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Comment Re:OMG america is stupid (Score 1, Insightful) 181

If ever there was a weapon that would be classified as only a weapon of terror with no practical application beyond fear.

Well, fear and burning people to death so they're no longer a threat. Not very efficient, but effective.

And I guess the "practical applications" of your guns, if they don't involve fear, involve gunning people down, right? Don't bother with scaring them off, just kill them.

Between you and me, it seems like the practical application of creating fear is working just great on you, quick-draw.

Comment Not at all surprising (Score 4, Insightful) 187

This will probably come across as a kneejerk response, but the submission makes it sound like Liu's themes are almost entirely derived from PRC propaganda. You hear this sort of stuff all the time if you pay any attention to Chinese state media ... planned economies are best, the individual's primary responsibility is to the family unit, Western ideas have failed, and so on. If anything, these books demonstrate the poverty of a literary scene where everybody has to constantly watch what they say.

Comment such a tired myth (Score 3, Interesting) 223

First off, Canada != US, fellow American.

Second: people and businesses can limit the forms of payment they'll accept for practical reasons all the time. As in: no bills over a certain amount, or refusing payment in pennies. Coins CAN be legal tender, but no merchant or private party MUST accept a particular form of currency. Don't want to accept $1 bills, only $5 and $10? That's fine:

  http://www.snopes.com/business...

"Legal tender is the default method of payment assumed in contractual agreements involving debts and payments for goods or services unless otherwise specified."

Third: the currency is defaced. That is the whole point - it's potentially not legal currency if you've drawn all over it. If you interfere with security features in the bill and it becomes more risky to trust as valid (such as, counterfeit bills that meet other security features elsewhere on the bill)...then they are right to refuse it.

I'm kind of shocked Canada doesn't specifically outlaw defacement of the currency; the US sure does.

Comment fortunately, you don't need showers (Score 1) 304

Fortunately, you don't need showers. Bicycling != sweaty. And sweaty !=stinky.

People stink because they cover themselves in chemical perfumes (perfumes, soaps, shampoos, moisturizers, etc) that have limited 'life' before they start to decompose. People stink because they use fabric softener on their clothing (see above...also, fabric softeners are basically fat. Which goes rancid...) People stink because they toss their sweaty clothes into a hamper instead of airing them out.

I'm American. I ride a bike every day, in a city that goes from 0 degrees to 100+ degrees. I don't understand this obsession with sweat. If I'm going somewhere and can't show up sweaty, I slow down, or I get there a few minutes early and cool off/dry off just by...uh...standing around...

People seem to forget that biking is more efficient and thus for the same energy used walking, you can go several times faster, which means for the same energy you are less likely to get sweaty.

Comment meh (Score 1) 355

Except that for barely another $5-$10, you can get a much more modern CPU that is actually supported by mainstream kernels/distros.

It is completely stupid to make people jump through a lot of extra compatibility hoops and problems for the sake of the cost of lunch.

Comment naming scheme is going to drive people to drink (Score 5, Insightful) 355

Good grief is the naming scheme tiresome.

Did anyone think about problems this goofy naming scheme causes? The ease of searching supplier's catalogs, googling, etc? Hell, just talking to another person? "Oh yeah, I've got the Pi 2 Model B plus", versus "I've got a Model D." Did anyone concern themselves with the fact that a lot of resellers may not ID the revision at all? How are you supposed to google for an issue you're having with the latest model?

Comment reflects political environment, more like it (Score 1) 145

It's more that the clock reflects the current global political climate.

Ie when Pakistan and India, both nuclear powers, are duking it out, the clock goes closer to midnight.

I strongly suspect that the announcement is due to strong rhetoric from russian leadership - I believe recently either Putin or one of his lackeys declared that they could "raze" the US. There's also been increasingly aggressive "patrols" by Russian bombers along the US and Europe, the recent sub incident in Sweden, and of course the invasion of Ukraine.

Comment strawman; nobody's asking him to be "PC" or "nice" (Score 3, Insightful) 361

Linus is playing the "people want me to be PC" card, and mixing it in with some anti-American-ism for popularity.

Nobody's asking him to be PC. Not many people are asking him to be friendly or polite. People are asking him to not be publicly abusive, to not be a bully, and to recognize the impact his words have on others. It is perfectly possible to be an effective manager and leader without being abusive and bullying. Stick to the facts, among other things.

Ie:

"Your code check-in appears to cause a bunch of compile errors, so I've rolled it back. Also, I've noticed that this isn't the first time. We're a large-scale project and it is helpful if contributors extensively validate their contributions."

Not:

"Don't you know how to validate your code? Stop wasting my time! Come back to me when you've evolved past a chimpanzee." ...and also not:

"Hello! Thank you for your code check-in! Now, I'm sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a small problem with your code. If it's not too much trouble...." etc etc.

Comment Re:No soul (Score 2) 351

Peter Jackson ripped the soul out of Lord of the Rings when he neglected to film The Scouring of the Shire.

But he did film it, kinda. He just didn't put it into the story. It shows up a little bit in the Mirror of Galadriel sequence.

One could argue that that was the correct way to play it, too. I know people who claim to have "walked out of the theater after the first ending and skipped all of the other ones," as it is.

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