Comment Re:oh (Score 2, Funny) 144
Mod parent up, for replying to an asshat who replies to his replies of his posts.
Comment Re:And who needs it most? (Score 1) 364
Never going to happen. They're not going to deliberately give Windows users the opportunity to experiment with Linux. Users like you and I are more likely just to dual boot or run a VM if we want both. I think the net effect in the general public would be the opposite of what you are proposing.
Comment Re:Oh well (Score 1) 348
Oh, come on. omg!!! ponies!!! was hilarious.
Comment Re:I can live with it (Score 1) 640
You are correct in stating that you are not a comic book nerd. If you were a comic book nerd you would not speak in such absolutes about the term "graphic novel." You would understand the contention surrounding the term within fans and even the authors that write them.
The Watchmen is a great example of this fallacy. The Watchmen was published originally as a 12 issue comic book series. It was then published as a trade paperback (TPB is a common industry term for publishing the individual issues of a story-arch in a single volume). You seem to be suggesting that comic book and "graphic novel" are mutually exclusive categories. The Watchmen seems to fit your description of a graphic novel when in trade form, but this is an issue of the binding alone.
From Wikipedia:
The Watchmen is a great example of this fallacy. The Watchmen was published originally as a 12 issue comic book series. It was then published as a trade paperback (TPB is a common industry term for publishing the individual issues of a story-arch in a single volume). You seem to be suggesting that comic book and "graphic novel" are mutually exclusive categories. The Watchmen seems to fit your description of a graphic novel when in trade form, but this is an issue of the binding alone.
From Wikipedia:
Writer Alan Moore believes, "It's a marketing term
Author Daniel Raeburn wrote "I snicker at the neologism first for its insecure pretension -- the literary equivalent of calling a garbage man a 'sanitation engineer' -- and second because a 'graphic novel' is in fact the very thing it is ashamed to admit: a comic book, rather than a comic pamphlet or comic magazine."
Writer Neil Gaiman, responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, said the commenter "meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who'd been informed that she wasn't actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening." Comedian and comic book fan Robin Williams joked, "'Is that a comic book? No! It's a graphic novel! Is that porn? No! It's adult entertainment!'"
Comment Re:I can live with it (Score 1) 640
(Comic book nerds: calling low-brow comic books by a fancy name does not make them high-brow. It makes you look like an idiot who seems to know that reading comic books is juvenile but wants to pretend otherwise.)
Very few nerds call them graphic novels. Nerds have never been afraid of the term "comic book." It is the newer, more mainstream audience that has to hide behind the pretentious "graphic novel" smokescreen.
Also, you should actually read some of the classics like Watchmen before you presuppose that reading comics is only juvenile or low-brow entertainment.
Comment Re:Third Party (Score 1) 785
2) Implement a single flat sales tax. People with more money buy more, and thus everyone pays fairly. Note that corporations 'buy' their employees, and so that tax would hit salaries and wages too.
Comment Re:Slashdotted (Score 1) 109
Yes, I know it's huge but it's the only way I know how to do it.
Comment Re:Uhhhh.....free? (Score 1) 125
but iTunes still has DRM.
From http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatsnew/
High-quality, DRM-free music. iTunes Plus is the new standard on iTunes. Now, you can choose from millions of iTunes Plus songs from all four major music labels and thousands of independents. With iTunes Plus, you get high-quality, 256-Kbps AAC encoding. All free of burn limits and digital rights management (DRM).
No they don't.
Comment Re:Who cares? (Score 1) 664
Why didn't the Gov't just create a tax credit?
I think the whole mentality (at least the implicit claim) was that the credit would offset any extra expense incurred by the very lowest earning in the US. Those that earn the very lowest amounts don't pay federal income taxes so a tax credit isn't going to do much good for them.
Comment Re:Now unveiling... (Score 3, Funny) 431
No, no. The affluence thing is actually spot on. See, I'm posting from a Mac and wearing a monocle.
Comment Re:The C Programming Disease (Score 1) 216
and most applications run only 1.1 times faster than a modern Java app anyway.
An instant ten percent speed up just by choosing the right language can be a meaningful speed increase in many applications.
Comment Re:Why red (Score 1) 106
My lord those hadrons look like penises!
Submission + - Delete Blacklisted Cookies
MacMags writes: "The Mac OS X anti-spyware program MacScan adds a new feature in 2.3 allowing users to delete blacklisted cookies. Rather than trashing all the cookies in the browser MacScan uses a blacklist of known tracking cookies to allow the users to selectively delete. The blacklist is updated just as the spyware list is. Users are encouraged to submit any known tracking cookies for all types of sites including adult for review and possible inclusion."
China Treats Internet Addiction Very Seriously 249
eldavojohn writes "China has taken new extremes in preventing internet addiction in youths and is even offering boot camps to parents who want their child weaned from the electric teat. The article notes that 'no country has gone quite as far as China in embracing the theory that heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder and mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction.' The article mentions the story of Sun Jiting who 'spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"' Sun found himself spending 15 hours or straight on the internet. Thanks to his parents' intervention and the treatment, he now has life mapped out until he's 84. "
