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User: Jiro

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Comments · 1,241

  1. Having a chance X of reversibility per year for a life sentence is the same as having a different chance Y of reversibility as long as they are on death row and having a zero chance of reversibility after the execution. If there are values for X you accept, there must be values for Y you would accept.

  2. Re:Son of Sam on Joseph Goebbels' Estate Sues Publisher Over Diary Excerpt Royalties · · Score: 1

    Nobody would want to quote his personal diary if he hadn't committed any heinous acts.

  3. Re:Must hackers be such dicks about this? on FBI Accuses Researcher of Hacking Plane, Seizes Equipment · · Score: 2

    People make jokes in stressful situations. Bombing a plane is a stressful situation. Which makes it entirely plausible that a bomber would joke about bombing.

    Of course, it's *stupid* for him to joke about bombing and call attention to himself, but criminals get caught by doing stupid things all the time.

  4. Bad idea on Ask Slashdot: How To Introduce a 7-Year-Old To Programming? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Children aren't clones of their parents. (And even when we discover a way to make clones, they still won't be this kind of clones.)

    "I would have benefitted from learning programming early" or even "I did benefit from learning programming early" are terrible reasons to teach your kid programming early unless the benefits apply to most people, not just to you. And they don't.

    This is just a variation of the "how do I get my kid interested in sci-fi" or "how do I get my daughter interested in programming" questions we've had before, and the answer is the same.

  5. Re:Systemic and widespread? on The Courage of Bystanders Who Press "Record" · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can't compare the two because the average person is exposed to a different proportion of criminals than the average police officer, so the increased rate for police may be explained by the police being more likely to run into criminals.

    Also, the rate for the general population is driven down because it includes babies, children, old people, and the handicapped who would have a hard time killing someone and would not be eligible to become police.

  6. Re:If you demand all your supporters be flawless.. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    Where is Fiorina's advocacy?

    She's pointing out that it's hypocrisy to advocate for one while refusing to advocate in a much worse case like Saudi Arabia.

    She doesn't have to advocate herself in order to say this. She just has to be *consistent*. She can be consistent by not advocating for both just as much as by advocating for both.

    Fiorina is being a "concern troll" on these issues.

    No, she's not. She's pointing out that someone else is being hypocritical. She didn't say he should get out of Saudi Arabia; she objected to the *combination* of being in Saudi Arabia but not wanting to do business in Indiana.

  7. Re: France and sliding-scale fines on $56,000 Speeding Ticket Issued Under Finland's System of Fines Based On Income · · Score: 1

    Ah, that's how you say "debtor's prison" in French.

  8. Re:Get rid of the financial incentive... on $56,000 Speeding Ticket Issued Under Finland's System of Fines Based On Income · · Score: 1

    If enough fines were collected to knock $100 off each property tax bill, the government could raise the property tax rates by just enough to collect $100 more, in effect letting the $100 go to them and not to the people.

  9. If that was actually the reason or giving rich people big fines, then if someone was so badly in trouble financially that even $5 was a major problem for them compared to $1000 for you and me, their ticket price would be reduced to $5. Of course, there's a minimum ticket size--that doesn't happen.

  10. Releasing of elderly prisoners on "compassion" grounds is a lie. Elderly prisoners are released on "compassion" grounds because the elderly have lots of medical expenses at the end of their life and if you keep the elderly prisoner in prison you have to pay all his medical expenses.

  11. Re:HOWTO on How To Execute People In the 21st Century · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the State, having decided that murder is illegal, resorts to murder as "punishment". That is hypocrisy of the highest order.

    "I'll take 'arguments that can be used against prison and kidnapping as well' for 10 points."

  12. Re:Maybe in a different country on Mental Health Experts Seek To Block the Paths To Suicide · · Score: 2

    That happened because of the combination of 1) medical associations encouraging doctors to ask the questions (for guns alone, not for all things of similar dangerousness) and 2) doctors being mandatory reporters, so having a doctor tell you not to have guns is very intimidating because it's a half step towards losing your children.

  13. Re:Maybe in a different country on Mental Health Experts Seek To Block the Paths To Suicide · · Score: 1

    In this context, claiming lots of "children" are shot is used to imply that because they are children, they are innocent and the fault is of someone else who made the gun available or used it irresponsibly. It is dishonest to pick an age so high that they start getting shot because they are committing crimes rather than because someone left the gun out and it looked like a toy.

  14. Re:So what you're saying... on Come and Take It, Texas Gun Enthusiasts (Video) · · Score: 1

    ...is that they're basically taking an issue that most people either didn't really know about or didn't really care about too strongly, and are shoving it into everyone else's faces, so that they now have a reason to take a stance against it?

    I wonder what you think of gay pride parades. Or even gay people kissing in public.

  15. Re:Bad idea on Snowden Reportedly In Talks To Return To US To Face Trial · · Score: 2

    Rosa Parks was arrested and tried, but her trial was public. You can't call attention to the injustice of the law if the trial is secret and nobody is even allowed to talk about what happens at it.

  16. Re:FedEx is a private business, isn't it? on FedEx Won't Ship DIY Gunsmithing Machine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You don't seem to understand libertarianism. Libertarians believe that private actions should be legal. Libertarians do not believe that you should not complain about private actions.

    Furthermore, in this case, if FedEx really is afraid of legal liability, or if the government is in other ways putting pressure on them, it's not a private action anyway. Government involvement is inherently not private.

    But then I already said this.

  17. Re:Oh bullshit! on FedEx Won't Ship DIY Gunsmithing Machine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't seem to understand libertarianism. Libertarians believe that private actions should be legal. Libertarians do not believe that you should not complain about private actions.

    Furthermore, in this case, if FedEx really is afraid of legal liability, or if the government is in other ways putting pressure on them, it's not a private action anyway. Government involvement is inherently not private.

  18. Re:Darwin never suggested "survival of the fittest on Game Theory Calls Cooperation Into Question · · Score: 1

    What does this even mean?... the statement can only mean "survival of the survivers" which is a trivial obsurdity.

    If I tell you a figure with three sides is a triangle, would you reply that since "triangle" is defined as a figure with three sides, I am really saying "a figure with three sides is a figure with three sides", and therefore I am not saying anything?

  19. Thickness is a useless criterion for judging tablets unless there are drastic differences like a tablet being a half inch thick. What makes more sense is to compare relative tablet weight.

  20. Re:Overblown nonsense. on Why We Still Can't Really Put Anything In the Public Domain · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's how you clearly put something in within the law: (1) You declare it public domain. (2) Now, keeping it there: You simply exercise a level of ethics even a 5 year old understands: You don't go back on your word, because (for one thing) that would make you a major fucktarded scumbag.

    That doesn't work. Maybe a year later you get sued for something and the court orders that your copyright be transferred to the person suing you as compensation. Or you go bankrupt and your copyright is sold to your creditors. Or, instead of being sued, you die and the copyright goes to your heirs. And the new owner doesn't consider himself bound by your word.

    Furthermore, even if none of that happens, it's still not equivalent to public domain because even if you keep your word, someone who wants to use your work has no way to read your mind and know that you're the kind of person who keeps his word. So he has to act as if you could withdraw permission at any time even if you never would.

  21. Misleading title and summary on The Mystery of Glenn Seaborg's Missing Plutonium: Solved · · Score: 1

    The method described did not help them find the plutonium. The method helped them identify it as being the right piece once it was found.

  22. Re:Restrictive Gun laws on In Paris, Terrorists Kill 2 More, Take At Least 7 Hostages · · Score: 1

    US gun death statistics include high-gun-crime, high-minority, areas where guns are as illegal as the city can make them. These areas skew the statistics, and France doesn't have many of them.

    If the areas with the gun rights in the USA also had the gun crime you might have had a better point.

  23. MP3 players? on Sony Thinks You'll Pay $1200 For a Digital Walkman · · Score: 1

    I really wish I could find a decent MP3 player that is not a "purity of the original signal" type $1200 scam, and was not discontinued years ago.

    The usual advice is "buy a cheap phone and don't use it as a phone". This fails because

    • most of them have horrible battery life (the 33 hours for this sounds fairly decent, if only it wasn't $1200)
    • there are so many models of phones out that it's hard to find a good selection of reviews for any specific one
    • They tend to have random gotchas (for instance, there are phones which don't let you use the non-phone features until you activate it as a phone)
  24. Re:Not seeing the issue here on Judge: It's OK For Cops To Create Fake Instagram Accounts · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not fine even with that. If a cop lies and says he has evidence against a suspect, but the suspect is innocent, he is likely to think the police are willing to frame him, and may falsely confess just to avoid being framed for something worse.

  25. Re:Inherantly anti-first-world-consumer on To Fight Currency Mismatches, Steam Adding Region Locking to PC Games · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Breaking the region-locking is illegal because of the DMCA. The DMCA is a law, and is inherently non-free-market.