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User: AkkarAnadyr

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Comments · 198

  1. Re:Sure, to lower paying jobs on The Luddites Are Almost Always Wrong: Why Tech Doesn't Kill Jobs · · Score: 1

    Yeh, it sure will be great to see kids under corporate management, free from the awful dysfunction of an incompetent, indifferent bureaucracy full of power-hungry sociopaths trying to make themselves look good, without regard to the quality of their product.

    After all, corporations have always treated children very well indeed.

  2. Re:long term view missed, as mentioned on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    So we should take this market signal as the cue to habituate our large-scale energy systems to the results of accelerated harvest of a finite resource, then?

    Good thing that signal doesn't have any distorting factors, like .gov-mandated cost externalization ... and that we're so good at a national level at preparing for sudden drop-offs in supply ... and that we understand compound growth so intuitively as a species ...

  3. Re:That popping sound on Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown · · Score: 1

    Edward Teller

  4. Re:Bejeweled... on Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics · · Score: 1

    A little complex computation is good for the soul ...

  5. Re:Typical psychological mambo jambo. on Social Media Is a New Vector For Mass Psychogenic Illness · · Score: 1

    And server-side software to track them.

  6. I see what you did there. on Book Review: Eloquent JavaScript: a Modern Introduction To Programming · · Score: 2

    Also, the book contains several erratum, most of them a simple mismatch of singular and plural forms:

    A sentence with a 'single errata' contains a mismatch between Latin and English singular and plural forms also too (moreover in addition).

  7. Re:Good to see intelligence rewarded for once. on Curiosity Rewarded: Florida Teen Heading to Space Camp, Not Jail · · Score: 1

    See this comment also. Good on ya, Wilgas.

  8. Re:Good to see intelligence rewarded for once. on Curiosity Rewarded: Florida Teen Heading to Space Camp, Not Jail · · Score: 1

    Preventing this type of idiotic heavy-handed action will require bigger changes than one administrator growing a brain and/or balls.

    One administrator can and should start the system on this road by growing a brain. They're in that business - growing people's brains. If they can't provide a good example, they deserve a review of their competence, let alone whether they ought to sleep comfortably at night, or look anyone in the eye afterwards.

  9. Re:And the infection vector? on "Bill Shocker" Malware Controls 620,000 Android Phones In China · · Score: 1

    Better fix it then by downloading the app from that link in the article ... oh wait ...

  10. Re:maybe the problem is on your end on Ask Slashdot: What To Tell Non-Tech Savvy Family About Malware? · · Score: 1

    Neither can the folks in Scunthorpe.

  11. Re:Still not getting it. on Ask Slashdot: Rectifying Nerd Arrogance? · · Score: 1

    More like the way you didn't see the *WHOOSH* coming from a mile off.

    Idiot.*

    **WHOOSH*^2

  12. Re:I found a good explanation on Ask Slashdot: Why Are Hearing Aids So Expensive? · · Score: 1

    But how hard would it be for some grad student audiologist to knock up an open source algorithm based on published data?

    Hard enough that a bobbled corner case might result in hearing damage.

    By the time G. Rad Student finishes detecting and fixing those, he'll be far enough behind on his student enslavement^Wloan payments that he'll need more cash from the effort than an independent OSS release is likely to get him in the short term.

    And TPTB still won't trust the work and will insist on a SCH1 medical license, again too expensive for someone with chains^Wdebt.

    The only path forward is not to call it a hearing assistance device at all. Apps for 'equalization' already exist for bluetooth phones, I believe (I had that idea last year and found examples at the time - hie thee to thy keyboard, Google Grasshopper).

  13. It got at least one Christian ... on South Korea Surrenders To Creationist Demands On Evolution Textbooks · · Score: 2
  14. Off the top of my head ... on VA Governor Wants Military Drones For Police · · Score: 2

    There could be many more of them per police officer (let alone police force) than is feasible for helicopters.

    They're much smaller and more agile, allowing access to your daughter's hot tub^W^W^W^W more private areas.

    They're much easier to make silent, thus enabling stealth surveillance.

    They can operate 24/7/365 in aggregate.

    They'd be in the hands of people who do things like this.

  15. Re:Perhaps this guy should stick to paleontology? on Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey · · Score: 1

    'Neo-atheists, gay-rights activists and the like' are not opposed to Christianity.

    They are opposed to hatred, ostracism, and lynchings foisted in their direction.

    Christians who go on such a warpath are pointedly not with you in thinking that the purpose of Scripture is 'not to give literal history'. If they were, they'd mature faster by understanding the nature and benificial application of metaphor to their own growth and maturation into peaceful, constructive adults.

    But a big batch of 'em do not. They take a literal interpretation as license to perpetrate Bronze-age bigotry and terrorism while deflecting responsibility onto an untouchable authority. Small wonder they come in for some criticism now and then.

    That should include criticism from the constructive adult Christians who can see the corrosive effect this has on the real moral messages Christianity offers.

  16. Re:Evidence is awesome. on Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey · · Score: 1

    When you say evolution is already proven please give a reference to such evidence.

    Science does not prove evolution, or any other theory. It demonstrates facts, and uses them to support valid inferences, which become theories (as distinct from hazy conjectures woolgathered over a beer one late night).

    The frequency of alleles carried and expressed in a population changes over time due to environmental factors. This is the fact of evolution, and the demonstration involves two microbe cultures in petri dishes, some antibiotic solution, and a few days.

    The fact of evolution, acting over sufficient time, serves to explain the existence, distribution, and variation in the populations of living things. This is the theory of evolution. The fossil record supports this inference better than it supports others. For the demonstration of this, go and look yourself - it may take you awhile due to the size of the known fossil record. If you have life and breath left, proceed to the work done on living populations (dogs, for example, or agricultural pests).

    And please point to the (ta-da!) ---===[ !!! EVIDENCE !!! ]===--- that you've seen to the contrary, that suffices to negate the work mentioned above.

    Thanks.

  17. $24M is peanuts on West Virginia Buys $22K Routers With Stimulus, Puts Them In Small Schools · · Score: 1

    They've also blown $100's of millions on x-ray machines and explosives detectors.

    Those are sitting unused in warehouses too, two years later.

  18. 'I have thoughts...' on Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief · · Score: 1

    Lewis Black is all over this:

    The Devil's Handiwork

  19. Re:What's counter-intuitive about it? on Solar Cells That Emit Light Break Efficiency Record · · Score: 1

    The "bowling ball and a feather falling in a vacuum" question decidedly takes the back seat compared to the lack of intuition some people exhibit.

    Indeed. I once heard of a science exhibit which was showing multiple shadows cast by colored lights, with the shadows being different colors (the classic color combination demo, like this).

    People were asked about their comprehension after going through the exhibit. The interviewers were puzzled at first at the fuzzy responses about the shadows' colors. They eventually figured out that many people don't have a basic understanding of how shadows come about .

    That there's some lack of intuition for ya.

  20. They're still doing it deliberately on Dental X-Rays Linked To Common Brain Tumor · · Score: 1

    In places like

    the Free Enterprise Radon Mine.

    Personally, I wouldn't bother, but then I'm just some propeller head geek who looks at books all the time.

  21. Nothing but flowers on MIT Institute's Gloomy Prediction: 'Global Economic Collapse' By 2030 · · Score: 1

    ...
    The highways and cars
    Were sacrificed for agriculture
    I thought that we'd start over
    But I guess I was wrong

    Once there were parking lots
    Now it's a peaceful oasis
    you got it, you got it

    This was a Pizza Hut
    Now it's all covered with daisies
    you got it, you got it

    I miss the honky tonks,
    Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
    you got it, you got it

    And as things fell apart
    Nobody paid much attention
    you got it, you got it

    I dream of cherry pies,
    Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
    you got it, you got it

    We used to microwave
    Now we just eat nuts and berries
    you got it, you got it

    This was a discount store,
    Now it's turned into a cornfield
    you got it, you got it

    Don't leave me stranded here
    I can't get used to this lifestyle

    Nothing But Flowers

  22. Re:The year is 2012, guys... on MIT Institute's Gloomy Prediction: 'Global Economic Collapse' By 2030 · · Score: 1

    So, in this case, a good ol' American TV show gives more accurate information than some book l'arned ivory tower wonk with his chalkboard and figures.

    Granted.

    Remember this model when His VPness comes down from a meeting to tell you IT propeller heads about the new system his golf buddy sold the company.

  23. WooHoo!! on Arizona Attempts To Make Trolling Illegal · · Score: 1

    annoy, or offend

    So advertising will be illegal in Arizona?

    And if that's not what they mean, I'm sure I can find a legal team to construe this language that way. Couch it in terms of advertising medical marijuana, or immigrant aid, or something, and bye-bye Madison Avenue!

    SIGN ME UP!!!

  24. Re:Underwear Tattoos for Everyone? on Supreme Court Approves Strip Searches For Any Arrestable Offense · · Score: 1

    Dude, my underwear already contains a (large) suspicious shape.

  25. Re:Effing Beancounters on Google 'Wasting' $16 Billion On Projects Headed Nowhere · · Score: 1

    "Nearly" ???

    12% of "demand" in the economy comes from "good money after bad" .gov spending sprees to "stimulate" the markets.

    We jammed capitalism from working by taking poorly placed and fraudulent debt from the private sector onto the .gov (instead of busting the crooks), leaving badly run institutions to misallocate even more capital.

    We spend $6 now to have a $1 increase in GDP.

    We borrow forty cents of every dollar .gov spends.

    All we have to do is not change course, and we'll have to borrow so much that the world either says "That won't increase tax revenue long-term, so spot us more for your bonds" (interest rate increase), or just "No Mas!!" (sovereign credit used nationally to bail out themselves, no longer internationally), and you'll certainly see that global depression.