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User: RuffMasterD

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  1. Re:Who is this guy Al on AI Will Create New Jobs But Skills Must Shift, Say Tech Giants (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 2

    He is the one who will create more Jobs. Apple workers were lucky to have Jobs, but I hear they are happier now. I am concerned that my company may use Al to create more Jobs.

  2. Alexa: pull my finger on South Park's Season Premier Sets Off Everyone's Amazon Echo (maxim.com) · · Score: 2

    I don't have a significant other, you insensitive clod! And speaking of lonely, it brings me joy knowing that at least Amazon is listening to me fart loudly in bed.

  3. Re:EBT... a good idea, but... on How Techies Rescued Food Stamps (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    Toilet paper tables? They expand to fill your stomach with long lasting fibre, and then wipe you on the way out too.

  4. Re:What I do to Google... apk on Creator of Opera Says Google Deliberately Undermined His New Vivaldi Web Browser (wired.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    Quiet in the cheap seats! How dare you stop a perfectly good /. bum fight with your flawless logic. I want to see the show.

  5. Software parents? on Kaspersky Lab Forces 'Patent Troll' To Pay Cash To End Case (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Why stop there? Investigate their partners too. Heck, investigate their whole family.

  6. Re:Came here to say that... on Bitcoin Foundation Boss Urges Cautious Investment (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    For a bit of historical context, Zimbabwe had 79.6 billion percent inflation in November 2008. That was AFTER declaring inflation illegal and arresting a bunch of people for raising prices. They abandoned their currency completely and use US$ now, but I wouldn't blame Zimbabweans for being a bit skittish of government controlled currencies since then. Bitcoin would have been an attractive alternative if it was available at the time.

  7. Re:The same tech that produces MREs? on Military Tech Could Be Amazon's Secret To Cheap, Non-Refrigerated Food (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. There's a guy on youtube who finds old military rations, unpacks them, and then eats them. It's surprising what's still out there unopened. He tried US C rations from the Vietnam war, and US and UK rations from the second world war. Even an American civil war hardtack cracker. There is something morbidly fascinating about watching a guy sniff old rations, dry heave, take a bite, claim it tastes OK, then the after-taste makes his throat burn, and then take another bite anyway just to be sure.

  8. Re:The same tech that produces MREs? on Military Tech Could Be Amazon's Secret To Cheap, Non-Refrigerated Food (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Been there. Once I came back from training and passed a brick so heavy that it refused to flush. That was embarrassing. Especially for the guy who found it.

  9. Re:This should not be a surprise on Apple is About To Do Something Their Programmers Definitely Don't Want (medium.com) · · Score: 1

    Several IT people have given me a blank stare when I mention BSD under the hood. If IT people don't get it, you can imagine how little the average user knows. Apple hasn't exactly been shouting the fact that half their OS is free. Apple wouldn't want fans to question the value for money they get from Mac OS GUI when they figure out the underlying FreeBSD really is free in every sense.

  10. Re:EU shot themselves in the face on Free Movement of EU Citizens To Britain Will End in 2019 (standard.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the NHS will perform much better once the 26% of doctors who are non-British have left. More jobs for Brits. Genius. [/sarcasm]

    Good luck. Europe won't shed a tear for the UK.

  11. A 1984 meta-analysis found an IQ to job performance correlation coefficient ranging from 0.2 to 0.6, meaning that between 4% and 36% of the variance in job performance can be explained by IQ. Other factors account for the rest of the variance.

    For income, the research consensus of correlation coefficients appear to ranging between 0.4 and 0.5, meaning that between 16% and 25% of income variance can be explained by IQ. An individual's location, inherited wealth, race, education, perseverance, and social connections are more important factors than IQ.

  12. Yes. Try astrology, theology, or homoeopathy. All of them have been around a long time, are well studied, and are based entirely on magic thinking. Physicians believed that disease was spread by Miasma ("bad air" from rotting organic matter) since antiquity until about 130 years ago.

    IQ tests persist because companies spend truck-loads of money every year to 'objectively' choose the best candidates from long lists of applicants. If it suited my vested interests to do so, then I would sell these tests too. Heck, if you pay me enough, I will pretend that creationism has merit.

  13. Re:Abandonware or an escaped experiment? on Mysterious Mac Malware Has Infected Hundreds of Victims For Years (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Possible. Or the author could be aiming for specific targets. Who uses those Macs? Where I work, only high income employees are issued Macs. Directors, management accountants, senior staff, etc. Everyone else is issued PCs. Listening in on meetings, taking screenshots, and recording keystrokes of a few people would be sufficient to gain a competitive advantage.

  14. Re:No rants? on Linus Torvalds Now Reviews Gadgets On Google+ (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    To me, the rants ARE the good stuff. It's what he's good at.

    I see he hasn't reviewed the iPhone yet. That can't be a good sign. Maybe he tried to replace a dead battery, or plug in headphones. Does he think the designers were high when they made those decisions? How does Linus resists the urge to rant about some gadgets?

  15. Re: As a programmer for over forty years... on Open Source Contributions More Important Than Tabs Vs Spaces For Salary (opensource.com) · · Score: 1

    Bah! Ed, the standard text editor, doesn't need any of that crap. The interface in Ed is so clean that there is no room for ambiguity. Tabs tab, and spaces space, the way they were designed to. As for separating content and presentation, I don't have time to switch between the two. In Ed, the content IS the presentation.

    When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi and Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like, ‘C-h for help’ and ‘“foo” File is read only’. So I use the editor that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

    Ed, man! !man ed

    ED(1) Unix Programmer's Manual ED(1)

    NAME
    ed - text editor

    SYNOPSIS
    ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
    DESCRIPTION
    Ed is the standard text editor.
    ---

    Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed because it's ED!

    “Ed is the standard text editor.”

    And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
    -rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

    Of course, on the system I administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

    “Ed is the standard text editor.”

    Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

    golem$ ed

    ?
    help
    ?
    ?
    ?
    quit
    ?
    exit
    ?
    bye
    ?
    hello?
    ?
    eat flaming death
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^C
    ?
    ^D
    ?
    ---

    Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

    “Ed is the standard text editor.”

    Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

    ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!

    When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a “viitor”. Not a “emacsitor”. Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!

    TEXT EDITOR.

    When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their “edlin” on a Unix standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

    Ed is for those who can remember what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED “VISUAL” EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

  16. Epic way to die on Ask Slashdot: Are We Living In the Golden Age of Bailing? (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Cellist Mike Edwards died instantly when the 50-stone cylindrical bale careered down a slope, flipped 15ft over a hedge and smashed on to the roof of his van.

    Holy shit! Hands down the best way to die I have seen in a very long time.

  17. I don't undersatand the logic behind this on 'Call For a Ban On Child Sex Robots' (bbc.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How do you go from a fundamental assumption that 'sex with children is wrong' to 'sex with robots that looks like children is wrong'?

    - Sex with children is wrong, therefore sex with robots is wrong? Fail.
    - Sex with robots is wrong, therefore sex with robots who like like children is wrong? Fail.
    - Paedophilia is wrong, therefore paedophiles should not have sex with robots? Fail.
    - Robots are children, and sex with children is wrong, therefore sex with robots which look like children is wrong? Fail.
    - People who have sex with robots which look like children will become paedophiles? No evidence.
    - Paedophiles who have sex with robots which look like children are more likely to have sex with real children? No evidence.
    - The thought of having sex with child like robots makes me uncomfortable, mmmkay? Bingo.

  18. Re:What the hell is wrong with this idiot? on 'Call For a Ban On Child Sex Robots' (bbc.com) · · Score: 2

    Interesting, but you completely missed the whole point where this is about people fucking ROBOTS.

  19. Re:500,000 Euros? on Vertu, Phone-Maker To the Rich, Says It's Broke (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 2

    CEO earns $480,000 per month. Everyone else earns $5000 per month.

  20. What did Ohio ever do to anyone? I can understand Washington or New Jersey, but Ohio?

  21. Sorry officer... on Texting While Driving Now Legal In Colorado -- In Some Cases (kdvr.com) · · Score: 1

    Me: I was merely texting while driving in a way that is pathologically reckless and needlessly put people peoples lives at risk. Can I go now?

    Officer: You're in Colorado, of course you can.

  22. Re:The headline is not consistent with the article on Kim Dotcom Loses Latest Battle To Recover Seized Assets (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    More like Men in Black. Going by the name and shape of the guy, there's definitely more than one illegal alien hiding in there :-D

  23. Re:The headline is not consistent with the article on Kim Dotcom Loses Latest Battle To Recover Seized Assets (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    NZ and USA are quite chummy. If the US really wanted to get him, they could just send a couple of agents and take him. And if the taxpayers are so damn upset about the cost of these court cases, then maybe they could...I don't know...drop the case or something. Nobody put a gun to our collective head, forcing us to hand our money over. Which is what the US appears to have done to Kim Dotcom. "Hey, we got your money. Come and get it!". Good old fashioned extortion.

  24. Re:If only all of us would stop committing felonie on At $75,560, Housing a Prisoner in California Now Costs More Than a Year at Harvard (latimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Meh. Airforce pilots are expendable now that we have relatively cheap drones controlled from comfortable offices in the US.

  25. I think the point is that it is cheaper to educate these people once for three or four years so they can get decent jobs and make a positive contribution to society, than it is to incarcerate them repeatedly for the rest of their lives.

    People who have a low quality of life don't have much to lose by committing crimes (low opportunity cost). They either succeed with the crime and improve their shitty quality of life a little, or they get caught and given free accommodation, food, clothing, utilities, etc.

    But if we give these people an education, then they can get a decent job, buy a car, find a partner, get a mortgage, and suddenly they feel like they have something to lose if they were incarcerated for a crime (high opportunity cost). It's the carrot approach that keeps the middle class in check.

    Of course some people are a hopeless cause, so we keep running prisons as a last resort for such people, but such a scheme might just end up being cheaper in the long run.