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User: ArtFart

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  1. MIssing the point on 'Sending Astronauts To Mars Would be Stupid' (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    We can send all the machines there we want, but it's still strictly experience-by-proxy until someone goes there, leaves some footprints and pees on a rock.

  2. Frankly, old age. on Ask Slashdot: Why Did You Quit Your Last Job? · · Score: 1

    I'd been working nearly two years at a contract government job. The contracts came up for renegotiation and it was made clear that everyone would be "encouraged" to relocate to a consolidated office in another city. Had my wife and I been younger we might have considered it. Instead I decided it was a good cue to retire.

  3. Re:Originally ran on Apache/FreeBSD on How Hotmail Changed Microsoft (and Email) Forever (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    This would be congruent with my recollections. During that time I worked for a Seattle-area reseller and we delivered dozens of Sun boxes to Microsoft. One day I was installing a few and ended up giving an ad hoc X-Windows tutorial to a roomful of people. They had no idea Unix had any sort of graphics capability.

  4. Re:Hearts and Minds! on Mathematical Formula Predicts Global Mass Extinction Event in 2100 (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Seems to this occupant of this little old spinning rock that the question becomes one of how many of the hearts have to stop beating before enough of the remaining minds are changed.

  5. Re:From the Ryan-Air advertising playbook on Colombian Airline Wants To Make Passengers Stand (yahoo.com) · · Score: 1

    Co-pilots? Boeing is proposing for the next generation of planes to have -no- pilots. (Of course, their announcing this afforded them a modicum of publicity as well.)

  6. Take a good look. Take a really good look. on HP To Shut Down Its OpenStack Based Public Cloud (fortune.com) · · Score: 1

    Take a good look (if you can stand it) at the final HP death spiral and consider what would likely happen to the United States if Carly Fiorina finagled her way into the Oval Office. This isn't just partisan politics--I'd rather Trump, Jeb, Hillary or Jack the Ripper or Hitler's exhumed corpse than than her.

  7. Re:Time for a UNION! on The Tech Industry's Legacy: Creating Disposable Employees · · Score: 2

    "The core premise of a union is that employes are all the same" Then (notwithstanding the suits' efforts to bust them) have the entertainment industry's guilds survived alongside the star system?

  8. As others have said... on The Interview Bombs In US, Kills In China, Threatens N. Korea · · Score: 2

    ...it's about what we've come to expect from Rogen and his pals. In parts hilarious, disgusting, inane, chaotic (well, most of it was that...), thought-provoking, puerile and brilliant. Not unlike reality.

  9. Re:Water frequency interference on Gigabit Cellular Networks Could Happen, With 24GHz Spectrum · · Score: 1

    Not a problem. The cellular companies will lobby the US government to make it stop raining.

  10. Bah. on Google Acquires Curated Music Service Songza · · Score: 2

    Just another opportunity for the Pigopolists to try to tell me what I'm supposed to like. Screw 'em.

  11. Re:Google Chrome virtual machine? on Google Is Building a Way To Launch Chrome Apps Without Installation · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For those of us who've grown weary of badmouthing Java, .NET and Flash, Google and Facebook are now determined to turn Javascript into the scourge of humanity.

  12. All of a sudden Joni Mitchell's inside my head... on Hotel Tycoon Seeks Property Rights On the Moon · · Score: 1

    ...singing "Pave paradise, Put up a parking lot"

  13. Plausible-sounding story, but... on Court: Homeland Security Must Disclose 'Internet Kill Switch' · · Score: 1

    ...the cited source is rather Sketchy. Looks like it's the house organ for a group of right-wing whack jobs.

  14. Weekly Standard = neocon rag. on Buried In the Healthcare.gov Source: "No Expectation of Privacy" · · Score: 1

    Owned by Rupert Murdoch, co-edited by Bill Kristol, featuring articles by all the usual suspects. Not to say the "invisible disclaimer" isn't there, but if it is it's just another one of the errors that need to be fixed by the contractors who built the Web site--unless someone is able to show where in the text of the ACA there's a clause repealing the HIPAA rules.

  15. Whatever else, we can all rest assured... on You've Got 25 Years Until UNIX Time Overflows · · Score: 1

    ...that Oracle will stall until the last minute to release any relevant fixes for Java.

  16. How about.... on Japanese Scientists Produce Element 113 · · Score: 1

    ....Fukushinium?

  17. Re:And why not in the US? Sounds like a breeder. on Bill Gates To Develop a Revolutionary Nuclear Reactor With Korea · · Score: 1

    Well, "Dude"...I did in fact RTFA, initially hoping to see something about thorium or pebble-bed reactors. To my surprise, they're flogging is a "sodium-cooled fast reactor". That's something we've heard about before, except this time they conveniently left out the words "liquid" (before "sodium") and "breeder" (after "fast"). In our current world political climate, following Fukushima and with all the hand-wringing about terrorists and "suitcase nukes", no technology that makes plutonium is gonna fly.

  18. Fine time to be thinking about this... on Ask Slashdot: How To Clean Up My Work Computer Before I Leave? · · Score: 1

    I don't know if you've checked your employer's IT usage policy, but in general if it's a company computer, everything on it is company property. About the best you can do (assuming this isn't a "middle finger exit") is to talk with the IT folks and see if they'll be so kind as to wipe the disk after they've saved whatever work-related stuff they deem important. Most likely they don't give a hoot about anything NSFW (They can't fire you--you're leaving anyway) and they'll want to make sure it's gone because exposing other employees to it would be a liability for them. If it's a typical usage policy, they could indeed withold your last paycheck or even sue you for wiping the disk yourself ("destruction of company data") or for that matter for copying anything non-personal and taking it with you ("stealing company information" or "breaching security"). If you were dumb enough to store any personal passwords or sensitive personal information on it....well, it sucks to be you.

  19. Fine by me... on Facebook Says Your Email Is @Facebook · · Score: 1

    All my "real world friends" (including those I happen to be connected with on Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever the heck else) already know how to contact me. For all my other "Facebook friends" and the legion of advertisers with access to my Facebook contact info (not to mention any other merchants who seem to think they're entitled to my email even selling me stuff face to face) I'll be happy to have them hurl their spam down that bottomless pit Zuckerberg has been so kind as to provide, where I promise never to even take a fleeting look at it.

  20. The return of "I R Uh En-ga-neer"... on University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department · · Score: 0

    Considering Governor Scott's general mindset, it would appear that the objective is probably to create a school dedicated to turning out code pushers with wind-up keys in their backs, uncorrupted by access to a liberal-arts education. People who'll go to work every day and do what they're told, unencumbered by such pollutants as critical thinking skills or any awareness of some rather inconvenient parts of history.

  21. So, what was his job? on Lawsuit Claims NASA Specialist Was Fired Over Intelligent Design Belief · · Score: 0

    The last I knew, NASA's essential mission was to do science, and this guy's work was supposed to be in support of that science. He was paid to be a scientist (or in this case, to do computery to support the science). Preaching the Gospel or some semi-covert version of creationism, while not a bad thing in and of itself, wasn't part of his job. If he was spending an indordinate amount of time on the taxpayers' dime doing so, or doing so in a way that interfered with the work of others, then yeah...I could see reprimanding him and, if he didn't cut it the hell out, kicking him out the door.

  22. Right off the bat... on Why Distributing Music As 24-bit/192kHz Downloads Is Pointless · · Score: 0

    ...I can see at least one bogosity and a couple of omissions. The author claims that the "phase doesn't matter" with the Nyquist criterion, when it can easily be shown that, for instance, sampling a 20KHz sign wave at exactly at 40KHz can result in a zero signal if the input and the sampling are synchronized such that the sampling points all occur as the input waveform crosses zero. If they're slightly out of sync, something will get through but it'll be greatly attenuated. More importantly is the issue of "aliasing"--if there's any component to the input that's of a higher frequency than the sampler, the digital result will contain a "difference" component somewhere in the audible spectrum. For an idea of what this might sound like, listen to Don Ellis playing his trumpet through a ring modulator at the beginning of "Hey Jude" from the "Live At Fillmore" album. In practice, the sampling rate is placed somewhat higher than the maximum input frequency, to compensate for the analog input filter's cut-off being less than perfect. The 44.1 KHz rate for CD audio was the lowest rate at the time that allowed the recording industry to be able to claim "high-fidelity" i. e. reproduction of a 20-20KHz bandwidth. 48KHz is probably safer. Admittedly 192KHz is overkill, but perhaps not for mastering, assuming the amount of post-processing that's likely to happen between the original recording and the listener. Typical "webcasting" software, for example, contains multiple layers of digital filters, compression and whatnot, so it helps to start with something that's not already compromised.

  23. It's a process on The Specter of Gasoline At $5 a Gallon · · Score: 0

    Change has to come over time, and while incentives in Europe and elsewhere have encouraged alternatives to long-distance commuting by car, the US until the crash has been continuing to gallop in the opposite direction. Where mass transit is popular and works well, that's been accomplished not entirely by running trains and buses on every thoroughfare. People have also chosen to arrange where they live and work to take advantage of available transit, and developers followed in their decisions of where and how to build. In addition, people might have a different idea about the preciousness of their time. Perhaps the "socialist" meme of shorter work weeks has some advantages over the American "workaholic" archetype that grew from "management by emergency". I used to drive to work and now commute by bus, and I can personally attest that although it does take longer, now I actually look forward to the "down time" at the beginning and end of the day in which I can relax and let someone else worry about the traffic.

  24. Two things jump right out... on Pink Floyd Engineer Alan Parsons Rips Audiophiles, YouTube and Jonas Brothers · · Score: 0

    One is his mention of how often digital TV sound is out of sync...which nobody else seems to talk about, ever. The other is that he's spot on about the "idiophiles" who think if a $200 amplifer is ten times as good as a $20 one, then a $20,000 amp has to be 100 times better still. Those folks lost me back when a bunch of them were claiming that your amplifier had to be built with point-to-point hand wiring instead of printed circuits, because the latter sounded "flat"...

  25. OK, first of all... on Ask Slashdot: How To Deal With Refurbed Drives With Customer Data? · · Score: 0

    There's really no such thing as a "refurbished" drive. It's an industry euphemism from "pulled from equipment", and perhaps minimally tested to see if it spins up, the spindle bearing doesn't sound like a siren and a controller can detect it. Worst-case, these came from old machines that some dishonest "recycler" crated up and sent to Africa to be dissected by kids in a mud hut. There's probably more of this going on now after the floods in Thailand. I'd let Newegg know about this, but if the price was right and the damn things work, I wouldn't send them back--what's on them isn't any of Newegg's business either. Just reformat them and put them to work--hopefully in something non-critical.