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User: sco08y

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Comments · 1,706

  1. Re:Ethanol from corn is height of stupidity on Corn Shortage Hampers US Ethanol Production · · Score: 1

    Common sense does not require a citation.

    However, that post was not common sense. It was a made up "fact" based on what someone "felt" was right.

    In other words, that post was equivalent to religious doctrine.

    Except people routinely feel like they'd like to lie or sleep around, so why doesn't religious doctrine say, "go right ahead"?

  2. Re:I almost hope they do it... on Rapiscan's Backscatter Machines May End Up In US Federal Buildings · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's pretty amusing watching people freak out over these things and call them nude-o-scopes and similar. Just like with gun-control laws, I don't care a lot about the underlying issue, but it's so tempting to take a stance just because the NRA folk are so bloody nuts.

    The NRA folks are nuts? It's the gun grabbers who are calling to lock people away in jail for owning a rifle with scary parts, or for owning a sheet metal box with a spring in it.

    None of the pro-gun folks want to send *you* to jail for being a douche, after all.

    Why do you fear and hate your tax-paying, law-abiding neighbors so much that you want to see them spend hard time in jail for owning a gun?

  3. Re:The TL;DR on Super Bowl Blackout Caused By Defective Protective Relay · · Score: 2

    You are being pedantic to make yourself feel important. ... Why an engineer talking to the general public on Slashdot feels the need to point out the difference is unknown. Perhaps this engineer feels under appreciated?

    Talk about projection.

  4. Re:NOT ROCKET SCIENCE on Printable AR-15 Mag Gets More Reliable; YouTube Pulls Video of Demo · · Score: 1

    Holy shit /. is fucking paranoid.

  5. Re:Snake oil again? on Startup Uses Radiation Fear To Map Cellphone Coverage · · Score: 1

    That should easily be enough to keep up with a cellphone and that is without convection which is much higher.

    Not just convection, but blood flow. The human body is liquid cooled, which is an incredibly efficient way to regulate heat.

  6. Re:If this can happen ... on Site Copies Content and Uses the DMCA to Take Down the Original Articles · · Score: 1

    Per company? Oh, look... we went out of business last night and...wouldn't you know it...reopened for business today under a new name.

    How many large content producers are going to restructure periodically to make false DMCA requests? All that paperwork costs money, so you just have to make fraudulent DMCA requests cost more than they're worth.

  7. Re:Roll your own. on Discourse: Next-Generation Discussion/Web Forum Software · · Score: 1

    He's got a point that many implementations make it hard to navigate the tree,

    I don't even grant him that point. Hard compared to what? A flat list of posts that one should try to reconstruct the (naturally tree-shaped) discussion structure from? That's like saying we should be using square wheels because some round wheels make it hard to steer the car.

    Many implementations don't give you ready access to the parent and siblings of a post. Also, it is naturally a tree, but often a thread of discussion is mostly a list, and implementations could often flatten those. But, point taken, most of those are not issues that require fundamentally reworking a tree, and they're all far better than the "wall of text" you get with a flat list.

  8. Re:Roll your own. on Discourse: Next-Generation Discussion/Web Forum Software · · Score: 1

    In this particular case it is because Jeff Atwood hates threading. I think it's a huge mistake and he never manages to argue this choice in a compelling way, but I guess it's an emotional thing after all.

    He's got a point that many implementations make it hard to navigate the tree, but it's not like it's that hard to implement what he wants (find my replies, see original) and be able to collapse trees.

  9. Same problem: groupthink on Discourse: Next-Generation Discussion/Web Forum Software · · Score: 1

    It's using the same user-based moderation that has sunk most other discussion forums. Like-minded people will overwhelm the discussion, and moderate up people they agree with. Nothing to see here, move along.

  10. Re:So... on Mars Rover Curiosity: Less Brainpower Than Apple's iPhone 5 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not even enough power for Mildly Peeved Birds, Canadian edition.

  11. Re:Demand More on As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow To a Trickle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Having written all that, I would like to say I agree that in general, it's deplorable what the music companies pay artists, and that should change. But I'm not seeing anything new here.

    How? It's a field with an overabundance of supply and not that much demand.

  12. Re:Blending vs stirring or shaking... on Interviews: Ask Blendtec Founder Tom Dickson What Won't Blend? · · Score: 4, Funny

    Please try to shake or stir a solid food item into another or a liquid.

    I'll be waiting to find out how well that goes for you...

    Sounds like a job for ... Too Much Coffee Man!

  13. Re:Fact check on Real-Time Fact Checking With "Truth Teller" · · Score: 1

    I think that there must be at least one indisputable fact that all humans could agree on... I just don't know what it is but I'm certain it will never feature in a political debate.

    Exactly. If everyone agrees on it, what's the point of bringing it up in a debate?

  14. Why not apply it to their reporting? on Real-Time Fact Checking With "Truth Teller" · · Score: 1

    Back in the day, "fact checking" was something a newspaper or such ran against their own product. Readers' Digest was famous for their fact checkers.

    If they want to check a speech in real time, why don't they run it on their own reporting and opinion pages?

    Going around piously checking everyone else's facts is more creating news than anything else.

  15. Re:A55 RGY Takes the Cake on DMVs Across the Country Learning Textspeak · · Score: 2

    http://grupthinkpro.s3.amazonaws.com/grupthinklive80240347b2eab6b15fd4935656ba50e8

    Nobody will ever top Florida "A55 RGY" with the big orange in the middle serving as the letter "O."

    A55 O RGY

    The fact that it says "Sunshine State" beneath is just perfect.

  16. Couldn't we just charge them tuition? on Does US Owe the World an Education At Its Expense? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, wait, we do.

  17. Storage space needs to be budgeted in large corps on 64GB MS Surface Pro Only Has 23GB of Free Space · · Score: 1

    I was going to write something about how end users need to be aware of how much space things take and then the coffee kicked in.

    How the fuck do you release a 41 GB mobile OS?

    Simple: MS has any number of project teams, and they all need to write code to deliver features, but they don't account for disk space.

    At some point, the hardware guys need to say, "okay, we can provide X GB of space for X dollars, more storage space is going to require more chassis space, thermal effects, $, etc."

    Then that gets parceled out to the UX team, who get the vast bulk of the space, and to the installer team that parcels it out to software devs.

    So making your software fit becomes a project deliverable, just like anything else. And then you can make trades, if UX complains, "hey, this loads slowly," you can say, "sure, that's because we compressed those files, if you'd like it to load faster, maybe we could 'buy' some space from Bob's team, or you can let us have some from the UX pool if you feel it's important enough."

  18. Re:Provoking on Machine Gun Fire From Military Helicopters Flying Over Downtown Miami · · Score: 2

    And yet, how well is the US Military doing against the Taliban, etc. who are also armed with mostly small arms and some improvised explosive devices?

    Great once we got the locals on our side.

  19. Re:Not 1609 kilometers... on Cities' Heat Can Affect Temperatures 1000+ Miles Away · · Score: 1

    It says "more than", and it is obvious from context that it doesn't exclude an effect for less than 1000 miles (actually, the absolute biggest effect of a city is at 0 miles distance for sure). Therefore it cannot be an exact number.

    Also, how probable is it that a natural phenomenon agrees to four significant digits with a completely arbitrary length unit not based on that phenomenon?

    If you ever work with large sets of data, you'd be amazed at how many events occur precisely at midnight, down to the nanosecond. /sarcasm

  20. Re:Two things. on Data Analyst Spoils the World's Biggest Song Vote · · Score: 1

    1. This "story" is on Slashdot only because of the Australia connection.

    Only thing worse than editors: people constantly bitching "I'm not interested thus this story shouldn't have been posted."

    Some of us actually work in data analysis and find it interesting. Sorry everything can't be about the wonders of your roommates' basement.

  21. Re:I'm curious to see how many retailers actually on Credit Card Swipe Fees Begin Sunday In USA · · Score: 0

    I still don't see how offering a discount for cash or debit customers actually hurts you hardcore cc users. Cash/debit customers cost the merchant less. It's that simple. Their costs are up to 4% higher for cc customers. I don't see why cash customers should be forced to pay it just to give cc customers the illusion that using a cc is free when it isn't.

    Really? Those registers are free? Counting and hauling all that cash around is free? Losing money if they accept counterfeit bills doesn't cost them anything? Losing business when lines are long because people are laboriously counting cash and making change doesn't cost them business? There are no intangible costs, like the risk of armed robbery?

    The assumption that cash is cheap is bullshit. No one works out how much it costs because there's no point: your customers would refuse to do business if you didn't accept cash. (Many would also claim that "it's legal tender, you have to take it", which isn't true, but again you'd be wasting time arguing with idiots.)

    Credit cards only seem expensive to a business owner because the cost is a single line item that they can negotiate.

  22. Re:I'm curious to see how many retailers actually on Credit Card Swipe Fees Begin Sunday In USA · · Score: 1

    If you think companies such as Apple pay per-transaction for things like the iTunes Music Store, you don't understand how commerce works for giant corporations.

    If they don't work out an annual contract price for their card processing, or somehow do it themselves, they are a lot stupider than I thought.

    They probably have the fees negotiated pretty low, but you'll notice that if you buy stuff you don't get charged right away. ITMS will bundle individual purchases together, and buying an album is slightly cheaper than buying the individual tracks.

  23. Re:Terrible editing on Unemployed Chinese Graduates Say No Thanks To Factory Jobs · · Score: 1

    The submitter was probably a non-native English speaker so his language errors can be excused. What the hell is with the slashdot editing? Come on guys... it takes one minute to correct the mistakes in that summary.

    One minute? If they wasted all that time editing, it would be three days and one minute after everyone else had covered the story!

  24. Re:This is smart? on Glasgow To Be UK's First 'Smart City' · · Score: 1

    Arken's Law. All of three minutes.

    So your argument is "shut up." Thanks for sharing.

  25. Re:Well... on 'Bankrupt' Australian Surgeon Sues Google For Auto-Complete · · Score: 1

    His personal bankruptcy was annulled.

    How do you annul a bankruptcy? And even if it's annulled, it did happen. He was bankrupt, even if, like the stars, it was only 23 hours between marriage and annulment. If that annulment mattered, then "Guy Hingston" should complete to "Guy Hingston bankruptcy annuled", and that would be perfectly fine.

    Never heard of that, so google is my friend, and it turns out that you can "back out" of a bankruptcy, especially if the courts screw it up, and you're able to pay off your creditors.