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Comments · 155

  1. Re:Of course they did. on Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The Trans-Pacific Partnership · · Score: 2

    And yet at every opportunity, American voters support giving MORE power to the government. Industry will go to where the power is and seek to buy it, regardless of who holds it; that's just them acting in their own rational best interests. When you give the power to the government to regulate EVERYTHING, don't be surprised when industry buys the government and the individual ends up getting shafted.

    If you keep power away from the government, and keep it in the hands of the people, then industry will seek to buy you via satisfying your interests in the market. It will have no other choice.

    It's basic economics, but it's amazingly difficult for the low-information intelligentsia that makes up so much of the American voting block to grasp.

  2. Re:Lower Receiver? on Making an AR-15 In the Wired San Francisco Office · · Score: 1

    A year and a half ago:

    http://news.slashdot.org/story...

    Metal barrel and all, with at least 2000 rounds through it according to a later press release:

    https://blog.solidconcepts.com...

    So yes, like I said before, the machines already exist to 3d print functional metal gun barrels, but they're just not widely available yet due to cost. Serializing barrels as a form of controlling guns in the age of 3d printing is already an obsolete idea.

  3. Re:BAN! on Making an AR-15 In the Wired San Francisco Office · · Score: 1

    New York Democratic Congressman Steve Israel, two and a half years ago.

    http://boingboing.net/2012/12/...

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/an...

  4. Re:Lower Receiver? on Making an AR-15 In the Wired San Francisco Office · · Score: 1

    All that would have done is kicked this whole conversation 3 or 4 years down the road until we have 3d printers that can do barrels.

    I mean... cheap, widely available 3d printers that can do barrels.

    Because... we already have 3d printers that can do barrels.

    See how this whole gun control thing doesn't work?

  5. Now hold on a second... on Interactive Map Exposes the World's Most Murderous Places · · Score: 0

    That geographic specificity helps to underscore an important point about murders, says Robert Muggah, the research director and program coordinator for Citizen Security at the Rio de Janeiro-based Igarapé Institute, in the above-lined story: "In most cities, the vast majority of violence takes place on just a few street corners, at certain times of the day, and among specific people."

    A dude from Rio de Jeneiro says this concerning worldwide homicide rates, and it makes it into a summary on Slashdot.

    Someone on Slashdot says the same thing about America during a debate about guns, citing statistics from the FBI, and they get downvoted as a Troll and called a racist.

  6. Is this submission for real?! on House Bill Slashes Research Critical To Cybersecurity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's quite the logical leap to go from

    cuts — almost by half — social sciences funding

    to

    House Bill Slashes Research Critical To Cybersecurity

    only based on the vague claim that

    Cybersecurity uses human behavior research because humans are often the weakest security link.

    The submitter had to really stretch things to get enough almost-tech-related and republican-hating to have his story accepted.

  7. Re:The better solution on Sen. Feinstein Says Anarchist Cookbook Should Be "Removed From the Internet" · · Score: 2

    She has a long and vibrant history demonstrating her insatiable appetite for taking away ALL of your rights.

    She wants the NSA to spy on your email and web browsing. She wants books banned because she doesn't like them. She doesn't want you to be allowed to own a gun, while at the same time she's one of the privileged few who can legally carry a concealed weapon anywhere in California.

    Make no mistake: she is after all of your rights. And Californians LOVE her.

  8. Re:Loaded with Lobbying? on FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules · · Score: 1

    No one here is interested. They're too bust cheering their own defeat.

    Remember when the internet banded together to defeat SOPA, because it gave the government too much control over the internet?

    Today, three unelected bureaucrats voted to give the government what we know will turn into even more control over the internet than SOPA was going to give them. We've seen this movie before; we know how it ends, and it always turns out bad for the people. But today is different: it's being sold as bad for corporations, so it's being blindly cheered by the internet.

    No one with any bit of sense, or memory of even the last handful of years of how the US government operates, could possibly believe that this will end well. And yet, here we are. Five hundred jubilant posts on slashdot.

  9. Tech isn't the problem... on Ask Slashdot: How Can Technology Improve the Judicial System? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    1. Too many laws make for too many criminals. Repeal a LOT of laws. The exponentially increasing number of malum prohimitum laws has been eroding personal liberty since the 1910s.

    2. Make congress do the legislating. No more, "as the secretary shall determine." That just means we have no law and we're ruled by unaccountable bureaucrats, and each president gets to appoint his cronies to exact his political agenda on his enemies. If congress isn't smart enough to write the law, then it shouldn't become a law.

    3. Loser pays, in both civil and criminal trials. Yeah, I can bring a lawsuit against the US government for violating my rights, but they get to use their unlimited wealth on an army of DOJ lawyers to stall in the courts until I'm bankrupt. The fact that rights are only restored when groups like the ACLU, EFF and NRA get involved against the government is proof enough of the problem.

  10. Re:Is this new? on Crystal Pattern Matching Recovers Obliterated Serial Numbers From Metal · · Score: 2

    The problem is that most people have watched too much CSI and think that a serial number on a gun is equivalent to a magical beacon that instantly homes in on the person who committed the crime. Just look at all the hysteria in the last few years over 3d printed guns and 80% firearms: it all revolves around the line of reasoning of, "if a criminal used this in a crime, we couldn't trace it back to them." The whole breathless panic never stops long enough to understand that criminals aren't going out and buying new guns from licensed dealers and having their names linked with serial numbers in the first place.

  11. Slacktivism at its finest! on Intuit Charges More For Previously Offered TurboTax Features, Users Livid · · Score: 1, Funny

    Maybe instead of posting an impotent Amazon review, those people should work to get the tax system simplified.

  12. Re:As someone brought up in a Catholic family... on Pope Francis To Issue Encyclical On Global Warming · · Score: -1, Troll

    I am old enough to mistrust any politician or religionist who talks about anything as a "moral imperative" because it usually implies mob justice and the crushing of civil liberties. Look at the history of the World. Look at ISIS right now whose highest priority is the moral imperative of submission to Islam. Tell me I'm wrong.

    Francis is a communist. Lashing his religion to the religion of AGW, complete with social justice wealth redistribution as the solution, comes as no surprise.

    I bet right now a lot of Catholics are longing for the days of Pope John Paul II, a man who spent his life fighting the Nazis and communists.

  13. And Paul Graham would be wrong... on Paul Graham: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In · · Score: 1

    Paul Graham's incorrect argument assumes that all countries will produce great programmers in equal proportions to their populations. He couldn't be more spectacularly wrong.

    People from other countries where tribalism (Pakistan), extreme deference to authority (China), and extreme elder worship (India) are the rule, fall to the ingenuity, independence, creativity, and innovation of Americans, every, single, time. The majority of the cultural and genetic makeup of the continent for its first 500 years was that of people willing to risk their lives to come here, work hard, be independent, and make their own way. The effects of that are not easily undone. Paul Graham has fallen into the fallacy of thinking that all countries are the same, all cultures the same, all people the same, and thus their outputs should all be the same. What a dolt!

    My company has an Indian subsidiary that we use to handle some of our simpler engineering issues at lower cost. And that's the point. They handle the simple issues, because even their best engineers can't be trusted with our complicated issues. We have to solve those ourselves.

    So while the US may only have 5% of the world's population, it's not inconceivable that we could be producing 95% or better of the great programmers already.

  14. Re:Just a small additional information on Officer Not Charged In Michael Brown Shooting · · Score: 1

    If you're going to outright make things up and lie on the internet, you need to stick to topics that are harder to validate.

    Here's the toxicology report from the St. Louis County Medical Examiner: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/n...

    Since you're not much for fact-finding, investigation, reading, or truth, I'll sum up the relevant part: He had THC in his blood and urine because he had been smoking pot.

    Here's the summary from the autopsy that Michael Brown's own family had performed on his body by an examiner of their choosing: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/n...

    It states that his blood showed evidence of recent marijuana use.

    Additionally, he physically had marijuana on him when he was shot: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/n...

    I often wonder at the psychology of a person like you who gets so emotionally involved in something that you throw all desire for objectivity to the wind and simply make things up in order to feel better about your decision to support something.

  15. The hypocrites convene! on Prospects Rise For a 2015 UN Climate Deal, But Likely To Be Weak · · Score: 1

    So let me get this straight:

    Delegates (ie, representatives and their entourages, servants, security, family, etc) from 200 nations will all be taking their private jets to a city located in a subtropical desert during the summer, where they'll sit around for a week in luxurious air conditioning discussing an agreement that they may decide to agree to a year later when they all travel by private jet to Paris to do it all over again.

    And we're expected to take these people seriously when it comes to what they say concerning carbon emissions, global warming, and how to stop it? If they wanted to be taken seriously, they'd hold the meeting using Skype and live stream it for everyone to watch, but then they couldn't enjoy the luxury of emitting a hundred million tons of CO2 to have their discussion about how to emit less CO2.

    What a bunch of clowns!

  16. Re:Oh i know i know on Why the FCC Will Probably Ignore the Public On Network Neutrality · · Score: 1

    The public has a great lobbying group on this, the EFF. It's just that not enough people have decided that their rights are worth $25/year. If the ranks of the EFF swelled to level of those of the NRA, this whole conversation would be different; instead of reading an article about how the FCC is going to do whatever it wants we'd be reading an article about how the FCC is carefully evaluating the EFF's 80-page comment on network neutrality while EFF lawyers prepare their lawsuit should the rule making process fail, and in the meantime the EFF will unleash their loyal congressmen to grill the head of the FCC in some committee hearings.

    It's not magic. Your voice doesn't count unless you stand and speak.

    --- NRA Life Member, and EFF Titanium Member for several years now.

  17. Re:Bullshit on Secret Service Critics Pounce After White House Breach · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now that chances of the intruder actually being a threat is actually really small. The odds of him having anything realistically dangerous without a sufficiently sized container to hide it in, like the previously mentioned backpack, is also really small.

    This intruder had a knife, though I can't find details on what kind it was (12" bowie, or 1.5" Swiss army). A hostile person with a knife, within 21 feet of you, is widely considered a lethal threat. Many police departments teach their officers that they can use lethal force against a hostile person with a knife within 21 feet. The same is taught in concealed handgun licensing classes in many states. Twenty-one feet is chosen because that's the distance an average person can travel, from a standstill, in one second.

    Over the decades, there have been lots of people that have broken into the white house grounds. I've never heard even a single one of those reports in the last century being of hostile intent. (Weird and or confused, but not hostile.)

    Plane crashed INTO the White House on purpose in 1994

    This guy didn't break in... Guy deemed not crazy shoots at White House, trying to kill President Clinton.

    Neither did this guy, but both of them were active threats, and either one of them could have just tossed their guns over the fence before climbing it themselves.

    The secret service is in a tough spot: they can't really just shoot dead every deranged person who comes over the fence, but sooner or later someone wearing a suicide vest or explosive underwear is going to come over the fence with a dead-man's switch. And we all know he doesn't need to hurt anyone or do any damage for the government and populace to overreact and start doing things much worse than terrorists could ever do.

    It's a real threat.

  18. Re:Dongs on Dremel Releases 3D Printer · · Score: 2

    9-in. x 5.9-in. x 5.5-in will fit an AR-15 lower receiver too. Toys for everyone!

  19. Re:Can we please cann these companies what they ar on California Declares Carpooling Via Ride-Share Services Illegal · · Score: 1

    "What moral authority," you ask? The moral authority granted by decades of Californians begging for more government at every opportunity. Now they've got it and they're realizing they don't like it.

    But it's okay; instead of admit the mistake and start working to reign in the overlords they've manufactured, they'll just move to other nice states with smaller governments, functional economies, good jobs, and affordable standards of living, where they'll promptly begin to recreate the same mistakes they made in California.

    It's already happening in Oregon, Washington, and especially Colorado. Austin is getting a good dose of it too, and Utah is in for a rude awakening in the next couple of years.

  20. Zuk Don't Care on Ukraine Asks Zuckerberg to Discipline Kremlin Facebook Bots · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Funny that the Ukrainians think Zuckerberg cares. He's the worst kind of anti-freedom, in-bed-with-the-government, limousine socialist there is. Mr. Open-All-The-Borders hides behind his armed guards at his gated mansion so he wont have to be burdened with the consequences of his actions. Appealing to Zuckerberg to stop blocking their social media efforts is going to have about as much effect as appealing directly to Putin to stop invading.

  21. Re:Baltics are next if the West fails to respond on Russian Military Forces Have Now Invaded Ukraine · · Score: 1

    And at the helm of the only NATO country that matters: Obama. NATO members with 1% and 2% of their budgets going towards defense are in for a rude awakening when they realize that the US isn't coming to their rescue. Obama doesn't have a strategy for confronting ISIS; do you think he has any plan for dealing with Russia? The only thing he knows for sure are his tee times for the next month.

    This must be that flexibility he told Putin he'd have after the 2012 election. It's the flexibility to let his own foreign policy chickens come home to roost and the world go to shit while he ignores it from the golf course.

  22. Simple Solution.... on Why the FCC Is Likely To Ignore Net Neutrality Comments and Listen To ISPs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Turn the EFF into the NRA of online rights. If the EFF had 5,000,000 dues paying, donating, voting, vocal, invested members, we wouldn't be having these discussions about ISPs writing their own laws. The hardest part is already done: organizing some people who know what they're doing into what is now the EFF.

    People just need to decide that their rights are worth at least $25/year.

  23. What! A reasonable plan for CO2 reduction!?!?! on Fighting Climate Change With Trade · · Score: 2

    Actions like this are how you get the other half to agree to do things to reduce CO2 emissions.

    Good step: Offer to eliminate tariffs on solar panels and other things.
    Bad step: Call anyone who so much as questions ANYTHING a denier.
    Good step: Get behind building LOTS of modern nuclear plants. LOTS.
    Bad step: Say that anyone who so much as questions ANYTHING should be arrested. https://theconversation.com/is...
    Good step: Get behind building LOTS of electric cars, and the technology to increase batteries' energy density.
    Bad step: Say that anyone who so much as questions ANYTHING should be killed. http://www.americanthinker.com...

    Much of the political opposition that the Global Warming people get is because they believe that all of their solutions are so good that they should be mandatory. They come to you and say that you'll have to give up your money, your freedom, your independence, and your quality of life. This is all demanded at the barrel of a gun with the implication that if you don't capitulate, you'll also have to give up your life itself.

    Environmentalists have made many great missteps, the two largest being not loudly denouncing those among them that call for murder of anyone who dissents, and continuously pushing plans that they know half the population will never get behind.

    You want to reduce CO2 emissions? Suggest plans for it that everyone can support. Leave the death threats at home. ; )

  24. Re:redundant aircraft on Radical Dual Tilting Blade Helicopter Design Targets Speeds of Over 270mph · · Score: 1

    Bell Helicopter is developing a tilt rotor aircraft for this competition: http://youtu.be/1O3Onyas984

    If you take the V-22, and remove the Marine Corps' requirements for blade-fold-wing-stow and rotors small enough to launch off of a Marine helicopter ship, you free up a huge amount of design room to increase performance.

  25. Re:One hundred *billion* dollars? on Radical Dual Tilting Blade Helicopter Design Targets Speeds of Over 270mph · · Score: 2

    The Army doesn't want Apaches. They want a medium lift technology demonstrator that will replace their Blackhawk fleet while providing much more capability by exploring new vertical lift technologies. Then they'll run separate competitions to scale the technology up and down in size to replace their Apaches, Little Birds, and Chinooks.