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Yvan256 (722131)

Yvan256
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http://www.yvan256.net/
by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07, @09:03AM (#24078535)
Attached to: Boiling Down Books, Algorithmically

This is just another pointless project that's going to waste the time and skull-sweat of a good but unrealistic programmer. All he's going to have when he's done is the solution to a problem that doesn't, for all practical purposes, exist. Good writers won't need it because they know what to do and how to do it, so they won't use it. It will only be used by poor writers, who won't know how to put the suggestions into effect properly. It may, possibly, tell a writer where their book needs work, or where it's not interesting enough, but I doubt it. Most likely, all it will do is tell it where it's not like other successful books because it won't be able to recognize or take into account any originality. Even if its recommendations are right, a poor writer is highly unlikely to profit from them, because by definition a poor writer won't know which suggestions are good or the skills to take advantage of them properly. No, what a poor writer who wants to get better needs is either a good critique group or some friends who will act as beta-readers, telling him not only what doesn't work but why (Something, I might add, that I find it hard to believe this program could ever do.) and discuss things with the author until they understand each other. Mechanical criticism of literature can only result in mechanical literature, not good writing.

Wow. You entirely missed the point of Aaron's work, and complained that something he is not doing is a bad idea.

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by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 06, @08:03PM (#24075537)
Attached to: 550 Metric Tons of Uranium Removed From Iraq

We can't let those French Canadians have nuclear weapons!

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Posted by kdawson on Friday June 27, @11:29AM
from the think-of-the-mojave-ground-squirrels dept.
Dekortage writes "The US Bureau of Land Management, overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants, has declared a two-year freeze on applications for new projects until it completes an extensive environmental impact study. The study will produce 'a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process.' The freeze means that current applications will continue to be processed — plants producing enough electricity for 20 million average American homes — but no new applications will be accepted until the study is complete. Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth. Some note that gas and oil projects are booming in the southwestern states most favorable to solar development. Another threat looming over the solar industry is that federal tax credits must be renewed in Congress, else they will expire this year."
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 [+] story, hardware, power, government, usa, science, earth
by shird on Thursday June 26, @10:03AM (#23947245)
Attached to: Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft

This is a rant about micrsoft.*com* - the website (and related update sites etc). It isn't about Microsoft itself, or its applications and operating systems. It's about the usability of the microsoft.com website and download services - which are probably largely outsourced to a few kids in India. It has nothing to do with "how bad Vista is" or lessons learned from XP.

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by Lumpy on Thursday June 26, @09:03AM (#23947031)
Attached to: Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft

That is NOT Gate's writing style and there are several mistakes as well that point to someone other than gates wrote the letter.

"I go to microsoft.com they have a download center" HUH? Cince when does the Head executive of the company refer to the company as "they" instead of "we"? I have never seen it even down to the grunt level.

This "secret memo" is bunk. it is in no way Bill Gates' writing.

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by WebmasterNeal on Sunday June 08, @12:03PM (#23695659)
Attached to: Mozilla Firefox 3 Features Screencast
You would think a /. user would be smart enough not to link directly to a flash file when submitting a story on /. considering 2% of users on here have flash.
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by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07, @11:03PM (#23694055)
Attached to: Google Gets Serious About Open Source Mac Projects
Can someone please tag this as "google comes out of the closet"?
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by Yetihehe on Saturday June 07, @06:03PM (#23694327)
Attached to: Google Gets Serious About Open Source Mac Projects

t might make a decent desktop system but it's one of the most closed and expensive systems you can use.
Maybe this is the reason? Like "Look, I can afford a mac, and it looks shiny and I'm all cool and hip". (I can almost hear the scream of my burning karma for this).
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Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday May 05, @12:28PM
from the vaporless-ware dept.
Tesla Motors has opened their first retail store front to allow the masses access to their new cars. Of course, this is assuming you can afford the $109,000 price tag. "The company told the Associated Press that it is impressed with demand: it has taken 600 orders for the Roadster and has a waiting list of another 400. CEO Elon Musk owns the first one produced. The fancy showroom near Beverly Hills takes its inspiration from Apple stores, Musk said. [...] The company plans to make a luxury sedan next year called the Whitestar that will come in two versions: an all-electric model that will run entirely on its lithium ion battery pack, and a range-extended vehicle that will also use liquid fuel to extend its range. The Roadster will have a range of 220 miles per charge and the mileage equivalent of 135 miles per gallon."
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 [+] story, tech, transportation, power, earth, vaporware, forsmallvaluesofthemasses
Posted by timothy on Thursday May 01, @10:40AM
from the inability-to-distinguish-real-life-from-pretend dept.
eldavojohn writes "The watch-dog group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has set its sights on the rating of GTA IV, primarily because a player can drive drunk in the game. MADD released a statement saying that 'Drunk driving is not a game, and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable.' MADD also is asking Rockstar Games to consider removing GTA IV from distribution 'out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.' Rockstar replied to MADD by saying 'we have a great deal of respect for MADD's mission, but we believe the mature audience for "Grand Theft Auto IV" is more than sophisticated enough to understand the game's content.' As expected, Jack Thompson is making his usual attention-whoring remarks by comparing GTA IV to the polio virus."
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 [+] story, games, censorship, gta, jackthompson, idiots
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Thursday May 01, @07:21AM
from the getting-with-the-program dept.
Wolfcat writes to tell us that Adobe announced today that they are opening the SWF and FLV formats via the Open Screen Project. "The Open Screen Project is supported by technology leaders, including Adobe, ARM, Chunghwa Telecom, Cisco, Intel, LG Electronics Inc., Marvell, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Verizon Wireless, and leading content providers, including BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC Universal, who want to deliver rich Web and video experiences, live and on-demand across a variety of devices. The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment — taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR — that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and consumer devices, including phones, mobile internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes."
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 [+] story, tech, graphics, business, technology, finally, adobe, opensource
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday April 30, @06:27PM
from the old-meets-new dept.
esocid writes "Researchers at HP Labs have solved a decades-old mystery by proving the existence of a fourth basic element in integrated circuits that could make it possible to develop computers that turn on and off like an electric light. The memristor — short for memory resistor — could make it possible to develop far more energy-efficient computing systems with memories that retain information even after the power is off, so there's no wait for the system to boot up after turning the computer on. It may even be possible to create systems with some of the pattern-matching abilities of the human brain. Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member at the University of California at Berkeley, initially theorized about and named the element in an academic paper published 37 years ago. Chua argued that the memristor was the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, and that it had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements."
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 [+] story, hardware, memristor, technology, harddrive, ram

  Science: Monsanto's Harvest of Fear 2008-04-14 08:06

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 14, @08:06AM
from the good-business-to-sue-your-customers-boy-howdy dept.
Cognitive Dissident writes "Intellectual property thuggery is not restricted to the IT and entertainment industries. The May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair carries a major feature article on the mafiaa-like tactics of Monsanto in its pursuit of total domination of various facets of agribusiness. First in GM seeds with its 'Roundup Ready' crops designed to sell more of its Roundup herbicide, and more recently in milk production with rBGH designed to squeeze more milk out of individual cows, Monsanto has been resorting to increasingly over-the-top tactics to prevent what it sees as infringement or misrepresentation of its biotechnology. As with other forms of IP tyranny, the point is not really to help the public but to consolidate corporate power. Quotes: 'Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.' and '"I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base," says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a very bizarre business strategy." But it's one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it's the dominant vendor in town.' Sound familiar?"
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 [+] story, science, biotech, agribusiness, monsanto, business, earth

  Cellphone User Shocked by $85,000 CAD Bill[->] 2007-12-12 13:04 PuNKY^BReWSTeR

Submitted by PuNKY^BReWSTeR on Wednesday December 12 2007, @01:04PM
PuNKY^BReWSTeR writes "It is a well known fact that competition and fair prices for decent cellular plans are virtually non-existent in Canada. This one takes the cake however. According to CBC, a Calgary man received an $85,000 cell phone bill from Bell after using us as a modem.

From the article:

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like $100 over. Here, I'm $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on." Staniaszek said Bell told him they will adjust his bill to a different plan for people who use their phones for internet purposes. But even after the adjustment, his bill will still be more than $5,000."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/12/12/cell-phone.html
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 [+] submission, mobile, cellphones