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User: jrifkin

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Comments · 86

  1. Re: Replace Chromecast Audio with regular Chromeca on Google Discontinues Chromecast Audio (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    My question is hypothetical since my current Chromecast audio is still fine, but for the record my Raspberry pi "server" lives
      in the basement, while the receiver in upstairs in the living room.

  2. Re:Remaining Hitler Youth Continue MURDERING JEWS. on Google Discontinues Chromecast Audio (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing that you don't have any friends?

    https://youtu.be/Tjp5OmoDYQM?t...

  3. Replace Chromecast Audio with regular Chromecast? on Google Discontinues Chromecast Audio (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    I love my Chromecast audio. I use it with my 30 year old Sony receiver driving my 50 year old EPI speakers, serving up music from my Raspberry Pi running a minidlna server. Works great.

    Does anyone know what it would take to rig a Google "Streaming Media Player" (i.e. the Video version with the HDMI output) to drive an old-school audio receiver?

  4. If the number of older systems is large enough, then Yes, Microsoft should release patches for them.

    They should do this for two reasons:
    1) Reducing the number of infected systems helps protect others from infections
    2) It protects the innocent, like those whose Medical Care was interrupted in the UK, from collateral damage.

    Who pays for it? Microsoft. They have benefited from the sale of all those systems, and certainly have enough cash to divert some to supported old but prevalent systems. Also, the fact that people still use MS systems, even if they're old, benefits MS in some way by helping them maintain market share (and "mindshare"). Odds are that these systems will eventually be replaced by more MS systems, representing future revenue for MS.

  5. List of reasons for Universal Basic Income on Ontario Launches Universal Basic Income Pilot (www.cbc.ca) · · Score: 2

    1) It only takes one farmer to grow food for one hundred (?) people. Figure a few more people for food and shelter, education, etc. For the sake of argument, figure we only need N people, where N 20, people to take care of 100. What do the other 80 people do?
    2) We don't have to force 80/100 people into meaningless, soul-deadening, junk producing, environment draining pointless jobs.
    3) Less pollution since there is less need for pointing production.
    4) If everyone has UBI, no need for welfare, unemployment, etc.
    5) It unleashes creativity for the not employed. It makes it much easier to fund startups, research, art, etc.
    6) More time to spend caring for children; less money spent on child care.
    7) It will stimulate the travel business sector, as people have more time to travel.
    8) It makes it easier for business to let go of non-productive or otherwise surplus employees.

  6. Re:One party rule on Donald Trump Wins US Presidency (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    When I read a rank generalisation like this, which is from your post,

    Stockholm had become the rape capital of Europe even before the Syrian refugee crisis ballooned, largely on the backs of the massive numbers of third world and largely Muslim

    I sometimes feel compelled to verify it. What I found is below. In short, it says that Sweden's rape count is high because of their legal definition of rape, not because of an influx of a particular ethnic group.

    Sweden does indeed have far more reported cases of sexual assault than any other country. But itâ(TM)s not because Swedes â" of any colour â" are very criminal. Itâ(TM)s because theyâ(TM)re very feminist. In 2005, Swedenâ(TM)s Social Democratic government introduced a new sex-crime law with the worldâ(TM)s most expansive definition of rape.

    Imagine, for example, if your boss rubbed against you in an unwanted way at work once a week for a year. In Canada, this would potentially be a case of sexual assault. Under Germanyâ(TM)s more limited laws, it would be zero cases. In Sweden, it would be tallied as 52 separate cases of rape. If you engaged in a half-dozen sex acts with your spouse, then later you felt you had not given consent, in Sweden that would be classified as six cases of rape.

    This is from: http://www.theglobeandmail.com...

  7. This is a Miracle. More proof that God exists! on Alabama Will Require Students To Learn About Evolution, Climate Change · · Score: 1

    ... this wouldn't have happened otherwise.

  8. Include a intro programming language in Windows on Code.org Discloses Top Donors · · Score: 1

    If Microsoft and Bill Gates are interested in Programmer education, why not add a simple programming environment to Windows? Once upon a time DOS came with Basic. I believe a lot of kids and adults for first introduced to programming with Basic.

    Why not include a more modern newbie-friendly language, such as Python (insert your favorite language here). They are already shipping all those Window OSes, why not do some good with them :)

  9. Just weigh the aluminium target on Mathematicians Use Mossberg 500 Pump-Action Shotgun To Calculate Pi · · Score: 1

    Swap the gun for some tin snips and a scale. You could simply weigh the whole target, then snip out the quarter circle and weight that. Take the ratio of the weights, and you're done.

    Save the ammo for something else.

  10. About benefitting national defense on SOPA Creator Now In Charge of NSF Grants · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This was addressed by Robert Wilson, the director of Fermilab, while addressing the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._Wilson)

      It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.

  11. Isn't the big story "extra-terrestiral life found" on Evidence For Comet-Borne Microfossils Supports Panspermia · · Score: 1

    If true, isn't the big story that "Non-earth life has been discovered"?

    The question as to whether non-earth life seeded earth is of secondary importance, it seems to me.

  12. Councilman, know about the unfair USPS obligation? on City Councilman: Email Tax Could Discourage Spam, Fund Post Office Functions · · Score: 1

    From the Huffington Post

    There are many reasons, but by far the most important is that the Postal Service's losses are largely the product of a congressional mandate imposed on no other public or private enterprise in America. Since 2006, Congress has forced the Postal Service to make enormous annual contributions into a fund for future retiree health benefits, including the $5.5 billion and $5.6 billion mentioned above. In fact, since they began, these payments have accounted for more than 80 percent of the Postal Service's losses.

  13. Check out SiliconDust's HD Homerun on Ask Slashdot: IPTV Service In the UK? · · Score: 1

    I have one at my house (US). It's about the size of a pack of cards, and has two ports. The TV Cable goes into the first, your home internet into the second. You can then watch unscrambled TV anywhere on your network. Under Linux, use MythTV or a combination of VLC and SiliconDust's own apps. I bought the cheapest version, about $80, which is limited to unscambled stations and two stations simultaneously. I get about 6 stations.

    There's also a version whch accepts a card from the Cable provider which will unscramble the signal and provides three stations simultaneously.

  14. Here's a good article about gun control and NRA on 3D Printable Ammo Clip Skirts New Proposed Gun Laws · · Score: 1

    May I recommend this article
          http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/the_nra_once_supported_gun_control/

    The parent says

    That's what the second amendment is about. Not self defense, not hunting, not skeet shooting. Protection from tyranny. It's a recognized right for the people to possess the means to revolt should they choose.

    Not so, according to the cited article. The second amendment was not intended to let you battle the government, but let you fight with a militia to supprt the government.

    The NRA’s first president was a northern Army General, Ambrose Burnside. He was chosen to reflect this civilian-militia mission, as envisioned in the Second Amendment, which reads, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The understanding of the Amendment at the time concerned having a prepared citizenry to assist in domestic military matters, such as repelling raids on federal arsenals like 1786’s Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts or the British in the War of 1812. Its focus was not asserting individual gun rights as today, but a ready citizenry prepared by target shooting. The NRA accepted $25,000 from New York State to buy a firing range ($500,000 today). For decades, the U.S. military gave surplus guns to the NRA and sponsored shooting contests.

    Here's another interesting piece from said article.

    The NRA’s fabricated but escalating view of the Second Amendment was ridiculed by former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger—a conservative appointed by President Richard Nixon—in a PBS Newshour interview in 1991, where he called it “one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

    Burger would not have imagined that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008—13 years after he died—led by libertarian activist Justice Antonin Scalia—would enshrine that “fraud” into the highest echelon of American law by decreeing that the Second Amendment included the right to own a gun for self-protection in one’s home.

  15. Re:And yet... on Historic Heat In North America Turns Winter To Summer · · Score: 2

    And the warmists, who every time a cyclone hits, come out crying that it wouldn't have happened, if only you'd let them tax you more for your sinful energy consumption.

    I'm sorry. Was that parody? My sarcasm meter doesn't work well in the heat.

  16. Re:first post? on Perl Data Language 2.4.10 released · · Score: 2

    A good platform for scientific scripting is Python with PyCUDA. PyCUDA makes it easy to program the NVidia CUDA chips, which can speed up many computations significantly.

  17. Where's your $50,000? on Ask Slashdot: How Do You View the Wall Street Protests? · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Here's something that just came from Alan Grayson. It seems relevent.

    The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that our Government has handed out $16 trillion to the banks.

    Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. The GAO says that our Government HAS HANDED OUT $16 TRILLION TO THE BANKS.

    That little gem appears on Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696. A report issued two months ago. A report that somehow seems to have eluded the attention of virtually every network, every major newspaper, and every news show.

    How much is $16 trillion? That is an amount equal to more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in America. That’s more than every penny that every American earns in a year. That’s an amount equal to almost a third of our national net worth -- the value of every home, car, personal belonging, business, bank account, stock, bond, piece of land, book, tree, chandelier, and everything else anyone owns in America. That’s an amount greater than our entire national debt, accumulated over the course of two centuries.

    A $16 trillion stack of dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon. And back. Twice.

    That’s enough to pay for Saturday mail delivery. For the next 5,000 years.

    All of that money went from you and me to the banks. And we got nothing. Not even a toaster.

    I have been patiently waiting to see whether this disclosure would provoke some kind of reaction. Answer: nope. Everyone seems much more interested in discussing whether or not they like the cut of Perry’s jib.

    Whatever a jib may be.

    In the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing more about this. But right now, I wanted to keep this really simple. Just give folks something to talk about when they’re standing next to the coffee maker.

    The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it.

    Think about it. Think about what that means.

  18. Don't forget the 2011 Solar Decathalon on World Solar Challenge 2011 Starts In Two Weeks · · Score: 2

    This bears some resemblance to another competition, the 2011 Solar Decathalon, that just finished its week on the National Mall in Washington DC.

    Each team designed and built a 900+ square foot energy efficient home over the past two years, and then shipped them to DC to display them for the week.

    It was sponsored by the Department of Energy. Nineteen universities participated; 15 from the US and 4 from other countries; Canada, Belgium, New Zealand (the third place winner) and China.

    You can see more about it here, http://www.solardecathlon.gov./

  19. Re:First, is there a problem? on Arizona Governor Proposes Flab Tax · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, if people live longer, they produce more and pay more taxes.

  20. Re:First, is there a problem? on Arizona Governor Proposes Flab Tax · · Score: 1

    I think the correct premise is "how can we tax people to make the country better". Theoretically, if done right (whatever that may be), a better country means that we all have more, not less, and our tax dollars will be a good investment.

  21. Why is there no cost/benefit analysis? on Top Secret America · · Score: 1

    If we weigh the cost, in lives and dollars, of our "War on Terror", against the benefit of preventing one 9/11 a year, how would that expenditure compare with what we spend to prevent death and property damage from things like highway accidents, hurricanes, cancer, pollution, earth threatening asteroids, etc. Is it just me, or on that basis does it seem the "War on Terror" consumes way too much resources.

    I'd love to see numbers on this if anyone knows of any.

  22. Bogolights are also good ... on Hong Kong Company Develops Solar-Powered Lightbulb · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have owned a couple of Boglights for a few years now and they've been solidly reliable. They can last up to 6 hours on a days charge, they work as both a flashlight and an area light, they give 6 levels of light, and are designed for developing countries. However, they cost twice as much, $30 a light. This page has a lot of technical information about them, http://www.bogolight.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BOGO-BUYONESN2&Show=TechSpecs

  23. Re:So, had they NOT been surfing for porn... on Economy Tanked While Government Surfed Porn · · Score: 3, Funny

    Would the economy be OK now? Just asking.....

    Great question!

    I waiting on the official word from Fox News as to where the blame lies - will it be over-regulating liberals or porn-surfing liberals?

  24. Re:A Christian's take on Texas Textbooks Battle Is Actually an American War · · Score: 1

    Yet, there this is interpreted that clergy may not talk about a political candidate from the puplit.

    Not exactly. Clergy can talk politics all they want and no one will stop them - but they'll lose their tax exempt status.

  25. Re:This decision is horrible - the Mussolini Remix on Supreme Court Rolls Back Corporate Campaign Spending Limits · · Score: 2, Informative
    As our friend Benito Mussolini so aptly put,

    Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.