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User: demonlapin

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  1. Re:Attempted murder by proxy on Swatting 19-Year-Old Arrested in Las Vegas · · Score: 1

    The legal definition of murder in most US states requires the intent to kill.

    Uh, no, they don't. It does require an intent to harm, but if I pull out a gun and shoot you in the leg, intending to cripple but not kill you, and you die anyway, I will correctly be charged with murder. And in this case, the perp is quite likely guilty of felony murder.

  2. Re:Guy allegedly does something stupid on Swatting 19-Year-Old Arrested in Las Vegas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can you give an example of swat being used to apprehend a non-violent person?

    Sure. Sal Culosi. He's a long way from the only one, it's epidemic. Read pretty much anything by Radley Balko to learn more.

  3. Re:"...will purchase it and no other" on The Man Who Invented the Science Fiction Paperback · · Score: 2

    Pre-internet, that sort of thing happened all the time.

    I think this is probably the hardest thing for post-internet people to understand. If you saw or heard someone make a reference to a literary work and didn't recognize it yourself (but could still tell it was referencing something), you had to track down someone who knew where to look. Reference desks at libraries basically existed to fulfill this function.

  4. Re:Have I lost my mind? on Woman Suffers Significant Weight Gain After Fecal Transplant · · Score: 1

    It's just what it sounds like. You take poop from one person and inject it into another person's colon. The goal is to transfer useful microbes. For obvious reasons, they generally try to use family members or spouses.

  5. Re:Not automatic on How a Hardware Designer Was Saved By His Own Creation · · Score: 1

    Which is why training in CPR/BLS (basic life support) is valuable - it explicitly teaches you to bypass the bystander effect and start ordering people what to do. When someone more qualified shows up, you can relinquish command, but until then, you're in charge.

  6. Re:Not automatic on How a Hardware Designer Was Saved By His Own Creation · · Score: 1

    Should you crack a person's rib during CPR you were probably doing it wrong

    No, you're probably doing it right. Most people don't push hard enough.

  7. Re:Is it low T? on Testosterone Increasingly Being Used To Fight Aging In Men · · Score: 4, Informative

    T&A = tits and ass; the implication is that men are seeking treatment because they aren't getting laid as much.

  8. Re:Nice in principle but fails at higher temperatu on The "Cool Brick" Can Cool Off an Entire Room Using Nothing But Water · · Score: 1

    The problem with a two-stage system is the dew point and the distinction between absolute and relative humidity. There are nice cool springs in northern Florida that pump out water at a brisk 72 degrees F. Jump in them and you will cool off rapidly. But they cannot cool anything below 72 F, and at 100% relative humidity that isn't pleasant. In a dry climate, you can use two-stage coolers to do all the work. In a wetter climate, you can use them to reduce the energy demand of regular air conditioners, but you still can't use them to do all the work of making pleasant indoor air. You have to cut the relative humidity somehow, and that requires lower temperatures.

  9. Re:It already exists for taxis. on Don't Sass Your Uber Driver - He's Rating You Too · · Score: 1

    This is somewhat beside the point you are making, but the ubiquity of smartphones has greatly diminished this particular problem. Show the driver your destination on Google Maps on your phone and they will immediately intuit that you're watching.

  10. Re:Right idea, wrong people. on US Air Force Selects Boeing 747-8 To Replace Air Force One · · Score: 1

    I'm perfectly fine with them flying first class, but commercial it should be. Of course, that's what most of the 1% do - private jets are more like the 0.01%.

  11. Re:I'd have a hard time, too. on Americans Support Mandatory Labeling of Food That Contains DNA · · Score: 1

    Also, following its advice will make you lose weight while you gorge yourself on delicious meat and sauces. Steak with Bearnaise vs rice cakes? It's literally sickening just how screwed up our nutrition advice is.

  12. Re:Bullshit on At Oxford, a Battery That's Lasted 175 Years -- So Far · · Score: 1

    It's the frequency of an alternating current supply that causes fibrillation, not the current or the voltage. Cardioversion ("shocking the heart") is a blast of DC that works by making all the cells of the heart contract at once, so that the standard recovery period after a contraction is long enough to prevent the aberrant conduction from being propagated.

  13. Re:This guy hasn't done his research. on Justified: Visual Basic Over Python For an Intro To Programming · · Score: 1

    Let's just say it's one of the more entertaining fringe benefits of having "M.D." after your name.

  14. Re: This is so stupid. on Fake Engine Noise Is the Auto Industry's Dirty Little Secret · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Tires are almost silent on paved roads. Have someone put their car in neutral and turn the engine off as they roll down a hill toward you.

  15. Re:This guy hasn't done his research. on Justified: Visual Basic Over Python For an Intro To Programming · · Score: 2

    I'm a doctor, not a coder, but I did take C++-based CS101/102 in the late nineties, and I've played a little bit with the teach-yourself-Python courses. I'm fairly certain that I, having written next to zero code over the past 18 years, could write a piece of software in Python that cleanly accomplished everything the CS102 capstone project did, and in less than a week. Possibly in a day. Someone who knew their stuff could probably write it in thirty minutes.

    Granted, that's partially missing the point - our project was meant to teach concepts like using doubly linked lists, how to export them into a file and read them back in, choice of algorithm, hashing functions, etc., not just banging out code. But in terms of something that would be useful to the average person who might want to write a snippet of code here and there to simplify their life, as opposed to someone who plans to make it their life's work, Python is amazing. Python lets students build useful programs right away because it can do the heavy lifting until they're ready to learn how the sausage is made. Maybe you'll spark curiosity in someone who would never have given it a shot. Maybe all you get is a person who has some appreciation for what writing software actually entails. Either way, aren't we all better off? The serious students are going to learn serious languages soon enough.

  16. Re:most of you will pretend you understand on OpenBSD's Kernel Gets W^X Treatment On Amd64 · · Score: 1

    It's the Game of Thrones version of the Garden of Eden. Neckbeards like George R. R. Martin hate it because not enough people die horribly.

  17. Re:Cooking on The Legacy of CPU Features Since 1980s · · Score: 1

    Stop what you're doing and watch Airplane! now.

  18. Re:It depends on where you are in life on Education Debate: Which Is More Important - Grit, Or Intelligence? · · Score: 1

    I'm a fan of negative income tax. I'm marginally in favor of limited free tuition, although it's the sort of thing that encourages colleges to take the money and run, and it does little to alleviate the lack of income associated with being a full-time student. Single-payer universal health care (aka Medicare) is a fine concept, but the American people aren't willing to pay the taxes or cut the available services to make it work.

  19. Re:It depends on where you are in life on Education Debate: Which Is More Important - Grit, Or Intelligence? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Risk and reward. Poor kids are much better off pursuing low-risk, moderate-reward strategies rather than high-risk, high-reward strategies, because in the event of failure, they don't have anything to fall back on. The children of the upper middle class can aim for the stars, knowing that they won't end up in the mud if they miss. Climbing the ladder takes generations.

  20. Re:The whine of the flyback transformer on Ask Slashdot: Sounds We Don't Hear Any More? · · Score: 1

    Plenty of CRT's left in hospitals. Lots of patient monitors are old but still work exactly as intended, so there's no particular reason to replace them. They're not used in radiology, though.

  21. Re:Related - the clack of wheels on the tracks on Ask Slashdot: Sounds We Don't Hear Any More? · · Score: 1

    Similar math problem: imagine the Earth is a perfect sphere, and you have a band of steel running around the equator. You need to roll an orange under this steel band. How much steel do you need to add? Less than a meter.

  22. Re:the whole things an editor if you're brave enou on Text Editor Created In Minecraft · · Score: 1

    Creative potential? It would be intellectually trivial to build a 6502 or Z80 in Minecraft - a simple matter of translating logic to redstone. Doing so would be an enormous amount of work akin to creating such a processor out of discrete transistors, but the creativity involved would be minimal and mostly involved with problems like how to allow circuits to cross paths.

  23. Re:Someone please aware me: on FBI Says Search Warrants Not Needed To Use "Stingrays" In Public Places · · Score: 1

    The law is the law, right or wrong. You can rail against it night and day, but unless you can get 50%+1 of the legislators or judges to vote your way, your opinion isn't worth much.

  24. Re:Oh... S*** on Archive.org Adds Close To 2,400 DOS Games · · Score: 1

    MoO was pretty awesome, but Civilization is still the purest form of digital crack.

  25. Re:never heard of the RadioShack kit on DuinoKit Helps Teach Students About Electronics (Video) · · Score: 1

    Don't give it too much credit. The circuit book was a bunch of wiring diagrams (connect pin 30 to pin 57) with schematics of the finished product, but it didn't actually explain what you were doing, why it worked, or why it was important. Decades later, I realized that it was actually capable of creating some pretty cool stuff (recognized the names of circuits), but by then it was long gone.