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User: FlyingBishop

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Comments · 1,484

  1. Re:Driver's perspective? on GM Working On Interactive Windshields · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually that's a pretty easy problem to solve, given that there's never more than one driver. A headband would be an obvious solution, but there are at least 5 that would work fine.

  2. Re:Great, more distractions for drivers... on GM Working On Interactive Windshields · · Score: 1

    Suppose it highlights a person crossing the street in darkness a mile down the road? The driver will get distracted trying to figure out what the car is warning him about.

    That's the idea. Being 'distracted' by things you might run into is a good thing. Danger is when you are distracted by things inside the car. Obviously noise is an issue, but it should actually be fairly easy to shut off if the noise ratio gets above a certain threshold.

    And by 'easy,' I mean that this is something you won't see even on military vehicles until 2015, and won't reach consumer prices until 2025, which would also be around when I'd expect strong AI.

  3. Sequels? on Can You Fight DRM With Patience? · · Score: 1

    Early sales are often one of the big quantifiers in whether a studio will start working on a sequel

    So cookie-cutter sequels are a good thing now? Someone's drinking too much Kool-aid.

  4. Re:And THIS, ladies and gentlemen... on Disgruntled Ex-Employee Remotely Disables 100 Cars · · Score: 1

    but not in the free market.

  5. Re:HTML5 Video on Wikipedia's Assault On Patent-Encumbered Codecs · · Score: 1

    As far as having a single standard for HTML5 video goes, Theora lost.

    As far as I can see there's only one website I care about that relies on HTML5 video, and it uses Theora.

    Actually, I'd challenge you to point to any website that only offers H.264 served via the video tag. Yeah, they're all running Flash (which is closer to H.264) but saying that Theora has 'lost' when hardly anyone supports H.264 is just bullshit.

  6. Re:Avatar pains on The Movie Studios' Big 3D Scam · · Score: 1

    Didn't exactly give me a headache, but it did screw with my eyes. Not an experience I want to repeat (I went into the theater hoping it would be better than the 3D lenses I'd played with before. No such luck.)

  7. Re:What games? on Study Finds That Video Games Hinder Learning In Young Boys · · Score: 1

    Yeah, games taught me such words as "vorpal," "reticulating," "adze," "electrum,"

    actually I tried to get an 8 year old interested in one of my games and then I realized it basically required a high school reading/math proficiency to play properly. Of course, that's "high school" by the US government's standards, but still.

  8. Re:Interesting observations from the article on Blind Soldier Uses Tongue To "See" · · Score: 4, Funny

    I got you covered.

  9. Holy shit on Microsoft Previews IE9 — HTML5, SVG, Fast JS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I had to stare at the headline for like 5 seconds before it even parsed. It just didn't seem like a reasonable configuration of words.

  10. Re:Deleting does no good on MySpace To Sell User Data · · Score: 2, Funny

    Let's face it, RL is all that actually matters.

    Facebook is RL. I only have friends on Facebook that I want to talk to. Like any tool, you misuse it and it loses its efficacy.

  11. Re:Not a great thing. on Humans Continue To Be "Weak Link" In Data Security · · Score: 1

    Honestly, I don't care. You find the sheet of paper, you have my password. But you're unlikely to find the sheet of paper. Hell, I can hardly find the thing most days.

  12. clone on Yale Law Student Wants Government To Have Everybody's DNA · · Score: 1

    1. Make dozens of clones of a few black ops soldiers.
    2. ???
    3. Profit.

  13. Fragment the player base on BioShock 2's First DLC Already On Disc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In other words, the real value here is the other people on the network, and not the game.

  14. Not a great thing. on Humans Continue To Be "Weak Link" In Data Security · · Score: 3, Informative

    None of the IT workers recorded their password on a private document, but three percent did admit to sharing their key with other people.

    You keep your password on a private document in your pocket, you can use a stronger password, and it's a lot harder to lose both your laptop and your password.

    If you do lose one, it's easy to take steps to blacklist the other. You can even use some trivial obfuscation in recording the password so that even if someone gets it, they won't be able to figure out your password.

    Example:


    awfuieri3v
    4u9388535v
    v9tv379vn7
    mc20884v05

    That's just gibberish, but I could easily write that matrix down on a piece of paper, and then pick a path to take through it(it doesn't even have to be a complicated one, for example I could just use columns 2, 4, and 6) and there's not really much chance that someone's going to find my password. Of course there are even better examples where it's not even obvious that you're looking at a password matrix.

  15. Re:Encrypt your sh*t. Or you aren't a professional on Humans Continue To Be "Weak Link" In Data Security · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Like what? The code for the project I'm working on? Or are you suggesting I encrypt my entire production database that I can access over a VPN from my notebook?

    If you have shit on your laptop that needs encryption, you aren't a professional.

  16. Re:GPU acceleration and Opera on A Skeptical Comparison of HTML5 Video Playback To Flash · · Score: 1

    Flash isn't on Google devices either, except in the near future.

    Even then, there's no advantage in Flash over H.264 served over a simple video app (there's no way Flash is a better choice for YouTube than the native app.)

  17. Re:And here come the pundits... on Here Come the Linux iPad Clones · · Score: 1

    Actually, it's pretty easy to refute. The difference between the iPad and a netbook is basically academic.

    The difference between a Model T and what came before it is huge.

  18. Re:Render unto Cesar. on Texas Approves Conservative Curriculum · · Score: 1

    No, it's stereotyping. If you actually went around and talked to Christians (instead of talking out of your ass) you would discover that not only are many of them not Republicans, but many of the ones that are do not have a belief system that aligns with the reactionary idiots you think of when you think of Christians.

  19. Re:Advice on China Warns Google To Obey Or Leave · · Score: 1

    Who would want to do business with China? They don't need to be destroyed to become irrelevant.

  20. Re:"Term Workers", eh? on NY To Replace IT Vendors With State Workers · · Score: 1

    I'm just such a contractor.

    I still have piss-poor benefits, and my 'real' employer is taking a cut of my benefits to boot.

  21. Re:"Term Workers", eh? on NY To Replace IT Vendors With State Workers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Contractors have inflated pay to deal with the fact that they don't have steady employment (which in our fucked-up benefits system means you don't have reasonably priced healthcare, insurance, or retirement savings.)

    So yeah, this is a win for IT workers. It's a loss for standard state employees, but these IT workers get a steady job with decent pay where they once had high-paying jobs, most of the money from went was thrown into basic necessities, not to mention looking for new jobs.

  22. Re:So, class, what have you learned? on University of Wyoming Studies Video Games · · Score: 1

    Yeah, there are things I'd far rather do than play WoW, and are far harder. But the point is that playing WoW requires basic skills in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, and that we have an unfortunate number of students that lack these skills. Even something as questionable as WoW could have a purpose in spurring them to basic proficiency.

  23. Re:Advice on China Warns Google To Obey Or Leave · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Killing foreign nationals? That's going to go over well. I mean, China could start killing native Google employees, but they would still be treading far too close to causing an international incident. China relies on Multinational Corporations far too much to basically start a war with one over search results. China would become a much less attractive area for manufacturers.

  24. Re:So, class, what have you learned? on University of Wyoming Studies Video Games · · Score: 1

    You know, as damaging as WoW can be, it does actually require a good deal of skills that children could benefit from. When you look at lower-class students in middle and high school especially you can see some benefits.

    I mean, to play WoW you need to be able to:

    • Read
    • Do mathematics
    • Solve complex reasoning problems (building a character

    These really are pretty good things to teach children, to speak nothing of the teamwork aspects. WoW is a lot of things, but it is not a mindless diversion.

  25. Re:Object-sex-oriented? on Half-Male, Half-Female Fowl Explain Birds' Sex Determination · · Score: 5, Funny

    In both cases, each cell has its own this.getGender() function.

    In both cases, I would imagine the code looks something like this:


    class cell {
          int gender; // should really be a bool, need to fix that at some point.
          proteinFactoryBuilder asdf; // find a better naming scheme ... ...

          getGender() { /* I don't really have time to go back and fix this right now, but if I'd known I'd be making multicellular organisms with this shit I wouldn't have put this at the cellular level. Anyway, we're stuck with it, so for now I'm just returning the gender variable and I'll leave it to callers to figure out wtf to do with unexpected output. */
              return gender;
          }
    }

    Small wonder it's a little more confusing for birds.