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User: Daniel+Dvorkin

Daniel+Dvorkin's activity in the archive.

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Comments · 5,316

  1. Re:Yet Another Einstein Article on Probe of Einstein's Brain Reveals Clues To His Genius · · Score: 1

    If Einstein were alive, he would have told you, as he told them when he was still alive -- he wasn't particularly intelligent, only passionately curious.

    Curiosity is necessary for a great scientist (or even a not-so-great one) but it's not sufficient. Along with his brilliant statements about the nature of the universe, Einstein said a lot of goofy things, and this is one of them. His passionate curiosity combined with his intelligence is why he's still pretty much the canonical image of the scientist today. I guarantee you there are many, many people who are just as curious about the world as he was, and very few of them will be remembered.

  2. Re:accidental lie by omission. on Facebook Building a Company Town · · Score: 4, Funny

    So you may owe your soul to the company store, but fortunately, you can pay in Zynga tokens.

  3. Re:Washington Monument Syndrome on US Shutdown Is Good News For Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised you aren't in favor; the move comes right out of the Reagan playbook.

    IOKIYAR. Always and forever, remember this: IOKIYAR.

    Particularly if you're St. Ronald, of course.

  4. Re:Washington Monument Syndrome on US Shutdown Is Good News For Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    Yeah, nasty partisan news source there, but the fact that you're not getting that information from larger news sources should tell you something....

    Nice. "The less reporting, the larger the conspiracy!" Even Infowars hasn't reported on Barack HUSSEIN Obama's quadrillion-dollar black budget for orbiting mind control rays ... that must mean they're already operating!

  5. Re:"Black Ops," eh? on Fighting Zombies? Chevrolet Reveals New "Black Ops" Concept Truck · · Score: 1

    Yeah, pretty much that.

  6. "Black Ops," eh? on Fighting Zombies? Chevrolet Reveals New "Black Ops" Concept Truck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  7. Re:As someone not in favour of gay marriage on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 1

    Oh, but that's Different, you see. It's always Different when the group being targeted is someone you personally dislike.

    Also: Godwin! Godwin! You called Barilla a Nazi! Now anything you say is wrong, because Godwin!

  8. Re:Cashing in on the Chick-fil-A effect on Social Networks Force Barilla Chairman To Apologize For His Anti-gay Remarks · · Score: 1

    In my view intolerance and lack of respect for the views of others is no different than intolerance of race/religion/sex*/..etc. Intolerance is intolerance.

    It's for ideas like this that the saying "it's important to be open-minded, but not so much that your brains fall out" was coined. Tolerance and respect for the views of others are, on the whole, a good thing. But the views of people who believe that other people are in the wrong simply for living their lives as they see fit deserve not tolerance and respect, but scorn and condemnation. It's pretty much the verbal equivalent of another fine saying, "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

  9. Re:Is there really any point to this? on Tech In the Hot Seat For Oct. 1st Obamacare Launch · · Score: 1

    Everybody has the option of making more money

    Life on your planet must be very pleasant.

  10. Re:Re-Inventing The Wheel on As Hurricane Season Looms, It's Disaster-Preparedness Time · · Score: 1

    The werewolves are going to rip that guy apart.

  11. Re:There is no "online piracy" on UK MPs: Google Blocks Child Abuse Images, It Should Block Piracy Too · · Score: 1

    I remember people who cracked early DRM calling themselves "pirates" long before I heard politicians using the term. There was (at least) one fairly prolific cracking group back in the early 1980s that included amusing ASCII art of a pirate ship with every piece of software they distributed. So while I agree that the current legal use of the word is ridiculous, the fact is that we the geek-people kind of brought it on ourselves.

  12. Re:The most valuable part of some sites on Comments About Comments · · Score: 1

    This is painfully obvious on any thread concerning law, privacy, Big Data, religion, or economics. The hivemind has made up its mind on most aspects of these matters, so any comment parroting the approved opinion will be modded up, while any comment that opposes will be modded down, regardless of fact.

    He says, in a post currently modded to +5.

    On practically every issue, you'll see thoughtful, well-written posts expressing practically every possible opinion on that issue modded up, and trollish or semi-literate posts modded down. To be sure, there are certain opinions held by the majority of Slashdotters on a lot of these issues, and the ones you name are among them (with the exception of religion, where we're all over the map; believers who complain about anti-religious prejudice online are mostly just whining because their beliefs don't get the deference in forums like Slashdot that they usually do in our overwhelmingly religious society). But rarely if ever are these majorities overwhelming, and minority opinions very often receive upmods as long as they're expressed well.

    AFAICT, the whole "hivemind" thing really only exists in the minds of a small group of people who've convinced themselves that it exists, and take pride in all thinking alike on the subject. ;)

  13. "standards-based web platform" on Google Dropping Netscape Plugin API Support In Chrome/Blink · · Score: 5, Funny

    Standards are wonderful, and everyone should have their very own!

  14. Re:Free Market? LoL on How Car Dealership Lobbyists Successfully Banned Tesla Motors From Texas · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Also, a system corrupted by cronyism should not be confused with free market capitalism and should not be considered the natural end of free market capitalism -- it's simply a system corrupted by cronyism.

    Thank you for illustrating my point so neatly. Just as die-hard communists insist that real communism looks nothing like was practiced in the USSR, so do free-market fundamentalists insist that real capitalism looks nothing like what we have in the US ... both groups neatly ignoring the fact that in the real world, this is how their preferred system behaves. You can talk all you want about how it should work, or how you think it would work if certain conditions were met, but it doesn't make a damned bit of difference to how it actually works.

  15. Re:Free Market? LoL on How Car Dealership Lobbyists Successfully Banned Tesla Motors From Texas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yep. Anyone can describe a utopian economic system ("Under communism, everyone will work together for the common good!" "Under capitalism, competition and individual choice will lead to the greatest possible efficiency!") but in the real world, they all tend toward cronyism and corruption. Every single time.

  16. Re:who cares? on A Tale of Two MySQL Bugs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    mysql is of historical curiosity. At best.

    I'd be willing to bet there are more deployments of MySQL than of all other standalone RDBMSs combined.

  17. Re:What exactly is slowed? on New Research Could Slow Human Aging · · Score: 2

    Does this sort of thing cover both the aging of the body and the brain?

    Does it cover both the aging of the body and the heart? Both the aging of the body and the liver? Both the aging of the body and the third toe on the left foot?

    I know what you meant, but I get really tired of people acting like the brain and the body are something separate. The brain is part of the body; a complex and unique part, to be sure, but essentially it's just another organ. So if we can slow down aging generally, most likely our brains will benefit just as much as the rest of our bodies will.

  18. Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. on Australia Elects Libertarian-Leaning Senator (By Accident) · · Score: 1

    Okay, you win. ;)

  19. Re:Basic Statistics Deception on Arctic Ice Cap Rebounds From 2012 — But Does That Matter? · · Score: 1

    I'd just like to ask: where in this exchange was there ANYTHING about "denying" ANYTHING?

    If I see "such-and-such biological structure is too complex to have arisen by chance," I don't need to see the word "create" to know the person making the post is a creationist. If I see "Barack Hussein Obama" and "Kenya,", I don't need to see the word "birth" to know the person making the post is a birther. If I see a rambling post about Israel, the melting temperature of steel, and the patterns of building collapse, I don't have to see the word "truth" to know the person making the post is a 9/11 truther. Etc.

  20. Re:Basic Statistics Deception on Arctic Ice Cap Rebounds From 2012 — But Does That Matter? · · Score: 2

    Oh, please. This experiment is performed over and over again on Slashdot, on every story on the subject, and the results are plain to see. Most AC posts go unnoticed because they're AC, but for those that don't, there are plenty of responses giving links to easily accessible information on the actual science involved ... along with lots of upmods for the person making the original post, and responses talking about "warmism" and the huge piles of money allegedly being made by the AGW conspiracy and "hah hah, Al Gore is fat."

  21. Re:Voting "Accident"? I think not. on Australia Elects Libertarian-Leaning Senator (By Accident) · · Score: 1

    American ballots aren't as simple as you think they are. We have lots of candidates for each office (almost all the time, the Democrat and the Republican are the only ones most voters have ever heard of, but there's no shortage of others) and tons of ballot initiatives as well. Granted, we don't have the problem of major parties with confusingly similar names, but that's mainly because we're so boxed into the two-party system, without even a semi-major third party to act as a spoiler most of the time. On the rare occasions that candidates who aren't (D) or (R) get the top spot on the ballot, they do tend to get a lot more votes, probably for exactly the same reason as happened in this election.

  22. Re:Basic Statistics Deception on Arctic Ice Cap Rebounds From 2012 — But Does That Matter? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hey, careful. This is Slashdot. When it comes to AGW, stating the obvious truth can get you lots of negative mod points.

    Or it can get you lots of upmods from all the Bold Individualistic Un-PC Rebels Speaking Truth To Power just like you.

    Like religious fundamentalists, denialists pretending they're a persecuted minority are simultaneously pathetic and hilarious.

  23. Re:no ghettos pre-internet? on Could Technology Create Modern-Day 'Leper Colonies'? · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Don't forget the part about beating some guy's head into the pavement without checking to see if that guy was in a position to defend himself.

    Don't forget the part about being followed at night by an aggressive stranger, who is considerably bigger than you and may be (and in this case, of course, was) armed. Also don't forget the part about how you live in a state where you have the legal right to stand your ground. But maybe you should forget that last part, because Terms And Conditions May Apply.

  24. Re:Yep on New Giant Volcano Below Sea Is Largest In the World · · Score: 1

    Ah, well, yes, there is that.

  25. Re:Yep on New Giant Volcano Below Sea Is Largest In the World · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They didn't "redefine" it, they studied it until they understood it better. If you go to the doctor, are you upset because you get a diagnosis of a specific bacterial infection and a prescription for antibiotics instead of a diagnosis of "fever" and a bleeding to restore the balance of your bodily humors?