Slashdot Mirror


User: JimSadler

JimSadler's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,896
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,896

  1. How Much? on The Largest Ship In the World Is Being Built In Korea · · Score: 0

    How much Ebola can be packed onto such a ship? And how lovely is the exhaust? But don't worry folks. If the port is too small for these big ships we simply rip up sensitive wet lands and fish breeding grounds to enlarge the ports. But on the upside the slave labor around the world can keep busy filling shipping containers with junk products from China and similar nations. And we know if the ship sinks the plastic will float endlessly.

  2. Smoke on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    If one smokes while drinking soda I suppose that less life savings will be required for retirement. But I do think there may be issues not yet discovered such as which sodas are the worst for your health. Is my orange pop as deadly as my RC Cola or Dr. Pepper?

  3. Re:Much as I despise trolls on In UK, Internet Trolls Could Face Two Years In Jail · · Score: 1

    In the US judges have stretched the definition of what is a threat by ten thousand miles. One fellow in Texas who had been put through legal hell in a child custody case remarked that if he knew then what he knows now he would have gone to a gun before he went into the legal process. The judge considered that a threat and put him in prison. The problem is that once we consider the notion of a threat in law that a cascade of nonsense is soon to follow and that cascade will bury someone alive for sure. I don't know the stats for the UK but the US has gone nuts with the numbers of people we lock up. Worse yet we fail to lock up those who are the worst of us such as the Bush regime for allowing torture of POWs or the banking community for damn near destroying our nation with the mortgage nonsense.

  4. Experience on Brain Patterns Give Clues To Why Some People Just Keep Gambling · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As far as i know i have only known one person addicted to gambling. His personality was marked by acute depression, a desire to look good to others, a tendency towards violence and a tendency to commit serious crimes such as burglary or armed robbery. He lived in misery all his life although there were times when crime paid him rather well. His background and up bringing were awful but to me his difficulties looked like a brain disorder. Sadly his type of personality does not ask for mental health treatment. And I can see why anything short of long term observation in a controlled environment would reveal his personality. He could be charming and was good at manipulating people. It has to be some form of depression very similar to manic depression when on the dark side of the illness.

  5. Waste on Cisco Exec: Turnover In Engineering No Problem · · Score: 1

    That type of thinking drives prices up and makes a company suffer in the end. Most people want far greater pay for jobs that are not permanent in nature and they just might drag their feet or not care about a job that will let them go when a project ends. And it gets around that a company doesn't mind laying off workers. Toyota became a major company by making it next to impossible to get laid off by their company. They had a lot of loyal workers as a consequence and became a major company as a result. It also helps if a firm pays more than any other firm in the business. Frankly misuse of notions of economics points to an ignorant and ill willed management and ownership of a company. In the US we have not reached the point of dealing with the reality that capitalism is a losing notion and sort of evil as well. Wake up people and look at what has been happening. The US is the last industrialized, western nation to offer public health care and it is still too limited in scope. Germany offers to provide free college for US students as well as housing and in some cases food as well. The US has a totally out of control prison population and are sort of singular in applying the death sentence to anyone. The US now has a lower standard of living than many nations and on top of all of that we have lost the respect of the world by allowing torture of POWs. Are we the new N. Korea?

  6. 4 The People ? on Florida Supreme Court: Police Can't Grab Cell Tower Data Without a Warrant · · Score: 1, Interesting

    My guess is that our government wants drugs to be sold and that those in charge of the system somehow gain either money or position by making such a decision. There is a balance of rights and the simple truth is that almost all crimes involve drugs or alcohol. Even the right to drive to work without being slaughtered by some drunk or stoned fool driving a car or truck is more basic that data from cell phone towers being private. Frankly our country has done so little to stop drugs that I don't place much faith in their claim of wanting to stop drugs. It is like illegal immigration. We could stop that with great ease if we wished. It is a no brainer. Simply insist upon every employee being checked by the authorities before any work or pay changes hands and confiscate homes or businesses that hire an illegal worker. A national ID would be of great help as well. No ID no work! The simple fact is that businesses love illegal workers a lot and they lobby to keep the borders leaking admissions.

  7. Pretenders on The Physics of Why Cold Fusion Isn't Real · · Score: 1

    Human understanding of physics is shallow and what we tend to see as laws may not be laws at all. It wasn't long ago that engineers insisted that the ability to fly did not exist in bumble bees although they all knew that the laws that they had in place were obviously inadequate as all of them could witness a bumble bee in flight. So if we observe cold fusion producing heat then it is not intelligent to go into denial. If someone can present, with formal proofs, the explanation of why cold fusion is an illusion they certainly have had decades to do so. So just why is it so difficult to offer proof of the mechanism that appears to be cold fusion? The nay sayers do have some obligation to offer up proofs or accept the work of others. Einstein had to put up with several decades of the top people in physics claiming that he was wrong. Maybe bad patterns repeat themselves from time to time.

  8. No Law At All on Court Rules Parents May Be Liable For What Their Kids Post On Facebook · · Score: 1

    Georgia is like Texas with a political and legal history that is beyond ignorant and insane. Frankly Georgia should not be allowed to have laws of its own or a court system or cops of their own. In cases like Georgia and Texas federal agencies should be in total control. These states have proven that they can not be self governing. Portions of Florida exhibit similar mind numbing legal practices.

  9. Crush The Wonderful on Michigan About To Ban Tesla Sales · · Score: 1

    The US has decomposed into a state where anything wonderful and new will be attacked and maybe crushed. We need to arrest congress people who vote for things like restraint of trade and we need Tesla to receive billions of dollars from states that have tried to crush them. We do not allow people who are in a house or senate to break the law and restrain trade and conspire to give advantage to more established companies. That is criminal in nature. So how about we drag Michigan into the federal courts and award a 100 billion dollar judgement to Tesla and dump Michigan into a cess pool for acting illegally? The same condition applies to leaders who allowed torture of foreign captives. They should have been hung as war criminals right up to and including Bush. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN NOT TORTURE PEOPLE - ever- for any reason what so ever. We also do not allow secret courts or the burial of information that is actually public property.

  10. A Way Out on FBI Warns Industry of Chinese Cyber Campaign · · Score: 2

    Consider the size of US debts to China. Consider that we could seize and keep Chinese assets for the crime of cyber espionage. Or as an alternative we could try a hack that destroys the economic system of China. Maybe China needs a formal warning that we make make them howl, gnash their teeth and cast them into darkness for eternity.

  11. Re:Scarier still.... on Scanning Embryos For Super-Intelligent Kids Is On the Horizon · · Score: 1, Informative

    That can't happen. Being a republican is not a consequence of genetic selection. It is a consequence of brain injury, lack of education or a deep seated hatred of humanity.

  12. I Prefer on ISPs Violating Net Neutrality To Block Encryption · · Score: -1, Troll

    I would like a military strong enough to not have to worry about enemies knowing our secrets. In other words any hostile action of any type against the US would mean certain elimination of the region issuing the attack. Knowing our secrets should not matter a fig. Like Babe Ruth we point at the spot and knock it out of the ball park regardless of anything that others can do. A certainty of extermination would stop any half sane attackers. Israel could employ the same tactics easily. If a small bomb is delivered to Israel and major bomb could be sent back as a reply. Although Israel must knock down illegal homes and businesses that violate bounderies. Without doing that Israel has no moral right to exist.

  13. War On The People on Pentagon Unveils Plan For Military's Response To Climate Change · · Score: 1

    As the US continues to decline we may well reach a tipping point at which riots and crime begin to run rampant. Food prices have increased severely enough already to induce anger and fear in the public. A loss of security in employment, loss of wealth due to the housing crash as well as a right wing infested congress may be just enough to cause serious chaos in the streets. With the wealthy not being prosecuted and a government unwilling to follow the law the conditions are just to ripe for a revolution or chaos. The use of torture on POWs has lost the moral high ground for the US government. Corporations do not have the respect or loyalty from most people. We have a justice system that functions wretchedly. Anyone that can recall 1970 knows how fast radical movements can grow and have massive effects upon the system. Food prices in Mexico already caused riots. The effects of pollution and global warming will push food at ever higher prices and water is becomming an ever more serious issue as well. I fear that the stage is set for a nasty era.

  14. Ebola is better on Pentagon Unveils Plan For Military's Response To Climate Change · · Score: 1

    Really Ebola isn't all that bad and it just might make people think a bit. Every day our immune systems face too many attacks. We reject most of the attacks and any losses are subtle and probably not noticable at all. But international travel is causing way too many attacks upon our immune systems and at a certain point we weaken and are vulnerable to any common germ or virus. In order to curtail all too frequent exposures to diseases we need to ban long distance travel almost completely. Or another alternative would be isolation of returning travelers for a month or two. But allowing tourism for tourism's sake is not wise at all. Jet air craft and ocean liners pollute extensively which weakens human health. It is also a waste of natural resources. And then on top of that it amounts to a high speed sickness delivery system. Then we have national security issues as well. Those cute chinese toys that load our kids brains with lead are an example. Imported food contains god knows what. All in all we need to use our TVs more and stop running all over the planet. We really do rape the environment and we are paying the price.

  15. Invite the NSA on Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Dronecode Project · · Score: 1

    They might as well invite the NSA as you can bet they will be all over this code and group anyway. It reminds me of the guy who built a cheap and effective cruise missile. First they shut him down in the US so he moved I believe to New Zealand where the US governemnt again shut him down. The missles were not armed and the guy hand machined small jet engines to push the missles and laptops for internal guidance systems. In essence he took a two million dollar machine and reduced it to an effective machine for about 50K. . Although the military does not get the point we are now building weapons we can not afford to fire and engaging in modes of war that will bankrupt our nation. Not meaning to sound unfeeling but war does reduce to the bucks spent to bodies torn apart no matter how we like to see it. This was the same as the tragedy in Vietnam. We could have fired one good nuclear missle for a couple of million bucks and saved over a decade of violence and billions upon billions of money would have been saved and on top of that we would have had zero wounded and zero dead soldiers. That war would have ended in the first ten minutes. Notions of kinder and gentler wars may be counter productive or maybe the question is quiter and gentler to who?

  16. PITA IS UNHAPPY on PETA Is Not Happy That Google Used a Camel To Get a Desert "StreetView" · · Score: 1

    PITA is always unhappy. PITA is misrable. PITA is a scew ball org. that can not discern the difference between cruelty and reality. No sane person wants animals mistreated. But the nature of PITA is such that tossing a frisbee to my dog would be seen as an assault on the dog. They are simply sick old women with amplified sensitivities many of whom seek a career with a pay check and some power. Did they ever bother to think about how many camels would exist if they were not working animals? How many chickens would be alive if we gave up eating chicken and eggs? In my area if race horses and polo horses and show horses were banned we would never see a horse. PITA simply fails the sanity test.

  17. Toss in Testosterone on Birth Control Pills Threaten Fish Stocks · · Score: 0

    Well the answer to too much estrogen is a dose of testosterone. But seriously the real issue is an out of control size of population just about everywhere. We need strict control of reproduction. Not all people should be allowed to reproduce.

  18. Yes, we were all taught that the aviation engineers knew that a bumble bee can not fly. But with cold fusion why not simply build a bit larger unit that can power a blender or even an electric drill. That demo would be rather hard to deny.

  19. Help Those Who Are In Need on Experts Decry Randomized Ebola Treatment Trials As Unethical, Impractical · · Score: 1

    I seenothing at all wrong with random treatments for conditions that are dire. A cancer patient who is near death, for whom all treatments have failed, has nothing to lose by trying an unreleased, not properly field tested, drug. Think about it. The doctors know that the patient will be dead in a week and have no good answers. It the new idea happens to kill the patient he simply will not suffer another awful week. On the other hand every now and then you have a "bingo" moment and the patient is helped or you learn the dose was too low or too high which helps the next patient. And even forgetting all of that it does another huge, good, thing. It gives the patient hope. People in the depths of dispair often feel like God and mankind have betrayed them, abandoned them or worse. Frankly they are right. Many times only a priest waits in the wee hours for that last awful gasp. Sometimes there is not even a priest. The medical staff sort of avoids the last hours of life as well as it frightens the staff as well. But that tiny bit of hope that the new treatment will work gives the patient some relief. Even lies can help. A patient who is in and out of consciousness can be told that he will have a new liver transplanted when he wakes up. For soem patients that is a mercyful lie that provides relief. For my two cents it makes good sense to gamble when all is almost lost. And we should have no restraints on the nature of pain killers or feel good types of dope for those who are passing even if such drugs speed up the death process. Morality and kindness do walk hand and hand.

  20. Re:Excellent on FBI Says It Will Hire No One Who Lies About Illegal Downloading · · Score: 1

    This program sounds like a bluff to me. You are correct in that no one would meet the hiring criteria.

  21. AND THEN on NASA Finds a Delaware-Sized Methane "Hot Spot" In the Southwest · · Score: 1

    Observing the huge size of the methane cloud the researcher tried to lite his cigarette. Problem solved.

  22. What A Weapon on The CDC Is Carefully Controlling How Scared You Are About Ebola · · Score: 2

    Imagine a suicide bomber type of person deliberately exposing themselves to Ebola and traveling to a place that he wishes to attack. Then making it a point to shake hands with a lot of people in multiple areas. But even more likely is the idea that suggesting such a plan could be placed into action would shut down economies in cities all over the world. After all, how many people will eat at a fast food joint or attend a ball game if Ebola is known to be in an area. We suufer throm the very large system vulnerability in that our society is so large and so complex that there are just so many ways we can come to harm.

  23. Short Trip mileage on Fuel Efficiency Numbers Overstate MPG More For Cars With Small Engines · · Score: 1

    A one mile trip from a cold start would be a useful number for many people. Start car, drive kids one mile and back home, turn off car and six hours later one half mile for groceries and home. This type of driving can get some awful mileage results and for some people this is 90% or better of the use of a vehicle. I think the numbers from such a test would be a real shock for many drivers. And then there are those of us who live in areas where the car AC will be running twelve months a year. Mileage with a heavy AC load will also be quite different than expected.

  24. Do The Math on Brits Must Trade Digital Freedoms For Safety, Says Crime Agency Boss · · Score: 1

    Crime and violence relate to population density. The more people per square mile in an area the more laws and secuity are needed. And now we also have a double whammy. We must not only consider population density but also wealth density and tech density as well. For example there are several spots in the US where a small area infested with radiation would lead to such a financial disaster that unusual security must exist. And then there is technology density to consider. A strike upon some areas would disrupt so much tech and tech investment that it could take down a nation. Look at the horrors caused by a failure of a few investment firms has already put upon all of us. It was done by greed and stupidity but enemy agents could have created a similar collapse and frankly they still could. As an example imagine you are set up on an island and you form a firm that offers a ghost stock. The ghost stock simply mirrors who well General Motors stocks are doing. Yet you have no overhead and can pay out a bit more than those who own real GM stock receive. Over time you build up a large following and start to control billions of dollars. And then, simply because you are an enemy, you pull the plug and collapse the value of the frim completely setting off a cascade of failures. Keep in mind that you could set up systems like this for thousands of stocks from different companies. Your ghost market could get enough power to actually control the real markets.

  25. What a weapon! on First Teleportation of Multiple Quantum Properties of a Single Photon · · Score: 1

    Thank god this requires more equipment and ability than some freak can cook up in his basement. Imagine teleporting ebola to an enemy nation. If one could release several deadly viruses into an enemies home there would be some assurance of death. HIV, ebola, TB, and Malaria all infested into a home environment with a touch of anthrax and I think we could count on a lethal result. Teleportation gives a whole new meaning to germ warfare.