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User: mrchaotica

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  1. Re:Let the Hobbit hacking begin on Ars: Final Hobbit Movie Is 'Soulless End' To 'Flawed' Trilogy · · Score: 2

    I think I might actually pay to see one feature-length Hobbit movie...

  2. Re:It looks like a friggin video game. on Ars: Final Hobbit Movie Is 'Soulless End' To 'Flawed' Trilogy · · Score: 1

    Also, if young people really were going to favor super accurate realistic imagery why is every selfie and instagram photo on internet put through a ton of filters to make it look like a mix of some old super 8 film from 1968 crossbred with a polaroid photo?

    Because people who use social media have no taste.

  3. Re:Blah on Ars: Final Hobbit Movie Is 'Soulless End' To 'Flawed' Trilogy · · Score: 1

    It's similar to how the Star Wars prequels could be edited down to one or two actually decent movies

    There's absolutely no reason why 20-something years worth of Anakin Skywalker's life pre-Vader couldn't have provided enough worthwhile material for three movies. George Lucas just sucked too much to figure it out.

  4. Re:Does he stand a chance? on 'Citizenfour' Producers Sued Over Edward Snowden Leaks · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. If such a "fiduciary duty of loyalty" really exists, then I'd love to participate in a class-action lawsuit against a bunch of our traitorous, war-criminal politicians!

  5. Re:How is this a crime on Bitcoin Exec To Spend Two Years Behind Bars For Silk Road Transactions · · Score: 1

    No, a chop chop receives the stolen cars (acting as an accomplice of the thief), disassembles them, and then sells the parts.

    That part in parentheses is important: if the shop simply bought cars from whoever brought them in and then parted them out, that's a legitimate business.

    Of course, cars are a little bit of a bad example because transferring ownership requires registering the title and whatnot. Let's talk about cellphones instead, since they don't: are those automated kiosks in the mall that let you trade in old cellphones illegal? After all, somebody could steal a cellphone and then turn it in at the kiosk. Does that make the kiosk owner a huge criminal?

  6. Re:Study financed by on Study: Red Light Cameras Don't Improve Safety · · Score: 1

    You cannot conclude that "cameras cause accidents" when a far more plausible explanation is "shorter yellow light durations cause accidents".

    Sure you can! You just have to add the additional claim "cameras cause shorter yellow light duration" and then apply the transitive property.

  7. Re:How is this a crime on Bitcoin Exec To Spend Two Years Behind Bars For Silk Road Transactions · · Score: 1, Insightful

    He was dealing with cash and bitcoin. Nothing else. So which one of those do you claim is illegal?

    The person on the other side of the transaction might have been dealing with illegal goods, but that isn't and shouldn't be any of his business. Otherwise, you could make the exact same argument to persecute anyone who, for example, buys a car from somebody on Craigslist who then uses the cash to buy drugs.

  8. Re:No winner here, except for us all on Top Five Theaters Won't Show "The Interview" Sony Cancels Release · · Score: 1

    Now all we need is for Anonymous to hack Sony again, replace Sony.com with The Pirate Bay, and put up a torrent of the movie. Then the lulz will be complete.

  9. Re:So stream it... on Top Five Theaters Won't Show "The Interview" Sony Cancels Release · · Score: 1

    Nah, that's no good -- we can't have Sony actually do something good; it'd be too out of character.

    No, what really needs to happen is that Anonymous should hack Sony a second time, replace the Sony.com website with a copy of The Pirate Bay, and release a torrent of the movie there.

  10. Re:Good on Top Five Theaters Won't Show "The Interview" Sony Cancels Release · · Score: 2

    But to not show it because some third-world dictator pitched a fit is a different thing. That truly offends me. We should be showing it precisely because it pisses him off.

    Exactly. But since the theaters dun goofed and Sony compounded their incompetence with a double-helping of cowardice, we need to compensate. Clearly, what needs to happen now is for Anonymous to hack Sony again and release the movie to Bittorrent.

  11. Re:Go ahead on Sony Leaks Reveal Hollywood Is Trying To Break DNS · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is stealing from the Public Domain by turning copyright into some sort of perpetual entitlement morally justifiable? Not really. In the end, someone is going around the rules of society for personal gain.

    FTFY.

  12. Re:Just skin? on Researchers Accidentally Discover How To Turn Off Skin Aging Gene · · Score: 1

    Since the experimental design involved artificially aging [only] the skin by exposing the mice to tanning, they probably don't know yet.

  13. Re:If you point the camera on a politician.. on Federal Court Nixes Weeks of Warrantless Video Surveillance · · Score: 2

    We could also fix it by simply making a rule that "malfunctioning" camera + complaint of misconduct = bullet between the cop's eyes.

  14. Re:Unbelievable! on Denmark Makes Claim To North Pole, Based On Undersea Geography · · Score: 1

    Renewables have the problem of portability. Some like wind and hydro electric needs to be located in the proper areas where they can get a reliable energy from. Others like solar do not offer 24/7 support. Batteries do not have the energy density that we get out of fossil fuel, and takes much longer to recharge.

    That's why the real future of portable fuel is synthetic fuel (preferably from carbon sequestration or renewable sources, not coal).

  15. Re:Quoted from TFA on NASA's $349 Million Empty Tower · · Score: 4, Informative

    After the rocket program had been canceled, it was expected that the tower would be useless when it was completed four years later. Lo and behold, now that it's completed it is indeed useless.

  16. Re:It's a public street, too bad. on Waze Causing Anger Among LA Residents · · Score: 1
  17. Re:Move to a gated community on Waze Causing Anger Among LA Residents · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes and no.

    It's more related to the time period in which those neighborhoods were built, and how they were built. Grid street patterns were normal before WWII, along with smaller houses (Victorians, Craftsman bungalows, etc.). "Subdivisions" didn't become common until the postwar era, when sprawling ranch houses with two-car garages and big yards were popular.

    Not coincidentally, those postwar subdivisions were also getting built at the same time as the civil rights movement: at the time, black people were "blockbusting" in those grid-street neighborhoods, while the white people were moving out to the curved/cul-de-sac subdivisons to get away from them. In fact, the restricted number of subdivision entrances/exits, along with the higher housing prices (enforced in the zoning code by minimum lot sizes, which forced lower-density development) were, in part, tools to keep out those perceived to be undesirable.

  18. Re:Hollywood... it's just not going to work guys!! on Hollywood's Secret War With Google · · Score: 1

    I know a "50 something" retired guy whose hobby is archiving pirated music. He claims to have "more than 250,000 albums" on HDD's. Sounds impossible but maybe he means "songs".

    Assuming 3 MB per song (in MP3 format) and 10 songs per album, on average, 250,000 albums would take up only about 7.5 TB. That's not too far-fetched: the whole thing could even fit on one disk!

  19. Re:I can see it coming . . . on Hollywood's Secret War With Google · · Score: 1

    and then what happens with they start trying to lay the hurt on them for listing pirate links (as it is almost impossible to block these witthout only showing sponsored content)

    Hopefully, it would drive the popularity of peer-to-peer distributed search engines like YaCy or Seeks.

  20. Re:hardware is the challenge on OpenMotics Offers Open Source (and Open Hardware) Home Automation · · Score: 1

    And you really want a wireless solution, either RF (Zigbee, for example) or carrier current (X10). Carrier current, these days, is probably no cheaper than RF, and RF doesn't have anywhere near the interference and propagation issues that carrier current does.

    No, what you really want is a low-voltage wiring standard (which encompasses both power and control, so that you can directly drive LED lighting without having a bunch of 120VAC transformers everywhere). That way you could wire the house once and not have to worry about incompatible proprietary bullshit.

  21. Re:Just let them test out! on Google Suggests Separating Students With 'Some CS Knowledge' From Novices · · Score: 1

    Doesn't your school have guidance councilors and an appeals process to make exceptions for issues like that?

  22. Re:Just let them test out! on Google Suggests Separating Students With 'Some CS Knowledge' From Novices · · Score: 1

    Y'all need to go to a better school. At my college, several of the lower-level CS classes had special "X" sections that were more interesting and challenging, and let us avoid having to deal with the non-CS-majors who had no idea WTF they were doing.

  23. Re: Can you say... on Judge Rules Drug Maker Cannot Halt Sales of Alzheimer's Medicine · · Score: 1

    That's not an accurate recipe: KFC is pressure-fried, not just regular [pan|deep]-fried.

  24. Re:Good to Be A Software "Engineer" on Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked To Block Competitors · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Built any bridges recently for which the budget was cut halfway, you were forced to use chocolate fudge instead of cement, the location was switched every two weeks and the timescales halved, and delivered a working bridge nonetheless?

    You know why REAL engineers don't have to deal with that shit? It's because the project can't get built until we put our stamp on the plans! Management's demands get a whole lot more reasonable when they can't replace you with some dumbfuck yes-man.

  25. Re:Wait, what? on Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked To Block Competitors · · Score: 2

    Oh right, it's that special definition of "corrupt" that means "it still works perfectly, but we can tell some other company modified it."