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User: Migraineman

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  1. Every community-contribution story I have ever participated in has devolved into one person getting butthurt, with the concurrent appearance of Godzilla* who destroys everyone and everything.


    * or equivalent

  2. Applying a cat to the interior space of a box usually results in you bleeding ... a lot.

  3. So they're implementing Cory Doctorw's Whuffie?

  4. Re:Trying to outlaw the competition on A New Study Says Services Like UberPool Are Making Traffic Worse (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    >>What is it with the proponents of mass transit who can't stand the idea of people making their own decisions about transportation? So if you can't make mass transit affordable and desirable, the only alternative is to outlaw the competition?

    Your elected overlords have already proscribed a public-transit solution to satisfy your transportation needs. That solution is predicated on some ridership statistic, and it implodes if the revenue numbers aren't met. How dare you choose an alternative?!?

  5. Re:What if they aren't wearing the wristband? on Engineer Develops Sonar Alarm System To Monitor Kids In the Pool (newatlas.com) · · Score: 1

    My toddlers were especially adept at taking off articles of clothing that they didn't want to wear ... which was pretty much everything for a while. But you can't make the wristband too difficult to remove, because "bath time" is a nightly activity to remove a layer of cruft from the dirty little monkeys. This system won't work because the inconvenience outweighs the potential benefit ... by a lot.

  6. Re:Because.... on Ask Slashdot: Why Are There No True Dual-System Laptops Or Tablet Computers? · · Score: 2

    The COMPLEX and HUGE (i.e. "impossible") task is keeping the STUPID ape at the keyboard from subverting the security model for his convenience. "Hey, that looks like a cool-and-useful toolbar, and it includes free animated cursors and icons!" .. [CTRL-C] {switch to protected machine} [CTRL-V]

  7. Re: And 300-400 workers less on Levi Strauss Replaces Human Sanding With Automated Lasers (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Agreed. And any possible jobs created by this technology won't be lateral-shifts for the folks whos resumes are highlighted with "5 years - sanded pants."

  8. Re:Not a Constitutional issue on US Supreme Court Will Revisit Ruling On Collecting Internet Sales Tax (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    There is a Constitutional component. $State-A cannot inflict tax-collection responsibilities on a business outside of its borders. Your NJ/VA/TX scenarion makes sense because the first business has a footprint in NJ, and therefore the State has authority to impose a tax burden on it. However, NJ cannot mandate that the business in VA do squat regardless of where an item is ultimately shipped to. (NJ *can* impose a "use" tax on the recipient, as an equivalent to a "sales" tax, and many States do ... but often compliance is not rigidly enforced, and I would be surprised if most folks even knew a use-tax existed or that they had a legal obligation to report and pay it.)

  9. Re:Esperanto was and is a failure on The Invented Language That Found a Second Life Online (bbc.com) · · Score: 1
    Argh.

    >python which I completely despise than in lisp which I hold in high esteem

    (We don't need your sort around here. (Go back to the parentheses farm where you belong.))

  10. Re:People look like apes, black people more so on When It Comes to Gorillas, Google Photos Remains Blind (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    Because it's hard to erase 250 years of racism with a few logical arguments.

    250 years? Puh-leese. Racial slurs and epithets have been around since tribal times, and probably pre-date language.

  11. Re:Critical success, but is it Star Wars? on Ask Slashdot: Thoughts On Star Wars: The Last Jedi One Week Later? [Spoilers] (independent.co.uk) · · Score: 2

    The story is at such a low point that it will take a truly amazing plan to have the Rebellion come roaring back and defeat the bad guys.

    Perhaps the remaining Rebels could hole-up on a small planet or moon ... yes, a moon ... preferably covered in dense foliage. They could embrace the local population of cute-but-intelligent bipedal mammals (call them The Ursidae ...) Then with primitive local resources they could defeat a vastly superior Imperial force to expose a weakness in the Empire's latest doomsday weapon - the Death MacGuffin. Once exposed, a single small fighter craft, piloted by the charismatic-but-flawed lead character, could fly through a long, narrow aperture and fire a single lethal blow to the Death MacGuffin.

  12. My disk is encrypted, but all it takes to bypass this protection is for an attacker — a malicious hotel housekeeper, or “evil maid”, for example — to spend a few minutes physically tampering with it without my knowledge.

    If that's the case, you're not doing "encrypted" properly.

  13. We had a point-to-point free-space optical link for networks in two 14-storey buildings ... back in the late 1980s. On a good day, it was awesome. But just about *everything* degraded it - rain, fog, sunlight glare off the neighboring chrome/glass buildings, etc. Even wind was an issue - you'd be surprised at how much a modern building moves around in the wind (and it's exacerbated by the effective moment-arm of the optical leg length.) You can defocus the optics to create a larger "spot" at the receiver, but power goes down by R^2, and any optical power that doesn't hit the receiver is "wasted."

    Oh, and "birds." The stooopid pigeons would seek shelter under the sun/rain shield on the enclosure, then see their reflections in the lenses. Damned things would sit there and peck at themselves. I was a tech at the time, and was dispatched to the roof on more than one occasion on Pigeon Patrol. (A properly placed pigeon, blocking the receive aperture, is equivalent to 10-30dB of path loss ... since I know you were wondering.)

  14. That's my situation. There is no "no cable" option on the plans from the sole vendor in my area. (I live in a rural area, so there's zero competition.)

  15. Re:Brain scan? on Why Some People Can Hear Silent GIF (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Just because you can't, doesn't mean Bengie is full of crap.

    Talk to a professional musician ... they "see" sound.

    And it's hardly a millenial-thing ...

  16. AI to become suicidal on Facebook Rolls Out AI To Detect Suicidal Posts Before They're Reported (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    I would expect the AI to become suicidal having been forced to wade through umpteen million posts about "what I'm currently eating," regurgitated cute-cat videos, and various flavors of tween- and teen-drama.

    AI: "Oh god, not ANOTHER bathroom selfie ..."

  17. Re:water shortages are bullshit on Bill Gates Just Bought 25,000 Acres in the Arizona Desert (kgw.com) · · Score: 2

    Just put the desal plant on one of Arizona's coastal regions, then use the abundant solar power to run the pumps. Distance problem solved!

  18. Re:It's not possible on The US Is Now the Only Country In the World To Reject the Paris Climate Deal · · Score: 0, Troll

    Really? Fair?

    Please explain how the US having the lion's share of a $100 BILLION per year financial obligation is fair. The Paris Accord is all about transferring wealth from the US to [elsewhere]. It's global Socialism covered in a thin veneer of "omg save the planet!"

  19. Re:Local Blogs on New Victims in the 'Billionaire War on Journalism' (newsweek.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's an old adage - "Facts are reported; news is produced." You might want to try to comprehend the subtle difference between the two.

  20. Re:ARRRK BLAAARKK GARRRRK! on Star Trek: Discovery Is Returning For a Second Season (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    Can we complain that it's just "not good" on is own merits?

  21. Re:What Could Possibly Go Wrong?! on Amazon Is Reportedly Building a Doorbell That Lets Drivers Into Your House (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    You could augment with a "kibble dispenser" that's triggered at the same time you send the delivery person a message that "the dog will be distracted for the next 7 minutes or so ... please don't dawdle."

  22. Powered by ... what, exactly? on Dutch Government Confirms Plan To Ban New Petrol, Diesel Cars By 2030 (electrek.co) · · Score: 1

    I hope their electric car initiative comes with a bunch of nook-you-lar plants to provide power, along with the attendant upgrade to the power distribution network. Transportation consumes between 3x and 10x your typical residential application. I need about 11kWh per day to run the homestead. I would need 35-50kWh for my car, and another 35-50kWh for the wife's car. YMMV, but the distribution network in our area can't handle a 2x increase in load, much less a 10x increase.

  23. Crematoria on NASA's Hubble Captures Blistering Pitch-Black Planet (scienmag.com) · · Score: 1

    Sounds an awful lot like this triple-max slam in the outer ring ... Crematoria, I think it's called. I would suggest that you keep an eye out for a bald guy if you ever visit, but by the time you realize he's there, it's too late.

  24. Re:Remember NAFTA! on Trump's Officials Suggest Re-Negotiating The Paris Climate Accord (msn.com) · · Score: 1

    Ya know, China is free to clean-up its internal pollution problems without the Paris Accord. I wonder why they haven't taken the initiative on this ...

    Oh wait! Having actually read the Paris Accord, it is clear that the construct IS carefully crafted to, as you noted earlier, "make the US less competitive" in a global marketplace. Specifically, there's a USD$100 BILLION commitment from the "developed" countries ... PER YEAR ... to be wealth-redistributed to other countries for dubious climate-related projects. The vast majority of this funding, if not all of it, is expected to come from the USA.

    The Paris Accord is a global wealth-redistrubution program wrapped in a wafer-thin-veneer of "OMG, save the planet."

  25. Re:Algorithmic Interface ? on Popular YouTube Artist Uses AI To Record New Album (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    When AI becomes sentient, will music get its soul back?