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User: TWX

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  1. Re:It's not CS, it's critical thinking on Clinton Foundation: Kids' Lack of CS Savvy Threatens the US Economy · · Score: 1

    You don't need more than a crappy second-hand computer with a compiler and a couple of programming language textbooks in order to learn how to program.

  2. Re:Will Technology Disrupt the Song? on Ask Slashdot: Will Technology Disrupt the Song? · · Score: 2

    How many of these pop songs caused the initial promotion of the band, in the long form, versus a truncated radio-play form? Most of these songs were distributed after their respective bands/artists were already popular, and once one is popular, one has more leeway to experiment.

  3. Re:Someone Please Provide a Better Explanation on Volvo Self-Parking Car Hits People Because Owner Didn't Pay For Extra Feature · · Score: 1

    What if my dishwasher is old and not as good at washing dishes as new ones, and if due to a lack of volume of dishes generated on a daily basis, dirty dishes loaded into the dishwasher might sit for a few days before being run? I don't want to attract bugs or have a stinky kitchen...

  4. Re:Hobbit on How To Die On Mars · · Score: 1

    I wonder if Mars has enough other minerals to make high-grade steel as easily as on Earth, once accounting for the natural differences between the planets that we've already discussed, or if that will be a problem.

  5. Re:autotune on Ask Slashdot: Will Technology Disrupt the Song? · · Score: 1

    Probably none who achieved their initial popularity in the last twenty years. There are probably performers who rose to prominence before it was commonplace that still don't use it, but there probably even large numbers from that generation that have started using it as their voices have aged and their vocal control isn't what it once was.

    That said, what I have heard of Lorde, which is probably only two or three songs, doesn't sound especially overproduced, but I don't know if they've tweaked anything to take it from great to outstanding or not.

  6. Re:Meh on Ask Slashdot: Will Technology Disrupt the Song? · · Score: 1

    Pun intended?

  7. Re:Will Technology Disrupt the Song? on Ask Slashdot: Will Technology Disrupt the Song? · · Score: 2

    Are you joking? Technology has always disrupted the nature of music. Early forms of recording were very short in duration and essentially dictated the time lenggh of their contents. Popular music has had to conform to the technology, and arguably is permanently changed. How many charting pop songs over five minutes long that aren't novelty tunes can you think of?

  8. Re:Radiation not a problem, an opportunity on How To Die On Mars · · Score: 1

    It's hard to build in canyons and it's hard to navigate them. I expect that the earliest colonies will be built into the sides of mesas, such that the plains on which the mesas sit can be used.

  9. Re:They're missing the point... on How To Die On Mars · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't go to another place to live unless the odds were better than even that I could live my natural lifespan if I'm careful. I don't care if that's across town or across the Solar System. I would not go to Mars without at least a decent chance that a colony could survive. After all, going without that expectation is literally accomplishing nothing.

  10. Re:Hobbit on How To Die On Mars · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It always amazes me how so many proponents of 3d printing have no concepts of the centuries of technological developments and infrastructure necessary to support the culture that wants to use a 3d printer.

    A colony on Mars that strives for at degree of self-sufficiency will involve lots of nasty jobs, like mining, ore processing, large-scale smelting, chemical refining, basic terrain grading and construction, along with all of the other dangerous aspects of being on Mars, like that the planet not being suitable for life as we know it.

    If you want to know who to to talk to when designing your infrastructure for supporting a colony, speak with Caterpillar, or Komatsu, or Hyundai, or Honda, or John Deere. If you want to know how to deal with mineral extraction contact Freeport McMoRan or 3M or any of a large number of other mining conglomerates, or look to any of the universities that specialize in mining engineering.

    And that isn't even getting to manufacturing or to food production, both of which would be required for a colony to succeed.

  11. Re:What next? on Hot Topic To Buy ThinkGeek Parent Company Geeknet · · Score: 1

    Shopping through a catalog is still shopping.

  12. Re:And thus we have on Hot Topic To Buy ThinkGeek Parent Company Geeknet · · Score: 2

    They're both retailers. OF COURSE they're going to sellout. THAT'S WHAT retail IS.

  13. Re:Will this expedite product requests? on Hot Topic To Buy ThinkGeek Parent Company Geeknet · · Score: 2

    Well, depending on how committed you are, there could be exactly one available now...

  14. Re:What next? on Hot Topic To Buy ThinkGeek Parent Company Geeknet · · Score: 1

    My initial reaction was also "WTF?", but this isn't as completely insane as you might think. I don't know if they still have them, since I haven't checked in probably 10 years, but I used to go into Hot Topic once in a while because they had a few racks of video game-themed t-shirts. So ThinkGeek isn't too far off from stuff that they at least used to have in the stores.

    It'll all depend on how much overlap they attempt to force. If they leave the 'alternative' an emo/goth counterculture stuff mostly out of Thinkgeek and don't try to waste retail space in Hot Topic and Torrid with stuff that doesn't appeal to their customers then they might be fine. If they turn Thinkgeek into a bastion of Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise and attempt to use the modern not-geek fad of the term geek with a bunch of plastic junk that doesn't appeal then we might have a problem.

    I've shopped from both businesses, but not for the same reasons. If they keep them mostly separate and then it may work well, otherwise it could turn into a crappier version of Spencer's Gifts.

  15. Re:Holy hell on Court Orders UberPop Use To Be Banned In All of Italy · · Score: 2

    It's called amortizing the cost of an investment. Before setting-out for a business venture, the potential business needs to evaluate costs and how those costs will be managed. If the license, once obtained, is the holder's for life, then spending $100,000 for the license could be lucrative if the financing can be found to afford it. I also expect that if Italian tax law is anything at all like American tax law, that the cost of the license and other business expenses could be written-off to at least an extent depending on how the financing is structured.

  16. Re:Kinda neat for sign-in sign-out systems on Sniffing and Tracking Wearable Tech and Smartphones · · Score: 1

    Changing a MAC once won't do any good, as once the new MAC is learned, if it's seen again then it'll be recognized again.

  17. Re:Really? on Sniffing and Tracking Wearable Tech and Smartphones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm guessing that most people think that they're secure in their privacy unless they're forced into a confrontation that proves they aren't. Look at all of the corporate officers that get busted with e-mail and text messages that document their white-collar crimes. Those people are supposed to be pretty smart and even they still don't understand how the technology or the law actually work.

  18. Re:Minority Report on Sniffing and Tracking Wearable Tech and Smartphones · · Score: 1

    Uh, because then the computer voice would have to change?

  19. Re:Geolock Porn on Leaked Document Shows Europe Would Fight UK Plans To Block Porn · · Score: 1

    The example I think of is actress Camille Coduri, whom I first saw in King Ralph in 1991, where she played a stripper-turned-consort. Admittedly was almost fifteen years between that role and her starring as Rose Tyler's mother on Doctor Who, but the change was almost startling. I really hope that they intentionally made her look worse and more chav-like.

  20. Re:Blocking access on Leaked Document Shows Europe Would Fight UK Plans To Block Porn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And suddenly extremely low-cost proxy services would be offered, so that people wouldn't have to register with the government to see pictures of naked people.

    I'm still waiting for the definition of pornography. Does William Adolphe Bouguereau's A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros qualify? How about the work of Spencer Tunick? How about Tennis Girl by Martin Elliott?

  21. Re:Geolock Porn on Leaked Document Shows Europe Would Fight UK Plans To Block Porn · · Score: 1

    Eeeegh. That's a terrible thought...

  22. Re:flat as a pancake: invasion pending on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 2

    We may end up with intuitive and user-friendly software, oh no!

    So, I don't care which shade of pastel and crayons the useless interface is. I want to turn off the useless interface entirely, because it provides nothing in the way of utility.

    Windows 8.1 is fast and stable, and has nice features. But it's only usable as a desktop once you install something like Classic Shell and turn off the crap that these "designers" have put in.

    They're spending all the time tweaking the wrong things.

    I think it's hilarious when Windows 95 icons are more intuitive than an OS that'll literally be twenty years later from the same company. That was with icons that only had the basic sixteen ANSI colors available to them at-launch. It required an update to enable 256-color icons. If anything, limiting designers to those sixteen colors and requiring a common faux-3d paradigm ensured that all of the icons had a design consistency about them that made it difficult for others to copy, so one could usually tell if a program was a Microsoft one versus a third-party.

    There's been a lot to dislike about Microsoft over the years, but historically their user interfaces were legitimately not on that list. These 'advances' are changing that.

  23. Re:Screenshots? on Microsoft Tries Another Icon Theme For Windows 10 · · Score: 2

    Those "screenshots" are only 600x375. They're more on the side of being huge thumbnails than actual screenshots.

    Unless of course you're still using a 640x480 display, in which case you're seeing an article from the future. Hello from the future! Buy these things called "Bitcoins", they'll be worth hundreds of dollars some day!

    Heh. Given how the icons are looking more like icons did in the days of Windows 3.1, maybe having a low-res screen is next. The Hipsters will love it!

  24. Re:I guess that if a Mathematician... on A Beautiful Mind Mathematician John F. Nash Jr. Dies · · Score: 1

    When Barack Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing ... oh yeah, absolutely nothing, the entire credibility of all Nobel prizes took a swift kick in the gonads. Including those based on science and mathematics.

    The Nobel Peace Price lost credibility when it was awarded to Henry Kissinger, who had, I assure you, done plenty.

  25. I guess that if a Mathematician... on A Beautiful Mind Mathematician John F. Nash Jr. Dies · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...wants a Nobel Prize, one's work must be in Economics, or Physics, or otherwise be recognizable in another discipline beyond one's actual field of study.