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User: thoughtfulbloke

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Comments · 69

  1. Re:Umm... on Marvel's New Thor Will Be a Woman · · Score: 1

    That was played out in the TV series The Almighty Johnsons

  2. Easy answer on Ask Slashdot: Anti-Camera Device For Use In a Small Bus? · · Score: 1

    This is easy, and cheap to implement solution to this technical problem that completely meets requirements. Just seal over all the windows so no light can get in so that the interior is in pitch darkness and have no interior lighting.
    You can even have your own cameras work by fitting out night vision ones. This solution is a vast improvement of depriving people of their vision for the trip with blindfolds, as that doesn't stop cameras from working if pointed randomly.
    There is still a potential issue with flash photography, but you can't expect me to solve all your problems.

  3. Re:VPNs not safe from the NSA on Training Materials for NSA Spying Tool "XKeyScore" Revealed · · Score: 1

    Well, standard policing is increasingly being handled by SWAT team raids anyway, so there is not much of a difference in application between parking fines and threats to the state.

  4. Re:Watch your clauses, people! on Largest DDoS In History Reaches 300 Billion Bits Per Second · · Score: 3, Funny

    In fact, the crosswords are so popular that they have decided articles should become more cryptic to draw in the same audience.

  5. Re:Heads on pikes on $616.57 Three Strikes Verdict Cost RIANZ $250,000 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You asked "When they *lose* money, what then?".
    They bill the artists the costs of "protecting the artist's copyrights"

  6. Re:Poor summary on Norwegian Study: Global Warming Less Severe Than Feared · · Score: 2

    I would regard an extinction level event to ocean acidification as a tipping point, and based on the geological record we seem on track for that.

  7. As noted in the article on Pot Smokers Might Not Turn Into Dopes After All · · Score: 1

    The original study was restated to middle class children, which arguably means it was corrected for socioeconomic factors (or that only middle class kids who smoke dope experience IQ loss).
    What is implicit in the article is that the first study may not be as strong, or the effect might be more complex than initially indicated.

  8. Re:The bill is redundant. on Congressman Introduces Bill To Ban Minting of Trillion-Dollar Coin · · Score: 2

    What is being discussed in this article is 31 U.S.C. 5112(k) as originally enacted by Public Law 104-208 in 1996: "The Secretary may mint and issue bullion and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary's discretion, may prescribe from time to time." Passed by a Republican Congress over the objections of a Democratic Treasury. Technically the statute was amended in 2000, making it clearer that Platinum coins were intended.

  9. H.G. Wells on Single Microbe May Have Triggered the "Great Dying" · · Score: 0

    "And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martiansâ"dead!â"slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth." Admittedly, Wells had a better fleshed out mechanism for his bacteria.

  10. Re:What about families? on Google Axes Free Google Apps For Businesses · · Score: 1

    Small non-profit volunteer groups outside the U.S. are also losing with this. Registered U.S. non-profits can use the full apps free, but the free version was extremely well suited to small groups outside of America. Between exchange rates, being the kind of people who are time rich/ money poor but wanting to volunteer (retired and students), and that all such groups need are a few email addresses and some web space, there is now way such groups would justify the full business edition. It might be different for those groups who exist to raise money, but currently it closes an good easy pathway. I set up a group like this last week, who are a registered charity in my country, but are just starting up so have time and enthusiasm but not much cash in $US business terms.

  11. Re:The real question... on Romney-Ryan Release Space Policy Paper · · Score: 1

    If anyone from the Romney team is reading this let me help. This explanation is good for Kindergartener level, so should be useful despite a few simplifications
    The Earth is a globe made atoms of different kinds. It is held together by gravity, which is a force that pulls atoms together. When you have atoms of different kinds the heavy, tightly packed atoms tend to wind up closer to the middle than the light ones. So we have heavy solids, then a layer of liquid, then a layer of air. Within the layer of air, the air closer to the ground is more tightly packed than the air closer to space. A jet plane can travel so high it can move people from where the air is what we are use to, to where the air is too thinly spread out to breath. To let people breath, jet planes need to keep the air inside. To do this, they do not let people open the windows, as this would let the air out.
    P.S. when talking about air, the expression "The air is thin at the top" is not a business metaphor for a limited number of first class jobs, it means there is not much air high up from the ground.

  12. Re:Honestly on Green Party Releases International Joint Statement Criticizing the TPP · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actual-green parties (which is to say ones with a representation in parliament), rather than straw-man imagined green parties, are normally on the same side as the non-corporate libertarians when it comes to matters of government transparency.
    I think most of the hate comes from people with no actual experience of living anywhere with greens in government, so not knowing they have actually been quite effective at pushing pro-open government, anti-corporate influence issues in a direction that suits most libertarians.

  13. Laser or Heat-Ray on Curiosity Rover Fires First Laser Beam At Martian Rock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    shot with 30 pulses over a 10-second period by Curiosity's laser today in order to determine what elements it was made of

    or as H.G. Wells put it,

    ...the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. Then the Thing shut off the Heat-Ray, and turning its back...

  14. Re:Ending badly? on Plan to Slow Global Warming By Dumping Iron Sulphate into Oceans · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I wouldn't worry about algal carbon sequestering leading to no fish, the acidification of the oceans from current atmospheric carbon levels will take care of that.

  15. Re:Fishy... on The Leap: Gesture Control Like Kinect, But Cheaper and Higher Resolution · · Score: 1

    >I'm having trouble understanding exactly what kinds of technology this device is using to obtain accuracy


    Handwavium?

  16. Cheap Digital Camera on Ask Slashdot: Building an Assistive Reading Device? · · Score: 1

    I know some who basically did this with a cheap digital camera that had a Camera to TV set cable. I think, from memory it was a Kodak Camera. Put the camera on a stand with a lot of lighting, and enough shielding that the lights used to illuminate the book are not going to interfere with someone with poor eyesight being able to see the TV screen clearly.
    That said, I also know several people with strong levels of visual impairment who have found the various iDevices to be game changers for them in the past few years, particularly when on the go. In this case, if electronic texts of favorite works are available I can think of ways of scripted conversions to movie files to play via an Apple TV. Basically compiling a movie file of text (sized and fonted for easy reading) playing at an appropriate reading speed.

  17. Re:Legal Weight? on 1st Strikes Issued Under New Zealand Anti-Piracy Laws · · Score: 2

    Not a Lawyer, am a New Zealander. After the 3rd warning notice the copyright owner can take you (the account holder of the IP address, as they are the one's liable) to the Copyright Tribunal (not a standard court), if they win it is damages in the range $275 to $15000.
    For more information see the 3strikes website.

  18. Re:Hahahahaha on New Mac OS Trojan Produces BitCoins · · Score: 2

    Didn't you read the summary?

  19. History blind study on Model Says Religiosity Gene Will Dominate Society · · Score: 1

    Putting aside that There Is No Religious Gene so the premise is bunk, the study is starting from the present and extrapolating forwards. If there was a genetic basis for religion, then the huge worldwide rise of secularism over the past 20 generations suggests that it has been massively selected for, and I can see no reason for that long running trend to suddenly change.

  20. Re:Oh Wow on Google Holds Global Science Fair · · Score: 2

    Neat project, but I'm more impressed that your 11 year old daughter can write python

    In teaching her python, the key explanation that made things understandable was:
    hey_you.do_this(with_this)
    Which covered enough understanding of object orientation to make useful progress.

  21. Re:Oh Wow on Google Holds Global Science Fair · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If my child was 13, she would love to participate in this.
    Last year she won the regional science fair here (which was open to 11-17 year olds), but could not progress to the national contest (which was open to 13-17 year olds).
    For reference, a link to her project site . Hopefully, this will continue to run in the future, when she is eligible.

  22. Re:I can say now: faulty on Cambridge Computer IDs World's Most Boring Day · · Score: 1

    Maybe a lot of interesting stuff did happen on April 18ths in other years. But the article is about the most boring day since 1900 (though that wasn't mentioned in the summary) rather than most boring day of the year, hence the computer determining April 11th 1954. April 18th 1930 was the day noted at the time as so boring they cancelled the evening news.

  23. Re:I can say now: faulty on Cambridge Computer IDs World's Most Boring Day · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To determine the most boring day, you either need every fact or one fact: That on Good Friday, 1930, the B.B.C. evening news announcer led the bulletin with "There is no news tonight" and gave a piano recital in place of the normal bulletin.
    Mentioned on the BBC website
    or according to the software used, does the fact that the day was recognised as one on which nothing happened make the day itself interesting.

  24. Re:They deserve any late fees they get? on Computer Glitch Leaves Some Australians Without Cash · · Score: 1

    The batch file stuff-up happened Wednesday, and up to 40,000 customers may be waiting until Monday to get things fixed.
    By the reports, the compounding effects of the batch problems flowed through to Thursday and Friday. The bank opened some of its branches today (Saturday) so people could seek help (they would normally be closed in the weekend).

  25. Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless on TSA Saw My Junk, Missed Razor Blades, Says Adam Savage · · Score: 1

    Well, Terrorists tried attacking Glasgow Airport, but it didn't end well for them.
    Meet John Smeaton