Slashdot Mirror

Right. I'll just leave these here:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/va...
measles-canada.jpg

"Finally, we can look at the experiences of several developed countries after they let their immunization levels drop. Three countries – Great Britain, Sweden, and Japan – cut back the use of pertussis vaccine because of fear about the vaccine. The effect was dramatic and immediate. In Great Britain, a drop in pertussis vaccination in 1974 was followed by an epidemic of more than 100,000 cases of pertussis and 36 deaths by 1978. In Japan, around the same time, a drop in vaccination rates from 70% to 20%-40% led to a jump in pertussis from 393 cases and no deaths in 1974 to 13,000 cases and 41 deaths in 1979. In Sweden, the annual incidence rate of pertussis per 100,000 children 0-6 years of age increased from 700 cases in 1981 to 3,200 in 1985. It seems clear from these experiences that not only would diseases not be disappearing without vaccines, but if we were to stop vaccinating, they would come back."

Not sure why we care now.

Because the west generally believed that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization as a function of a rising middle-class that would eventually demand more social freedom and would have the clout to make it happen. And maybe that was true. Maybe it still is true, but its definitely taking longer than most western leaders hoped (under Xi Jinping they have begun backsliding) and China's embrace of AI (authoritarian intelligence?) seems to be the oligarchy's attempt to prevent it.

One thing you can't dispute is that the standard of living in China has dramatically increased over the last couple of decades. If there is a poster-child for economic liberalization, its China. In 1990 66% of the country lived in absolute poverty (less than $1.25/day) in 2013 its only 1.9%.

That's not to say the its all wine and roses with capitalism, in fact I just posted this blunt criticism. But if you want to understand what's been happening, you gotta deal with reality.

we need to add our own battle royale mode into Fortnite" and -boom- the rest was history.

Metoo usually doesn't sway players to drop one game for another.

Remember there's another difference:
Pubg: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbo...
Fortnite: https://3bonlp1aiidtbao4s10xac...

And then also remember that realistic shooters come and go while Team Fortress 2 still has a player base 11 years later: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker...

I think there's another highly popular online game I'm missing too... https://image.redbull.com/rbco...

Those pictures should tell you the difference and why Fortnite appeals to masses.

https://45daufej2nx1wbya31rbi2... ?

One trend is from the late 19th century, the other from the late 20th century. Both have the same temperature pattern. One supposedly is caused by man's CO2 output, the other from nature. How do we know the impact of natural heating? We really can't control that level - it's a baseline change that happens and we may add or subtract from it - but we certainly can't control it...

> Correct. Fortunately these diversity initiatives only exist in the mad ramblings of the far right, as admitted justification to further oppress people.

Tell that to Harvard, they're in court over that.

> Funny that the only mention I can find of this is on literal fake news sites. Not a single public record has any mention of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/15/harvard-sued-discrimination-against-asian-americans
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/15/620368377/harvard-accused-of-racial-balancing-lawsuit-says-asian-americans-treated-unfairl

If you want to call those "literal fake news sites," it's a free country ... :)

Guess I'd better use DuckDuckGo to dig up public records for this and an earlier lawsuit:

http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/SFFA-v.-Harvard-Complaint.pdf
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-981

> It's well known that conservatives only allow others that believe math and science and reading comprehension are all liberal conspiracies.

Most relevant to this, here's Linus' daughter, signing the post-meritocracy manifesto. So instead of building the best Linux for the benefit of everyone, we should worry more about politics.

Here's a liberal trying to decolonize science so we can get rid of the racism, in which they're saying things like "through black magic" people can send lightning to strike someone and then asking "can you explain that scientifically?" Is this part of that magical liberal bias in reality? :)

CNN has declared that "math is racist" (archive).

In general, a lot of this nonsense traces back to the ideas of critical theory. There are groups who think that every wrong in the world traces back to bad power structures which they need to deconstruct and recreate to achieve fairness. It should tell you something when they're currently trying to deconstruct things like science and meritocracy, though...

The irony is that none of that is necessary and it's actively harmful to the supposed goals. It's true that bad luck, oppression, disasters, etc. unfairly keep some people down or prop others up. The right way to fix that would be to help all disadvantaged people equally. Insofar as certain groups have been historically kept down as such, this would disproportionately help them and right things over time. Instead, it's more fashionable to decide that help must be on the basis of group membership, which instead creates new competition among groups and animosity.

Lots of cheap machines come with only 32 GB of storage because they get cheaper Windows licenses this way.

Out of curiosity, do these bulk cargo vessels store their loads in one big hold, or are the holds compartmentalized? If the ships have multiple holds (say 3), each side by side and running lengthwise, then even if the loads in each hold liquefy and shift to port, the loads in the center and starboard holds may still have enough weight to counteract the shift.

A quick google search turns up this image, showing a stern to bow layout. So if the load in one hold shifts it is likely that all the others will shift too. So running the holds bow to stern and stacking them port to starboard would solve that issue. Given the size of these vessels I would assume that loads shifting forward or aft would be less of an issue or concern, but you could always make 6 holds by running 3 along the length of the ship and separating them midship.

No, I like to have fun. Say the guy sets it to print and gets

https://jyt234ch3hz4awrvk17vtq...

Then thinking someone screwed around, send it to the 3d printer again.

where do you get your numbers ?
this is the first link I got : https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpe...
second link shows solar beating gas in the long term.
https://theconversation.com/wi...

I mean, have you even looked at the price per watt in recent years?

Sorry, your link is very misleading

The cost of solar panel (plus installation) comes to $2.71 ~ $3.57 per watt

Plus, the average gross cost of solar panels before tax credits is $18,840

That's $18,840 extra cost a new home owner must cough up, in California

I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free. Hate to break it to you, but your religion is fake.

Nobody claimed they were free but dude, solar panels are cheap as hell now. I mean, have you even looked at the price per watt in recent years?

The cost of the solar panels themselves is only part of the issue--the cost of building a roof capable of supporting the weight of solar panels also has to be taken into account, as well as the simple fact that California has areas with serious problems with affordable housing. They shouldn't be adding to the problem for anything not required for safety or basic habitability.

If they want something like this, it'd be better to offer money up front for new houses to have solar panels on the roof than flat-out assume anybody wanting to own a house or build their own has money to burn.

I get it, in your religion, solar panels are free. Hate to break it to you, but your religion is fake.

Nobody claimed they were free but dude, solar panels are cheap as hell now. I mean, have you even looked at the price per watt in recent years?

"Unless you can cite a reputable study, the proposition that the Fair Tax drives "dramatically increased business opportunities in the USA" is opinion stated as fact. Your passionate belief doesn't make it true."

https://fairtax-structure-psyc...

Page 28 chart is supportive:

https://fairtax-structure-psyc...

"Unless you can cite a reputable study, the proposition that the Fair Tax drives "dramatically increased business opportunities in the USA" is opinion stated as fact. Your passionate belief doesn't make it true."

https://fairtax-structure-psyc...

Page 28 chart is supportive:

https://fairtax-structure-psyc...

If only there was a growing industry that employs more than the coal (50k) and steel industry (150k) combined...

VP9 hasn't become dominant but it has been beating HEVC in many markets. http://1yy04i3k9fyt3vqjsf2mv61...

It was Microsoft who drove the purchase price of browsers to zero, when they gave away IE to try to "cut off Netscape's air supply" in the famous phrase.

Google has never really "funded" Mozilla; they have always paid for search traffic, just like they pay Apple for iOS search traffic.

==This into that==

Funny this topic came up today. My first waking thought was a desire to insert this into that. Sleep is amazing. True story.

This = Mel Brooks voice-alike from Springtime for Hitler in Germany with the line "don't be stupid, be a smarty, come on join the Nazi party".

That = the first skinhead refrain in Aqua's Barbie Girl with the line "come on Barbie, let's go party". You'd need to find a slightly longer version of this refrain to make the splice, but that's far enough for me for now.

I had only ever listened to Barbie Girl once (about six months ago), but it was enough to trigger some form of pattern recognition while I slept after another Producers micro-binge yesterday.

Damn if I couldn't get Mel to rewrite (and dance) that entire Danish disaster.

Mel's got the moves, too: High anxiety

==Slightly off-topic addendum==

Mattel claimed that "Barbie Girl" violated their trademark and turned her into a sex object, referring to her as a "Blonde Bimbo".

In 2002, a Court of Appeals ruled the song was protected as a parody under the trademark doctrine of nominative use and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The judge, Alex Kozinski, also threw out the defamation lawsuit that Aqua's record company filed against Mattel, concluding his ruling: "The parties are advised to chill."

Not that lawsuits have anything to do with the sad state of lyrical insight these days.

Of course she's not a sex pot.

==Geek sex-pot dumpster dive==

What Would Sex-Pot Barbie Look Like in Real Life? by Meagan Tintari

Barbie, at 1/6 scale, would be 175.26 cm in height { 69 inches | 5'9" tall } and have the following measurements ...

91.44 cm bust | 36 inches
45.72 cm waist | 18 inches
83.82 cm hips | 33 inches
55.88 cm head circumference | 22 inches
22.86 cm neck circumference | 9 inches <= insert pencil here

A healthy 19 year old girl, 163.3 cm in height { 64.3 inches | 5'3-1/2" tall } and measurements below, come from CDC.gov and [the] Huffington Post ...

85.4 cm waist | 33.6 inches
35.8 cm upper arm length | 14.1 inches
36.7 cm upper leg length | 14.5 inches
50.8 cm head circumference | 20 inches
38.1 cm neck circumference | 15 inches

Ouch. And I do mean penetrating pencil neck pain. WTF, Meagan?

Arithmetic is hard: The given precision ranges from two to five significant digits (for equivalent values).
Presentation is hard: the tables aren't row equivalent (a healthy girl has different measurements), and aren't column parallel either (that might make it easy to read).
Geometry is hard: "Barbie, at 1/6 scale, ..." should probably be "Barbie, assuming a 1/6 scale, ..."
Sentences are hard: A healthy 19 year old girl [] come from CDC.gov ...
Punctuation is hard: A healthy 19-year-old girl [] come from CDC.gov ...

And—geek drum roll—the two ellipses in the quotation above (standing in for colons after "measurement" and "Post") is from the original.

==Final irony==

As a final irony, the UK measurements in the original were actually rendered using U+2033 : DOUBLE PRIME for the inch symbol, but I had to ditch that small sequin of geek enlightenment to format for Slashdot.

Your fears are totally warranted as the new UI looks like modern shit we are already forced to consume in other OS'es like Windows 10.

Hopefully the new Thunderbird will be themeable but I wouldn't hold my breath considering that theming was essentially killed in Firefox (we can only apply a background image to its bars - that's it).

Nice article, but it doesn't really mention all the work done by government sponsored programs to develop low-cost solar array technology in the late 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.

And exactly how much solar adoption did 3 decades of spending cause?

https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpe...
https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpe...

Pretty much none.

Solar didn't take off until mass European adoption forged a market for the Chinese to dump dirt cheap panels into the market en masse. That made solar cheap enough to become affordable in the US, which then led to an increasing adoption curve in the US. Prior to the Chinese intervening, no amount of US govt spending had any influence whatsoever on solar.

Nice article, but it doesn't really mention all the work done by government sponsored programs to develop low-cost solar array technology in the late 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s.

And exactly how much solar adoption did 3 decades of spending cause?

https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpe...
https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpe...

Pretty much none.

Solar didn't take off until mass European adoption forged a market for the Chinese to dump dirt cheap panels into the market en masse. That made solar cheap enough to become affordable in the US, which then led to an increasing adoption curve in the US. Prior to the Chinese intervening, no amount of US govt spending had any influence whatsoever on solar.

You think that an inexpensive compact ICE car is a competitor to either a LARGE LUXURY sedan, or LARGE LUXURY X-over, or COMPACT EXECUTIVE sedan?
Direct competitors to Model S is considered to be: Mercedes S-Class, the BMW 7 Series, the Audi A8, the Lexus LS, etc.
Direct competitors to Model X is considered to be: BMW X5, MB GLS class, etc.
Direct competitors to Model 3 is considered to be: Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, etc.

You think that an inexpensive compact ICE car is a competitor to either a LARGE LUXURY sedan, or LARGE LUXURY X-over, or COMPACT EXECUTIVE sedan?
Direct competitors to Model S is considered to be: Mercedes S-Class, the BMW 7 Series, the Audi A8, the Lexus LS, etc.
Direct competitors to Model X is considered to be: BMW X5, MB GLS class, etc.
Direct competitors to Model 3 is considered to be: Audi A4, BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, etc.

Roller balls... like a supersized version of a ball point pen?

I don't see those handling being dragged across concrete, asphalt, and dirt all that well. Probably just get grit stuck in the bearing and it'd seize up.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe criminality is more closely correlated to socio-economic forces than race."

Ok, you're wrong. The hispanic population isn't significantly wealthier than blacks, but the crime rate is significantly lower, even at the same level of income.

Furthermore, poor white people commit crimes (especially violent crimes) at a lower rate than their black counterparts at the same income.

Most of the crime involving blacks is black-on-black.

https://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m...

This has been going on for some time. For decades, researches have wanted to blame it on poverty, but the evidence is not there.

"When you adjust for income your argument completely falls apart"

No, it doesn't. When you adjust for IQ it does, but that's where the problem ultimately lies. A black person with an IQ of 100, and a white person with an IQ of 100 will tend to be rather similar, but there are significant differences in population distribution. There's quite a few reasons for disparity in income, but it's a symptom, not a cause.

http://www1.udel.edu/educ/gott...

"Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there has been no narrowing of the 15- to
18-point average IQ difference between Blacks and Whites (1.1 standard deviations);
the differences are as large today as they were when first measured nearly
100 years ago. They, and the concomitant difference in standard of living, level of
education, and related phenomena, lie in factors that are largely heritable, not
cultural. The IQ differences are attributable to differences in brain size more than to
racism, stereotype threat, item selection on tests, and all the other suggestions given
by the commentators. It is time to meet reality. It is time to stop committing the
“moralistic fallacy” that good science must conform to approved outcomes."

I'm by no means an expert but recent media has made this seem to be the case. Comparison image

This came way back when Mozilla was planning to change logo... You won't believe what other logos were in the selection at the time.

Mozilla logos selection

The internet voted. For once, we picked the best one.

At the prices Apple charge for their laptops I expect them to far exceed the bar set by their far cheaper competitors.

As do I, but that's a different topic than the one I was addressing. I was merely pointing out that the OP was incorrect in his belief that Apple was failing to live up to the standard set by its competitors given that the competition has dealt with this exact same issue in the past (albeit, infrequently, as I pointed out, and just as I expect that this issue will be for Apple).

If you want to argue about the value proposition, that's a dead horse that's been beaten to death. While I agree that this model is overpriced, I think that you're overstating things. Even so, we have better things to do than argue opinions on the Internet, so I won't try to convince you that it's not quite as overpriced as you seem to think.

The one thing I do find fascinating and want to point out about this new model, however, is how different its reception seems to be among the general population than it is here in the nerd echo chamber. While folks like us may quibble over the degree to which the new MacBook Pro is overpriced, in its first five days it outsold the lifetime, combined numbers for every notable, competing laptop in the industry.

We can dismiss that as the faithful followers buying another Apple logo for their Apple shrine. We can dismiss it as locked-in customers starved for an update who jumped eagerly at the chance to upgrade. We can dismiss it as simple brand loyalty. We can even dismiss the study as being biased, fabricated, or inaccurate. But even if the numbers aren't quite that high, it's clear that these machines are worth the asking price to many people, and that's something I've already been struggling to reconcile with my personal opinions. I'd encourage you to do the same. It's clear we're in the minority.

I don't have any problem seeing why a reduction in the availability of firearms could cause an overall reduction of violence. Take away the guns, and the people who work to prevent violence (cops, etc.) can now do more non-firearm-related enforcement. Whine all you want about your rights. You curtail the freedom of everyone around you until that gun is gone, and theirs is the higher right. We'll get it out of your hands eventually.

When it comes to virtual machines or software licenses, I will defer to your judgement, since you are an expert in that. When it comes to slinging a million transistors onto a slab of silicon, that you would listen to me, since that is what I do for a living.

When it comes to law enforcement, I tend to listen to the people who do it for a living. Too bad the police don't think that gun confiscation is a good idea.

Here is a survey from a police organization (as near as I can tell, without a hidden agenda about guns)... The vast majority of police do not think kindly of harsher gun laws. http://police-praetorian.netdn...

Here is an article from a Detroit news paper about how the police want the citizens to be armed. http://www.metrotimes.com/Blog...

Logically, if you COULD somehow take away ALL guns, we MIGHT be somewhat safer. Might. However, you have to then realize that young, healthy criminals would then feel free to victimize the elderly, since the average octogenarian could not fight back effectively. Women would also make more tempting targets. Without guns, physical skill and strength are vitally important in encounters with thugs.

Here are some things to keep in mind about strict gun laws....

1) Honest citizens will obey the laws, criminals will not.
2) There are a lot more honest citizens than there are criminals.

Thus it follows that taking guns away will affect the honest people a LOT more than it will the criminals.

Chicago has VERY strict gun laws, and yet that does not stop the shootings.

"But wait!" I hear you say. "Chicago gets its guns from other states that have very lax gun laws." OK. I admit that this may the case. So, why don't other states with lax gun laws (where the guns are available in the same town) have violence as bad as Chicago? Please explain that one.

Let's take a closer look at Chicago. The entire city has the SAME gun laws. Yet, somehow, the violence is isolated to certain areas. How can this be, since the gun laws are uniform? Well, economics are not uniform. The level of poverty is MUCH more closely related to the violence level than gun laws. Areas where the income is median or above do not generally have violence problems. This is not a "gun" problem, but a cultural and economic problem. If you have person willing and eager to kill, taking a gun away will just make that person use a knife. They might not be able to kill as many, but they will still manage to find a way to kill. Instead of focusing on making the murderer use a different weapon, why not focus on WHY the person desires to kill, and fix that?

We have a situation where morality is no longer being taught in schools. With record numbers of single-parent families, you have lots of children without the loving influence of a father. Plus, with the decline of acceptance of religious views, you have people being taught that they are nothing but animals. Add to that the new electronic society where people replace friends with computers. When you combine all that with poverty, is it any wonder that some turn to violence?

"The earliest confirmed instance of unauthorized access dates to September 2014" ref