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User: pclminion

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  1. Re:Don't you love asshats on Verizon Backtracks On $2 Convenience Fee · · Score: 1

    Seems like common knowledge that ARCO doesn't take credit. Sorry you got burned your first time in there, but I hardly think a business choosing not to take credit cards qualifies as "suckering" you.

  2. Re:Don't you love asshats on Verizon Backtracks On $2 Convenience Fee · · Score: 1

    It seems you're correct. If that's the case, there are literally hundreds of convenience stores and gas stations around here that are violating their merchant agreements. Maybe I ought to make a weekend event out of reporting as many of them as I can to VISA...

  3. Re:And... on Verizon Backtracks On $2 Convenience Fee · · Score: 1

    In the 80's as a kid I used to wonder why leaded gas was cheaper than unleaded, when leaded gas was the stuff that had extra processing done to it. Shouldn't the less-processed product be the cheaper product?

  4. Re:Don't you love asshats on Verizon Backtracks On $2 Convenience Fee · · Score: 2

    Just a thought, but I was under the impression that charging a fee for accepting a credit card for purchases was illegal.

    From what I understand, you are permitted to charge a fee for a credit transaction but only if it is a flat fee not based on the transaction amount. Around my location it is very common for places to charge $0.35 for a debit/credit transaction.

  5. Re:Valid point on Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie · · Score: 1

    The people who achieve high points on corporate ladders are there because they do what the fuck they want, don't take no from anybody, and refuse to listen to bad advice given by idiots. The first and most important reason YOU aren't a CTO right now, is because you won't even try. You've defined your own little corner and now you're stuck in it.

  6. Re:Wow on Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie · · Score: 1

    I see you're still trying to distill everything into dollars. That is not at all what I am talking about.

  7. Re:Sweet 16 vs MMSE on Copyright Claim Sets Back Cognitive Impairment Testing · · Score: 1

    No you can't copyright logic.

    So, I can take the Linux kernel source and run it through a program which changes identifiers and manipulates loops so that the same effect is achieved in different "words", and gain complete rights?

  8. Re:Wow on Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Old people on the other hand have a better idea of how much their expertise is worth.

    Older people should also have a better understanding of what friends and colleagues are worth.

  9. Re:Wow on Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie · · Score: 2

    Sad, isn't it? And if it's not about the money, it's because "I think he's wrong about X." As if agreeing with a guy is a necessary condition for respecting a guy. I'm not putting Hawking on a pedestal -- I'd gladly take $38k to work for any of a number of top scientists.

    I understand that people with families and debts and complicated lives can't just drop everything... But I get the feeling most of the whiners in here are obnoxious 20-somethings. Older people can recognize the value in this, even if there's no way they could actually make it work. I hope.

  10. Re:Sounds fun but... on Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie · · Score: 1

    If only Darth Vader had taken the same attitude with Palpatine approached him. "Well, helping you to dominate the galaxy sounds cool and everything, but $38.5k? You've got to be fucking kidding me."

  11. Re:Ken Murray's blog on How Doctors Die · · Score: 2

    For me, it's definitely just a plain old habit, not an addiction. During the week at work, it's 6-8 cups per day. At home on the weekend I usually don't drink it. Not because I deliberately try to not drink it, it just doesn't occur to me to do so.

    Monday through Friday my habit is to drink it, and Saturday Sunday my habit is to not. I never feel physically compelled to drink it regardless of the day of the week.

  12. Re:also on Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is money the only value you could derive from a working relationship with Stephen Hawking?

  13. Re:So in other words... on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    What you are really saying is that a civilization capable of removing 1.5% of their planet's mass to speed up it's velocity is incapable of dealing with a bunch of extra space rocks?

    Through what magical feat of physics do you suggest they "deal" with the space rock? Momentum, momentum. Once again, conservation of momentum. Whether you collide with the debris or deflect it while it's far away, the momentum still transfers and the planet moves back into a higher orbit again.

  14. Re:naysayers on New Record High Temperature At South Pole · · Score: 1

    If I recal correctly, a recent volcano and fire basically emitted about 15 years of CO2 savings. To me, that means if we had about a dozen eruptions all of our savings would be eradicated. I am then left wondering, are our CO2 emissions significant?

    The fact that our CO2 savings can be measured in units of "volcanic eruptions" seems to imply they are at least as significant as the effects of, well, volcanic eruptions. And are you trying to argue that having a savings is bad because something could come along and wipe it out? Isn't that the POINT of savings?

    I have $50k in the bank. But I could have an accident and end up with $50k of hospital bills, which would wipe out my savings. Therefore, I should not waste my time saving money, instead I should just go into $50k of debt if and when that happens. That seems to be your argument, correct?

  15. Re:Politicians or Money on Rackspace: SOPA "Is a Deeply Flawed Piece of Legislation" · · Score: 1

    How exactly would one go about removing it all from the equation. Block one way and they'll find another, and no politician is going to vote against his/her ability to receive favours...

    They're doing it for money, so give them money. Raise their salaries by, say, 50 times. It's distasteful, but if it wipes out corruption, so what?

  16. Re:How do you determine healthy food? on IBM Granted Your-Paychecks-Are-What-You-Eat Patent · · Score: 1

    Mold spores barely start to germinate after 12 hours, much less grow to a mass of cells large enough to harm anyone. Germs and molds obviously can and do infect food stored at room temperature. The question is, can a harmful colony form on previously COOKED food in the span of a 12 hour period? I suggest that for most foods in most homes, the answer is no. If you're getting Monofreakium bloodydeathii colonies on your food at home I suggest burning your house down as it is harboring a deadly pathogen.

  17. Re:Not a bad idea but... on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    The appearance of the tick mark is irrelevant, so sure, go ahead and use a circle if you want. But if you're thinking of that circle as standing for "zero" then you are speaking nonsense, as any number of zeros collected together is still zero.

  18. Re:Simpler solution. on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 2

    To first approximation, Earth would be moving 1.5% faster (actually, not quite that much because it would have a smaller orbit, but close enough). Momentum is conserved, and it is linear in both mass and velocity, therefore, to change Earth's velocity by 1.5% through propulsive means, we would need to shoot away 1.5% of Earth's mass in the form of rocket exhaust. That's one hundred million trillion tons of propellant. Removing 1.5% of Earth's mass would also shrink the Earth, causing tectonic disasters and altering the acceleration due to gravity at Earth's surface. Additionally, there would now be one hundred million trillion tons of propellant floating around the inner solar system. We'd probably collide with it regularly, suffering severe impact damage.

  19. Re:An extra week in December? on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 2

    Its sort of a sign of the arrogance of mankind that they are willing to say screw the facts, lets make it easier to count on our fingers.

    Indeed, using complicated calendars is the only way to show appropriate deference to the universe. Seriously, what?

  20. Re:Not a bad idea but... on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're forgetting unary. How many fingers are on a normal human hand? The answer is 1111111111.

    Unary is great for adding, you don't have to do anything at all. What's 11111+111? Just remove the '+' and you have the answer.

  21. Re:13 Months? on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    That's the commonly-stated motivation for leap week calendars, but, you know, Christians, Muslims, and Jews all have a number of important holy days that drift around the Gregorian calendar as it is. I doubt that they'd have any trouble continuing to observe their seven-day cycle of regular observations if the unit-above-day of the secular calendar didn't align with it -- if workplaces were flexible enough in scheduling to accommodate employees religious obligations.

    The holidays you refer to happen once per year. What we're talking about here, is having a large fraction of your workforce essentially permanently on a different schedule. For decency's sake, you want to give people a two day weekend, not two days non-adjacent to each other throughout the week. That means that, in practice, the religious folks will be taking off TWO days during the regular work week, and working on weekends when the other half of the office is not present. So you spend 40% of your time with an incomplete contingent in the office. That's completely nuts.

  22. Re:13 Months? on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    Indeed, causing the days of the week to rotate would wreak havoc. Suppose that this year, the Sabbath day falls on calendar Wednesday due to weekday rotation. Now, all the observant employees at your company will be out of the office every Wednesday, the entire year. And there's still the weekend, so that means religious folks only work 4 days a week, and non-religious folks work 5 days a week. Suppose you try to fix this by forcing the religious guys to work on Saturdays, so they only get two days off, like everyone else -- only now, they don't get a two day weekend, they get two days off non-adjacent to each other. They would never have two days (a typical weekend) off in a row for years at a time! Both situations are untenable.

  23. Re:13 Months? on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    You do realize you just described the exact scheme proposed by the article, right?

  24. Re:13 Months? on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    That would be unacceptable to anybody who celebrates a Sabbath on a certain day of the week on every 7th day. Either they must wait 8 days (sin!) or they must do it on the wrong day of the week (sin!). In other words you cannot break the relationship between the weeks and the week days. That's why this calendar was designed the way it was, it preserves the relationship that every 7th day is the same day of the week as before. An alternative that breaks that relationship would be flat-out offensive to millions of people.

  25. Re:13 Months? on Christmas Always On Sunday? Researchers Propose New Calendar · · Score: 1

    The benefit of having a day always being a date would make so many things so much easier.

    But your suggestion doesn't actually solve that problem. If January 1 was a Sunday this year, it will be a Monday next year under your system. Unless you are planning to make the 365th day of the year to be the same day of the week as the previous day (i.e. the year ends with two Saturdays in a row)