Recent content by kombat

Your friend has a computer virus, and it's trying to spread to his contacts via his address book. Tell him to run a virus scanner to clean it up. And tell him to either stop clicking on sketchy-looking email attachments, even if the email comes from someone he supposedly recognizes (it just...

I thought about that after I posted, but you'd still need a data feed with the schedule information in it. Otherwise, you'd have to manually program the DVR to record programs based on a specific time/date/channel (like a VCR), rather than just going into the online guide and saying "Record all...

6 channels? WITH commercials? Not interested. I'll stick with my hundreds of channels where I can fast-forward through the commercials (cable with a PVR), my thousands of commerical-free, on-demand movies and TV shows (Netflix), and various streaming options.

^^^This The "peeve" factor is surfing a site like eBay, seeing something I want with a steal of a price next to it, then discovering there's a more "reasonable" reserve, so there's no way it's actually going to sell for the current bid. It renders the site unusable to me. I'm surfing...

According to the dusty old rule book of just one of the world's 1,000's of religions? I suppose it might be, I haven't seen them in a while. A quote I saw recently online, "You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong then you lack empathy, not religion."

+1 I think some people in this thread might be projecting a little bit. If my parents spent down their entire estate, or left it all to a charity, or burned it on the beach, I wouldn't care a whit. But if they left more to a sibling than me, or left me more than a sibling, I can easily see...

What "inter-generational duties?" I would submit that parents have automatic obligations to their children, but children don't automatically owe anything to their parents. Parents choose to have kids. The kids didn't choose to be born. Now, through their virtuous actions, parents can...

My peeve: Auctions with reserve prices. In my opinion, that's not a real auction. A real auction goes to the highest bidder. If you're not willing to take a penny less than $x, but you would sell it for $x, then just sell it for $x. If you choose to auction it, you should be willing to take a...

At the risk of being pedantic, neither XNA nor TLA are acronyms - they're initialisms. To be an acronym, it has to be pronounceable, like LASER or SCUBA.

In the context of a financial discussion, isn't "principal" usually the correct spelling variation to use? "The principle of principal is to generate a return."

This is simply making the case for an integrated, nation-wide power grid. Large countries like the US and Canada are better-positioned to take advantage of variable power sources (like solar and wind) than smaller countries, because while it may be rainy and cloudy in New York, it could be...

You posted this while I was already creating my other post, but I don't think that day is as far off as you think. As I noted, Ontario's power grid is already supplied almost entirely by green sources. And lots of "green" sources work just fine at night (hydroelectric, nuclear, tidal...

Perhaps this is a regional difference, but in my jurisdiction (Ontario, Canada), there are plenty of other "Green" sources besides wind. The vast majority of Ontario's power comes from Nuclear (66.7%) and Hydroelectric (25.9%). Wind and solar account for 5.5%, with natural gas and biofuel making...

Hang on - doesn't the percentage depend on the load? I mean, if Acme Power Company can provide 5 MWh of power from renewables, and employs fossil-fuel sources for any required overage, the percentage changes depending on the load. During the day, while people have their A/C running, perhaps the...

I don't see this as a "problem" with extrasolar travel, but rather a reason for it. The Sun is going to be around for a very, very long time, but not infinity. Eventually, it will die, and we'll need to relocate or perish with it.