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User: TheBilgeRat

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Comments · 280

  1. That isn't really working out so great... on Streaming and Cord-Cutting Take a Toll On the Pay-TV Industry · · Score: 1

    http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/09/telco-to-town-were-suing-you-because-we-care/

    and even from slashdot:

    http://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/09/12/2326251/telco-sues-municipality-for-laying-their-own-fiber

  2. Re:Believability Deficit on CBS 60 Minutes: NSA Speaks Out On Snowden, Spying · · Score: 1

    They don't really need to assume that we are morons. We prove this every day, unfortunately:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/edward-snowden-poll_n_4175089.html

    Kind, sensible people every day stand idle while sociopaths lie blatantly to their faces, because they want to believe so badly that these agencies behave like they do.

  3. I'm in the exact same boat. on Ask Slashdot: Communication Skills For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    Same setup (new hire and entry level software engineer) basically. I only get to see my team in person every Tuesday and Thursday. We have email, jabber and phone for the other days. I think the same rules apply as any IRC channel - don't be afraid to own your ignorance, but make sure you have done a modicum of research before posting to your devel team listserv or pestering your coworkers with jabber texts in the middle of code-freeze or code-bash. Take it at face value and make incremental steps and get feedback.

  4. It was all about the by-products on Its Nuclear Plant Closed, Maine Town Is Full of Regret · · Score: 2

    If you do a little digging into the history of reactor design, you find out that there is already a working alternative:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

    The problem is that a LFTR reactor doesn't give you all those great by-products for thermonuclear weapons.

  5. Re:How is this legal? on Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees · · Score: 1

    During a low, poor period of my life I was working "seasonally" at an official job and doing under the table construction to help make up the slack. My bank at the time was Wells Fargo. Often I would have to go to the bank to cover checks that were going to bounce with cash. I would get there at bank open and deposit cash, a transaction that is supposed to post immediately. They would delay the posting of my cash deposit to business close to let the checks bounce and levy a $33 dollar fee. When I confronted them about this I was told to read the fine print of my agreement, which summed up to "We do what we want, so go pound sand."

  6. Re:No masks in FL on To Counter Widespread Surveillance, Stealth Clothing · · Score: 2

    They did have a pop up picture showing a hairstyle and makeup application designed to defeat facial recognition software. I would rather be ID'ed than wear the hairstyle, but the makeup pattern was kinda cool.

  7. Haven't encountered the age thing...yet on Ask Slashdot: Getting Hired As a Self-Taught Old Guy? · · Score: 1

    I wonder how much of it is the age thing vs completely cryptic HR screens. It was so much easier when I was in the public sector and the job announcement followed a strict form. You set your resume to answer every bullet point in the job description and if you hit all the checks it got past the mouth breathers and onto the desk of who would actually be hiring you. In the private sector, I've seen job announcements like that to cryptic touchy-feely bullshit like "Do you dream in DLL? Do you get a chubby writing device drivers?" Honestly. Spell out what the hell the job does and leave it at that. All my degree did was give me an understanding of the language of software engineering. It did absolutely nothing to prepare me for the reality (not to mention that the language of choice in uni was Java and now I'm in a QT/C++ house. Not exactly square one, but certainly not hit the ground running like an old crusty grey hair with no degree would do).

  8. The Lens Flare!!! on J.J. Abrams To Direct Star Wars VII · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... is going to be killer.

  9. Re:Climate research vs. weather prediction on Climate Change Research Gets Petascale Supercomputer · · Score: 1

    He is a dick for pointing out that currently IN THE US the weather computing power is at 0.07 petaflops? What was he supposed to google? How about "Is is a dick move to point out the lack of computer weather prediction capacity in the US without providing a non-sequitur mention of UK computer weather prediction capacity?"

  10. Re:I call bullshit... on US Doctors Back Circumcision · · Score: 1

    I think what he is saying is that in his case, it pretty much was a penile head removal. Read up on botched electro-cautery foreskin removal, where there are cases of doctors burning off way too much skin.

  11. Re:And simple on Amazon Wants To Replace Tape With Slow But Cheap Off-Site "Glacier" Storage · · Score: 1

    There are still a couple of Burma Shave signs along the 101 in Oregon, although doubtless put up as novelty...or never taken down?

  12. Re:Hmmm ... on The HP Memristor Debate · · Score: 0

    why no mod points when the funny is brought?

  13. Re:You're a company on Verizon Claims Net Neutrality Violates Their Free Speech Rights · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sort of like Union Carbide and Dow Chemical, you mean?

    There are some Indians who would like to see that corporate veil pierced

  14. Re:We're trying to leave... on SpaceX Brownsville Space Port Opposed By Texas Environmentalists · · Score: 1

    Why are you excluding extractive industry? That makes your point extremely disingenuous. What percentage of the Amazon is being deforested by indigenous peoples as compared to loggers working to build you cheap Cost Plus World Market furniture and lots of space for cattle monocultures? Try again. Science has already identified ecosystems' Achilles heels. The problem lies not with the science, but the politics and the unwillingness of the populace to do what is necessary to fix the issue. Insightful? Hardly.

  15. Re:There is only one moral call on Geeks In the Public Forum? · · Score: 1

    Nor will anyone, as that is what the democratic process is all about. Candidates like him I am not worried about - I am more worried about the mainstream morons and nutjobs that represent the "middle". They are the ones who keep voting in morons and nutjobs going all the way back to Nixon.

  16. Re:There is only one moral call on Geeks In the Public Forum? · · Score: 1

    Ron Paul may be extreme, but he is hardly a nutjob. I doubt that a pure libertarian stance would ever be enacted. However, the amount of tax money misappropriated, lost, unaudited, burned, spent on hookers for the Secret Service... shouldn't the government be held accountable for the necessary burden placed upon its citizenry? Do you think that, perhaps, some common middle ground could be achieved? Take this speech from Pete DeFazio, my favorite local Rep made about trying to pass an audit of the DOD:

    DeFazio addresses House committee that blocked Pentagon audit

    I am all for moderate amounts of taxes spent frugally and appropriately and in a completely transparent and open manner. I am not for blindly dismissing ideas from the right simply because they are on the right.

  17. Re:Scapegoat on Army Reviews Controversial Drug After Afghan Massacre · · Score: 2

    Are YOU a doctor who can speak to the physiological effects of a drug that alters brain chemistry combined with lack of sleep, near constant terror, and easy access to firearms? If not, then perhaps relating to your field trip to Africa to combat in Afghanistan isn't such a great analogy.

  18. Re:Evidence on What Happens To Your Files When a Cloud Service Shuts Down? · · Score: 2

    Forget all y'all - LHA for real pirate cred.

  19. Re:Whew.... on Package Signing Comes To Pacman and Arch Linux · · Score: 1

    I lol'ed. I guess no one with mod points today has a finely tuned sarcasm meter.

  20. Re:They should get serious on New Media Giants Take Out Print Ad Against SOPA · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Bing? you mean THIS Bing?

  21. Re:Don't feed your child bananas! on Ask Slashdot: Radiation Detection For Tokyo Resident? · · Score: 1

    Of course this is true, but how about potatoes grown on land seeded with radioactive cesium and strontium? I am guessing their activity is considerably higher. Kids these days. the USSR goes away and everyone forgets anything to do with radiation and dying in mushroom clouds, unless it involves using rad-away after eating some mole rat or mirelurk meat and gunning for super mutants.

  22. Re:Really? That's important ? on Linus Renames 2.6.40 Kernel To Linux 3.0, Announces Release Candidate · · Score: 1

    Spinal Tap much?

  23. I bet it was more... on German Foreign Office Going Back To Windows · · Score: 1

    the lack of netflix support...

  24. Re:Apple is too big and well entrenched to fail on Netgear CEO Says Jobs's Ego Will Bite Apple · · Score: 1

    If by "Fan base" you still mean Universities and school systems who are still under contract to replace Apples with more Apples.

  25. So what you're saying is.... on Domestic Use of Aerial Drones By Law Enforcement · · Score: 2

    ...there's another Ghetto Bird for Ice Cube to run from?