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Comment Re:Happy birthday to 180th meridian too ! (Score 1) 429

reminds me of the amusing line from the time travel film Primer

Thanks for the reference! I accidentally DVR'd this movie (title said one thing and Primer was recorded) but the first few minutes and the ending credits were cut out. Then after watching it, the DVR broke. I never did know the name of the movie until just now, but really liked it.

I'm going to watch it tonight on netflix.

Comment Re:What other horrible parts of life can be added? (Score 2, Interesting) 352

I've always hated how the character you're playing never needs to eat, drink, sleep or do something fun once in a while. He always just adventures and fights the bad guys till the campaign is over.

To watch your character sit and eat a meal for 30 minutes, immediately take a crap for 20 minutes, sit on the couch and watch tv for a couple hours before the character goes to bed does not sound like a fun game.

Comment Re:similar to Snow Leopard (Score 1) 406

Well, if you'd just been a little more patient and waited until what you *actually* wanted was available, you wouldn't be in this situation, would you?

Well, if you'd just been a little more patient and waited until what you actually *needed* was available, you wouldn't be in this situation either, would you?/

Comment Re:News? (Score 1) 247

As a reader who is losing vision and the ability to read, the Kindle and US copyright bullshit seriously pisses me off. I no longer "read" books, but instead convert them to audio-books which I play at around 500 words per minute, using the totally awesome Eloquence TTS (the old ViaVoice speech synthesiser). I don't mind paying for the e-books, but Amazon and friends are leaving me high and dry. Their built-in voice in Kindle is completely useless, because it wont play fast and wouldn't be understandable even if it were, and it's not even enabled for many books. It's torture having to listen to it.

I am not making light of your vision loss, but perhaps you did not notice that the Kindle is an e-"READER?" There are better tools to listen to a book than a READER. I don't know why you would do it, but if you purchased an audio book for the kindle, it plays that fairly well.

Comment Re:doesnt matter to me (Score 1) 857

You've spent time mastering skills that you will only ever put to use in the unlikeliest of events, while others master skills relevant to their chosen professions and thereby take better part in the gains from trade. What a pity for you.

What if your chosen profession is farming?

I don't hunt, but raise and butcher all the meat my family eats. We also grow about 90% of the fruits and vegetables we eat - we can most of the vegetables. Although my chosen profession is not farming, my hobby saves me a considerable amount of money. Butchering your own meat might be too much, but I pity you for not knowing what you are eating.

Comment Re:1984? (Score 5, Interesting) 100

Dear Publisher,

We're working on a policy and procedure change to fix a customer experience problem caused by multiple copies of public domain titles being uploaded by a multitude of publishers. For an example of this problem, do a search on "Pride and Prejudice" in the Kindle Store. The current situation is very confusing for customers as it makes it difficult to decide which 'Pride and Prejudice' to choose.

It's about time. I own a Kindle 2 and hate searching thru the garbage before I find the correct title.

Comment Re:Great! (Score 1) 138

i trust google more than i trust the lowest bidder for a government contract.

I used to work for a defense contractor and the problem wasn't that we were the lowest bidder, it was the technically illiterate contracts officer that cut something irrelevant from a previous contract and added it to our contract.

Then when we delivered the CDRLs, the customer would get mad because what we delivered wasn't what he wanted. We'd point out that we delivered what was asked for (and what we were legally bound to deliver) and we would usually get a response like "I may have asked for this, but you should have known I wanted that."

Comment Re:kinda like... (Score 1) 352

...who exactly out there is screaming "Hey I WANT to put big honking greasy fingerprints on my screen! Oh, and I want my kids to scratch the living hell out of my screen when they forget to wipe their hands and grind Cheetos funk into it as well! That's the ticket!"

I'm thinking it's your mom because you then say"

I mean it is hard enough trying to keep your screen from getting funky, especially when you have relatives like my mom that have the nasty habit of touching the screen to point out what she is trying to get to

Comment Re:Coders that work? (Score 3, Insightful) 207

From the summary "Aside from authoring narrowly focused technical books....Peter Seibel's Coders at Work takes fifteen world-class programmers and distills their wisdom into a book."

So, instead of writing a narrowly focused technical book, they wrote a narrowly focused technical book?

Comment Re:Windows Vista: "Good Enough" is the right answe (Score 1) 350

Now would you be so kind to hand over your car keys and driver's license? You do want to follow your own example, right?

No, I won't hand my keys over. I share my vehicle with three other adult drivers. I oversee the usage of that vehicle like a petty tyrant. "You can't combine those 3 trips into just ONE trip into town?" I will continue to jealously guard my car keys. I hope to have everyone trained to think in terms of one trip into town each week. Just doing my little bit to save fuel, and make the roadways safer.

Mr. Tyrant - It's still a car...get it off the road as per your own example.

The example of you gave why you should keep your car is lame. You have described millions of families around the world that have 1 car with a 16 - 20 year old living at home. Nothing special! nothing to be proud of!

Just like all tyrants, you make excuses for why you should be exempted from your own rules.

Comment Re:Reverse causation (Score 5, Funny) 512

I see a ton of people like this in my day to day work and since they have a narrower view of the world (who knows if this is actually less intelligence or not though I often interpret it that way) they are much happier.

I agree! Last time we met, I was thinking that I wish I were as dumb as you. Sure, you're smarter than a lot of people (and therefore moderately happy) but if I had your meager intelligence, I would be so much happier than I am now.

Comment Re:Pretty easy (Score 1) 633

I have a lot of data/programs from my old DOS days in the 80s that I still can access using emulators. Old floppies won't fit in my floppyless computer but I have copied them to my HD since ages back.

That assumes the person will have someone in the family that has an interest in emulators and copying obsolete storeage to whatever is available.

I'd stick with the traditional newspapers, pictures, momentos (watch, jewelry, toys), etc. Those can be read, looked at, touched even when the power is out. They also provide a physical connection to the person placing the item in the capsule - grandpa held this toy in his hands and now I am also.

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