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User: russotto

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Comments · 9,376

  1. Re:Milestone my ass on Global Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach New Monthly Record · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Incredible how well temperature predicts changes in CO2 concentration, isn't it? (Temperature is blue, CO2 is red)

  2. Re:Circular logic on Police Can Obtain Cellphone Location Records Without a Warrant · · Score: 1

    It's completely in accordance with Smith v. Maryland, which is the controlling law. Smith v. Maryland involved one tap on one person's phone; it's been used to cover the NSA bulk metadata collection program, thus proving the slippery slope is not a fallacy.

    It'll take the robed 9 to overturn it, but they likely won't.

  3. Re:Which is why we disguise cell towers on Police Can Obtain Cellphone Location Records Without a Warrant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You forgot to check the "Post Anonymously" checkbox.

    It's so cute that people still think that actually means something.

  4. Re:ADA? on Is It Worth Learning a Little-Known Programming Language? · · Score: 1

    They're not ALL Algol. There's the LISP-likes, plus OCaml and Haskell.

  5. Re:Soylent Green on Empty Landscape Looms, If Large Herbivores Continue to Die Out · · Score: 2

    Only teenagers with helicopter parents taste like veal. Now you understand why there are so many of them.

  6. An empty chair? on Statues of Assange, Snowden and Manning Go Up In Berlin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Dammit, once again the Europeans give Obama undeserved recognition!

  7. This whole "brain is still developing stuff" is utter nonsense anyway. You know when your brain stops developing? Death, that's when. For some reason our society has chosen to infantilize young adults, and then for some reason we're surprised when they act irresponsibly.
     

  8. Re:Meh, not impressed. on Google Executive Dan Fredinburg Among Victims of Everest Avalanche · · Score: 1

    Even Hilary went with Sherpas. Also oxygen. First climb without oxygen was 1978. (unless the Sherpas had been doing it since forever, who knows?)

  9. Re:Too much noise over SystemD on Debian 8 Jessie Released · · Score: 1

    This systemd hatred is beyond comprehension. If it is this bad, how can it be adopted by all major distributions?

    Political machinations.

  10. Re:Transmission loss on Tesla To Announce Battery-Based Energy Storage For Homes · · Score: 1

    It's not transmission losses. Turning fuel into electricity at large scale is 40% efficient. Turning electricity into heat with resistance heaters is 100% efficient. Turning fuel into heat at small scale is ~85% efficient with a regular furnace, ~95% efficient with a high-efficiency furnace. The big gain in using fuel for heat instead of electricity is avoiding the Carnot limit, not transmission losses.

  11. Re:Old Wives' Tales on Tesla To Announce Battery-Based Energy Storage For Homes · · Score: 1

    "need to be installed at least a foot and a half off the ground"

    For what purpose? That old wives' tale of putting a battery on the ground causing it to discharge or drain is absolute bullshit.

    Cooling, most likely. Charging and discharging a battery results in heat; this battery is probably designed to take cool air in at the bottom and discharge warm air at the top.

  12. Re:A first step on Tesla To Announce Battery-Based Energy Storage For Homes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, I think one of the biggest results of this will be to allow homes with solar energy to store ALL the energy they capture with their panels, instead of feeding that energy back into the grid. This will effectively neuter the arguments of power companies who say that grid feed-in is making the grid unstable, thus reducing the impetus for putting punitive fees on houses with solar panels.

    Since Pacific Gas and Electric is actually subsidizing the batteries in the pilot program, which is for solar users, it would seem to demonstrate that the power companies aren't lying when they say grid feed-in is a problem.

  13. Re:Amazon has really been a stealth company on Amazon's Profits Are Floating On a Cloud (Computing) · · Score: 1

    And that is because brick-and-mortar stores, by and large, suck. Do you go to a brick-and-mortar store, find exactly what you want, pay, and leave? Rarely. OK, so you don't see what you want and ask a salesperson. What do you get? A dumb look, often enough. Suppose you get the salesperson to understand and help... "Oh, we don't have that but we can order it for you if you come back in a week". Yeah. I could have done that myself, genius.

    Even worse if the item you're looking for was advertised recently. Then it will be out of stock, and you'll have to choose between paying full price for the similar substitute, taking a raincheck (if the store offers such) and waiting, or giving up.

    There are stores which don't have these problems; they're not the ones Amazon is eating the lunch of.

  14. Speaking for all of us in the 35-44 range on Except For Millennials, Most Americans Dislike Snowden · · Score: 1

    We actually overwhelmingly like what Snowden did. Many of us just dislike him because he looks like a hipster.
    (source: IJMIU)

  15. Re:Wonderful. on Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools · · Score: 2

    You asked for a direct quote supporting a summary of her total position, which is unreasonable. She never comes out and says that there isn't any female character which could fit her standards; she merely has a whole set of objections which cover the universe of conceivable female characters.

  16. Re:Can someone explain to me why this is a thing? on Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools · · Score: 1

    I mean, I've no love for SJW-type whining identity politics (which is sadly what much of progressive politics has turned into), but what exactly are the stakes in the Gamergate debacle? Are gamers particularly worried that the industry is going to stop including sexy women and cliched plots to sell games? Because that's fucking stupid. The gaming industry will do that maybe 20 years after Hollywood stops.

    Check out SJW-Thor or much of modern science fiction to see what sort of damage they can wreak in related media.

    Gamergate is just one front in a very large cultural war. It's most distinguished by being the place the SJWs hit the most resistance. Comics have gone over. SF&F has gone over, except Baen and a few small publishers. Tech as a whole is fighting a losing battle of attrition. Linux is holding out, but probably only as long as Linus himself stays in it.

  17. Re:What a bizarre statement on Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools · · Score: 1

    What they mean by "targeted" is that they want Twitter (and everywhere else, actually) to be a public forum where anyone can hear them when they speak. But they want it to be a private space where they decide what can be said by whom when anyone wants to respond.

    Upshot being they think they should be able to say any outrageous thing they want and no one should be able to respond unfavorably.

  18. What a difference a few moths make on Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools · · Score: 1

    Twitter CEO Dick (oops) Costolo, on harassment in a Salon article

    "Well, it's a complex issue," he said on the topic of Twitter's pattern of inaction when it comes to online harassment. "By way of example, in the wake of the news of that internal memo going out, I'll get emails from people that say, 'I agree, and here's a great example of someone being harassed on the platform' -- and it's not at all harassment, it's political discourse. And, in fact, fairly rational political discourse. So you know these things have lots and lots of varying degrees: Was that really harassment and abuse? Or is that discourse?"

  19. Re:Wonderful. on Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools · · Score: 1

    It seems that anyone with a dissenting opinion on "SJW" that's not "EVIL BURN THE WITCH" is modded down as troll.

    You're neither the Devil nor Keyser Soze; you can't pull the trick of convincing everyone else you don't exist.

  20. Indirect threats of violence? on Twitter Rolls Out New Anti-Abuse Tools · · Score: 2

    Let's see if they start using the banhammer for #killallmen and the like. I wouldn't be holding my breath.

  21. Re:So what? on Using Adderall In the Office To Get Ahead · · Score: 0

    I would call chemical dependence, i.e. addiction, to be a pretty negative side effect. Wouldn't you?

    Hundreds of millions of caffeine users couldn't give a shit. Adderall is just taking it to the next level.

  22. Re:Well done! on George Lucas Building Low-Income Housing Next Door To Millionaires · · Score: 1

    That's how it's done in NJ. The poor districts have greater per-pupil total funding than the wealthy ones, and the poor districts get nearly all that money from the state whereas the wealthy ones get nearly nothing from the state. Guess what the outcomes are? Yep, same as before that funding formula was established; the poor districts suck and the wealthy districts are much better.

  23. Re:Car towing is legalized theft on The Upsides of a Surveillance Society · · Score: 1

    What!? Was the poor woman who was serving her there the same person who determined that the car should be towed?

    Doesn't matter, you front for scum, you rightfully bear the scorn meant for them.

    If you have a problem with a company and the employee you're talking to doesn't handle it the way you want, you ask for their name and their manager's name and then contact the latter (or further up the chain) until you find out if it's their policy or if someone has made a mistake.

    Doesn't work that way. Scum companies will either give you the runaround or stonewall you. Anything to just make you go away.

    If none of that works or it indeed is policy, you then pursue the legal route.

    And you'll find the scum have manipulated the system so you can't win without spending much more than they stole.

    Last time my car was towed (unlawfully), the tow company demanded charges beyond what was legal AND demanded cash only despite the law specifically requiring them to take credit cards. Yeah, I could have sued them... in the meantime, my car sits in their storage lot racking up fees while I have no car. Once I pay them, there's no more case and no more cause to sue.

  24. Re:Age old story of outsourcing on Incorrectly Built SLS Welding Machine To Be Rebuilt · · Score: 1

    Simple. There probably weren't many who knew both
    1) The floor needed reinforcing and
    2) It hadn't been done.

    Occam's Razor says communications error.

    Everyone actually in charge of building the thing would have believed the floor would be adequate. Whoever was in charge overall dropped the ball (maybe misread a statement to the effect "floor shall be reinforced to such-and-such-a-spec" as "floor has been reinforced to such-and-such-a-spec".

  25. This has all been done before on LAUSD OKs Girls-Only STEM School, Plans Boys-Only English Language Arts School · · Score: 1

    and it will all be done again. To no avail. At least since I was in 7th grade (that's about 30 years ago) there have been special sections, schools, what have you for getting girls into mathematics and technical subjects. Usually they flop big-time. Sometimes they appear to have some success for a year or two and then flop. The sensible person would look at these failures and think that whatever the cause for the difference, it cannot be solved with this sort of segregated schooling. The politically motivated educator just keeps doing the same thing over and over again.