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User: DeadlyBattleRobot

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  1. CGP Gray's -- The Simple Solution to Traffic on Math Says You're Driving Wrong and It's Slowing Us All Down (wired.com) · · Score: 2
  2. Re:Pipe Dream I suspect on Are Glowing, Solar Smart Roads the Future? · · Score: 1

    No one has mentioned earthquakes. A strong quake would probably destroy a road like this.

  3. Big Dog beta video on Google Acquires Boston Dynamics · · Score: 1
  4. Re:Why do I have to register just to get informati on What Developers Can Learn From Healthcare.gov · · Score: 1

    So why should I have to go through all that just to get prices and find out which doctors are in their plan? On Ebay, Amazon, or just about any ecommerce site I can get the product description and price straight from a Google search. I only have to go through the registration/login hassle if I actually want to buy something. If they would just provide the plan information with a simple static html page I could get the information I want, stop hammering on their servers, decide what to do, and come back next month if I decide I want to buy.

    This is exactly what I have been telling my friends. The heathcare.gov site is ridiculous. You should be able to select your state, and go immediately to a static page with a table the plans sorted by age, etc., with a phone number to call to sign up. No registration nonsense. I've heard there are about 160 plans from 3 companies in my state. Who knows when I will get to see them? I still can't log into the site, even though I made it through the registration process.

  5. Re:How is it even still up? on What Developers Can Learn From Healthcare.gov · · Score: 1

    NPR is a different kind of propaganda news source. About three weeks ago, I think it was a Saturday, they actually ran a hit piece segment criticizing Syria intervention skeptics and satirists like John Stewart, as naive and destructive. Their reports ran day after day with pro war on Syria for weeks before.
     

  6. Re:Why it wasn't easy to handle the number of user on What Developers Can Learn From Healthcare.gov · · Score: 1

    I signed up again with a different username. This time I received the email verification, and clicking it did say I was confirmed to be a user. I still can't get in. It says my user:pass is wrong. Is there something really wrong, or is it still totally broken? I don't know.

    Exactly this. The site may be overloaded, but when it does come up there are software bugs. I apparently have created an account but it won't let me log in. How do I know I created an account? When I can't log in I use the lost password affordance with my username, receive the lost password email, but the link back to the site throws an error page. I could not release a broken project to a customer in this state.

  7. Re:Farmers don't need iPads on How Sensors and Software Turn Farms Into Data Mines · · Score: 1

    There is research into using iPad controlled quadcopters and image processing to monitor crop conditions - I saw a demonstration of a quadcopter system at a research station in Idaho last week. You can quickly find areas of a field that need more water, etc. You can't say iPads (or equivalent) will _never_ help.

  8. Re:Cheapest way to travel between stars on Nomad Planets: Stepping Stones To Interstellar Space? · · Score: 1

    I see it more as:

    1. robot ships carrying seeds and frozen embryos to be developed when a suitable planet is found.

    2. or life evolves to a mechanical form that can stand space radiation, long duration voyages.

  9. Re:oh, not true!||| Me Too on Why the Occupy Movement Skipped Silicon Valley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm over 60 and still working in software. My trick is to never leave home, never let them meet me face to face - the opposite of what you did. I work as a contractor by telecommute, etc. Never bring up the issue of your age. Find an excellent sales person with an existing customer base to come up with ideas and projects, that's been a very good way to go. This is a very interesting time to be in software.

  10. Re:Valued by Results on Why the Occupy Movement Skipped Silicon Valley · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is a quote out of
    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/25-7

    The mainstream media was declaring continually "OWS has no message". Frustrated, I simply asked them. I began soliciting online "What is it you want?" answers from Occupy. In the first 15 minutes, I received 100 answers. These were truly eye-opening.

            The No 1 agenda item: get the money out of politics. Most often cited was legislation to blunt the effect of the Citizens United ruling, which lets boundless sums enter the campaign process. No 2: reform the banking system to prevent fraud and manipulation, with the most frequent item being to restore the Glass-Steagall Act â" the Depression-era law, done away with by President Clinton, that separates investment banks from commercial banks. This law would correct the conditions for the recent crisis, as investment banks could not take risks for profit that create kale derivatives out of thin air, and wipe out the commercial and savings banks.

            No 3 was the most clarifying: draft laws against the little-known loophole that currently allows members of Congress to pass legislation affecting Delaware-based corporations in which they themselves are investors.

            When I saw this list â" and especially the last agenda item â" the scales fell from my eyes. Of course, these unarmed people would be having the shit kicked out of them.

  11. Chomsky on pentagon papers, wikileaks and palin on Sarah Palin 'Target WikiLeaks Like Taliban' · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very good interview done within the last few days. Why can't we have this guy running the country, not the bozo teams we get over and over?

    http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/30/noam_chomsky_wikileaks_cables_reveal_profound

  12. Re:Who Cares on Cox Discontinues Usenet, Starting In June · · Score: 1

    Google Groups is horrible. They totally ruined DejaNews. They couldn't and can't monetize it so they just fuck with it -- but they will still copyright it to within an inch of it's life. They had no respect for the value of usenet. It was the #1 source for programming information during the 90's and I still miss it. We are living in Orwellian times, and "He who controls the present, controls the past". I would vote you up a million times.

  13. Re:How to turn your skilled employees into cogs on Becoming Agile · · Score: 1

    Agile's appeal to the corporate world is understandable. Turn an anarchic, creative, random process into a measurable machine operation. Developers now become robots in the clone army. And there is buy in at many levels. Now imagine your group's most obnoxious administrative assistant becoming your scrum supervisor. It's a way for the non technical to make themselves relevant.

  14. Re:There are tools that can help on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    I'm sure someone has thought of this: use the same email client framework at sender and receiver. The first time an email is sent to someone using this system, there is a handshake between the 2 clients before the real payload is encrypted and sent. The handshake, using ordinary email, establishes the identity and provides the public keys. No 3rd party services are required other than typical email transport through the tubes. There would be a delay for the first email to go through, but none after that. The main thing I want to thwart is the data mining of all my emails that can be intercepted en route or stored on servers.

  15. Re:There are tools that can help on Federal Judge Says E-mail Not Protected By 4th Amendment · · Score: 1

    There is a killer app out there waiting to be written for this. I want automatic encryption built in to email, without the end user having to mess around with keys, key registrys, pgp, or any other encryption framework. I think there is way to do it.

  16. Re:Responsive on Old-School Keyboard Makes Comeback of Sorts · · Score: 1

    I only use the model M keyboards. They were the most reasonable approximation to the selectric typewriter that I own. IBM knew how to make a good keyboard.

    Another thing I liked about the model M was that it had very low radiated EMI -- they thought about what they were doing. Test a cheapo plastic keyboard vs. a real IBM model M. If you are using a radio or sensitive equipment it's a big deal..

    I found by accident years ago that my WPM goes UP if I use earplugs or headphones. For some reason, if there is no sound, I can fly. I would like some feedback on this. I had a product design psychologist comment on this and he thought there was something to it.

  17. Re:"Bugs"? on Bugs In Microsoft Technical Documentation Rising · · Score: 1

    I've mentioned the apparent loss of older microsoft documentation before and was smacked down... but I think it's true. Combine that with what I think is a degradation or loss of deja news archive software postings from the 90's and it gets to be a real problem.

  18. Not with my money on $29M To Start US Satellite Protection Program · · Score: 1

    This is exactly the kind of crap the US needs to stop wasting money on.

  19. scouring google on Designing a Patent-Incentive Program? · · Score: 1

    You 'scoured google'. Using google to research a business process or internal product development activity is questionable. You might as well send them an email telling them what you are working on. Does anyone think about the business secrets they give away every day to another company's online search software?

  20. Re:AUGGGHHH on Cooking Stimulated Big Leap In Human Cognition · · Score: 1

    > The work of a few farmers allowed others more time to develop tools, arts, philosophy, religion, etc.

    Farming also argued to allow nationalism, warfare, crime, poverty, feudalism, obesity, species extinction, hunger and starvation.

    See:
    Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization
    http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-Agriculture-Hijacked-Civilization/dp/0865476225

  21. Re:Insanity on MPAA Scores First P2P Jury Conviction · · Score: 1

    It should be more like $200 fine and 40 hours community service. But:

    1. prisons are a profit center, so harsh penalties complement this arrangement. It's absurd what they imprison people for.

    2. considering who really owns everything, according to George Carlin, the penalty makes perfect sense.

  22. Re:The horror! on Visualizing the .NET Framework · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have mod points, but this deserves about 10 of them so I reply in solidarity.
    The msdn docs are not enough, there are too many useless empty API pages. If it weren't for Google I couldn't do any .net programming work. It's ironic that their worst enemy is essential to working with their system.

    Often the most useful documentation and samples are scattered over a zillion forums (all requiring logins!), newsgroups, blogs, 3rd party books, etc.

    This has always been the case with microsoft development libraries, but it's getting worse because early on (internet time) it was mostly just usenet.

  23. Re:$9 trillion in debt and they want robot soldier on Work Progressing on Army's Future Combat Systems · · Score: 2, Informative

    We have over 10x military budget of the next country, China. This cannot end well.

    Very recent article:

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174884/chalmers_johnson_how_to_sink_america

    The radio interview is here:

    http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/01/24/chalmers-johnson-3/

  24. Think big on How Would You Design Your Dream Office? · · Score: 1

    The dream office.

    1. ocean view, on a hillside overlooking the ocean, large picture window.
    2. wood paneling, carpet, no other offices in sight, private, silent.
    3. no computer equipment visible other than a couple of lcd monitors, keyboard and mouse.
    4. extensive organic food deli within short walking distance
    5. no cars within 300 ft of building, except for my own private parking space of course
    6. large extensive world class research library next door with unlimited resources
    7. no boss, no projects, fat paychecks

  25. Re:They're not even light bulbs. on US To Extinguish (Most) Incandescent Bulb Sales By 2012 · · Score: 1

    I can't put the fluorescent bulbs near my stereo system. Too much EMI electrical noise if you are an audiophile.

    I use incandescent bulbs to heat my pump housing in the winter. I will always need some sort of lamp or heat source for this.