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User: istartedi

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  1. Yes, but what about... on Smart Battery Tells You When It's About To Explode · · Score: 1

    Yes, but what about anti-virus? Anything with that much technology is going to get a virus. So. Before this will really work, we need a network updater and a package management system. /sarcasm.

  2. Re:Sagan at Cornell on Carl Sagan, as "Mr. X," Extolled Benefits of Marijuana · · Score: 1

    A little googling and I see nothing to indicate Grinspoon is dead. There are no mentions of death in his Wiki bio or anyplace else that I can find. If you have solid evidence (e.g., obit in a newspaper or something) then update Wikipedia.

  3. Re:Art? on Indonesian Cave Art May Be World's Oldest · · Score: 2

    I think I see an animal in there. It's heavily obscured by fungus, bat guano or something. Look to the left and you see a couple of skinny legs or tree like things. Look to the upper right and you see a head. It might be depicting a flightless bird or something. Needless to say, it needs serious conservation since it's just been discovered. I don't know what if any cleaning was done in France.

  4. Re:Forth on Goodbye, World? 5 Languages That Might Not Be Long For This World · · Score: 1

    Oh wow, good one. Totally forgot about it. That's the thing about Forth. It's in the type of code that just sits there doing jobs so well that you forget about it. One might mistake this for death, but it's really maturity.

  5. Nobody mentioned Forth. It must be dead. Half-joking here. The first user that leaps to mind is NASA. IIRC, they're known to have written some very robust Forth for probes. It's been a long time since I've looked at the early boot process of a BSD or Linux distro. Is it still there? The reason I think Forth might die is because I come across people who think something with a gig of RAM is a "tiny embedded system". With that kind of power you don't need Forth.

    A few people are playing with other languages like Joy, which also use RPN. These are academic "esolangs" though. Can they ever be said to have been alive?

  6. How many Europeans are willing to leave the EU? on US Remains Top Country For Global Workers · · Score: 1

    If you live in Europe, chances are you've visited much of the continent. Thus, taking a job in another country isn't that big of a leap. If you live in the US, you've probably visited much of the lower 48. If you move from Boston to LA, it's quite a culture shock but in this survey it isn't considered a move because the United States is a country made up of united states. I think it might be more interesting to see how many Europeans are willing to leave the EU for work.

  7. Can they form corporations? on Chimpanzee "Personhood" Is Back In Court · · Score: 2

    Can they form corporations? That's where it gets really interesting.

  8. Policy Makers? on Living On a Carbon Budget: The End of Recreation As We Know It? · · Score: 1

    Policy makers? I thought this was a representative republic. I thought we voted on stuff, and it was applied to everybody. Ha-ha. Just kidding. I didn't roll off a turnip truck. Yep. Policy Makers. They make policy for everybody... except those with enough money to buy out of it. IMHO, Policy Makers need to do one thing: Go into a corner and fuck themselves. Of course they're not going to do that. They'll make some kind of "carbon policy" or "water policy" or whatever. Then some corporation will buy their way out of it. You and I? I say, hop in the car and guzzle while you still can. Whatever nightmare that will be created by Policy Makers is inevitable. You might as well have some fun before it happens.

  9. Re:Doomsday Preppers heading for the bunker on After Dallas Ebola Diagnosis, CDC Raises Estimate of Patient's Possible Contacts · · Score: 1

    Modding this down? Really? Parent is not coming off as nutty at all. If ebola becomes established in the USA, figuring out how to avoid human contact for the incubation period is a perfectly sane thing to do.

  10. Re:Compound Found In Beer Impairs Brain Function on Study: Compound Found In Beer Boosts Brain Function · · Score: 3, Funny

    Studies notebook, checks over a few calculations, and turns to colleague: You're not going to believe this. I really am a PIG FUCKER and I really SHOULD DIE. Oh no, forgot to carry the two. I'm good. Yes. I'll have another.

  11. Re:Fristy Pawst! on Ebola Has Made It To the United States · · Score: 1

    You aren't hunting on 100 acres of land and you definitely could not farm and hunt it at the same time. That could not support a single human let alone a village.

    40 acres and a mule.

  12. Re:Fristy Pawst! on Ebola Has Made It To the United States · · Score: 2

    When I heard the $1/day figure, I always assumed there was a lot of barter and a lot of "doing without". You live in a shack on land that nobody buys, so you have no rent. Your village holds sway over 100 acres, which you farm and/or hunt. You trade bush meat for vegetables in the market. There's no electricity, so there's no electric bill. You fetch water from a stream, which is filthy; but there's no water bill. There's no sewer bill either. You crap in a hole if you're lucky, or the foul smelling street if you're not. Your family has a member who specializes in something that requires skill, such as being a motorbike mechanic. That pulls in some money. You use that money to buy a few things that can't be obtained by barter or other means. There. You're living on a dollar a day, but you're not a social outcast or any more poor than people around you. Thus, it's not as tragic as it sounds. At least, that's what I always figured. There has to be something that makes it different from just giving an American $1/day and telling them to live. If you did that, the only sensible thing to buy would be magic markers, a cup, and cardboard. Most of us would be miserable. It'd be psychologically debilitating. It'd be nothing like "living on $1/day" in Africa.

  13. Re:Fristy Pawst! on Ebola Has Made It To the United States · · Score: 1

    If China really wanted South Korea on its border, they could have it in a few weeks. I don't think DPRK can really deliver a nuke, and even if they could the guys who actually launch them would probably be too busy partying. It's probably the only country on the planet where everybody would pour out into the street welcoming Chinese tanks with true sincerity.

  14. Re:Expectation of privacy on Drones Reveal Widespread Tax Evasion In Argentina · · Score: 1

    Hey man, I don't know why you're so upset. Maybe you need a punching bag. Maybe somebody left a bag of poop on your door, or ran over your rose bushes. If so, glad to be your virtual punching bag. Looking back over this, I'll admit that I might have escalated things unnecessarily by saying "you should have just corrected my sig". You opened the door of pedantry though, and that pissed me off. I apologize for that little remark. I apologize for nothing else. I'm done with this. Chill out and have a nice day. The last word is yours.

  15. Re:Rent a Tesla for $1 on State of Iowa Tells Tesla To Cancel Its Scheduled Test Drives · · Score: 1

    That's a good point. Tesla probably has the ability to fight and win outright.

  16. Re:Expectation of privacy on Drones Reveal Widespread Tax Evasion In Argentina · · Score: 1

    I don't care about my ego. If I did, I wouldn't have linked to Wikipedia and acknowledged the technical correctness of what you're saying. It's the spirit of what she did that matters more to me (and most people) than the technical correctness. You could have pointed it out more politely. It could have gone something like this:

    "Actually, she simply refused to get up when the driver shrank the "colored" section; but I get what your'e saying".

  17. Rent a Tesla for $1 on State of Iowa Tells Tesla To Cancel Its Scheduled Test Drives · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Rent a Tesla for $1. This is a one-time offer. Limit one per customer. Problem solved.

  18. Re:Expectation of privacy on Drones Reveal Widespread Tax Evasion In Argentina · · Score: 1

    I got curious and did a little research. Rosa Parks did not sit in the back of the bus in the "black" section. She sat in the first row of the "colored" section. The row became illegal when the driver demanded that the "colored" section be made smaller. So. Neither of us are entirely correct, although I think my original statement is closer to the spirit of what she did.

    Maybe you should have just corrected my sig.

  19. Re:Petitions.org... on Forest Service Wants To Require Permits For Photography · · Score: 1

    This is my understanding of the tripod issue. Definitely not weight, who cares about that? It's the legs spreading around, and the attitude that people have. You let those things in, you'd be surprised at what jerks people can be. OK, back country, nobody's gonna know. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about right below Bridalveil falls on a warm Sunday afternoon. It's crowded already. We don't need your tripod.

    Now of course you could just pass a rule "not to be disruptive" as others have suggested. Problem? It'd be at the discretion of the rangers. Disputes would arise. Ranger: "His tripod and long lens were taking up space, and he was there for an hour trying to catch the light, telling people to move". Photog: "There's no rule against tripods or long lenses, and people with iPhones tell others to move sometimes too". And so on and so forth. It's easier just to ban certain types of equipment. I'm not saying it's the best way to handle it. It's just the reality of how laws and rules work. They're blunt instruments.

    That's why a lot of people, even officials, will go "wink, wink, just do this" even though it's against the rules. Taking your tripod and some trash bucket lenses up to a peak at 3 AM for sunrise shots? Technically it might be against the rules but you won't bother anybody. You might even be able to sell the pictures for quite a while before anybody notices; but if you start making a name for yourself or disrupting popular spots, you're going to have to play by the rules.

  20. Petitions.org... on Forest Service Wants To Require Permits For Photography · · Score: 0

    The requirement for a permit when using tripods or shooting movies makes sense. Those things can be disruptive on the trails. Anything else is overkill. We need a petition to kill this before it gets any further. The idea that we'll have a steady flood of people confessing "crimes" on their FaceBook pages simply by having some familiar landmark in the background is mind boggling.

  21. Expectation of privacy on Drones Reveal Widespread Tax Evasion In Argentina · · Score: 1

    Even in the US, this is justified and I have no problem with it. There is no expectation of privacy when you build a house. I'm on the tax rolls. I expect my neighbors to be on the tax rolls too. That's how it works. Civil disobedience? No. This isn't Rosa Parks sitting in the front of a bus. This is a bunch of rich people cheating. Nothing to see here, move along.

  22. Re:Uhhh on Miss a Payment? Your Car Stops Running · · Score: 1

    It's not an ownership issue. It's a safety and consumer protection issue. In general, this model of selling crippled products needs to be regulated. If it isn't, we'll be putting dimes in our toasters just to have breakfast.

  23. Re:Can someone explain? on Where Whistleblowers End Up Working · · Score: 2

    It's like having a PhD and a felony conviction, all rolled into one.

  24. Re:They need to get their shit together on South Australia Hits 33% Renewal Energy Target 6 Years Early · · Score: 1

    Most of Germany's renewable energy comes from biomass and hydro, sources that Australia can't tap

    Agreed on the hydro, but what about eucalyptus trees? Why can't they just cut more of those things down and burn them in a controlled manner? Mind you we have the same problem in California. I figure we can't do it here because "OMG you're burning trees!" but because we don't thin the forest, I've spent the last couple months breathing trees.

  25. Re:Same story...same misrepresentation on PayPal Integrates Bitcoin Processors BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin · · Score: 1

    dogs will eat anything, including motor oil.

    Yes, but while only the most extreme idiot or sicko would fill Fido's water dish with motor oil, there are probably still a significant number of uninformed owners who might feed him chocolate. For evidence I suggest you google "number of dogs brought to the vet due to chocolate poisoning" vs. "number of dogs brought to the vet due to motor oil poisoning".