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User: Comrade+Ogilvy

Comrade+Ogilvy's activity in the archive.

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  1. Re:Recording Bab5 Fandom on Interviews: Ask J. Michael Straczynski What You Will · · Score: 1

    Mind you "drive" might be too strong a word. All G'Kwon has to accomplish is to make the Narn homeworld a not useful base of operations. Sneaking near a base and crashing a pair of Shadow vessels into each other would probably get the point across, without any real battles being necessary. The threat would be sufficient to get the Shadows to find another planet.

  2. Re:Recording Bab5 Fandom on Interviews: Ask J. Michael Straczynski What You Will · · Score: 1

    No, a very few telepaths survived, G'Kwon being the most famous. Presumably those that survived were extremely potent. They have no remaining telepaths because many necessary genes were scrubbed from the rest of the populace, diluting the probabilities to their disfavor. One might speculate G'Kwon's valuable genetics could have been preserved with space age science, but the Narn were incapable of such one thousand years ago.

  3. Re:Remind me later on Target Ignored Signs of Data Breach · · Score: 1

    Touche!

  4. Re:Remind me later on Target Ignored Signs of Data Breach · · Score: 1

    Maybe it is me, but that seems gobsmackingly wrong. If Target cannot tolerate a server being unavailable for a few minutes, there must be something wrong with the entire technical infrastructure. There must be single points of failure all over the place. (Not trying to be snarky. Please tell me I am wrong!)

  5. Re:Broken camera on Cameras On Cops: Coming To a Town Near You · · Score: 2

    They are following the will of the elected officials of NYC and the senior police leadership. That may not make 4th Amendment advocates very happy, but the police are not trying to "get away" with anything that they are not proud enough to do in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses every day.

  6. Re:Broken camera on Cameras On Cops: Coming To a Town Near You · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Also most incidents of bad behavior start off with police officers who walk in ambiguous situations with the initial intention to behave professionally (e.g. the officers who beat up Rodney King were not intending to lose control of their emotions and the situation when the encounter started). Those police officers will not turn off their cameras.

  7. Re:Won't do any good. on Cameras On Cops: Coming To a Town Near You · · Score: 2

    I generally agree.

    I would also suspect that the police officers recognize that if the recording shows the first words out of their mouth sound professional and reasonably polite, then they are home free in the eyes of the jury if the suspect suddenly seems hostile. Sounding professional and polite is also likely to illicit less hostile responses.

    For most police officers, this is no change in behavior. But there are surely some marginal individual officers who will build better habits when they see how it serves their personal interests.

  8. Re:Bitcoin on Mt. Gox Knew It Was Selling Phantom Bitcoin 2 Weeks Before Collapse · · Score: 1

    Not a single part of your statement here regarding bitcoin investing is any less risky than investing in the stock market backed with USD, which ironically is where most people put their retirement nest egg.

    You are employing a double standard in an attempt to create a false equivalence. For the dollar, the general stockmarket, the US GDP, dropping more than 10%-20% is an unusual event. It is not perfectly safe, but it is very safe if you are willing to accept a modest amount of downside risk. In contrast, we see extreme hyperinflaction and hyperdeflation all the time, and the bounds of risk are clear as mud.

  9. Re:What we've learned from Bitcoin on The Future of Cryptocurrencies · · Score: 1

    Thank you for an informative post. The scaling problem looks like a deal killer, in terms of adoption as a generally used currency.

  10. Re:good move on US Court Freezes Assets of Mt. Gox CEO · · Score: 2

    Or perhaps he "lucked out" and his account with Mt. Gox came out whole with a clean transfer to the outside, while everyone else's bitcoin "disappeared" with the sinking ship. It has the whiff of fraud, even if we do not know without more details.

  11. Re:I don't think for a second that Karpelès s on US Court Freezes Assets of Mt. Gox CEO · · Score: 1

    There has been a suspicious whiff coming from Mt. Gox for about a year. That suggests (but does not prove) that Mt. Gox was aware they were leaking bitcoin. There most likely was a point in time when Mt. Gox still held substantial bitcoin, yet they kept the problem mum, rather than shutter their doors and figure out how to partially compensate their account holders. Even nice guys can be sorely tempted to back their little white lies with bigger lies and their big lies with things that might be fraud, when the ship is sinking.

  12. Re:Oracle? This is chump change on Oregon Withholding $25.6M From Oracle Over Health Website Woes · · Score: 1

    Oregon does not need to change the behavior of Larry. Two trophic levels are directors whose bonuses will be badly dinged when the check does not arrive from Salem -- getting their attention will be helpful.

  13. Re:only 50Kg? on Italian Researchers Demonstrate 'Powerloader' Suit · · Score: 2

    Bipedalism is a completely terrible starting point from which to build a machine for heavy lifting, most especially on less than sturdy/clean footing.

  14. Re:Not a Nazi Plane on Bugatti 100P Rebuilt: The Plane That Could've Turned the Battle of Britain · · Score: 1

    You are missing the bigger picture. Without some kind of bombers in sufficient numbers to squash the Royal Navy, an invasion was utterly hopeless. Defeating the RAF was merely the opening move. But since the Luftwaffe could not accomplish such, the next steps became irrelevant.

  15. Re:Not a Nazi Plane on Bugatti 100P Rebuilt: The Plane That Could've Turned the Battle of Britain · · Score: 1

    Yours is the important point. Germany could only win the Battle of Britain by adequately protecting the various bombers they had on hand. A high speed interceptor might have a lot of value to the RAF, but only very limited value to the Luftwaffe while flying over England.

    The Luftwaffe's mission was not to shoot down RAF craft. Its mission was to cripple the RAF AND maintain a bomber force that could smash the Royal Navy. Shooting down every single British plane matters little if the German bomber force crumbles.

  16. Re:Reduce usage - pay more on California Fights Drought With Data and Psychology, Yielding 5% Usage Reduction · · Score: 1

    Your argument is somewhat misleading. In most years there is a tremendous flood of water coming through the delta towards the SF Bay, quantities of water which cannot be stored without massive infrastructure improvements. Using it to grow rice in those flat natural flood plains is perfectly sound. This year is different, so examining the water usage of particular crops makes sense.

  17. Re:compare water usage with "average"? on California Fights Drought With Data and Psychology, Yielding 5% Usage Reduction · · Score: 1

    Doing anything mindlessly because other people are is not a good idea. Likewise, refusing to consider what other people seem to be able to do is also a kind of mindless behavior. Reducing your utility usage could save you a few bucks, so there is a natural incentive. Is thinking about your habits really such a burden?

  18. Re:But, but.... on More Bitcoin Exchanges Forced Out of Sync After Massive DDoS Attack · · Score: 1

    On the nose: bitcoin is not really a currency. It has several of the desired properties of a currency, and a few interesting extra properties added on. But it lacks the usual natural means of stability. In the Real World, most even barely competent governments do not have trouble managing their currencies to fluctuate in a highly predictable manner. Bitcoin lacks that property.

  19. Re:Yes, it does on Microsoft Rumored To Integrate Android Apps · · Score: 1

    Suppose the ENTIRE industry nets $100 profit. Apple nets $87 profit. Samsung nets $30 profit. "Other" loses $17. What is the correct way to describe Apple's profits? Obviously Apple and Samsung are choosing this statistic because it tells a story they like. Apple likes to fool people in believing they own almost 90% of the market. Samsung like to imply they are not all that far behind Apple (cuz if you did not think carefully, you would guess that 30% for Samsung implies Apple must only be 50something%).

  20. Re:Is this the begining of the end for BTC on More Bitcoin Exchanges Forced Out of Sync After Massive DDoS Attack · · Score: 1

    No. A "bank run" is when a loss of confidence for a rational or irrational reason causes many depositors to withdraw cash, thereby causing other depositors to very rationally lose confidence that they could withdraw cash if they wanted to. Because banks only carry cash or liquid assets for a portion of the depositors who could legally demand immediate payment, the snowball effect can be lethal.

  21. Re:Use Class Rank on Adjusting GPAs: A Statistician's Effort To Tackle Grade Inflation · · Score: 1

    Please mod parent up. (It is a rant, but it is a rant that hits the nail on the head.)

    Curves are a means for teachers to avoid explaining to anyone what is required to earn a particular grade. So they hide behind their aura of authority and cook up a post hoc rationalization.

  22. Re:Not Obsolete At All on Do Hypersonic Missiles Make Defense Systems Obsolete? · · Score: 1

    Probably zero. The intention was to make a show, by terrorizing Israelis. To do that they launched several every night, and kept that up as best they could.

  23. Re:No, Because Not Everyone Can Afford Them on Do Hypersonic Missiles Make Defense Systems Obsolete? · · Score: 1

    Yours is a strong argument. BMD may or may not be a wise use of our tax dollars, but it is not a bad idea because Russia or China can overwhelm our BMD -- the system we have was never intended to accomplish that.

  24. Re:Bicentenntial Man - the One with Robin Williams on 3D Printing of Human Tissue To Spark Ethics Debate · · Score: 1

    There is a fundamental philosophical barrier: Did you you successfully "transfer" your mind into that synthetic brain, or was your living brain murdered and a good quality forgery created within a machine? Even before we get there, we will need to tackle the question of whether a created machine can be granted the civil rights normally associated with an adult human, at all..

  25. Re:Planned intimidation tactic on AMC Theaters Allegedly Calls FBI to Interrogate a Google Glass Wearer · · Score: 1

    A cam that is completely crappy to a "human eye" (however we choose to re-define "human eye" on that day) loses a lot of value. So companies like Google will not put crappy cameras on these premium devices. Isn't part of the dream that I can share footage with friends about what I am doing and seeing right now?

    The motivation would be that stealing content for the cost of admission is cheap, even if I had to pay for premium glasses to do it.