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Comment Re:2220? (Score 1) 600

Why would you think 2217 would be different than any other year?

Well, I for one was hoping that the MPAA and the money-grubbing, "milk it for all it's worth", "pander to the lowest common denominator" mentality for making movies that it supports would be gone by then.

*sigh*

We wishful thinkers can be even more naive than the conspiracy theorists sometimes....

Comment Question on Accessibility (Score 2, Interesting) 197

I was reading the accessibility page on recovery.gov and found this:

Pages have been designed to avoid a screen-flicker frequency greater than 2Hz and lower than 55 Hz.

So... what frequency does that leave? Could anyone tell me what I'm missing here?
I would think anything lower than 55Hz would also be lower than 2Hz, and anything greater than 2Hz would be greater than 55Hz, so.... I'm a little confused.
(And, yes, I did ask my friend Google, although if anyone could give me a gentle push toward a search term better than "Hertz", I'd be appreciative.)

Comment Strange (Score 1) 174

Palm is seeking to follow Apple's footsteps in gaining a reputation for inconsistent and spurious rejections and removals of iPhone and iPod Touch applications

So, instead of Apple being a jerk and rejecting iPhone apps, it's going to be Apple and Palm rejecting iPhone apps?
Huh.... I wonder how that will work out?

Comment Re:Thanks (Score 1) 213

They didn't donate this code out of any altruism, only pure self-interest.

I'm not sure if that's the right way to be putting it. Isn't most code submitted out of pure self-interest, rather than altruism? "Scratching one's own itch", if you will? I agree, they're not doing the Linux community any favors, they dumped crap code on us and then bolted, but whether they did it out of self-interest or not doesn't seem like much of a point, and its not going to serve them much if the code is crap, because if its crap that doesn't scratch someone's itch, then no one will stick around to improve or maintain it. So if the code is really that bad, then what's going to happen is that it'll be abandoned, won't make it into the mainline kernel and MS will have ended up with a little bit of temporary publicity and nothing else, the community will move on, and MS will still be a bastard.

All in all, I can't see this having any sort of major effect on anything, of course, I may be wrong....

Comment Grudgingly given apology? (Score 1, Interesting) 576

From the article:

"...thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britainâ(TM)s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing."

Read: We got ganged up on and were forced to issue an apology for treating Alan Turing like shit.
I'm glad the apology was (finally) issued, but was it just me, or did it seem like it was given somewhat grudgingly?

Comment Re:Remeber it is practicing (Score 1) 582

I agree, unfortunately doctors seem to be way to dependent upon statistical analysis for making diagnoses. The statistics will show you a possible path to take in thinking what MIGHT be wrong, but you have to be willing to put in some original thought, too. In my experience it seems that most doctors think like this: Ok, we're going to start out looking for horses as they're the most common. Ok, there are apparently no horses, so I'm going to ask you all the standard questions all over again. Ok, it appears that there are no horses, so rather than look for zebras (which as every good physician knows, are statistically very rare and therefore are non-existant) I'm going to tell you it's all in your head and send you home. (Or sometimes he'll insist it's horses and send you home with the appropriate non-effective meds) So apparently to be a good doctor, you just need to know all the common diseases and their symptoms, then insist it's one of them when a patient complains of x set of symptoms even if the treatment isn't working. Don't refer them, just pack them full of the standard meds and they'll be fine. Even if they aren't.

Comment Hmm... (Score 1) 237

Bug, Vulnerabilities, Critical Updates, Oh, My! I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to think that the longer a list of fixes is, the better. All software has bugs, one of the main differences between OSes is how the developer handles them. I like Linux because Linux doesn't like bugs and the community hunts them down with a vengeance. MS rarely seems to care.So this (hopefully) means that MS is starting to do a better job of maintaining its products. I, for one, would like to see more bug fixes every month. It seems kind of strange that MS going on a bug killing spree is something that we should spin as a bad thing. Don't get me wrong, I hate 'doze as much as the next guy and I'm quite content to stay on Debian to do everything I need, but as one of the guys who gets called when the sh*t hits the fan with a 'doze box, anything that makes the Windows OS look more like an OS as opposed to Swiss cheese is a fantastic thing. Now, this list of fixes barely does anything to make Windows a better OS, but if MS hunted bugs (or better yet, actually tried to weed a good many out before a release as opposed to saying "Ok, usable enough" and pushing it out the door) like the *nix community does Windows could actually look like something other than dairy products from the alps. Sure, I'd make less because I'd do less cleaning of fecal matter from walls, but I'd gladly trade that for just doing upgrades or replacing a part every now and then. If anything it would make my job quieter and more enjoyable... But, whatever, may as well go with the crowd... "BOO, MICROSOFT!!! TO HELL WITH YOU AND YOUR OBSCENELY LONG LIST OF BUG FIXES!!!"

Comment Re:I play (Score 1) 245

So the GP was just poking fun at Stallman's continual taking credit for Linux's success because of all of "his" GNU tools included in every distro.

I believe I should take issue with that. I wouldn't call it so much "taking credit" as he simply wants the GNU project to get it's fair share of credit. No one is claiming that GNU is more important than any other component of the OS, but Stallman does feel that the GNU toolchain makes up a significant enough part of the a typical linux distro that it should be called properly by the name GNU/Linux. It's only fair to expect that when it's your project you don't feel is receiving it's fair share of credit. Personally, I will continue calling it Linux up until I have to use the word in a formal situation, where I'll use the term GNU/Linux. It's like the difference between Chevrolet and a Chevy, kind of. Although I would choose to use the term GNU/Linux I won't advocate that any one else should, I simply feel that it's a more appropriate in terms of descriptiveness. But I digress, in short, what I'm simply trying to say is that Stallman is not advocating that his project is responsible for the success of the kernel (what I assume you meant when you said "Stallman's continual taking credit for Linux's success"), he's simply asking that people give credit where credit is due. Now, we can argue until the eventual heat-death of the universe as to where credit is due, but no one is saying that they deserve all of the credit, not even Stallman, as strange as he can be sometimes. Anyway, that's my two cents, should anyone be interested, and I apologize if I just rambled on without fully understanding what you meant by what you said. I have a tendency to make an ass of myself on occasion and would not be very surprised if this happened to be one of those occasions. :)

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