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User: CaptQuark

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Comments · 271

  1. Re:Once in a Hundred-Year storm... on Hurricane Sandy a 1-in-700-Year Event Says NASA Study · · Score: 1

    You are confusing NASA and NOAA. NOAA is the agency responsible with tracking and reporting weather issues.

    NASA took a look at the track the hurricane followed, then tried to list all the factors that would have to be present for a second hurricane to follow the exact same path.

    This is like throwing a stick into a river and predicting all the factors that must be present for that stick to hit a boat's propeller twice. River flow, ocean flow, weather flow are all highly dynamic environments and NASA is trying to tie the likelihood of this happening again to the phase of the moon?

    ~-~-~

  2. Re: How does... on NHS Fined After Computer Holding Patient Records Found On eBay · · Score: 1

    Sudo random data? {grin}

    Why not "Sudo randomize my data"

    ~-~-~

  3. Re:I know the government loves to lie to us... on Obamacare Software Glitch Will Limit Penalties Charged To Smokers · · Score: 1

    Sure you hope smoking would be banned, because you don't smoke. Just as some people hope greasy hamburgers will be banned because they don't eat meat. And some people hope all alcohol will be banned because they don't drink liquor. And some people hope all cars will be banned because they ride a bike. And some people hope all soft drinks and coffee will be banned because they drink only water.

    Each of these examples could be called "self harming bordering on criminal stupidity" but we allow them anyway. Remember the Eighteenth Amendment? See how well Prohibition worked? Each time something becomes unpopular someone wants to criminalize it. Or tax it heavily until they feel balance. Legislating morality is difficult, especially when everyone's mores differ so much.

    Every one of those examples could be said to harm someone because either someone must pay extra taxes for medical care (obesity, high blood pressure, clogged arteries) or suffer environmental problems.

    When did we become a nation of Majority Rules Absolutely? Each of those examples can be said to harm someone else in some small degree, but do we really need to prevent someone else from enjoying their own Pursuit of Happiness (whatever it might be) because it inconveniences us or upsets our particular sense of Rightness?

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  4. Re:Or a rogue wave (not the group) on Was That A Tsunami? · · Score: 2

    This was not a single wave. If you read the article it said the water level dropped for one or two minutes, then came rushing back to the height of six feet.

  5. Re:Catch-22 on California Sends a Cease and Desist Order To the Bitcoin Foundation · · Score: 2, Informative

    Never let the law get in the way of suing someone...

  6. Re: OK,here it is good luck with the encryption on Proposed NJ Law Allows Cops To Search Phones At Crash Scenes · · Score: 1

    Anyone that modded that up because they thought it was true should be forced to take a civics class again!!!

    If they modded it up because they thought it was funny and so obviously untrue should have a "eye roll" category.

    __

  7. Re:GIVE APPLE THE NEEDLE !! on Apple E-book Price-Fixing Trial Begins · · Score: 1

    What is the source of your information? Or is this a work of fiction too? {grin}

  8. Re:A nice lead... on CRTC Unveils New Wireless Code To Protect Canadian Customers · · Score: 1

    Cellphone unlocking - OK that's relatively new, but the ones where it matters seem to be coming around to doing it willingly as well.

    T-mobile has been doing this for years. In 2008 they unlocked my Razr one week after I bought it, and it worked great in Europe with a European SIM chip.

    ___

  9. Completion Bonus on Ask Slashdot: Moving From Contract Developers To Hiring One In-House? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hold back 10-15% of the total cost as a completion bonus. Pay the completion bonus when the project reaches a completion milestone of no critical bug reports for three weeks or version 1.1 coding begins.

    This gives the programmers an incentive to finish the bug testing and getting to a stable release status so they receive their bonus.

    Many contractors have a bonus waiting at the end of a project and know that any mistakes will come out of that bonus. If a new contractor is needed to fix something the original contractor is unwilling to do, then the bonus should be just large enough to pay for the new contractors work.

  10. Perhaps eliminating Secure Boot? on $200 Intel Android Laptops Are Coming · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Because Microsoft requires certified Windows 8 hardware to be shipped with secure boot feature enabled by default, Intel might be interested in designing a computer that isn't purpose built for Microsoft to control.

    Intel might be building a computer that gives other operating systems a test bed to innovate and create something new. A multifunction laptop/tablet that can run Android, Chrome, Linux, or Firefox OS as the user desires.

  11. Re:Missing Option on Radio Shack TRS-80 Vs. Commodore 64: Battle of the Titans · · Score: 1

    Programming assembly on the TI-99/4A was very educational. And like the poster above, I found Intel's assembly language limited, confusing, and missing so many commands. Plus, the assembly language used software registers so you would get a new set of registers each time you changed your frame location. Intel's hardware registers were much faster, but you spent so much time moving things into the registers, operating on them, then moving them back to memory that the RAM-based registers seemed just as fast. You could multiply two numbers together in RAM without worrying about the registers. Plus, the TI-99 was a 16-bit machine which gave some advantages with larger numbers. You could multiply large numbers without converting everything into BCD (binary coded decimal) first.

    It has been almost 30 years since I programmed assembly on the TI-99 but I remember it was much easier than learning and coding around the limitations of the x86 assembly.

  12. Re:I only use 1 IE-specific conditional. on Testers Say IE 11 Can Impersonate Firefox Via User Agent String · · Score: 1

    LOL!! Thanks. I may never actually use that on my web pages, but it did make me smile.

  13. Re:Absolutely fantastic! on CS Faculty and Students To Write a Creative Commons C++ Textbook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Agreed!! One of the major costs of college was the $100 text books that showed the basics of a language and example code, but it wasn't something that I would keep as a reference for future study. I think a Creative Commons book that can be updated and improved each year will be attractive to both the professors and the students. Asking each class that uses the book to send in the top 5 suggestions will help give feedback on what can be improved each year. Not every suggestion will be used, but it can keep the book improving each year. The hard part will be getting the professors to agree to teach from the book until at least the second year it is available.

  14. Re:well... on European Parliament Decides Not To Ban Internet Porn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Speech, in this context, is anything that conveys an idea. A drawing or cartoon can be speech. Your right to fly the flag is covered under free speech. A picture can be speech. Art can be speech.

    Imagine banning great works of art like Venus emerging from the sea or David by Michelangelo, just because genitalia is visible. Books have been banned from some libraries because these images were included and classified as "porn". [Citation]

  15. Re:What the hell ... on Man-Made Material Pushes the Bounds of Superconductivity · · Score: 1

    It is the amount of energy used by 6.241 × 10^18 people all doing an old-time dance...

  16. Re:Is it fixed? on Ask Slashdot: How To Convince a Company Their Subscriber List Is Compromised? · · Score: 1

    If you are in contact with them by phone, then I agree they should at least tell you what the status is.

  17. Re:Is it fixed? on Ask Slashdot: How To Convince a Company Their Subscriber List Is Compromised? · · Score: 3, Informative

    One problem with publicly acknowledging the compromise is the bad guys realize they have been detected and stop connecting to the system. Our security team requires us to leave any compromised machine "as is" so they can monitor what the computer does, who it contacts, who connects to it, and how the infection is spread on the network. They will purposefully leave the machine running and letting the infection spread so they can gather the maximum information about it before they pull the systems for further forensic analysis. This is standard practice at many large companies, even if they don't tell everyone about it for obvious reasons. Just because they don't reply to you doesn't mean they aren't working 16-hour days trying to stop or catch the perpetrators. Even sending you a simple e-mail saying they are reviewing the situation might be enough to scare off the bad guys if they have compromised the email system farther than just harvesting contacts.

  18. Re:Kid's artwork? on School Board Considers Copyright Ownership of Student and Teacher Works · · Score: 2

    Obviously yours doesn't or you wouldn't have used such a horrible, run-on sentence.

  19. Re:sigh on Man Charged With HIPAA Violations For Video Taping Police · · Score: 1

    Wow. What a poor way to paint our veterans with an overly broad brush. You assume every returning veteran coming back from overseas has turned into some sort of psychopath and is looking for some way to continue this deranged behavior?

    I will assume some veterans come home and become police officers, but I also assume the MAJORITY of police officers have never served in the military. The training and discipline our soldiers learn sticks with them and thousands come home to return to their jobs as mechanics, programmers, supervisors, and other mainstream jobs.

    To say all bad police officers must be maladjusted soldiers is a huge disservice to our veterans.

  20. Time equals money on Ask Slashdot: Hackable Portable Music Player For Helicopters? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you spend more than 20 hours to engineer something yourself, the $1000 starts to look like a bargain.

  21. Re:certainly much simpler than on In Brazil, All Vehicles Must Have Radio IDs By 2014 · · Score: 1

    I can certainly see a market for RF jammers for this. Unless they set up cameras at the same location at the readers, who can say which vehicle that passed by had the jammer?

    Most likely they would never know you didn't spew your digital ID without some sort of visual check at the same time. And because the RFID tag supposed to eliminate the need for the cameras, how can they correlate the car with the missing RFID response? If anyone was using a jammer, I suppose they would just turn it off when passing the cameras anyway.