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User: Rhywden

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Comments · 280

  1. Re:Done us all a favor on Wikileaks Aiding Snowden - Chinese Social Media Divided - Relations Strained · · Score: 1

    Funny you should ask that. Since that law was created by the Allies. Which means that the US are responsible for that particular law.

    And let's be honest: For any politician (safe those of the extreme right) a proposal to revoke this law would mean pretty much instant career suicide.
    Not to mention the kind of international backlash this would cause.

  2. Re:It's even worse on Why Is Science Behind a Paywall? · · Score: 1

    That's why I was so angry with them - if you do a naive calculation of the average cost for an article per magazine per issue per year, you come up with roughly 3€ per article. Which means that it would have been more than a 1000% markup in my case.

    I could've understood a 100% markup because I'm not a subscriber - but this? That's racketeering in my book.

    By the way, I also contacted them to ask them about the logic behind that huge markup and the 24-hour access restriction. They actually answered. Just the latter question, though, with some kind of hogwash about the difficulties of providing long-term access and its costs. Yeah, that extra table enabling a many-to-many-relationship in the database, that must probably really take up some space!

  3. It's even worse on Why Is Science Behind a Paywall? · · Score: 4, Informative

    I recently wanted to get access to a single article from a magazine for teachers because I wanted to do something different this time and the name of the article promised an interesting viewpoint.

    However, my school did not subscribe to that magazine and it was an issue from 2004 to boot. So I went to Wiley's website and they offered me the option to buy a time-restricted access to that six(6)-page article. Yeah, you read that right: Shell out money and if you don't download the article as a PDF (which they offer, by the way) you lose access again. Doesn't really make sense but, hey...

    Anyway, put that article into the "cart" and proceeded to the checkout. 40€. For a single article. From a magazine which costs 90€ per year if you subscribe to it as a private person (4 issues a year, 7-8 articles per issue). Where the articles are written by teachers for other teachers.

    So I drove the 20 minutes to my local university after my school day had ended and photocopied the pages for 0.18€.

    Screw those guys.

  4. Re:Excel error? on Excel Error Contributes To Problems With Austerity Study · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Try accidentely averaging not quite all of an array in any other language (e.g. C++, Octave/MATLAB/ Java, AWK, SQL, Python, Ruby, hell even TCL). You will find that the idiomatic way is always shorter, clearer and correct by comparison.

    That's an easy mistake for a beginner to do:

    1) Simply forget that array indices for most languages begin at zero(0) rather than one(1).
    2) Make an error when establishing the termination condition, Like: "i <= array.length" rather than "i < array.length", again, due to forgetting that array indices begin at zero and end at n-1.

  5. Re:Excel error? on Excel Error Contributes To Problems With Austerity Study · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

  6. Re:Excel error? on Excel Error Contributes To Problems With Austerity Study · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Excel marks parameters by drawing coloured borders around the selected range of cells.

    I'm not quite sure how one could make it even more obvious without punching the user in the face.

    Unless, of course, you expect a strong AI to reside inside Excel which is able to distinguish between what the user wanted and what he actually did.

  7. Re:An Infra-red laser? Why? on Navy To Deploy Lasers On Ship In 2014 · · Score: 1

    It's probably due to scaling problems. Every type of Laser scales differently with regard to the power of the beam. Then there's the cooling and power supply.

    Not to mention that the frequency doesn't really matter when you're pumping Kilowatts of energy towards the target - you want to melt the target, after all. And IR can do that just as well as UV.

  8. Re:From the article: on Man Who Pointed Laser At Aircraft Gets 30-Month Sentence · · Score: 1

    There are actually materials which filter out laser light. Had to wear such glasses myself when working with a higher power green laser.

    However, the filtering aspect obviously only works in a narrow part of the spectrum.

  9. Re:They didn't say radiation release after 4 days on Fukushima Cooling Knocked Offline By... a Rat · · Score: 1

    #3 for us would have been: Resident felt need to dig a foxhole.

  10. Re:Let me know when you can print quality steel, p on Defcad.com Wants To Be the Google of 3D-Printable Guns · · Score: 1

    Two words: Not really.

    Unless you can show me the 3D printer which will withstand upwards of 1500 C. And, no, gluing the stuff together is not a good idea.

  11. Re:Conspiracy! on Most Doctors Don't Think Patients Need Full Access To Med Records · · Score: 1

    Quantity != quality.

  12. Re:Conspiracy! on Most Doctors Don't Think Patients Need Full Access To Med Records · · Score: 1

    I dare say that a x-ray film lab has a slightly higher quality control than a mere "tourist photo" lab.

    I mean, finger prints on an x-ray negative? Absolute no-go.

  13. Re:Conspiracy! on Most Doctors Don't Think Patients Need Full Access To Med Records · · Score: 1

    Okay, how exactly do you propose a dust speck to be a significant barrier to x-rays? Unless your dust is made out of metal filings, that is.

    And if you have processing errors on your x-ray films on a regular basis then that would be another sign of ineptitude.

  14. Re:Digital Licenses are not physical media on Valve Sued In Germany Over Game Ownership · · Score: 2

    Merely saying that it is "licensed" doesn't make it so.

  15. Re:He has the right to see if his data is insecure on Student Expelled From Montreal College For Finding "Sloppy Coding" · · Score: 1

    It's not about ownership. It's about having the right to see whether your data is now secure after having made the previous discovery that your data was indeed not secure.

  16. Re:He has the right to see if his data is insecure on Student Expelled From Montreal College For Finding "Sloppy Coding" · · Score: 1

    Since his personal info is in this system, it is indeed his "window".

  17. Sinfest on Ask Slashdot: What Was Your Favorite Web Comic of 2012? · · Score: 4, Informative
  18. Re:Karma Whoring. on Amazon: Authors Can't Review Books · · Score: 1

    This here is probably a very good example for what you're talking about:

    http://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Love-Conquers-Series-ebook/product-reviews/B004Q3RT74/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R6BB3TX29C5N5

    And, for the love of god, don't buy this book.

  19. Re:e-Ink on Will Tablets Kill Off e-Readers? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also: Please try to actually use such a fancy tablet outside in the bright sun. I know, this is Slashdot, what with the aversion of the daystar and all, but still...

  20. Re:Why not use old drive? on Slashdot Asks: SATA DVD Drives That Don't Suck for CD Ripping? · · Score: 1

    Unless he buys a PATA-Controller, he most likely won't have the connectors. My own new motherboard only has SATA connectors.

  21. Re:No Death Penalty on Search For "Foolproof Suffocation" Missed In Casey Anthony Case · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Right. Let's get rid of those "due process" shenanigans while we're at it. Death penalty is heavily biased anyway, so might as well admit to it and summarily execute people regardless of their actual guilt!

  22. Re:No Death Penalty on Search For "Foolproof Suffocation" Missed In Casey Anthony Case · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You could also make the argument that forcing him to watch his "1000 year dominion" crumble to dust in a matter of decades would also be plenty of punishment.

  23. Re:Probability and magnitude are both relevant on Paintball Pellets As a Tool To Deflect Asteroids · · Score: 1

    Ah, I see now. That's why some people are so dead-set against self-driving cars!

  24. Re:various materials on DIY Laser Cutter Raises Capital, Concerns · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I forgot, just to be clear: I'm not speaking of reflections in a polished mirror. I'm talking about reflections from an ordinary wall.

  25. Re:various materials on DIY Laser Cutter Raises Capital, Concerns · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, theres the small problem that the reflection of the beam may still be dangerous. That's something most people don't think of when speaking about the dangers of high-powered lasers:
    It's not only the direct beam you want to be wary of, but indirect sources as well. A friend of mine once got 3rd degree burns from the reflection of a high-power UV laser.