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User: rednip

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  1. Race you to the nearest open spot on Sensor Networks In San Francisco Finds Parking Spots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While this is a great idea, in some cases it'll be a race to get an open spot, even worse than now. Now you'll be able to see open spots blocks away even if you can't get to it in time, so after a while people will know that they need to hurry and exactly where to go.

  2. Re:More Republican Poutrage on White House Refuses To Comment On Petition To Investigate Chris Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Chris Dodd is hardly the only politician who has done such a thing, and there is currently no law against it unless there is an actual promised payment (even Delay/Gingrich have been smart enough to avoid that). Some might argue that there should be laws against such 'retirement plans' for politicians, but it would be hard to enforce, and likely unconstitutional. There are however laws against money laundering and using foreign bank accounts for tax evasion, perhaps Mitt has been completely honest, perhaps not. As 'we' all know, online polls are easy to game, it wouldn't be hard to ask them to investigate using a couple of thousand email addresses.

    Whenever the GOP is in power they seem to spend more time grandstanding for political advantage than doing the work of the people (for example, 'where's that jobs bill?').

  3. More Republican Poutrage on White House Refuses To Comment On Petition To Investigate Chris Dodd · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    More Republican poutraging, this time over a 'online poll' that they managed to game in such a way to point a finger at Chris Dodd. Perhaps we could suggest another target? Mitt Romney has money in tax havens and Swiss bank accounts, lets call to investigate him. That wouldn't be politically motivated at all.

  4. Re:Plan, or just study it to death? on Russia Talks Moon Base With NASA, ESA · · Score: 1

    I do mean 'the Dark side of the moon' as the side we can't see, perhaps confusing, but it's a common term.

  5. Re:Plan, or just study it to death? on Russia Talks Moon Base With NASA, ESA · · Score: 1

    The Moon is too unstable for human underground habitation and strip mining is still the best way to mine if you can get away with it. (Dark side of the moon; more mining friendly?) For shielding, why not use lead plates, bet yet gold?

  6. Re:I wonder... on Wikipedia Still Set For Full Blackout Wednesday · · Score: 1

    Most of the cost of scale are fixed, so the cost savings will only be marginal, if anything the publicity will likely drive volume up in general. However, to compensate, it could drive some donations if simply to reward the best squeaky wheel on the Internet.

  7. Re:Watch out Indonesia on Totally Drug-Resistant TB Emerges In India · · Score: 1

    You're making the assumption that it's 'cheaper' for society when offenders die in a prison jail, I do not believe it to be true. Do you have any proof?

  8. Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 on Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games · · Score: 1

    How much risk, is always a good question. Iraqi insurgents were taking out vehicles worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that's not even accounting for the long term care for those affected by combat (another thing the GOP doesn't want to pay for by raising taxes on the rich). However, if Iran attacks, those missiles would likely be countered by a CIWS. How well they will work in real combat is a mystery.

    There are plenty of historians who say that the suicide bombing of American Marines, whom President Reagan sent in as peace keepers and subsequent removal of that mission showed middle terrorists that they could accomplish goals against the United States.

  9. Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 on Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games · · Score: 1

    Considering that the last negative GDP quarter from the panic of 2008 was the 2nd one of 2009 (just after the stimulus started). The chance of a double dip recession as it used to be label (one or two growth quarters after a recession, followed by a negative one or two), is exactly zero. Sure the recovery has been shallow, but some have succeed, it's America. Do you expect failure? Why people have been pushing the idea that we are still in recession is not nearly as astounding as why they aren't being called out as either morons or political hacks for it.

    For it to be a 'rerun' of the Battle of Gallipoli, you'd have to forget about the Phalanx. The sea version that is deployed on everything down to some Coast Guard cutters, but it hasn't seen any real action since it automatically took a chunk out of the Missouri in 1991. However, the land version they built for Iraq seems to have been pretty good at knocking out mortars recently.

    Do your hands chafe from all the wringing? It's almost like the GOP cheers American misfortune when there's a Democrat in the White House.

  10. Re:Thinking back to Millenium Challenge '02 on Iran Tests Naval Cruise Missile During War Games · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You forget that part of the reason why war games are interesting is that many cheat as best as they can without being demoted for it, often they'll find holes in the general plan that might not exist in real life. Small boats are clever, but I'm sure that they never launched a weapon (American or cobbled together) during the entire game. I don't think that I would have needed to be in combat to understand how different it would be from having some guy in a pontoon boat pretend that he has a mounted weapon on it.

    UAV suppression of the Iran coast line is a given under a combat order and likely active just off the coast now, so how many missile boats would we let collect in the gulf? More importantly, how long would it take for them to collectively start to fire? I'd bet that we're better at fire control. How many boats would be lost by Iran before they could fire? If they all start to drill at the same time, does Obama rain Hell Fire down on them preemptively? A few boats might take damage or even be sunk, but I'd hardly think that the whole fleet would be in collectively in jeopardy. It's just another sad example that suicide missions force a cost of lives.

  11. Re:That's a bad thing? on Slow Start For Mobile In 2012 Presidential Campaign · · Score: 1

    Did you look? It took me 10 seconds to find a 'Obama 2012' app in the itunes store. I can't find it now, but there was even a canvasing app that showed up right before the 2010 elections. If more people had known about it, I think it would have made the difference.

    I also get texts fairly often from our President's campaign team. Not too many, but I'd say that they had always tried to keep me engaged, more lately though. Overall I've given less than the amount it cost me to buy a round at a bar for a half-dozen friends during the last election and only tried canvasing once (before I found the app, but it looked promising and easy to use). Like most of our President's efforts, the successful ones hardly even get any notice, obviously this is another example where the media misses the story because it's too busy crying.

  12. Re:Occupy Wall Street protesters are creating thei on Occupy Protesters Are Building a Facebook for the 99% · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ron Paul is all about the straw man. He calls his 'The fed', sure it might sound a lot like the the banking arm of our federal government, but to hear him talk it's the root of all evil, well that and the EPA and you can probably find him complaining about fluoride in his old newsletter.

  13. Re:It's a big deal on North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il Dead at 70 · · Score: 1

    I read your comment as 'Give the people a little freedom and all you get is chaos', but then remembered that I heard the same criticism of casual Fridays.

  14. Re:Forced Voting? on Publicly Available Russian Election Results Hint At Fraud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Political corruption is as old as politics itself, acting like it's a Chicago invention is just another 'conservative' trying to make a back handed comment about President Obama's legitimacy,

  15. Re:Tell me about Russian politics on Publicly Available Russian Election Results Hint At Fraud · · Score: 1

    Wow, that's a lot of effort for someone that doesn't care. Perhaps you get beaten down for good, but I don't.

  16. Vroomm, Vroomm a thing of the past? on Gas Powered Fuel Cell Could Help EV Range Anxiety · · Score: 1

    They say the most Harley owners 'detune' their new bikes just to get the right sound out of the muffler. With the way that things might be going, I wonder if some won't miss their cars making engine sounds, not to mention blind people.

  17. Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's on Napster Being Shut Down · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the arrogant stoner at my local record store hates this, as he no longer gets to snort at my record choices and tell me about how *HIS* taste is so much more hip than mine.

    When in 'reality' we know that your taste is so much more hip than anyones. I'll bet that that they see you growl at the their suggestions seemingly out of habit.

    However, were you even alive in the days when there really was a record store culture? It wasn't the internet that killed off the independent record store, but the chain retailer. Well that and CDs, because as you didn't have to buy your tenth copy of 'Dark Side of the Moon' once it couldn't as easily wear out.

  18. Re:Is this an article from 2005? on E-Mail Can Reveal Your Friend Hierarchy · · Score: 2

    Yea, but this article was about how good your friends are based on you're email response time. With the exception of work, email is mostly how I reset passwords.

  19. Re:Holy fuck. on Scientists Cryo-Freeze Coral Reef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It should be noted that at one point, it was commonplace to throw your personal waste into the street. I'm sure that there were plenty who thought that the taxes levied for building sewers were an injustice too.

  20. Re:This is more proof on New Jersey DMV Employees Caught Selling Identities · · Score: 1

    Read Revelations.

    Why? Just because some guy on the radio tries to scare you into buying gold or dispensation with such tales, that doesn't mean it's true.

  21. Re:Peh. on Paper On Super Flu Strain May Be Banned From Publication · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, you don't agree with him, at all. As I see it, you're just glad that you got vaccinated as a kid because you are certain that you benefited from it directly. However, it seem that you'd hold those fancy new vaccines as suspicious. Why? Obviously you're intelligent enough to understand decades of research and improved scientific method that has lead to the current state of immunization. Certainly you couldn't be unaware of the death toll of disease was once considerable. Why would you ignore all that information? Do you consider it some sort of political stance?

  22. Re:Not unrelated on Merck Threatens Merck With Legal Action Over Facebook URL · · Score: 4, Informative
  23. Re:Wait! I know this one on All French Nuclear Reactors Deemed Unsafe · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Sure that's what they keep telling you on right wing talk radio, perhaps eventually you'll learn that they sell their opinions.

  24. Writing for reuse is lacking use case on The Futility of Developer Productivity Metrics · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you don't have a use case for reuse, you shouldn't try to code for it. To many 'interfaces' are single use, see 'servlet' vs. 'http servlet'.

  25. Re:You still need iPhone 4S on Siri Protocol Cracked · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How long until they crack the unique ID generator and create viable clones of existing phones?

    You can probably already buy them on the streets in Shanghai.

    Sounds like a lot of work for a little utility, but hey if you need an excuse to prowl around the seedy areas of China, it's as good as any I suppose.