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User: JWSmythe

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  1. Re:This is VERY old news on Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline · · Score: 2, Interesting

        There should be a warning. I drink soda. Lots and lots of soda. It's like sipping coffee for 16 hours straight. Well, sipping 16+ cups of coffee over 16 hours.

        I was at work late one night. I ran out of soda, and I had no change for the vending machine. The coffee machine was sitting there saying "You can drink me. Come on, you know you need the fix. Just turn me on, and brew yourself a pot."

        Apparently I'm no good at brewing coffee. I drank 4 cups of very strong coffee in an hour, and then I was finished my work for the night. I drove home with my eyes jittering so bad I could barely see straight. I spent the following few hours bouncing off the walls like a speed junkie. I got another week's worth of work done that night, plus cleaned the whole house.

  2. Re:Makes sense on Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline · · Score: 1

        Some of us do. :) I drink more caffeine in soda than most coffee drinkers do. It's easier to keep a small fridge in the office beside my desk, and drink at will, than to keep brewing pots of coffee all day.

  3. Re:The truth about caffeine on Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline · · Score: 4, Funny

        Who's there to greet you in the morning? Caffeine.

        Who's there to keep you company through the day? Caffeine.

        Who will take long road trips with you, without complaining about your driving? Caffeine.

        Who will keep you company on a long night of programming without complaining that you aren't paying attention to them? Caffeine.

        Who won't complain when you share your time with her sister, Nicotine? Caffeine.

        I think you have a point there, sir. Caffeine is our true love.

  4. Re:The truth about caffeine on Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline · · Score: 1

        I can confirm that dehydration isn't the only cause of caffeine withdrawals. When I quit, I drank lots of water, and some assorted sport drinks. I avoided the sport drinks, because I was trying to keep my sugar intake down. Reduction in sugar was my goal of quitting caffeine (soda). The elimination of caffeine was just a bonus.

  5. Re:The truth about caffeine on Caffeine Addicts Get No Additional Perk, Only a Return To Baseline · · Score: 2, Interesting

        I'll concur, caffeine withdrawal does exist. My poison isn't coffee, it's soda. But, at several liters a day, my consumption matched or beat yours.

        I don't think the reporting of it is because it doesn't exist elsewhere. It's more likely that they take advantage of their copious sick days, and/or simply never quit.

        I've quit drinking it a few times. Every time, after about 12 to 16 hours of not consuming any, I end up with a migraine bad enough to wish my head would just hurry up and explode. Sensitivity to noise and light was so bad I'd lock myself in a dark room, and curse at anyone who came near me, followed by cursing about all the noise I was making. Last time I did it, I was staying with someone, who force fed me a glass of soda, because I looked like I was in such pain.

        After that, I found it rather difficult to find places that didn't serve soda as their primary beverage (except bars). Once I quit, I was strong willed for a while. I refused anything. Try going to a fast food establishment and ordering a large water. You'll get some really dumb looks, as if you're speaking a foreign language. In my quitting, I was avoiding any drinks with sugar or caffeine. And no, sugar free caffeine free soda wasn't an acceptable substitute. I can't drink anything with sugar substitutes without getting an almost instant migraine. I usually can't tell the difference between the taste of sugar drinks and sugar free synthetically sweetened drinks, but I'll be able to tell you about it for the next 6 to 8 hours while I suffer from a migraine almost as bad as the caffeine withdrawal.

        I'm sure I'll try again someday. I'm just not looking forward to the couple days of migraines because of it.

  6. Re:Scary on Software Describes Surveillance Footage In AI-Generated Text · · Score: 1

        There's an easier fix to that, which I've seen DOT use. Instead of leaving the shoulder open the whole way to a ramp, they put K-rails and drums full of water before the offramp. Nothing stops a vehicle like tons of water and concrete. :)

        If they do stop first, most people are good about not letting them in right away. They may have to wait for a dozen or more cars to pass before they can get back into traffic. If not, the damage to their car would be much more than a $90 fine. :)

  7. Re:Fail on Son of CueCat? Purdue Professor Embeds Hyperlinks · · Score: 1

        I think the problem with this is still the same as the old Cuecat problem. What happens when their master plan folds? Now you have a bunch of media out there with embedded barcodes leading off to a web site that's now defunct. It's as useful as finding an old thread that says "click here for the solution", which is a dead site.

        Someone else posed the idea that the barcode could be the compressed data for the information you were seeking. i.e., a barcode on a tire which holds the tire specs. The problem with that is still, when you're at an old gas station in the middle of nowhere that doesn't even have a phone much less an Internet connection, and there's no cell service to be had for 100 miles in any direction, how much air do you add to your tires? :) Scan here isn't quite as helpful then. I know the tire example is a poor one, not only because it's a car analogy, but the data is printed in plain English on the tire also. :)

        This idea will die off. The links will be worthless again, and in another decade someone else will have this novel idea to barcode everything again.

  8. Re:The Government? on Washington Wants 10,000 Web Surfers · · Score: 2, Interesting

        Nope, you don't dispose of anything, because as you indicated, you'll be busted for tampering with evidence.

        Tell them "Not without a warrant, and I'm not talking without my lawyer", go inside, pour yourself a nice cold (non-alcoholic) drink. Then go sit on the porch smile and wait for your lawyer to arrive and for the judge to say no to the warrant because they didn't have just cause for the search in the first place. If they had cause in the first place, they wouldn't have tried to search without a warrant.

        With your lawyer present, they'll have to stick with the letter of the law. Make sure they do everything as required. If your state requires, upon request, that they read every word of the warrant to you before searching, make them read it.

        This doesn't make it so you were avoiding the law. It doesn't make you look guilty. With your lawyer present, you were following the letter of the law for your own protection. So what if they take your shovel, duct tape, rope, and hand tools? If they can't directly tie your property to the crime scene, it's circumstantial, and will be argued so by your lawyer.

        If you're innocent, it will only serve to help you. You were protecting your rights as a citizen of the United States of America. If you are guilty, well, you do deserve to get caught, and it will only show that they did everything correctly.

        Years ago, a friend of mine had the police show up wanting to search the house. It was the morning after a big party. Guests were still sleeping around the house. He required them to follow the law to the letter (including reading the warrant out loud before entering). They did manage to get a judge to sign off on the probable cause warrant, but they didn't find anything related to the warrant. They tried to ask party guests who they were, which was generally followed by a hung over "Fuck you. I'm sleeping. Go away." They tried a few other times, which met with the same result. In reality, what they were trying to find simply didn't exist there.

        You never have to take police harassment laying down. Make them do their jobs properly, and you've created a nice long paper trail of the abuse. When you go to sue the police for harassment, you can now show a half dozen searches that didn't find any evidence. Now you go from being the defendant to being the plaintiff. Always take down names, badge numbers, get a copy of the warrant(s), and take notes of what they do. The police use their notes in court, and you should too.

        I've had the police want to search my car without a warrant. I've told them, "I'd prefer if you don't, but if you feel you must you could obtain a warrant. It's ok, I'll wait." I've never had them get a warrant. The warrant still has to be specific to what they're looking for. If they get a warrant for "illegal drugs and paraphernalia", and they find something else, it's not admissible as evidence. Of course, if they find a bloody knife, they can obtain another warrant which will likely be expanded to include your residence and surrounding property.

        (IANAL, and your jurisdiction may be different. Talk to a defense lawyer where you live for jurisdiction appropriate advice.)

  9. Re:Too good to be true? on Washington Wants 10,000 Web Surfers · · Score: 1

    He learned the wrong lesson. It wasn't "do not get involved", it was "don't stay around for the glamor of being a hero." As soon as the fight was done, walk away. He'd know he did the right thing. The girl would know she was saved from getting her ass kicked. The boyfriend would think twice about doing it next time, since some random stranger kicked his ass for doing the wrong thing.

        There's no reason to stay around. If he didn't get arrested, and she told the truth, he'd still be in court as a material witness to the events. The boyfriend would likely have a grudge against him, now there's a new enemy out there.

        The better thing would be if he learned some good restraining moves. Not a single punch has to be thrown, and he could have secured the boyfriend on the ground. There's nothing like a knee in the back, and your arm twisted in an armbar, to remind someone that they're doing wrong. "I'm going to let you go. Don't ever do that again. Do you understand?" become very powerful words. A bit of pain compliance will get them to agree.

  10. Re:The Government? on Washington Wants 10,000 Web Surfers · · Score: 1

        You can volunteer to let the police into your house to search. They sometimes try that. "May we have a look around your [house/car/office]?" People usually say "yes" thinking it'll help them. Nope, it won't. Just ask a defense attorney. Never, ever, ever, give up anything you don't have to. Even innocent things can be made to look dangerous. My garage has plastic sheeting, duct tape, rope, shovels, saws, and other assorted tools. If they suspected that I broke into a home, killed the occupants, and disposed of the bodies, now they have what would look like perfect equipment to do it.

        And no, the stuff in my garage is for legitimate purposes. :) Don't ask about the freshly dug area in the back yard. I was just .... ummm .... planting vegetables.

  11. Re:Before anyone asks... on Washington Wants 10,000 Web Surfers · · Score: 1

        I'd imagine it would be a nice unhackable black box. All they'd have to do is build out a little *nix box, and send "statistics" back home over an encrypted channel. We wouldn't know the difference between it sending bandwidth stats, or a list of all URL's that were requested.

        Yes big brother, please put your box in my home. I'm not doing anything wrong. :) With the searches I've done on Google, I'm surprised there aren't a few extra black vans parked outside the house. Hmmm, there are 3 tonight. Maybe I should disappear again on my own, before they help me disappear.

  12. Re:Seriously? on Man Builds His Own Subway · · Score: 1

        I'm not sure that I should really mess with the butterfly effect. If I stopped him before he hit the bike, it could adversely change the future.

        Then I have to wonder, would sniper golf have the same effect?

        Mind you, my version of sniper golf doesn't match what you'd find on the Internet. It would consist of two teams. To start, Team A has a golfer playing traditional golf. Team B has a sniper in a tree stand. The golfer plays normally. The sniper is to shoot the ball sometime between when it's hit, to when it stops moving. If the ball is hit, that team continues play from where the largest piece remains. Accidentally shooting the golfer results in a one-stroke penalty for the shooting team. When the teams switch, they switch roles. Obviously, it would require substantially larger teams than traditional golf, if there are too many penalties.

        I haven't had anyone agree to play sniper golf though. It could be the next biggest game, and probably make a really stressful reality TV show. I always had a problem with the "survivor" shows, where they're never really at risk of actually dying.

  13. Re:Bracing for impact on CSIRO Sues US Carriers Over Wi-Fi Patent · · Score: 1

        The first may happen, but we're keeping the Stargate program under wraps. It's a bit too much for the average citizen to understand. How exactly do you explain "We've been doing interstellar travel for a few decades, and you've been watching the scifi disinformation about it."

        err, I mean, I don't know what this star-thing you're talking about is.

  14. Re:Well... on Man Builds His Own Subway · · Score: 1

        I'd bet he'd survive a nuclear attack in those tunnels. The chances of a direct strike are pretty slim unless you're in a pretty obvious target zone, or you're just damned unlucky.

        Historically, there's a better chance of being in an earthquake than a nuclear attack. :)

  15. Re:Trains? on Man Builds His Own Subway · · Score: 1

    That would depend on your car. Mine runs 1/4 to 3/4 empty. I've seen plenty of SUV's that are 7/8 empty. The best I've seen are motorcycles at 1/2 to 0/2 empty. :)

  16. Re:Seriously? on Man Builds His Own Subway · · Score: 1

        You're not kidding either. Even in the middle of the winter, I was standing outside of the Hotel Ibis, and I couldn't believe how many bicycles were there.

  17. Re:Seriously? on Man Builds His Own Subway · · Score: 1

          That's a good start. Pick up a nice sniper rifle. With enough practice, you'll be able to do the same thing from far enough away where they already be laying on the ground before the sound reaches them.

  18. Re:One really has to wonder... on Mobile Game Trojan Calls the South Pole · · Score: 1

        Ahh, the difference between speculation and experience. :) Thanks for the insight into it.

  19. Re:One really has to wonder... on Mobile Game Trojan Calls the South Pole · · Score: 4, Insightful

        You know, I was curious about this too. I found this page which shows there to be no phones (land lines nor cell) in the Antarctic. Wikipedia has a reference to calls being relayed over HAM radio only. They also mention that Scott Base does have a satellite relay for telephone calls. It seems they do have a country code assigned (672), so I'd suspect that someone got a number assigned, regardless of the fact that they aren't really there.

        What I don't exactly see is how they're profiting off the number. I know some long distance calls act as premium rate numbers (like dialing a 900 number in the US), where a profit can be had from the initial connection and the minutes on the maintained connection. It should be a simple matter to follow the money back to the source of the problem, and prosecute them accordingly. It's becoming rare that pranks like this are done just as pranks. There's usually a financial interest in it.

  20. Re:Heard it all before on A New Neutral, Long-Haul Fiber Network · · Score: 1

        Providers are already very happy to lease fiber from each other. It happens all the time. You have to get talking to the right people, but the business dealings with these companies are very incestuous.

  21. Re:Hey you guys on Symantec Finds Server Containing 44 Million Stolen Gaming Credentials · · Score: 1

        Remind me to change the code on my luggage too. :)

  22. Re:They should post the usernames... on Symantec Finds Server Containing 44 Million Stolen Gaming Credentials · · Score: 4, Interesting

        I used to have a lot of fun with that, when I was the sysadmin for a large site. It seemed every script kiddie wanted the password to it. It showed up regularly on passwordz sites. We had a whole bunch of triggers to detect and resecure accounts. One of the easy and obvious ones was to let them post it, and catch it afterwards (usually within seconds of being posted). The legitimate account holder got a notification that we changed their password to a secure one. Everyone else just sat there and wondered how we'd catch them so fast.

        That trigger was pretty low on the list though. My favorite was to catch 'em scanning for passwords. If they tried say 1000 wrong passwords in a short period, but got one or two right, we'd let them keep scannning for a while, and then block their access to the server. (iptables drop rule). Then the program would figure out which passwords they actually got right, change those, and notify the account holder of their new password. :) It was always fun to see what the delay was between them finding a password, and when it started being used from passwordz sites. In those cases, we always had the account secured before they had time to post it. The typical time from being scanned to being posted was about 12 hours. The typical time for us to reissue the passwords was less than 5 minutes.

        I can't imagine online game places wouldn't have something similar. Brute force attacks are just too easy, and people will always try them. How many different usernames can a person really try before you know that they're just brute force attacking.

  23. Re:Hey you guys on Symantec Finds Server Containing 44 Million Stolen Gaming Credentials · · Score: 1

    1234

        Nope, it lets me post my own password. :)

  24. Re:For Sale on Shuttle Atlantis Lands Safely After Final Official Mission · · Score: 1

        The closest I've ever been to flying one was in simulators a couple times at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. I did a little more looking, and found this diagram, which shows the standard 7 seats and 3 "rescue" seats. 4 on the flight deck, and up to 6 on the mid-deck.

        It does look ... ummm ... cramped. It's a bit tighter than I'd want to spend a weekend with 6 other people, much less a week or two. But hey, they get to go to space and I don't.

  25. Re:Artifacts on Sony Unveils Flexible OLED Thinner Than a Hair · · Score: 1

    They should stop advertising futuretech and then dumping it because it's currently unfeasible.

        I agree totally. I pretty much ignore anything that looks like it should have a "forward-looking statement" disclaimer on it.

        I remember seeing a variation on this years ago. It was on one of those future-tech shows in the late 80's or early 90's. It was a transparent LCD screen that was on something resembling a window shade roller. When you didn't need your monitor, you could roll it down into the desk. Additionally, it was transparent, so it used ambient light from the office to illuminate the screen. blah, blah, coming in a year, blah, blah. They were showing a working prototype, which looked nice (as I recall).

        So 20-some years later, now there's another one, except it's not transparent, and ... well ... has huge visible faults on the prototype.

        Since we've been seeing stories about solar cells that you can print on inkjet printers for several years, I expect that tech will be available first. :) I've added them to my Christmas wishlist, right behind Duke Nukem Forever.

        You'd be amazed how helpful it is in the real world if you see if you can append a forward-looking statement disclaimer to something. "Can I borrow $100? I'll give it back next Thursday." Fool, your money has been parted with you, and Thursday will come and go without ever seeing a penny of it.

        I don't want to hear about futuretech until I can pick it up in a store, or order it to be delivered within a week. If neither can be accomplished, I won't hold my breath on it ever existing. That way, I'll be content when I can buy one, and I won't be upset that something cool was canned because it couldn't work as advertised. I am still waiting for my personal flying car/spaceship that I was promised so many years ago. Everyone will have 'em, they said. They'll be affordable, so you could have a spare. You can visit the moon or mars stations, or just spin around the solar system for the weekend. Take a trip to the mons of Venus. Avoid Uranus though, the methane is bad this time of year.

        Damn them forward looking statements, and their evil lies.