Slashdot Mirror


User: SuperBanana

SuperBanana's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
3,212
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 3,212

  1. Re:Some people are tougher than others on 50-Year-Old Assumptions About Muscle Strength Tossed Aside · · Score: 1

    Your scrawny friend had what's referred to as neuromuscular strength and it has nothing to do with aerobic conditioning, and yes, it can be trained. Your friend also probably had lots of what's called "fast twitch" muscle fiber. The proportion is somewhat determined by genetics, but can be influenced by training. There are many, many measures of human strength, power, and endurance. There's three energy systems, as well - neuromuscular (1-15 sec efforts), anerobic (few minutes) and aerobic (10min and up.)

  2. Re:about those taxes on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 1

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=road+taxes+cyclists

    You don't pay a "road tax" in the United States. You pay registration fees, which do not even begin to cover the cost of the roads - they merely cover the cost of handling the paperwork related to your vehicle and license. Property taxes and income taxes pay roads in virtually the entire world over.

    My bicycle does not weigh enough or generate enough force to cause any wear on a road surface. I ride on bike paths that haven't been paved in 20-30 years and look brand new.

      Your vehicle, especially since you're overcompensating for your small dick by having a big truck, causes enormous road wear. The wear you cause is a fourth-power function of weight.

    Dumb hick.

  3. might have been able to find a better rider on Aerovelo's Human-Powered Helicopter Wins $250,000 Sikorsky Prize · · Score: 2

    As someone who has started learning about power and cycling - this was a job for an cat 1 / "elite" racer, or at least someone significantly lighter than the guy in the video. I ride pretty regularly but not competitively, and I'm able to do about 300W for a minute. That's piddlesticks in the world of racing, for my weight.

    A sprinter would be able to put out massive power (probably 5-7 times what I can do) but sprinters also tend to be heavy. Someone who isn't a sprinter would have less power, but could weigh 50lb less. There are cyclists who specialize in races with climbing, mostly through being light, pacing themselves properly, and having excellent technique.

    I'm wondering how much of a warmup he did - in order to do an effort like that, you really do need to be properly warmed up.

  4. DUI kills more people than intentional homicide on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 2

    18,000 people died in 2006 from DUI crashes.

    That's 4,000 more than homicides. So yes, it's pretty "heinous" and should get "insane" punishment. The problem is the punishments aren't insane enough; they sound "insane", but the criminals just get right back in their cars and kill/main more people.

    Every time you get behind the wheel and you're drunk/high, you're loading a handgun with a bullet, spinning the chamber, and pointing it at innocent people on the road, and pulling the trigger.

    The difference is that you're very often driving to a store where they happily sell you that gun and bullet knowing full well you're going to get into your car and play roulette with it.

    No gun store in the country would sell you a gun knowing you'd do that, yet millions of bars serve patrons who drove to their establishments, knowing full well they're going to get back into their cars, drunk.

  5. about those taxes on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dear Richard Allen Black,

    "my road and fuel taxes"

    There's no such thing as a road tax, and fuel taxes don't pay for roads. Not even close, because they haven't been adjusted for fuel efficiency nor for inflation since before you were born. In almost every country, roads are paid for by property and income taxes.

    Second, your car (especially if you drive an SUV or pickup) causes wear and tear on the road. My bicycle does not. Your state has one of the highest highway death rates in the country, so while my bicycle doesn't cause property damage, injury and death...your car sure as hell does, and at great cost to others and the state.

    Third, you live in Montana, which is in the top ten in terms of states which take the most in federal taxes relative to what the federal government spends on you. You're leeches, by a ratio of 2:1; you pay $4k in taxes and the federal government spends $8k on your stupid, ignorant ass. Those roads you drive on? You didn't pay for them, hick.

    Where's my rebate check from you and your road-damaging, federal-tax-leeching "d-bags"?

  6. most cyclist crashes are the fault of the driver on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 1

    If someone on a bike runs a red light or stop sign and they get hit, that's their bad and that's on them; they'll get no sympathy from me.

    Thank goodness, then, that most cyclist crashes are not from the cyclist running a red light or stop sign, but instead the fault of the motorist who hits them. Try googling "study cyclists fault crashes", and note how in almost every country and city, it's the same story.

  7. be more visible to people NOT LOOKING....? on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 4, Informative

    White does not always help. If you ride at night, use bright headlights and taillaights. I commute by bicycle and have lights on regardless of time of day. Too many drivers just do not pay sufficient attention.

    Bright headlights and taillights do not always help. If you ride at night, use dayglo clothing, flags, strobe lights, and pyrotechnics. Too many drivers just do not pay sufficient attention.

    If they're "not paying attention" (aka not looking at the road), please explain to me how "being more visible" will help....

    I've been hit in the middle of the day, I've been doored despite having a very bright headlight, and I've been cut off ("right hooked") by someone who just passed me, again in the day. Visibility has nothing to do with it. It's about drivers thinking they have the right of way over us universally, and it's about drivers not looking.

    In most studies, the number of crashes vs time has little to do with daylight, and everything to do with rush hour - ie people driving aggressively, and traffic density.

  8. you're victim-blaming as well. on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He's not "blaming the victim," he's pointing out a safety tip for those of you who don't understand the basic physics of how our eyes work, you Fuck.

    Yes, actually, the poster (we don't know it's a "he"...) is perpetuating victim-blaming of cyclists for their injuries and deaths. It's rampant in the US.

    1)The cause is unknown (ie, it's not known that visibility was the problem, so how he was dressed is moot) 2)The onus is not on cyclists to dress in a particular way, the onus is on people with the very nice headlights on the front of a very deadly machine to operate that machine properly and be able to avoid a 6 foot tall, 3 foot wide object in the road traveling in the same direction as them 3)In stories like these, people (especially those who don't cycle) take it as an opportunity to condescendingly lecture those of us who do, about how to ride our bicycles. Seth, for example, was apparently an avid cycling advocate, which means he was damn well aware of how to ride "safely", probably knew the laws better than most drivers, and almost certainly had lights, which means he was plenty "visible."

    In almost every story about cyclist injuries and deaths, the comments are hateful, vile, and portray the problem as being everything from cyclists merely being present, to how they behave (despite the fact that drivers are at fault in the vast majority of crashes, as numerous studies have proven), to, yes, how they dress. We're apparently at fault if we're not dressed like psycho day-glo clowns.

    Let's take a look at some of the comments on TFA, shall we?

    • "they don't belong on the roads."
    • "Riding a bicycle at 9pm on a major road is a statistic about to happen. How many people are going to have to die before laws are changed concerning cyclists?"
    • "Did the bike have lights? Was the man in night riding "bright" clothes?"
    • "If a bicyclist is going to be riding at nights - you need some kind of reflective wear so that the vehicles can better see them - I'm not taking sides, but I've driven on roads at night and have passed bicyclists and could barely see them"
    • "the car driver might not have been in the wrong...a bike, at 9pm is close to invisible, especially with glare of oncoming headlights."
    • "he should have been wearing reflective clothing too..I didn't see anything in the article about him wearing reflective clothing..."
    • "I hate seeing cyclists on the road! roads are too dangerous for bikes, period."

    Now do you understand why the comment wasn't appropriate? The comparison to rape victims is quite accurate; rape victims used to be blamed for going out at night, or not having a "friend" (male) with them, to not carrying self-defense devices, to being dressed "like that."

    I was just struck by a driver recently. The ER doctor finished up his exam by instructing me to "ride defensively" and "bike carefully." I had been operating legally and prudently, and the driver in a split second cut me off and stopped - blocking the road. There was nothing I could do. I was a victim. And the ER doctor was lecturing me, implying it was my fault for not being "careful" enough.

  9. yeah, the police get right on those cases on Lead Developer of Yum Killed In Hit-and-run · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You should - vehicular assault is a serious offence, and if your video can be used to prove malice, those sociopathic pricks will be confined to a cell where they belong.

    BWHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA. I had someone sideswipe me and then intentionally "brake check" me (looked in his mirror right at me, glaring, and slammed on his brakes, with nothing in front of him, no intersection, etc.) I gave the cops a complete plate and description and they said there was nothing they could do, because I hadn't been injured - even though the driver, in side-swiping me, had caused a "collision" and by leaving, a hit-and-run - and by stopping in the middle of the road, driven recklessly.

    I've been wanting a dash cam for the opposite reason - a lot of the cyclists around here are either stupid or have a deathwish, judging by how flagrantly they violate right-of-way laws.

    No, "a lot" of cyclists don't have deathwishes nor are they stupid. You just think they do, because they're a minority outgroup - so you exaggerate negative attributes. The vast majority of cyclist crashes are caused by drivers operating recklessly or illegally. And what right-of-way laws would those be, by the way? Let me guess: you think that you have a right of way over someone on a bicycle, right? Yeah, you don't, actually.

  10. rah rah for the Christians on Why Protesters In Cairo Use Laser Pointers · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I work with a man from Egypt, a Christian with family over there. I asked him what he thought about all this and his eyes lit up, "my family is finally free."

    Great! So they can now start suppressing gays, abortion, science, etc just like they do here in the US!

    Trading one form of hatred for another isn't progress.

  11. nice try yourself on Snowden Offered Asylum By Venezuelan President · · Score: 2

    The reality is that Chavez did more for social conditions in his country than any other president in living memory.

    Yeah, except for those rampant human rights abuses. "Social conditions" includes things like free speech, whether you feel you can get justice, feel safe. Even if what you claimed were true - that his people were better off with him than without him - the ends do not justify the means.

    Whether US government officials (not "USA"; don't confuse a country's government or leadership with its people) found him a threat and a risk (not "hated him viciously") is irrelevant to Chavez's power-grubbing, human-rights-abusing, autocratic ruling. That you use the word "vicious" to describe the US government's attitude towards him, instead of how he treated his own people, shows that you have a serious perspective problem.

  12. you don't understand the "world" terms on Detroit's Emergency Dispatch System Fails · · Score: 1

    They're no longer really part of the first world.

    Sigh. Yet another person who doesn't understand what "third world", "first world", etc mean.

    "Worlds" rank countries whether they're with us (NATO/democratic: 1st) vs them (non-democratic/communists, 2nd) vs undeveloped economy (3rd), no, actually.

  13. the stats aren't coming from the police on Security Researcher Attacked While At Conference · · Score: 1

    You're assuming the statistics come from the police.

  14. slippery slope on Wikileaks Aiding Snowden - Chinese Social Media Divided - Relations Strained · · Score: 1

    ...is a logical fallacy, and named as such.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope ...among others.

  15. Re:Innocent until blogged about on Security Researcher Attacked While At Conference · · Score: 3

    She didn't post any "evidence." She posted her account, which could be anything from 100% false to 100% true. If she smashed the guy in the temple with a coffee mug and caused profuse bleeding, there should've been ample evidence of at least her hitting him, there'd be blood in the hotel room, etc. The police don't just yawn and walk away from a rape report where there's evidence. And why did the conference organizers suddenly give her the cold shoulder? Oh, wait, right, Teh Patriarchy, I forgot...

  16. and why is that, exactly? on Security Researcher Attacked While At Conference · · Score: 1

    She contacted the police immediately. The police indicated a lack of will to pursue the matter.

    And why is that, exactly?

    Are we going to pretend that Poland is some sort of ooga-booga sketchy-european criminal-justice wasteland compared to the US? Because Poland, 6th largest state in the EU, has half the rate of sexual assault of the US. In fact, looking down the list, I don't see a single crime that is more common in Poland than the US.

  17. bikes are not toys, and bike shares are convenient on Adafruit's Smart Helmet Helps Navigate to NYC's Citi Bike Stations · · Score: 1

    First off, a "cheap but okay bike" is not $150. I can't stand this (nor can most bike shop employees, who are really, really, REALLY fucking tired of people strolling in and having wildly unrealistic expectations for what a bicycle costs.)

    Bicycles are not toys, and they should not be priced like one. They should be priced compared to the expense of a public transit pass ($60/month in my city for bus+subway), a scooter, or car expenses. How much is a typical monthly car payment?(Answer:$452) How much do you put into that car per month in gas? (Answer: about $250/month.) Insurance? (Answer: about $800/year) Etc.

    Second: bike rental systems (these are not "bike shares", despite the popular bastardization of the term) are popular because:

    • They can be used for spontaneous and/or one-way trips. For example, I'm going out with friends tonight, and they don't bike; I don't want to have to leave my bike at work. I rode a bike share bike into work instead of taking my for-transportation bike. Or maybe it's going to rain in the morning but the evening commute will be spectacularly nice. Or maybe the roads are clogged and the busses running behind; I can hop on a bike share bike.
    • You don't have to store the bike. While many buildings are getting better at this, most don't have bike storage, and it's usually a bit of a pain. Same at many workplaces, though again, lots of places are getting better at this, in part because there's often a financial incentive from the health insurance company.
    • You don't need to worry about maintenance and repairs.
    • It's amortized, basically. Instead of having to spend $500 on a solid commuter bike, you can spend $X/month/year. And in some ways, it's easier to track for purposes of taxes on commuting expenses.
    • They are heavily aimed at tourists, despite claims to the contrary. Looking at the deployment maps this is pretty obvious - they stations tend to be around touristy areas in many cities. Bicycles are the perfect speed for touring an area; slow enough to take it all in, but fast enough to cover a good amount of area.
  18. There is no problem; complete chain exists on Are You Sure This Is the Source Code? · · Score: 3

    This a problem that doesn't exist. You establish a chain of evidence and authority for the binaries via signing and checksums, starting with the upstream. Upstream publishes source and there's signing of the announcement which contains checksums. Package maintainer compiles the source. The generated package includes checksums. Your repo's packages are signed by the repo's key.

    You can, at any point in time with most packaging systems, verify that every single one of your installed binaries' checksums match the checksums of the binaries generated by the package maintainer.

    If you don't trust the maintainer to not insert something evil, download the distro source package and compile it yourself.

    If you suspect the distro source package, all you have to do is run a checksum of the copy of the upstream tarball vs the tarball inside the source package, and then all you need to do is review the patches the distro is applying.

    If you suspect the upstream, you download it and spend the next year going through it. Good luck...

  19. Very half-baked on AT&T Rolls Out iPhone Wireless Emergency Alerts · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're an idiot if you're complaining about this.

    Well, *I* am going to complain, because the system is implemented on my Android phone. It's been incredibly annoying. Remember that big huge east coast snowstorm?

    It'd been on the TV and print news and intertubes for DAYS. There was a morning press conference and state of emergency declared. It was only after it had started snowing that someone thought to send out the alerts, and they seemed to make up for lateness through volume/repetition.

    I think by the end of the day (at which point it was near white-out conditions) my cell phone had loudly alerted me to the weather emergency something like SIX times. There's clearly no intelligence to the system, or someone just decided that sending it out several times was best just in case we hadn't noticed the massive snowfall or had been hiding in a cave for the last WEEK.

  20. you can start by not being sexist to men on Sexism Still a Problem At E3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So much of what I see here at E3 is aimed directly at the lizard hindbrain of a 13-year-old boy.

    Is that some new, clever, more-polite way of saying "aimed at men, who think with their dicks?" 1)Men don't think about sex any more than women do. 2)Men are not interested in promiscuous sex, by and large. 3)Men are not only interested in sex, either. 4)We have agency, and that agency is not controlled any more by our dicks than your agency is controlled by your vagina, thank you very much.

    All of the above has been proven with research and studies, which stand in stark face to the crap that just falls out of the mouth of many a feminist in the same breath as complaints about sexism. It's perfectly acceptable to say men think with their genitals and to call them pigs for being interested in sex while calling women interested in sex "empowered." Female nudity is celebrated; male nudity is controversial and rarely if ever portrayed or shown. We're told that women's sexual feature are beautiful, and men's genitals are gross, disgusting, etc.

    Furthermore, I am not responsible for content or marketing aimed at my demographic any more than women would be held responsible for content or marketing aimed at them. This is particularly true given that any time this subject comes up with other men, the responses are that it is: cheesy, annoying, eye-roll inducing, and in many cases, not what any of us consider attractive. I don't find blonds with giant breasts to be attractive. Sorry. Don't. Tell that to a bunch of women on a "sexism in the game industry" panel and the response will be some strong variant of "You don't know what you're talking about." Actually, we fuckin' well do. We know better than you are. But it's not convenient to your little rant; what's convenient is to portray us all as drooling over booth babes with hard dicks.

    You want equality? Great. So do we. Stop insulting us. Stop repeating sexist, made up bullshit. Stop dismissing us when we tell you you're wrong about prevailing attitudes.

  21. This is not unique to misogynistic content on Facebook's Complaint Process Is Arbitrary — But So Is Campaigning · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Welcome to 2010 when cycling groups noticed a surge in anti-cyclist pages, advocating intentionally harassing or injuring cyclists. In some cases, posters proudly brag about harassing and striking cyclists.

    Facebook has formally refused to remove the groups despite clearly violating their policies.

  22. Get a lawyer, not a switch on Ask Slashdot: How Best To Disconnect Remote Network Access? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The supplier, with no notice, remotely connected to the process control system and completely botched an update to their system. We are down and the vendor is inept and not likely to have us back to 100% for a few days.

    This isn't a technology problem.

    Through their incompetence, they caused damages. Collect your evidence, hire a lawyer, and make demands. If they refuse to pay, sue them.

    Watch how fast they start caring about doing remote upgrades more carefully, competently, and with customer involvement. The only thing companies collectively care about is making money. At the very least, you'll cause their liability insurance rates to go up.

  23. 88lb on Footage Reveals Drone Aircraft Nearly Downed Passenger Plane in 2004 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You do realize that the frontal area of an airplane consists largely of the cockpit and engines, right? And that many areas of the plane's wing and body are slightly thicker than a soda can? Those "NO STEP" warnings are there for a reason. Have you seen what a single goose, about 6-7lb, can do to a passenger airliner? This thing weighs more than ten times that, and is substantially larger. If you think 88lb of hard material traveling at several hundred miles per hour won't cause serious-to-catastrophic damage to a passenger airliner, you're an idiot.

  24. assaults on officers do drop, not why you think... on Montreal Union Wants a Camera On Every Policeman's Uniform · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the use of force by officers and assaults on officers drops by as much as 60%

    Uh huh, and do you know why that is? That's because if you annoy a cop, you get charged with "assault on a police officer" even if you didn't touch them. With a video recorder serving as a witness, the cops know they can't engage in what is commonly called "testilying."

    In my city, the charges cops love to slap anyone they don't like with include AOAPO and "disturbing the peace" - the latter of which basically consists of "a crowd gathered because of you."

    I knew someone - a sub-5-foot-tall, sub-100-lb girl - whose birthday party was ended by cops because it was too loud. Fair enough. She provides her information to one cop, and then a second cop comes in and asks her for her personal information again a few minutes later. She asks him why - she just gave it to the other cop. He refuses to say why, and she asks him again why he can't get the information from the other cop.

    Next thing she remembers, her head is slammed on the countertop and she's in cuffs. Spent the night in jail, and the next day in court answering charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a police officer.

    The judge looks at her, then looks at the cop, who's a burly nearly-6-foot-tall dude, then looks at the charges and says "Seriously? SHE resisted arrest and assaulted YOU? You've got to be kidding me. Dismissed."

    Wasted thousands of dollars in legal fees, because some dickhead cop broke the law and filed false charges, lied in his report, and lied in court.

  25. Reminder: no amount of ionizing radiation is safe on Mars Explorers Face Huge Radiation Problem · · Score: 0

    No form, and no amount, of ionizing radiation is safe.