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User: Jeremi

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Comments · 6,712

  1. Re:seem like? No, are. on Inexpensive Electric Cars May Arrive Sooner Than You Think · · Score: 1

    ...and they all suck. Bad range, and terrible charge. People continue to buy gas cars because these issues are still not addressed in cars they could potentially afford.

    Yes, but they suck quite a bit less than the electric cars of just a few years ago. The state of the art is advancing rapidly; every year there are more EVs and they become competitive for more use cases. The writing is on the wall.

  2. Re:Have you actually tried using Rust? on Rust 1.0 Enters Beta · · Score: 1

    Well, guess what, if that were possible, we would have the right tools by now. The fact of the matter is that performance, security, maintainability, etc. cannot be enforced by tools.

    I take it you do all of your programming in assembly language, because there's nothing to be gained by using anything higher-level than that, because you totally know what you're doing at all times?

    (Or if not, you've tacitly admitted that there is a benefit to using a tool that enforces some level of safety; you're only quibbling about what that tool should be)

  3. Re:WWJD? on Apple's Tim Cook Calls Out "Religious Freedom" Laws As Discriminatory · · Score: 1

    I own a business. I am a business man. I decide who my potential customers are, and who I don't accept as customers. No one can make that choice for me.

    That's some good bluster, but if you e.g. post "Whites Only" signs on your doors, you'll find yourself in court in very short order. There you'll find out that your freedom to accept or reject customers is in fact circumscribed by anti-discrimination laws.

  4. Re:WWJD? on Apple's Tim Cook Calls Out "Religious Freedom" Laws As Discriminatory · · Score: 1

    I have a serious problem with gay marriage, as marriage is a religious ceremony, so the state should stay out of it.

    Sounds like you actually have a problem with state-sponsored marriage (gay or straight), but you're only willing to apply your logic to gay marriage.

    Civil union is the state sponsored joining, and should be the proper avenue for the state to allow something that religion indicates is wrong.

    Which religion are you referring to? There are plenty of religions that approve of gay marriage, and there are also plenty of religions that think various straight marriages (e.g. second marriages, or inter-racial or inter-religious marriages) are wrong. It's not clear why any of that is relevant to what the state should or shouldn't do, given that (in the USA anyway), church and state are meant to be kept separate from each other.

    However, it has to be understood that most of the benefits of marriage have to do with holding a family together for the benefit of the children, which a homosexual marriage may have some issues in creating.

    It's actually quite easy for a homosexual marriage to have children. Gays of either gender can adopt, and gay women can get pregnant and give birth. And if you want to play the "it's all about the children" card, you then have to explain why infertile/childless straight couples should be allowed to enjoy the benefits of marriage.

  5. Re: Christian Theocracy on Apple's Tim Cook Calls Out "Religious Freedom" Laws As Discriminatory · · Score: 1

    Rather--I'm glad that neither the government nor anyone else can force them to take the ["Whites Only"] sign down.

    Just to be clear -- the US government can and does force businesses to take any "Whites Only" signs down. Outside of "private clubs", discrimination by businesses was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

  6. Re:And what good would it do? on Why the Final Moments Inside a Cockpit Are Heard But Not Seen · · Score: 1

    Isn't that just a variation of the "If you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide" argument?

    It sure is -- but does a person who is working at their workplace have a right to privacy? Particularly when hundreds of lives depend on their actions?

  7. Re:Pilots must remain in control on Modern Cockpits: Harder To Invade But Easier To Lock Up · · Score: 1

    Hm, maybe FOUR people in the cockpit. Plus an armed TSA agent. And an armed TSA agent agent. That'll do the trick.

    I say we get rid of the cockpit entirely, and instead provide a set of virtual controls in every passenger seat's seatback touchscreen. That way the passengers can fly the plane democratically. It will only fly into a mountain if that's what a majority of the passengers want it to do.

    (Now, where do I pick up my consulting fee? ;))

  8. Re:Economics on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    Chernobyl had nothing whatsoever to do with maintenance. It happened as the direct consequence of an ill conceived experiment, which deliberately bypassed safety protocols

    Granted, but the fact is that people occasionally do make dumb mistakes. The fact that a dumb mistake in a nuclear power plant can render an entire region uninhabitable is what makes nuclear power so risky, and hence uneconomical to insure. Most other forms of power plant might in the worst case be badly damaged, but they wouldn't also permanently remove the surrounding zip code from civilization.

  9. Re:Risk Management on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You already need a pass code but, apparently, also whoever is in the cockpit also has to authorize.

    The above is incorrect -- the person in the cockpit doesn't have to authorize, he just has to not actively prevent re-entry. (The PIN system is designed so that if the person in the cockpit passes out, another flight crew member can get into the cockpit. A requirement that the person in the cockpit actively grant access to the cockpit would defeat the purpose)

  10. Re:people are going to be saying on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    what are we left with? keep the door open and we have murderous hijacking? keep the door locked and we have murderous pilots? yeah both are extremely rare outliers, but it's fucking scary either way

    I imagine the eventual solution will be an airplane control system with software that does not allow the airplane to be deliberately crashed. (Of course then we'll have to worry about bugs in the software and/or evil programmers instead)

  11. Re:Ketchup was never a problem ... on Scientists Create Permanently Slick Surface So Ketchup Won't Stay In Bottle · · Score: 4, Funny

    4. ???

    (4) is "realize you should have been holding the bottle more tightly during step 3 -- go to find the mop and broom"

  12. Re:Here's MY test on A Bechdel Test For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    As they get older girls are told that some jobs are not for them, that they should be working to get good husbands. TV says to look pretty. [...] So by the time it comes to pick out a career or major in college these days, the number of women choosing computing, mathematics, or engineering is small (and in my experience much smaller than it used to be).

    Granting all of the above is true, it's still not clear what can be done when many/most women, whether for reasons inherent or socially acquired, are simply not much interested in programming as a career(*). You can't tell them "oh yes you are interested, you have to be, because women are under-represented in this field" without denying them the right to make their own decisions about what they want to do with their lives.

    It seems to me that if you want to crack this nut, you'd have to teach better parenting skills and try to reach girls at the elementary school level. By the time the woman is a young adult, her preferences are likely already largely formed.

    (*) in this case, "not much interested" can be defined as "not sufficiently interested to spend the thousands of solitary hours necessary to become really good at it"

  13. Re:And one single USB-C port on Apple Doubles MacBook Pro R/W Performance · · Score: 2

    So you can hook up to an external monitor OR charge your Iphone OR make a powerpoint presentation! In 2016, it will be even lighter when they reduce the number of letters in the alphabet for the keyboard.

    Dunno if you were joking or not, but in case you weren't, note that the MacBook Pro has (by my count) 8 ports. It's the new MacBook (not Pro) that has only the single USB-C port.

  14. Re:Pointing out the stark, bleeding obvious... on France Decrees New Rooftops Must Be Covered In Plants Or Solar Panels · · Score: 1

    If we don't stop using fossil fuels at the rate we currently are, then CO2 will just keep building up in the air.

    I'm curious... say we wanted to keep the level of CO2 in the atmosphere constant at its current level. What level of carbon emissions would we need to have? (Or, to put it another way, what is the natural "Carbon sink rate" of the Earth?)

  15. Re:You're doing it wrong. on Internet of Things Endangered By Inaccurate Network Time, Says NIST · · Score: 1

    Do you really think the outsourced programmers developing Things for the 'Internet Of Things' will do anything but hack together the code in Java or Python on the cheapest OS they can find?

    Some companies will do a half-assed job, and some will do a more thoughtful job. Then the market will decide whether or not it's willing to pay the extra money to have things done well. The outcome will depend a lot on what the particular Thing is used for, and what the costs of the occasional malfunction are vs the extra development costs of developing the software 100% correctly.

  16. Re:Elon Musk just lost my respect on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 1

    DISCLAIMER: I don't give a flying fuck if you agree with me or not, I don't give a flying fuck about your insults, and you're not changing my mind, EVER, either, so just don't bother commenting on the above at all, deal with it.

    Your post sounds so much better when read in an Abe Simpson voice.

  17. Re:Renting private chargers on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 2

    They should let owners lend their private chargers for a fee, handled by Tesla. Something like Uber but for charging your car.

    Well, there's PlugShare which pretty much does that, although I don't think people typically charge a fee; rather they do it pro bono on the assumption that when they need a recharge someone else will do the same for them.

  18. Re:From another article... on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 1

    How do you define test coverage for "traffic situations"? How would it at all be possible to make a "safe system" without even a concept of how to define or measure test coverage? How do you *prove* that the remainder of the situations pose an acceptable risk to the public?

    I can predict how it will actually be done... release a product and see what happens. When something goes horribly wrong, wipe up all the blood, review the log files, figure out what went wrong, and issue a software patch. Repeat as necessary until bad things don't much happen anymore. It was good enough for Windows, and by God it will be good enough for Tesla. ;)

  19. Re:From another article... on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 1

    Why would I want to travel in a self-driving car that drives worse than I do?

    So you can get yourself and your car home when you're drunk.

    Seriously... if you want to manually drive your self-driving car, go right ahead. Even that weird Mercedes prototype thing still has a steering wheel and pedals so you can drive it manually if you want to.

    The question is, do you want to have the option of not driving in situations where it would be inconvenient, tedious, or dangerous for you to drive? If so, you might find a self-driving car useful.

  20. Re:One and done on Windows 10's Biometric Security Layer Introduced · · Score: 2

    One presumes that eventually we will all be using multi-factor authentication to log in.

  21. Re:Shouldn't that be sign? on Ex-NSA Researcher Claims That DLL-Style Attacks Work Just Fine On OS X · · Score: 4, Informative

    don't the shared libs need to be signed.

    I was under the impression that as of MacOS/X 10.9.x, all distributed shared libraries in your .app directory needed to be signed as well, or Gatekeeper would treat the app as if it was unsigned. (See the "Code Signing Changes in OS X Mavericks" subsection at this link)

    Is the vulnerability described in the article applicable only to older versions of MacOS/X, or has the researcher found a way around that test?

  22. Except that rich people usually have drivers, and so whether you instill points or day fines they'll be mostly unaffected. At most, their driver may lose their license, in which case they'll just hire another one.

    Professional drivers need to obey the traffic laws also. I don't see a problem here, unless the rich person was pressuring their chauffer to drive unsafely; in which case that is a workplace-safety issue that can be dealt with separately.

  23. Re:If Iran even wants the bomb on Top-Secret US Replica of Iran Nuclear Sites Key To Weapons Deal · · Score: 1

    Surely the very high likelihood of a nuclear counterstrike would play some deterrent role here also?

  24. Re:It'll message home when you're running low on Elon Musk Pledges To End "Range Anxiety" For Tesla Model S · · Score: 1

    Giant Tesla Coils mounted on top of the high voltage cross-country transmission line towers.

    Now that's what I would call a Supercharger! :) (The tinfoil-hat crowd is going to have a tough time near those, though)

  25. Re:VR Demands Specialized Input Devices on Valve's SteamVR: Solves Big Problems, Raises Bigger Questions · · Score: 2

    Then I can drag windows off to the side, look at something on the other side of my virtual desktop, and basically never have to maximize a window ever again.

    I hope you're not a coffee drinker, because if you are, I can foresee the demise of a lot of keyboards from this setup :)