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User: jcbarlow

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  1. Don't expect them to work well in L.A. on Locals Reportedly Are Frustrated With Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars (cnbc.com) · · Score: 2

    The phrase "Little old lady from Pasadena" was, after all, coined in L.A. to describe someone who basically drives like a self driving car. In Los Angeles you are either driving aggressively or you're parked. There is no moderate option. I spent about 40 years driving there and learned the basic rule is to always drive as fast as you can. That may be anywhere between 80 and 0 mph and it's subject to change at any moment. If you attempt to leave a "safe" interval between cars on a L.A. freeway you can be pretty sure someone will simply change lanes and pull into that space. And don't even think about Mexico City.

  2. Most people are just not too brite on Study Finds Vaccine Science Outreach Only Reinforced Myths (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    We techie folks spend much of our lives hanging out with our peers. This tends to give us a rather warped sense of the average intelligence and rationality of the general population. The fact is that most folks just feel overwhelmed by facts and data and really don't want the responsibility of choosing their own path through life. They would rather have someone they trust tell them what to do and think. Hence the popularity of religion and autocrats. It is counterproductive to try engaging these folks in some sort of rational fact based argument. That just makes them fearful. Try to remember that they are not acting stupid in order to annoy us; they're just in over their heads.

  3. what about "Homestar Runner"?

  4. And the "clean diesel" version.... on The Audi A8: First Production Car To Achieve Level 3 Autonomy (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    will get great mileage and have plenty of power while still passing government emissions tests, right? Would you really buy a "self driving car" from these proven liars?

  5. LA is not one big city. SpaceX is in Hawthorne, a totally separate city with its own city council, etc. The same can be said of Culver City, Santa Monica, and dozens of other cities that many think of as just part of "LA". Each of these presents another opportunity to get bogged down in local politics.

  6. Re:A big part of the problem is... on 'There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea' (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    "And you may not have noticed this, but if you let a kid question you once... it rapidly escalates until they question EVERYTHING"

    But that's a good thing. Yes, it's a pain in the ass for the parents. But hey, nobody said parenthood was supposed to be simple or painless. I sometimes lament that sperm count isn't more closely related to IQ.

  7. A big part of the problem is... on 'There's No Good Way To Kill a Bad Idea' (qz.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    religious brainwashing early in life. Innocent children are taught that they should be unquestioningly accepting of wacky ideas just because their elders seem to believe them. Their natural scepticism is denounced as heresy.

    The whole idea that anything should just be accepted as a matter of faith is a threat to democracy. Sunday school is clearly a form of child abuse. (even when it's done on Saturday)

  8. are neutrons being emitted?

  9. Bad journalism on Lockheed Martin Screwup Delays Delivery of Air Force GPS Satellites (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is just total nonsense: "The parts in question are ceramic capacitors that have bedeviled the satellite project. They take higher-voltage power from the satellite's power system and reduce it to a voltage required for a particular subsystem" Nope, wrong, try again.

  10. The issue here is trust on Obama: Government Can't Let Smartphones Be 'Black Boxes' (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    or lack thereof. The POTUS is asking us to exhibit pretty much blind trust in a government that has lied to us repeatedly. Sorry, too late.

  11. Re:Why retail? on Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over · · Score: 1

    Not correct. At least where I live my electric bill includes a separate fee that is supposed cover the effort expended to deliver the power from it's source to my home. Then on top of that I pay still more for the power itself. I understand that a regulated monopoly utility should be paid for what it does. I don't see why it should also get a retail markup on the power. This is equivalent to UPS charging their normal shipping fee and then adding a 20% markup to the price of the goods they deliver.

  12. Hackers??? on New Remote Access Trojan Used In Cyberespionage Operations (csoonline.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps we should just retire the word "Hacker" in this context and replace it with a more accurate term like "Spy". It's pretty obvious that this is espionage.

  13. In LA.... on The Death of Electronic Surplus (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    There's still http://www.allelectronics.com/ I used to like browsing there when I was in high school. I'm 67 now.

  14. Privacy Badger

  15. That's Free as in Lunch on Microsoft Brings Office To Android Smartphones For Free · · Score: 1

    TNSTAAFL

  16. Whatever you do.... on Ask Slashdot: Identifying a Stolen Car Using Police Camera Databases? · · Score: 1

    don't open the trunk!

  17. So don't buy it on Intuit Charges More For Previously Offered TurboTax Features, Users Livid · · Score: 1

    I switched to the equivalent H R Block product years ago. Works just as well and costs less.

  18. this was supposed to run on April 1st, right?

  19. Think of the children on Obama Administration Argues For Backdoors In Personal Electronics · · Score: 1

    As long as Sunday school is legal the government is tacitly approving the worst sort of child abuse.

  20. Re:Ain't no body got time for that on 'Google Buses' Are Bad For Cities, Says New York MTA Official · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Who the hell "likes" sharing walls with people?

    No one. But it is the most efficient way to house people.

    By working to house folks "efficiently" we're just trying to postpone dealing with the real problem: there are just too many people for the planet to support.

  21. Re:overthinking it!!! on Ask Slashdot: Distributed Online Storage For Families? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, the first thing you need is a firewall / VPN gateway at each home. IPCop or IPFire and an old PC will do nicely. Then once you have everyone on the same virtual LAN you can all share webcams, NAS boxes or whatever. A cron job that runs rsync at 2AM should keep everything backed up at multiple sites. KISS...

  22. Thanks on If UNIX Were a Religion · · Score: 2

    This has helped me understand Christianity. (Unix history I have lived through)

  23. 1KW/hour makes no sense. The Watt is a unit of power; that is energy transfer per unit time. The "/hour" is just silly and shows the writer's ignorance.

  24. Volvo - 2017? on Volvo Plans To Have Self-Driving Cars In Swedish City of Gothenburg By 2017 · · Score: 1

    This seems to assume that Volvo will still be in the business of making cars of any sort in 2017. I wouldn't bet on that.

  25. I wonder... on Google Leads Among Consumer Tech Companies Lobbying Congress · · Score: 3, Interesting

    if Google is really the one spending the most. Could it be that they are just doing so more transparently than most, rather than obfuscating their lobbying by way of various third parties? I have no real knowledge of the specifics of what they're doing but it seems to be Google's style to be somewhat less sneaky than their peers.