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User: smoothnorman

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  1. shape at the end of the recursive series on CES 2014: 3-D Scanners are a Logical Next Step After 3-D Printers · · Score: 2

    so if one scanned what was printed, printed that, scanned that and printed for N cycles (optionally including a grind-it-up for media source for the next generation) then the series convergence no matter if one started with the venus-de-milo or a sierpinski-tetrahedron would be a sphere?

  2. should've tried Twisted on How Reactive Programming Differs From Procedural Programming · · Score: 2

    what it takes to implement business logic using Reactive Programming versus two different conventional procedural Programming models: Java with Hibernate and MySQL triggers,'

    ...Twisted/python is perhaps a more sensible established comparison for event-driven, or not. besides... "business logic"?

  3. matryoshka dolls on How Good Are Charter Schools For the Public School System? · · Score: 1

    "now even the charter schools are broken! we need to create a safe learning environment that takes a step away from the current entrenched system!" this is paraphrased, but that exact sentiment was shouted at a recent county meeting in my area. in short: we need to charter school the charter schools. so what was begun as an external effort to break the teachers' union (which may, or may not have got a bit too powerful; but i'll tell-ya, their salaries sure doesn't reflect that) is now a enfeebling case of: if i don't like something about the system, lets fork it -- each child in their own school system! one superintendent per student! this is hyperbole of course, but i'd council fixing the system at large rather than running from it to create a new system to screw up.

  4. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 1

    that wouldn't be a category error (as it's typically defined) and no one here are assuming that not "killing outright" is a sign of harmlessness. sometimes all that requires is a persistent form of ignorance. ("..the boy as Ignorance and the girl as Want. The spirit warns Scrooge, "Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased")

  5. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 2
    you have that backwards. cross-breeding is more "shot-gun" than selectively inserting genes (which many here would equate with GMO'ing). when Lord Snagglebottom wanted to cross-breed his sheep to get a longer coat, he didn't let any of the offspring breed that didn't have the desired trait. and he had to do a helluva lot of that until -and *if*- he ever got something like he wanted. whereas if he could isolate the gene for long coat he'd get a much more immediate and direct result *if* it's possible (with a single gene product).

    in terms of cross-breeding the most direct approach was to -wait- until nature fortuitously produced the variant and then breed that "true". like the Dachshund dog or the "Golden delicious" apple. but you see, we humans, we don't like to wait, and that's why we're on top of the "gene pool". technology is neither good or evil, but impatience is part of its motivator.

  6. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 1, Insightful
    how about cows bearing the genetic material of a snake? pretty scifi, eh? almost certainly the product of an eeevil mad scientist? nope: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/01/how-a-quarter-of-the-cow-genome-came-from-snakes/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-03/snake-genes-27hitchhike27-into-cow-dna/4451308

    the first category error in this whole imbroglio is presuming that the word "natural" has any clear meaning.

  7. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 0

    i wasn't conflating hybridization with genetic modification. that tomato strain was genetically modified, by plasmid insertion, -then- cross-pollinated with most other major strains. or... are you willing to say generation 1 of GMO is GMO whereas generation 3 isn't? what if the wind blows a GMO crop's pollen to a non-GMO? (as has been provably happened) does everywhere the GMO crop touches become GMO... and forever-after in all germ lines? it's complicated. there is no single definition of GMO, legal (as opposed to scientifically based), or otherwise, even in Europe where most folks think the matter is somehow perfectly resolved. as for "unchecked fashion" you're already too late, you're alive in a sea of GMO and you'll never be able to point to where it is and where it isn't. and it's by *nature* an expanding influence - such is evolution.

  8. Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Every last thing you eat could be credibly labeled as GMO. even that tomato you grew yourself in your yard has been genetically modified (there was a genetically modified fugal resistant strain produced in the late 1980s which has been cross-pollinated to most others, so most seed stock carries the advantage) Therefore, please, slap a GMO label on everything you eat, before you eat it. but it would be far more informative, for example, to stick an "M" for Monsanto on just their products.

  9. going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers on Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island · · Score: 4, Insightful
    screwdrivers can/will be used to make hideous things (bombs, kill-droids, ...) but since everyone can understand screwdrivers no one would think to ban, or even restrict, them. GMO is complicated, really requiring an advanced to degree to appreciate. GMO can be used like screwdrivers to do evil (typically in the hands of some eeevil profit driven corporation (e.g. Monsanto in concert with Roundup) or it can be used to work towards really noble goals like improving the nutrition and disease resistance of crops in developing countries (e.g. search for "Golden rice").

    in other words, going after GMO-the-technique is anti-progressive. one should instead go for (federal) regulation of GMO products. even indiscriminate labeling campaigns just naively suppress the technique, both good and bad usages.

    ok, (having spoken my peace); on with the pitchforks and burning-brands!

  10. what determines Slashdot article initial expansion on Bionic Eye Implant Available In US Next Month · · Score: 4, Interesting

    (for example) "Bionic Eye Implant Available In US Next Month" starts out closed/shuttered/compressed/whatever yet several even more esoteric Slashdot articles are initially presented with a full accompanying paragraph to read without an initial click to open them out. i'm just curious what determines this state(?) clearly it isn't number of comments.

  11. Re:Can the connection to amazon be turned off? on Amazon Launches Kindle Fire HDX Tablets · · Score: 1

    Thank you! that's exactly the information that i was seeking, (and not finding via any of the 'official' specs). huzzah for devices that can, at least, have the fenced-garden fenced off.

  12. Can the connection to amazon be turned off? on Amazon Launches Kindle Fire HDX Tablets · · Score: 1

    I've got an ~series2 Kindle that i use for pdf etc viewing; but the catch is that I often have review articles on it that must not be accessible by anyone but me for the time that I've got them (or else the lawyers start to parachute from black helicopters). A Kindle with the wifi off is an great solution for me and my colleagues for this purpose; but color would be *sweet*... so my question: if one buys one of the new Kindle Fire models can one be tolerably be sure of turning off all external access? Is there still a wifi *off* option? ...doesn't really sound like it.

  13. Re:For Christ's sake on Interview With Professor Potrykus, Inventor of Golden Rice · · Score: 1

    They have very little water. They have a sack of rice donated to them. Why do you think there's even a problem if it's just a matter of "go grow carrots!"? You're not suggesting that these malnourished people are stupid, are you?

  14. GMO is just a tool... on Interview With Professor Potrykus, Inventor of Golden Rice · · Score: 1

    ...it's what you do with that tool that decides if the result is a positive or negative thing. The knee-jerk fear of (and efforts to eliminate/label/vilify) all GMO is generally part of a sad, and often justified, anti-government, anti-big-business, and lately, (unjustified) anti-science, social psychology. GMO is typically not distinguishable from all the cross-breeding done by dog-breeders, rose fanciers, and agriculture for hundreds of years. It's only when combined with other nasty procedures, for instance being coupled with the use of herbicides ("RoundUp"), that it becomes the screw-driver in the hand of a villain.

  15. Re:Um... for a Ph.D.? on Fidus Writer: Open Source Collaborative Editor For Non-Geek Academics · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In the late 90s (yeah might as well be 12,000 years ago) i did my PhD in Latex; but, two of my Profs *insisted* on editing bits (in retrospect, mostly adding pointless elaboration) with MSWord. (one committee member didn't even understand how any document wasn't the same as a "word file"). So, i learned to use rtf2latex (and similar tools for bibliography and index), back and forth; email RTF, convert it back, (if the addition was over a three sentences). It wasn't bad at all when one learned maintain all tables and figures as merely included files. It was all worth it when the thesis committees, who check tedium like margins to within a millimeter and equation formatting, passed my thesis right off; while my grad-school mates that used MSWord all had their format go wrong when the "approved font" was applied.

  16. Re:NVIDIA borken again... on Linux 3.10 Merge Windows Closes · · Score: 1
    yep/me-too/%#$!! the best annoying dumb trick comes via dkms (Dynamic Kernel Module Support). so there's was a working graphics module (for nvidia blob 304.88) then unlucky fool (which would be me) does an update/dist-upgrade, and so dkms uninstalls the working module, attempts to install a new module, which fails to compile ("nv-i2c.c function ‘nv_i2c_del_adapter’ : error: void value not ignored as it ought to be") and now we're left with a box which will have no graphics upon reboot.

    next-up: any kernel >= 3.10.0-rc1 (yes yes... that's "-rc" so technically: no whining!) effects the transition of create_proc_entry() to proc_create() which no nvidia blob nor source seems remotely ready for.

  17. whaat? no comment on brutal finger theft?? on New Smart Gun Company Hopes To Begin Production This Summer · · Score: 1

    i'm shocked (shocked!) that there's no long thread about how this technology will promote fingers being hacked off (and worn around the neck along with several others necklace style) by eeevil folk. for instance, here's your precedent: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4396831.stm now... let's get on with our panicking about this aspect, shall we?

  18. Re:so old it must be replaced... on Extended TeX: Past, Present, and Future · · Score: 1

    it was indeed a feckless attempt at satire by someone who is very grateful to have TeX to write and manage his technical publications (and is also 54, and so now old and useless) i do apologize for its lack of "funny".

  19. so old it must be replaced... on Extended TeX: Past, Present, and Future · · Score: 5, Funny

    nothing that old can possibly be relevant anymore (cf "trust no one over 30"). it should be replaced with something more responsive to a one-hand touch interface abbrev friendly imho. math, a central theme in TeX, no longer has any relevance to the modern world (just ask any millionaire agile scrum extreme php programmer). any remaining bits of math are done entirely by app; the vestigial remnants of the usefulness of "math" can only be found in the interjections of animated characters. only a tiny ancient dying breed of tenured academics (and i suspect *europeans*) would ever seek typography beyond the standards of MSWord. page layout was forever perfected by expensive per seat layout software around 1996 and requires no more changes. markup languages are too hard to learn. anything that requires a compiling phase has gone the way of C++. the world is better now as everything old and outmoded quickly recedes. sine-die.

  20. Re:Open an email on RSA: Phish Me If You Can (Video) · · Score: 3

    my thoughts nearly exactly! "Open that email, and... ZAP!" what sort of lame mis-managed system is that true of?

  21. don't count yer fibers just yet on Seattle To Get Gigabit Fiber To the Home and Business · · Score: 2

    i've been sitting in seattle, well, since forever... and this is at least the third try at this. comcast the evil monopoly that holds seattle in its death-grip will try everything that was successful at shutting this down and then-some before letting this through. they will start with "incentives" (building computer labs in the schools for example), then move to bribes (there's a hot mayor race coming up. watch if one candidate suddenly gets a zillion in outside funding. "but that's illegal!!" yeah... right), then legal threats like suing for restraint of trade (which have turned the trick before). they may also get federal, using a bribed federal regulatory agency to shut down the endeavor. so as much as i'd love to see this, and might even directly benefit, this ain't going to go down smoothly. this is a fairly fidgety "David" against an massively monetized Goliath.

  22. The sad view from the R&D desk... on Ask Slashdot: What Would It Take For Developers To Start Their Own Union? · · Score: 1
    ...of 25 some years, i've thought long and hard about this. A tech workers union could well be a positive thing in the lives of folks who get laid-off the second that some CEO decides to off-shore, or, (and this always struck me as the saddest short-sighted of all), fire folks because the discovery they labored for has been made. (actual overheard paraphrasing by a CFO: "who needs an R&D department after the discovery is done and patented? they're just a waste of wages at that point")

    yet here's my sad overly generalized conclusion: Those with an Engineering degree tend to be too conservative and have swallowed a bunch of malarkey about unions being Communist (see comments on this very page); whereas those with a PhD are somehow too elitist to think they need this sort of low-prole protection. I hope i'm wrong, and it'll just take a new generation to see the long-range benefits of getting organized, but i certainly have my doubts.

  23. and undergrad biochem class teaches us... on Sugar Batteries Could Store 20% More Energy Than Li-Ions · · Score: 2

    ...that a fat (based) battery could store 9/4ths of the energy than a "sugar battery" does. (fat: 9kcal/mol sugar: 4kcal/mol)

  24. Re:They should mesure it in miles. on Astronomers Fix the Astronomical Unit · · Score: 1

    >units '1 au' smoot
    * 8.7905671e+10
    / 1.137583e-11

    ...yet perhaps good ol' "units" has yet to update to this shiny new definition of an AU.

  25. Re:Some indications that it's not "Fully Free" ... on Opus — the Codec To End All Codecs · · Score: 1

    Thank you for being such a good watchman. We really don't need another "gif" situation. Can you provide a dumbed-down explanation of what "RAND terms" are? (i'm -guessing- they aren't intrinsically random ;)