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User: dixonpete

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Comments · 91

  1. Re:Just tax it. on Why It's So Hard To Predict How Caffeine Will Affect Your Body · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For me caffeine gave me a 25 year mood disorder that mimicked Bipolar II. Docs were clueless. My symptoms disappeared after going cold turkey 4.5 years ago. Caffeine is seriously underrated as to how dangerous it is.

  2. Re:100 more will die today on Adam Lanza Destroyed His Computer Before Rampage · · Score: 1

    Call me Canadian but I would prefer that none of my neighbours had assault rifles. Just seems to me the odds of people dying goes up in direct proportion with the number of those weapons existing in my vicinity. 20 years ago I was pretty regular guy. Some issues with depression but nothing major and certainly I had no criminal record. Had I lived in the States and been so inclined I could have legally gotten possession of an armory worth of weapons. Then one day the psychiatrist I had been seeing prescribed Imipramine, one the old-school anti-depressants. I was unlucky enough to be genetically disposed to jump into full scale mania for six months because of this drug until the connection was made. I know, bad psychiatrist!! During the mania I acted entirely irresponsibly and had very little self control. I can only imagine what could have happened had I had access to weapons while I was in that state. And unfortunately that is the reality for the human condition. Sometimes regular people go nuts. And sometimes nutty people go nuttier. The more guns there are around the more opportunities there are for bad things to happen. And having assault rifles circulating in the civilian population just seems unwise to the extreme.

  3. I've thought about this for years on Genetically Engineering Babies a Moral Obligation, Says Ethicist · · Score: 1

    In yesteryear harmful mutations were selected out. Nowadays we can accommodate more and more disability with technology and social support. Probably someone could work out the date, but it's inevitable that without selection the human race genome will eventually degrade to making a pile a protoplasm with all accrued genetic damage. It's either select out or die out. Helluva choice I know, but..

  4. Re:The Teaching Company on Ask Slashdot: Teaching Chemistry To Home-Schooled Kids? · · Score: 1

    That plus there are huge number of chemistry tutorial sites on the web. A kid with a genuine interest in the topic could learn everything that would appear until the university level. Maybe even better than regular school if self directed learning is an option,

  5. The Teaching Company on Ask Slashdot: Teaching Chemistry To Home-Schooled Kids? · · Score: 1

    has great high school chemistry courses on DVD. Buy them when they are on sale. Wonderful products.

  6. Re:Simpler method on Optimizing Your Caffeine Intake With an App · · Score: 2

    www.caffeineweb.com I was on Lithium for a supposed bipolar condition when the problem was a caffeine sensitivity. A big waste of a quarter century.

  7. Holy cats on Are You Better At Math Than a 4th (or 10th) Grader? · · Score: 1

    I imagine most slashdotters would barely slow down their reading before checking the correct answers for this test. I forget sometimes most people aren't like that.

  8. Re:Directories on File Organization — How Do You Do It In 2011? · · Score: 1

    ya, and what happens if you have a fire and all your equipment melts?

  9. Computer repair people on Why Should I Trust My Network Administrator? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A few weeks ago I read an investigative report on repair shops in Britain. Aside from over charging and finding non-existant problems they looked at and copied information off the computers that were being serviced. Have reason to trust anyone that you give that kind of access to. Then trust, with as much verification as is economical and doesn't unduly make the service provider think that you don't trust them, since unwarranted distrust chips away at the relationship.

  10. Re:Differential + hard drive - online on Best Home Backup Strategy Now? · · Score: 1

    My experience with online back-up has been good as well. Considering most office people only generate at most a GB or two of unique data per month it's economical. Ghost a back-up drive for the OS and programs and you're set.

  11. I've always wondered on RIAA Backs Down In Texas Case · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Within a couple of years kids will be able to carry around and exchange thumb drives large enough to hold ALL of the music produced in the last decade. Aside from cavity searches how exactly is the RIAA expecting to stop that kind of sharing activity?

  12. Re:Python? on F/OSS Flat-File Database? · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's an add-on for Firefox that makes SQlite use fairly painless: SQLite Manager. Brilliant work.

  13. Give them to seniors in Abbeyfield Houses on What To Do With Old Laptops? · · Score: 1

    Abbeyfield is big in the UK and Canada. I'd say put Linux on them and contact a local board and see if you can get them into the hands of residents. I suggest Abbeyfield because generally their residents are clear-headed and independent. I'm sure many would be grateful for an Internet-able laptop, no matter how lowly.

  14. Re:What's the best method of defeating all this ** on UK ISP Admitted to Spying on Customers · · Score: 1

    And when they don't tell you they are doing it and/or lie about it like BT did? Seems wiser to rig one's machine to mess with their systems as much as possible. How about scrambling the contents of their cookies? Proxy servers? Encryption of some kind?

  15. Re:What's the best method of defeating all this ** on UK ISP Admitted to Spying on Customers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    1) I use Google to search, very often 2) I watch their tech talks, often 3) I am starting to use their free apps Google is offering great value gives me services that greatly enhance my life. Plus, I signed up for this. These other jokers are stealing that information without my permission and offering me nothing in return. If ISPs need more money they can ask me for it.

  16. What's the best method of defeating all this ****? on UK ISP Admitted to Spying on Customers · · Score: 1

    I use ad-block+ so I never see any ads anyway but further I have absolutely no interest in letting any company besides Google, whom I'm presently very fond of, know anything about my Net habits. It just doesn't serve any of my interests and it causes me great anxiety to think that a profile could be built and accessed and sold. I'm not in the US but as an example the present US administration I would prefer to be an absolute cipher to. Would using a proxy server achieve much?