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User: rmdingler

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Comments · 4,492

  1. Re:Don't fall for the ads on Pepsi Drops Plans To Use Artificial Constellation To Promote An Energy Drink (spacenews.com) · · Score: 1

    Right; perhaps they learned it watching the New Coke campaign.

  2. Re:So they admit they are racist misogynists on Microsoft Turned Down Facial-Recognition Sales On Human Rights Concerns (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    Microsoft concluded it would lead to innocent women and minorities being disproportionately held for questioning because the artificial intelligence has been trained on mostly white and male pictures.

    So that naturally leads to the question, why the heck are they training these things with mostly white and male pictures? Couldn't find any pictures of women on the internet?

    Well, it's a California law enforcement contract, and, ahem, clearly, those damn white males are the target market in a round up the usual suspects.

  3. Re:Equal consideration under the law? on T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Is In Danger of Being Rejected By DOJ (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2, Informative

    Combined, Sprint and T-Mobile will still only be the third largest carrier in the US behind Verizon and AT&T, hardly monopoly territory.

    It seems more likely they haven't greased the right wheels in Washington.

  4. Re:FD: Not an LBJ fan, but: on LeBron James' STEM-Based School Is Showing Promise (goodnewsnetwork.org) · · Score: 1

    Though he marketed his name and fame for personal business advantage, MJ never much attempted good works to elevate his connate citizens above their station(s).

    Hope is sometimes little more than nothing at all, but if you try sometimes, it's just what you need.

  5. Re:My colleague just bought a Tesla on New Registrations For Electric Vehicles Doubled In US Last Year (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1
    106.9 miles... stipulating that 75% is an accurate description of the state of battery depletion, I've got +/- 35 miles left to recharge or park 'side the highway.

    Until the EV charging network is a tad more ubiquitous, why not include an optional backup fossil fuel-powered (gasp) generator to make ends meet on a longer trip... or maybe for life-saving heat when I'm snowed in 'side the highway in an ever more common bomb cyclone?

  6. FD: Not an LBJ fan, but: on LeBron James' STEM-Based School Is Showing Promise (goodnewsnetwork.org) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The numbers aren't staggering, but often the exponential growth from last to bottom tenth, sixth, or third is a more important improvement threshold than the move from 70 t0 80, or, 80 t0 90 percentile.

    The radicle comes before the tree.

  7. Re:Also explores security issues on Dragons, Nuclear Weapons, and Game of Thrones (thebulletin.org) · · Score: 1

    Perhaps, but it's much more story-worthy to imagine this mission bears some presently undecipherable bearing on the series' outcome.

  8. Re:Also explores security issues on Dragons, Nuclear Weapons, and Game of Thrones (thebulletin.org) · · Score: 1

    I thought the same thing, and since it's statistically unlikely you and I are the only ones, the show's writers thought this, too. There has to be some large benefit to the expedition beyond the Wall that we can't see yet.

  9. We finally have conclusive evidence why Democracy is worth fighting for: The Shape of Water character is available to us uncensored, and more importantly, unclothed.

  10. Re:Yes except score not about you, about transacti on We're All Being Judged By a Secret 'Trustworthiness' Score (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    +1 Informative.

    I have taken the headline's bait and been caught clicking, or perhaps more accurately, clucking.

  11. Re:Ummm.... on We're All Being Judged By a Secret 'Trustworthiness' Score (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    ... this looks like standard anti-fraud measures that banks and retail have been doing for years and years and years. It's not creating a profile of YOU, its creating a profile of YOUR CARD so it can detect if it's been compromised.

    IE - you definitely want this.

    Nothing to see here.

    Still, the secretive nature of the trustworthiness score is unwarranted, and citizens should have access to these scores to correct inaccuracies.

    Just as denials for credit application are legally required to followed up with a written notice justifying the decision, transaction denial details based on another scale should be made available to the card holder.

    The banking industry has a long history of operating poorly in the dark.

  12. Discounting outright ballot fraud, influencing the outcome of political elections has always been a past time available to a very small fraction of the richest and most powerful humans on the planet. For the longest time, consolidation of the distribution of news to the public was a popular way to shape opinion by political Kingmakers. These activities have rarely been constrained within the sovereign border the Kingmaker resides.

    Totalitarian regimes lock down control of the press and constantly monitor for dissent. In nations with the freedom to use the ballot box, wealthy individuals seeking power bought up newspaper, radio, and television properties to control the flow of information to the voting citizens.

    Making life difficult for the rich and powerful, we have this damn internet thingie that virtually anyone can use to attempt to shape public opinion, even on a shoestring budget. I suppose at the very least, we have democratized the influencing business.

  13. Bingo.

    The catch to the freedoms of speech and expression you enjoy is that the people you disagree with get them, too... and no one is guaranteed the right not to be offended.

    On another note, politicians on both sides of the aisle are the problem. Apologies if you're a heavily invested fan of one team.

  14. Re:I think it may be for real on Disney+ Streaming Service To Launch In November, Priced At $6.99 Monthly (variety.com) · · Score: 1

    By the time we have to subscribe to Disney, BBC, Netflix, HBO, Prime, and the sports package of your choice to get most of what we want to see... well, cutting the cord doesn't save much dinero over a Comcast monopoly area.

    Yes, but you get to choose the content you want, not the cable company

    I just hope that works out better than our Choice for the candidate representative of the donkey or the elephant.

  15. Re:I think it may be for real on Disney+ Streaming Service To Launch In November, Priced At $6.99 Monthly (variety.com) · · Score: 2

    By the time we have to subscribe to Disney, BBC, Netflix, HBO, Prime, and the sports package of your choice to get most of what we want to see... well, cutting the cord doesn't save much dinero over a Comcast monopoly area.

  16. Re:"Toxic Content" on To Answer Critics, YouTube Tries a New Metric: Responsibility (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Videos encouraging children to kill themselves? How about advertisements encouraging the consumption of soft drinks, candy, cigarettes, and alcohol?

    Terrorist propaganda videos? That's evolving into simply bucking the current regime. It's just a better soundbite when you rename the opposition faction a terrorist organisation. It's naming your enemies something vile that triggers subconscious revulsion. Cockroachian rebels.

  17. Re:Turning Huawei into a cuss word on US Firm Wins Bid To Block Huawei From Subsea Pacific Cables (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 2

    Political corruption always exists, as powerful interests lobby powerful governments to do their bidding.

    Worse offerings is an amplifier predicated on the side you find yourself rooting for. Integrity is an admirable trait in many regards, yet sociopathy is an advantageous trait in high stakes game theory.

  18. Turning Huawei into a cuss word on US Firm Wins Bid To Block Huawei From Subsea Pacific Cables (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We could argue compromised Chinese technology vs compromised US tech companies until we're blue in the face, but whoever's in charge of turning Huawei into a cautionary tale is winning, and not by a small margin.

  19. Re:Number of participants is crucially important on Finland's Basic Income Experiment Shows Recipients Are Happier and More Secure (yahoo.com) · · Score: 1

    Lol Venezuela is an example of UBI, are you fucking kidding.

    No. Venezuela is an example of a corruptocracy that earned a kings ransom during the run up to the world's last $100 barrel of oil, only to save nothing and plan little for the inevitable downturn in the cyclical petroleum market.

  20. Re:And thats not all... on Automakers Want Cars That Won't Start If You're Drunk (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 0
    You're the 4th person to post the same incorrect hypotheses... you're neither the first to the party nor the sharpest knife in the drawer.

    The merge in zipper fashion theory of traffic flow is flawed in that it assumes a level of human cooperation infrequently found in nature, requiring a level of commitment to order apparently beneath the common human, heretofore only exhibited by the uncommon ant.

  21. Re:Great? on Automakers Want Cars That Won't Start If You're Drunk (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 4, Funny

    Great- so even though I don't drink and nobody else ever drives my car, I would have to add yet another $500 or $1000 or something to the price of any car I want to buy, for yet another feature I don't want or need.

    Right... not to mention the additional fuel cost of having to leave your vehicle running while you're at the pub.

  22. Re:And thats not all... on Automakers Want Cars That Won't Start If You're Drunk (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 0

    v2.0 won't start if your credit score is too low, or you post 'fake news' or a hate opinion online.

    I guess it depends on who exactly gets to expand the restrictions.

    It seems likely the technology would evolve to include shutting the vehicle down for other forms of hazardous driving behavior: distracted driving, aggressive driving, and perhaps even simply poor driving.

    Maybe we can give this guy a red card.

  23. Re:Please change the title on After 15 Years, The Humble Space Telescope Can No Longer Be Powered Up (twitter.com) · · Score: 1

    +2 funny

  24. Re: A couple of ideas on Ask Slashdot: What Would Your TED Talk Be About? (ted.com) · · Score: 1

    It's grammatically incorrect to use a comma before the word "and".

    At least , in The Queen's English , anyway , and that's all that matters. ;)

    How can we trust you, clearly, a fanatical comma saver??

  25. Rectal property, at a minimum, would seem to imply the sale of the Back Forty.