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  1. Re:Sensationalist summary at all? on Building a Full-Auto Gauss Gun · · Score: 1

    As I noted up-thread, air guns are considered firearms in NJ.

    It is not just federal laws that must be considered.

  2. Re:Sensationalist summary at all? on Building a Full-Auto Gauss Gun · · Score: 1

    Each state also defines what a firearm is. In NJ air-guns, (compressed air, co2), are considered firearms. Purchasers must go through the same permitting process as firearms owners do.

    But at least you won't put your eye out with it.

  3. Re:Cable channels on Ask Slashdot: What Would You Include In a New Building? · · Score: 1

    But for the love of Darwin, NOT SYFY

  4. Re:So if sparks from a nail gun caused it ... on Fires Sparked By Utah Target Shooters Prompt Evacuations · · Score: 2

    Actually, you make sense. In my other post I said we should hold the shooters accountable, but I failed to consider the 'unintended consequences" of that, which was dumb as I usually try to.

  5. Re:Since when... on Fires Sparked By Utah Target Shooters Prompt Evacuations · · Score: 1

    Bad example.

    You do have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. But if you are wrong, you will be held liable.

    You also do not have your right to speech preemptively oppressed by requiring a license to speak before you speak, or have your background checked or neighbors interviewed before you speak, as occurs with people purchasing firearms.

    Taking "shouting fire in a theater" analogy further, it would require everyone to have a federal background check and a state license before operating a printing press, or speaking in public at all, just in case they might print or say something wrongful or injurious.

    Holding people accountable for their wrongful or injurious behavior is one thing. Assuming they will engage in wrongful or injurious behavior before hand is another. I did not see screams of outrage demanding pre-licensing for speech after Al Sharpton destroyed a man over the Tawanna Brawley incident. Or the Richard Jewel story. Or Ray Donovan. Or any number of people falsely accused and maligned in the press or public in general.

  6. So if sparks from a nail gun caused it ... on Fires Sparked By Utah Target Shooters Prompt Evacuations · · Score: 1, Insightful

    We should blame the construction industry?
    Ban home remodeling?

    WTF?

    The shooters tried to put the fire out and called 911. They acted fairly responsibly, though with some forethought they would have taken some preventative measures to prevent sparks.

    Sometimes stuff happens. Using it to promote your particular social engineering agenda is bullcrap.

    As another poster said, hold the shooters responsible for this. If there are not already laws in place that do so, there can be fairly quickly.

  7. Re:What a lame announcement... on Windows Phone 8 Officially Unveiled · · Score: 1

    Fine. What about people without Exchange?

    I need to sync my personal outlook with my personal phone. I need to do it without a third party involved.
    Why? Because I use my personal phone for work. I do not want my corporate information filtered through someone else server, (iOS, Android), and I do not want my personal information filtered through my employers server, (Exchange, Blackberry).

    My employer would not be happy if meeting notices about the back-end system I might be working on for the major new service offering were to show up on Google servers, or anywhere else. And I sure know my employer has no business knowing what I do evenings or weekends. (my employer is a very large company in a very competitive sector)

    Currently, my Symbian phone, as well as old win6.5(?) phones can synch with Outlook on my PC over Bluetooth, (also cable and infrared if I prefer). No third party server needed. They both do this without any manual intervention. As soon as I walk within range, my phone connects to my laptop and syncs directly with it, without a third party server involved*. The last I checked, iOS, Android and Win7/8 require use of a third party server, and in the case of ios and android they do not sync everything in outlook.

    Why would Google, Apple and Microsoft all take away existing functionality and now require that this information be sent through a third party server? I suspect the question answers itself.

    *(This is using the last version of Nokia's PC Suite, as even the replacement tools OVI and Nokia Suite have removed some of the original functionality, like one way sync)

  8. White noise hurts my ears, but rain sounds do not on Do Headphones Help Or Hurt Productivity? · · Score: 2

    I use an artificial rain storm I downloaded a few years ago from http://simplynoise.com/ . I see they have a new version.

    I use headphones in the office. They have developers mixed in with everyone else, phone reps, managers, everyone but sales staff. So it can get very noisy.

    I tried white noise, pink noise and brown noise, (which they also have), but all hurt my ears after a while, when using headphones. I find the artificial rainstorm does not. I put it in a repeating loop and it takes care of suppressing office noise. this is especially effective when combined with noise cancelling headphones.

    I find music too distracting, whether rock, classical or something else, like Phillip Glass, Sigur Ros, etc. People do not believe me when they ask what I am bouncing around to in my chair and I say Naqoyqatsi or Edgar Meyer. But the rainstorm does not distract and does allow me to concentrate.

  9. Outside of the code, all documentation is worthles on Institutional Memory and Reverse Smuggling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I currently work for a company that has instituted an incredibly restrictive development methodology they bought from a big consulting firm. It requires multiple forms be filled out for every program written, every requirement for every program written, every request for every change to every program or application written. All of these reviewed by coworkers who are not about to alienate team members, and reviewed by lower management who want to look good to upper management by having everything go smoothly.

    These documents are then stored on the LAN. To never, or rarely ever, be read again.

    The one thing it does not enforce or require, is meaningful documentation in the code itself.

    It doubles, or more, the time it takes to do everything. But it does nothing to stop the mistakes any better than the procedures that went before. If anything, it finds less errors, because we were not given more time to do this double or more amount of work. So time is so compressed, we do not have time to do anything other than get it working and get it in.

    One thing it does do very well, is prevent problems from getting fixed. The only people that will start a change effort are those that notice a problem and are affected by it enough to have it cause them problems. Otherwise no one wants to go through the bureaucracy to kick off any sort of change effort, which leaves a lot of ticking time-bombs in the infrastructure configurations, application designs and application code.

    The only place documentation is good, is if it is meaningful, and in the code, where it is readily findable and far less likely to get lost, short of some fool deleting it.

    Documentation located anywhere else will be lost, or obsolete many more times than not, before you ever really need it.

    If anything, documentation in code should be reviewed by people with absolutely no connection to the application it is for. If it is good enough for them to figure out an understand what is being done, and more importantly why it is being done, only then is it worth anything more than the bytes is written with in storage.

  10. Can it translate Wingnut to Moonbat? on Facebook Testing Translate Feature For Comments? · · Score: 2

    That's the real test

  11. Not ANOTHER lcd, please on Amazon's Android Tablet Expected This Fall · · Score: 1

    I will continue with my current Kindle, or it's successors: e-paper, whether b/w or color. I prefer it to LCD's, and their power hungry, can't read in daylight issues. I suspect Amazon is just jumping on the bandwagon, so I do not hole out hope for anything more than a well designed LCD e-reader to compete with the NOOK LCD. What I am waiting for is color e-paper with a refresh rate fast enough for video, 60 cps or faster. Then add a flexible, wireless keyboard embedding in a cover, so I can replace my kindle, and I can replace my laptop. Maybe even flexible e-paper. The new Lenovo think tablet comes close as you can with current tech, with the optional hard portfolio case, but it still uses an LCD.

  12. Older, fatter, balder, slower on Ask Slashdot: What Will IT Look Like In 10 Years? · · Score: 1

    Pretty much like today only more so.

  13. Re:SAP on Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To Learn New Programming Languages? · · Score: 1

    The problem is learning ABAP. You can only really learn it on a SAP system, which means you have to already work at an SAP customer. There are very few places you can learn it otherwise. You can try the basement schools you see advertised in Indian sources all ove the world. I did that for a BASIS course. But without some sort of official SAP training, it will be almost impossible to get work. (try sulekha.com for an example) As someone that went through an SAP conversion, had training for ABAP both in-house and at SAP's training centers near Boston and near Philly, as well as private BASIS training, I can tell you SAP is not that great a system to work in. Yes, there is demand, but that is because it will burn, or bore, you out fairly quickly. They need to replace people fairly often as the burn out. SAP is an extremely complex system with close to 2 dozen separate, specialized modules. Consider it a massive CICS system, sitting on top of a virtual operating system (BASIS) that runs under any of many different operating systems, that accesses data from a deeply integrated database that does not need to be on the same OS. I went BACK to mainframe COBOL, and now also Unix/Linux scripting and PL/Sql. It is by far more fun, you have a lot more freedom to think up your own solution. In ABAP, most of what you do is the equivalent of TPS reports, or moving data between tables. (SAP is ALL tables, thousands of them). The only people that really enjoy SAP are the people cashing the checks in Waldorf Germany.

  14. Re:Dangerous if done wrong on Use Your Car To Power Your House · · Score: 1

    Mostly. But if Nissan wants to do it right, they will only sell the system with the additional hardware needed, or some other way to discourage just hacking up a double-male plug to go from the gen to a wall socket. Don't get me wrong, it is a cool idea. But it could be a bad situation of someone screws up.

  15. Dangerous if done wrong on Use Your Car To Power Your House · · Score: 2

    If you just try to plug this into a wall socket, you could feed electricity out of your house into the power lines people are working on. Something that idiots installing home-center purchased generators have been known to do. This is why when power generators are properly installed, they use cutoffs and safety switches between the house and the main utility meter to prevent back feeding power into the grid when nothing is coming in. Anyone that does this should only run a line from the car to an outlet strip to power a few critical items, unless a proper system is installed and inspected to prevent that back-feed.

  16. Re:I like my Turbo Diesel on CEO Confirms Chevy To Sell Diesel Cruze In US · · Score: 1

    Check the calendar, it's 40 years since the 1970's Modern diesel cars do not have soot coming out of them. they use low sulfur fuel, and the engines do not cost twice as much. Just go to the VW US site and compare the prices for the diesel version of any of the cars with the gas model of equivalent power. And compare the diesel mileage to both the equivalent gas engine or the most economical gas engine, diesel wins both times. The only wonder is the stupid prejudice manufacturers have about how the public will react to diesel. It scared Honda from offering the what many consider to be the best passenger car diesel in the world to US consumers. A decision I am still mad about. The other wonder is why small diesels are not offered in the US in light duty pickups, like F150, Dakota, Tacoma. The efficiency and power make all kinds of sense there too.

  17. Why no releases of secrets from potential enemies? on Anonymous Releases Restricted NATO Document · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Releasing secrets is often good, as many secrets just protect the asses of corrupt vested interests. But why do we see no releases of secrets from potential threats to free societies? Like China, various idiot countries like N. Korea, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc? Just sayin'...

  18. Thomas Edison State College, or similar on Ask Slashdot: CS Degree Without Gen-Ed Requirements? · · Score: 1

    It issues degrees based on granting credits for life experience, CLEP testing, and self-study course. They have no classrooms and are fully accredited and are a NJ state school, not a private Phoenix-like school. There are a few other schools like it around if you look. One of them is likely to offer a degree you want. http://www.tesc.edu/

  19. Re:Lenovo on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Choose a Windows Laptop? · · Score: 1

    I concur. I bought a Lenovo T61 a few years back because of the quality of the hardware and support. And I worked for Sony and used a co. issued VAIO. (I bought it with SLED as the OS, tired of it and installed XP, and then upgraded to Win7. Solid with all of them) The support software that comes with it is top notch and the support site is easy to figure out. I do not know whether the same support software is available on the consumer laptops, but I would definitely keep Lenovo on your list to look at.

  20. Maybe Infra-red heat lamps would be a better idea on 1948 Mayor To MIT: Use Flamethrowers To Melt Snow? · · Score: 1

    I have been investigating ways to avoid shoveling, or buy a snow-blower. I have no garage to store it in and my driveway is below grade, so hauling that thing to and from the driveway is at the least inconvenient. And that is without worrying about some drive-by theft if I try leaving it in the driveway over the winter. After looking at the various alternatives, electric cables, hot water from a tank or geo-thermal pumped through plastic pipes, I ran across infra-red heat lamps being used for this. Looks interesting. I have no clue practical this is, or how much it will cost to install yet. But since I need to move and rebuild my driveway anyway, I figure I will ask some contractors for estimates on how much these would add to the cost. Or cost to run for that matter. Here is one link to a somewhat biased source: http://www.infraredheaters.com/snowice.htm#3.0%20%20Overhead

  21. Re:Some Sign of Hope on IT's Last Hope — a Job In the Boonies? · · Score: 1

    "The other thing I am finding is that, while you don't have be a salesperson, having some level of social skills and the ability to work with clients makes a big difference."

    Then hire a friggin' salesman.

    If I wanted to be a people person I would have gone into porn, not I.T.

  22. Obviously. Gamers are used to 'protein structures' on Gamers Beat Algorithms At Finding Protein Structures · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's all over their parents basement.

  23. But will it recognize your expression and auto- on Lenovo Trying Face Recognition For Logins On New Laptops · · Score: 2, Funny

    -complete to teenSchoolgirlsInIceCream.fap?

  24. Regulators do know, and do not care on Time For Universal Data Plans? · · Score: 2, Informative

    'It's only a matter of time before regulators catch wind of just how many times we're being charged for the exact same thing.'" They do know this. they do not care. The regulators are in the pockets of those they regulate. Look at any regulated industry. Most of the time they support being regulated because they use those regulations for their own benefit. Oil, gas, Finance, banks, autos, pharma, etc. Even if an industry fights against initial regulation, they support it afterward, when then end up controlling it. They use the regulations to justify anti-consumer actions and to drive UP the cost of entry to keep competition down. Or even to eliminate competition if they can slip in a regulation that damages competitors. That is why lobbying is such a big business. the lobbyists win no matter what happens with regulations. They get paid to fight against or for any regulation that comes up. They are worse than lawyers.

  25. Government funded science is always politicized on Virginia AG Probing Michael Mann For Fraud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "No end in sight for the politicizing of the science and research surrounding climate change." Duh. Since the funding for it comes from government it is politicized from the start. What the OP is saying is that only disagreement or challenge to one viewpoint is politcs, the other side is pristine pure selfless logic. Crap. It's ALL politics. Why else do progressives attack anything that questions AGW? True science accepts challenges either as corrections to a theory or as test of validity.