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User: tlhIngan

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  1. Re:Does not depend on country. Stupid is all over. on Ask Slashdot: Have You Experienced Fear Driven Development? · · Score: 1

    I'd say Apple was like that during the Jobs era - Jobs' tantrums are rather famous, and he's one of the assholes that got stuff done.

    Maybe his RDF helped couch that fear into a positive by turning into energy to move you forward (Jobs hated behind handed crap, especially if he knew you could do better so your fear of handing him crap made you a better coder by raising your expectations).

    Maybe.

    All we know now is since Tim Cook knows he can't be an asshole and get stuff done, FDD has relaxed somewhat.

  2. Re:The UK Cobol Climate Is Very Different on College Students: Want To Earn More? Take a COBOL Class · · Score: 1

    Indeed, you are being judged by the clothes you wear. This is something I had to learn back in high school when I had to go for my first job interview. It is all about the first impression and regardless of what you know, it will be formed before you even speak. It is tragic that regardless of what you know, it is how you look like that makes the most difference :-(.

    Alas, that is human nature and there is no changing that. At some point one has to give up on idealism and just accept that certain realities of society are just not-nogotiable. I guess developers are one unique group that can get away with since they can work from home and avoid seeing clients.

    Depends on the developer. Some like the self-employed or entrepreneurial must have suits at the ready because you must communicate a "professional" appearance to a client if you want their business.

    Developers who really want to be locked away from customers do exist, but they're generally locked away and forgotten about - treated no better than common factory workers where dress code is more optional. Those who interface with customers often have to dress "better" - maybe not a full suit, but a shirt, pants or slacks and maybe even a tie. Basically just one position above t-shirt and shorts.

    Though apparently some social studies have come to a conclusion that you ARE what you wear - people were given a lab coat and asked to perform some puzzles. When they were told the coat was a painter's coat, they performed OK. When they were told it was a doctor's coat, they performed measurably better.

    There's also a cultural issue - in many cultures, a suit is standard attire and not wearing one puts you in an automatic lower social class, which can be problematic if you want to be treated as an equal. Likewise, there are many instances where a suit is just a collection of clothes that make people in general "look good" and where if your job doesn't have you getting dirty, you're expected to wear it.

  3. Re:My Guess on NASA's Manned Rocket Contract: $4.2 Billion To Boeing, $2.6 Billion To SpaceX · · Score: 2, Informative

    SpaceX will make $2.6 Billion do way cooler stuff than $4.2 Billion to Boeing. SpaceX is a young, hungry company that is on the forefront of multiple industries. Boeing, while still a great company, is older an no doubt bogged down in more levels of bureaucracy.

    Perhaps. I suppose one reason is that SpaceX will be doing a very cutting edge design with little baggage to hold it back. Boeing will do a much more conservative design.

    Then the two will be compared to each other to see how well they compare and to basically foster competition to make both designs better or lead to a Boeing-SpaceX collaboration to take the best parts of both.

    Either way, it's a great decision to go both ways because SpaceX will do things Boeing will never think of, while Boeing will do things that SpaceX never even considered.

  4. Re:Mixed units on Micron Releases 16nm-Process SSDs With Dynamic Flash Programming · · Score: 3, Informative

    Stupid Slashdot can't even display UTF8 correctly. That was supposed to read "16um".

    Thanks for nothing, "nerds" website. We're in 2014, get with the damn program instead of fucking about with your stupid beta layout.

    /. displays Unicode just fine. And it has for over a decade.

    The problem was back then people were abusing that functionality to screw with everything. If you google "site:slashdot.org erocS" that gives hints of what people were doing. If you don't get what that string is, try "5:erocS".

    As a result, /. implemented a Unicode whitelist because they keep adding all sorts of stuff to Unicode.

  5. Re:False Headline on Tim Cook Says Apple Can't Read Users' Emails, That iCloud Wasn't Hacked · · Score: 2

    He said they cannot read iMessage and FaceTime, and they are not reading your email. That is a very important distinction. It might be one he was hoping you would miss, and you did miss it, but he did not say they can't access your email.

    It makes sense really because he'd be lying if he said he can't access your email.

    Because using me.com or icloud.com email? Well damn, that's standard email and I'm fairly certain even if Apple uses SSL, it's standard IMAP or POP protocols, and it's delivered to Apple in plaintext unless you externally encrypt.

    Because if Apple could come up with a way to handle email that comes in plaintext and somehow fail to be able to read it, then it's a technology Apple could make money on selling to privacy advocates.

    iMessage/FaceTime are Apple-designed and encrypted with user keys and other stuff. It's possible to design a protocol where Apple couldn't recover it even under threat of contempt because at no time is it in plaintext at Apple.

    But email? Anyone who sais they can't read it is lying, not just Apple. Short of applying encryption on your message, as far as Apple is concerned, SMTP delivers messages in the clear, optionally wrapped in encryption just for transport. But forwarding it on to the right mailbox etc., it's plain text.

  6. Re:Idiots ... on Quickflix Wants Netflix To Drop Australian VPN Users · · Score: 1

    Didn't the Australian government sort of recommend users to bypass Geo-IP blocks using VPNs and all that as a way to get cheaper content?

    https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

  7. Re:Not good enough on Say Goodbye To That Unwanted U2 Album · · Score: 1

    I haven't bought music through iTunes yet, so I'm hardly an expert, but it seems to me that if I were to PURCHASE music through a DOWNLOAD service, I would want to "download new purchases". It seems, then, that this would be the normal and expected setting - unless perhaps one expects to purchase on cell data service and then download later on wifi? in which case it would seem the better solution would be an option in the service to only download big files while connected on wifi, but I know Apple doesn't seem to care about little things like how much you spend (after all, you bought an Apple product, you want coolness!)

    Well, there are two things.

    First, there's a global "allow downloads over 3G" flag that's unset by default because well, you may not want to use your data connection.

    Second, there's a "download purchases" flag that's dependent on iCloud.

    The first controls whether or not you want to use your data connection for immediate download. So if you buy an app/book/tv show/movie/song, and you're on 3G, then it will queue it up for download later. If it's set, it will immediately download it.

    The second is when you buy same SOMEWHERE ELSE. So if you use iTunes on your PC and buy an album, then all devices with the flag set (it's unset by default) will also automatically download the album and you'll have it at the ready. So you can buy a song/album/tv show/movie/book on your PC, take your device and it'll be there if the flag is set (and if it can download it - wifi or if enabled, 3G. After all, if you disallow 3G downloads, it would be a bug to download over 3G).

    What happened here is Apple marked it as "purchased" and people who had the auto-download flag set started automatically downloading the album (over WiFi or if configured, 3G). And then complained because it worked as advertised.

    Apple couldn't push it to you or force you to download it. They just marked it as if you bought it already. And that was something all download services have - they could add/remove stuff from your purchased list.

    The only way Apple "pushed" it is if you had auto-download enabled in which case it worked as advertised - you "bought" the album "somewhere else" and it dutifully saw that it needs to get it.

    The flag is off by default because you could easily find a smaller device filled full of purchases of anything.

  8. Re:Does Minix have much real-time capability? on New Release of MINIX 3 For x86 and ARM Is NetBSD Compatible · · Score: 3, Informative

    As an embedded-systems guy, I'd _love_ to have a Unix-like where I could schedule events that were guaranteed-by-design to fire within some deadline of when they were scheduled. Then I could host my once-per-kHz hardware service routines on the same processor that was also running my device's web-server.

    Minix's microkernel architecture seems like an ideal fit for that kind of use case. If there are any Minix devs reading this thread, how easy would it be for me to make a system like that using Minix?

    Your requirements mean you want a Real Time operating system - one that guarantees execution of a interrupt or other thing within a fixed deadline.

    If your deadline is a do-or-die thing, you have a hard-real-time requirement (i.e., it's a failure if you're late, period). if your deadline is more of a "well, please try not to, but under exceptional cases you can be a bit late" then it's firm real-time, and if it's "well, try not to be late, but it's OK if you are" then it's a soft real-time requirement.

    (Note: general purpose OSes often do run tasks that do have hard or soft realtime requirements. E.g., responding to a keyboard is generally a soft-to-firm realtime requirement - the user types something and generally expects a prompt response or the system will seem "slow". A hard realtime requirement would be playing back audio where failure to prepare a new block of audio results in a pop/skip/burp of the audio. Or back in the old days, burning a CD. If you didn't keep the buffers full, you'd be out a disc).

    Of course, a RTOS guarantees the deadline regardless of load.

    And there are a few that are POSIX compliant - QNX for one. There's also RTLinux which runs Linux as a general task within a realtime framework. I'm not sure if RedHat still maintains it, but eCos was an RTOS as well.

    And yes, RTOSes are capable of that - handling a 1kHz process plus a webserver at general processing - the RTOS knows it needs to service that task at 1kHz and will pre-empt the webserver as required.

  9. Re:You mean... on AT&T Proposes Net Neutrality Compromise · · Score: 1

    And, your ISP isn't going to pay any attention to how you mark QoS in what you send out.

    For IPv4, QoS simply means reordering packets so achieve low latency for applications that need it (VoIP, ssh), moderate priority for applications commonly used but transfer a lot of data (http, ftp), and low priority for packets used for stuff that could saturate both ends and cause issues with other applications (e.g., bittorrent, p2p)..

    On IPv6, there is a QoS field, and you can bet once the switchover starts happening, you'll find ISPs charging by the QoS flag. I wouldn't be surprised if there was going to be a pay-by-the-packet scheme where high priority traffic gets billed separately from low priority "normal" traffic. Or that ISPs won't try to jitter or otherwise cause issues with low priority traffic to encourage use of the higher paying transport.

  10. Re:I disagree on Why Apple Should Open-Source Swift -- But Won't · · Score: 1

    There is this part of the open source community that is quite willing to help - but requests that for their help, you are effectively losing control over your own work. That's why Apple dropped gcc. I think they can live without you.

    No, the reason Apple invested a ton of money and development effort in LLVM (it started around 10.4/10.5 when the first Clang/LLVM compiler was offered as an alternative to gcc) was GPLv3.

    Apple was paying very close attention to what the GPL was evolving into, decided they didn't particularly like the changes and decided it would be best to part ways. They saw that LLVM offered a reasonable alternative with a nice license, but was somewhat lacking, so Apple went and invested a LOT of effort into getting LLVM to a state where it could be used for production code. Including the creation of a C front end (Clang).

    That's the reason they ditched gcc, and practically everything else. The GPLv3 was going to be an issue for Apple, so Apple ditched all the GPLv3 and soon-to-be GPLv3 code in their OS. It's why 10.6 shipped with a piss-poor SMB/CIFS stack because Apple had to rewrite it when they couldn't use Samba anymore (GPLv3).

    The last commit Apple made to gcc was to support Grand Central Dispatch. That's it.

    It's also why projects like FreeBSD have migrated away from gcc as well to LLVM - it's mature enough to switch out.

  11. Re:Never been a fan of multiplayer. on The Growing Illusion of Single Player Gaming · · Score: 1

    So you're tired of being fragmeat in arena shooters and diss the entire multiplayer gameplay because of it
    That's awfully shortsighted. For me this spastic experience is the most exhilerating gameplay
    I can sign up for and I have played these games online since quakeworld. Nothing beats a quick quake3 or ut99 game
    Try Left 4 Dead 2 or the man vs machine mode in Team Fortress 2 if you want coop.

    Nothing wrong with that. But if I'm going to spend my precious time playing a game, I want to enjoy it. Getting fragged in seconds may be fun the first 10 times or so, then it just becomes a drag and rapidly degrades into pointlessness and in the end, just means wasted time. I could've played Angry Birds in that same time and at least felt entertained rather than bored and annoyed (you can only sit at respawn screens and loading screens for so long).

    Some people don't mine and can spend hours racking up deaths by the hundreds (I guess trying to see how many decimals the K/D ratio goes?). Most people find that a frustration and then move on. And if multiplayer doesn't appeal, then the single player side better or the game purchase was a waste.

  12. Re:It's not your phone on Apple Outrages Users By Automatically Installing U2's Album On Their Devices · · Score: 1

    Unlimited data plans on cell phones are not very common these days. I think people have a right to be upset if 100M gets sent to them unexpectedly.

    Two things.

    1) "Download Purchases Automatically" is NOT the default setting. It's off. (It's slightly confusing in that it really means if you purchase something on your account somewhere else - iTunes, another iOS device, etc - it will also be downloaded on the device also rather than just where you bought it).

    2) The option to use cellular data is also OFF by default, so it only downloads when you're on WiFi. No extra bills here.

    And to be honest, it really just seems to be a case of a bunch of people wanting to make some noise over a complete non-issue. Given the actual transfer happened on Tuesday during the keynote, and it's reporting was idle and sporadic, it really is just a tempest in a teapot.

    I just looked at it on Tuesday, went "neat" and went about my day. It never downloaded to any of my devices (but the option remains open), but then again, I don't have the checkbox enabled. If you have more than one iOS device, you tend to keep it off because you don't want to accidentally fill up your other devices when you download a bunch of free stuff.

  13. Re:iPhone 5S is already 8th fastest on Early iPhone 6 Benchmark Results Show Only Modest Gains For A8 · · Score: 1

    (source note 1-7 and the next 22 are all double the clock speed and quad core)

    so indeed, few will care about whatever speed increase the 6 brings.

    Actually, the problem is the benchmarks don't run long enough because you cannot achieve the speed usefully on quad-cores.

    The problem is thermal - if you try to get all 4 cores going full tilt (and most of the time, you don't), you're going to hit the thermal limit within a minute. (Most benchmarks run under 30 seconds for that test). And once you hit that, performance and drop rather substantially. From thermal models I've seen, in free space with best cooling possible, you're going to hit max junction temperature in a minute and you have to throttle back two cores to 50% to keep it at max.

    But that's ideal conditions - where you effectively only have 3 cores available. Most of the time you won't have that, and you'll find those two extra cores are clocked to 25% or slower of the top speed.

    I'm sure the numbers are going to be more interesting if the benchmarks were re-run over and over again without letting the CPU cool down to see what the max sustained processing speed is.

  14. Re:reading the results wrong on Early iPhone 6 Benchmark Results Show Only Modest Gains For A8 · · Score: 1

    Oddly enough, pushing pixels is the only sane reasons for doing 64 bit operations on a hand held device. If your not using more than 4 gig address space, going from 32 bits to 64 tends to mean you spend far more time moving pointers that have all zeros in the top half. Old stats showed the best a 64 bit PCU tends to do is about 6% worse based on average loads but operations with lots of indirect operations (like Java) it can be far worse.

    Not on ARMv8.

    ARMv8 only runs 32-bit (AArch32) code moderately faster than ARMv7. But if you can recompile the code for 64-bit (AArch64), you get an immediate speed boost because AArch64 makes several optimizations by getting rid of some legacy cruft in the old AArch32 architecture. (Some things, like conditional execution of instructions were great back in the day, but modern superscalar processors make that very inefficient because you're going to have to speculatively execute everything)

    So one reason is pure speed.

  15. Re:Go video go... on SanDisk Releases 512GB SD Card · · Score: 1

    First, I don't know how any of this is handled in Windows Phone or if there are any hacks or workarounds. All my smartphones have been Android.

    Android (at least ICS) does allow this, though in a somewhat limited form, and it wastes^H^H^H^H^H^Huses more space than storing them on the phone. Another way if you have it rooted is the Link2SD app, which does some symlink trickery to put the app on the SD card exactly as it is on the phone. None of this allows easily transferring purchased apps to a new phone though. With the official way they're encrypted, and with the Link2SD way there's no easy way to transfer the links and the stub that says it's installed.

    However, moving purchased apps to a new device is already pretty easy. I associated a new device with my Google account, went to Play Store, My Apps, all. It listed all apps I had purchased for my old phone and gave me the option to install each of them on my new one.

    On iOS, it's a bit easier still, if you don't mind using iTunes. You just back up your phone, then when you get your new one, you restore from that backup.

    It does two things - one, it means you have a LOCAL BACKUP of everything (including apps - Apple or the developer may remove apps, but if you have a local copy, you can always reinstall it on any device on your account!). Because the problem with the Google and Microsoft methods are, when you update, some apps inevitably go missing from this transition as they're no longer available and you cannot install them because you forgot to backup the APK.

    Yeah, you can use iCloud. But that still suffers from the removed-app problem and the not-a-local-backup option.

    Android did have a half-hearted attempt at a backup system using adb but it didn't save everything that was accessible over MTP, so you needed to copy everything from MTP when you did your adb backup, and then when you restored, you needed to copy everything back.

  16. Re:Ion strengthened? on Sapphire Glass Didn't Pass iPhone Drop Test According to Reports · · Score: 2

    Is that $3 to replace a scratched screen, including all the AR coatings? At that price they might as well include three spare glass plates with every phone in case you scratch one.

    That's the cost of the glass plate. (Note: Traditionally the iPhone uses Gorilla Glass, but for some reason I don't know why Apple and Corning couldn't come to a marketing arrangement. Probably because Apple traditionally doesn't hype up the products of its suppliers - so it may be Gorilla Glass, but Apple will never use the term).

    Don't forget modern phones have a touchscreen embedded on the plate, followed by a bit of regular glass, followed by the LCD fabricated right on the glass as well so the touchscreen and display form a single unmoving unit. Alas, this extra processing means your $3 plate now costs $20 to manufacture, and maybe $25 after amortizing defective displays.

    So no, the front glass is not just a single piece, it's the whole display assembly.

  17. Re:Great one more fail on High School Student Builds Gun That Unlocks With Your Fingerprint · · Score: 1

    Just what I need in a firearm. One more area that can fail epically. Also yet another battery to carry and eventually run out of.

    Call me crazy but none of my firearms accidentally go off.

    I understand there may be times when the use of gun to harm another human is necessary.

    However, there are perfectly normal situations where you own a gun and this technology is perfectly acceptable.

    There's a rather large contingent who really only use a gun for recreation. Perhaps they hunt. Or shoot targets (paper, clay. metal, whatever). They don't need a gun for constant companionship or ready access, they just have it for fun.

    Perhaps after a day at the range or after bagging some animals, they head to the bar. Well, the gun's not put away, and there's a risk of your vehicle being broken into (actually quite common in the city). Well, it's one more thing that would make it worthless to someone and one less gun for druggies shooting at random people or whatever people do with stolen guns.

    Yes, some people want it for protection. Others want it because they look cool (there's more than a few people who buy an AR and load it up with optics and grips and other accessories, only for it to sit on the shelf because they never have any intention of shooting it - just that it looked cool in Call of Duty and they wanted it).

    Guns are versatile - there's lots of uses for them. In places where they're regulated, well, you often don't need one for protection but can often own one for recreational purposes.

    So having the option makes sense - if you're going out to use it, you charge up the batteries and be done with it.

    (Off-topic - why is it the real gun nuts take offense when they evacuate and leave guns out in the open, unguarded in an unlocked house often visible from the street, and the police come around and put it away for safe-keeping? I mean, is it somehow more offensive that the police are holding the guns for you (with a promise to return them) than if some random stranger decided to go and rob you? Perhaps it's less offensive if they were "stolen" by the police? The guns were right there waiting to be stolen, after all. Anyone else could've done it had the police not swept the area for items people may leave behind that are valuable)

  18. Re:That title needs work, for one thing on Early Reviews of Destiny: Unfulfilled Potential · · Score: 2

    Don't forget they fired their award winning composer who'd been with them since Marathon (?) days & treated him bad while doing so - made me wonder what was going on over there at the executive level (and add a bit of apprehension for this game's release - which turned out to be warranted).

    The problem is Activision. That's the problem with Activision - they are all about the money, and even Kottick's admitted to it. And they've already forced Bungie's hand - it's presumed Activision put pressure on Bungie's board to fire Marty. He's been there since the beginning I believe - one of the founding members.

    Unfortunately, Marty had the last laugh. First, the courts awarded him unpaid overtime and vacation accrued ($30K, plus another $30K for being idiots for not just giving it to him, and $40k in attorney's cost). And in the past couple of weeks, the courts also re-awarded him Bungie Founder's Shares, that Bungie tried to illegal take from him.

    Well, the courts ruled that according to the terms of issuance, yes, Marty is due all his shares (even ones that weren't issued yet), undiluted. The argument that he left was invalid since the only way the shares could get cancelled was if he voluntarily left. Since he was forced out, he's still due all shares. And Bungie even protested saying Marty would use his shares to screw up the business because he holds powerful shares as an ex-employee forced out. The judge disregarded that reason basically stating that Bungie made the bed.

    So $100K and powerful shares because Activision didn't want him. (Probably because he cost a lot of money and with Paul McCartney's special track). And Marty's not obliged to sell those shares, either. So he technically still has a say.

    Bungie's following the path of Blizzard - from great gaming company to hollowed out shell coasting on a name.

    Hell, Bungie/Activision made a super classic mistake - they didn't let game reviewers have a go in advance. The cynical response (and history has shown it to be true) is that it's because the game is so bad, they can at least count on a few early sales before reviews basically end up killing sales. They tried to couch it in terms of "we want everyone to evaluate it on the full content with real players" but that rings hollow - the easiest way to do that is to recruit a bunch of beta players for a special play session for reviewers.

    Ars Technica wasn't kind to it either. Their same-day early review showed a lack of content (though they were kind in saying "the servers worked". Their later review calls it "Rent it" saying there's not enough content for whatever-kind-of-game-it-is.

    Somehow, after taking 4 years to do it (2010 - Halo Reach), to release this disappointment means that Bungie probably had a few ideas for a Halo MMO like game in the background, then used that. And tons of committee meetings later, well, you have this as everyone tried to get their say in the game. Resulting in something no one is quite sure what it is.

    Hell, I suppose the final insult is when Activision reported "shipped" numbers. Well, at least they got a bunch of money from Sony for exclusives.

  19. Re:How much would the rebate be? on Windows Tax Shot Down In Italy · · Score: 1

    No, you don't get a free version, you don't get the media. You wipe it you've lost it. Not too mention the OEM version runs about $100. So no it's not free. Moron.

    Except it is almost free because software vendors pay computer vendors money to bundle in their software. Basically a company like Dell or HP go to Symantec and McAfee and ask them how much do they want in on their new PC. Highest bidder gets installed. repeat this several times and the cost of Windows is recovered.

    Windows OEM to you and me may be $100, but Dell/Sony/Acer/HP/etc are not paying that - they're paying far less. Add in the bundled crapware subsidy and it can pay for the hardware too.

  20. Re:I just want the new Nexus. on iPhone 6 Sales Crush Means Late-Night Waits For Some Early Adopters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only real feature of note was Apple Pay, which might finally make NFC payments take off in the US. It's been a technology that should have hit it big a couple of years ago, but has never seen much consumer buy-in for some reason.

    Because no one unified around it. You have credit cards and phones and all that, and the phones were all fragmented into using Google Wallet or other custom thing so it was impossible to actually use.

    Effectively, Google thought "If you build it, they will come" and everyone basically gave a collective "meh" and promptly did their own thing.

    What Apple did was try to be a de-facto standard. Apple made deals with Visa, MasterCard and American Express (which probably covers the vast majority of credit card charges out there). Apple made deals with big retailers people used. So in the end, Apple has, upon launch, the support of the vast majority of credit card payment companies, and big companies that most people shop at.

    Plus, Apple has money on their side - the people who buy Apple products tend to be ones who have money, and are the kind of people who do spend it. Android users tend to be more tight-asses (given the vast majority of them are free phones that their carrier gave away), so are in generaly seen as a "lesser valued" market.

    So you have companies agreeing to Apple because they know Apple customers generally have money. As a side effect, it means the technology being promoted gets widely distributed so everyone else benefits as well.

  21. Re:How much would the rebate be? on Windows Tax Shot Down In Italy · · Score: 1

    What does MS sell their OEM OS for anyway? Probably not that much. No one will likely bother.

    Roughly $10-50 or so. It's hard to pinpoint an exact figure because the bundled software often pays for that stuff. So the refund you get is often far less because they have to take out the software that subsidized the cost of the PC. It's one reason why Linux PCs often cost more.

    Anyhow, you can still bundle in Windows on the hard drive and all that, and separate out the software as a line item. If you choose to pay for Windows, you get a card with a unlock key on it. You boot the PC, enter the key, and it boots up with everything.

    If you choose to not pay for software, you just click "I did not buy software" and it erases the hard drive.

  22. Re:What is wrong with people? on Turning the Tables On "Phone Tech Support" Scammers · · Score: 1

    You'd think people wouldn't get taken in by those Nigerian 419 scams as well, but they keep falling for requests to send money to make money.

    You would think they'd stop before they'd send away $25,000 or more, but...

    I can understand elderly folks falling for the "Hi I'm your grandson stuck in the middle of nowhere" scams, but the people who traditionally fall for the 419s know they don't have grandkids, and typically middle-aged people.

    I guess greed blinds.

  23. Re:Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalen on Publishers Gave Away 123 Million Books During World War Two · · Score: 1

    The writers of the US Constitution has the foundational documents of Sparta available to them. They deliberately chose to go in the other direction. This point seems to be one that is conveniently ignored by self-styled originalists.

    I think the militaristic jingoism is a result of how the US came into existence - through war.

    I mean, most countries only have one day to remember their war dead (Nov 11), while the US does the same (Memorial Day), as well as those in service (Veterans Day). Interestingly, while most of the world celebrates those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, it's when the US celebrates those in service, preferring to be different and celebrate its war dead separate from everyone else.

  24. Re:Let's look at the data on Ozone Layer Recovering But Remains Threatened · · Score: 1

    That's not the issue. The issue is that the low-cost asthma medications that poor people bought for their kids used the CFC propellants. The FDA would not let them switch to a new propellant without spending something like $200M on a new approval study, which was not cost effective in their OTC market, so they pulled the product. Poor kids don't suddenly get expensive inhalers because their cheap ones went away.

    And the real issue is that people ignored the deadline which was issued by the Montreal protocol to address exactly that.

    Inhalers were the last source of CFCs and the people who got together to limit CFC usage knew it would take time to approve new propellants. So they allocated over 20 years to do just that - enough time to find a new propellant, get it approved and phase the old one out well ahead of the deadline.

    What did people do? Screw it - profits profits profits. The long deadlines was to deal with all this, not to simply ignore the problem until it was too late.

  25. Re:Who would have thought on The Documents From Google's First DMV Test In Nevada · · Score: 1

    And let's just remember that planes don't actually fly themselves:

    A growing problem with a LOT of airline pilots is they lack the basic skills to fly. And this is, unfortunate a product of the environment in which they fly - most countries either prohibit or massively regulate general aviation flight, resulting in the only flying most airline pilots get are from the simulators and the jetliner cockpits.

    It's better in North America as many jet pilots do actually fly little light aviation aircraft (like ye olde Cessna 172s and 182s and Pipers, etc). These pilots usually exercise basic flying skills because the most automation they have is a single axis autopilot typically. And are subsequently able to land in fairly normal conditions.

    A lot of airline pilots get horrendously scared if the ILS is down, or they have to circle and land, or the VASI is off or a bunch of other things that most commercial airports have. It causes undue stress and if you really challenge them, give them perfect VFR conditions and they still can't land without automation's help. Yes, your basic VFR landing - something every student pilot has to do - can give the willies the most seasoned jetliner pilot simply because the skill has rotted away.

    Oh yeah, there are also a few fundamentals to every plane that are always true for that plane. Stuff like Attitude + Power = Performance. Give it a set attitude, a set power level, and you know what to expect - climb rate, airspeed, descent rate, etc. It stays the same for the plane, and is true from your tiniest light sports to your Airbus A380s. It would've saved many lives when the airspeed indicators are off (mean flying instructors love to cover up instruments during landing - but it teaches the student that if they can hold a certain attitude and power setting, the airplane's performance is predictable and yes, you can even land without stalling. And landings can be oddly far better this way when the student is concentrating on the outside rather than inside on the instruments).