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User: Prune

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Comments · 2,416

  1. It's all about the dosage on Pepsi To Stop Using Aspartame · · Score: 1

    Aspartame and a few of the other artificial sweeteners are excitotoxic (they overexcite some neurons to the point of death). For example, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... and other research like it. The main counterargument is that studies showing excitotoxic effects in vivo have always been done with doses significantly higher than would be ingested using regular consumption of foodstuffs in which artificial sweeteners are used (indeed, a benefit of advanced artificial sweeteners is that they reach the threshold of sweetness when very dilute). While even a good deal of overconsumption of artificially sweetened soda drinks may not reach the amounts having been shown detrimental. However, I've found no safety evidence either way regarding very long term exposure at lower intensity, over decades. For me, that's cause for caution and limiting consumption (though even I don't totally avoid it, and that's from someone that doesn't particularly like the taste of soda drinks).

  2. Mod parent down on Google Executive Dan Fredinburg Among Victims of Everest Avalanche · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I climb mountains as a hobby, and know many climbers, a large proportion of whom are geeks who are disinterested in team sports. It's a hobby like any other physical hobby. It brings risk, but also enormous enjoyment from the combination of experiencing the raw beauty of nature where there are very few others with the challenge and thrill of reaching a summit. We climb a peak not to show off; we climb it because it is there. A tiny fraction of mountaineers are interested in bragging rights (except, perhaps, amongst themselves in a good-spirited manner), so your slight against us is rude and ignorant. Fuck you!

  3. Re:That's too bad on Google Executive Dan Fredinburg Among Victims of Everest Avalanche · · Score: 1

    Wow, I never thought the day would come, but I actually agree with drinkypoo on something!

  4. Re:Been there, done that. on Colors Help Set Body's Internal Clock · · Score: 1

    Your experiment fails to account for the influence of another well-known effect, which is that perceived color temperature is affected by absolute light intensity. Indoor lighting is almost always orders of magnitude weaker than sunlight, and this is why using lighting matched to actual noon color temperature will look far too blue. This is why advanced light bulbs as used in museums and so on that specifically approximate a sun+sky spectrum (to result in proper color reproduction) are available centered at different color temperatures.

  5. Re:*Grabs a bowl of popcorn* on Can High Intelligence Be a Burden Rather Than a Boon? · · Score: 1

    You're mistaken. Physical beauty is usually manifested from early on, when personality is still being shaped. Most that possess it come to deeply rely on it, and are ill-prepared for when, by middle age, its short shelf life becomes readily apparent.

  6. Re:*Grabs a bowl of popcorn* on Can High Intelligence Be a Burden Rather Than a Boon? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The converse side of this coin is that such great expectations can become a burden on the children (or the one "target" child), even if the parent tries to avoid being pushy about it -- a lot gets across that is never said directly, and even through the mere implication of a future look of disappointment on one's face.

  7. Re:Dark Energy on Supernovae May Not Be Standard Candles; Is Dark Energy All Wrong? · · Score: 1

    I propose a new slashdot moderation option: -1 Crackpot. This guy's almost as bad as "Uncle Al" Schwartz.

  8. Re:Wrong on many counts on Supernovae May Not Be Standard Candles; Is Dark Energy All Wrong? · · Score: 1

    Hey look everyone, it's the new "Uncle Al" Schwartz equivalent -- except this one isn't spamming newsgroups with his crackpot theory, but slashdot. It remains to be seen if this incarnation will be as obstinate and persistent as the original.

  9. Re:Carbon emissions? on California Looks To the Sea For a Drink of Water · · Score: 1

    I don't know how "clean" these are, considering they generate more human deaths per terrawatt-hour generated than nuclear does: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/...

  10. Re:Energy use on California Looks To the Sea For a Drink of Water · · Score: 2

    The Ivanpah plant kills lots of birds, with endangered species among them, by literally cooking them while in flight. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... Nuclear doesn't have this problem. Also, note that nuclear also causes the least number of human deaths per terrawatt-hour generated of any power plant technology: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/...

  11. Mod parent down on How Ubiquiti Networks Is Creatively Violating the GPL · · Score: 1

    I feel for small companies like Ubiquiti.

    So a multi-billion dollar company like Ubiquiti, which has made its CEO one of Forbes' 10 youngest billionaires, is a small company?

  12. Question on Future Firefighters May Be Guided By "Robots On Reins" · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't the resources expended in this "research" have been far better used in creating sensors for the firefighters themselves (say, a high resolution combination sonar and infrared visor) than building an awkward haptic extension with the clumsiness and poor maneuverability of current state of the art robotics? I know robots are becoming trendy, especially in the tech media, to the point of fetishism, but I sure hope no tax-backed grants supported this project, one that is ultimately a substitution of Goldbergian complexity and impracticality for a blind man's cane.

  13. Why no Passfault in TFA? on Many Password Strength Meters Are Downright Weak, Researchers Say · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised that Passfault was not mentioned in the paper TFA references, since it specifically checks for dictionary attacks in multiple languages, and for substitutions, reversals, keyboard shifts, and other transforms that an advanced cracking program might check. It's open source, too. Yet no one else even mentioned it in this discussion, when Slashdot is how I know about it in the first place.

  14. Too much manual formatting compared to LilyPond on MuseScore 2.0 Released · · Score: 2

    The automatic formatting of LilyPond is much better. The workflow is similar to TeX: you write content in a text format and mark it up, and the software takes care of the rest. The quality LilyPond can achieve is very good. With MuseScore, though the visual interface is more comfortable for many and has a smaller learning curve, there's far too much manual adjustment necessary in scores of reasonable complexity, and usually has to be done again when a piece is modified. It's possible to get the best of both though, by importing a MuseScore into Denemo, which uses LilyPond for typesetting. Some examples here show the difference, compared to using MuseScore alone.

  15. Re:I dub all unswitchable hardware: disposable on OEMs Allowed To Lock Secure Boot In Windows 10 Computers · · Score: 1

    until the secure boot controversy was diffused

    Diffused through what? Or are you struggling with basic grammar?

  16. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 on 3D Audio Standard Released · · Score: 1

    3D positional audio is only a solved problem in the special cases where you have either (a) made binaural recordings — microphones in the ears of a dummy head with an HRTF known to be sufficiently similar to the listener's (or the listener's actual head!), or (b) have all the original positional information about the sound sources, and all environmental information affecting propagation and reverb, to compute the total wavefront from all directions converging at the listener's virtual head position, and then convolve that with the listener's HRTF. Neither of these are useful in general; (a) is not useful because different listeners have widely different HRTFs so the best you can do is use a generic dummy head that limits significantly the performance (there are examples you can find online and do your own test — the difference in using an HRTF substantially similar to your own is staggering: you can even clearly tell vertical directionality); (b) is useful only when you can individually record each sound source (ok for virtual ones like in computer games, and impossible for general real world recordings), and you still need the listener's HRTF (either measured, or computed from a laser scan of the head — both impractical and time-consuming). Beyond this, there's still the issue of playback acoustics. With in-ear headphones that's fine. With speakers, delivering the processed binaural sound means you need to perform of cross-talk cancellation (sound from a speaker reaching the opposite ear), which can only be done for a very limited set of spatial positions, and basically means a single listener not moving from the sweet spot.

    There is a (c) as well, which doesn't rely on binaural sound and HRTFs, and can handle multiple listeners — spherical many-channel approaches that are exemplified by the BBC's old ambisonics tech. That uses a many-directional (spherically distributed) microphone for recording, encoding in spherical harmonics, and playback on a set of speakers arranged in a sphere. With enough channels (read: too many to be practical) and a treated environment (read: anechoic chamber), you can get good positional audio, but still not approaching what is possible with the binaural case ((a) and (b)).

  17. Mod parent up on 3D Audio Standard Released · · Score: 1

    At the time of posting, parent post is the only informative one in this discussion, and stands out among ignorant posts asking isn't OpenAL enough (this isn't about an API, FFS!) or being paranoid regarding DRM, things that would have been avoided had those posters RTFA and made sure they had minimum knowledge of the subject area before rushing to publicize their opinions.

  18. Mod parent down for outrageous hypocrisy on Why There Is No Such Thing as 'Proper English' · · Score: 0

    I am never going to want to be around someone who's main negotiating ability is over who gets to sell crack on what corner.

    It's quite sickening that someone who rants about others refusing to use "relatively correct" English hasn't bothered to learn even such basics as the difference between "whose" and "who's."

  19. Re:A coming nightmare for our owners on New Molecular 3D Printer Can Create Billions of Compounds · · Score: 1

    Take your argument of freedom of manufacture to its logical conclusion: several decades from now these technologies allow literally anyone to "print" a biological agent that's more infectious than influenza and deadlier than rabies, with high mutation rates that makes countermeasures difficult to develop, yet designed to preserve it's virulence and deadlines, and with sufficiently long incubation time that by the time it's noticed, it's too late. Or, give it some more time, and anyone can "print" a world-consuming nanotechnological grey goo. Suggesting technological defenses are feasible is a naive failure to recognize a fundamental asymmetry: destruction is far easier than creation, and chaos is thermodynamically favorable. There are only three options for the long term: humanity is destroyed, access to advanced technology is severely limited but for our overlords, or it's allowed but privacy is dead — absolutely — with constant ubiquitous automated monitoring everywhere and of everything. Pick one.

  20. Re: C++ on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 1

    You got me.

  21. Re:Greg Bear and Peter F. Hamilton must be smiling on Scientists Insert a Synthetic Memory Into the Brain of a Sleeping Mouse · · Score: 1

    I didn't read any Hamilton as I was into science fiction, not space opera.

  22. Re:thrown out in 3...2... on Wikimedia Foundation Files Suit Against NSA and DOJ · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, I'm not an AC, yet I have the same assessment of CaptainDork's post history. His verbal diarrhea flows prolifically and has graced enough /. discussions that a regular reader won't need to reference his post history to get the whiff of authoritarian stench every time his name pops up once again in one's field of view.

  23. Re:Either way, they make a point on Wikimedia Foundation Files Suit Against NSA and DOJ · · Score: 1

    Standing is addressed in TFA: "The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures included a slide from a classified NSA presentation that made explicit reference to Wikipedia, using our global trademark. Because these disclosures revealed that the government specifically targeted Wikipedia and its users, we believe we have more than sufficient evidence to establish standing."

  24. Re:Compiler compromise on CIA Tried To Crack Security of Apple Devices · · Score: 2

    The process to detect this compromise not only exists, but can be automated. http://www.dwheeler.com/trusti...

  25. Re:Is this a Bears Sh1t in the Woods story? on CIA Tried To Crack Security of Apple Devices · · Score: 1

    Shooting people who try and leave your country?

    Since, according do your statement, they succeed in leaving the country, it's kind of hard to shoot them afterwards. On the other hand, they sure did shoot people who tried to leave the country.