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User: Lawrence_Bird

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  1. Those "journalists" were so right with phablets on BlackBerry Launches Square-Screened Passport Phone · · Score: 1

    so of course nobody could possibly be interested in this format either, right? I mean look at it! its like holding a piece of toast up to your ear. And who wants to be able to read a whole email without having to swipe left right up and down and lets not forget pinch and zoom. Thats just plain boring. And with this great economy we're in I can totally slack off at work and watch videos half the day so all those pixels best be showing my videos (and pron!)

  2. Re:Hmmm ... on Physicist Claims Black Holes Mathematically Don't Exist · · Score: 1

    the core of a normal star. Once gone nova, is there really much difference in the remnant white drwarf or neutron star? A star does not go from normal to black hole in an instant.

  3. Re:Standing on the Shoulders of Giants on Mangalyaan Successfully Put Into Mars Orbit · · Score: 1

    Did NASA opensource their rocket designs? Guidance systems? Power systems? Control and systems software and hardware? Right.

  4. Re:If this works, then Microsoft is doomed. on Android Apps Now Unofficially Able To Run On Any Major Desktop OS · · Score: 1

    Sure. Let me know when there is a Photoshop app. Let me know when apps are optimized for desktop display sizes and not a 5" phone.

  5. Women need to get overthemself on Science Has a Sexual Assault Problem · · Score: 0

    Now before I get marked as a troll let me say I am not suggesting that all complaints of harrassment or assault are ficticious or embelishements. But lets be honest here - a guy looking at a woman in the office is viewed by women a lot differently than when one of their female coworkers checks out a male worker. And then there is the flipside - the woman who holds a grudge seemingly against all males because she is not pretty and does not get that kind of attention - regardless of whether she advances in her career or not. Men are damned if they do and damned if they don't while women get the free pass.

    So I guess I come at this from the "fat? no of course that dress doesn't make you look fat because you aren't!" school of things because we all know what happens if you don't answer precisely that way. Isn't it time that women (as a group) just get over it?

  6. Re:Rather than address the underlying problem on New Global Plan Would Crack Down On Corporate Tax Avoidance · · Score: 1

    you either have to cut services or raise other taxes

    Maybe taking the punch bowl away makes governments more responsible about what they spend our money on?

    And if the choice is between getting 0 (because a company leaves entirely) or a lower rate, isn't a lower rate better?

    And with a lower tax rate, who benefits? Must be those naughty shareholders right? Hmm

    The largest component among U.S. retirement assets remains IRAs, with $5.68 trillion for the first quarter, according to the ICI report. The second largest is the $5.37 trillion in DC plans, and the third-largest component is government defined benefit plans with $5.2 trillion in assets.

    Private-sector DB plan assets remained essentially flat at $2.66 trillion for the first quarter of 2013. Since the beginning of last year, DB assets have hovered between $2.6 trillion and $2.7 trillion, the report said.

    (pionline.com)

    It is estimated that roughly 55% of pension assets are in equities - either directly or indirectly thru hedge funds.

  7. Re:Rather than address the underlying problem on New Global Plan Would Crack Down On Corporate Tax Avoidance · · Score: 1

    Historically low total tax as a percentage of GDP in a very long time

    I think that sentence disqualifies the rest of what you have said. In any event, let me try to put this in a simple way so that you can understand.

    When your income is 30K units you probably own a mediocre TV.
    When your income rises to 60K units you probably own a nice TV.

    If your income continues to rise, are you going to a) continue buying a new, more expensive TV because you can and/or b) just keep buying more TVs in total? You would need to in order to maintain the same TV consumption as % of total personal GDP.

    So the take of the government off the top as a % of GDP is an incredibly stupid way to look at this.

  8. 8pts? on London's Crime Hot Spots Predicted Using Mobile Phone Data · · Score: 1

    fuck them. Almost 2/3 prediction from existing crime stats. Gee I know a lot of cops aren't the brightest but really? Thats not enough of a leg up?

  9. Re:Apple KNOWS what its users want on Apple Outrages Users By Automatically Installing U2's Album On Their Devices · · Score: 1

    And the average age of the U2 fan is? Even the median age? 35? 40? 45?.

  10. Rather than address the underlying problem on New Global Plan Would Crack Down On Corporate Tax Avoidance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the tax thieves aak "regulators" make new rules. Why not put some thought into changing the tax codes to be on a par wtih Ireland, Switzerland, etc instead of trying to preserve the high tax state?

  11. Re:Apple KNOWS what its users want on Apple Outrages Users By Automatically Installing U2's Album On Their Devices · · Score: 1

    I find it hilarious that Apple would associate its hip/cool products with a 36 year old band with members in their mid 50s. Or is the iPhone like Facebook, just for old people now?

  12. Re:maintenance costs on City of Turin To Switch From Windows To Linux and Save 6M Euros · · Score: 1

    Really? So Linux is support and maintenance free? It just magically installs and configures itself? Trains the users? Installs patches? Or are you expecting each user to do this on their own? And who will monitor the security of each system?

    Also left out of this whole "saved" calculation is the cost of time lost due to frustration with incompatabilities between open source software and "global standards". Likewise the need to find replacements for more specialized software.

  13. Re:CS50 is available online on Harvard's CompSci Intro Course Boasts Record-Breaking Enrollment · · Score: 1

    So .. in other words its a gut that you can sleep through because its all online anyways.

  14. Nothing to see here on Verizon Working On a La Carte Internet TV Service · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its for mobile only. Wake us all up when plain old tv is available by IP (FiOS) a la carte.

  15. But but... on Link Between Salt and High Blood Pressure 'Overstated' · · Score: 1

    those scientists were certain that salt was evil, bad, bad, harmful! Don't blow up my world view like this! Whenever the scientific community says something is so, it is so!

  16. Re:But... on Text While Driving In Long Island and Have Your Phone Disabled · · Score: 1

    not only that - cops use the cell phones to by pass systems that would otherwise record their communications.

  17. Not in nominal dollars on When Scientists Give Up · · Score: 1

    They are crying about funding in real dollars. Please cry to the Fed about that. In addition, plugging numbers from their own publications into online CPI calculators shows they are overstating the case (Shocking!)

  18. Only if on Text While Driving In Long Island and Have Your Phone Disabled · · Score: 1

    she agrees that her hands can be lopped off as a "deterent" when she is pulled over for driving and eating/drinking.

  19. Re:Responsible Agency Enforcing Law on FAA Scans the Internet For Drone Users; Sends Cease and Desist Letters · · Score: 1

    cite it, chapter and verse, date enacted and by whom.

    if you can't, its all just bs as I said originally.

  20. Re:Responsible Agency Enforcing Law on FAA Scans the Internet For Drone Users; Sends Cease and Desist Letters · · Score: 1

    not to mention the trying to define the drone as "aircraft" in the first place when the generally accepted definition is *plane*.

  21. Re:Misleading Headline on Protesters Blockade Microsoft's Seattle Headquarters Over Tax Breaks · · Score: 1

    greedy fucks all of them.
    "Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter."

  22. Re: What the heck? on DMCA Claim Over GPL Non-Compliance Shuts Off Minecraft Plug-Ins · · Score: 0

    In fact it seems quite the opposite. It is Wolfe's code which is violating the other's license. He had no right in the first place to create a derived work using the non-GPL reversed code.

    I'll get marked as a troll, but isn't this just another good example of why BSD license is better for all involved?

  23. Re:Responsible Agency Enforcing Law on FAA Scans the Internet For Drone Users; Sends Cease and Desist Letters · · Score: 1

    What is controversial is that there is in fact NO law and NO regulations applicable to remote controlled model "aircraft.". The FAA is using scare tactics in asserting there is law on this when in fact there is not.

  24. Re:Wrong Units on Radioactive Wild Boars Still Roaming the Forests of Germany · · Score: 1

    It's radiation from the decay of Cs-137, and "what's left" is stated in Bq.

    which is... beta of what energy? How many gammas? Alpha? Not all radiation is the same and not all effect living tissue the same way and may do so differently externally compared to internally.

    1kg of pork with 10000 Bq/kg, your estimated radiation dosage is 0.13 mSv.

    From..? I'll asume Cs-137. None of the stories on our boar friends say the average quantity, only a few "alarming" high end figures of 7K Bq/kg. I don't know about you, but I do not typically eat a kg of boar (or any other) meat in one sitting. I think most people would fall in the 1/4 kg range, perhaps less. So taking your figure, and those worst case numbers for the boar we are speaking of the order of 15% of one xray.

    And what of the limit imposed by the EU? 600 Bq/kg? You would need to have boar nearly 70 times in a year to reach the one x-ray dose. So as I suggested at the start - the limits are way too low. If you want to label the meat, fine go ahead and put your scary stickers on it. But at least let people make an informed choice on their own whether to eat mr. boar or not.

  25. Not vocational school on Does Learning To Code Outweigh a Degree In Computer Science? · · Score: 1

    College degrees are not the same as those from vocational schools which is what it sounds like at least some in industry prefer. Nobody graduating with a college degree has a very high skill set for a particular task - not even accounting majors. All start on the lower rungs but are expected to advance rapidly because they have the necessary broadbased knowledge to learn and use knew skills effectively. Simply put, they are not one trick ponies. Did somebody say ponies?