Slashdot Mirror


User: grantspassalan

grantspassalan's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
704
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 704

  1. Re:Maybe on Most Sensitive Detector Yet Fails To Find Any Signs of Dark Matter · · Score: 1

    The evidence we have is that the galaxies don't move according to our understanding of the laws of gravity. Does that not assume that gravity is the only force controlling the motion of those galaxies? What if there is another force that also controls the motion of galaxies in addition to gravity? Is gravity the only force we know about that can act over great distances? Compared to other forces in the universe, gravity is extremely weak. It would not take much of a component from the electric force to augment the effects of gravity to the extent that it corrects for and explains the observed motion.

    The electric force is 10^39 times stronger than gravity, so it would not take much of a differential electric field to make the electric force dominant over gravity. We know there must be enormous electric fields over vast distances, because the Earth is constantly bombarded by charged particles with energies far greater than any human accelerator has ever achieved. Only electric fields can accelerate particles to such energies as we observe. If there are enormous electrical potentials between different parts of galaxies or between galaxies, could those account for some of the observed motion?

  2. Re:Can't vote against all incumbents on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    Some states have an initiative process that voters can use force such laws down the throat of recalcitrant & bribed politicians. Voters used that process while we were still living in California to the reign in overzealous tax collectors and beat politicians into submission with the famous proposition 13 way back when. Oregon voters did the same thing with measure 5 not too long after that.

  3. Re:Do you think you are special? on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    Well we already have a pressure cooker and my wife canned some green beans from our garden harvest. Now the NSA, CIA, KGB, Gestapo and similar agencies will know this! So now when they outlaw pressure cookers, only outlaws will have pressure cookers and we will be classed among the outlaws. :)

  4. Re:Do you think you are special? on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    That is why I don't use Google mail or any of the other "free" email services

  5. Re:Can't vote against all incumbents on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    I know there a problem with the party system, but even so, if all those that are currently in office found themselves to be unemployed, it would send a message to whoever did get elected, to heed the voters more rather than the lobbyists who bribe them. Also the laws could be changed so that anyone who registered as an independent voter, could vote for any person running for any office in any election, whether primary or otherwise.

  6. Re:nonsense, that's just cowering on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    I don't think it is possible to vote FOR anybody anymore. What we can really do is to vote ALL all the scoundrels out of office by voting out EVERY person now in office. Sure that might mean throwing out a few good eggs with the rotten ones, but most of the eggs in the box that have been in the box for an awful long time are rotten and stink to high heaven.

    That does not mean that those who are running against them are all that much better, since the really decent, smart and good people have long ago given up running for public office, especially the higher positions, because of the muddy election campaigns, where complete life history of a candidate is put in the public spotlight. Because nobody is perfect and everybody makes mistakes and those mistakes are most likely information available to the political opposition, these mistakes then end up in the headlines.

    The perhaps lesser scoundrels hoping to benefit financially from public office and endure that public election ordeal, would get the message from the voters that they can be thrown out by the electorate and that it will take at least a while for most of these newly elected ones to re-establish the bribery networks the present ones now have with the lobbying establishment.

  7. Re:Do you think you are special? on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    My wife and I recently searched the Internet for some shoes for her and now I see lots of ads for shoes. What is so bad about that? I would rather see that than random ads for condoms or sex enhancement drugs.

  8. Re:Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillanc on Ten Steps You Can Take Against Internet Surveillance · · Score: 1

    The government has never shown that spying on millions of people has netted them any real valuable information, such as preventing terrorism. If the NSA wants to know that I am going to visit my grandson on the weekend, who cares? Most things that most people communicate about, whether on the phone or on the Internet are so mundane, that if the NSA would pay attention to all that, they would all die of boredom. There are thousands of websites where hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people have made negative comments about our government.

    If the government wanted to arrest everyone that has made in some cases some very nasty comments about Obama and his administration and other politicians, they would need a huge army of goons willing to do the dirty work and would overcrowd our prisons to the bursting point.

    Instead of wholesale spying on everybody, the NSA could concentrate its resources on targeted surveillance on people that are already suspect of suspicious behavior or that they may be warned about by other governments. If they had done that, they could have most likely prevented the Boston Marathon bombings.

  9. Re:Holy stupid ideas, batman on Engineers Design Tornado Proof Home · · Score: 1

    I certainly agree with you on that one! I will take a good earthquake any day over tornado or even a hurricane. I went through the 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area, the one that collapsed the Bay Bridge and a whole section of the Nimitz Freeway. In our house, we only suffered was some broken dishes. We now live in Oregon and are told that we are due for a 9.0+ earthquake similar to the one that ruined the nuclear plant in Japan. Fortunately we don't have any of those in our neighborhood. We don't live on the coast, so we don't have to worry about a tsunami.

  10. Re:Even worse... on How Your Smartphone Can Spy On What You Type · · Score: 1

    If two criminals want to communicate securely with each other by cell phones, they can do so if they keep their conversations short and by using prepaid phones such as trac phones bought with cash. Their CIA, NSA, KGB or whoever can listen in on their conversations, but they don't know who is talking.

  11. If you have mobile malware on How Your Smartphone Can Spy On What You Type · · Score: 1

    On your phone, you have bigger problems than someone listening to the sound of your keystrokes on a keyboard. Everything I have read, is that iPhones are particularly resistant to getting malware on them.

  12. Here we go again with some bureaucrats on EU Committee Votes To Make All Smartphone Vendors Utilize a Standard Charger · · Score: 0

    who know less than nothing about engineering, making engineering decisions. Next thing you know these idiotic politicians will also extend their stupid mandates to other areas of technology. It appears that in some ways, European politicians are even stupider than the ones we have over here in the states. Standards should be come up with by engineers who know what they are doing, rather than politicians. I do not think for a minute that the engineers at Apple changed the connector on their iDevices for no good reasons. If politicians legislate in this area, they can do nothing less than stifle technology and innovation.

  13. Re:jerk on Georgia Cop Issues 800 Tickets To Drivers Texting At Red Lights · · Score: 1

    Most people who are about to receive the ticket, such as for illegal texting, generally do not pull out a gun and shoot the cop. The others on your list have been known to do so, so naturally cops prefer the safer alternative in the use of their time on-the-job.

  14. Re:Different fingers on CCC Says Apple iPhone 5S TouchID Broken · · Score: 2

    I do not think that Apple is too worried about this, because they did not intend to make this for ironclad security, but simply for convenience of the user. The fingerprint scanner however does have potential for higher security by having an application, such as the sign in for a bank to require two or three fingerprints in the correct order. That would take security several orders of magnitude higher than a easy to guess password.

  15. Re:It's all relative. on CCC Says Apple iPhone 5S TouchID Broken · · Score: 1

    Using the last four digits of your girlfriend's phone number would be slightly better!

  16. Re:If true on CCC Says Apple iPhone 5S TouchID Broken · · Score: 1

    This fingerprint authentication system was never intended to be a substitute for an 18 digit random character password. It is simply a convenience for the owner of an iPhone to be able to lock it and unlock it without even looking at the screen. Security and convenience have always been and will always be a trade-off. Apple designed this fingerprint scanner primarily for the convenience of the user, not as ironclad security against skilled hackers or the NSA.

  17. Re:Easy! on CCC Says Apple iPhone 5S TouchID Broken · · Score: 1

    Once the cops have you and the phone it is physically and legally much easier for them to force you to touch your finger to that sensor than it is to force you to reveal your password. They don't even have to use the rubber hose decryption method on you.

  18. learn Fortran on Ask Slashdot: Prioritizing Saleable Used Computer Books? · · Score: 1

    I have a real cool book on "Fortran for Dummies". Does anybody want to buy it? I used to have another one about learning COBOL, but I forgot what happened to that.

  19. Re:So, they lie to their own staff, too? on Letter to "Extended Family" Assures That NSA Will "Weather This Storm" · · Score: 1

    That statement is found nowhere in the Bible. It has nothing to do with Christianity.

  20. Re:And I have a 3 foot long penis on Letter to "Extended Family" Assures That NSA Will "Weather This Storm" · · Score: 1

    Various parts of the government and many politicians have been spewing forth on unbelievable number of lies recently. Is there anyone stupid enough to still trust anything the government says these days? How many lies does someone have bring forth in order to be deemed a liar? Is our government even still capable of telling the truth?

  21. Depends on what powers the sun on Linking Mass Extinctions To the Sun's Journey In the Milky Way · · Score: 0

    If the mainstream theory that the sun is internally powered by nuclear fusion is correct, then this hypothesis does not make much sense, but if the hypothesis that the sun is externally powered by electric currents flowing in the spiral arms of the galaxy, then that hypothesis MIGHT make some sense. As the sun and the entire solar system orbits the center of the galaxy, the strength of these currents certainly could fluctuate to affect the sun and earth in this way.

  22. Re:God of the Gaps on Why Are Some Hell-Bent On Teaching Intelligent Design? · · Score: 1

    The problem is that God is apparently evil, because he requires other people to love and praise him and condemns them to eternal damnation with never-ending torture if they don't. Compulsory love is an evil and self-defeating concept.

    So would you say that the law of sowing and reaping is unjust? If you sow thorns and thistles but you expect roses to grow, whose fault is that? Why is it that so many people make bad choices and then blame others, including God, rather than themselves? Most of the time, the bad choices that people make not only affect themselves, but also many other people around them. Some of those people are truly innocent, but are nevertheless affected by the bad choices other people made.

  23. Re:More importantly on Why Are Some Hell-Bent On Teaching Intelligent Design? · · Score: 1

    If God did create us, how bad an engineer do you have to be to put a sewage outlet right in the middle of a recreational area?

    That's a flippant quote, but seriously, the number of major design flaws is staggering.

    eg. Why does food go down the same hole as the air? How many people choke to death on food every day?

    Even so, despite of this so-called "mistake" there are over 7 billion people in the world today. It seems to me that the overall design is working rather well.

  24. Re:More importantly on Why Are Some Hell-Bent On Teaching Intelligent Design? · · Score: 1

    On topic: the problem between science and religion is not that they are mutually exclusive, but rather that science requires actual proof, whereas religion requires merely faith. One cannot prove the existence of god either way.

    Most decisions you face and make in life are made by faith, not proof. When you get onto that airliner you have no proof that it has been maintained properly and that its pilot knows what he's doing. You have faith that this is true, but no proof. Those of you that voted for Obama had faith that he would get us out of the war in Afghanistan, but now he wants to make another war in Syria. It is not faith itself that matters, but the object of your faith.

  25. Re:No. on Can GM Challenge Tesla With a Long-Range Electric Car? · · Score: 1

    Electric cars are something that most people cannot afford and will not be able to afford because the specific energy density of gasoline is still at least 53 times better than a lithium battery. There is also no way that a lithium battery or any kind of a battery can ever be recharged to drive any car 300 or 400 miles in a short time of 5 to 10 minutes to fill the gas tank. A fully electric car is essentially ready for the scrap heap when its battery wears out, simply because replacing the battery in the totally electric car costs more than rebuilding the engine and transmission in a gas powered car. I had a 1979 Mercedes-Benz diesel with an enormous tank, that would go 700 miles nonstop. The folks at GM and other car manufacturers know that the fossil fuel powered car is going to be around for a long long long long time.