<![CDATA[Comments from Improbable]]> <![CDATA[Comments from Improbable]]> <![CDATA[Improbable commented on Question of the Day: Do You Prefer Self-Checkout Lines?]]> In some stores they're great. However, in the Wal-Mart across the street (which I only use sometimes because it's literally across the street) the sensors are complete crap. Half the time, regardless of the item's weight, they don't register when you drop it in the bag.

You can press a button to skip bagging, but if you do that more than a couple times in a row, it freezes up and makes you wait for someone to clear it so you can continue.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on iPod Nano Switches Left and Right Channels With Headphone Insert]]> There's much bigger flaws with the new Nano, like the fact that Apple removed its ability to charge from Firewire.

This means that the vast majority of accessories out there (all with Apple's big shiny "Made for iPod" logo) will not charge my new iPod.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on What Does LASIK Really Feel Like?]]> I'm getting ready to have it done myself (waiting on a call-back to get an appointment that fits with my work schedule), and I've got high hopes.

Has anybody had any experience with Emory in Atlanta? There's still time for me to back out with them if I should. ;)

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented]]> @Erwin: Puma guy may be a regular DB but the central two are Jill Valentine and a STARS officer.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Quiksilver's The Ray Watch is Confusing, But Eco-Friendly]]> It's like the debate between buying a new hybrid or sticking with an old used car.

The pocketwatch I carry is more than sixty years old, doesn't need batteries, and has much more style than this thing.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Nearly 150 Screenshots of Fallout 3 Leaked]]> @Aye Mak Sicur: According to the Bethesda official blog, you can totally kill that guy and take and wear that hat. Apparently that's one of the dev's favorite ways to start out the game.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Tattoo? Symbiote? What the Hell is That Thing On Olympian Kerri Walsh's Shoulder?]]> @Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: Just because it has no medicinal properties doesn't mean it's useless. A plaster cast has no medicinal properties, but it sure as hell helps a broken bone heal better. The quote you pulled simply states that any effect of the tape is physical, not chemical.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Op-Ed Takes on "Absurd" Australian Ratings]]> @tzaketh: The Coriolis effect is much too weak to have a visible impact on anything as small as a toilet bowl. Water swirls in toilets because it's being pumped in at an angle, not because of the Coriolis effect. If Australian toilets did in fact flush differently, it would only be because they were constructed specifically to do so, and they would continue to flush that way if brought to the northern hemisphere.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented]]> @jrghoull: Or you could read the entire article including the part where Congress twice told them not to buy these things.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Multimedia Roundup: Lego Batman, Tomb Raider, Blitz II]]> Just because Batman is there doesn't mean it's not Bruce, it just means it's not part of the basic story mode. In Lego Star Wars you had something like six different versions of Luke, and could easily have two of them playing at once.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Amazon Kindle Price Reduced to $359, Now Back In Stock]]> @wolfenstein-3d: Good thing it's not an lcd.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Leather Manila Macbook Air Sleeve Resurrects Old Joke In Style]]> @whistlerxp: Cows aren't killed for their leather, they're killed for the meat. Leather is just a by-product. Avoiding leather will do absolutely nothing to reduce the number of cows killed.

Heck, slaughtering cows without using their leather seems like more of an insult and waste to me.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on The Original Messenger Bag Might Still Be the Best]]> Or you could just buy some leather and a sewing awl and make your own, like I did. Best damn bag I've ever owned, and taking good care of it is a pleasure, not a chore.

Seriously, stop by your local Tandy or whatever you've got and get to work. It's a fair amount of effort, but it's not that difficult. Totally worthwhile.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on First High Definition Moon Map Released, Uranium Sites Located]]> As a professional geophysicist, I have to say: God, those are sexy.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Dubai Artificial Island City Mixes Mythic Past and Future With a Death Star 3D Neighborhood for Kicks]]> Yeah, Dubai's great. Especially when you consider stories like the British woman who was arrested at the airport and held in custody for two months for having painkillers in her system. Painkillers given to her at a hospital in Dubai.

[thetruthaboutdubai.com]

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on LEGO New Clone Wars Sets Will Excite Whoever Gets Excited by Clone Wars]]> Dude, twi-lek pin-up art!

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on New Atomic Clock Will Be Accurate for 200 Million Years]]> Atomic clocks are useful for far more than being on time in the morning.

One example is GPS. Every GPS satellite has an atomic clock on board, and it sits up there broadcasting what time it thinks it is and where it thinks it is. Your GPS unit listens to all the satellites, corrects for relativistic time dilation, and figures out just where you are. Increases in the accuracy and reliability of atomic clocks can increase our ability to do all sorts of neat stuff.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on What Was January's Biggest Seller?]]> @riffleraffle: Actually, I prefer it this way. They're two separate units, and if one of them should happen to break or be thrown through a TV, I can just replace that one without finding myself the owner of an extra nunchuck or wiimote I didn't need.

It also gives you the option of buying the Nintendo wiimote but going with a third-party wireless nunchuck if that's what floats your boat.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on What Was January's Biggest Seller?]]> @Toasticus: Wii Play is included in the lists as a game that happens to come with a wiimote, not as a sale of a wiimote itself.

The sales of Wii Play plus the sales of plain wiimotes probably exceed nunchucks, but NPD doesn't combine them.

It could also be that lots of people bought wiimotes as gifts in December but forgot to buy nunchucks to go with them.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on World's Largest Solar Farm Opens: A Billion Trees Probably Died to Build It]]> @fastm3driver: The hills around it are far from lush forest, and just over the hill are farms. It's not like they decimated a rain forest for this, just some scrub land.

Nuclear is only zero emissions if you ignore all the radioactive waste that just gets stored on-site perpetually because nobody can ever figure out what to do with it.

Adding much in the way of plants around the array would make it more difficult for maintenance crews to reach them and might risk plants growing up into the machinery itself.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Sealed Chrono Trigger Fetching a High Price on eBay]]> Nintendo definitely needs to add this to VC. Right after they put Secret of Mana up there. Mmmmmm, Secret of Mana.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Question of the Day: Build or Buy a New PC]]> I finally got my new job with a healthy paycheck to it, so in a month or two it's going to be major upgrade time. I've built every desktop I've owned except for my first PC with a 100Mhz Pentium.

It's just so much more satisfying than buying pre-made.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on PX-3600, The Official Bestest Console In The World]]> Excellence!
Enthusiasm!
Enjoy!
Hospitality!

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Private Cloud Is a Rocking Bed (Both Ways)]]> @Hvedhrungr: Either that or he's gone without for way too long.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Xbox 360 Controller Has Best Battery Life? Maybe.]]> Apart from the disparity of being able to choose different brands, chemistries, and amperages for the Wii and 360, how much does this really matter? It's not like you're taking the controller on the road, and everyone should be using rechargables of some sort these days. Does it matter if you swap them in every six days compared to seven or eight?

And if you have a setup where the controller itself can be charged, odds are you'll never run out of batteries while playing until the batteries themselves are no good anymore.

Personally, I only have a Wii, and I've been using Sanyo's Enerloops with no complaints. One pair in, one pair charging. Downtime of a few seconds to swap.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Lineage II Offers $10 Sex Change]]> Wait, is one of the characters in the picture supposed to be male?

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on New Indy Movie LEGO Sets Offer Exclusive Peek Into Crystal Skull]]> One of the things that annoys me is how LEGO is moving from pre-printed blocks to vinyl stickers. The CCCP and other special bits are just stickers in these sets. It makes the pieces easier to use in other constructions, but I worry about the permanence if I want to reuse that logo.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented]]> These are the original printed sheets, not a bound manual. They still need to be cut, folded, and stapled. The Spanish will be at the end (or between the English and French) eventually.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Super Smash Bros. Brawl Intro Sneaks Out With Spoilers]]> Only two more days until the official Japanese release, right? We may not be able to play it over here, but at least we'll find out all the details they haven't published yet.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Mock-Up Solves MBA's Port-Based Woes]]> What about serial and parallel ports? Just in case you need to tap into some real legacy hardware?

A PS/2 port would be nice for an old external mouse, as well.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Tim Schafer Mystified By Uncharted's Shirt Tech]]> @Bakeroo: Shorts and a t-shirt might be fine if you're sticking to the beach, but the greater portion of any remote tropical island is thick jungle, and jeans and long sleeves are very good things if you try and push through that.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Sony DSC-H10: Sony's Basic 10x Lens Camera]]> 3200 ISO on a camera with a CCD as small as this one must have? You'd get less noise taking a picture of the static on your TV.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on World Of Warcraft Reaches 10 Million Mark]]> The really neat thing about that number is that 10,000,000 people have an active account. They're not counting people who used to subscribe but don't right now, like me (although I'm planning to start up again once I finish moving).

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Make a Sign, Win Signatures (Wooden Entry)]]> @Reilaos, Putting the Fun in Dysfunction!: Actually, while TP featured the triforce with the wings prominently, it also showed up like that in Wind Waker. I don't think they used it for the N64 games, but I could be wrong.

So really, it represents Zelda in general, primarily the more recent ones.

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Meizu Patents the Knock-Off]]> So if the iPhone is the JesusPhone, is this the DavidKoreshPhone?

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Fujitsu Announces 8.9-Inch Tablet PC]]> But how thick is it? Everyone knows thickness (or lack thereof) is now the real measure of a laptop!

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<![CDATA[Improbable commented on Penny Arcade Game Gameplay Videos]]> The little microgames for some attacks are interesting, but I'm definitely glad they only seem to be used sparingly.

Honestly, though, the gameplay for this one only has to manage to not suck. For me the writing is going to be the real deciding factor on whether it's a winner or not.

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