Ah, Randi's nonsense challenge. Nonsense? Why, yes, it is.

To illustrate my point, I'll again offer my own challenge: One Million Dollars to empirically show that it's possible for someone to dream while asleep.

I know that quite a few people claim to dream while they're asleep, but they're clearly either delusional or money-grubbing attention seekers. I mean, if people really could dream, it would be a cinch to win that million dollars, right? I'm not picky. I'll give you every fair advantage. I'll even work with you to find a test protocol that is acceptable to both of us.

Now, a million dollars is a lot of money, so you'll first have to get some media attention before you'll be allowed to apply. I don't have time deal with every mentally ill person who thinks they can dream while they're asleep! I've got to reserve my resources for the big-name crooks and charlatans. Once you make a proper application and it has been accepted and approved, you'll need to pass a preliminary test. You can arrange that with a local university or skeptical group. (Pending my approval, of course.) If you pass that, you can apply to take the official challenge.

Who would turn down a million dollars just to do something they claim not only comes easily, but that they do every night! Even if you don't want or need an extra million dollars, surely you can think of a worthy charity!

Don't doubt my credentials. I'm exceptionally qualified to judge your challenge attempt as I can juggle a bit and know some really keen magic tricks.

That no one has yet to even pass the preliminary challenge speaks volumes!

Do you still think Randi's ridiculous sideshow is meaningful, important, or even useful?

Homeopathy is low-hanging fruit. Everyone knows its nonsense.

Now, I'll grant that homeopath is still a problem -- but it's not a problem because people believe it. It's a problem because it's difficult for consumers to distinguish products that are homeopathic from real medicine.

Head down to your local pharmacy and take a walk through the cough and cold isle. You'll notice that the generic and store brands mimic the packaging of the name brand products. That's helpful for consumers.

Unfortunately, the homeopathic products not only do the same, they go out of their way to hide the fact that they're homeopathic! It's not like the old days when they wrote "Homeopathic" in giant letters on a bright-yellow banner across the top of the box. Today, it's often written in an impossibly thin font, in faint white text near the bottom of the box where you'd expect information like net weight. That's bad for consumers.

If you don't know enough about the scam to figure out it's homeopathic from the information on the back to identify the product as homeopathic (e.g. 100x is the dilution, sometimes disguised further using a different scale like 50C or 100D) -- or you weren't paying enough attention because you're sick -- you, the guy who already knows homeopathy is nonsense, can easily find yourself at home with a box of useless pills!

So stop wasting time patting each other on the back for figuring out that homeopathy is nonsense. It wasn't a tough puzzle to solve. No one is impressed with your "intellectual" prowess. Instead, do something productive with that knowledge and call for better packaging standards. Campaign to get that non-medicine out of your local pharmacy. Do anything that will help solve the actual problem.

What about stuff like rTMS?

The trouble with internet skeptics is that they're not terribly well informed. They get "magnets = bullshit" from some blog and assume, then, that anything health-related involving magnets must be ridiculous nonsense.

Emma Lazarus?

You're an idiot.

That is absolutely insane.

That 11 1/2 hours is not in any way contiguous -- what could you accomplish in that time, in 114 seconds a day? How could that possibly offer any advantage, let alone one worth $35/hour?

Even if you could come up with some fantastic task that could justify the value placed on that tiny bit of time, who the hell can't manage to find 114 seconds of extra time per day? Go to bed 114 seconds later than normal, no weird untested toothbrush or dentist appointment required.

What if you shaved 19 seconds off the beginning and end of every meal? But I'm thinking too narrowly here. Just think how much time you could save by eliminating all those unnecessary trips to the toilet with a catheter!

You suggest that "fair number of people" would benefit. I'd love to know who these folks are, why their day is packed down to the second, and (most importantly) and why they're not all cathed.

I can't tell you how thankful I am that my schedule has never been so tight that saving 114-seconds on personal care could feel significant.

How do you find the time to post on slashdot?

Meh, who cares?

Remember VB6? (Oh, the horror!) VB6 apps were slower and bigger than the equivalent written in VC++.

  Do you know why it was so popular?

Because the "horrible" performance was good enough for most applications. A good developer using VB6 cut his development time significantly (hours vs days, days vs. weeks). A beginner could actually get something to work in a reasonable amount of time. That's powerful.

The web as a platform has its own set of advantages that, for many applications, more than offset the speed issue. Your application is near effortlessly cross-platform and painless to deploy. I'd even argue development time as a significant advantage over c++.

Your talk about frame rates makes me think your focused on games. Well, it's good enough there as well -- even on mobile -- if you don't mind your game looking about Wii quality, that is. For most people, and most games, this is perfectly acceptable.

So, yes, "almost there" really is "good enough". No one is "chasing frame rates" that were "common in the late 90's" -- that doesn't even make sense. The web can easily handle "common in the late 90's" without breaking a sweat. You seem to think that if it's not good enough to run a modern AAA title at 60fps it's worthless as a platform. That's ridiculous.

Some people have complained about the lack of a moderation breakdown, the addition of even more unnecessary javascript, and lack of unicode support. It doesn't seem to offer users anything new.

Also, it completely sucks.

Install IObit's Start Menu 8.

I'll describe it with a car analogy. Have you ever had some obscure problem with your car that makes it stall, overheat, or otherwise perform in such a way that driving it becomes a huge pain. You know that feeling of relief you get when you drive that car home from the garage? That's what it feels like when you install that program. Like everything is back to normal.

Well, I don't see any terrorists around, so it must be working!

It's just like the rock I keep on my nightstand to ward off tigers. Sure, it's not a recurring cost, like the war on terror, but it has a similar effect.

Proof for you naysayers: I've yet to be so much as scratched by a tiger in my sleep.

Or they've had nothing but success.

A company I occasionally do work for dropped an old dos program that was in use since 1990 a couple years back. It was running just fine in Windows 7.

I've yet to see an old Windows program that wouldn't run. I've heard anecdotes, sure, but it's never been something I've actually encountered. The most I've ever had to do was check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" box and pick an old version of Windows. That happens so infrequently I can't even recall the name of any of those programs.

What are these mysterious applications that run just fine under WINE on your Mac that don't run in Windows 7?

Just for fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE7AQY5Xk9w

You sound like someone who bought Apple at $690.

Good luck with that.

Like most people, my GPS lives in the car. I don't lug it around when I'm not driving, I leave it in the car. What possible reason would I have to carry it with me at all times?

I like that my GPS has a large screen that's easy to read in sunlight. I love that it has a loud clear voice that can even integrate with my car stereo. It doesn't require a data plan, and doesn't run down the battery on my mobile.

The advantages of a dedicated device in this case are enormous. Sure, your phone might be "good enough to get by", but why settle for a second-rate solution when a better option is available? A good GPS isn't exactly expensive.