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User: erikkemperman

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  1. Why bold those words?

    Muphry's Law

  2. Re:CSS collects my DNA every day. on Snowden: 'The Central Problem of the Future' Is Control of User Data (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    WTF has he said that hasn't been said 1000 times already?

    It's not so much what he said that was new. It's that he proved it.

  3. Re: Here It Comes... on FDA Approves Large Clinical Trial For Ecstasy As Relief For PTSD Patients (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2, Informative

    "improvements lasted more than a year after therapy"

    Which is a good thing, given that it's not actually possible to use it continuously (at least not effectively, due to depleted serotonin). Which is also why folks tend not to get addicted to molly.

    For this exact same reason, I bet the pharmaceutical industry does not like this idea. At all.

    From my own personal experience, I absolutely credit occasional recreational use of MDMA (and visiting the associated raves, I guess) with helping me out of a not-so-mild depression couple of years back.

  4. Re:Yeah... climate design on Sea Ice In Arctic and Antarctic Is At Record Low Levels This Year (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    How about we consider countries outside the USA.

    When examined, they are making US/Europe widgets for US/Europe companies exported to US/Europe consumers. That the pollution is outsourced doesn't make it not-US/Europe pollution.

    This. Very much this.

    And also we should consider individual nation's pollution cumulatively, not per annum -- because the aggregate is what's having these effects. US and Western Europe have been doing it for much longer than India/China/Brazil and so on.

  5. Re:And I keep coming back to my same question on National Geographic Releases Alarming Climate Change Movie 'Before the Flood' On YouTube (youtube.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well said. I'd just like to add:

    Disputes over the key scientific facts of global warming are more prevalent in the popular media than in the scientific literature, where such issues are treated as resolved, and more prevalent in the United States than globally.

    source

  6. Re:Not just Southern Spain DGW - Dinosaurs WARMED! on Climate Change Rate To Turn Southern Spain To Desert By 2100, Report Warns (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why bother? It's all futile.

    Marvin? Is that you?

  7. Re:Good! on World Wildlife Falls By 58% in 40 years (bbc.com) · · Score: 2

    A separate problem with this, though, and much harder to quantify -- is what this does to their reputation? Read somewhere that Greenpeace's mom & pop contributions went down, for example, as their board-room involvement went up.

    Hard to say if that has ramifications on how effective they can be. Maybe they genuinely get more done with less funds this way.

  8. Re:Typescript aka embrace, extend, extinguish on Google's New Angular 2.0 Isn't Compatible With Angular 1 (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 0

    Um, yeah, that's not how it works. It's all open source. And actually, from my personal point of view, TypeScript might very well be the first MS-developed tool I've had on my machines in, oh, 15 years. And it is actually very nicely done.

  9. Re:Punishment Must Exceed Profit on US Finds New Secret Software In VW Audi Engines, Says Report (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Also, they're a functional democracy.

  10. Re:They sound completely insane on Saudi Arabia Revives 15-Year-Old Ban On 'Zionism-Promoting' Pokemon (timesofisrael.com) · · Score: 1

    Not really - Christianity is evolving. It basically loses edge as time is passing, becoming 'lukewarm' religion. Look at Church of England as extreme case of that, but same route can be seen in most subsects. On the other hand, Islam is frozen in time, actively fighting any kinds of changes (given what happened over very trivial differences between Shia and Sunni, you should not expect any bigger changes for next few thousand years).

    First of all, let's not kid ourselves into thinking there are no sharp-edged (a.k.a. dim-witted) Christians out there.

    But I kinda take your point. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that most (all?) Muslims read their sacred text in the original language, whereas the overwhelming majority of Christians don't.

  11. Re:Yes callback hell is a thing on Ask Slashdot: Have You Migrated To Node.js? · · Score: 1

    Actually I think she's mocking just that. Perhaps my quote here loses context in that sense, I recommend reading the whole thing. It's kind of funny.

  12. Re:Yes callback hell is a thing on Ask Slashdot: Have You Migrated To Node.js? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's a paradox that to get a reliable cluster, you want your individual parts to be quite twitchy and explody., which node.js is.

    I think I get what you're saying, but somehow I don't expect this argument to convert any nonbelievers :-)

    My personal favourite JS verdict is from Verity Stob, over at The Register,

    CON: The most dysfunctional functional language. On top of all its well-known flaws that disrupt ordinary primitive programming, it lacks many allegedly must-have functional gewgaws. Its variables are mutable, its type holes are indubitable, its 'eagerness' unsuitable, its modules are inscrutable, tail recursion disputable, scoping inexcusable, and I'll stop there, with 'refutable' (to name but one) still in the bank, just because you were kind enough to beg me.

    PRO: It's what you'll end up using.

    Source: Learn you Func Prog on five minute quick!

  13. Re:Paris isn't exactly French these days. on EgyptAir Flight 804 Missing (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    Well, I think there's middle ground between those extremes. Closing borders to the whole religion is just as impossible as 100% preventing damage by lone wolf jihadis.

    I don't have all the answers, obviously. Just wanted to point out that broad brush demagoguery is less than helpful.

    Going forward it would be a good idea to stop interfering in their countries, it seems to me. That would not deter the fanatic leaders but definitely make it a lot harder for them to recruit foot soldiers. Things like the Paris and Brussels attacks, and London and Madrid before, might happen less often.

  14. Re:Paris isn't exactly French these days. on EgyptAir Flight 804 Missing (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    Absolutely, no argument there. But overreacting by demonizing the whole group for the actions of a few will have innocent victims too.

  15. Re:Paris isn't exactly French these days. on EgyptAir Flight 804 Missing (cnn.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, there is undoubtedly some of that.

    On the other hand, many people (not you per se) grossly overestimate the fraction of Muslims that are Islamists, in this sense. Partly this is because they are a disproportionately loud fraction, but there is also the deliberate exaggeration on the part of Le Pen, Wilders, Farage, and so on, i.e. far-right nationalists who need "others" for us to fear.

    Also, let's not forget that this colonialist mentality you are describing here used to be par for the course for us Europeans for a very, very long time -- and people on the receiving end of it were routinely labelled "savages" for not welcoming and adopting our superior ways.

  16. Re:Easier to prove conclusion wrong on Study Suggests Free Will Is An Illusion (iflscience.com) · · Score: 1

    Arrgh, typo. Should be Simon Kochen.

  17. Re:Easier to prove conclusion wrong on Study Suggests Free Will Is An Illusion (iflscience.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you are so sure it exists, just prove it

    It's hard to prove that free will exists [...]

    John Conway and Simon Conway, at Princeton IAS, did some work on this: Free Will Theorem. Depending on who you ask, their result is fairly obvious or quite deep.

    Conway did a series of video lectures on the subject, see here here.

  18. Re:Assuming it gets though parliament on UK Snooper's Charter To Extend Police Access To Phone and Internet Data (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Exactly. By pushing this Theresa May is ignoring three (!) parliamentary committees.

  19. It has been developed in response to the disclosure of state mass surveillance programmes by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

    So their answer to state mass surveillance programmes is more state mass surveillance programmes?

    Of course! Their answer to needle-in-haystack problems is always to add hay.

  20. Re:We need kryptonite on UK Snooper's Charter To Extend Police Access To Phone and Internet Data (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Funny also how she wants to rush this through, right when everyone is distracted by the Brexit farce. Coincidence? I think not.

  21. Re:The once great Google on Report: Google Will Go In Big For VR Hardware This Year · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that's when they were still a "search giant". I am unsure why they are still labeled that in the media. Certainly /. should know better.

    They're an advertising giant, and have been for years.

  22. Re:Why do you hate America? on Software Error Releases Up To 3,200 Inmates Early (seattletimes.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please read the article before posting:

    You must be new here

  23. Re:Schooling, perhaps? on Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure European unions operate the same way American ones do. For one thing much of Europe doesn't have a political system where influence is correlated to forking over cash to politicians. Not nearly to the same extent anyway. Meaning they get to spend contributions toward collective bargaining.

    Having said that, I guess some of the above posts are just reflexive "unions baad" bleats.

  24. 1985? Check your code for an off-by-one error. Or is it like a new version; 1984++ or something?

    I doubt GP meant this... But there is a novel called 1985. Not all that impressive, I thought, certainly not nearly as good as Clockwork Orange.

  25. Re:War on Privacy on US Budget Bill Passes With CISA Surveillance Intact (npr.org) · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    -1 karma because slashdot readers are idiots on average

    Well, you are doing your best to underline this point, I'll give you that much.