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User: dsginter

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  1. Re:Seems like this will work... on Amazon Tests Delivery Drones At Secret Canada Site After US Frustration · · Score: 1

    Hard to believe. What did it use for fuel?

    Liquid Fluoride Thorium

  2. Re:Obligatory XKCD on New Map Shows USA's Quietest Places · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, no - this isn't just another heat map of the population. Take the Midwest, for example: there's some pretty rural areas there but, because they are flat, two factors dominate: sound is free to travel and wind is a huge contributing factor. I'm from Michigan and spent my summers on a large farm. When the wind wasn't present, you could hear things from miles away. However, in a truly quiet area (a tranquil valley is the only place that I've ever encountered this), it becomes immediately apparent when wind and man-made noise vanishes. I've been fortunate enough to experience this and it is difficult to describe (scary, awesome, surreal, etc). That said, I'm noticing that this is a "macro" map. There are plenty of quiet places hidden in that mix. They need to add a zoom feature to that map. But, if they did, they'd need to update it in only a matter of weeks or months. Silence is truly magical.

  3. Re:nah it's a dead cat bounce on Apple's iPod Classic Refuses To Die · · Score: 1

    nostalgia only goes so far;

    It isn't nostalgia: there is a market for people who aren't tech people and need something simply. Apple is ignoring those people as Blackberry did right up until just now. I understand the need to have a simple smartphone with a keyboard as well as the simple mp3 player with just a few controls.

  4. Re:Depends how you define intelligence on Alva Noe: Don't Worry About the Singularity, We Can't Even Copy an Amoeba · · Score: 1

    What exactly is intelligence?.

    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -Pablo Picasso

  5. Re:How's this going to work on Mozilla's 2013 Report: Revenue Up 1% To $314M; 90% From Google · · Score: 1

    If *anyone* made a browser that containerized the ad-world (like google, facebook and yahoo), that browser would become the only browser that people used. Hence Mozilla's revenue. Online advertising is one entrepreneur away from complete death.

  6. Why Aren't Homebuilders in on This? on Gigabit Internet Connections Make Property Values Rise · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've often wondered why homebuilders aren't building fiber to the home and then coordinating with raw internet providers like Cogent. Add some mesh networking to support older adjacent homes and you'll finally kill Comcast.

  7. Re:Sales figures are news now? on Apple Sells More Than 10 Million New iPhones In First 3 Days · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can we get this in perspective please?

    This is roughly 4.8 Libraries of Congress per foot-pound.

  8. Really? on Ask Slashdot: Computer Science Freshman, Too Soon To Job Hunt? · · Score: 1

    You're a *real* CS major, from the sound of it (not one of these "CS because it is profitable" people). To the point: if you graduate, then you have failed. When you are sleeping on the floor, then you cannot fall out of bed. This is the definition of college and you are there now. Build something of use - anything. But do it well and you will eventually find your niche before you graduate. On the other side of the coin, if you do graduate, you'll have a great "plan b" for the rest of your life. But concentrate on finding entrepreneurial talent at your school and do something with it.

  9. Re:The quick answer is yes. on To Save the Internet We Need To Own the Means of Distribution · · Score: 1

    Private ownership of natural monopolies is a threat to my security.

    That would make you a socialist, according to the other party. The people that vote for them are so uneducated that this dog whistle works quite well all of the time: you are either a patriotic capitalist or a pinko commie socialist and there can never be a reasonable combination of the two (like public roads, police, fire and military, for example). This is why we are removing critical thinking education from our schools (don't think, just knee jerk).

  10. Re:The quick answer is yes. on To Save the Internet We Need To Own the Means of Distribution · · Score: 1

    Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others. --Thomas Paine, Common Sense

  11. Re:No... on Netflix Gets What It Pays For: Comcast Streaming Speeds Skyrocket · · Score: 2

    Replying because I accidentally modded you down instead of up and the toothless hillbillies that made slashdot can't help me fix it.

  12. Re:So... on Land Rover Demos "Transparent Hood" · · Score: 1

    I can't even see the hood of my vehicle while seated. Why would I need to make it transparent?

  13. Anecdote on Does Relying On an IDE Make You a Bad Programmer? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When I was in college, I started immediately with an IDE - largely with no development experience. This was a struggle because the IDE was doing things that I did not understand. Ultimately, one of the elder geeks (a properly bearded and pony-tailed Yoda) suggested that I start at the beginning and develop with a text editor and the command line. This worked. Once everything was properly understood, the IDE is useful for saving time and catching typos. But I still need to "go back to the beginning" in order to find out what I am missing sometimes.

  14. Hint on Verizon Transparency Report: Govt Requests Increasing · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now that the "terrorists" know that this stuff is monitored, the real bright ones no longer use these forms of communication. The NSA just need to keep doing this to remain employed.

  15. Re:BFD on Nasdaq 4000 — This Time It's Different? · · Score: 5, Informative
  16. They've since updated the song on Two Huge Holes In the Sun Spotted · · Score: 1

    The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma They make a great children's CD, BTW.

  17. Re:Perfomance vs size on Intel Intros 310 Series Mini SSDs · · Score: 2

    What does the size have to do with anything relating to these performance benchmarks?

    Perhaps because of the whole decades of history related to rotating bulk storage? Without increases in spindle speed (and, thus, price), larger storage has always been faster.

    Don't you remember the Quantum Bigfoot?

    Get off of my lawn!

  18. Re:Cause and Effect on You Are Not Mark Zuckerberg, So Stay In School · · Score: 1

    So, the next big thing never requires senior level coursework?

    Coursework is free or very affordable for those who want to pursue it on their own time. I met a lot of self-starters in college who had enough passion to spend their free time a little bit more productively than myself (and most of the other students). These people often cruised through classes without buying the text and, often, dropped out to pursue opportunities that came to them as a result of their curiosity-based knowledge and skills.

    For example, I didn't learn proper relational database design until my junior year in college. But I know plenty of people who picked this up in high school (often by discovering all of the wrong ways to do something, which appears to be a very good method for obtaining mastery of a subject).

  19. Re:Cause and Effect on You Are Not Mark Zuckerberg, So Stay In School · · Score: 1

    These dropouts dropped out because they were wildly successful. They didn't become wildly successful by dropping out.

    Right. When I talk to people who are going down the Computer Science route, I tell them to stick with it and use the acquired skills to develop that next big thing.

    "If you graduate, then you have failed."

    Failed at making the next big thing. But, in doing so, have a wonderful plan b.

  20. Re:see power point can cost you your job on PowerPoint Rant Costs Colonel His Job · · Score: 3, Funny

    Unfortunately sometimes you can't just talk one-on-one to everyone and you will have to present information to a large group. Your options for presenting information to a crowd:
    --vocal: just talking for an hour, which is popular in many religions, and we all remember what the sermon was about last Sunday, right?
    --visual text: just endless paragraphs so they can read along which, as far as I can tell, no one does
    --multimedia: pictures, audio and video that attempts to explain in a manner easily digestible, hence Powerpoint

    The delicious irony of explaining the situation with what might as well be a powerpoint slide. Nice bullet points. A+++ would buy again.

  21. Google TV on What Are Google and Verizon Up To? · · Score: 4, Funny

    We can ditch the cableco and finally get ala carte programming.

  22. But it is on a *computer* on Amazon Seeks 1-Nod Ordering Patent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The patent office will rubber-stamp anything obvious if it is done on a computer. The one-click patent is a wonderful example: for decades, bartenders have been taking a patron's credit card and setting it aside. This allows the patron to simply "run a tab" and order a beer with just one click of the finger. This can't be patented because it is obvious to everyone.

    But, if you do it on a computer, you can patent it for some reason. The mind boggles.

  23. Re:Programming on How Many Hours a Week Can You Program? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As long as you're interested in what you program, you can easily do it full work days.

    I think that you are missing the lower level question:

    How many hours per day will your brain allow you to be functional at a given task?

    When I did lots of SQL-based web development, I would toil away for 12-16 hours on some days only to have the answer in my head after a good night's rest. This happened a lot (and was a little frustrating to do in 10 minutes what could not be done in 10 hours the day before). Maybe I just suck at SQL-based web development but the whole concept of a mental limit is interesting to me.

  24. Democracy? on James Lovelock Suggests Suspending Democracy To Save the World · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here in the US, we don't have democracy now. We have a two party, democratic REPUBLIC. The politicians can pretty much do whatever they want after they have been elected because the media has conditioned us to believe that we have only two parties from which to choose (i.e. - "bipartisan").

    Ban the party system. At this point, the legislative vending machine that we call "government" will fall apart and we'll have something much closer to "democracy".

  25. Re:Personal Cloud... on Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released · · Score: 1

    Do its pipes get filled with enormous amounts of materiel?

    I believe that the Rolling Stones answered this decades ago:

    I said, Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
    Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
    Hey! You! Get off of my cloud
    Don't hang around 'cause tubes'll crowd
    On my cloud, baby