Slashdot Mirror


User: CrimsonAvenger

CrimsonAvenger's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
9,858
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 9,858

  1. Pennsylvania on MacKeeper May Have To Pay Millions In Class-Action Suit · · Score: 2

    Class Action Suit filed in PA.

    Good luck getting company in Ukraine to cough up any money. It's not like they're part of the EU or something....

  2. Re:It will work on Europe Vows To Get Rid of Geo-Blocking · · Score: 1

    So they're going to settle on the most restrictive member nation's copyright rules?

    Or require every nation but one to change their copyright laws? Yeah, that'll be interesting.

  3. Re:...only a dummy... on SpaceX Launch Abort Test Successful · · Score: 1

    >> Wednesday's test was conducted at Cape Canaveral in Florida, and saw a test vehicle - carrying no humans, only a dummy - hurled skywards by a set of powerful in-built thrusters.

    Strange. I don't remember reading anything about there being a member of Congress on board..

    Now that's just insulting to crash test dummies everywhere!

  4. Re:On a similiar note... on The Medical Bill Mystery · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Having gone through the same sort of thing for my cancer, the real reason it took so long is that the Doctor and Insurance Company went round and round trying to sort out who was stuck with paying for things.

    Eventually, the doctor will give up and bill the patient....

    At which point, you challenge the bill, ask both doctor and insurance company to prove that the bill isn't covered by insurance, and argue about it for a couple more years....

  5. Re:nonsense on The Medical Bill Mystery · · Score: 1

    I call up my doctor and dentist and make a reservation and am in with a few days and at a time I want, never fails.

    Oddly enough, that's just how it works here. Last time I came down with something (two weeks ago, still not quite over it, since it's a two-week+ disease), I called my GP, got an appointment later that morning...

  6. Re:Teamsters on Self-Driving Big Rigs Become a Reality · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This was never about self-driving cars. This was always about wiping out an entire employment sector and piping even more profit up to the top. And yes, that is a bad thing.

    Yeah, and all those combines and harvesters were invented to wipe out farmers and sharecroppers and such. And it WORKED!! There are hardly any sharecroppers left anymore. And not a damn lot of farmers.

    Okay, everyone raise their hands who thinks we should disallow that sort of thing, and go back to the early 19th century way of doing things, with one person in three being a farmer?

    It should also be noted that most of us are programmers. Once upon a time, "computer" was a job description. Which we, collectively, have put out of business. What's worse, "computers" used to be one of the few technical field dominated by women...so, should we go back to the old days of women "computers" and no electronics? Really?

    Face it, progress happens. And removing the need for unnecessary jobs is a good thing. Unless you're a Luddite, of course (you remember the Luddites, right? they objected to machinery taking away the jobs of regular guys)....

  7. Re:Laws that need to be made in secret on Extreme Secrecy Eroding Support For Trans-Pacific Partnership · · Score: 4, Informative

    Umm, it's a TREATY. Which has the force of law under the Constitution.

  8. hmmmm on Recent Paper Shows Fracking Chemicals In Drinking Water, Industry Attacks It · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the authors thinks the problem may have been due to a leak at a storage tank on the surface. Emphasis on the "may".

    Plus there's the concentration issue - parts per trillion doesn't make for much of a problem in any case. Even the authors didn't make this out to be a health problem....

    Of course, I could be mistaken, and the companies involved could be part of a massive conspiracy to slaughter Pennsylvanians by the millions.

    Yeah, on second thought, I'll have to go with the conspiracy thing. After all, everyone knows that even one part per trillion is too much, and the spill at the storage tank was probably just meant to cover up the deliberate poisoning of the water supply in three counties in rural PA....

  9. Re:Facebook could help shools more.... on Led By Zuckerberg, Billionaires Give $100M To Fund Private Elementary Schools · · Score: 1

    If you're kid is not learning because they're on Facebook (or Xbox, or the iPad, or whatever) all the time, you've FAILED as a parent. For some reason, that's accepted nowadays.

    I work in schools.
    I work in "elementary" schools (we don't call them that, but similar age range).
    I work in private "elementary" schools.

    I find it vaguely ironic that someone who can't spell "your" (or someone who can't choose the proper form from among "your" and "you're", if you prefer), and who works in various schools, thinks he can pinpoint the failure point in education...

    Just curious, did YOUR parents fail you in education?

  10. Re:Scientifically driven politics on House Panel Holds Hearing On "Politically Driven Science" - Without Scientists · · Score: 2

    The lack of scientists at this hearing would be of interest if the last time the House had a meeting about drug laws they had invited drug dealers. Or drug users.

    Note, by the by, that the real reason no scientists were invited is that scientists don't contribute meaningful amounts to reelection campaigns....

  11. Re:Plot Hole on Why Scientists Love 'Lord of the Rings' · · Score: 5, Informative

    Who's the eldest being in Middle Earth, Tom Bombadil or Treebeard?

    Bombadil was "eldest and fatherless".

    Treebeard was merely the eldest Ent. Note that the Ents were awakened to sentience by the Elves, so Galadriel (who was among the Firstborn of the Elves) was older than Treebeard as well.

    Note that the age of any particular Elf is problematic in general - very few of the Firstborn were mentioned by name, which is not the same as "only a few of the Firstborn were still alive in Middle Earth (much less in Valinor)".

    Is "Sauron" (lit. "abominable") a name that he despises and does not permit his underlings to speak, and if so, why does he have his messenger refer to him as "Lord Sauron the Great" and a servant refer to himself as "the mouth of Sauron"?

    Because they weren't speaking English, and it's annoying to have names for characters vary within a literary work? Or possibly because the comment about "he permits his name to be neither spelt nor spoken" was an exaggeration by Gandalf (the wisest of the Maiar) when speaking of Sauron (the most powerful of the Maiar)?

    Why does Gandalf warn people against using devices "of an art deeper than we possess ourselves" when talking about the palantir and yet have no problem with with the fellowship using all sorts of magical items of arts deeper than they possess (glowing elvish swords, daggers from the barrow, the Phial of Galadriel, Galadriel's box of earth, etc)?

    Because he meant "an art deeper than *I* possess" when he said that (he was using the Royal "we"...). The work of Feanor was beyond even the Maiar, unlike sharp pointy things made by Elves and handed out by same to diverse characters....

    So Galadriel knows Sauron's thoughts that concern the elves, but didn't know of Saruman's betrayal, or never saw relevant to mention it to Gandalf?

    Saruman was NOT an elf (it's not clear what he was - perhaps a Maiar like Gandalf). So "thoughts that concern the elves" didn't apply. Note that the thoughts in question weren't "thoughts of interest to elves", but "thought about the elves".

    Oh, and the mithril shirt pretty much had to be hard enough to stop a blade, or there was no point to it. Most likely the "supple as linen" was marketing-speak for "amazingly light and flexible by the standards of a mailshirt". What, you didn't think they had marketing in Middle Earth? Marketing was one of those evils even older than Sauron that was mentioned in passing....

  12. Re:12/7 on VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak · · Score: 1

    From memory.

    Of course, my mnemonic for D-Day is "Twas the Dark of the Moon on the sixth of June in a Kenworth hauling logs..."

    As to Midway, once upon a time, I read the History of the US Navy in WW2 (all fourteen volumes). One of the things mentioned there is that Yamamoto predicted that Japan would run amok in the Pacific for six months after Pearl Harbor...which was almost exactly the length of time from Pearl Harbor to Midway (off by only three days).

  13. Re:Poster sounds sympathetic, but sounds like thre on VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak · · Score: 2

    Which is my point in reference to 12/7, Pearl Harbor, an event which lead to the use of a nuclear bomb

    Saying that Pearl Harbor led to the use of the Bomb is a bit...overstated.

    The US was preparing to enter WW2 well before Pearl Harbor. And the reason the Bomb was dropped in Japan (as opposed to on Berlin) is that the Germans surrendered before the Bomb was finished.

    Even without Pearl Harbor, if Hitler had been loony enough to declare war on us (he did, by the way - he was hoping Japan would attack the USSR if he "helped them" by declaring war on the USA. Alas for him, the Japanese weren't as stupid as he was) without the attack by Japan, we'd have nuked Germany if the Germans had managed to hold out till late '45....

  14. Re:12/7 on VA Tech Student Arrested For Posting Perceived Threat Via Yik Yak · · Score: 1

    Midway and D-Day? Assuming US notation, of course....

  15. Re:'armless on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 1

    One armed gunman?

    So, according to TFS, one guy with two arms (two armed gunMAN) shows up, gets killed. Along with, presumably someone else, since two people were killed....

  16. Re:Not exactly a hack on Hacking the US Prescription System · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They know about your medication (see above).
    What they may lack is the matching email address to your name?

    They know about my meds because I pretty much have to tell someone to get the prescription filled.

    They know my email address since the same people I go to to get the prescription filled have my email address so they can send me reminders that my refills are due.

    So, the pharmacy has my prescription history going way back (what, you think I change pharmacies every time I get a new prescription) and my email address. And I still have never gotten any spam advertising drugs.

    Note that drug advertising to me wouldn't actually do any good, since I'm not an MD, and am incapable of prescribing drugs to myself (or anyone else). That sort of thing is best aimed at doctors and hypochondriacs (the kind who will nag their doctors about the new drugs they see on TV that sound like they'd be PERFECT for their problems)....

  17. Re:Minumum Wage will push these sooner on Robots In 2020: Lending a Helping Hand To Humans (And Each Other) · · Score: 2

    Machines in every form benefit the owners of the means of production, not the worker that works for someone else.

    Is that why the average worker is no better off today than they were in 1800?

    Damn, you beat me to it!

    It's fascinating watching supposedly educated people pining for the good old days when Real Men (tm) were mostly peasants. Sorry guys, automation is what makes things like cars, computers, TVs, refrigerators, fresh fruit in winter, etc. possible....

  18. Re:One word: Cloud on Unable To Hack Into Grading System, Georgia Student Torches Computer Lab · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's assume he's managed to live in a world where the subject of cloud storage/backup never once reached the level of awareness.

    So, what kind of dolt thinks that the grades are stored on machines in the school's computer lab???

    Or was he burning down the lab in a fit or pique because his awesome computer skills weren't enough to deal with the grades being stored on a machine he had no access to?

  19. Re:Not exactly a hack on Hacking the US Prescription System · · Score: 2

    Recently, I noticed that when I picked up a prescription for a (for me new) medication that's mostly used for one purpose, I suddenly got dozens of spam e-mails wanting to "help" me with a particular diagnosis I don't have. And that's the few that went through the double layer spam filter. It was way too pervasive to be a coincidence.

    I've been taking moderately special purpose meds off and on for years (the sorts of things you take when you have a bone marrow transplant).

    I have NEVER gotten any spam emails as a result (unless you count that "you really need to refill your prescription since you're about to run out of pills, you dolt!" sort that I get as a reminder from the drugstore)....

  20. Re:Assumptions on Hacking the US Prescription System · · Score: 2

    I think it is far more likely that the pharmacy sells this information to insurance

    So, the pharmacies are selling information on your prescription drugs to...your insurance company?

    You remember your insurance company - they're the ones who are paying for your prescription drugs. If the pharmacies are selling your drug information to your insurance companies, the pharmacies have one of the greatest rackets in history - they're managing to sell information that is REQUIRED FOR BILLING to the people paying the bills.

    Now that's audacity!

  21. Re:More religious whackjobs on Native Hawaiian Panel Withdraws Support For World's Largest Telescope · · Score: 2

    Have you seen our national seal? An eagle with arrows and olive branches. We dictate the terms of peace because we have the weapons to do so.

    Great Seal of the US - first used in 1782.

    US becomes a world power - 1943, perhaps. An argument could be made for 1942 if you tried real hard. Before that? Requires a rather huge stretch....

  22. Re:Can he win? on Bernie Sanders, Presidential Candidate and H-1B Skeptic · · Score: 2

    The deficit from Clinton's years was due to Republican Congress setting the budget. It was also disappearing by time he left office.

    Interesting theory, that.

    Oddly enough, a quick check shows that the Democrats controlled Congress during the only part of Clinton's Presidency that the deficit increased.

    The deficit began decreasing pretty much as soon as the Republicans took over...

  23. Re:More religious whackjobs on Native Hawaiian Panel Withdraws Support For World's Largest Telescope · · Score: 1

    Hard to worry about what happened over a 100 years ago. Had the issue bothered a lot of people, Hawaii wouldn't have voted to join the U.S. in 1959 by 93%.

    It should be noted that the vote to join the USA was a popular vote by the Japanese citizens, the Chinese citizens, the Parsee citizens, the White citizens, and the Black citizens. The natives didn't have much say at all, since they are a teeny, tiny fraction of the population....

    For those who are interested in such things, racial politics are...unusual (by American standards) there - the Parsees and Chinese are on top, then the Japanese, then the Whites, then the Blacks. The natives are somewhere down below there.

  24. Re:Overly-wide interpretations on US Senate Targets Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    1) A jury-like panel of practitioners to judge obviousness.

    It should, perhaps, be noted that a lot of things are obvious AFTER they've been invented.

    NO doubt there are some that were also obvious before they were invented too, but it's by no means the same set of things....

  25. Re:I certainly hope not on Can Riots Be Predicted By Social Media? · · Score: 2

    The old "you can't yell fire in a crowded movie house" comes to mind.

    The proper quote is "you can't FALSELY yell fire in a crowded theatre".

    Pay close attention to that extra word - it's important....