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User: Bob+the+Super+Hamste

Bob+the+Super+Hamste's activity in the archive.

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  1. Re:I got those calls every few days on TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers · · Score: 1

    I should just hand him the phone, and say, "hey, this guy wants you to tell him all about Minecraft, Rainbow Loom, and Pokemon!!"

    With my 3 year old replace those with things with the trips up to the iron range, the threshing shows, and the railroad museum in Golden, CO. The kid would talk for hours if you let him.

  2. Re:Not surprising on California DMV Told Google Cars Still Need Steering Wheels · · Score: 1

    Nice, most people don't know that much about their vehicles. Posi is fairly rare on vehicle but is great if you have it and getting the 4 wheel disk is always a worth while upgrade if not standard. Also good job on maintaining the oft neglected diff fluid

    While the purpose of a burnout is in part to remove the debris from the tires it is mostly to heat the slicks up so they are good and sticky so you can get a good launch off the line and not spin the tires as much. If it were just about scraping the crap off there wouldn't be a need to keep going beyond the first couple of revolutions until they smoke. Some drag races do like the big burnouts which as you stated really wastes tires, while others (like my father) do them until they see the smoke out the rear view, or enough to get the tires hot and sticky but not waste them. Also most of the drag I've seen are running 4.10 or 4.11 gears so it is even easier to break them loose. There still is the difference between drag slicks and street tires with street tires offering no where near the traction of the traction of even cold slicks.

  3. Re:Not surprising on California DMV Told Google Cars Still Need Steering Wheels · · Score: 1

    That is the parking brake which doesn't do much of anything except help stop you from rolling when parked on a hill. As mentioned elsewhere it is a steel cable that basically pulls the shoes or pads of the rear wheels so they press against the drum or rotor. This is different from the hydraulic system that produces the majority of the braking power.

  4. Re:Not surprising on California DMV Told Google Cars Still Need Steering Wheels · · Score: 1

    I drive a '95 Impala. I can hold the brakes at a stop and floor the throttle, and cut the back tires loose.

    Congratulations you have successfully mastered the art of the burn out with one wheel (I doubt you have a limited slip diff in that thing) on street tires. Now depending on what the vehicle has for rear brakes this this might be somewhat impressive to someone (4 wheel disk) or is just meh (rear drum). You also didn't mention that the front wheels stay put during this exercise. To be fair I did similar things in my '97 BMW 540i but that had 4 wheel disk brakes with an aftermarket posi diff but even then the front wheels would stay planted.

    Speaking of burnouts I take it you haven't seen a real drag race. Even with some nice extra wide hot drag slicks on the back with the small pizza cutter tires in front the braking action only cause the car to slide forward very slowly.

  5. Re:If you want to screw with them inexpensively... on TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers · · Score: 1

    I guess I should save some of those used gift cards instead of tossing them. This sounds like a great idea.

  6. Re:I know two victims on TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers · · Score: 1

    I have attempted to report them to my state's Attorney General but she is too busy being a political hack to do anything about them. It would be nice if our government actually decided to investigate and stop interstate and international wire fraud but that doesn't seem to be a high priority for them. Maybe more people need to start reporting them. Also wasting their time and reporting them aren't mutually exclusive although wasting their time seems to produce better results.

  7. Re:seriously? on TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a great job to me with the compensation on the side probably paying more then the day job. From my understanding the street value of kilos of explosives or various narcotics is in the 10s of thousands of dollars or that is what the nightly news would have me believe.

  8. Re:I got those calls every few days on TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sounds like what I did to the "your car's warranty is about to expire" people about 3 months after I got my jeep. I figured they got a dump of people who had recently purchased a used vehicle. I was mostly polite but would string them along. With that Jeep there was no way they would ever offer a warranty (at the time it was 15 years old and only had 368,XXX miles on it) but would act interested. Eventually they would want vehicle information and telling them it is a '96 with that mileage they would inform me that it didn't qualify for a warranty. At this point I knew the conversation was over but once I did get it "escalated" to a "supervisor", the guy one phone over, and got to do it again.

    I also like giving the phone to one of my children. It is down right hilarious to hear a 3 year old get fed up with these scammers, mine really likes to tell stories and eventually tell the scammer to "Stop talking now! I'm trying to tell you something!". My 6 year old is a much better communicator but is very inquisitive and will ask them all sorts of questions.

  9. Re: The Tools of Science on 13-Year-Old Finds Fungus Deadly To AIDS Patients Growing On Trees · · Score: 2

    pigeons for example are known carriers

    All the more reason to get rid of these rats with wings.

  10. Re:That's why slashdot is against tech immigration on Tech Looks To Obama To Save Them From 'Just Sort of OK' US Workers · · Score: 1

    True and I wasn't trying to imply there was. I just hadn't thought about yours a possible solution. I think the next time I write my elected officials on the subject I will offer both, especially since one of my Senators was responsible for the introduction of legislation that would have automatically bumped up the number of H1Bs if the cap was met up to some ridiculous amount.

  11. Re:Have you hired Americans on Tech Looks To Obama To Save Them From 'Just Sort of OK' US Workers · · Score: 1

    I doubt that your field is so specialized that there exists no American who could do any of the three jobs, but maybe you have other things working against you like:
    A shit work environment
    A shit location that no one wants to live in
    Shit compensation
    Made up shit job requirements (looking at you 10+ years Java experience in 2000, or 5+ years experience with Win2k3 in '04)

    So maybe the answer is to improve one or more of the above until someone actually wants to work for your company. Then again you are AC so for all I know you are Sergey Brin shilling for you next quarterly report to increase shareholder value.

  12. Re:Bullshit on Tech Looks To Obama To Save Them From 'Just Sort of OK' US Workers · · Score: 1

    Sounds similar to a call from a recruiter I got about a year ago. The requirement was the laundry list of technical skills but in a highly specialized area with a requirement to move from my low cost area to a high cost area where I doubt I would have been able to ever afford what I currently have for less than a quarter million a year. When the recruiter gave we the wage a they were offering I stuttered and stammered at which point I was asked if that was good. I replied with a no as I was currently making about 2.5 times as much and was in a better (lower crime, better schools, less crowding, less polution) and cheaper (food, property, energy) area.

  13. Re:That's why slashdot is against tech immigration on Tech Looks To Obama To Save Them From 'Just Sort of OK' US Workers · · Score: 1

    I like your idea as it is an interesting difference to my opinion in that if the H1Bs are so critical to a company that all H1B holders should be the individuals in the company with the highest total compensation (including benefits, retirement packages, relocation packages, company provided vehicles/drivers, etc). This holds true given the premise (probably false) that this is a particularly rare skill set that they couldn't find anyone in the US to do the job and couldn't train someone into the position in time since it is so critical. For cases where this is truly a critical unique skill set that is needed to complete a project or task this shouldn't be much of a problem, yes I do realize that such cases will exist, since huge companies that import vast quantities of H1Bs can eat the cost since we hear that CEO compensation isn't a problem, and tiny companies there more than likely isn't a huge spread in compensation.

    Either way making your change or mine would do wonders for showing how critical these people actually are to the company instead of being a method to save some money. It needs to be clear that H1Bs are a more expensive route. Also why don't we see any H1Bs in management since it seems finding highly qualified competent management is truly a rare thing?

  14. Re:Correction: on FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike · · Score: 1

    Cable tv/internet franchises almost always come with a build out requirement

    That are then ignored without consequence.

    For example a decade ago some company wanted to put fiber (I think it was Verizon) in the new developments across the street from my mom's house where there expensive $750,000+ houses were going in. It was stipulated that they also had to roll out fiber to the rest of the city if they wanted to install in the new developments. 10 years on there still isn't fiber outside of the new developments, and there aren't any plans to install it either.

  15. Re:It's funny how excited Republicans are by this! on How To Read a Microbiome Study Like a Scientist · · Score: 1

    I didn't know you rectum and throat were the same thing?

  16. Re:This is the future Republicans want for all of on Google Receives Takedown Request Every 8 Milliseconds · · Score: 1

    I beg to disagree. Under the 2 party system things change, just not for the better. One party can erode one set of rights and then in a few years they lose power and the other party gets to erode some other rights. They both then get to campaign on the rights that the other side took away, yet never manage to get around to reinstating them when they are in power.

  17. Re:McDonallds should sue ... on Comcast Training Materials Leaked · · Score: 1

    This may have some to do with the topology in you area. I live in a low area in my neighborhood and while the main 2 antennas, they are on the north side of the cities about 1/4 mile apart, are close, there isn't a clear line of sight to them from my house, even with a 16' mast and large antenna point correctly. I gave up on TV with the switch to digital and I find that I really haven't missed much.

  18. Re:High tech farming on FarmBot: an Open Source Automated Farming Machine · · Score: 1

    I just keep hearing about how California needs all of this migrant farm labor to bring in the harvest from the news so I figured that migrant labor (probably illegal) was still widely used instead of mechanization.

    Living in an upper Midwestern state California, comparatively, is a slacker when it comes to food production and with good preservation techniques having good food is easy year round even when it isn't in season. Case in point I have found that by being a cheap guy I have also become mostly a localivore (still hate that stupid term) since it is cheaper to go and buy in bulk from the farmer, and then can, dry, prepare and freeze, pickle, or otherwise preserve the food than to buy as needed at the grocery store. Basically I do the following:
    get a few 50 lbs sack of potatoes for $5 each and just keep them in the cool dark basement
    Can up 10s of gallons of stews, chiles, sauces, and soups made from meat from farmers I know and stuff out of my garden
    make jams, fruit sauces, dried fruit, and preservers from trees on my own property or from local orchards
    Make a bunch of meals and just freeze them (lots of home made pasta dishes)
    Freeze a bunch of raw food
    Buy large sacks of dried beans
    If you dedicate a few weekends in the late summer and fall to cooking it is amazing how much food you can make and preserve and then not have to worry about cooking for most of the year.

  19. Re:High tech farming on FarmBot: an Open Source Automated Farming Machine · · Score: 1

    Just because in the southwest US (looking at you California that should be a desert) they still use lots of manual labor doesn't mean that that there aren't machine that can harvest these crops. There are machines that shake fruit trees and catches it, picks grapes off the vines, harvest tomatoes (the machine takes in the whole plant), and I wouldn't be surprised if picking things like broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce couldn't be done in a similar fashion, especially given what I have seen in the grocery store over the last few years.

  20. Re:Does it matter? on Plan Would Give Government Virtual Veto Over Internet Governance · · Score: 5, Funny

    Easy I can name 2:

    1. Iran
    2. North Korea

  21. Re:"they shouldn't email you?" on Daimler's Solution For Annoying Out-of-office Email: Delete It · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Employees often feel that they can't say "no" to the expectation that they have to be available via email even while at home off work hours.

    People just need to make it clearer that you will be unreachable. My managers stopped when they insisted that they needed a way to get a hold of me in case of emergency since I would be well out of cellphone range. My response was a trained tracker and a team of search dogs. I told him about where I was going to be leaving my car and said to start searching there as I would be somewhere up in the north woods of Minnesota.

  22. Re:What kind of fish? on Fighting Invasive Fish With Forks and Knives · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I like my method of turning carp into something delicious better:
    1. Catch the carp
    2. load up ~100lbs of carp in the back of the jeep in a big plastic tub
    3. dig a big hold in the garden
    4. bury carp in the garden
    They make a wonderful fertilizer. I also do the same thing with the little crappy bullheads from the pond that is full of sheep field run off near my house.

  23. Re:/Oblg. Hemp for Victory ! on Hemp Fibers Make Better Supercapacitors Than Graphene · · Score: 1

    I thought opium was blamed for the Chinese being lazy, and marijuana was blamed for the Mexicans being lazy.

  24. Re:My White Naked Ass on Google's Satellites Could Soon See Your Face From Space · · Score: 1

    No they won't it is too reflective it will just over expose the whole area around it.

  25. Re:Money pit on With Chinese Investment, Nicaraguan Passage Could Dwarf Panama Canal · · Score: 1

    That it has. The current gen are impressive machines, as are the old ones, and kids love seeing them. It is like a Tonka truck dream come true, or as my 3 year old put it shaking with excitement "They have a super dump truck and a super super dump truck!" when he first saw the 100 ton and 240 ton truck up in Virginia, MN.