Slashdot Mirror


User: Fieryphoenix

Fieryphoenix's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
461
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 461

  1. Re:There's no starship with just an ion drive on Engineer Thinks We Could Build a Real Starship Enterprise In 20 Years · · Score: 1

    No, an engineer who designs a sexbot has an app for that.

  2. Re:Evolution on Did a Genome Copying Mistake Lead To Human Intelligence? · · Score: 1

    Survival strategy for the genes, not the organism.

  3. Re:does it surprise you? on Universities Hold Transcripts Hostage Over Loans · · Score: 2

    Debtor's prisons were real and need no quote marks. As late as the 19th century, if you owed debts you could not pay, you could be literally imprisoned in a workhouse where your tiny wages went to pay off the debt, often far insufficient to make headway paying it off. The poster is not insensitive, but rather has a better history education than you.
    The dilemma is that in order to pay off your student loans you need decent work, but in order to get decent work you need to pay off your student loans.

  4. Re:No he doesn't on Matt Groening Reveals Springfield Is In His Home State of Oregon · · Score: 1

    How dare you make distinctions, sir! This ridiculous amount of sense you're making threatens my confidence that I am not in fact the Archangel Michael, but only named in his honor. I won't stand for it!

  5. Makes a little sense on Robotic Squirrels Battle It Out With Rattlesnakes · · Score: 1

    The tail heats up so that it's more obvious to the snake than the body, while it moves rapidly to reduce the chance of the fangs actually stabbing the flesh of the tail.

  6. So What's The Penalty? on Facebook Asserts Trademark On "Book" In New User Agreement · · Score: 1

    They just cancel your account?

  7. Re:woah on Facebook Asserts Trademark On "Book" In New User Agreement · · Score: 5, Informative

    That carries no legal weight. The fact of a copyright is something determined by law, not by "agreement". You are not bound to obey copyright on the force of having "agreed" something is under copyright, you are bound by whether a work actually fulfills the requirements set forth by whatever applicable copyright law is in effect.

  8. Re:Fault on AT&T Charged US Taxpayers $16 Million For Nigerian Fraud Calls · · Score: 2

    It isn't. What is their fault is choosing to deliberately sabotage their identity validation procedures with the express purpose of keeping call volume (and hence government reimbursement) high, while knowing that the increased traffic would be largely overseas scammers, which they represented themselves as properly blocking according the deal they made with the government that allows them to operate the service in the first place.

  9. Re:I was getting these calls in 2002 on AT&T Charged US Taxpayers $16 Million For Nigerian Fraud Calls · · Score: 1

    Your responsibility under the ADA is to take the calls... not to take suspicious orders. If a hearing caller making the same order would be refused, then it's just fine to refuse the order from the relay caller... but you must provide the same service to a relay user as you would to a regular hearing caller.

  10. Re:Let me guess.... on AT&T Charged US Taxpayers $16 Million For Nigerian Fraud Calls · · Score: 1

    Relay services operate under FCC regulation and the Americans with Disabilities Act. FCC rules do not permit interference with calls, even calls involving illegal activity. This is because the phone calls of hearing impaired callers must be functionally equivalent to those of hearing telephone users. Hearing callers do not have operators on the line listening to their calls and disconnecting them if they do bad things, and so neither must hearing impaired calls have them. For the same reason calls are confidential. The only basis AT&T has to stop these was when the FCC first allowed the exception that international callers were not entitled to relay services, and required that relay providers develop procedures to reliably identify and disconnect such fraudulent scam calls. Evidently the problem for AT&T is that they did not take that responsibility seriously enough, perhaps as compared with the success rate of other TRS providers.

  11. Personal Time on Millions In China Live In Energy Efficient Caves · · Score: 1

    Do they sometimes set aside rooms for the husband to pursue his hobbies in and call it a man house?

  12. Not Such a Mystery on Historic Heat In North America Turns Winter To Summer · · Score: 1

    All this is due to the choice of my parents to spend their first winter in Arizona rather than stay in North Dakota as they have hitherto always done.

  13. Description Not Copywritable on Topher Grace Screens Star Wars Prequel Re-edit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Mr. Grace should be able to "release" his version, not directly, but by describing what sections of each source were used. For instance, something like this made up example: "Scene 1, five segments, 5 minutes 10 seconds. First Segment: Episode I Blu-ray, begin 1 hour 1 minute and 11 seconds, end 1 hour 3 minutes 52 seconds. Second Segment: Episode II Collector's Edition Blu-ray Deleted Scenes, "Meditation", begin 32 seconds, end 1 minute 2 seconds." etc etc.

  14. Re:Sue? on YouTube Identifies Birdsong As Copyrighted Music · · Score: 2

    Sadly, with many big content hosting companies, content is removed not via formal DMCA takedown requests, but through proprietary internal procedures that protect media corporations from the penalties.

  15. It didn't kill off the Mayans on Study Suggests Climate Change-Induced Drought Caused the Mayan Collapse · · Score: 2

    It just wrecked their civilization.

  16. Scammers not the ones who went to the police on Nigerian Scam Artists Taken For $33,000 · · Score: 1

    According to the article, it was the defrauded car buyers who went to the police. The scammers didn't complain that they didn't get their loot. This article implies that the woman cleverly reverse defrauded the scammers, when in fact she was complicit with them in stealing from the public and simply betrayed them. Honor among thieves, much?

  17. Re:Eat shit, not yogurt on Antibiotics Are Useless In Treating Most Sinus Infections · · Score: 1

    Sure... but it evolved to do that after a major intestinal purge, not a course of antibiotics, which kill bacteria "protected" inside the appendix just fine.

  18. Monitored Access on Ask Slashdot: How To Allow Test Takers Internet Access, But Minimize Cheating? · · Score: 1

    Provide the devices on which internet access is allowed. Visually record and log all activity on each device and let students know beforehand that the recording will be made.

  19. Re:Not so sure about this. on Multicellular Life Evolves In Months, In a Lab · · Score: 1

    Thank you for posting that thought so that I didn't have to.

  20. Re:EULAs on Sony Sued Over PSN 'No Suing' Provision · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having a PS3 without being able to play online is kinda like having a TV that you can only watch VHS tapes on. Yeah, technically it's using it, but without the TV stations its value is greatly diminished.

  21. Re:Google shouldn't had given them such right on YouTube Says UMG Had No 'Right' To Take Down Megaupload Video · · Score: 2

    Google admits that this process that was used is not actually DMCA take down procedure. It's just a privilege they granted UMC that UMC abused.

  22. Re:This is... unexpected. on Aging Consoles Find New Life As Video Streamers · · Score: 1

    It is capable of 480p, however. When we had Netflix, most movies (the newer the more likely) were perhaps a little bit better than DVD quality, which was plenty enough for our 50" plasma at 10 feet.

  23. Exactly Why I Bought Mine At Walmart Black Friday on Aging Consoles Find New Life As Video Streamers · · Score: 2

    I am a dyed in the wool PC Gamer. In my life I have only ever owned three gaming consoles: an Atari 2600, a Wii (bought so my wife could use Wii Fit), and now Xbox 360. After our introductory year our cable company wants to charge $16 a month for the DVR, so I looked into TiVo and other dedicated machines. $600. Heck no. HDHomerun Prime's comparable to a year of I already had spare parts enough (save for a motherboard) to make an HTPC, but the power supply was raised by a family of Dust Busters and the chassis's just butt ugly, so for $150 I got a slick device to put next to the TV, and I can explain simply to my wife that "we're using it as our own cable box." Not to mention join my D&D group for gaming outside of tabletop night. A little bit of research leads to the Xbox even starting up into TV, so the Wife Acceptance Factor is the best I could hope for. Image quality of TV is just as good as the cable company DVR, and the GUI loads better looking.

  24. Re:First step (or post) on Ask Slashdot: How to Exploit Post-Cataract Ultraviolet Vision? · · Score: 1

    What appears to be happening is that organic human lenses block UV and it never reaches the retina. The replacement lenses allow it through, and the retinal cells can distinguish it as with other wavelengths. All cataract patients have color shifts, but they are different from what is described here, mostly in the yellow range. Tetrachromacy is a completely different phenomenon, with certain females having four receptors instead of three, and while their ability to distinguish more subtle grades of green and blue is unquestionable, there's nothing that supports the notion that they are seeing ultraviolet other than that the idea, when presented as an explaination feels agreeable.

  25. Next Step on Rite Aid Drug Stores Offer Virtual Doc Visits · · Score: 1

    Local independent Urgent Care clinics in my community have prescription medication vending machines inside. If this is the route we're gonna take, we might as well just have drive through shacks where you stop first at the doctor vending machine and then the drug machine next to it.