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User: zazenation

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  1. Thanks for the 411.

    1) It doesn't surprise me that the tribal fiefdom mentality contributed to it.

    2) I remember back in the day when I lived in MA that they had a "shall issue" FID card system for long guns and a "may issue" discretionary system for pistols that was up to the whim of the local sheriff (sigh).

    3) Or they carry a BB gun or painted over red tip air-soft gun for intimidation then the family cries over the coffin and whine to the cameras when they get shot by police while being "unarmed"!
    Which brings to mind. Now it seems that criminals use crazy excuses for being in possession of ANY contraband. I remember a story way back when where they caught some fool with drugs in his pocket and he said with a straight face that they weren't his pants!

    The old adage, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away" says it all.

       

  2. This response reminds me of the experimental program for illegal gun possession that was tried some decades ago -- Project Exile. You get caught with an illegal gun, you bought yourself a mandatory 5 year felony sentence -- regardless of how "innocent" you were of other crimes.
    It seems to address all the right behavior for all the right reasons. I looked it up on Wiki and it seems that Rochester NY is the sole jurisdiction where it is still in practiced.
    I remember reading in the distant past that it was not being enforced at the federal level for some unknown reason as I recall.
    Too bad that the program didn't fly, makes perfect sense to address illegal firearms possession. Anyone know why it faded out?

  3. Re:But we just passed a law to fix this.... on Smartphones Are Killing Americans, But Nobody's Counting (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Maybe get a mandatory inexpensive gaze tracker installed to monitor eye movement, connected to the car. Like those drunk driver breathalizers for ignition lockout.
    Off the top of my head, say looking away more than 3 seconds from some range of straight ahead gets your hazard flashers activated and the ignition cut for some amount of time, perhaps longer the more frequent the behavior.
    Would be frustrating for die hard distracted drivers to say the least.

  4. White House, Tennesse for the view of a lifetime on Ask Slashdot: How Did You Experience The Solar Eclipse? · · Score: 1

    I rounded up a couple of astronomy freaks and on a thumbs up on clear(ish) weather report on Friday for "partly cloudy" on Monday and made the decision to head down to White House, Tennessee -- smack dab in the middle of the totality track. We headed out from Buffalo, NY on Saturday to Pittsburgh, then Sunday to Cincinnati, leaving early Monday morning for Tennessee. No problems.

    Got a prime spot at 7AM no sweat in a shelter in a local park with electricity, restrooms and water. By around 10am or so the park was filled to capacity and then some. Tallied license plates from 30 other states. Met all sorts of random people and shared stories. A few wandering clouds floated by but they were gone by totality, just some haze from the high humidity.

    Totality was more exciting than I could have imagined! No fancy equipment other than a beach chair and plenty of refreshing fluids. Excitement was audible as totality ensued, Park lights turned on, temp dropped to the 50s from almost 90 and the crowd went crazy. Some bozo even fired off a firework in the distance.

    Like a black hole in space. No way ANY recording device could capture the experience -- would be like looking at a photograph of earth from orbit. More exciting than the first time I saw the Aurora, Perseids, Milky Way, outer planets or even Hale-Bopp.

    Worth the hundreds of miles of driving and 12 hour traffic jam on the return trip to Cincinnati. A solid 8 out of 10 on the astronomical boner scale. Only a live orbital view could top it, IMHO. Maybe they'll have a lottery for one someday.

    Finally, just a shout out for the Tennessee weather gods for giving Murphy the bum's rush that day!

  5. Sales will always be sales on Verizon Tells Customer He Needs 75Mbps For Smoother Netflix Video · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This tactic has been used in auto sales for years.
    Selling customers at closing "undercoating, rustproofing and fabric protection" that are already part of the car, but get people to shell out extra coin for. Extended warranties fall into the same category. Just extra profit if nobody questions it.
    I guess all those unemployed car sales-bodies have to take a job somewhere.

  6. Re:Very sad on "Car Talk" Co-Host Tom Magliozzi Dies At Age 77 · · Score: 1

    Uh oh, input error. Will anybody care about my car?

  7. Very sad on "Car Talk" Co-Host Tom Magliozzi Dies At Age 77 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I lived in Beantown, I used to take my care there on occasion. You couldn't know a more down to earth and practical individual. I will mourn his passing.

  8. Re:Mating opportunities? on The Neuroscience of Happiness · · Score: 1

    Was it similar to the donkey show in "Clerks 2"?

  9. Re:I'm not sure why all the cynicism... on Anthropologist Spends Three Years Living With Hackers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's not to be cynical about?

    " ... I was blown away by how culturally deep it was."

    Sure. Correct the flawed stereotypes with more subjective flawed stereotypes by a naive observer.

    She was correcting her engrained 'Revenge of the Nerds' stereotype of hackers with an equally arrogant attitude, similar to those of parents who visit a zoo, point to the gorillas and say to their children -- "Hey little Johnny, look at the big monkeys! (while tapping the glass under the sign that says DON"T TAP ON GLASS) Look, at those hands and fingers -- They're just like ours!" -- concluding with huge collective swigs from their BIG GULP clones.

    She seems to be aiming to take the logical, thoughtful, democratic behavior hackers exhibit -- which should be the vanguard for all human interaction -- and bending it into an amusing sidebar for WIRED as to the hackers "unusual" habits. All for a chance to get her name in print for some future book jacket blurb regarding "... her insightful and seminal work as she risked her name, sanity and possibly even her life as she descend into the seamy hacker underworld to collect research data..."

    This is all much like the gorilla inwardly cringing whenever he's called a monkey.

    YMMV

  10. Re:Not so perfect on MIT Researchers Invent 'Super Glass' · · Score: 1

    With that remark, one might deduce that MIT had invented time travel...

  11. Re:What if your phone is stolen? on Will Mobile Wallets Replace Their Traditional Counterparts? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have only one word to respond to that ---

    Human Engineering

    (It's two words actually, but it sounds much more dramatic to say one word...)

    How easy would it be to watch Barbie or Kelly type in their PIN number at the gas station, a shoe store or the Clinique counter. Phones are popular theft items to begin with.

  12. Great sex toy on Boston Dynamics' PETMAN Humanoid On Video · · Score: 2

    Pet _MAN
    How appropriate.

    It will be a hit with woman.

    It let's itself be pushed around,
    It checks the toilet seat state.
    It proposes on one knee.

    The only flaw I see, is that it only seems to know the missionary position...

  13. Re:Not this time: on Hackers Briefly Controlled US Government Satellites · · Score: 1

    Source: http://www.synonyms.net/synonym/surrender

    surrender, yielding, capitulation, giving up, resignation, fall, forsaking, concession, surrender, resignation, conceding

    Depending on your point of view these can apply as well: Withdraw, fall back, retreat.

    So what does that say about English speaking countries?

    You forgot ---

    "Yes, dear"
    and its variant
    "OK, honey"

  14. Re:Still an unsustainable deficit on S&P's $2 Trillion Math Mistake · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of a tale of woe in a company cafeteria many many many moons ago.

    A stock room clerk was lamenting the spending of $1500 (on the credit card) by his wife for shoes and clothing the previous month. He told us that when he confronted his wife as to the large outflow, she sincerely responded that she didn't actually spend $1500. She told him she SAVED the family $300 since she bought the merchandise on sale. Further explanation of flawed reasoning led to tears.

  15. All things in DC rise with taxes on Price Shocks May Be Coming For Helium Supply · · Score: 0, Troll

    What this seems to say is that the price of helium has historically been inversely proportional to the televised quantity of hot air generated by Washington pols. Now they're changing the rules so it is directly proportional to Washington gas emissions. This includes all gases generated by any Washington orifice -- lighter than air or not...

  16. Re:80m? Quite a hair. on Sony Unveils Flexible OLED Thinner Than a Hair · · Score: 1

    But it would be about right for a person that was 2 mega meters tall...

  17. 2010 on Jupiter Is Missing a Belt · · Score: 5, Funny

    "My God! It's full of stars!"

    At least we get to use almost all the moons....

  18. Movie references on What Free Antivirus Do You Install On Windows? · · Score: 1

    From the movie "The Treasure of Silicon Valley", Bill Gates in a bandito hat indignantly replies to Humphrey "Don't" Bogart:

    "Antivirus? We ain't got no Antivirus. We don't need no Antivirus! I don't have to show you any stinkin' Antivirus!"

    Often misquoted from "Blazing Windows" as
    "We don't need no stinkin' Antivirus!"

  19. Revolutionary! on Blind Soldier Uses Tongue To "See" · · Score: 1

    Does this mean that blind people can now read PLAYBOY for more than just the articles?

  20. Re:Culture, not money on Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards? · · Score: 1

    You hit the proverbial nail -- Sad to say.

          I'd like to add how television aids in reinforcing this behavior pattern. It would probably be a safe bet to say that education desire/absorption is inversely proportion to the number of hours in front of the tube.
          (In my formative years, I could count on one hand the number of UHF and VHF channels. Therefore, less TV watching, not to mention that one had to actually get up off the sofa to change the channel. A TV in one's room was a non starter.)
          Try and convince the inner city single parent to limit the hours in front of the electronic babysitter. The imagery on the tube almost never reinforces education for advancement. Street smarts and gaming the system is all that is required to get ahead and/or be popular.

  21. Boogie man on Australian Govt. Proposes Internet "Panic Button" For Kids · · Score: 1

    Good idea -- incorrect routing.

    Have the dolphin button ring the parents cell phone with a message like:
    "(Kid's name) is having an Internet Panic Attack --- If you don't respond to this message, then the call will be routed to your local law enforcement division -- Remember, please monitor and talk with your children!"

    Supply a pager to the parents without a cell phone. Seems like a far less costly method than having to hire thousands of police and/or SS workers to handle the plethora of "I wanna see someone jump when I feel bad" abusers.

    And don't forget the legions of lawyers that will be necessary to sort through the pile of litigation!

  22. Re:The soylent nature of /. --- is people! on Mimicking Materials and Structures In Nature · · Score: 1

    My initial gut reaction was also ants.
    But ants are unconsciously programmed to create a huge feeding mechanism for their queen and her progeny. They throw themselves on the metaphorical sword in its defense. I don't see that in /.
    More like piranha at times.

    Maybe some kind of hybrid ? Or ants on LSD? I remember reading some time ago they somehow dosed a spider with LSD and the resulting web was pretty bizarre and unsymmetrical.

    This is /. after all -- free your mind. I've had my fill of the Bickersons.

  23. The soylent nature of /. --- is people! on Mimicking Materials and Structures In Nature · · Score: 1

    Though not strictly a physical material, this got me thinking.
    What would be the underlying metaphorical model for /.
      ?

    Ants, piranha, beavers, jellyfish, cats?

    Leave It to Beaver, The Honeymooners, Star Trek?

    The school lunch room, D&D party, After work at the pub, French salons on hypnotics?

    Logical / illogical anarchy at its finest?

    ?????

  24. agreed on Teenager Invents Cheap Solar Panel From Human Hair · · Score: 2, Funny

    This experiment is totally fake...

    He is either soaking the hairs in cold fusion liquid solvent to obtain a voltage or using a simple subminiature matter- antimatter induction pump to produce it. Who does this bozo think he's fooling???

  25. Scientific evidence for self satisfaction? on Daily Sex Helps Improve Fertility · · Score: 1

    I'll bet this new info will jack off---er--up-- Fleshlight sales....