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User: JMandingo

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  1. Re:FTL or Wormhole Travel on The Disappearing Universe · · Score: 1

    Magnificent post. I would mod you up, but SlashDot hasn't given me mod points in over a decade.

    A dumb question for you, but one that I could not answer for myself by reading the article: How is it that the universe is accelerating away from center? Is there a huge amount of matter outside our universe that is pulling the outer bits away? Does the radiation from the inner parts create pressure on the outer parts? Or is there more relativity trickery at work here that I do no grasp?

  2. Re:Descent? Give me X-Wing! on It's Time For the Descent Games Return · · Score: 1

    With Decent you really needed TWO joysticks to play properly. We bought splitter cables and used the offhand joystick to control thrust (forward and backward on the top buttons) and strafing in any variable direction. With this setup you had a terrific edge over anyone of equivalent skill who did not have it.

  3. Many Large Storms on The Shrinking Giant Red Spot of Jupiter · · Score: 1

    Looking at that photo linked in the article, I just realized that there are many other large storms visible on Jupiter. There are three large off-white ones just above the red one that are comparable in size. They do not stand out as much because they lack the striking red color and instead blend into the surrounding clouds. There is a little orange one at bottom left. I wonder if those other storms have persisted as long as the big red eye?

  4. Re:Maybe it is neither on Why the Sharing Economy Is About Desperation, Not Trust · · Score: 1

    This is just my theory, but I believe the sudden relaxation of marijuana laws globally is a result of the .01%'ers starting to get worried. The rabble are rousing, we must unleash the opiates for the masses!

  5. Re:Telecommuter on Electric Cars: Drivers Love 'Em, So Why Are Sales Still Low? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for that info, I'd never heard that before. The need to heat the converter up every once in a while makes sense. I will put the top town and take a trip down A1A every once in a while :-)

  6. Telecommuter on Electric Cars: Drivers Love 'Em, So Why Are Sales Still Low? · · Score: 1

    My personal "why": I code from home, so my car leaves the house twice a week and even then only to go 5-10 miles. My car is a '98 Mustang Cobra with a supercharged V8. I paid 15k cash for it used in 2002. I only get 17 miles to the gallon, but so what? I fill up maybe once every two months. I do a lot of my own maintenance. An all-electric vehicle would be perfect for my needs, and I could easily afford one, but I plan on driving my '98 until it rusts out from under me. It is a blast to drive, and the cost of fuel is a non-issue for so few miles.

  7. Re:That's incredibly creepy on Arrest Made In Webcam Highjacking Extortion Case · · Score: 4, Funny

    Young Jared James Abrahams, I hereby sentence you to 20 years of coding for the NSA. Our country needs young innovators with such talents to preserve our eternal safety from those who would do us harm. As your reward, you can have access to all the nude webcam photos you want, we have the worlds largest data center chock full of the bestest stuff.

  8. Re:Xbox One on Ouya Android Game Console Launches, Quickly Sells Out · · Score: 1

    So phones, tablets and consoles are now all the same thing?

  9. Re:Xbox One on Ouya Android Game Console Launches, Quickly Sells Out · · Score: 1

    Xbox 360 sold over 44 million units. Xbox Live has 22 million users. Those are some HUGE numbers, and there is a lot of brand loyalty amongst console buyers. Office is still king with businesses everywhere.

  10. Re:Wrinkle on Politician Wants Sci-fi To Be Mandatory In School · · Score: 1

    But god the rest of the books in that series are awful... Almost unreadable.

    The first Ender book is the least cerebral. Too bad for you. Or was this sarcasm? My eldest daughter (15) has read all the Ender books. She loved "Speaker for the Dead" and thought the first book was the weakest. She claims that the Bean timeline is the best. I am hoping to see what she means this summer, but I have to retrieve all my Ender books first as she has farmed them out to all her friends.

  11. Re:Repeat after me: on How To Build a $30M Startup Without Spending Any of Your Money · · Score: 1

    Hard work can still make you "wealthy", depending upon how you personally define the term. I am living proof, and so are several of my friends, all of us in our 30s and 40s. Use your evenings and weekends wisely, take your network and your work skills (and/or you favorite hobby) and turn them into a small side business. Continue to grow that, or build additional business as bandwidth permits. If you are lucky you will flip one (I never did), but eventually the long tails of income will add up to the point where you can quit your day job (as it did for all of us). The only thing I sacrificed along the way was all the sports and sci-fi I used to watch on the tube when I was in my 20s. Good riddance to the media consumption, even if everything I did had crashed and burned I would still be glad I made the effort.

  12. Re:on the other hand on FAA Pushed To Review Ban On Electronics · · Score: 1

    I was sitting in first class next to a British chap on a morning flight out of Dallas. A very nasty lightning storm rolled up and they delayed us at the gate for 30 minutes. When the announcement came over the PA this British fella went bonkers and delivered a most awesome scathing 10 minute rant about how Americans are fucking idiots and we don't fucking understand fucking service etc., etc. It really was quite impressive. Then the flight attendant started handling out free cocktails and everything was lovely.

  13. Re:It just don't make no sense on 1967 Gyro-X Car To Be Restored · · Score: 1

    a two-engine plane flying with one engine is less safe than a single-engine plane with its one engine working.

    If the engine configuration of the two-engine plane is push-pull then the thrust provided by the remaining engine stays in the center line. Add to that the comparison you forgot - a two-engine plane minus one engine has more range to find a runway to make an emergency landing on, whereas a single-engine plane minus one engine becomes a poor glider.

  14. Re:Noisy annoying environment on Why Working Remotely Needs To Make a Comeback · · Score: 2

    I worked in a bullpen for several years. We used to have awesome wars with toy dart guns with the rubber suction cups on the end of the darts. It was quite jarring to be concentrating on some code only to be suddenly popped in the face. It got so that any time somebody opened a desk drawer everyone jerked their eyes up to see if they were pulling out a gun.

  15. Re:Noisy annoying environment on Why Working Remotely Needs To Make a Comeback · · Score: 2

    I have kids and telecommute. My office is on the second floor - a one-room addition over the garage. The door to the stairs has a stiff spring on it to keep it closed. Anyone who wants to talk to me has to be willing to climb a flight of stairs and be physically able to open that door. Problem solved.

  16. Re:Too hell with resigning. Make them fire you. on Mayer Terminates Yahoo's Remote Employee Policy · · Score: 1

    My thought exactly. No COBRA for your insurance either. I am sure that HR will word the choice as "resign" hoping that as many dummies as possible will make that mistake. I would just refuse to make the choice and spend my days job searching until they officially kicked me to the curb.

  17. Re:You don't on Ask Slashdot: How Can I Explain To a Coworker That He Writes Bad Code? · · Score: 1

    Great story. I've never had trouble understanding code I wrote. That's probably because I have one of the world's worst memories, so I always write code with lots of clues to help me decipher what's going on.

    This is me as well with the poor memory. My co-workers thank me for writing such beautiful and easy-to-follow code. I explain to them that it is about my survival, I do it more for me than for them.

  18. Network Degree on Ask Slashdot: CS Degree While Working Full Time? · · Score: 1

    5 years is a good time span at any one company, anything over 2 years looks great on a resume. My personal experience was that nobody mentioned my degree after my first job, networking is far more important than a degree. Networking is also more important than kissing management butt to claw your way up the chain of command. When your co-workers like you personally and respect your work ethic in addition to you skills then you will eventually old buddies regularly calling you to see if you have any interest in a new position. Jumping ship becomes a matter of deciding when the time has come to try something different for more money.

  19. Re:it tells you one thing, at least on Adam Lanza Destroyed His Computer Before Rampage · · Score: 1

    If 20 kids were injured and none of them killed then the attacker wasn't really trying to kill them. He must have been slashing instead of stabbing. FBI statistics say 6 out of 10 gunshot victims die from sustained injuries 8 out of 10 knife attack victims die from sustained injuries.

  20. Re:VMs on Ask Slashdot: Little Boxes Around the Edge of the Data Center? · · Score: 1

    Because VM images are easy to duplicate and move. Easy to scale up, easy to back up, easy to swap failing hardware. You use multiple VMs and not just one box running everything so that you can easily duplicate or move one service (or group of related services) without touching others.

  21. Re:Minsc was right! on D&D Monster Study Proves Eyes Have It · · Score: 1

    Butt-kicking! For goodness!

  22. Re:More important... on Singer Reportedly Outbids NASA for Space Tourist's Seat · · Score: 1

    Building a space station with artificial gravity is prohibitively difficult. It has to be huge and very heavy to withstand the stress that all that centrifugal force will put on the frame. Heavy means expensive to put into orbit with our limited launch capabilities. Plus there are issues with keeping it balanced. For instance, if all the astronauts stand in one section at the same time it becomes unbalanced. So the frame has to be even stronger and heavier to account for that eventuality.

  23. Re:More important... on Singer Reportedly Outbids NASA for Space Tourist's Seat · · Score: 1

    Um, what "research" have they actually done?

    Hundreds of experiments listed here. I am not sure if these are ALL the experiments or just those conducted by NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/List.html

  24. Mad Google Skillz on Ask Slashdot: Old Dogs vs. New Technology? · · Score: 1

    I have noticed over the years that I tend to have a special knack for finding answers to software development issues via Google. My team can be on a conference call and somebody brings up an issue they are struggling with and I am usually the one on the call who comes up with an answer first. Don't laugh - knowing what terms to search for and where to put quotes around phrases to bring the most relevant answers to the top is a very useful skill that has served me well.

  25. Re:sure it is on Chevy Volt To Resume Production One Week Early Following Record Sales · · Score: 1

    Me too, I am telecommuting. I fill up my supercharged '98 cobra maybe once every six weeks. My office is on the second floor of my house above the garage with big windows on all four sides. I run the A/C only in the worst heat of the summer, and only on days where there is no breeze whatsoever. I have a fan on my desk hooked to a small solar panel in the window.