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User: TheMathemagician

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Comments · 214

  1. Re:Clever guy on The Hunt For LulzSec's Missing Sixth Member · · Score: 1

    If AVunit has any sense he should leave that alias behind for ever and probably change his ISP(s)/hardware/OS/location.

  2. Re:Medical Privacy on Larry Page: You Worry Too Much About Medical Privacy · · Score: 1

    Strange that his medical problem has given him so little insight. Everyone should have the right to keep their medical history completely confidential between themselves and their doctors. That's what we need to work towards. If an individual wants to publicise their own medical records then that of course is their choice but the rest of us needn't waste any collective intellectual bandwidth on it.

  3. Re:Does anyone have a spare C-64 lying around? on Why We Should Build a Supercomputer Replica of the Human Brain · · Score: 1

    I think a ZX-80 would be sufficient

  4. Re:Royalty? Just say no. on Did the Queen Just Resurrect the Snooper's Charter? · · Score: 1

    Well I'm perfectly happy to stick with a hereditary Head of State. Saying the Royals cost a lot is somewhat disingenuous - a non-Royal Head of State wont cost any less (probably a lot more). Sadly for you a clear majority of British voters agree with me so they're here to stay.

  5. Re:This is the same Margaret Hodge... on Google Ordered Back To UK Parliament To "Explain Itself" Following Investigation · · Score: 1

    Actually the family business is the steel-trading company Stemcor of which she owns about £15m worth of shares via a trust fund in the names of her children and other family members in order to avoid paying tax.

  6. Re:Ford is irrelevant to a startup on Dropcam CEO's Beef With Brogramming and Free Dinners · · Score: 1

    My point remains that an assembly line worker at Ford had a very different incentivisation scheme to a presumed equity holder at a small start-up.

  7. Re: But...Agile teaches us... on Dropcam CEO's Beef With Brogramming and Free Dinners · · Score: 1

    There's more to it than that?

  8. Ford is irrelevant to a startup on Dropcam CEO's Beef With Brogramming and Free Dinners · · Score: 1

    I doubt Henry Ford gave his workers an equity stake in the company and the chance to make millions in a few years when he was doing this research that proved you can only get 40-50 productive hours/week from an employee. Probably paid them a nickel per hour extra as overtime.

  9. Re:Why? on Microsoft CFO Quits · · Score: 2

    Don't you think cruising the world on a mega-yacht filled with every toy imaginable and with a harem of beautiful women would pall after a while? Errr actually no, you're good.

  10. Re:Anti sexist policies are almost always sexist on Changing the Ratio of Women In Tech: How Etsy Did It · · Score: 1

    What local communities do you think there are in Central London? Or are you using "local community" as a codeword for black/brown skinned? I'm a white, educated, English male who lives in West London. Am I not a member of my local community?

  11. Re:You Know What They're Up To? on Australian Bureau of Statistics Doesn't Like Direct Downloads of Census Data · · Score: 1

    An alternative is to sadly declare that some simple task you're experiencing resistance over simply cannot be done.

  12. Re:Why on earth did they waste time and money on Australian Bureau of Statistics Doesn't Like Direct Downloads of Census Data · · Score: 2

    It's because bureaucrats everywhere have a visceral belief that THEY own the data and it should never be released to the public without the maximum of foot-dragging, time-wasting and hoop-jumping.

  13. Re:I guess it depends on Is Bitcoin Mining a Real-World Environmental Problem? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Britain is an island and so tidal power is intrinsically more promising than wind power. The Bristol Channel actually has the second highest tidal variation in the world for a river estuary. (When I was a child it was claimed as biggest in the world but they found a bigger one in China.) It is absolutely ideal for a tidal power station. Virtually free energy. So I suppose it was inevitable that the misguided green/ecology lobby would get the project killed. Tidal Power stations are not remotely as polluting and intrusive as traditional coal or gas burning ones. It's just capturing the rise and fall of the tide. It could easily have been built with minimal damage to the mud flats and bird populations provided that was part of the spec. Yes it would end surfing upstream but so what??? Surfing off the coast of Cornwall should be unaffected.

  14. Re:Logic on EFF Urges Court To Protect Privacy of Text Messages · · Score: 1

    If you've arrested them under suspicion of a felony and are conducting a search of their person then yes. Otherwise no.

  15. Re:Does not "evaporate" on EFF Urges Court To Protect Privacy of Text Messages · · Score: 1

    Why should the police need a warrant to examine a suspect's phone messages if they have the right to search him? Would you expect them to get a warrant if he had unopened letters on his person? Please note I am NOT suggesting the cops can look at everyone's phones/text messages at will. But in situations where they have arrested a suspect and are searching him then text messages are fair game. Sending text messages posing as the suspect to presumably arrange a drug deal does seem like entrapment but that's a separate issue.

  16. Re:Even in death, she is divisive on Margaret Thatcher Dies At 87 · · Score: 1

    A job where the government pays you £200/week to dig out coal worth £100 isn't a real job in the economic sense. It's a pretend job like in the old Soviet Union. It can only exist due to a massive distortion in the laws of economics caused by previous governments subsidising loss-making coalmining. She just turned off the life-support. The jobs had been destroyed years before by the inflation and devaluation of the pound caused by Labour.

  17. Re:Thanks to her, the Falklands are still British on Margaret Thatcher Dies At 87 · · Score: 1

    Yes Eddie Izzard, and presumably you too, would cheerfully have handed all the residents over to the whims of the Argentine junta which would have immediately confiscated all their land, houses, and sheep and, if they were lucky, let them go, or if unlucky, imprisoned or killed them.

  18. Re:Really? on Firing a Laser Into Your Brain Could Help Beat a Drug Addiction · · Score: 1

    Yes but it's mandatory to add the tag "may cure drug addiction" - or some other socially useful claim - to any research involving the brain. That way you get media coverage and a better chance of funding.

  19. Re:Bit stale on Comparing the C++ Standard and Boost · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately you simply don't understand C++ and how great it is. Of course you're not alone, most C++ programmers don't understand it either which is why so much bad C++ code is written. Maybe you've just been unlucky and only seen bad code. I have asked people with C++ on their resumes to explain to me what 'virtual' means and the success rate is 50%.

  20. Re:My first response is "Must check out those site on UK Court Orders Block of Three Torrent Sites · · Score: 1

    Of course you can, or just use a smaller ISP which isn't subject to the banning order. It's just a farcical waste of time.

  21. Re:Quality? on Music Industry Sees First Revenue Increase Since 1999 · · Score: 1

    Pretty much. Currently the most successful group in the UK is One Direction. I don't have anything against them, they seem like a nice bunch of 20-year olds having a lot of fun being popstars. However I can't imagine anyone other than their teenage fans actively seeking out and enjoying listening to their music for years to come. I expect them to have vanished in five years to make way for the next guys.

  22. Re:Buy local honey on Laser Intended For Mars Used To Detect "Honey Laundering" · · Score: 1

    They probably charge a price which reflects a reasonable markup on their costs and labour time. Of course industrial-scale food production will always be cheaper - otherwise why do it. You should be asking just how brutally the big suppliers are cutting corners to lower their price.

  23. Viva el Presidente on Kevin Mitnick Helping Secure Presidential Elections In Ecuador · · Score: 1

    Please can Anonymous or someone hack this election wide-open so Mitnick can be forgotten. Or better still, elect him as Ecuadorian President-for-Life.

  24. Re:Hero on Do Patent Laws Really Protect Small Inventors? · · Score: 1

    He's good at manipulating the media and most people probably do think of him in that way. However I would think most British slashdotters (of which I'm one) can see past this. He erroneously believes that a Draconian patent system will help "protect British inventions" which he uses as a shorthand for "put money in my pocket". He could easily sell his property, including a vintage car worth £80,000 supposedly, and buy a small retirement home and live comfortably.

  25. Re:Wrong Premise, Approach from a Different Angle on Do Patent Laws Really Protect Small Inventors? · · Score: 1

    Yes they are all of this grade - or worse. One of his was the 'ball-barrow' - wheelbarrow with a ball rather than a wheel at the front. About as good as it sounds.