Slashdot Mirror


User: Waffle+Iron

Waffle+Iron's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
6,037
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 6,037

  1. Re:Why didn't Amazon vette the source? on Amazon Was Tricked By a Fake Law Firm Into Removing a Popular Product, Costing the Seller $200,000 (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Why didn't Amazon vette the source?

    Because when you do something wrong, the wronged parties certainly don't owe you an expensive sports car.

  2. Re:When a flat design falls flat... on It's Official: Users Navigate Flat UI Designs 22 Percent Slower (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    That is not a UI issue. It is a DB issue. They are waiting for confirmation that the transaction has been replicated.

    Actually, in order to enhance its profitability, his bank has speculatively converted all of his assets into Bitcoin (so far, so good). One downside is that it takes several minutes for the blockchain updates to propagate.

  3. Re:Any way to check for these? on 60,000 Germans Evacuate While Officials Try To Defuse a WWII Bomb (abc.net.au) · · Score: 2

    This is a stupid question, but is there something you could do to scan for these? e.g. use something like a hand-held metal detector, but bigger?

    You could always try a jackhammer.

  4. Re:Should fly itself on How NASA Kept the ISS Flying While Harvey Hit Mission Control (theverge.com) · · Score: 4, Funny

    Please explain why. And you can be very technical because I helped build that stuff. Oh wait, never mind. go back to complaining how bad the job market is from your parent's basement..

    They have to continuously spin the station to aim the cannon so that they can blast the incoming asteroids as soon as they appear, then they need to blast any remaining fragments. Failure to eliminate even a single asteroid could have catastrophic consequences. This requires round-the-clock vigilance.

  5. Re:Just wait.. on FDA Approves First Cell-Based Therapy For Cancer (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    Once it becomes FDA approved and a patent is awarded, one of the big pharma companies will come in with a blank check to the patent owner and will immediately proceed to bury this knowledge and it'll never be used again, all in favor of high-priced chemotherapy.

    TFA says that the bill for this one-time treatment weighs in at $475,000. That's probably even more high-priced than almost any chemotherapy.

  6. I think he means that he can't afford a keyboard and monitor, so he soldered some switches to his parallel port, and now does "cat /dev/lp0 > mysource.S"

  7. Re:Any TV you want on Ask Slashdot: Best Non-Smart TV Sets? (slashdot.org) · · Score: 5, Funny

    You can solve that problem with these simple steps:

    Get a large roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil, a roll of metalized HVAC duct-sealing tape, and the box that the TV came in.

    Cut the box cardboard to form a large pyramid over the screen to form a visor, and tape it to the TV. Now wrap the entire TV and the visor with the aluminum foil, and carefully seal all seams with the duct tape. For added security, you can also tape a piece of wire mesh over the opening of the visor.

    Now you can watch the TV by peering into the visor the same way Mr. Spock looked at his sensors. With absolutely no WiFi.

  8. I don't really have anything to add on We Can't Stop Checking the News Either. Welcome to the New FOMO (wired.com) · · Score: 2

    I was just dropping by to check for new stories.

  9. So then it's ActiveX.

    Everything old is new again.

  10. You are aware that companies are using advanced AI to individually identify anonymous Internet posters by analyzing the unique patterns of expletives that each uses in their messages?

  11. Re:Never should have been granted on E-Commerce To Evolve Next Month As Amazon Loses the 1-Click Patent (thirtybees.com) · · Score: 1

    Just be thankful that Amazon discovered this concept and filed a patent for it, so that the public at large was able to be enlightened by it. Luckily, the incentives provided by the patent system encouraged Amazon to make the investments required to do the hard work to find and realize this innovation.

    Otherwise, the entire world could have missed out on the benefits of one-click shopping forever!

  12. Re:multiple versions of a document different names on Google Updates Docs, Sheets and Slides With New Collaboration Features (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been saving multiple versions of documents under different names ever since the days of CP/M:

    MEMO1.TXT
    MEMO2.TXT
    MEMO3.TXT
    ...

  13. Re: 6,400 pounds on SpaceX Successfully Launches, Recovers Falcon 9 For CRS-12 (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    Worse than /pedant; incorrect pedant.

    For real-world applications, you need to count both divisors and ignore the N/1: 10/2, 10/5 vs. 12/2 12/3 12/4 12/6

  14. Re: 6,400 pounds on SpaceX Successfully Launches, Recovers Falcon 9 For CRS-12 (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    No base is retarded, they all can do the same thing.

    Not true; more factors are better. 12 can be evenly divided four ways, but ten can only be evenly divided two ways. Moreover, dividing by 3 is more useful than dividing by 5.

  15. Re: 6,400 pounds on SpaceX Successfully Launches, Recovers Falcon 9 For CRS-12 (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 2

    There is nothing universally good about the number 10, we only think that because our monkey ancestors gave us 10 fingers. A more advanced alien species might have 12 tentacles and think our base10 system is retarded.

    A base 10 number system *is* retarded compared to a base 12 system. Even the illiterate medieval craftsmen who came up with many of the half-assed pseudo-duodecimal measurements used in the imperial system could sense that. With Roman Numerals making arithmetic almost impossible anyway, why not?

    However, given that we ended up standardizing on base 10 Arabic numerals, all of that became moot. Trying to mix half-assed base 12 with base 10 is FAR worse than just using base 10 for everything. It's willfully choosing to double down on retarded.

  16. Contract specifications for a complicated stage show that if not implemented properly could result in injury.

    True. But regularly eating M&Ms that have been pawed over by some random theater worker's unwashed hands probably presents its own risks.

  17. Re:Someone from CA explain... on Silicon Valley Billionaire Fails To Prevent Access To Public Beach (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is a public easement required across private land? At the very least, that's a "taking."

    The public easement has always been required, so no owner has ever had exclusive rights to this type of land, and nothing has been taken. You can't "take" something from a person if they don't have it in the first place.

  18. Isn't that the outfit that pioneered selling stripped-down black electronic components to audiophiles for top dollar?

  19. Analysis is incomplete on Wisconsin Won't Break Even On Foxconn Plant Deal For Over Two Decades (theverge.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Fiscal Bureau did not consider the substantial savings that the Social Security and Medicare programs will realize over the years.

    Every employee that jumps off of the roof of the factory will save the state well over $100,000 in retirement benefits that will never need to be paid, which will make the break-even point much sooner. That's why part of this deal stipulates that the plant buildings must all be at least 15m tall, and they must be directly abutted on all sides by concrete pathways.

  20. It's simple on Developers Explain Why iOS Apps Are Getting Bulkier (ndtv.com) · · Score: 2

    Apps are getting bigger because iOS devices are more powerful

    The only explanation needed is the old adage, which I have never found to be untrue:

    "Software is a gas; it expands to fill its container."

  21. You have to start somewhere. But unsurprisingly, deniers usually prefer to start at the top of this one random spike that sticks out like a sore thumb to even the most casual observer.

  22. Explain the temperature pause from 1998 to 2015.

    The explanation is that you cherry-picked the singularly hot year of 1998 as a basis.

    Try running the same analysis from 1997 or 1999, or nearly any other year in recorded history.

  23. Re:/. stop being a marketing droid! on IBM Claims Big Breakthrough in Deep Learning (fortune.com) · · Score: 1

    These machines:
    1) Do not learn - learning requires reasoning, and these machine do not reason.
    2) Do not use AI - they are not intelligent or even artificially. Again no reasoning.

    These machines are get at pattern matching

    But is "reasoning" anything more than a combination pattern matching, search and logical deduction?

  24. Re:Good Grief on Celebrate Voyager's 40th Anniversary By Beaming A Message Into Outer Space (nytimes.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    68kB of memory? Don't you mean 64kB?

    According to the Wikipedia article, the AC is right. Each probe has six computers; four with 4096 18-bit words each, and two with 8198 16-bit words each (not sure why its six over 2^13; maybe they're including CPU registers). That adds up to 557248 bits, or 68.02 KiB.

  25. Re:Lighter with Aluminium? on Startup Unveils Revolutionary New Rechargeable Alkaline Batteries (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Aluminium has a density of 2.7kg/l, Lithium is 0.53kg/l.

    I'm no battery scientist, but my impression is that Li generally provides one electron in the basic reaction, whereas Al provides three electrons, making each aluminum atom three times as effective as each lithium atom.