Re:What is the idea
by natehoy (1608657)

This term, "renewable", you keep using it, I do no think it means what I think you think it means.

A "renewable" fuel is a fuel that we can make more of when we need it. It doesn't mean it's something we have to find in a ready state in nature. Hydrogen IS renewable. 100% renewable. We can make shitloads more of it, and you can't differentiate manufactured hydrogen from the stuff you'd find if we ever found it.

Unfortunately, renewable does not mean readily-available. It just means we can make more. All we need is an energy source. And that is the problem with hydrogen.

Hydrogen is, in essence, a battery with infinite recharges. You can separate it from water all day long, then burn it and re-integrate it with oxygen and have water again. It just takes shitloads of energy to separate it.

Re:Mixed up: Biological Gender vs. Feminization
by snowgirl (978879)

(...)

Ah... such a simple world you live in. One baby has a Y, and it's male, and the other has an X, and it's female.

Actually, it's the SRY (sex determining gene) on the Y chromosome that initiates... I said INITIATES sexual distinction in males. Without this gene, the germ cell line "stripe" turns into ovaries. If there is a mutation in this gene, you will get an XY female with ovaries. If this gene is present and there are no mutations in this gene, then the germ cell line "stripe" becomes testicles.

Re:The web is NOT the OS
by agentultra (1090039)

The web is not the OS. The web is...the web. I do NOT want everything to be a goddamn web app. Web apps work very well for certain applications, and Google has shown that they can push the limits with dynamic content, but that does not mean the web application is an appropriate model for every damned application. I don't like the Chrome browser and I don't need an OS named Chrome that is actually Linux with a lame web browser bolted on as the front end. Google does search very well, but I've hated most of their other stuff. (Google Earth is one exception) I expect no different from this.

But.. but... I don't know how to program anything else! The web is the future! FUTURE!

The history of GDI in Kernel and userspace
by freedom_india (780002)

The problem with XP, NT 4.0 and benefits of NT 3.5 and Vista is the GDI running in UserSpace versus kernel.
Up until NT 3.5 the GDI was run under user space. Hence if the driver crashed, you don't get a BSOD which signifies a kernel panic.
The reason why Windows GDI was placed in userspace was because NT 3.5 was also capable of supporting other UI like POSIX UI(which never came to be), and OS/2 UI. So theoritically you could run the NT kernel on a OS/2 GUI or even POSIX GUI if available.
With its infinite wisdom and going against the advice of Helen Custer and NT Architect, Microsoft threw the GDI into Kernel for quicker response times (official reason). The real reason was OS/2 was licked and Microsoft wanted to be a monopoly (without knowing that EU will kick its ass in future). So it threw out POSIX developments (it still remains in basic limited form to be of any real use, much like a Bank's IVR).

Re:Beer, is there anything it can't hurt?
by hey! (33014)

Actually, American versions of Pilsners, while evolving towards lightness, didn't become insipid until after Prohibition. When Prohibition was repealed, Americans were ready to drink anything. Only a few breweries left, which had survived selling malt for malted milk and root beer, provided a thirsty nation with beer that you could drink a lot of, very quickly.

I've done a bit of home brewing, and the funny thing is that an American style beer is actually an extremely difficult style of beer to make. Replacing much of the malt with rice means that you end up with a very light flavor. The tiniest off flavor is immediately detectable. Get anything wrong with the fermentation, or the water, or the storage and it tastes really bad.

Re:Andersen and Landley - You don't have copyright
by Dr. Zowie (109983)

It's called, "Sour Grapes".

Actually, no, it's not. The phrase "Sour Grapes" refers to one of Aesop's Fables, in which a Fox, unable to get his mitts on some nice, juicy grapes, grumbles that the grapes look sour. You've used a false analogy, because Diesel Dave isn't speculating that the reward wasn't worthwhile (sour). He's pissed off because he wasn't able to enjoy any himself, and therefore doesn't want Anderson and Landley to enjoy their winnings. That's more like the Dog in the Manger, a story about those who begrudge others the things that they can't enjoy themselves.

Re:"locked in"?
by mattpalmer1086 (707360)

Gah. Here's a FAQ you may find useful:

Q: What does open office and MS Office have to do with a document standard?
A: Nothing.

Q: What does the GUI of your word processor have to do with the format you save a document in?
A: Nothing.

Q: Why do you need to use open office if you use ODF?
A: You don't, use whatever software you like.

Q: What does the open source software development model have to do with open information standards?
A: Nothing.

Q: Does using ODF mean that communists will steal my children?
A: No.

Q: Will aliens eat my brain if I equate information standards with software implementations?
A: Yes.

I don't understand a thing :
by Spy der Mann (805235)

Can someone explain to me what E8 is? The wikipedia article left me with more questions than answers :(

Re:I don't understand a thing (
by iabervon (1971)

(I am not a particle physicist or a mathematician of the right sort, but I can kind of follow this sort of thing)

Re:Wikipedia link to E8 - Still makes nooooo sense
by ajs (35943)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E8_(mathematics) [wikipedia.org]

Holy crap! - I can read all the words, but none of it makes any sense. It's like the took regular English words and gave them all different meanings. I haven't felt this uncomprehending in a loooong time - and even the dumbness felt from quantum chemistry pales to this. Well, a lot of it falls out of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory [wikipedia.org]

Which then gets you here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_group [wikipedia.org]

Once you get those two, you can hit:

No idea
by Moraelin (679338)

Well, if you look at nodern carnivores, you see such examples as:

- the fox, which is pretty darn red

- the tiger, which is relatively bright orange and with stripes too (and cats somewhat inherited that: a normal tabby male is almost always orange, though the females are nearly always grey when they're tabby.)

In fact, think about this: the most logical camouflage colour would be green, right? That's the colour we dress our soldiers in, right? Well, in practice mammals are coloured anything but green.

A hypothesis there is that camouflage doesn't always mean having the same colour as the surroundings. Three quarters of camouflage in the animal world seems to have to do more with the mental capacity of your opponent (prey or predator, as the case may be) than with blending in.

Re:an oldie but a goodie
by Jeff DeMaagd (2015)

Who/what the hell is ESR???

a nobody that pretends to be somebody. Move along, nothing to see here.

Re:The winners: *Direct* Quote
by quadra23 (786171)

One product, WatchGuard's Linux AV tool, caught fewer than 6 percent of the viruses sent to it. "We're not exactly sure what the problem with WatchGuard is," says Morris. "The test was set up the same way for all of the vendors."

This number quoted by the original poster missed the section in bold, it was technically < 6%, which could mean either 0 or 1 virus (funny how everything always works out to binary in some way or another :). My question would be which is it? Either way, my system would be compromised by either 24 or 25 viruses -- neither of which is a good scenario especially in regards to well-known viruses (according to the article no 0-day exploits were accepted).

Re:PLEASE HELP
by technos (73414)

You know how the CIA uses reverse-engineered alien technology to scan your brain, right? Spread frequency directional RF in the low 8GHz range at between 1400 and 1750w. When exposed to the field, your neurons phase-lock to some minor harmonic when they fire. Then they just sit back and listen to all your remaining brain cells chirp away.

How the FBI 'hacks' your computer isn't much different, but it's a lot easier, and shares some of the same gear. Instead of using the RF field to modulate your neurons, they use it to induce a weak localized EM field in the computer and then read back the disturbances in that field from the harmonic corresponding to the sub-gigahertz bus of the machine into a low-cost simulator.

The great news is you don't really have to do anything out of the ordinary to counter the attack. You already have plenty of tin-foil on hand from making your hat. (They wouldn't be scanning your machine if they could scan your brain directly, after all.)

Re:Jesus camp, of course
by Paulrothrock (685079)

Here's a little tip I'm going to teach my son, if I have one: Religious chicks are just as horny as regular chicks, except it's also considered "taboo," which makes it even more attractive. Combine this with "if it's not in my cooter, it's not really sex" and the daddy issues that go along with being religious and you've got a perfect little sex kitten.

It's almost worth waking up early on Sunday mornings.

Re:Are they serious?
by jrumney (197329)

Its mainly about developing using Google's APIs. KML, AJAX, Atom, that sort of thing. Sure, the tips and tricks are already known, but its still useful to have an intensive session where they are presented to you by the people involved in their creation, rather than spending untold hours filtering through the crap on online forums to find the useful tips.