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User: bill_mcgonigle

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Comments · 18,097

  1. Re:One man's garbage on Nuclear Trashmen Profit From Unprecedented US Reactor Shutdowns · · Score: 1

    Is another man's gold.

    Yeah, but those other men are being turned back when they try to do the right thing for our society.

    It's funny, if you read that article, how Branson criticizes the 1994 cuts as mistaken while those men who did so have benefited grandly from doing so.

  2. Re:Crap ... on Fire At Hynix FAB May Bump DRAM Prices · · Score: 1

    You can always use more RAM anyway.

    Man, I wish that were still true. I've got mobos that won't take anything but 1.82V RAM and RAM that's rated for 2.3V that won't work in a mobo that sees it at 2.3V but will work if I push that up to 2.35V.

    In short, I've got unused RAM without mobos and unusued mobos without RAM, and that's not even counting buffered, ranked, ecc, 2/3, timings, interleavings, etc.

    Re-using RAM has become hard. I miss the days of just ripping RAM out of my Mac II to put into my 486 when I needed to render a big file.

    (above values are approximate)

  3. Non-violence, Except... on Martin Luther King Jr's Children In Court Over MLK IP · · Score: 1

    ... for stuff we can make money on, then expect to see jackbooted thugs raiding your offices if you continue to use our grandfather's public speech in public discourse without paying us.

  4. Re:Google: Not Evil, Just Cosying Up With Evil on Android 4.4 Named 'KitKat' · · Score: 1

    factories with anti-suicide nets installed on them?

    That's interesting - Foxconn already had a suicide rate below the population average, and then they did something which has apparently saved lives. Yes, we shall chastise them for doing so.

  5. Re:Seems unfeasible; point the finger; on Japanese Ice Wall To Stop Reactor Leaks · · Score: 1

    It seems like there are many reasons why this won't work. Why are they trying to beat this thing thermally? It seems unsustainable at the outset, in terms of cost and maintenance, let alone whether it will work in terms of mechanics and chemistry

    Don't worry about the costs - they can build a nuclear reactor onsite to power it. ;)

    This sounds like the technology that was used to freeze part of South Boston so they could build the Big Dig through the mud there. It does work.

    But they could be cleaning up the mess, not merely coming up (now) with a plan to contain it in two years. As I understand it, SOP is to build an on-site water-filtration system, since water cannot become radioactive, and keep cleaning and filtering until it's done.

    Japan is very good at robotics - I'd think this would be a prime opportunity to use them.

  6. Re:Google: Not Evil, Just Cosying Up With Evil on Android 4.4 Named 'KitKat' · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The guys at Apple are having a good day today. The Boycott Nestle folks (I know many, and they're not the political types, mostly educated moms) may boycott any Android device running this version, just to send the message that those who build associations with Nestle get the same treatment.

  7. Re:Alphabet on Android 4.4 Named 'KitKat' · · Score: 2

    These are people who keep KitKat bars in the fridge, what can you expect?

    The part that surprised me is that the people at Google couldn't think of another 'k' name until they happened upon a candy in the fridge when they could have Googled it:

    http://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+candies&btnI

    It doesn't sound like the whole story. Also, 'kiwi' would have been a healthier option.

  8. Re:Alphabet on Android 4.4 Named 'KitKat' · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... and yet they thought "key lime pie" was too unfamiliar?

    The Florida Key Lime Growers Association made a lower bid?

    Seriously, though, I won't break my sugar-free 'diet' for a KitKat, but wave some key lime pie in front of me ... what an opportunity to educate the masses and help farmers instead of a company that is famous for marketing infant formula as superior to breast milk in areas with unsafe drinking water.

    Is it really worth being associated with baby killing?

  9. Re:When I can buy an ebook... on Amazon Finally Bundles Ebooks With Printed Books · · Score: 1

    $59.00 for a 6 shelf tall unit. IKEA is your friend.

    Can that support books without bowing? I'm under the impression that IKEA sells meatballs and compressed sawdust, but that's just from hearsay, they don't have them around here.

  10. Re:So the value of an ebook is $3? on Amazon Finally Bundles Ebooks With Printed Books · · Score: 1

    you can "rent" a book from the public library for free

    I can't rent a *current* tech book from my public library, but if I could, the round-trip gas cost for a two-week rental is about $2.

    If somebody were willing to rent me the current book online for a month for 99 cents, I'd be a fool to not take the offer.

  11. Re:And the part that should scare most of you.... on China's Secret Scientific Megaprojects · · Score: 1

    Is what happens if china funds and develops fusion technology in the next two decades, and using it's plethora of foreign owned companies, patents/trade secrets the technology, thus giving them 30 years of control over cheap ubiquitous energy, while the rest of us fight over the ever dwindling scraps of fossil fuel?

    If they keep it all to themselves, then there won't be much impact - the rest of the economy is large enough to keep running on fossil fuels. There is plenty of natural gas around, especially if China's advances spur a competitive race (which would be good).

    If they doll out the technology politically, then it could get *very* interesting.

  12. Re:I hope China crushes the US and the EU on China's Secret Scientific Megaprojects · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is the solution to one group thinking it can "crush" the others having another group "crush" the first, or everybody learning to work with each other, regardless of which plot of land they happened to be born on?

  13. Re:Hmm... on Official: Microsoft To Acquire Nokia Devices and Services Business · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One article says the share price is down 53% during his tenure, just under three years. That's damn fine work, especially in this market!

    [aside: yes, we know pretty much everybody on Slashdot called this from day 1]

  14. Re:Firies will tell you on Building Melts Car · · Score: 5, Interesting

    yep - for the same reason, always pick up any glass bottles you find in the woods. It may be wet and rainy today, but they last a *long* time.

  15. Re:"Significant" defined on New Snowden Revelation: Terrorists Attempting To Infiltrate CIA · · Score: 1

    In other words, they either had a beard, have a "muslimy" name, or once touched somebody with a muslimy name.

    Nah, they probably favor Constitutional government, rule of law, and have a garden.

  16. Re:Trade secrets? on HTC Executives Arrested Over Leaked Trade Secrets · · Score: 2

    Yeah, the point of trade secrets is that you keep them secret, but it's your job to do so, not the public's. Having criminal laws that punish leaking of trade secrets has to be one of the worst types of fascist corporatism. If the patent system ever had any merit, even in theory, then trade secret laws would work against patents. That might even be a legal theory that could be used to defeat such laws in the US.

    Civil liability is, of course, entirely reasonable.

  17. Re:Money Maker for the Hospital on First US Inpatient Treatment Program For Internet Addiction Opening In September · · Score: 1

    "therefore I will seek expert advice and/or assistance"

    Oh, my, no, not in the Puritan ethos. Matters of the mind are to be solved individually, and any admission of an inability to do so is a sign of weakness, and perhaps moral turpitude.

  18. Re:TV addiction? on First US Inpatient Treatment Program For Internet Addiction Opening In September · · Score: 1

    How come there is no treatment for TV addiction? ... Or feeding yourself 8 hours of programme a day is considered normal?

    From people I talk to, watching 3-4 hours a day is considered very normal. They eat dinner, load the dishwasher, then sit down and tune in until it's bed time. I don't understand where they get they get this time. It's not a matter, even, of if they are going to watch TV - they'll even watch it while complaining "there's not much on tonight that's very good".

    There are very good reasons for some people to enjoy the status quo of a "fat & happy" populous, but the medical community ought to recognize this kind of behavior as harmful.

  19. Re:WTF??? on AT&T Maintains Call Database For the DEA Going Back To 1987 · · Score: 2

    and having an agent show up with papers in order

    Now, if only that were a 4th Amendment warrant that was enforcing an enumerated power, it might even be legal.

  20. Completely off Base on The Legal Purgatory at the US Border: Detained, Searched, and Interrogated · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this space between offers travelers far fewer rights

    No.

    Rights aren't offered, they're innate (or God-given, if you prefer) and can only be infringed. Until everybody is (again) well-educated enough to say, "this space is one where governments infringe rights with reckless abandon," then little progress will be made.

  21. Re:And thus the obvious is explained in detail... on The STEM Crisis Is a Myth · · Score: 1

    while nobody sees this as yet another failure of capitalism to magically optimize everything for everyone like some kind of wonder fairy.

    C'mon, only somebody with a preconceived axe to grind against capitalism would take an example of a central-planning failure and wonder why nobody sees it as an example of capitalism failing.

  22. Re:Where were the professionals. on More Bad News From Fukushima · · Score: 1

    How could such a stupid mistake be made?

    "Bring the meter that only goes up to 100 milliserverts."

    Never attribute to incompetence that which can adequately be explained by self-reinforcing emotional behavior.

  23. Re:spamassassin on Ask Slashdot: Speeding Up Personal Anti-Spam Filters? · · Score: 4, Informative

    The rules sets are updated pretty frequently - that's where the front lines of the battle are. As others have said, the engine is pretty mature.

    The question, I guess, is what do you want spamassassin to do that can't be expressed with the current rules language?

  24. Re:Neil DeGrasse Tyson may be right - now, but... on Neil deGrasse Tyson Says Private Business Will Not Open the Space Frontier · · Score: 1

    Is there even a working fusion reactor in place yet? If not, the idea is moot.

    Working, yes. Commerical? No, there's not really enough fuel. Practical? Not really - it's not commercially viable due to the lack of fuel.

    But, perhaps what you're illuminating here is that it might be the same venture that needs to do both parts of the work. They'd probably have to find a jurisdiction without oil company influence to be based out of and then find a launch facility that would be friendly. I'm not sure which one that might be.

  25. Re:More government! on Why the Japanese Government Should Take Over the Fukushima Nuclear Plant · · Score: 1

    And believe me when I say it's not easy for me to be in favor of -- I am against global government in general. Completely.

    So you probably want a global insurance pool, not a regulatory agency. The market forces would actually support this - potential payouts are so large that a global pool may be necessary.