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User: FitForTheSun

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Comments · 119

  1. Re:Not that many. on Slashdot Turns 15, What Are You Doing Later? · · Score: 1

    Indeed. My name is Nick, and I would pay for that UID. How much? Probably not much. But it's pretty sweet. My original handle had a UID in the five digits.

  2. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 1

    Yeah. Putting people in jail is expensive too! (And keeping them there is a separate high cost!) The greater the punishment, the more we spend to assure justice. That's why you can get nicked for an undeserved traffic ticket but a judge will hardly hear you out, while if you get arrested you get more attention, if you're up for life you get more attention, and if you're up for death then you get the most of all. That makes sense to you, right? It makes perfect sense to me.

    It turns out that justice is pricey.

  3. Re:Bullshit on The Case For Targeted Ads · · Score: 1

    Agreed. It is preposterous to claim that advertising will ever become consumer friendly. That is total nonsense. Only rubes accept that.

  4. Re:"Several Guns Were Found"? on Calif. Man Arrested For ESPN Post On Killing Kids · · Score: 1

    If they made the threat then that's assault, technically, and if it is bad enough then they'll get arrested (that's arrested). The total lack of capacity to follow through is a positive defense in court (that's prosecuted). And if it is relevant at trial, then it is relevant in the article.

    For instance, did you hear about that disabled octogenarian who used a walker and an oxygen tank, who made threats against -- uh -- the President or something. They arrested him (arrested), but eventually released him because they knew they couldn't win a trial (prosecuted). No jury would think the threat was credible. He was just a racist prick saying shit on the internet. If he were able-bodied and surrounded by guns, he might be in jail.

  5. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 1

    Yep. Killing is the inexpensive part. The cost comes from the justice system. Alas, we don't want to just kill anyone, we want to be totally sure they are guilty first. We feel this way because of the number of convictions that get overturned on appeal.

    It makes us feel good to kill very bad people, but it would make us feel bad to kill an innocent person. To avoid feeling so bad, we spend all that money to be sure.

  6. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 1

    It's expensive because before we execute someone, we want to be super duper DUPER sure they are guilty. In our society we call it "substantive justice". Obviously we could kill a criminal for the cost of one bullet, but to be sure they are guilty, we have a hell of a lot of smartass lawyers fight about it for a long, long time. If, after that long time, the case still seems tight enough, then we kill the criminal, but by then it costs more than to just keep him in jail.

  7. Re:overreach on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 1

    "Constitutional is not synonymous with the opinion of the SCOTUS."

    That's what I'm saying. Yes, it is. You're using a different definition of "Constitutional" than the definition used in our society.

    "the constitution doesn't grant them sole right to judge what is or is not constitutional"

    True: it grants them the final prerogative to judge what is or is not Constitutional, which is really what counts.

    "that doesn't make them automatically correct in whatever they decide"

    Again, all that means is "I disagree with the Court, so everyone should take my opinion instead of theirs." That's fine, it just won't get you very far.

  8. Re:"Several Guns Were Found"? on Calif. Man Arrested For ESPN Post On Killing Kids · · Score: 1

    "I don't even own a gun, but I sleep a lot better at night knowing that the men in black uniforms aren't the only people who have them."

    Agreed. I do actually own a gun, but it is an impractical gun, locked in a box, in an inaccessible place, with no bullets. Even though I'm not a 'gun person' myself, I think the presence of 'gun nuts' makes the country better in many ways. It takes all sorts.

  9. Re:"Several Guns Were Found"? on Calif. Man Arrested For ESPN Post On Killing Kids · · Score: 1

    Mmm hmm. If you have tools of death, then your threats of killing have increased plausibility.

    I refuse to accept that you are too daft to understand that. I am left to assume that you are simply pro-gun, like I am, but that for you it somehow causes you to ignore perfectly reasonable context like this.

    If you are pro-drugs, like I am, it would nevertheless be foolish of you to object when a news article reads "James Q Public was arrested in his home yesterday after a police raid turned up three pounds of marijuana and over $15,000 in cash." It would be stupid of you to say "I love how the article points out that there was cash in the house, implying that somehow ordinary American citizens don't have cash."

  10. Re:overreach on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Let me rephrase that.

    "I know what is Constitutional, and if the Supreme Court disagrees with me, then they are wrong. Whatever I think is right and everyone should agree with me."

    Yeah, dude, we all feel that way. We could fight about it, or we could appoint some people to sit on a panel and decide which blowhard is right and which blowhard is wrong. And in fact we did appoint those people, and we call that panel "The Supreme Court".

    If you want to, you can do the incredibly difficult work of learning and working hard to get yourself onto that panel. Or, on the other hand, you can be a blowhard on the internet.

  11. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 2

    The death penalty definitely does not save the taxpayer any money. It is very expensive to execute a person, much MUCH more expensive than allowing them to live in prison for the rest of their natural life.

    The whole point is that executions are worth the cost.

  12. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 0

    Yes they do. Civilized people have the death penalty. Only uncivilized people don't have the death penalty.

  13. Re:I wonder why... on Nestle's GPS Tracking Candy Campaign · · Score: 1

    The sentence you quote sounds like marketing speak to me. I wouldn't base implementation assumptions on it. It might work that way, or that might be the way that the Media Director decided to describe it.

  14. Re:let's not waste significant digits! on Astronomers Fix the Astronomical Unit · · Score: 1

    The difference is a quarter-million miles. Science is more precise than that when it is able to be.

  15. Only if you want a job on Is a Computer Science Degree Worth Getting Anymore? · · Score: 1

    Almost every programming job I see posted requests a CS degree. So you only need a CS degree if you want a programming job. Or, if you are a super-elite hacker god, you can probably get by without one.

  16. Re:Any alternative? on Google Pulls Access To Unsupported But Popular Weather API · · Score: 1

    It is sort of a joke, sort of not. I know he isn't CEO anymore but I always assumed he still had a large, probably majority stake in Bain. Is that not the case?

  17. Re:Any alternative? on Google Pulls Access To Unsupported But Popular Weather API · · Score: 1

    Oh okay. Well nobody says that so I guess we can agree there are no fanatics.

  18. Re:Any alternative? on Google Pulls Access To Unsupported But Popular Weather API · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can explain what happened.

    I work for Weather Central in Madison, Wisconsin. In December we were purchased by the famously rich Rothschilds of Europe and they brought in a charismatic new superstar CEO. Seven months later, they cashed out to the tune of +$15 million, selling to our historical nemesis and competitor, Weather Services International.

    WSI is owned by The Weather Channel Companies, which is an umbrella company for The Weather Channel (duh) as well as Weather Underground, which they recently bought. (TWCC is owned by NBC Universal, which is owned by Bain Capital and Blackstone Group. That means I now work for Mitt Romney.)

    This consolidation is complete. Over 90% of the worldwide weather services business is now owned by TWCC, which used that considerable power to negotiate a contract with Google. The contract stipulates that TWCC (and their sub-companies) will provide data to Google, and in turn Google would eliminate its weather API, because TWCC has its own weather APIs (more than one of them now, in fact). The API at my company is cleverly named DataCloud: http://datacloud.wxc.com/?vs=0.9.

    This consolidation is definitely good for TWCC, which will never again have to worry about competing in the marketplace. The monopoly will last until a disruptive technology displaces it in a couple decades, if it's anything like other stale monopolies. Unfortunately, it is definitely bad for the other 7.01 billion people on the planet, who now only have one source for weather data.

  19. Re:Hey! on Ale To the Chief: White House Releases Beer Recipe · · Score: 1

    "Morman" would be an awesome superhero secret identity for Mitt Romney.

  20. Re:Tax dollars? Not so much on Ale To the Chief: White House Releases Beer Recipe · · Score: 1

    maybe you meant 'farce'?

  21. Re:Just don't ask about Gitmo on Ale To the Chief: White House Releases Beer Recipe · · Score: 2

    I think Bush definitely could have gone to war without Congress. He would have suffered a bit of criticism, but he could have done it. Remember, technically he never went to war, he just deployed troops; we haven't declared war on anybody since WWII. Both of the two Bushes each tried to go to war without Congress, then Congress complained, so they took a side-trip to Congress on the way to war. That was perfunctory of them, but nobody would have stopped them if they hadn't done so. Don't you think?

    I think Obama could have fought harder to close Gitmo, but it was a boondoggle. He was suddenly faced with the difficult reality of what the fuck to do with a handfull of really pissed off terrorists. You can't kill them, you can't release them, you can't try them, and nobody is willing to take them. The one option is that he could have opened a new facility, also outside of the US, and put them there. That would have been a purely symbolic move, a total waste of time and money -- but I think he should have done exactly that.

  22. Re:Memo to Microsoft on Microsoft's Sneak Attack On Apple: SkyDrive, Not Surface · · Score: 1

    "As a matter of fact, to beat Apple, it has to work really well on Apple devices."

    Seriously. Microsoft should concentrate on the "work really well" part, and then after that work on the "Apple devices" part.

  23. Re:Tyranny on White House Pulls Down TSA Petition · · Score: 1

    Yeah. This totally counts as tyranny. That's very insightful.

  24. Re:It's amazing how many business people.. on PlayStation Boss Defends Vita, Slams Social Gaming · · Score: 2

    Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Apple sells fewer products than in the mid 90s, but it sells more product than in the mid 90s. In general, I'm like you, I like choices, which is why I'm not an Apple customer, but what you said is not at all a universal market truth.

  25. Re:And where does all this content come from? on The Internet Archive Starts Seeding Over a Million Torrents · · Score: 1

    My understanding is that the Star Wars franchise, so far, is "not profitable".