Slashdot Mirror


User: paitre

paitre's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
503
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 503

  1. Depending on the day of the week, the US is -currently- either the #1 or the #2 producer of convention oil in the world. It's actually why oil prices have been crashing - we don't give a fuck about OPEC, and we're producing it as fast as we can frack it out of the ground. We produce, domestically, about half of the petroleum that we consume, and import half of the rest from Canada & Mexico and the rest from nations that arguably don't like us but love our dollars.

    There is a CO2 sequestration, "Air Mining" operation that just opened up in San Antonio (which has pretty shitty air quality due to a variety of factors, not limited to the large number of very large quarries that are littered in and around the city). It will be interesting to see how that project goes and if it is long-term successful.

  2. Re:Allow me to burn som Karma by saying on Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split · · Score: 1

    If you want population-proportional representation in the HoR, get their dumb asses to unlock the 435 limit and set it per-X-residents with no fixed number of representatives (only the ability to change "X" in that calculation when every state has a minimum population value for X). Currently, 1 representative per 700k residents is just about right (300M / 700k = 428-ish). Alaska has just above 700k residents, and North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming have a bit less, but could have 1 representative each anyway.

    Agree in principle, but your representative counts are way, way off. The 435 limit was set in 1911 for the 63rd Congress, and followed that up in 1929 with the "Permanent Apportionment Act", because they couldn't get their shit together and fulfill one of their obligations (which was to properly re-apportion, including ADDING OR SUBTRACTING seats based on the census results). Kinda like today - you had members of Congress playing the anti-immigrant card as hard as they could, and in the process, really broke things for us a hundred years later.

    Anyway, the US population after the 1910 census was a bit over 92 million (92,228,496) giving a population to representative of ~212k. If we were to maintain even a remotely similar representation, we would be looking at a HoR with ~1456 members, with the least populous state (Wyoming) having 2 representatives - which is, interestingly enough, directly in line with Madison's original Bill of Rights proposal for Article the First, which explicitly set the minimum number of reps per state at 2 after crossing the 30k per rep line, and setting 30k per rep as the hard line for the number of representatives in the HoR (which would have today's HoR be 10,300 and change)

    Hell - I'd be okay with setting the reps per population to, on average, be roughly equivalent to smallest state population divided by 2, until such time as that's back up to, say, 350k, after which it becomes divisible by +1. That would mean that, should Wyoming's population reach 700k, we would, instead of dividing their population by 2 to get the population per rep (and the total number of reps from there). This would allow for the HoR to increase in membership still relatively infrequently, but unlikely to stay static for a century as it has, largely due to incompetence.

  3. Re:Allow me to burn som Karma by saying on Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split · · Score: 1

    Yes, that is its political effect, and it is extremely anti-democratic. But the reason it exists is simply that independent states varied in size at the time of the Constitutional convention. There was no intention at that Convention to give rural people a political check over those living in cities.

    Except YOU ARE WRONG.

    That was almost precisely the intention of the proponents of the New Jersey Plan prior to its combination, in modified form, with the Virginia Plan, also modified, to form the Great Compromise. The entire point of the Senate was to provide a check against large population state representation, and force the rest of the Congress to actually listen to the needs of the smaller states.

  4. Re:Allow me to burn som Karma by saying on Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split · · Score: 2

    You, and everyone else bitching about the makeup of the US Congress and specifically the senate, need to go back and retake middle school civics.

    The Senate, at the country's inception, WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE POPULARLY ELECTED.

    You have a bicameral legislature - the House of Representatives, who's members are popularly elected by the residents of the states, and the Senate - who's membership was, until the horrific fuck up that is the 17th Amendment was passed shortly after the turn of the 20th century, selected by the legislatures of the states to represent their interests in crafting national law - and SPECIFICALLY to prevent large states, like California, New York, Florida, and Texas today; New York and Pennsylvania in 1789, from running roughshod over the interests and needs of the smaller states. So yes, the Senate makeup IS DELIBERATELY set up to fuck over the large population states, because they are able to fuck over the small states in the House of Representatives.

    Welcome to basic civics.

    If you want to fix the Senate, repeal the 17th.

  5. Re:Get a local phone number on Ask Slashdot: Why So Hard Landing Interviews In Seattle Versus SoCal? · · Score: 1

    The digital front in Portland, ME is about 110 miles south of you in Boston. Might be able to find something in Concord or Manchester (NH), but those are also pretty hefty commutes from Portland.

    Honestly - if you can bootstrap it, start something up. Write apps, do SOMETHING in addition to pounding pavement. A year 'vacation' can be overlooked if you took the effort to keep your skills up to date, and can prove it.

  6. Re:Forgot something on Ask Slashdot: Why So Hard Landing Interviews In Seattle Versus SoCal? · · Score: 1

    Yes, really. You're not their target employee.

    Former military enlistees getting out after the enlistment are their target demographic. That, or you get into a company on the commercial side and talk them into dealing with getting you a clearance so you can work on the good stuff.

  7. Re:Do something! on AFL-CIO and Big Content Advocate For SOPA · · Score: 1

    This is pretty much =exactly= what I did.

    I pointed out that this law will have a negative impact on millions of IT workers in the US, at a time when we can least afford to be fucking the one major industry that seems to be doing well.

  8. Re:Fallacious on AFL-CIO and Big Content Advocate For SOPA · · Score: 1

    I'm waiting on a response, but essentially told them that if they vote for this law, I will actively engage in getting them voted out of office.

    Fuckers.

  9. Re:"hot" trend? on IT's Next Hot Job: Hadoop Guru · · Score: 1

    There are positions out there.

    Most of the folks that are hiring Hadoop and HBase folks are doing it on the sly.

    It's how I got my current job :)

  10. Re:The Future on IT's Next Hot Job: Hadoop Guru · · Score: 1

    There already exist tools/frameworks to work with Hadoop and HBase using SQL :)

  11. Re:Law firm fails because of single disk failure? on IT Crises vs. Vacation: Sometimes It Isn't Pretty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not at all surprised by this, actually.

    In my experience, there is a significant percentage (IME, most, but others may differ) of businesses that rely on Best Buy for hardware replacements. They see additional hardware lying around as a waste, and will not keep spares handy.

    I can EASILY see this happening. EASILY.

  12. Re:Sparkleshare on Open Source Alternative To Dropbox? · · Score: 1

    *looks in his datacenter*
    Ext3 is ubiquitous.... EXT4 is comin'. VERY few of the others around...

  13. Re:It doesn't work on Ask Slashdot: Compensating Technical People For Contributing to Sales? · · Score: 3, Informative

    -all
    +most

    And the answer at that point is any tech company.

    Most of our folks are customer facing and =have= to have a personality to get past our interview process.

    I've recommended not extending offers to prospects because of personality dissonance despite having the technical chops.

  14. Re:Rubbish on Bubble Bursting On the MMO Market? · · Score: 0

    True enough. I'm a bit irritated with myself that I hadn't purchased a couple just as a 'savings' plan :(

  15. Re:Skinner Boxes on Bubble Bursting On the MMO Market? · · Score: 1

    Their full-time economist isn't all that great.

    Honestly, the market is continuing to succeed in SPITE of him, not because of him.

  16. Re:Rubbish on Bubble Bursting On the MMO Market? · · Score: 1

    I can haz ISKies?

    I generally make about 50mil a day, mostly through PI. If I actually tried, I could make a ton more. Heh. People who complain about making ISK in EVE are clueless - you don't have to live in Null or grind missions to make that kind of dough, either.

  17. Re:Sequel? on James Cameron Commissions Submarine To Visit Challenger Deep · · Score: 1

    I don't seem to recall any other "Highlander" movies.

    Please. Please do not open that door in my mind. Please?

  18. Re:The leaf is not a hybrid on Chevy Volt Not Green Enough For California · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not really - since the Prius DOES get the benefits that the Volt won't be.

    So... yeah. It makes very, very little sense.

  19. Re:No faith on Measuring LAMP Competency? · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've taken, and aced, the RHCE twice.

    If you know wtf you're doing, it's really not that hard.

    The RHCA exams, on the other hand... *twitch*

  20. Re:Pretty Obvious Reasoning on Blizzard Backs Down On Real Names For Forums · · Score: 1

    Uh, no. China isn't 70% of the global WoW player-base.
    40%. Maybe.

    Most folks estimate that the US + EU population is somewhere between 5 and 6 million.

  21. Re:Its a population crunch on Modeling the Economy As a Physics Problem · · Score: 1

    "Silly... which is exactly why Economics is not a science and because there is no Nobel Prize for economics."

    There isn't?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences

  22. Re:Not prior art on Major MMO Publishers Sued For Patent Infringement · · Score: 1

    I recall similar discussions still ongoing in RGMD and other similar newsgroups and mailing lists at the time.

    At one point, I'm pretty sure that someone had a working inter-MUD connector going on, but I can't for the life of me recall who or where it might still be found.

  23. Re:Details on benefits on What Questions Should a Prospective Employee Ask? · · Score: 1

    I also work in the US, and I've never started a position where I had less than 2 weeks of ETO or vacation.
    The one place that I had offer me 1 week of ETO got a nicely worded "hell no", even though the offer was for 15k more than I was making at the time.

    If more people started quitting jobs that don't give acceptable amounts of ETO, as well as refusing to work for those places in the first place, the more likely they will be to increase that benefit.

    Yeah, I know - easier said than done, especially in this economy.

  24. Re:From the article on How The Matrix Online Went Wrong · · Score: 1

    I disagree. You can become absolutely competent and capable relatively quickly in EvE.

    The main issue then becomes one of time to earn money - which the older, established players do have an edge over newbies on.

    *shrug* I'd like more opportunity to play in nullsec, but I'm not going to be too irritated about it yet - I've only been playing for 6 months, and I'm only now skilled up enough to solo mine low-sec without the NPC 'rats getting me. PC pirates, otoh... fuckers.

  25. Re:*snort* on The Imminent Demise of SORBS · · Score: 1

    Beer works, too :)

    I even brew my own.