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User: BaronAaron

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Comments · 146

  1. Re:Are You Kidding? on Geneticists Decry Book On Race and Evolution · · Score: 1

    Well let's ignore the fact that Mongolia, Russia, and Ethiopia are places, not races. The underlying issue is:

    Race is a social term used to generalize the ancestry of a person. It's to vague to make a prediction about the genes, and their expression, in a particular person.

    There is a lot of genetic diversity even in, what can be considered, a genetically homogeneous population. Genes that have been unexpressed for generations can suddenly appear again if the right couple have offspring. Even the genetic expression within offspring from a single couple can vary wildly. I think most of know cases similar to the family with 3 brown hair and eyed kids, and 1 with blonde hair and blue eyes.

    You throw genetic diversification increases from a few 100 years of globalization into the mix and the whole notion of scientifically defining a race, let alone predicting actual gene expressions in a individual, becomes ridiculous.

    Predictions of gene expression can only be done on a case by case basis within a specific heredity context. This is the reason the doctor's form asks for your parent's, grandparent's, and siblings medical history, not what race you are.

  2. Re:Slow CPU, crippled network, too little RAM on New Raspberry Pi Model B+ · · Score: 1

    While note a "real" power connector, you can power the Rpi through the GPIO header. Works nicely.

  3. Re:Java or C# + AngularJS on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Web Language That's Long-Lived, and Not Too Buzzy? · · Score: 1

    This.

    The days of server-side framework being closely coupled to the client side presentation layer are over. Write the frontend in plain HTML / Javascript. Use a Javascript framework to make life easier. Do the server-side as a RESTful service.

    Java or C# would be good server-side languages, because of the ease of finding developers.

    I personally prefer C# and ASP.NET MVC Web API. A completely open source solution when you use Mono.

  4. Re:Yay DRM on Civilization V Officially Available On Linux For SteamOS · · Score: 1

    Nearly every Steam game release is instantly cracked by the pirate community. If you want your games forever, no matter what, just save the crack along with your Steam backups.

  5. Re:And with that yoiu get POWER! on California City Considers Restarting Desalination Plant To Fight Drought · · Score: 2

    As soon as the pressure equalizes between the two sides of the membrane the flow of water will stop. Your pump will have to do all the work to pull the water through the membrane at the point. It's now also going to have to fight gravity to pump the water from the depths of the ocean.

  6. Re:I wonder on Bloomberg's Trading Terminals Now Providing Bitcoin Pricing · · Score: 1

    1) I hate the idea of having all of these computers working harder and harder, using more and more energy, and every day there being more miners setting up more computers, all of it in an unproductive pursuit of nothing but wealth. The energy wasted for no real societal gain makes it more socially useless than a marketing department for a law firm.

    A non-centralized, freely available to anyone with an Internet connection, digital currency is a huge gain for society. Miners insure the integrity of this system. It's not wasted energy if you value the idea behind it.

    2) The price varies so wildly, but it's all based off of nothing. At least with stocks, you have company metrics and financials you can at least try to use to figure out where it's going. At least with national currencies, you can look at what the country is doing politically and financially to try and guess where the currency is going. With bithcoin, it's like it's decided by a magic eight ball...there is nothing you can base decisions on other than a random guess.

    Bitcoin prices are driven by supply and demand. That's about as simple as economics gets. Just like gold or any other finite commodity, as long as it has value in the minds of people the price will go up in the long term because of the limited supply.

  7. Re:"Different from ours" ?? on Scientists Give Praying Mantises Tiny 3D Glasses · · Score: 2

    They have compound eyes like any other insect. They just happen to have Pseudopupils. Compound eyes have pigments that reflect light from wide angles and let straight on light pass through to the photo-receptor.

    Mantis have a high contrast between the two states giving the appearance of a pupil, probably to creep us out a lot more.

  8. Re:Just more bullshit on F.C.C., In Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane · · Score: 1

    How does Amazon or any other hosting provider have any negotiating power with the ISPs? Your ISP can shut off access to Amazon if they want to, what are you going to do? Switch? If you are lucky you have maybe two other choices who will do exactly the same if Amazon doesn't pay whatever extortion fee they come up with.

    Cloud computing has exacerbated the whole thing by centralizing most of the content in a few companies. ISPs now have a short list (Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc) of companies to extort.

  9. ASP? on The Security of Popular Programming Languages · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do they mean Classic ASP? They list .NET separately so I don't think they mean ASP.NET, but they also don't include ASP in their list of "legacy" languages. I also seriously doubt 16% of companies are still using Classic ASP.

    ASP isn't even a language, it's a framework. You can write a Classic ASP app in vbscript or javascript. You can write ASP.NET in any .NET supported language. Then there is ASP.NET MVC.

    If they can't get their list of tested "languages" straight, I doubt the rest of the article.

  10. Re:could be blueray on How Amazon Keeps Cutting AWS Prices: Cheapskate Culture · · Score: 1

    Commercial optical disks from movie studios are stamped.. Stamping disks requires costly equipment and setup time and only makes sense when you are going to make many copies of the same disk.

    Writable optical disks often use organic dye which breaks down over time, especially when exposed to bright light. This is often why their shelf life is very bad.

    There is no way Amazon is using either technology for this.

  11. Re:no one would HIRE them, either on Michael Bloomberg: You Can't Teach a Coal Miner To Code · · Score: 1

    just tell me this: who would hire an aging programmer, just starting out, when you can more easily abuse immigrants and h1b's who are young and will work overtime for free and deny the value of a personal life?

    All things being equal, I'd hire the older developer who spent the last 10+ years in a coal mine working a very demanding, high risk job, where a fuck up gets you killed.

    Younger developer come with a strong sense of self-entitlement, lack of loyalty, and little life experience. H1B's can have the same issues plus a language barrier.

  12. Re:Are programmers really this naive? on Indie Game Jam Show Collapses Due To Interference From "Pepsi Consultant" · · Score: 1

    I read the bright pink one and my eyes still haven't adjusted back to seeing normal colors.

    It was the most concise and to the point of the four though.

  13. Re:Fourth Amendment on US Intelligence Officials To Monitor Federal Employees With Security Clearances · · Score: 2

    The five million number doesn't make sense.

    According to official reports the federal government only employ's 4.3 million including 1.5 million military personnel.

  14. Re:Fourth Amendment on US Intelligence Officials To Monitor Federal Employees With Security Clearances · · Score: 1

    It's absurd to have five million people working for the federal government, who need security clearance, and aren't in the military.

  15. Re:Shazbot! on Vast Surveillance Network Powered By Repo Men · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the case celebs use against paparazzi.

    I don't so mind being photographed (or my property automatically scanned) in public but what I do mind is people making a profit on it.

    I want the data brokers and/or repo companies to cut me a check every-time a database with my information is used to make money.

  16. Re:I don't get it on Bitcoin Payments Go Live At Overstock — Two Quarters Early · · Score: 1

    More importantly, I don't see what is there to gain for bitcoin users. Privacy afforded by bitcoin is lost here since buyer identity is known to at least two parties - Overstock and Coinbase.

    Many people are interested in bitcoin because of the lack of central bank control and it's non fiat currency nature.

  17. Re:I wonder . . . on How Ya Gonna Get 'Em Down On the UNIX Farm? · · Score: 1
  18. Re:No, the worst part was joining in the attack on Anonymous Member Sentenced For Joining DDoS Attack For One Minute · · Score: 2

    Yes, a crime is a crime, but if we are going to build analogies with real world crimes they should at least be correct.

    Obviously many DDOS attacks are not carried out by volunteers. They are instead vast hijacked zombie farms under the control a few people. In those cases the term "attack" makes more sense. From my understanding this DDOS attack was carried out by volunteers though. It should really be considered a protest.

    What if this guy was part of a real world flash mob that formed in front of a Koch's HQ? Suppose the mob was so large it made it difficult for legitimate employees and/or clients to enter the building? He still might have been arrested but I'm sure the punishment would have been less severe.

  19. Re:First post! on Linux Kernel Running In JavaScript Emulator With Graphics and Network Support · · Score: 2

    Hope you realized you just sent your Slashdot password through some dude's hacked together relay server in, most likely, clear text... Also there are a bunch of other Slashdotters on the same virtual subnet with full root access to theirs, yours, and everyone else's virtual machine on that very subnet.

    Very cool post, but you may want to change your password now.

    and ...

    Just don't do any online banking that way. ;-)

  20. Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? on Apple Announces iPad Air · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The OP said the iPad seem so much better then anything out there.

    My point is both tablets are in the same class. Not arguing the new iPad edges out the competition. It should, it's the newest high end tablet, but it's not revolutionary or anything. It will quickly lose the spec crown when the next round of high end Android tablets come out.

  21. Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? on Apple Announces iPad Air · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The SXTZ display: 10.1". iPad Air display: 9.7"

    If you won't care about the extra 128x336 pixels, I won't care about the extra 0.4 inches... Or the likely $100 price difference...

  22. Re:Why is iPad so much better than iPhone? on Apple Announces iPad Air · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be fair the Sony Xperia Tablet Z is only 6.9mm thick and only 1.1 pounds... The rest of the specs are also about the same, and that's been out for a month or two now.

  23. Re:It CAN be done (but not always is a good idea). on Gravity: Can Film Ever Get the Science Right? · · Score: 1

    4. Once Clooney is hanging off Bullocks, they have stopped relative to the station, which means they have achieved orbital speed, but the movie needs a heroic sacrifice, so...

    Another gaffe you got right. I noticed this immediately when watching. Clooney should've bounced back towards the station after the slack in the tether and the parachute lines had been taken up. There was no force acting on him to pull him away, so he shouldn't have been lost.

    The parachute line never really went tight. I noticed the line was slipping both from Bullocks foot and the IIS the whole time. The line slowed their momentum from the station but I got the impression they were still both drifting away until Clooney's sacrifice.

    Why Clooney untethering himself from Bullocks reversed her momentum is confusing though. It would have made more sense if they pushed off each other sending her back towards the station and him into space.

  24. Re:Gimme Memory Doubler! on Memory Wars May Herald Mobile Devices With Terabytes of Capacity · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure the OP was a reference to Johnny Mnemonic and not Go Bots ....

  25. Re:Distributed Mail on Silent Circle Follows Lavabit By Closing Encrypted E-mail Service · · Score: 2

    Running a mail server from home is near impossible on most ISPs. The majority of ISPs block incoming traffic, and in some cases even outgoing traffic, on port 25 (SMTP). Even if you can get around this using alternate ports, chances are your ISPs IP range is blanket blacklisted by most anti-spam lists.

    Your best bet for privacy and control of your e-mail would be to setup a collocated or rented server. You'll have to configure some sort of encryption for your e-mail messages in case the data center gets raided and the servers/hard drives confiscated.

    In the end, your SMTP traffic can still be sniffed acrossed the network anyway, since most SMTP traffic is unencrypted.