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User: peter303

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  1. Boys will be boys on Texas Sheriffs Crash $250k Drone They're Not Supposed To Be Flying · · Score: 1

    Even when they wear blue. Probably having too much fun.

  2. celebrity drugs? on Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs · · Score: 1

    There has been steady spate of celebrity deaths from overdoses of sedatives back to Marilyn and before. In many cases the drugs may have made them lose count of doses or they are feeling really insomic and overdose. The Micheal Jackson "milk" propofol should be used at triple dose for quick and painless ending.

  3. I wrote my first BASIC program 44 years ago on 50 Years of BASIC, the Language That Made Computers Personal · · Score: 1

    It was Conways Game of Life recently explained in Scientific American Mathematical Games. I wrote it on a teletype (text terminals awaited cheap 512-bit ROMs for character sets in 1975) connect from my school to a local university computer (PDP-8?). Numbered lines were convenient in early BASIC when you could only edit one line at a time. The output was an asterisk and blanks grid. I think the printing took about 30 seconds which was longer than it took to compute the next generation. I found a listing a few years back. It was not that bad by my modern standards.

  4. Isuspect IRS uses "Security through Antiquity" on US Nuclear Missile Silos Use Safe, Secure 8" Floppy Disks · · Score: 1

    Lots of COBOL and 9-track tapes. they havent had one these Target-size breaches yet.

  5. Growth right; Building wrong on How Concrete Contributed To the Downfall of the Roman Empire · · Score: 1

    Economic growth was from the deposiling of conquered peoples. By the 2nd century there were just poor, wild peoles beyond borders. Not much incentive to conquer.

  6. personal searches for weapons on DOJ Complains About Getting a Warrant To Search Mobile Phones · · Score: 1

    The claim for a warrentless search is for imminent danger of a weapon like a knife or gun.
    Phones dont fall into this category, so should have court warrents.

  7. why copy meat? on Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put "Meatless" Meat To the Test · · Score: 1, Informative

    Non-meat dishes, if properly done, have great flavors and textures all their own. And can satisfy the appetite.

    As a long-term vegetarian, the main concession I make are vegetable patties. And that is for their form factor and ease of cook and not for a resemblance to a burger. Companies like Moningstar and traders Joes make patties out of all kinds of vegetables and spices- soy, bean corn, peas, garins, mixtures etc.

  8. output looks like cheap asian junk on Consumers Not Impressed With 3D Printing · · Score: 1

    Maybe its the plastic resin or the roughness of voxelated structures.
    Peole dont realize a lot of these intricate items would be impossible to mold or very expensive to mill.

  9. cable raises $1 o $2 EVERY month! on Netflix Plans To Raise Prices By "$1 or $2 a Month" · · Score: 1

    10% a year increases pretty common in cable

  10. employee overhead approaching 100% on In the US, Rich Now Work Longer Hours Than the Poor · · Score: 1

    Benefits are about a third of that. Office space, management and computers the rest.Then you make existing employees work more instead of hiring additional ones.

  11. some people are just pain negative on Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power · · Score: 0

    They punish a technology out of idealogy rather than economics.

  12. guys save young sperm too on Women Increasingly Freezing Their Eggs To Pursue Their Careers · · Score: 2

    For should they want to reproduce in middle age. A few conditions like autism are blamed on aging fathers. And/or chemo or trauma ends sperm production.

  13. electric, steam, internal combustion alternatives on NYC's 19th-Century Horse Carriages Spawn Weird, Truck-Size Electric Car · · Score: 1

    All vying with one another until IC pulled ahead in the 1910s. I've seen the famous "steamer" at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado.

  14. large solar storm can do this too on Expert Warns: Civilian World Not Ready For Massive EMP-Caused Blackout · · Score: 2

    The 1859 solar flare resulted in anaurora visible at the equator. It damaged telegraph lines and lighning rods. If it happened today it would be expected to fry most power line transformers and cell phone towers. there are only 5% enough spare transformers at most. Plus industrial production could have come to a halt.

    This extra radiation appears to have created extra C14 from atmospheric nitrogen) at that time. Scientist have exampled tree rings, ice cores, and lake sediments for other such super storms. There is a hint of one in 774 AD . The historical records and istopes have not been studied enough to determine the recurrance of large storms.

  15. ambient bird pollution on Why Portland Should Have Kept Its Water, Urine and All · · Score: 1

    I suspect the ambient daily bird and other critter droppings in the reservoir per day exceed what these stupid kids did. 38M gallons will dliute it all safely. only idiot public officials would worry about a miscule harm.

  16. replacements rare on Prius on Why Tesla Really Needs a Gigafactory · · Score: 1

    I know several people who have been driving prius more than twice the battery warranty period without replacement. i recall Consumer Reports did a article on this too.
    When I was car shopping ten years ago i was worried about expensive battery replacements. but that doesnt seem to be the case.

  17. a million in my birth year is $8M now on Survey: 56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires · · Score: 1

    We had a decade of high inflation in the 1970s that contribute almost half of the dollar depreciation since my birth. I think my 'birth million" would feel like a real million, i.e. a decent retirement at any age. A millionaire in all those silly 1960s sitcoms was a real millionaire! conversely my fathers coworkers felt OK if they retired with a $100K or two.

  18. Apples simple GUI one of breakthroughs on Nokia Had a Production-Ready Web Tablet 13 Years Ago · · Score: 1

    Most of the previous tablet GUIs tried to cram the complexity of multiwindow destop on to a small tablet screen. Apple mainly enlarged the simpler, single-window phone GUI. Samsung is hawking side-by-side Android screens this year. But you really dont want to get all that much more complex than that.

  19. pen-tablets in late 1980s on Nokia Had a Production-Ready Web Tablet 13 Years Ago · · Score: 1

    Touchscreens were not really around at that time. "pen computing" was VC rage then. Apple had their own entry a fe years later called the Newton. MicroSoft unsuccessfully hawked is Pen-Windows for years.

  20. a million 401K isnt that large on Survey: 56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires · · Score: 4, Informative

    It has an annual safe return of $40k to $50K. For younger developers who may not retire until 2050, that is not much after several decades of inflation.

  21. all IRS credit card payments have 2.49% charge on Slashdot Asks: How Do You Pay Your Taxes? · · Score: 1

    You could compute and file by pencil, paper and mail. Ans till chose to pay owed taxed by CC. The CC vendor would still ding you 2.49%.

  22. "magic of data mining" on IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt · · Score: 1

    I suspect some clever system analyst did a 'join" on survivor benefit recipients and IRS joint (marriage) filings to discover remarried widow[ers] in old records. Otherwise pure SS records would not have detected this situation. And tape-based computers before 1990 were too slow to attempt an inter-agency join like this.

    So we have the means to detect financial crimes buried in records decades ago. But it feels unfair to be pursed so many years later, espcially for the actions of a dead relative. There so many financial crimes being commited on current returns like SSDI overpayments, fake EICs, etc., that data-mining effort would be better spent on current crimes.

  23. test drive one if you can on Anyone Can Buy Google Glass April 15 · · Score: 1

    You may or may not find its limitations annoying. The two I found annoying are the short battery life 9two hours if using the camera) and relatively slow internet speeds. I expect them these to improve in the NEXT version.

  24. during slow economies credentials count more on Bachelor's Degree: An Unnecessary Path To a Tech Job · · Score: 1

    During booms like now, experience is most important. But during slow times employers will add more requirements, a degree being a bigee. believe or not the CS industryis cyclic and it has had down periods.

  25. got it half right on Michael Bloomberg: You Can't Teach a Coal Miner To Code · · Score: 1

    I think Bloomie meant than any one job category isnt going to a panecea for unemployement. That is you cant teach and motivate everyone to be coders or health workers or roustabouts. However, its dumb to say that any one particular profession cant learn another. A given miner may could become a great programmer. But not all of them.