needs to get in the user's face a little, because downloaded executables carry risks that executables installed from local media do not.

Comment Re:Brain... locking... up... (Score -1, Redundant) 205

Incorrect on so many points.

Malware does not go where the users are in other environments, it goes where the ease of exploiting vulnerabilities and the size of the market make it worthwhile. Apache is more popular than IIS, yet IIS has more discovered and exploited vulnerabilities.

A secure OS would make sure that all code downloaded from the net is identified to the user as code downloaded from the net and its source/publisher, and a secure OS does not allow the downloaded code to execute until after the user has acknowledged that it is a downloaded program and given explicit permission.

If you exclude all malware/exploits on Microsoft operating systems, Microsoft makes the most secure operating systems, because there are, by definition, no malware/exploits.

Comment Re:Not a Great Analogy (Score 1) 456

US Oil production peaked in 1970, at around 9 1/2 million barrels per day. Current US Oil production is down to 5 million barrels per day, and is dropping at an average around 150,000 barrels per day per year. Ten years out, if we're lucky, the US will produce 3 1/5 million barrels per day. Oh, and US demand for oil is at 10 million barrels per day and rising.

Comment Re:Computers? (Score 1) 185

The article sounds like it's extrapolating the peak 0.6g acceleration for the entire length of the flight. Seems to me that acceleration is proportional to the light flux trapped and/or reflected by the sail, which will fall off with the square of the distance from the sun. So you can't get to the Oort cloud in just a couple of years.

What am I missing?

Comment Re:It is not the volts (Score 1) 336

I was fixing the lights in my basement. Circuit was live, switch was open, and I still got a "tickle" when working on the socket. Pulled the breaker, and found out that the home handyman who wired that part of the basement had put the switch on the white (return) wire. Grrrrr!

Now, do I pay an electrician to find out all the places where the wiring is screwed up? Or just double-check when I need to work on a circuit?

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It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

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