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User: Overzeetop

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Comments · 8,297

  1. Re:Freelance/Consulting on Ask Slashdot: Can a Felon Work In IT? · · Score: 1

    Perhaps; but unless you're working for someone with black projects, deep pockets, or a paranoid legal department you'll be offering your services as XYZ corporation and corporations don't have criminal records.

  2. Re:start your own business? on Ask Slashdot: Can a Felon Work In IT? · · Score: 3, Informative

    That was my first thought. If you can't find someone to hire you, start your own. Corporations don't have criminal records, and unless you are working for someone who screens your employees (and that's slippery ground from a contract work perspective) you are simply doing work.

  3. Re:Stray boats and those on them on Technical Hitches Delay Orion Capsule's First Launch · · Score: 1

    They should warn them with SAMs. Through center mass.

  4. Those aren't the services you're looking for on The Cost of the "S" In HTTPS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "in-network value added services"

    I just read that as "advertising".

    Besides, I though most of the internet traffic was netflix now. Is that all done https in a way that distributed caches are infeasible? I understood that the caching was pretty robust for their traffic.

  5. Please tell me on How High-Tech Temporary Tattoos Will Hack Your Skin · · Score: 1

    Oh, please tell me that the "biofuel battery applied as a temporary tattoo converts sweat into energy, and a startup within the center has developed a strip that extracts data from sweat" is really just an electrochemical battery (aka potato battery).

  6. Re:Hmm on Big Banks Will Vie For Your Attention With Cardless ATMs and VR · · Score: 1

    It's like being your own little federal government.

  7. Re:cashless is suicidal on The Cashless Society? It's Already Coming · · Score: 1

    My lost $20 bills never seem to find their way back to me. OTOH, I've never paid a dime for any erroneous charge.

  8. Stars approaching at the speed of light... on Stars Traveling Close To Light Speed Could Spread Life Through the Universe · · Score: 2

    Bet you never saw that coming.

  9. Re:Jobs & buying on Armies of Helper Robots Keep Amazon's Warehouses Running Smoothly · · Score: 1

    This will free people from mind numbing work and let them do something more productive.

    This is one of the two the fallacies of the computer generation.

    (1) More efficient machines will reduce the length of the work week. Of course it doesn't, because - as you mentioned - we are all competing, and the length of a first world work week is pretty standard at 40 (+/-8) hours, so nobody who actually purchases a machine will voluntarily pay more per hour, or train more people than is necessary.
    (2) People with menial jobs can be more productive elsewhere. No, they can't. They're in those jobs because they can't find anything more productive (i.e. higher paying) to do. It pushes them down the ladder, not up, or out of the job market entirely. Most humans simply have not evolved to the point where they're commercially viable as a resource.

  10. The only way to win... on Football Concussion Lawsuits Start To Hit High Schools · · Score: 1

    ...is not to play.

  11. Re:Drones versus Birds on FAA Report Says Near Collisions With Drones On the Rise · · Score: 1

    Easy: provided a maximum allowable weight and altitude for unlimited flying. Rockets are goverened that way - under 3.3 lbs (1500g) and H impulse (approximately - about 2500-3500' AGL for the lightest capable, and maybe 1000' feet for a 3.3lb bird) and you can fly pretty much anywhere you have landing clearance and clear skies.

    Make the maximum drone 1500g and limit operations to 1000', exclusive of glide slope for mapped airports.

    And, fwiw, I'd bet that a payload intended to disable an aircraft is probably already illegal. Changing the regs for all drones isn't going to stop someone who's already intentionally breaking several federal laws.

  12. Re:555% markup is very profitable on Taxi Medallion Prices Plummet Under Pressure From Uber · · Score: 1

    Yes, but that five mile trip takes 10 driving minutes, plus entry/exit, plus time to next fare - call it 15 minutes per five mile fare while on duty over a whole shift. $15 - x 4 fares per hour = $60. Pay the cabbie a wage that doesn't require federal assistance (125% of poverty wage, plus medical benefit costs, plus taxes, plus overhead for leave) comes to about $22-25 hour all burdened. So your "throw-away employee" rate for labor leaves you about $25/hr - 42%Profit (71% markup).

    Considering that not every hour is peak, that's not exactly rolling in it. (FWIW, gross margins before labor on fast food restaurants are also in the 600% range for food products).

  13. Still not worth it on Taxi Medallion Prices Plummet Under Pressure From Uber · · Score: 1

    So *before* fuel, maintenance, depreciation, and driver costs, a medallion (before Uber) was worth less than 14% ROI? That sucks.

  14. Re:the times they are a changin' on Here's What Your Car Could Look Like In 2030 · · Score: 1

    " work a farm or the oil fields of North Dakota"

    You've been in the city too long. Go 20 miles outsize of any city center and the only option for reliable, time-efficient transportation is a car. Inside any of the top 20-30 cities - sure, getting around the city is going to be more efficient on public or hired transportation. That covers about 7000-8000 square miles of the 3 million square miles that makes up the lower 48. By population, it's only about 30 million of the 330 million US residents.

    For the vast majority of the US personal automobiles are, and will remain, a necessity for the typical American lifestyle.

  15. Re:From the point of view of someone loving cars on Here's What Your Car Could Look Like In 2030 · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing you're a fan of driving, not necessarily of cars. Before you complain, what are your thoughts about all cars having automatic transmissions?

  16. Re:Gas volume vs Liquid volume? on Multiple Manufacturers Push Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars, But Can They Catch Tesla? · · Score: 1

    I expect that the 122l is at 7-10,000 psi (Nissan recently had a pres release about 7MPa CF wound Al tanks). Actually, very few cars have 122l tanks - that over 32 gallons. Most small cars have 14-16 gallon tanks, vans are about 20, and light trucks 20-25 gallons (without optional extended range or dual tanks).

  17. Re:Cable TV Anyone? on Google Launches Service To Replace Web Ads With Subscriptions · · Score: 1

    You are that old, you just probably don't remember. It was way back when MTV played music videos.

  18. Re:"Engineer" on "Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer" Pulled From Amazon · · Score: 1

    Depends on where you're from. Game designers aren't, generally "computer engineers"

    When I was in school, there were different tracks for Computer Science (programming, IT management) and for Computer Engineering (a sub-discipline for Electrical engineering), involving the design of computer hardware at the chip and sub-chip level. Computer engineers were generally at/near the top of the intellectual heap, joining the aerospace engineers looking down at all the other engineering disciplines.

  19. !Easy Hard on "Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer" Pulled From Amazon · · Score: 2

    Math, at the age where Barbie hits her prime demographic, is no harder than reading, history, singing, or being physically fit. There are exceptions where certain things really are hard to some people with disabilities (both mental and physical), but for the vast majority its not hard - it just takes practice and study/work.

    Saying "Math is hard" elevates it and offers an excuse as to why you aren't doing well at it. If you don't read, you'll never be a good reader. If you never do physical activity, you'll never be in good cardiovascular shape. If you don't study history, you shouldn't expect to be able to recall historical facts and make logical connections between events. Playing piano will not work out well for you if you never practice. In that sense, all those things are "hard" - but only "hard" as compared to, say, watching a movie or drinking a slurpee.

    Misogyny is presenting a girl as an incompetent fool, incapable of doing the very things which the presentation aims to promote. Apparently, writing even the most basic story book an staying true to the subject is hard as well.

  20. My Application on US Intelligence Unit Launches $50k Speech Recognition Competition · · Score: 1
  21. Re:boggles the mind... on What Would Have Happened If Philae Were Nuclear Powered? · · Score: 1

    The sun is putting more heat than that on every exposed/sun facing square meter of the 14+ Million square meter surface area of that rock. An extra 1000W, mostly radiated off to the 3K of space, wouldn't have been an issue.

  22. Re:Really? on What Would Have Happened If Philae Were Nuclear Powered? · · Score: 1

    Compared to an RTG, solar panels are very light and the mass scales down pretty well with power requirements (which isn't as true with RTGs). Discl: I've designed solar panel deployment mechanisms for spacecraft.

  23. Re: The numbers vary on Bicycle Bottle System Condenses Humidity From Air Into Drinkable Water · · Score: 1

    Have you ever seen the prices in those gadget catalogs? An iPhone is only ~175 in parts, but they retail for 600-900. Maybe they'll have it on sale for 169 on Black Friday.

  24. Re:The numbers vary on Bicycle Bottle System Condenses Humidity From Air Into Drinkable Water · · Score: 1

    Yeah, exactly. I suspect you'll never match human losses without a much larger energy source for the condenser.

    This is a much better product for areas with poor drinking water quality, but those people don't have a spare $200 for a new bicycle gadget. This was custom made for the Sharper Image / Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, not some third world peace corp work.

  25. Re:Hmmm ... on Bicycle Bottle System Condenses Humidity From Air Into Drinkable Water · · Score: 1

    Actually, if I read the article correctly it's a peltier cooler that runs off of solar panels. The fact that its on a bike is just his version of a solution looking for a problem in a market with disposable income.