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User: zmaragdus

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  1. Re:Rule #2: The Double Tap on Using Wearable Tech To Track Gun Use · · Score: 1

    But he would at least have a chance of surviving, instead of the "bend over and take it" approach (which, by the way, doesn't always mean your assailant will just take your wallet and go away).

  2. Re:Fire with the other hand? on Using Wearable Tech To Track Gun Use · · Score: 1

    Proper? Yes. Always gonna happen? No. In fact, the IDPA qualifier requires you to shoot one handed for a few strings, and with each hand at that.

  3. Re:Why just guns? on Using Wearable Tech To Track Gun Use · · Score: 1

    But now compare the violent crime rate.

  4. Re:Microwave trays on The Physics of Hot Pockets · · Score: 1

    Modern, yes, but most places I go "modern" is the exception, not the rule. I'd give my current house aa 50-50 chance of being built in the 20th century (vs the 19th...)

  5. Re:Microwave trays on The Physics of Hot Pockets · · Score: 1

    Why not do both at the same time? Power draw. A microwave can take over half the available load on a standard household circuit. Most are wired for 15 amps before the breaker starts tripping. Heating elements are just as power-hungry, which is why you typically see electric stoves on a dedicated 240V, 20A circuit. I would guess most houses do not have the wiring to support this.

  6. Re:Gun Cowards on A Look at Smart Gun Technology · · Score: 1

    You want the UK's violent crime rate? Go for it.

  7. Re:It's called a safety... on A Look at Smart Gun Technology · · Score: 1

    That's why responsible gun owners lock their guns up, not hide them. Furthermore, they educate and teach their children about the proper handling and use of firearms (which progresses from "don't touch and tell an adult" when they're very young to actual proper handling and usage when they have shown significant maturity and responsibility).

  8. Re: Have a nice time on A Look at Smart Gun Technology · · Score: 1

    Child deaths by firearms accidents are usually the result of an adult being irresponsible with their guns, typically by leaving them accessible or by not following the Four Rules of Gun Safety. I would love to see parents be more responsible with their guns *period*, especially around their children.

  9. Combination Insertion and Merge on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Sort? · · Score: 1

    With the jazz band I play in, we have a book full of a few hundred charts. When resorting them after a gig, I typically grab a small stack, sort it insertion style, set it aside, then do the same to another pile. Once a few piles have been done, they get merge sorted into a big pile. Big piles themselves are merge sorted, until all of my music is in order.

  10. Re:I find this strange on Electrical Engineering Lost 35,000 Jobs Last Year In the US · · Score: 1

    China

  11. Re:Its just a dumb idea on Hardly Anyone Is Buying 'Smart Guns' · · Score: 1

    If a smart gun worked 99.5% of the time, go try to market such a device to a law enforcement agency or even the military. Go on. I'll wait.

    Now that you've become the laughing-stock of gun salespersons to those groups, what did you learn? You need to vastly boost the reliability of such devices before even thinking of trying to sell them to serious buyers. Once the device failure rate improves by a few orders of magnitude, then try again. The actual number the military is looking for is of far higher reliability than a 0.5% error rate.

  12. Re:Boom on Hardly Anyone Is Buying 'Smart Guns' · · Score: 1

    'Tis far better to gun-proof your children than child-proof your gun. What's the best way to dissuade a child from playing with a gun? Take the magic out of it. One very clever method I heard of was from a CCW instructor who made a ritual with his son every time he wanted to play with the gun. He'd pull out his snub nose revolver, empty the bullets out, show the kid the empty chambers, make the kid count both the bullets and the empty chamber, then give the (still empty) gun to his son to play with to his heart's content. What happened? After a few minutes of dry-firing, the kid got bored with it. As he got older, actual firearms safety & experience were layered in.

  13. Re:Corporate executives are smart. on America's Second-largest Employer Is a Temp Agency · · Score: 1

    Not very. Different services, same business model, same shafting (pun intended) of the actual workers.

  14. Re:Out with the old... on America's Second-largest Employer Is a Temp Agency · · Score: 1

    {cough} Aerotek {cough}

  15. Re:Corporate executives are smart. on America's Second-largest Employer Is a Temp Agency · · Score: 1

    Ditto. I worked through Aerotek for a year (which is related to TekSystems). The company I worked for paid $55/hour for me, and I only got $25/hr from Aerotek.

  16. Re:why replace once you have the screwdriver? on iFixit Giving Away 1,776 "iPhone Liberation Kits" · · Score: 1

    you are a 0.00001% of the population who does

    0.00001% * 320 million people = 32 people. Methinks there are a few orders of magnitude more than your proposed count.

  17. Varying degrees of focus are required for various procedures. Think of brushing your teeth. Are you 100% focused on the action of brushing your teeth? Probably not. Now turn around and hand-solder some surface mount SOT-23 chips. More focused? You betcha. He specifically stated that he chose a very simple and straightforward procedure to test the setup with. He wasn't performing an organ transplant or anything of touchy nature. I doubt the surgeon was actively fiddling with the Google Glass and the HO setup throughout the procedure. Set it up, hit play, come back when the surgery is done.

  18. Bang for your buck on Apple Details US Requests For Customer Data · · Score: 1

    So, if the NSA is working so hard to fight terrorism by violating our rights, why couldn't the government work just as hard on something that saves more lives in the long run? Vehicles kill tens of thousands of people per year. If the government is going to trash my civil liberties, at least save more lives in the process.

  19. More Inefficiency on FDA Calls On Medical Devicemakers To Focus On Cybersecurity · · Score: 1

    I worked in the medical device field for a while. The level of paperwork and documentation required for validation activities is staggering, plus the medical field in general doesn't have as good a handle on fulfilling government requirements as well as, say, the aviation industry. The path to take a device from concept to validated, sellable product is a long one. Adding cybersecurity (while a worthy endeavor) will only exacerbate the arduous and hair-tearing experience of developing a product.

  20. Why unpaid in the first place? on Federal Judge Says Interns Should Be Paid · · Score: 2

    I don't get why internships were ever unpaid in the first place. In the course of training someone to do the job they are interning for, they end up providing some form of valuable work, even if it is at a lower level of effectiveness/efficiency than a highly-skilled employee. As an engineer, I have the good fortune of being in a field where internships are almost universally paid, and paid well for that matter. (Many engineering internships run from double to triple minimum wage.) Even my most basic intern experience (which is barely considered "engineering" by my standards) paid over double minimum wage (back in 2006). I can't fathom a sort of situation where an intern provides absolutely no useful work. Can anyone provide an example?

  21. Re:India? Robots in the front line? on India To Develop Military Robots For Warfare · · Score: 1

    The military doesn't have to recruit robots, it just builds them. Robots don't get tired, don't complain, perform better & more consistently than humans, don't get PTSD, and don't cause public uproar when they're destroyed (vs. bodybags).

  22. Re:Not surprising ... on Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary · · Score: 1

    Oops, bad math. 30 a minute

  23. Re:Not surprising ... on Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary · · Score: 1

    Would you then have to apply such penalties to wide-sweeping automated systems that monitor for piracy and other violations? (Kind of like "If an automated car commits a traffic violation, who do you send the ticket to?")

    If a piece of software flags & sends notices about 300 items a minute and even 10% of them are false, that's 4320 false claims a day. If it is a $500 fine per false claim that's on the order of 2 million dollars lost a day. Hmmm...this is sounding better and better all the time...

  24. Re:Thank you on Hollywood Studios Use DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope the Barbara Streisand effect snowballs this from here.

  25. Re:What is it I am supposed to learn? on What Professors Can Learn From "Hard Core" MOOC Students · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the bigger problems with accreditation is the scope of examination needed to determine suitability for official certification. If I were to certify someone as an electrical engineer without any knowledge of what their education was, I'd want to spend a full week working one-on-one with them to fully evaluate their knowledge and skills. This is why universities get accreditation from a group like ABET. Now you can tell graduates to have several years of work experience, take the FE and PE exams, and be able to tell with a reasonable amount of certainty whether or not the individual is worthy to be called a Professional Engineer with a good efficiency in the process (vs. the aforementioned one-on-one situation). Does anyone have any better ideas for large-scale, education-irrelevant accreditation?