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Comment Re:You can virtualize DOS (Score 1) 522

Yep, I have DOS 6.22 and WFW running in a VM along with QEMM. It works quite nicely except for the lack of vmtools and the lack of high res graphics. There's a patched driver out there that supposedly allows 1024x768, but I have never been able to get it to work without crashing the VM when starting Windows.

Comment I also like Wordstar 4.0 (Score 1) 522

I don't have a dedicated DOS box. I have a DOS VM running on my server, complete with Wordstar 4.0 and many other programs I used to use back in the 80s and 90s. He's right that Wordstar is a word processor and nothing else. It's really quite powerful at it, too. He's also right that it does exactly what you tell it to do. It does not assume it knows better than you what you are trying to do.

Comment Re:Holy false dichotomy, Batman! (Score 2) 659

Yep. It's tried, true, efficient, cheap (if you dispense with all of the unnecessary emissions controls that have been foisted upon diesel engines in a transparent attempt to kill them as a viable source of locomotion), and super-reliable.

When faced with the choice between a $19k Jetta TDI that gets 55 on the highway and can go 700 miles on a tank, and a $40,000 electric that can go 50-75 miles between 2-8 hour charge cycles, the choice becomes rather clear, doesn't it?

Comment cdda2wav (Score 1) 329

As soon as I had a machine that was capable, I started ripping all of my CDs to uncompressed digital format. Shockingly I've managed to get my rips to survive from 1997 to today thanks to good practices in backups and fault tolerance.

Does anyone remember when CDs finally went 100% DDD? Most of the CDs I got in the 80s were AAD, and some ADD in the mid 90s. I haven't bought a CD in a great many years and have long since disposed of the ones I had... so I don't remember when DDD finally became the norm..

Space

Supermassive Black Hole At the Centre of Galaxy May Be Wormhole In Disguise 293

KentuckyFC (1144503) writes "There is growing evidence that the center of the Milky Way contains a mysterious object some 4 million times more massive than the Sun. Many astronomers believe that this object, called Sagittarius A*, is a supermassive black hole that was crucial in the galaxy's birth and formation. The thinking is that about 100 million years after the Big Bang, this supermassive object attracted the gas and dust that eventually became the Milky Way. But there is a problem with this theory--100 million years is not long enough for a black hole to grow so big. The alternative explanation is that Sagittarius A* is a wormhole that connects the Milky Way to another region of the universe or even a another multiverse. Cosmologists have long known that wormholes could have formed in the instants after the Big Bang and that these objects would have been preserved during inflation to appear today as supermassive objects hidden behind an event horizon, like black holes. It's easy to imagine that it would be impossible to tell these objects apart. But astronomers have now worked out that wormholes are smaller than black holes and so bend light from an object orbiting close to them, such as a plasma cloud, in a unique way that reveals their presence. They've even simulated what such a wormhole will look like. No telescope is yet capable of resolving images like these but that is set to change too. An infrared instrument called GRAVITY is currently being prepared for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile and should be in a position to spot the signature of a wormhole, if it is there, in the next few years."

Comment It has been a long time coming. (Score 5, Insightful) 286

Internet STARTED OUT as a "common carrier" service, which is how we were able to buy DSL service from a CLEC instead of the ILEC. Common carrier status was done away with about the time Verizon took a billion dollars from the taxpayer and started rolling out Fios.

I used to buy DSL from a CLEC in Philadelphia that rode on top of Verizon's copper. When Fios rolled out, I remember discussing with the CLEC that they would not be able to serve me because Fios was not considered a common carrier, and Verizon did not have to sell capacity on its lines at a cut rate to competitive carriers.

That CLEC exited consumer broadband shortly thereafter.

Reclassifying modern broadband as a common carrier is absolutely going to create more competition and more choice for consumers. Yes, it will mean a tiny bit less profit for the majors, because they will have to sell capacity to CLECs again at a discount, but whatever.

Honestly, and I'm hardly ever one to talk about nationalization, but the taxpayer has paid for almost all of the Internet infrastructure that has been laid out since about 2004. It should belong to them and be used for their benefit. If Verizon et al want to be considered media providers and not common carriers, then let them pay the taxpayer for access to the network that the taxpayers paid for. Yes, I know, socialism. So what? A lot of what we do is socialized, because it's better for everyone that way.

Comment US Education Defective by Design (Score 0) 335

The US education system is defective by design. It is designed to do anything but produce smart Americans. In fact, I would say it is designed to produce dumb, dependent Americans who will be loyal voters for the party most established throughout that system. It is no secret that the Democrat party controls the public education system top to bottom, and is interested only in producing Democrat voters.

It is not surprising in the least that Zuck's $100M did absolutely nothing to increase the quality of students leaving New Jersey's schools.

Comment Already Obsolete (Score 1) 216

There are many, MANY hotspots available with external antenna ports, and running one off of a 5V in-car supply is trivial.

My Armada has a Netgear Unite Pro hotspot in it with a roof-mounted antenna. I just drilled the 3/8" hole in the roof for the antenna mount right above one of the overhead console boxes, and ran a 12V line to a 5V power supply. It took less than two hours to install, and works fantastically. Any time I need to take it with me I just grab it out of the console box.

Comment Re:Socialist (Score 1) 182

Actually, they started calling him a hypocrite, not a socialist. He is a hypocrite because, while he insists he should pay more in tax, he actually does not. Nothing is stopping him making a gift to the treasury in the amount he thinks he ought to be paying, but they have yet to receive any payments.

Comment Re:Put this in perspective (Score 1) 258

"Every species that's alive today, including polar bears, managed to survive that massive 400-ft increase in sea level."

Polar Bears did not have palatial mansions along the shoreline.

And yes, you are right that there are not supposed to be any ice caps. But, you'll never convince alarmists of that. To them it's just propaganda.

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