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User: rolfwind

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  1. Re:IF.. on Match.com, Mensa Create Dating Site For Geniuses · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Really? I don't find the legitimate ones bad at all. Much better than the SAT for testing raw, innate intelligence.

    IQ is like a brightness of a flashlight. It's potential. Brighter is better, but it doesn't guarantee you point it at a useful direction, or even use it for anything useful at all other than to study playboy under the bedsheets.

    I would think if they took recent Nobel Prize winners in the hard sciences, they would be trending above average and by a margin.

  2. Re:Eighteen THOUSAND engineers?! on Why Software Builds Fail · · Score: 2

    Well if they won't make the beta programs today that will get discontinued tomorrow, who will?

  3. Re:I do not do it because I want to on Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh that's cute. You think hours = productivity.

    That's what's killing the American worker. And the sad thing is, this was known to be false 100+ years ago.

  4. Space Elevator? on 3D-Printed Material Can Carry 160,000 Times Its Own Weight · · Score: 1

    Would this material make one possible?

  5. Re:Why not patent compression algorithm? on The Supreme Court Doesn't Understand Software · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Back in the day patents were put in the Constitution to advance the arts and sciences. Medieval guilds protected knowledge which held humanity/society back, so it was preferable to give limited government protection in exchange for opening up the knowledge (so the next generation can have at it, I guess).

    Having patents for their own sake seems counterproductive in this regard, as a lot can be reverse engineered in the meantime.

    In reality, everyone is told by legal not to look at previous patents ever, just in case they do infringe, it's not willful infringement.... patent portfolios protect the huge corps and the trolls, with very little in between, and the really lucrative stuff is kept proprietary anyway.

    So it leads one to ask, while wasting time writing patents apps, what is the patent scheme good for really and is it beneficial for society?

  6. Re:De-fund the NSA Completely on How Secret Partners Expand NSA's Surveillance Dragnet · · Score: 2

    It would be counter to purposes to "win" those wars, when fighting them enriches the special interests involved in pushing them in the first place.

    Treatments bring money, cures do not.

  7. Re:De-fund the NSA Completely on How Secret Partners Expand NSA's Surveillance Dragnet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think the most powerful argument that can be made against the NSA (and today's government in general) is that it was once seen as a necessary evil that could be harnessed to protect liberties. It surely wasn't anywhere near perfect ever, but it was hoped that over time, it would eventually slide towards perfection as a servant of the people.

    Now, does anyone seriously believe the government is anything but a bureaucratic monster, gorging itself via wars (on terrorism, on poverty, on drugs, etc) to the end of enlarging itself and shrinking everyone else's pie? I mean seriously?

  8. Re:Not as original as they claim on It's Not a Car, It's a Self-Balancing Electric Motorcycle (Video) · · Score: 5, Interesting
  9. Re:Why? on It's Not a Car, It's a Self-Balancing Electric Motorcycle (Video) · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Reminds me of the Carver and the Venture One:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    But those tilted with the turn, I wonder how it feels taking a turn when the gyros want to keep this thing upright?

  10. More than willing to pay this on 2 US Senators Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax Increase · · Score: 1

    If they take that damn ethanol out of my gas.

    MPG and food savings would easily make up for it.

  11. Wow on 3-D Printing with Molten Steel (Video) · · Score: 0

    This will suck. Some blotchy metal will come out. This will just be a welder with a robotic arm.

    Why not a real printing process, like powdered metal layed down and lasers? Or something.

  12. Re:It's an artform on Even In Digital Photography Age, High Schoolers Still Flock To the Darkroom · · Score: 1

    You are mistaking cynicism for insecurity. I lived through this shit with the vinyl resurrection. Now I'm only waiting for VHS tapes to get a following again but I guess the hipsters might go all the way back to the original reels.

  13. Re:It's an artform on Even In Digital Photography Age, High Schoolers Still Flock To the Darkroom · · Score: 1

    This isn't about learning photography, for kids it's about being retro/hip/individual.

    The fact that their pics come out like shit, under exposed, over, out of focus, etc will only add to it like paying extra for ripped, washed jeans or punk music played badly.

  14. Re:Could be big if... on Why Amazon Might Want a Big Piece of the Smartphone Market · · Score: 1

    I'd take it if it gave me 2GB data (and after that a throttle, not cutoff), 100 mins talk, texts.

    But unless it's cheap, I'm hesitant to buy a 1st or even 2nd gen smartphone from a new entrant into the market.

    Even if they get everything perfect, apps just won't be there.

  15. Re:Regardless of any 'sensitivities'... on Humans Not Solely To Blame For Passenger Pigeon Extinction · · Score: 1

    A few million? Try a few billion. Imagine the cleanup effort of this flying and pooping over your place:

    One flock in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mi (1.5 km) wide and 300 mi (500 km) long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds.

  16. Re:Water is wet on Bill Gates To Stanford Grads: Don't (Only) Focus On Profit · · Score: 1

    But the devices that allows everyone to use those devices came into being and became cheaper through the pursuit of profit.

    Face it, a lot of people will say things like "Everyone should have clean water". But the idealistic goals are the ones that require the most effort where the less hardcore idealists become lazy and drop out.

    Profit/capitalism is just someone putting their money where their mouth is, and allowing someone else to fulfill the drudge work for direct benefit. And yes, capitalism needs to be fully regulated so it isn't gamed into another system as individual successful players are wont to do.

  17. Sorry, not gonna move to a MS solution on Despite Project's Demise, Amazon Web Services Continues To Use TrueCrypt · · Score: 2

    Yeah, sure, use bitlocker as sourceforge says.... because MS totally doesn't open backdoors for the NSA that makes goatse jealous. *snort*

    http://truecrypt.ch/

  18. Re:Any chance at getting one? on Mozilla To Sell '$25' Firefox OS Smartphones In India · · Score: 1

    People can get a decent smartphone for under $80 here already, this one with no plan:
    http://www.walmart.com/ip/T-Mo...

    I've seen it under $70 just a while back but Walmart must cycle the prices every so often.

  19. Re:Yuck. on America 'Has Become a War Zone' · · Score: 1

    Sheriff Gayer?

    Well, fuck, that explains it!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

  20. Re:Obama's police state? on US Marshals Seize Police Stingray Records To Keep Them From the ACLU · · Score: 1

    See the Milgram study and Stanford Prison experiment.

    As long as people in charge say it's okay, most subordinates will perceive things as okay.

  21. Our meaning is fulfilled on Plastic Trash Forming Into "Plastiglomerate" Rocks · · Score: 1
  22. Re:DOA on New Valve Prototype VR Headset Shows Up At VR Meetup In Boston · · Score: 3, Informative

    The virtuaboy was DOA because it was a 5lb monochrome (red/black) monstrosity that had to sit on a table, with barely 3D wireframe games, no tracking, etc whose original creator never intended what was released to be the final product (besides, as seen, it was 2 decades too early for the tech out there.)

    Oculus Rift weighs less than a pound and can be worn on the head. It will be bought by 3D shooter enthusiasts would would otherwise buy multiple video cards/monitors just for gaming. I assume it will have a microphone.

    I really fail to see what the two have in common. If I were into 3D shooters, I would be saving up for such a system.

    This is like claiming in January 2007 the iPhone will bust because of the Apple Newton.

  23. Re:All I'll say... on Thousands of Europeans Petition For Their 'Right To Be Forgotten' · · Score: 2

    That's why we have libel and slander laws.

    I also think police and prosecutors should be held to libel and slander. When they raid a house and find a kitchen scale, they should not use biased terms such as "drug paraphernalia" that poisons the jury pool and reputation of the person they are investigating, in fact they and the prosecutor should not speak until trial and let it go there where the other side has an equal voice.

    Also, the sex laws in place are ridiculous and need to be laxed.

    But I don't recognize the right to be forgotten. I just don't. Too many pitfalls. It's not a right, just a wish.

  24. Re:So... on Solar Roadways Project Beats $1M Goal, Should Enter Production · · Score: 1

    This thinking if why America is in such incredible trouble right now, and it's how people are going to go into generational slavery soon.

  25. Re:Imagine how much we're saving already with mail on The Energy Saved By Ditching DVDs Could Power 200,000 Homes · · Score: 1

    Are you kidding me? Sears and Roebuck, America's biggest retailer up to the late 1980s, built it's business on mail order back in the late 1890s. Mail order catalogs were huge up to the 1990s, internet merely replaced it, didn't invent it.

    That said, the USPS still cut it's distribution centers in half a while back:
    http://www.federaltimes.com/ar...