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User: Chris+Mattern

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Comments · 7,102

  1. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 3, Informative

    A court can order your execution

    Um, no, it can't. That takes a jury. The court must then agree, but, in the US at least, without a conviction by jury *and* a recommendation of the death penalty by the jury as well, the court cannot sentence the defendant to death.

  2. Re:He's confused on Salesforce CEO Benioff: Future Software Will Look Like Facebook · · Score: 2

    He started of selling Salesforce as "it's going to be like Amazon": i.e, you go to a site to do stuff, and you never worry about what's actually running behind the site. He is now starting to sell Salesforce as "it's going to be like Facebook"

    "What are we going to be like? Well, what's the hot buzzword this week?"

  3. Re:Yeah on Salesforce CEO Benioff: Future Software Will Look Like Facebook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "That's like an astrologer telling a room full physicists about the future of physics."

    FTFY

  4. Re:"new internal government network" on UK's 'Unallocated' IPv4 Block Actually In Use, Not For Sale · · Score: 1

    They probably shouldn't have put the routers in the secret nuclear bunker.

  5. Re:Here's an idea on Ask Slashdot: Teaching Typing With Limited Electricity, Computers? · · Score: 1

    I still have the crappy old Royal manual I learned typing on stashed away in storage somewhere...

  6. Re:Let's Just Hope They Leave Well Enough Alone on Dice Buys Geeknet's Media Business, Including Slashdot, In $20M Deal · · Score: 1

    Which doesn't mean that some idiot won't try. See: Star Wars Galaxies.

  7. It's homogeneous... on Australian Study Backs Major Assumption of Cosmology · · Score: 2

    ...but is it pasteurized?

  8. Re:They rejected 16% salary increase over 4 years on Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups' · · Score: 1

    I cited an official, researched figure. If you want to use alternate "real-world" figures, please cite a source and how they were obtained. You don't just get to make up statistics to support your point.

  9. Re:They rejected 16% salary increase over 4 years on Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups' · · Score: 1

    A 16% increase over 4 years works out to be 4% a year, which just happens to be a little lower than the average inflation rate over the last 4 years

    Try again, bubeleh. The average inflation over the last four years, according to the Departmen of Labor's CPI, has been somewhere around 2.5%. The last year in which inflation topped 4% was 1991.

  10. Re:The system is not working on Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, if teachers have so little effect on what kids learn, why are we paying them at all?

  11. Re:Abolish on Chicago Teachers Rip 'Big Money Interest Groups' · · Score: 1

    but the workers still have the right to strike if they feel they are being mistreated.

    Actually,. some public service workers do *not* have the right to strike. Striking in such cases is simply refusing to report for work, and can get treated accordingly--you get fired. Ask the old PATCO air traffic controllers' union about that.

  12. Why'd they do it? on How Indie Devs Made an 1,800-Player Action Game Mod In Their Spare Time · · Score: 2

    Just 'Cause! (with apologies to Yahtzee)

  13. Re:Reform Without Wasted Draws on Japan Aims To Abandon Nuclear Power By 2030s · · Score: 1

    But most of the times when the Japanese PM changed, it wasn't because of new elections; rather the governing party changed leaders, which resulted in a new PM, since the PM is the leader of the governing party.

    And yes, I know about the mah-jongg manga and anime. Give it up for Super-Aryan Hitler!

  14. What would it take for Windows Phone 8 to succeed? on What Windows Phone 8 Needs To Do To Succeed · · Score: 5, Funny

    It would take someone dropping a nuke on Cupertino. Outside of that, I don't really see it happening.

  15. Re:Why aren't we on IPv6 yet? on RIPE Region Runs Out of IPv4 Addresses · · Score: 1

    Serious question. Why aren't we all on v6?

    Serious answer. Are you paying for it? Equipment costs, installation costs, staff costs for design and configuration, and all of it with the boss standing behind you asking, "Why are we spending all this money, again?"

    This is something the ISPs, the upstreams, well the big guys in general have to do

    It's not something they've had to do so far. If they have to do it in the future, well, they'll do it then.

  16. Re:Erection? on Japan Aims To Abandon Nuclear Power By 2030s · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are elections in Japan held on a need-only basis?

    Not need-*only*, but when needed, yes. Like any parliamentary system, election are held if the government suffers a vote of no confidence. There's also a set term, at the end of which elections are held regardless, but they can happen early. in Japan, the term for the lower house is four years, but this wouldn't be the first time in recent history that an early election was called; the 2003 lower house went back to the polls in 2005.

  17. Re:Sigh. on QR Codes As Anti-Forgery On Currency Could Infect Banks · · Score: 1

    Which is why nobody would do such a thing.

    Oh, I wish I had your confidence. While it's true that the QR scheme doesn't contain any inherent security holes, a quick glance at security practices in the industry today does not fill me with confidence that someone won't introduce some.

  18. Re:Batshit Crazy! on EVE Online CSM and Diplomat Killed in Libyan Consulate Attacks · · Score: 1

    They are? Dig me up a recent case where Jews *or* Christians went on a murderous rampage because a film insulted their religion. Go ahead. I'll wait.

  19. Re:The author's take on this on Author Threatens To Sue Book Reviewers Over Trademark Infringement · · Score: 1

    That's as maybe but I suspect J. K. Rowling might have run into a hitch if she'd titled her first novel Harry Potter, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

    Now you've got me imagining Harry and Hermione locked together in a closet. There might be a fanfic in this...

  20. Re:SI units, please on Synthetic Materials Set New World Record For Greatest Amount of Surface Area · · Score: 1

    Well, there's not such thing as a standard desktop, so your guess is as good as mine on that. A US football field, however, is 120 yards long (including the end zones) by 160 feet wide, so it's 57,600 square feet, or 6400 square yards.

  21. Re:Extrapolation on Complex Systems Theorists Predict We're About One Year From Global Food Riots · · Score: 1

    I hope nobody remembers those clowns, either.

    I hope people do remember them. In particular, I hope people remember them when the *next* bunch of modellers with a doomsday prediction pop up. I remember the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth.

  22. Re:Truly sad day for design... on Bill Moggridge, GRiD Compass Designer, Dies · · Score: 1

    Essentially, he took design out of the hands of the 'high-priests' of taste and aesthetics, and put the power back in the hands of the users.

    Fortunately, Steve Jobs soon put a stop to *that*.

  23. "Photographs, videos, and memories"? on QR Codes For Memorials · · Score: 1

    A QR code can hold less than 3 kilobytes. You might be able to squeeze a few pages of text, but anything more data-intensive than that, you'll have to put in a URL or some such that points to it. And how long will that be good?

  24. Re:Become great to eliminate poverty? on Space Vs. Poverty Debate In India · · Score: 1

    Of course it did. But in Soviet times, they could shoot anybody who talked about it.

  25. Re:The Oregon Trail! on Space Vs. Poverty Debate In India · · Score: 1

    the moon a satellite of the earth and as such launches from there still have to overcome the gravity of the earth

    But very little of it. The inverse square law is quite powerful. Escape velocity from Earth's gravity at Earth's surface is 11.2 km/s, while escape velocity from Earth's gravity at the moon's orbit is only 1.4 km/s. At the Moon's orbit, you're 90% of the way out. Breaking free of the Moon's gravity at its surface and the Earth's gravity at the moon's orbit *combined* is easier than breaking free of Mars's gravity at Mars's surface. (Escape velocity from Moon at Moon's surface, 2.4 km/s, escape velocity from Mars at Mars's surface, 5.0 km/s) It's easier to get to elsewhere in the Solar System from the Moon than it is from Mars.