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User: overshoot

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  1. You kill the wealth creators, wealth stops being created. Simple, no?

    Precisely. If it weren't for Bill Gates, nobody would have software.

  2. Re:Remind me why... on Al-Qaeda Calls For the Execution Of Bill Gates and Others To 'Damage the US Economy' (betanews.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can anyone remind me why it's bigoted to point out that most of the terrorism in the world is Islamic?

    Because if it's not being done by Muslims, we call it something else.

  3. The terrorist group says that murdering high ranking people can damage the U.S. economy.

    They've been reading waaaaaaay too much Ayn Rand.

  4. Headline correction on MPAA Wants ISPs to Disconnect Persistent Pirates (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    s/Persistent Pirates/Repeatedly Accused Pirates/

  5. And people ask me on Nest Reminds Customers That Ownership Isn't What It Used To Be (eff.org) · · Score: 2

    why I refuse to put any of my home systems under control of anything that depends on the Net to function. I've been looking for simple Bluetooth-enabled thermostats (etc.) for a long time, and Nest is not the solution.

  6. Fair use on Should All Research Papers Be Free? (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Yes, fair use makes exceptions for small numbers of copies etc. in education.

    But here's the thing: fair use can be brought up as a defense at trial -- but first you have to go to the (very large) expense of getting to trial in the first place.

  7. Re:Serious question - why not just publish to publ on Should All Research Papers Be Free? (nytimes.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    My serious question is: what is to prevent individual researchers from just publishing what they have as a PDF or WordPress article on a random site on the Internet?

    In order to be published, they have to sign over either the copyright or exclusive rights. Which generally includes even giving their students copies of their own papers.

  8. And those paywalls are durable on Should All Research Papers Be Free? (nytimes.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recently did a paper on Albert Michelson -- who died in 1931, so all of his papers have actually been in the public domain for more than a decade.

    Despite this, I had to do some hunting to find copies that weren't paywalled, even back into the 1880s. Props where due, though -- the Harvard University library collection is excellent, high-resolution, and wide open.

  9. To quote Admiral Akbar: on DoD Announces New Bug Bounty Program Called Hack the Pentagon (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    I don't really need to spell it out, do I?

  10. Re:legalism is a crap philosophy. on Homemade Speed Trap Made By Former UVA CS Professor (cvilletomorrow.org) · · Score: 1

    Because, of course, the great majority of people carefully analyze the potential hazards that might appear on a road, such as cars backing out of driveways, and slow down to a speed that allows time to avoid collisions.

    That's why, for instance, nobody ever runs into boulders on the road when driving around curves on mountain roads -- they know that turn very well and regardless of the silly regulatory 40 mph sign they know it's perfectly safe at 65.

  11. I like the small-town Mexican solution on Homemade Speed Trap Made By Former UVA CS Professor (cvilletomorrow.org) · · Score: 4, Funny

    Take some discarded automotive parts (coil spring, shock absorber) and fine steel cable (the original reputedly used piano wire) and run it across the road under tension a few inches above the pavement. Go over it slowly (with the speed set by the shock absorber) and you never notice it's there. Go too fast and it slices the tire right off of the rim.

  12. Re:Plan B on Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over · · Score: 1

    Most nontrivial electrical loads are intermittent: refrigerators, stoves, heating, air conditioning, clothes dryers, etc.

    Ideally a homeowner would provision to meet his average load during peak load times, but due to the fact that his short-term peak is greater than the average, he would be paying retail for the peaks and getting wholesale for the valleys.

    That's an opportunity for arbitrage: pool the loads of a neighborhood and the peaks and valleys get smaller relative to the average, thus saving money.

  13. Depends on how you measure "*their" needs." on Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over · · Score: 2

    The folks who sized solar generation to meet *their* needs aren't harmed by this change.

    If you mean "minimum load" then, yes, they're ahead because they never send any to the grid in the first place. If you men "their average load," not so -- they're paying for the extra KW when the air conditioning kicks on and getting back a fraction when the AC is off.So in the course of an hour, they're behind by quite a bit.

  14. Re:Government should not pick winners and losers. on Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over · · Score: 1

    There absolutely is a market, just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there.

    The most basic characteristic of a market is that there are multiple buyers and sellers who negotiate prices by going elsewhere if they don't like what they're offered. And this applies to the situation you describe ... how?

  15. Re:Forbes continues to not like Ablock on Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over · · Score: 1

    OT (but yeah, it doesn't matter if you block or not -- they still won't serve me. Maybe because their malware doesn't run on Linux.)

  16. Plan B on Gambling State Says the Solar Gamble Is Over · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If utilities don't do retail metering, consumers can get similar results by pooling their loads. Solar cogeneration is short-term steady while most domestic loads are intermittent, which means that over an hour a consumer might be a net provider to the grid but get charged amost as much as without cogeneration.

    On the other hand, a buyers' co-op smooths out the load variations and approaches the effects of net retail metering. Which is appropriate, because (unlike wholesale rates) cogeneration does not put extra load on the grid.

    If utilities don't adapt to these realities in a more realistic way than offering wholesale (i.e. solar plant) rates to cogeneration providers, they're likely to see a lot of pressure for cities and especially smaller towns taking over last-mile electrical distribution to get the same effect.

    This last is not completely hypothetical; at least one Sunbelt town (mine) is moving in that direction.

  17. Because many school districts pay a premium to teachers of STEM subjects (and more for AP and Honors courses) the teaching slots for those classes are highly sought-after. The result is that they go to the teachers who have clout (seniority, connections, etc.) regardless of their actual ability to even understand the material.

    Example: my kids' high school AP calculus class was taught by someone who had never taken a college-level math class, while another teach with a math PhD was stuck with remedial classes. Great way to retain bright and idealistic STEM teachers, that.

  18. Bad guys on FBI Admits It Uses Stingrays, Zero-Day Exploits (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The FBI has a long history of keeping an eye on bad guys. Martin Luther King, Jr., political protesters, Black Lives Matter, ...

  19. Re:Good Bye SSA & the US Economy on Harvard Prof. Says Cure For Aging Could Emerge Within 5 Years (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    But more and more of them are by no means able to do any meaningful work anymore by the time they hit 60.

    Say what? Look, I've been defending retirement at 65 for a long time because there are too many jobs (think roofers and miners) that are too physically demanding to keep up. On the other hand, I have professors who are past 70 and still scary sharp. One who gets around with a walker but can reason rings around people half his age in his field (materials physics.)

    The thing is, it depends

  20. And availablle in 20 or 30 on Harvard Prof. Says Cure For Aging Could Emerge Within 5 Years (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    It's not like the clinical trials can be run in much less time.

  21. Re:Store SOME work data in the laptop on Ask Slashdot: Securing a Journalist's Laptop Against a Police Search? · · Score: 1

    Everyone should have at least a few files that are encrypted random bits. Big ones. Just to make sure that the snoops suffer for being dicks.

  22. Re:Trickery. on Ask Slashdot: Securing a Journalist's Laptop Against a Police Search? · · Score: 1

    Yes, it's possible to find MicroSDs -- if you do a full-up fine-tooth-comb search. Which takes hours and pretty much destroys everything in its path. If you've really pissed off the Powers That Be, they might. Then again, they've probably done the same thing to your office, home, car, and anything else you've been near recently anyway so why start worrying at the airport?

    Otherwise, the major danger is that your brand-new Alienware machine looks like it would be better off in someone else's collection and the "confiscation for the sake of search" is just an excuse. Which is why you're better off without it (get another on arrival) or at least leaving the hard drive at home. The MicroSD chips aren't what they're after and finding the one in the heel of your shoe is more trouble than it's worth.

  23. Short answer on Ask Slashdot: Securing a Journalist's Laptop Against a Police Search? · · Score: 1

    Don't have a drive in it. Don't have bits that they can claim to find suspicious. No excuses, because even (or perhaps especially) if they don't find anything on your laptop they'll confiscate it anyway to have the boys back at the shop take it apart ten ways from Sunday.

    When you arrive, buy a new drive and load it up. How? Well, if you're visiting a field (or home) office, they'll have a disk image handy for you to use. If there are private bits that you haven't shipped over yet (SRSLY? They travel faster than you do, after all) then you can take them along. The border peeps aren't interested in doing cavity searches on everyone, after all, and short of shredding all of your clothing as well as the rubber-glove treatment they're not likely to find a micro-SD.

  24. Re:This will work until...... on Point-And-Shoot Weapon Stops Drones Without Destroying Them · · Score: 1

    And this is a problem because ... ?

  25. Re:This will work until...... on Point-And-Shoot Weapon Stops Drones Without Destroying Them · · Score: 1

    "Return to Base" is still a mission kill from a police perspective. As long as it's not taking embarrassing videos, whatever else it does is fine.