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Comment Re:American problem is American (Score 3, Interesting) 441

Why shouldn't a washer take 3 hours, if it uses less electricity and less water to do so? I'd rather have my washer take more time and cost less. It's got a timer anyways, so those 3 hours can be whenever I want, including right before I wake up, or right before I arrive home from work.

Unless you're doing more than 7 loads a week, the amount of time the washer takes doesn't really matter. Take out the previous day's load, load up the next day's load, set the timer, and you're done for the day.

Comment Re:Computers as lawyers (Score 4, Insightful) 116

>Hmm, do "amicable partners" actually get divorced?

Sometimes you don't hate the other person, you just realize that they aren't who you want to spend the rest of your life with. Lots of reasons for that - misjudging the other person from the start, you misjudging yourself, or one or both of you changed significantly during the relationship.

Even if you are angry, that doesn't mean you're also spiteful and greedy; you may hate the other partner but aren't trying to screw him/her over.

Of course, those types of divorces don't make the news; they just quietly happen.

Comment Re:I See it made it to GoG.com DRM-free (Score 5, Informative) 99

The Steam version is also DRM free; Steam is just used as a downloader. Once downloaded you can move it to another directory or even another computer, and even uninstall Steam.

You could always buy directly from Squad as well and just download a ZIP file.

KSP has never had DRM.

Comment Re:Shrug (Score 2) 161

You forgot DHCPv6 being rejected because stateless autoconfig/RAs would be enough - except you couldn't get DNS or PXE boot info that way because it's not part of routing, so couldn't be included in router advertisements (politics, not technical). So, DHCPv6 was bolted on after.

Comment Re:What's it good for? (Score 5, Insightful) 236

>So, what exactly is the point of manned space stations?

For one thing, testing various methods for keeping humans alive, healthy, and sane in space.

We need to expand beyond Earth. To do that, we'll need space stations as jump-off points, and we'll need to know how to survive extended periods in space (months and years). To do that, we need somewhere to test survival, like the ISS.

> Or would the money, time and effort be better invested in some other types of space activity - automated experimental stations, or - let's dream - building a "real" base in space?

The ISS cost $150 billion over 20 years, or about $7.5 billion a year to construct and maintain. The US currently spends about $3 billion a year to keep it going - or about $8 per person. It's not a lot of money. Think about that - watching a movie about space costs more than actually maintaining a real life space station.

We have to start somewhere. All the work put into building and maintaining ISS was necessary experience before would could build a "real" base. We can design all we want but there are a lot of lessons to learn when you try to put theory into practice.

Yes, for each individual experiment, automated experiments are cheaper and easier. They're still done: http://www.space.com/27003-rus...

We don't have to do ISS *or* automated experiments - we do both.

Space is the future and it takes big investments right now. They do pay off now, and they'll pay off even more in the future.

Comment Re:Why can't (Score 1, Troll) 349

Bandwidth isn't like water or electricity. You either use it in the moment or don't. You can't save it for later.

Not using bandwidth at 3am doesn't help the traffic jam at peak time (6pm). ISPs have to build enough infrastructure to handle peak times - they have to have larger pipes - but it doesn't actually matter how much bandwidth you use except for peak times. There's no good reason to meter traffic during non-peak times.

I'm not saying metering is a good idea - as I understand it, simply increasing bandwidth is often a cheaper option and better for users - but metering during non-peak times is just greed.

Comment Re:Umm, ctrl+c/ctrl+v? (Score 1) 681

> I get to do 2 clicks if I use a mouse or windows key + start typing

You can do the same thing in Windows 7 (Windows key + start typing, or click on "Start" button and start typing), plus you have the organization of nested menus.

For items you use often, you can pin them to the menu instead of digging through "All Programs".

The start screen isn't an improvement in any way for desktop users. It is better for touch screens since the icons are larger and easier to click.

>especially ability to pin apps to a monitor.

Pinning apps to a monitor has nothing to do with start screen vs start menu. There's no reason that functionality couldn't be added to normal desktop windows ("always start this app on monitor x, fullscreen/windowed"), and in fact by default Windows 7 will remember where you last had an app and restore it to that monitor (not always correctly, but it tries).

The Metro interface is not only less functional for keyboard and mouse users, but confusing as well. There's no obvious way to close a Metro app, and swiping from the top is hard to do with a mouse. Alt-F4 works, but non-techie users don't know that. There's also no obvious way to shut down the computer! Swiping from the right is non-obvious and again, hard to do with a mouse. Remembering a keyboard shortcut (Win+C) is difficult for "normal" people. Yes, they could press the power button (on supported hardware), but decades of telling people to always shut down via software have made them nervous about that.

I've had a Windows 8 laptop at home for about 1.5 years now. Once I learned Win+C and Win+X, and customized the start menu a bit, it was fine. But I'm a computer person; all the "normal" people I know hate it and just want XP back (or something that looks like XP).

Comment Re:No need to buy every year... (Score 1) 386

>I have a 1st Gen iPad and see no reason to replace it with a 2, 3, or 4.

The main reason I didn't buy the first gen and did buy the second was the camera. Videoconferencing with technically inept far-off relatives was too difficult with real computers, but an iPad+Skype worked great for them.

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