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User: king+neckbeard

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Comments · 4,289

  1. Re:Oh noes! on Technologies Like Google's Self-Driving Car: Destroying Jobs? · · Score: 1

    I'm not denying that some people will great screwed for a certain while. That's not a good argument. Virtually every decision made will screw somebody. The actual Luddites were in the same position, but we generally hold them to be in the wrong.

  2. Re:Oh noes! on Technologies Like Google's Self-Driving Car: Destroying Jobs? · · Score: 1

    Yes, jobs will shift to different demographics. That kind of thing happens all the time. The Luddites were in the same boat, but we look down on them for a reason.

  3. Oh noes! on Technologies Like Google's Self-Driving Car: Destroying Jobs? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nevermind the increases in safety. Nevermind the new jobs that this will enable. Nevermind the greater standard of living this will bring to all people. We've got to be concerned about potentially lost jobs above all else.

  4. Re:"Brilliant"? Hardly on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    I will admit that it gets harder to have multiple users with the access to the information while keeping others out, although I was only addressing the specific need at hand. However, if a limited numbers of users are going to have access to something, then those users should have a commonly held password/key, ideally rotated at regular intervals. Provided those users keep that particular information secure, there isn't a great risk, but the risk is greatly increased compared to a single user.

  5. Re:"Brilliant"? Hardly on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    Forgive me if I'm forgetting something, but couldn't you just encrypt your home directory? While root has rw access to everything else, they only have access to ~/ in an encrypted format. It's one of the settings available in Ubuntu's default installation. However, I haven't looked into it TOO deeply, so it may be that it's a relatively weak protection that can be worked around by having your password changed. Either way, such a setup could be accomplished.

  6. Re:so he did in fact break the law on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    So, because YOU were under a mistaken impression, HE is wrong?

  7. Re:Alcoholism on Pastafarian Wins Battle To Wear Colander In License Photo · · Score: 2

    six of one, half a dozen of the other.

  8. Try this: on Ask Slashdot: How To Get Open Source Projects To Take Our Money? · · Score: 1

    Before trying to throw $5000 at someone, you should perhaps try to give them more than a month's advance notice. Then they can or can be prepared to give you some actual service.

    If that still doesn't work for you, then try something like a bounty. Offer them $5000 for a bugfix or a new feature. If it would have to be claimed by the end of June, make it about fixing some typos or some other easy to accomplish task.

  9. Re:Good old capitalism on Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google · · Score: 1

    In my experience, we tend to seek meaningful tasks on our own, but are more or less trained in the practice of putting that aside to 'get work done.' We suppress an innate drive and over time, it sticks, and often in more areas than intended. But, if we stop this practice, then it will come back into being a major part of our lives. It is, however, quite possible that many people alive today may not be able to do this, and it could take generations to wipe that habit out.

  10. Re:Good old capitalism on Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google · · Score: 1

    The tasks you mention are more or less among the simplest to automate. Menial, relatively simple tasks, many of which could be done by a trained chimp.

  11. Re:Good old capitalism on Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google · · Score: 1

    If we reach post-scarcity in regards to at least most of our needs, then capitalism and other economies become obsolete. Capitalism is a solution to the problem of scarcity, so in the absence of scarcity, it is no longer needed.

  12. Re:Good old capitalism on Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google · · Score: 1

    I'll agree with meaningful tasks as being important, but that doesn't necessarily translate to jobs in the sense we know them today. We could devote our time to self enrichment, artistic expression, and other such tasks in ways that we never could before because they aren't financially viable. Our tasks would have more meaning to us, leaving us more fulfilled. Now, that's not to say that there aren't going to be issues, especially in the transitional phase, but they are relatively minor in comparison to the gains to society.

  13. Re:Good old capitalism on Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We don't need jobs. We need food. We need shelter. Jobs are a means for which we obtain the resources to obtain those things. If robots can do everything, we can live in a very different kind of economy, basically proto-Star Trek. Don't ruin that with the notion that we need jobs.

  14. Re:Most of the KNOWN incidents were self-reported on NSA Officers Sometimes Spy On Love Interests · · Score: 1

    One way, to get an estimate of the numbers of actual incidents is by taking the number of reported incidents and the likelihood of getting caught and multiply. Failing a polygraph at a spy agency is something that has a very low chance of getting caught., so the number of actual incidents is likely a great deal higher.

  15. Re:Sugar on What's Causing the Rise In Obesity? Everything. · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Wikipedia says there are currently no GMO potatoes marketed for human consumption, so [citation needed] on all of that.

  16. Re:Shakespeare has one of the oldest blue jokes on Content Most Foul: the British Library's Nanny Filter Blocks 'Hamlet' · · Score: 1

    Given that "Nothing Compares 2 You" is a Prince song, I wouldn't put it past him, either.

  17. Re:LOL. on Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry · · Score: 1

    The information might have been used to recruit people into being terrorists, but that's not what aid means here. Let's say that I was an academic during the Cold War, and I released a document that supported communism from a scholarly viewpoint. Because of this, another nation joined the USSR. By your kind of interpretation, that would be an act of treason.

  18. Re:LOL. on Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry · · Score: 1

    No, treason is a very specific thing, and Mannings actions don't fit the bill. Treason is giving away nuclear secrets, not making you look like an asshole.

  19. Re:LOL. on Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry · · Score: 2

    Actually, it seems he wanted to help America. The same as Snowden. If there was harm done, it was towards the American government. Harming the government is often the best thing you can do for the country.

  20. Re:LOL. on Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry · · Score: 1

    Except there is no enemy, and there was no aid or comfort given.

  21. Re:You break the law you go to jail on Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry · · Score: 2

    Wow, so much bullshit could have been cut by murdering some teetotalers.

  22. Re:You break the law you go to jail on Bradley Manning Says He's Sorry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, wrong and illegal are different sets. Hopefully, they have considerable overlap, but all things that are wrong certainly shouldn't be illegal, and there are things that are reasonably illegal that are not wrong. Now, whether or not what Manning did was wrong is a matter of opinion, but whether wrong and illegal are the same thing or not is not up for reasonable debate.

  23. Re:Headline on Bill Gates Seeking Patent To Make Shakespeare Less Boring · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, the purpose of patents is to stimulate invention, or more specifically, to "promote the progress." The legal monopoly is the means by which the patent system tries to reach this goal. And no, there's no specific intention of a next invention, although that may be a benefit in some cases. If that were the case, we could just much more efficiently hand out research grants to promising researchers with promising ideas. We can do that already.

  24. Hold on a second... on Bill Gates Seeking Patent To Make Shakespeare Less Boring · · Score: 1

    Is he trying to get a patent on using your imagination to turn words into movies (on a smartphone)? I'm pretty sure that there's prior art for this in everybody who has ever read narrative fiction, and a lot of incomplete yet relevant prior art in the oral tradition as well.

  25. Re:I don't understand on Federal Judge Rules NYC "Stop and Frisk" Violated Rights · · Score: 1

    Some of us could use some more action.