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User: jedidiah

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  1. Re:In rhetoric or in reality? on Swiss Launch of Apple Watch Hit By Patent Issue · · Score: 1

    ...not even remotely close.

    This is more like the difference between McDonalds and members of the Chaine.

    The beef versus chicken sandwich analogy only works for the likes of Swatch and Timex.

  2. Re:Don't worry actors on Why More 'Star Wars' Actors Don't Become Stars · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In general Ewan seemed much more appropriate for the role of teenage Anakin than Hayden. Hayden was just cardboard. And no I have not been impressed by him in any other roles either. Whereas some of Ewan's earlier work are spot on for the kind of character Anakin needed to be in the prequels.

    Bad acting due to bad direction and horrible writing aggravated by casting that was also bad.

    The prequel had too much George in it.

  3. Re:Contradiction in article summary on Why More 'Star Wars' Actors Don't Become Stars · · Score: 1

    Not only that but he upstaged anyone else that EVER played that role.

    Jack Nicholson merely played The Joker. Heath WAS the Joker.

  4. Re: Maybe it's time these companies learn... on SeaWorld and Others Discover That a Hashtag Can Become a Bashtag · · Score: 1

    Walmart and McDonalds are most certainly hated for the products they provide. They're just big enough that they don't need to care. They can be viewed as crap by a large chunk of the population and still make money on what's left.

    There are plenty of mindless bargain hunters and people with no taste.

  5. Re:Boo, you fad killer! on The One Thousand Genes You Could Live Without · · Score: 1

    The funny thing is that humans are "so good at it" that they don't really need the new fangled approaches with the higher risks. We have been doing "conventional" genetic manipulation for thousands of years. Compared to that, our relatively short experience with direct genetic manipulation really doesn't hold up.

    The "conventional" approach just takes longer and confers no monopoly benefits to any herbicide mongers.

  6. Re:floppy disk on The One Thousand Genes You Could Live Without · · Score: 1

    3.3 Billion base pairs (nibbles) is not quite that small in terms of raw data. It will fit onto a DVD though.

  7. Re:Absence of evidence... on The One Thousand Genes You Could Live Without · · Score: 2

    DNA is a complex language that we are barely beginning to understand. Unlike CRISPr, this kind of thing actually is "hacking the genome" in a clueless fashion. I think this is an area where clearly some corrolary of the Hypocratic Oath should be in effect.

    If it's not broken, then don't try to fix it. Leave it alone. The best thing to do (barring any indications to the contrary) is nothing.

    I suspect that we are still at the "don't know how much we don't know" stage of genetics at this point.

  8. Re:Leave then on Gen Con Threatens To Leave Indianapolis Over Religious Freedom Bill · · Score: 1

    1870 is calling. It wants it's specious quasi-constitutional argument back.

    What you are pining for hasn't been the case for a long time, likely since BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. We simply aren't that backwards as a nation anymore.

    Your vision of Sharia law isn't any more tolerable than Jim Crow.

    You and the state of Indiana need to stop watching Fox News.

  9. Re:Do It, it worked in AZ on Gen Con Threatens To Leave Indianapolis Over Religious Freedom Bill · · Score: 1

    That's easy. Follow the law. You know the law. That's the set of rules that's supposed to govern your conduct.

    It's easy to avoid becoming involved with obviously illegal conduct. Death threats and pedophilia are easy and obvious exceptions to the straw man you're trying to build here.

    You could even call your local city government or police to get their take on the situation.

  10. Re:Do It, it worked in AZ on Gen Con Threatens To Leave Indianapolis Over Religious Freedom Bill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No. The organizers of a convention that arguably falls under the umbrella of "the arts" want to avoid a venue where many people that work in "the arts" would be treated like an underclass.

    Indiana can have the NRA convention.

  11. Re:It depends on No, It's Not Always Quicker To Do Things In Memory · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A more accurate title would be: "You can be sufficiently stupid with your memory access that it's faster to do disk IO."

    Java is not the only system that can manifest this.

  12. Re:Easy as 1-2-3 on Developers and the Fear of Apple · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I could buy Apple being more robust or more reliable (because it's probably WinDOS we're talking about here) but the idea of the PC being less powerful just sounds like you swimming in the kool-aid.

  13. Re:Here's MY test on A Bechdel Test For Programmers? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > But in practice we have half the population who are capable of programming but who are severely underrepresented

    That's a totally unsupported assumption.

    It also ignores the question of DESIRE. It completely degrades half of the population by stripping them of any sort of free will at all.

    That's the whole problem with these do-gooder crusades that fixate this kind of "imbalance" while ignoring the the imbalances in the skilled trades or nursing.

  14. Re:Amazing post on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 1

    "Working out" really burns very little in terms of energy unless you are overdoing it like Arnold Schwarzenneger. You aren't going to get a sufficient calorie deficit just from exercise.

    The main value of exercise is sabotaging your body's starvation response.

    Otherwise, your body will just adapt to the famine. That's what it is designed to do.

  15. Re:Eat less than you burn on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 2

    Yup. That's why you need to EXERCISE. Excercise will increase your metabolic rate for about 18 hours afterwards. This will help counteract your body's tendency to go into panic shutdown mode due to lack of food.

    Diet and exercise.

    They go together like a horse and carriage.

  16. Re:It's simple. Eat less and eat less crap on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 1

    ANY effective weight loss is going to be counter to your instincts. You will have to fight your inner animal. It won't be easy. It WILL be unpleasant.

    STARVING is never fun.

    Your inner animal is basically holding it's breath for the duration.

    If it were easy, anyone could do it and it wouldn't be such a problem.

  17. Re:Common sense on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 2

    "Don't anythng that wasn't alive" is a poor way of putting it.

    It's more like, don't buy anything ready made. Buy only agricultural commodities. Buy only components.

    You avoid most of the junk that way.

  18. Re:It's simple. Eat less and eat less crap on Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds · · Score: 1

    You need very little fat. You can cut most of it out and not have any problems (besides hunger). You can cut most of the carbs too. The real problem is protein rather than fat or carbs.

    Carbs and fat are for energy. They're pretty much what you need less of.

  19. Re:Need a standards based Facebook replacement on RMS Talks Net Neutrality, Patents, and More · · Score: 1

    > I remember the days of sending mass emails

    So Facebook solves the "problem" of spamming your friends. NICE.

    In other words, it doesn't solve any real problem at all and if anything just enables those that abuse the shared infastructure.

  20. Re:Message to all braindead CEOs out there on Universal Reportedly Wants Spotify To Scale Back Its Free Streaming · · Score: 1

    That little nugget again... OF COURSE your time is worthless. Wages are stagnant. Good jobs are harder to come by. If you have a decent job, it's a salary job where you don't get ANY money for working extra. If your job is crap, you have to go through hoops just to get enough hours to feed yourself.

    Free time is either easier to come by or devalued by current labor standards.

    Also, there's no opportunity cost in letting a machine work for you.

  21. Re:Needs a honeypot on Islamic State Doxes US Soldiers, Airmen, Calls On Supporters To Kill Them · · Score: 1

    This is stupid. Nobody needs to dox anyone. These kinds of people that ISIS wants to target are self identifying. There are any number of obvious symbols that "terrorists" could latch onto if they wanted to lash out at servicemen and their families.

    There's simply no need for cloak and dagger or "hacking".

  22. Re:Hilarious on For Boot Camp Users, New Macs Require Windows 8 Or Newer · · Score: 1

    The key thing here is that noone really wants to run Windows. They perhaps want to run Windows applications. It's all about the ecosystem. Everyone that puts up with Windows does so because of the positive feedback loop that's existed from the days of DOS. Everyone thinks it's the only option so it becomes the only option.

    The troll is also ignoring the possibility that somoene might by Apple hardware for it's own sake and merely want to do whatever the HELL they want with their own personal property.

    At one time I ran Linux on Macs. It made sense at the time. Apple's hardware was just another PC to me.

  23. Re:The linpocalypse is not upon us on OEMs Allowed To Lock Secure Boot In Windows 10 Computers · · Score: 1

    > So your politics invalidates someone else's genuine want? Some people will want the factory lockdown to enhance security.

    No. NO ONE wants this. NO CUSTOMER wants this. This is just something that the Ayn Rand brigade like because it allows corporations greater freedom to abuse the rest of us. That includes the paying customer that indifferent at best.

    Microsoft likes this. No one else does.

  24. Re:The cat's out of the bag on Scientists: It's Time To Resolve the Ethics of Editing Human Genome · · Score: 1

    I think that's a very personal sort of judgement and one that should be reserved strictly for the mother. This part of motherhood is not delegable. It's a big responsibility. How it's handled will impact the resulting person for the rest of their life. The resources available to the mother (and no one else) will have a great impact.

    If the mother doesn't cooperate and take her responsibility seriously, there is nothing that an busybody can do to change the situation. So the mother has to agree of her own free will or it doesn't really work.

    This is why the government should not get in the middle of the decision.

    It's also good public policy to support the mother in any way we can once she decides to treat "the blob" as a person. It benefits us all if she gets the best result possible.

    Vitamins. Food. Medical care. Schools. Perhaps even training.

    Moral Majority busybodies usually want to take all of those things away.

  25. Re:"Heritable disease" or "survival trait" on Scientists: It's Time To Resolve the Ethics of Editing Human Genome · · Score: 1

    > Should we really eradicate all heritable disease, or post-edit the afflicted to mitigate effects?

    We aren't even to the point of that yet. We're still barely scratching the surface of the obviously harmful stuff that will KILL YOU pretty quickly once it manifests.

    Sickle-Cell is an entirely different iceberg here.

    There's plenty of time for these people to cure cancer and other more exotic things that you've never heard of while the rest of us argue what other things this tech should be used for.

    Current regulations will already likely keep Pandoras box closed for the time being.