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User: JamieMcGuigan

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  1. Re:What about "V for Vendetta"? on Why More 'Star Wars' Actors Don't Become Stars · · Score: 1

    True, but it also took me a long time to realize that V for Vendetta was actually being played by Agent Smith.

    The issue with hiding the face it creates far less brand recognition for promoting the actor's career, for it is the mask that becomes famous and not the man. For a well established actor, this is yet another portfolio item, but it has far less ability to "launch" a career or push an actor upto the tier of movie opportunities.

  2. Cultural Solutions vs Technological Solutions on Experts: Aim of 2 Degrees Climate Goal Insufficient · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is curious that those that tend to see climate change as a urgent problem, tend to advocate cultural solutions, whereas those that see climate change as a less urgent problem tend to advocate technological solutions. The irony being that technological solutions are generally reasonably quick to invent and implement, whereas cultural solutions often take a human generation or more to take hold. For the all talk of a climate change apocalypse, technology got us into this mess and technology will get us out of it. Also don't underestimate the inventiveness of capitalism, its not very good at solving problems that will affect the next generation, but is highly focused at solving problems that affect us right now and have a direct monetary cost associated with them.

  3. Unit Tests on A Bechdel Test For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    Given that this is an generic requirement for PC (Politically Correct) software, software engineering best practice requires that this be abstracted into external library, decoupled from any code with purely orthogonal technical requirements and of course unit tested to provide the PC green tick of approval. Additionally, according to the rules of the Turing test and modern queer theory, lib.woman is legally allowed to be autogenerated by a computer that can successfully convince it's audience that not only is it human, but that it self-identifies as a woman.

    describe("diversity", function() {
    it("should pass the Bechdel test", function() {
    expect( require('woman').getAuthor().getGender() ).to.be("female");
    expect( require('woman').makeMeASandwich("sudo") ).not.to.throw(Error);
    })
    })

  4. A right to trial by your peers on Trans-Pacific Partnership Enables Harsh Penalties For Filesharing · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish this was America, I hear we would be tried by a jury of our peers and I've always seeded generously http://xkcd.com/553/

  5. Integer Overflow Donation on Elementary OS: Why We Make You Type "$0" · · Score: 1

    I thought I was being really generous with my $3 billion dollar donation, but when I checked my bank account I saw a credit for $1,294,967,297 - did I just crash the project?

  6. Re:FAA? When did the Moon become part of the USA? on FAA Could Extend Property Rights On the Moon Through Regulation · · Score: 1

    Does the US own the moon? The British conquered half the world using the law of flags, so by rights, since the US is the only country with a flag up there... Eddy Izzard explains further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  7. Re:Who eats doughnuts with the doughnut men? on Police Organization Wants Cop-Spotting Dropped From Waze App · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's BS to say it's putting cops' lives at risk, for the most part.

    Presumably anybody using this app to search for cops is going to be using it to deliberately avoid coming in contact with any cops. This outcome is actually the lowest risk outcome for any type of police encounter.

    The way this has been phrased, you would almost imagine that there are anti-police death squads roaming the city, looking for isolated police units far away from backup and slowly picking them off with a sniper rifle.

  8. You can't take away people's right to be assholes! on EFF Takes On Online Harassment · · Score: 1

    "You can't take away people's right to be assholes! That's who you remind me of... an evil Mr Rogers." - Simon Phoenix, Demolition Man

  9. Barack Obama follows 646k people on Would Twitter Make President Obama 'Follow' the Tea Party If the Price Is Right? · · Score: 2

    Well if we take the time to read just some of people in Barack Obama's 646k twitter subscription https://twitter.com/BarackObam... We will notice that this list includes Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Mister of Russia. https://twitter.com/MedvedevRu... Vladimir Putin on the other hand, only follows 9 people, all heads of state, but doesn't follow Barack Obama https://twitter.com/PutinRF_En...

  10. Re:Many people had no choice but to pirate... on Crowds (and Pirates) Flock To 'The Interview' · · Score: 1

    Technically you could use a VPN with a US exit point, enter any US postcode on the Youtube purchase form, and then make payment by paypal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  11. Re:Logic applies to all professions on Paul Graham: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In · · Score: 2

    "with only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. can only expect about 5% of great idiots to be born here"

  12. Re:They'll figure it out. on Graphene: Fast, Strong, Cheap, and Impossible To Use · · Score: 1

    The consequence of hype is that it helps kickstart the technology investment process. The major issue currently seems to be cost and quantity, as its still cheaper and easier to do things the old fashioned way. However this limitation is primarily an issue of technology, how to convert naturally abundant and cheap carbon graphite into graphine, combined with the engineering techniques to properly manipulate it. Moore's law is a good rule of thumb for measuring our general rate technological progress, so maybe we can expect the price per unit of graphine to half every couple of years, thus in a decade or two the price may be a several orders of magnitude cheaper than it is today, maybe almost as cheap as silicon wafers are today. So give it time, it will start being useful before we know it.

  13. Re:Discover life? But I know it when I see it on Why Scientists Think Completely Unclassifiable and Undiscovered Life Forms Exist · · Score: 1

    "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." - United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart

  14. Re:To their defense on Too Much Privacy: Finnish Police Want Big Euro Notes Taken Out of Circulation · · Score: 2

    Currency Density Euro vs Gold €500 Euro note (1.1g + 1440 mm^3) €454/g = 0.0022g/€ 2.88mm^3/€ = 0.347€/mm^3 Gold (€973.8/troy ounce) €31.27/g = 0.031g/€ 1.657mm^3/€ or 0.6€/mm^3 So in terms of currency density, the €500 euro note weighs 14x less than gold, but is 1.7x more voluminous.

  15. Re:just to answer the last question on FBI Says It Will Hire No One Who Lies About Illegal Downloading · · Score: 1

    Even if the polygraph is just theater, it serves the psychological purpose of a truth machine. Knowing that you are being monitored, would require a conscious choice to lie or tell the truth. This is in combination with the agencies active threat of major sanctions should it later discover a lie, however small. Thus the payoff for telling small lies is small, yet the apparent risk is high. By breaking the taboo on confessing small sins, it reduces the taboo on confessing medium sized sins. Thus the ritual requires making the upfront conscious choice as to which personal secrets are worth the risk of keeping secret (I'm a double agent) and which are non-important. Even if the test itself is not foolproof, the agent themselves will have full knowledge as to what they can be blackmailed on.

  16. Re:Looking for a blabber mouth? on FBI Says It Will Hire No One Who Lies About Illegal Downloading · · Score: 1

    Regardless of the effectiveness of the test, it a psychological ritual to establish total honesty from the individual to the agency. Once established, it makes it psychologically harder to tell small lies in the future. The only way past this test is either total honesty, or to gambit on telling a big lie (I'm actually a double agent but not telling you). Additionally in the game of secrets, blackmail is power, thus the test helps filter out individuals who may be irrevocably compromised by possible blackmail, and it helps protect agents against the threat of blackmail (the agency already knows my secrets, so you can't tell them anything new). The agency also obtains any available blackmail power over the individual in case of defection.

  17. Oil's well that ends well on Exxon and Russian Operation Discovers Oil Field Larger Than the Gulf of Mexico · · Score: 2, Funny

    Oil's well that ends well

  18. Re:Silly Peasants on Water Cannons Used Against Peaceful Anti-TTIP Protestors: the Next ACTA Revolt? · · Score: 2

    George Bush Jr replaced his father George Bush Sr. after Bill Clinton took bat for the Democrats. Hillary Clinton was only narrowly beaten by Obama on the subsequent Democrat turn, though Secretary of State does put her incharge of foreign policy. Maybe its just a statistical glitch, but while the mechanism is democracy, the result for the last 25 years has actually been two alternating US dynasties.

  19. Re:Bu the wasn't fired on Mozilla CEO Firestorm Likely Violated California Law · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While constructive discharge may technically apply, in practice it doesn't really apply to high profile roles in the public spotlight. The whole purpose of diplomatic resignation is to diffuse public attention from the issue and maintain "reputation" for future roles. Just image the media firestorm to the headline "Brendan Eich sues Mozilla for Constructive Discharge over Anti-Homosexuality views". However, from various reports online, there was a significant amount of internal conflict about the choice of the new Mozilla CEO, before this media outburst, specifically some wanted to appoint a Marketing PR person to the CEO role rather than a techie. I guess a Marketing PR person will now be appointed as the new CEO.