Slashdot Mirror


User: Stoutlimb

Stoutlimb's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
956
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 956

  1. Re:What do politicians know about rocket science? on Senator Makes NASA Complete $350 Million Testing Tower That It Will Never Use · · Score: 1

    Agreed. In this case I think NASA may be the short sighted one. "Maintaining capability" is something that has value, even when it's not used. I had a knee jerk reaction when I read the headline, but upon contemplating, I find myself agreeing with the senator who's getting the pork. Sometimes wrong people do the right things for the wrong reasons.

  2. Robots are the way to go. on Inside Tony Hsieh's Quiet Plan To Bankroll Hardware Startups · · Score: 1

    I wish someone would fund my robot invention. The profit in this industry is stupidly crazy for the right design. Alas I don't have the business skills to go along with my technical skills.

  3. What about Canadians? on US Intelligence Chief Defends Attempts To Break Tor · · Score: 1

    I don't live in the USA either. But I don't feel safe. He's being fairly truthful that he's not breaking any laws in the USA. But what laws prevent him from doing all sorts of nasties to people outside the USA, including close allies like Canada? I get the feeling that they have a "no hold barred" attitude even to allies.

  4. Re:Blame Canada? on What Developers Can Learn From Healthcare.gov · · Score: 1

    It's a Quebec company... they're fucked. It's like hiring a "European" company which just happens to be run out of Sicily. They're so stupidly corrupt there, that I can honestly say they deserved it.

  5. Kinda nice. on MIT Researchers Unveil Self-Assembling Robot Swarm · · Score: 1

    I have a much better version of this that's immediately suitable for commercial and industrial apps. I suck at the funding part. Anyone want to donate or be an angel investor?

  6. Re:All this for waffles. on Snowden Docs: Brits Hacked Accounts of Belgian IT Admins · · Score: 1

    You had me until your last line. You actually believe that people in the southern hemisphere are somehow morally superior?

  7. Ringworld on Sci-Fi Author Timothy Zahn Is Creating a Video Game · · Score: 1

    I would rather see a very good video game based on Larry Niven's Ringworld.

  8. Re:Friend zoning on Humans Choose Friends With Similar DNA · · Score: 1

    You're reading too much into a small joke. Your comments also likely also say more about yourself than me. :-)

  9. Friend zoning on Humans Choose Friends With Similar DNA · · Score: 1

    If this behavioural trait is true, it may explain the "friend zoning" that women do in an evolutionary way. The best of friends (and the closest in genetics) rarely get laid because it would be a from of inbreeding. If organisms have a way to detect and closely associate with genetically similar individuals, it wouldn't be a stretch that mating strategies would evolve to seek individuals from outside this close group.

    And then again, there's the women who like to make their rounds with entire circles of friends. I don't think any male has yet to comprehend that mating strategy.

  10. Re:so pony up, Microsoft want agile extreme only on Devs Flay Microsoft For Withholding Windows 8.1 RTM · · Score: 1

    I think you pointed out Microsoft's folly. A longer release cycle creates resistance to change. A shorter release cycle creates resistance to Microsoft. I don't think they'll grasp that concept until the fail tsunami finishes rolling in and out.

  11. Re:Stupid comment... on Newest YouTube User To Fight a Takedown: Lawrence Lessig · · Score: 1

    Because most artists have no say.

  12. Re:Hormone therapy? on Bradley Manning Wants To Live As a Woman · · Score: 1

    That's going to work towards Chelsea's favour. Now she gets put in a women's prison. Less chance of something bad happening when she drops the soap. Assuming she ever sees the light of day with the general population, and not get locked in a hole for the rest of her life. If they don't treat her with the respect she deserves as a human being, she has another way of appealing her sentence on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment. I hope she wins.

  13. Re:Why? on LG Reportedly Working On a Firefox OS Phone · · Score: 1

    Just to add... won't this cause even more personal user data go onto the web, and contribute even more to the current surveillance society? What we need is the opposite. Lock down the apps onto the device, lock down the data, and only let things in/out in an encrypted fashion, and ensure encryption remotely whenever possible.

  14. Re:Why? on LG Reportedly Working On a Firefox OS Phone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Updating the phone is the weak spot of Android. However, I'm not sure what the benefit of not needing to install apps to use them have, other than perhaps cause confusion to end users about what app they are even using at any given moment. Unless done well, this has the potential to be a security nightmare.

  15. Re:"Expert" ? on Canadian Military Developing Stealth Snowmobile · · Score: 1

    I'm having doubts you've ever seen or heard snowmobiles in their natural environment. They scream their presence and it's heard loud and clear even kilometres away. The only thing I can think of with a comparable sound is rigs using their engine retarder brakes. Good luck hearing a car even a block away. When the only really effective snow vehicle advertises it's position like that, any snowmobile that doesn't do that is going to mean the difference between victory and defeat in a snowy battlefield. There can be no more important military spending than to make sure that the Canadian army can win a war on home turf. Even if they don't build many of them, it's important for them to do the research so that they can build them quickly if the need arose. If that means some soldiers have to go without for the short term, so be it. We're not fighting a war at the moment.

  16. Re:"Expert" ? on Canadian Military Developing Stealth Snowmobile · · Score: 2

    I think that's why he failed. He's just an Arctic policy expert. Snowmobiles are excellent vehicles in any place where snow falls... and in Canadian winters, that's just about freakin' everywhere. It's not about the Arctic, this is about being able to fight a war in the wintertime better than anyone else can. Afghanistan gets snow in the winter, and snowmobiles get to drive just about anywhere, so avoid roadside bombs. They could have been very useful in Afghan winters for swift strike teams. If it snows, and it's wartime, this is a good idea. Everyone always complains how our soldiers don't get the gear they need, and when the government tries to change that, people whine and complain again. I'm Canadian, and I think this is a great idea.

  17. Re:Try claiming "Death to the Great Satan". on Time Reporter "Can't Wait" To Justify Drone Strike On Julian Assange · · Score: 1

    "there's a mathematical proof of the existence of God"

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was funny.

    No wait... you're serious?

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    Fucking idiot.

  18. Re:at some point... on The College-Loan Scandal · · Score: 1

    The anecdotal evidence you present is actually evidence against your assertion that everything is going fine.

    You say you're smart, but you can't see the obvious reasons in front of you that what is happening is very bad. Foreign students aren't a bad thing, but in the numbers they come in, and the financial barriers to entry in universities, it's like flies sitting on the still twitching corpse of the USA educational system. What they are doing is gathering the knowledge and expertise gathered by the USA over the last 100 years, and taking it home with them. To them, it's a very worthwhile venture, that is why they pay. But for local USA students looking for jobs after they graduate it's not a rosy picture... they will be enrolling in ever smaller numbers. The USA system will never disappear, as there will always be that elite core of the rich and brilliant, but the age where college is possible for the common man is coming to an end, so naturally as the local enrolment dwindles, you will see a much larger proportion of foreigners.

  19. Re:These are NOT companies ... on New Zealand Court Orders Facebook Disclosure To Employer · · Score: 1

    There will always be someone hungrier who will take the job, regardless of how many people complain that these companies aren't worth working for. This is what corporations like McDonald's or WalMart, and obviously this NZ airline rely on. It may sound counter-intuitive, but somewhat a somewhat bad economy lets these companies flourish because there is less choice. In some ways the system is rigged against the common man, and regulation is required to put an end to such practice. The free market will NOT sort this out on it's own.

  20. Re:Where there's a will, there's a way on The Pirate Bay Is 10 Years Old: 'We Really Didn't Think We'd Make It This Far' · · Score: 1

    Because Game of Thrones is trying (somewhat successfully) to worm it's way into our culture. Once something is a part of our culture, in some ways it belongs to everyone. Seeing all the illegal downloads shows me that people value access to their culture far more than they value obeying some antiquated and corrupt laws.

  21. Re:Mysterious mountain - layers on NASA's Curiosity Rover Celebrates One Year On Mars · · Score: 2

    If you read the TFA, they say this is likely a mountain entirely built up by wind-borne sediment. Assuming they can access various layers of sediment, then yes, it's possible. Even still, the walls of a deep crater do sound like a better candidate to examine rock strata.

  22. Re: Computer Intrusion on Half of Tor Sites Compromised, Including TORMail · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Chechnya. Twice. And before you say it's an internal matter, it's no more an internal matter than if they had invaded Ukraine. The strong splinter states of the USSR got their freedom. The weak ones got steamrolled. In Moscow, Chechens aren't considered Russian... so how could this truly be an internal matter?

  23. Re: Computer Intrusion on Half of Tor Sites Compromised, Including TORMail · · Score: 1

    The government was never very nice, you just woke up to it. If you truly want that fantasy government back, go buy yourself a flat of beer, switch the channel to Maury, disconnect your internet, and for God's sake, don't read anything!

    Notice I never gave you any voting advice... it's because you don't need to worry about that. How and if you vote never really matters.

  24. Improvement on 3D Printing In Gel Enables Freeform Design and an Undo Function · · Score: 1

    I think they could do better if they had a 2d mesh of individually controlled apetures that had switchable nozzles that could easily switch between extruding gel and resin. The printing speed would be ridiculously fast.

  25. Green apocalypse on Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria That Can Colonize Most Plants Discovered · · Score: 1, Troll

    With a bacteria that can infect plants and cause them to suck nitrogen out of the air... let out of control on a large scale, this may affect the world in a drastic way, much like how the first oxygen producing microbes first appeared on earth.