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User: Znork

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  1. Re:make it user-selectable on The Problem With Self Driving Cars: Who Controls the Code? (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If a child can run into the street from a blind spot faster than you can break, you're driving too fast. The autonomous car will not drive too fast to break in such a situation.

    If the child is deliberately hiding in a place it shouldn't be, near a higher speed road and manages to quickly cross what should usually be a wide clear area around such roads (or in an unpopulated area), then there won't be time for a human to react at all. An autonomous car could probably cut down the speed a bit, but avoiding people who deliberately try to throw themselves in front of traffic simply isn't doable or even something to care that much about. You're not going to be able to avoid jumpers, or the human cannonball either, nor is an autonomous car. As the other reply pointed out, whether it's wildlife or people, usually the best option is to simply do a predictable controlled break unless it's basically a slow-motion situation playing out over many seconds (such as road conditions making braking very ineffective, while speed isn't particularly high).

  2. Re: Good for CMU. on Drug Case In Ireland Has Fingerprints of Carnegie Mellon's Attack On Tor · · Score: 1

    Libertarianism doesn't require faith in that. The mix of people actually enjoying acting out of altruism and the situations where people acting for their own good inherently results in the good of the commons (competition, efficiency improvements) is enough for a lot of things and is quite demonstrable without any faith needed.

  3. Re:3x GHG emissions *per calorie* on Study Claims Lettuce Is "Three Times Worse Than Bacon" For GHG Emissions (cmu.edu) · · Score: 1

    Well, if you pave the area that the livestock occupies at least. Well, no, that doesn't work, you still need that area to catch carbon through vegetation. But you can't let something else eat the vegetation or they'll crap, breath and dissipate it again. So you need to sequestrate the vegetation. Better drench it in pesticides too so no insects consume it.

    Hang on... that sounds like it's actually one of those ecological cycle thingamajiggies, it just could be that the actual problem is the input of sequestrated materials into the cycle rather than the particular point at which a specific carrier is recycled, as that will just get replaced by another carrier/emitter if the consumption point is moved.

  4. Re:The Commit Message on Busybox Deletes Systemd Support · · Score: 1

    When you're writing scale-on-demand cloud applications, the boot time of a new vm is most of the latency of additional capacity coming online.

  5. Re: It's not the Earth's fault on Leap Second May Be On the Chopping Block (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you know, if you ask a human in 50000 years whether 'noon' means 'midday' or 'midnight', he'll say "zxyathslthe?" "blortpmi?".

    With changes in the range of thousands of years, language will change orders of magnitude faster than the specific number we ascribe to 'noon'.

    And yes, it is something you can easily ignore, as unless the human lifespan stretches into thousands of years, it's not like anyone's actually going to notice during their lifetime.

  6. Re: Academia is willing to protect total dicks on How Academia Still Struggles With Sexual Harassment (buzzfeed.com) · · Score: 1

    This problem is fixed by making consent explicit.

    Yeah, see, the fact that you actually think that is one of the biggest problems I have with consent advocacy.

    The problem is that in reality, mens rea means you don't have to have any actual consent, you just have to think you had consent. That means that consent law changes doesn't change what you seem to think it would change. As long as someone acts in a way the accused could interpret and motivate why they thought they had consent. And going along with it explicitly does mean that they are exhibiting behaviour interpretable as consent, which means that there was affirmative consent.

    If you want the kind of consent law you seem to believe you want, then you'll have to advocate for specific and explicit consent requirements, or you're going to be complaining about why consent law didn't change anything but the margin between 'going along with' and 'not actively resisting'.

  7. Re:Waaaahhhhh!! on Matthew Garrett Forks the Linux Kernel · · Score: 2

    Considering Garrett's SJW credentials, it's more likely about working on his own, with his own mailing list where he can block anyone not adhering to his particular set of prejudices. I doubt it will be particularly productive. Or inclusive.

  8. Re:Who? on Matthew Garrett Forks the Linux Kernel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While I think it's unfortunate that some innocents get caught in the crossfire, the toxicity of SJW culture is simply so damaging that I think the approach of not giving an inch is the only tenable one. Once you start coddling specific individuals by sanctions against other individuals you immediately start up the competition of the most offended, the community fractures into group politics and productivity rapidly dissipates.

    There's no utility in being deliberatly uncivil unless it's necessary to get a point across, but as soon as someone starts requiring special snowflake status and demonstrates a sense of entitlement to special care for theirs or others feelings then they should get that discussion shut down asap. Allowing the SJW mindset to start festering will do much more damage than the cost of losing a few good developers.

    (And it's hardly the first time Matthew Garrett has figured in an SJW context...)

  9. Re:The article has it backwards on Volkswagen Diesel Scandal Logistics Imply Sizable Conspiracy · · Score: 1

    It would be quite interesting to know whether the decision not to install SCR was taken before the optimizations were done. Because that actually would be a plausible theory of why this happened that would jive with my experience of the automotive industry.

    If it was basically one asshat manager saying that 'yeah, we're going to do this IN SOFTWARE without using SCR! And save MONEY!", then I can see exactly what happens next. Engineers go "good grief, what an ass, this is going to suck in most cases". Then they get to figure out basically any and every situation you can reduce effect and write logic to accomplish it until they reach required targets. And it just so happens that the idiots designing the benchmarks have produced benchmarks that look nothing like reality so of course they'll get completely different results than what happens when you're not driving the car under specific ideal conditions.

    Of course, if that's actually it, then it's not even intentional fraud. And actually using those optimizations would be a good thing as they obviously do reduce emissions in certain conditions where power might not be needed, it's just that they should be using SCR as well. And the benchmarks should be updated to reflect real life situations.

  10. Re:I liked the cartoon that read: on Ahmed Mohamed, His Clock, and the Curious Turn of Events · · Score: 1

    I built a timer controlled firecracker for a presentation on European terror groups. Probably wouldn't do that either.

  11. Re:At least I won't have to read about it in Wired on Ellen Pao Drops Appeal of Gender Discrimination Suit · · Score: 1

    People working for social justice are indeed people I have respect for. But the SJW term is mostly used for the (also often bigoted) temper tantrum special snowflakes, and frankly, the reason there's a need for a term like that is because there's an unfortunate tendency within many social justice movement to refuse to call out those who hide the fact that they're asses and bitches behind a social justice label.

    I mean, hell, if people like you said that as far as you're concerned, Valerie Solanas was NOT a feminist, she was just a really fucked up head case we should at best feel sorry about, I'd still be calling myself feminist.

    And say what you will about MRAs, but I've found that if you actually ask them who they consider good examples of MRAs they tend to come up with decent people like Warren Farrell, with many drawing the line at about Paul Elam, and pretty much nobody seems to consider the PUA/RP people MRAs.

  12. Re: Misunderstanding on Spy Industry Leaders Befuddled Over 'Deep Cynicism' of American Public · · Score: 1

    China, these days it seems. But apparently it was popular in Germany, and of course there were mobile electrocutioners in the US.

    Here's an article:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

    It doesn't detail if the vans are also available on the black market or only the criminals organs. Maybe check AliExpress?

  13. Re:Why now? on Ellen Pao Drops Appeal of Gender Discrimination Suit · · Score: 1

    The jury is not supposed to be a debating club, and if you selected juries on the principle that they should contain people who believe both sides you'd have nothing but hung juries.

    A jury must contain only people who do not already have opinions that are strongly prejudicial to the opinion they are supposed to form from the evidence presented to them. Anyone thinking sexism is rampant in tech should be as disqualified as anyone who thinks is isn't. Ie, you want jurors who have no opinion on the level of sexism in tech.

    If you want people with opinions on the level of sexism in tech, call them as witnesses.

    From what I've seen of Pao and the case, I think the preponderance of evidence suggests she's a narcissistic asshole. Which, I suspect, is why she didn't want to continue the case as, considering the reddit debacle further demonstrated her capabilities, she wouldn't have a chance of winning it without a jury of her closest friends.

  14. Re:At least I won't have to read about it in Wired on Ellen Pao Drops Appeal of Gender Discrimination Suit · · Score: 3

    Well, sounds like he's actually got a case as the businesses he's suing actually seem to discriminate on sex. Pao, on the other hand, seems like she got treated badly because she was behaving like a flaming SJW and made people want to leave when she was involved, which the later stint at reddit seemed to confirm fairly well.

  15. Re:Both devices value form over function on Hands On Samsung's New Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 At Unpacked New York · · Score: 1

    For lithium ion batteries it's heat-age that matters. If you store them at 0C and 40% charge and you'll have a capacity loss of about 2% per year, so you can keep replacement batteries around for a long time.

  16. Re:Both devices value form over function on Hands On Samsung's New Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 At Unpacked New York · · Score: 1

    I was considering a Note 5, but the lack of microSD and removable battery was a deal-breaker. Got a Note 4 instead, so we'll see what's available with a removable battery after that one dies.

  17. Re:Oracle's monopoly? on Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java · · Score: 2

    No shit. If not for Android, maybe Nokias or Microsofts efforts would have been more successful, but Oracle has managed to create enough antipathy that people will go out of their way to avoid them by now.

  18. Re:I'm torn.... on Coca-Cola To Fund Research That Shifts Blame For Obesity Away From Bad Diets · · Score: 1

    Hehe, around here I don't expect marijuana to be called medicine even if it was proven to cure cancer.

    So, unfortunately, no, that would be mirtazapine instead. Definitely recommended to anyone feeling an urgent need to gain weight, sleep for 20+ hours and take a vacation from stress.

  19. Re:Can't hurt on Coca-Cola To Fund Research That Shifts Blame For Obesity Away From Bad Diets · · Score: 1

    It's already fairly well known how to reduce weight without going the diet route; pretty much any stimulant will do the trick. And as some of them are barely on the level of coffee when it comes to addictiveness and have a side effect profile that certainly would compare favourably to obesity, I have a hard time seeing why they're not used for weight loss more than they are. I can't come to any other conclusion than that it's about still wanting to view obesity as a moral failing to justify not treating it. And I say that as someone on the underweight side of the spectrum.

  20. Re:I'm torn.... on Coca-Cola To Fund Research That Shifts Blame For Obesity Away From Bad Diets · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Frankly, being 'naturally' fairly slim, but having been on medication that first made me gain more than 40 pounds, and then on other medication that made me lose those 40 pounds again and had me basically stuffing as much sugar and fat into myself as I could stand and still losing weight, I have gained some respect for the idea that it might not actually be that easy for an individual to control.

    At the very least it's certainly possible for medications to move around the body's perception of hunger from anything between having to basically force things down to not ever being full. For someone stuck at either end it must be a complete horror, and anyone managing to override such an urge through sheer willpower has certainly earned my respect.

  21. Re:Problem with Samsung ... on Samsung Woos Developers As It Eyes Tizen Expansion Beyond Smartphones · · Score: 1

    The all-eggs-in-one-basket per company isn't so much a company strategy as an investor strategy. The investors in public companies prefer if the companies divest any non-performing asset, as they themselves don't end up with all the eggs in one basket, but are instead free to move in and out of companies and sectors without getting a lot of overhead in the deal.

    Whether it's good for the companies themselves is of course another issue...

  22. Re:HAHAHAHA! on Will Autonomous Cars Be the Insurance Industry's Napster Moment? · · Score: 1

    When the signs and lane markers are covered by snow and ice it will just default to using the same markers everyone else is using; the crashed cars driven by idiot humans who thought they could see the lane markers.

    Seriously though, no autonomous vehicle would be dependent on lane markers as the sole feature for positioning, you need to use a multitude of inputs ranging from using markers to using LIDAR to map geometry of the area, through projection of probable trajectories and even to using prior knowledge or map data of the road. You have to have a multitude of independent systems cooperating, validating and agreeing on the most likely model for the current reality. Any autonomous vehicle deemed safe enough to actually operate autonomously should be significantly more capable of reliably assessing the situation than the average human. If any climate presents a difficulty for the detection and navigation part (as opposed to purely physical performance limitations) for an autonomous car it should not be allowed into traffic as it's obviously nowhere near capable enough to trust with human lives.

  23. Re:Exodus on Ask Slashdot: What Happens If We Perfect Age Reversing? · · Score: 2

    The logistics of having an exodus making a significant difference are somewhat difficult though. Consider the current birth rate of 350K new humans per day and compare with the lack of orbital launch capacity. Then try to figure out how to reach the manufacturing capability to build hundreds of city sized starships per year. One of the variables is going to have to change in some way or spreading across the galaxy isn't going to do much to reduce earth population.

    Well, maybe someone will find a couple of dozen stargates tucked away somewhere.

  24. Re:Germany should pay war reparations for WWII on Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment · · Score: 1

    The Euro zone treaties aren't what prevent Greece from running a deficit during a down-turn.

    Running a deficit during an up-turn is what does that.

  25. Re:Fine for me, but not for thee on Men's Rights Activists Call For Boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road · · Score: 1

    Of course. Obviously as he claims he isn't a feminist either, he must be a feminist, right?

    RoK has nothing to do with the MRA movement, he's red pill and despises men that want equal rights for men.