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User: bill_mcgonigle

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  1. Re:Clearly losing money? on The Hobbit and Game of Thrones Top Most Pirated Lists of 2013 · · Score: 1

    If they don't release the movie where you live, then just watch some other movie, or play some other game.

    Or volunteer at your local soup kitchen ... actual reality-based entertainment.

  2. Re:So, next piece of equipment for molecular gastr on What Would French Fries Taste Like If You Made Them On Jupiter? · · Score: 1

    But how to distribute the AC power - rotors and brushes?

    Scratch that - Tesla wireless power distribution. The image of AB standing in front of this thing with lightning bolts emanating from the top while it spins with hot oil frying french fries is something I'd put on continuous loop for a daily moment of Zen.

  3. Re:Olive oil? on What Would French Fries Taste Like If You Made Them On Jupiter? · · Score: 1

    Then you weren't taught very well as olive oil is routinely used for for sauteing.

    Oilve oil is terrific for sauteing, but French fries aren't sauteed, they're deep-fat fried. The temps are higher, which informs your choice of oils (especially if your tolerances aren't very tight).

  4. Re:Olive oil? on What Would French Fries Taste Like If You Made Them On Jupiter? · · Score: 1

    That may be, but if you want truly great fries use suet. It may kill you, but at least you'll die happy.

    Saturated fats won't kill you - omega 6's and hydrogenated vegetable oils will. Full disclosure: I've recently started rendering my own lard from fatback with crockpots. The home-made Bisquick substitute makes better 5-minute biscuits than the factory stuff.

  5. Re:So, next piece of equipment for molecular gastr on What Would French Fries Taste Like If You Made Them On Jupiter? · · Score: 2

    I'm eagerly awaiting Alton Brown's commandeering of a playground roundabout with deep fryers lashed to the bars and an '01 Kia minivan's power wheel providing the input power.

    But how to distribute the AC power - rotors and brushes?

  6. Re:Dear Nvidia... on Intel Releases 5,000 Pages of Open-Source Haswell Documentation · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What I wonder is what really makes it harder / impossible for Nvidia or whomever to do it but works for Intel? If anything.

    The standard rumor is that they they all violate bogus patents rampantly and only by keeping their code secret (and possibly backdoored) can they stay afloat, in face of the patent trolls.

    A deep cynic might claim that Intel can survive more of these trolls than nVidia could so this could be a competitive move. IIRC Intel and nVidia had a cross-licensing deal that involved Intel staying out of the discrete market - maybe that's due to expire soon.

  7. once they are made legal, politicians (even the opposition) will no longer be much interested in attacking or exposing individual schemes, they will be attacking the legislation.

    Not just that, but Sen. Ron Wyden believes that if they are able to gain such a foothold, the "Business as Usual Brigade" will use it to justify non-terrorism related surveillance of the people.

    The linked keynote above is a must-listen for folks who are following this issue closely.

  8. Re:Facebook was never for teenagers. . . on Researchers Claim Facebook Is 'Dead and Buried' To Many Young Users · · Score: 1

    . It was initially for college students, then it branched out to high school students and finally it branched out to older users

    TFTFY.

    As another person posted, Facebook has lots of features. So do things like rich e-mail clients. Most children don't have complex needs. Snapchat does not have a rich feature set, nor did AIM before it.

  9. Re:JSON on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Implement Wave Protocol Self Hosted? · · Score: 1

    It might stop egoistic developers from working on it.

  10. Re:call them on Ask Slashdot: Getting an Uncooperative Website To Delete One's Account? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Common advice for getting that big social networking site to respond to requests is to mail a paper letter to their HQ, possibly attn: legal affairs. Apparently the success rate is very high.

  11. Re:Is this really "rolling the dice"? on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 1

    Many of the guys already have their beds filled with sandbags. A few bolt layers of 1" sheetmetal down.

    I guess one way of looking at it is that this truck needs 15 more sandbags. But if the bed is already full up to the rails, there's nowhere to put them.

  12. Re:Is it that hard to include a capacitor? on Power-Loss-Protected SSDs Tested: Only Intel S3500 Passes · · Score: 1

    If you're willing to give up some performance, you can often run the firmware in a "slower but more reliable" mode

    How do you configure this?

  13. Re:Is it that hard to include a capacitor? on Power-Loss-Protected SSDs Tested: Only Intel S3500 Passes · · Score: 1

    I'm still trying to process the fact that there are new SSDs that DON'T have ultracaps

    you're talking about the vendors that put those jmicron controllers in products that they sold and warrantied.

  14. Re:WE noticed this as well... on Power-Loss-Protected SSDs Tested: Only Intel S3500 Passes · · Score: 1

    of all SSD's over the last 2 years purchased here, only Intel drives are still in use, All other brands suffered failures and required one or more warranty replacements.

    In my case, the Intel MLC SSD's were the last to fail (Kingston the first, Transcend second to last), and the Intel SLC SSD's are still going strong, after a few years. We didn't have any non-Intel SLC's in the sample.

  15. Clemens and Copyright on Sherlock Holmes Finally In the Public Domain In the US · · Score: 2

    There's no grave gymnastics to be had here. Clemens had planned to add to his stories over time, so that people would want to preferentially purchase his editions over the free-culture versions. He didn't want to sit on his laurels while jackbooted thugs ensured him a rent-seeking income - he was, after all, a writer.

    Today, those against the Copyright regime frequently propose similar strategies.

  16. Re:Make it nearly 70 on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 1

    Good to know, thanks.

  17. Re:Solar power is subsidy of rich on Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy · · Score: 1

    in fairness, neither has any other administration since about 1969.

    Yep, though the Clinton/Gore/Kerry/O'Leary gang gets an honorable mention for actively killing the demonstration reactors and the Bush/Cheney/DeLay/Frist gang for not doing anything about it. Now that there's commercial interest, we get to credit Obama/Biden/Reid/Boehner for keeping the big oil companies in charge.

  18. What a Stream of Horseshit on US Federal Judge Rules NSA Data Collection Legal · · Score: 3

    [assuming the summary is accurate] each of the main points can be easily shown to be factually incorrect and logically incoherent. We've done this a thousand times here, so it's not useful to do it again.

    What people should realize here is that the "Justice" system is in place to, primarily, protect the power structure. If you're still accepting that "justice is blind" and "rule of Law" fairy tale they taught in government schools, it's time to wake up and smell the tyranny.

    Just watch - when it gets there SCOTUS will put a very mild restraint on the NSA to placate the masses and give cover to the politicos and leave the majority of the programs in place. Note that making such a prediction does not depend on interpretation of The Law - The Law will be be bent to achieve the per-ordained outcome.

    When that happens, you'll have to decide if you're going to do anything substantive about it. Now's the time to think about what that might (or might not) be.

  19. Re:Is this really "rolling the dice"? on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 1

    The dice rolling is the market reaction to buying a lighter truck. I totally see why people who buy an F150 to go to Sam's Club want a 700-lb lighter vehicle.

    But how about if you're pushing a large bank of snow? Or pulling stumps?

    I have far more faith in the engineers than the market research department. If I had to guess, though, they found that more of the latter types want 250's or 350's since the price of the 150 is so high anyway.

  20. Re:Most popular vehicle? Wow... on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 0

    I've never needed to carry anything that my Freelander couldn't handle.

    So you're alive because other people (farmers) grow your food and build your shelter? Ever move a 500 gallon water tank in your Freelander?

    Don't begrudge those same people the tools they need. And it takes a great many people and a great number of those tools (and yes, a great many barrels of fuel) to feed seven billion people.

  21. Re:Make it nearly 70 on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 2

    F150s can be for work, but the majority of people I see buying them never put anything heavier then ikea furniture in the back and would not even know where the hitch is.

    You live in suburbia? To be fair, many farmers will prefer a 350, but a 150 is good to have too when it takes a couple hours' drive to get to the other side of the ranch.

  22. Re:Make it nearly 70 on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 1

    you might want a Defender

    Looks like they're on the way out - what else do people buy in that class? I've always had a romantic fascination with them but couldn't figure out how people bet their lives on them in the desert but my friends in the US with Range Rovers are always having the things die due to some electrical or mechanical problem.

    http://www.autoblog.com/2013/10/10/land-rover-ending-defender-production-after-67-years/

  23. Re:eh ? on Apple Again Seeks Ban On 20+ Samsung Devices In US · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How does that work ?

    Corporatism/fascism. Oh, wait, you mean that rhetorically, didn't you?

  24. Re:yes and no on Memo To Parents and Society: Teen Social Media "Addiction" Is Your Fault · · Score: 2

    I'm on the receiving end of this. I need to be reachable due to work contracts (or my phone would be off a lot of the time) but since it's on, my wife calls me whenever she gets a change of pace (out of work, before a meeting, etc.) and gets upset if she can't reach me.

    I try to explain that when I was a kid, my friends' dads would leave at 5:30 to head to the city, might be able to be reachable by secretary, or might not, and would get home around 7PM. The husband and wife would review what needed to be talked about after dinner (8-ish). Bedtime was 10 and they had the weekends. But somehow that doesn't apply today/

    Frankly, I saw their relationships as stronger than my contemporaries'. Maybe that was just perception or selection bias, but most of them are still together (or widow[er]ed) and the divorce rate among my contemporaries is approaching half. I wonder if pervasive (invasive?) communications is fostering co-dependence.

  25. Re:Does this make me think twice about it? on Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy · · Score: 1

    Yeah, a couple/few years ago the energy to produce a panel fell blow the energy that it would produce over its lifetime.

    it appears you are referring to actually generating more energy than it took to produce

    What's the distinction?