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Comment Re:Vista 2 (Score 1) 295

I think you're confusing Windows 95 with Windows 3.1.

Windows 3.1 was the one where you booted into DOS and typed the "win" command to start it. It wasn't a lot different from starting DOS Shell with the dosshell command. (Yes, DOS Hell. Great piece of marketing there.)

No, they're not confused, you are.

* Windows 1.0 through 3.11 = Manually start win.exe from DOS command line
* Windows 95/98/ME = starts Windows automatically using hardwired autoexec-like system, but still running on top of DOS

Windows NT was the first version of Windows to drop DOS as a bootloader and switch to a pure 32-bit proprietary kernel. It was developed in parallel to the DOS versions of Windows and eventually merged into the consumer version of Windows in XP in 2001.

If you're going to try to correct someone, it helps if you're actually correct.

Comment Biologically encoded behavior (Score 1) 758

If I read the article correctly, the differences can be summed up thus:

Conservatives fear change - which leads to thinking that the current state of affairs is the best possible one and should never change
Liberals fear conflict - which leads to pandering and decisions by committee or focus-group that try to please everyone

Both groups need to recognize that we are actually capable of acting in a way that is contrary to our biological biases in the same way as we are able to resist these urges in the same way as we are able to resist going to the toilet until we reach a commode.

Comment Re:Gator blood (not gatorade) (Score 1) 149

I've heard rumors that something in the blood of alligators / crocodiles can kill even the toughest super-germs.

If the rumor of gator blood is true, how does it compare to panda blood?

I much prefer the taste of panda blood, but alligator blood has a thinner consistency that makes it easier to drink.

Comment Re:Distinguishing conflict from disagreement (Score 1) 1152

Did you ankle heal instantly , after decades of treatment and painkillers? Idiocy indeed.

The idiocy is my trying to explain the unexplainable.

No, the idiocy is attributing the ability of living creatures to heal after years of medical treatment to some all-powerful being.

You would have trouble choosing a worse example of the power of prayer if you tried. A massive industry is predicated precisely upon the fact that you can't pray yourself better, you may have heard of it. It's called healthcare. There are hospitals filled with faithful Christians, and millions of Christians who take pills to cure problems that prayer can't.

Also, riddle me this. Why does your healing, listening God never listen to the prayers of amputees and heal their amputated limbs? Does he hate amputees?

Comment Re:Distinguishing conflict from disagreement (Score 1) 1152

Would you have the same opinion of prayer if I told you of the times I've prayed for specific things, and they came to pass? Praying that a friend's ankle would no longer cause her pain, for instance. Or others, who prayed that I would find work in a new city that paid twice what I had previously been paid, and i did - to the penny. The less specific prayers, those I cannot offer up. But claims that prayers have never been answered ignore many reports, too many, I think, to be blithely ignored.

However, I expect you will deny these without some acceptable proof, and I won't quibble with that. I can only tell you I have a reason for my faith. I understand that you can't accept that. It changes nothing.

Thank you for demonstrating my point regarding idiocy.

I bit my tongue, and my sprained ankle healed; therefore I deduce that biting my tongue has a positive effect on ankle-health.

Comment Re:On the one hand... (Score 1) 316

IP and content ownership issues emanating from the US and other countries are not the same as the blatant censorship being pushed in other countries like China, Iran, or Pakistan.

No that's right, China and Iran don't get the right to raid and extradite citizens of other countries for enabling people to bypass their firewalls. The U.S. want to bankrupt and jail people all over the world for helping people to copy stuff.

The U.S. is turning into something far more terrifying than a firewall, I say giving control of the internet to Iran or China would probably be better for the average person in the rest of the world than allowing the current situation. At least no country would offer their citizens up for punishment to either of those two.

Comment Re:Distinguishing conflict from disagreement (Score 1) 1152

Your logic depends on itself for its proof.

This seems simple, but naive. You require that my faith be based on proof, or discarded as idiocy. Fine. I find your requirement idiotic.

There, we're even.

If I suggested to you that waving your arms correctly would cause gumballs to fall from the giant gumball machine that is on top of all clouds, you would probably assume that I was psychotic. Yet suggesting almost the same thing (that prayer has any effect) is considered sane.

How can you argue with my proposition? It's very easy, because it's stupid. What's hard is to argue that my gumball proposition is stupid without suggesting that I'm either mentally ill or extremely silly.

See what I'm saying now?

Comment Re:Distinguishing conflict from disagreement (Score 1) 1152

Call me old-fashioned, but calling me an uneducated, ignorant, narrow minded fool because I believe in something he does not strikes me as insulting. Especially when he chastises me for my beliefs, and in the same breath claims his are correct and just, and he is more enlightened than I for having them.

And his assertions that many who believe in God do so because they were taught so by their parents, and have enver examined their faith critically nor independently.

That he even has to address this is proof that he is wrong. His arguments are largely insulting to me personally.

But he is entitled to them, and I don't seek his blood or life because of it. Nor do I want him silenced. Would that he grant me the same consideration, but he would have me shut up if he could.

Religious faith, by definition is believing something in the absence of proof, sometimes in direct contradiction to screeds of contrary evidence.

Believing in something without any evidence, or in the presence of contrary evidence is idiocy. Such idiocy is a central tenet of most religions, so how is a sensible person supposed to argue with that without mentioning that religion bares a strong resemblance to idiocy?

Comment Re:Fighting Piracy is Good for Open Source (Score 1) 286

Tell me, what exactly is wrong with labels hosting parts of the file for a torrent and then watching who downloads it? No privacy lost, no shady ISP wiretapping business.... Is it just that, in the end, people really just want to be able to pirate and get away with it? Cause thats really what it seems like from over here.

It kind of seems like speed cameras-- you could get rid of every other objection, and people would STILL object because in the end they just dont want to get caught.

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but if the copyright holder is offering up their content as a bittorrent peer (even part of it, even through a third party), surely that is knowingly and willingly allowing you to have that content? I can't see how they could possibly then argue in court that they in fact didn't want you to have said content if they willingly helped you to download it, it sounds preposterous to me.

Asking another member of the bittorrent swarm to upload the offending content to you is a different story of course, but can be mitigated by being antisocial when torrenting.

Comment Re:They have to ban Windows in EU (Score 1) 254

Essentially, to be "ready for the desktop" an OS needs to be pre-installed before retail, since the vast majority of people will just use whatever software is on their computer when they get it, oblivious to the fact that alternatives are available. Those people buy a new computer to get an OS upgrade rather than buy the OS retail and pay someone to install it for them, and use whatever software is on the computer already if it gets the job done. They simply don't know (and often don't care to know) better.

To be ready for the desktop, Linux just has to be supplied on the desktop at purchase time. Not everyone has the inclination to worry about operating systems and web browsers.

Comment Re:They have to ban Windows in EU (Score 1) 254

Only because of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, none of which run on a *nix-like OS or share the *nix philosophy in any way whatsoever.

The clckwheel iPod ran an OS from someone called Pixo, I believe.

The iPod nano (since 2010) runs a separate, unnamed non-unix OS developed by Apple.

However, iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone all run iOS which is basically a de-bloated version of OS X, so they do run a Unix based OS. as to whether they "share the *nix philosophy"? I don't think any GUI system could be classed as sharing the philosophy of having small tools that you can chain together to perform complex tasks, which is what I thought the Unix philosophy was.

What "*nix philosophy" were you talking about?

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