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User: cdrudge

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  1. Ever listen to CSPAN's callin show on Saturday or Sunday mornings? I'm willing to bet most of this lot won't be acquiring meaningful careers anytime soon.

    That's a really poor sampling of the overall population. Intelligent people find something better to do than watch CSPAN weekend mornings, let alone call in with insightful comments or questions.

  2. Re:Somebody failed basic math on New T-Shirt Sewing Robot Can Make As Many Shirts Per Hour As 17 Factory Workers (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    And someone else failed basic reading comprehension

    SoftWear Automation's big selling point is that one of its robotic sewing lines can replace a conventional line of 10 workers and produce about 1,142 t-shirts in an eight-hour period, compared to just 669 for the human sewing line. Another way to look at it is that the robot, working under the guidance of a single human handler, can make as many shirts per hour as about 17 humans.

    669 shirts made by 10 employees in 8 hours = 8.3625 shirts per employee per hour

    1142 shirts made by 1 robot in 8 hours = 142.75 shirts per robot per hour

    8.3625 : 142.75 is approximately 1:17

  3. Roughly half the population has an IQ below average.

    Is that how averages work? It's almost as if the concept of an IQ was developed with that in mind...

  4. Re:Oh, my GOSH! on Uber Says It'll Stop Tracking Riders After They're Dropped Off (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    Uber was perfectly within their rights to do this, and even more for that matter, but yet here is Uber, a poster child of corporate culture acting against their interests out of the goodness of their hearts because they care about the consumer! Take that, Libtards!!!

    I guess I consider myself a libtard. I'm somewhere between liberal and libertarian on the political spectrum. I value my privacy, but I also acknowledge that customers have a choice. If you don't like what a business does, don't use it.

    As you said Uber is within their rights to do this with respect to when they can tracking customers via their app. They should disclose and make it clear when they are doing so. As long as they do that, even if there isn't an always/app open/never option I wouldn't have a problem with it. The consumer has the option of not using Uber and using a different service, or other transportation options.

    You can view it as Uber acting against their interests in favor of the customers, or you can look at it as Uber acting in both theirs and their customers best long term interests. I guess it would just depend on if the monetary value that they gain by how much they track would offset the business they lose from customers that prefer their privacy and/or potential regulatory and legal costs down the road.

  5. Re:When is it good to dodge taxes? on President Trump Attacks Amazon, Incorrectly Claiming That It Owns The Washington Post For Tax Purposes (recode.net) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If poor people don't pay taxes, that's bad.

    It's "bad" because they get all the advantages and benefits provided by being a resident in the country while contributing little or none of the costs.

    But if a rich person gets a tax break, that's good.

    It's "good" because if they get a break, then that means they are contributing. But since they are contributing more than what poor people are, then it's unfair. Rich people could be using the difference to "stimulate the economy" or otherwise let the money "trickle down" to the poor (even though both have been shown to not work nearly as well as proponents claim.

    If one of Trump's businesses, or he himself, avoids taxes, that's just his business expertise.

    See: Rich person

    But if Jeff Bezos does it, that's bad again.

    Bezos leans Libertarian/Democrat, not Republican. So that makes him a evil filthy poor person more so than a rich person. See: Poor person

  6. I'd say it's more like reacting to a live shooter by potentially days or weeks after you were shot at, you fire either a few shots back or drop a cluster bomb to where the "live" shooter was. By the time you can trace back and launch a counter measure, the actual perpetrator is likely long gone.

    The only way a counter attack helps is if the attack is ongoing and coming from the same source. I'd venture that probably rarely happens in a easily counterattack-able way. It's hard to counterattack thousands or millions of attackers with a DDOS botnet.

  7. Re:It's better if it works for you on WSJ: There's An 'Inexorable' Trend Towards Working Remotely (foxbusiness.com) · · Score: 1

    Having a couple young children, I built a detached office in my back yard with a standing rule - do not bother me unless someone is near death or beyond. Otherwise, call.

    This is why I would find it very hard to work remotely. I don't have space, money, or legal means to build a separate building on my property. There's no space in my house that is available, let alone isolated enough to prevent distractions. I personally NEED to be isolated to separate my family/personal life from my work life. And anything that makes my work life more convenient for my family/personal life also greatly diminishes the separation of the two.

    And all that is before I even consider the mental aspect of can I stay on task and stay motivated to perform the actual job.

  8. Re:Alice Bob etc. on Congressman Proposes Organizations Should Be Allowed To 'Hack Back' (engadget.com) · · Score: 2

    I feel really sorry for the inhabitants on Null Island. I bet they are harassed everyday non-stop.

  9. how many of those are going to not need quotes around "engineer"

    It depends on how many of those "engineers" are from Oregon.

  10. Re:Add "engineering" to the list on Oregon Fines Man For Writing a Complaint Email Stating 'I Am An Engineer' (vice.com) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oregon prohibits drivers from pumping their own gas as only state licensed Gas Station Engineers have received the proper education and certification to properly perform such a complex task. You can only imagine the carnage that would result if lay people would refill their own vehicles.

  11. Except any website that relies on the ad revenue to operate.

  12. Re:What if you don't have/user chrome? on YouTube Has a Secret 'Dark Mode' (thenextweb.com) · · Score: 1

    For Safari on Windows, you have to enable developer menu (Settings -> Preferences -> Advanced, check "Show Develop menu in menu bar). Then press Ctrl-Alt-i to bring up the developer toolbar, or Ctrl-Alt-c to show specifically the console.

    For Safari on Mac, you're on your own.

  13. Re:The truth is out there... now on West Point Researchers Demonstrate Passive Netflix Traffic Analysis Attack (threatpost.com) · · Score: 1

    Or Rule 34, it's porn of Veggie Tales' Barbra Manatee.

  14. Hadn't heard of that app before. Is it using an actual external VPN service, as in all your traffic goes through some 3rd party? Or is it hooking into the network stack as a sort of virtual local VPN where everything is local, intercepting traffic getting around the normal restriction of writing to the hosts file requiring root?

  15. Re:Because it is profitable to do so on Why Do Airlines Overbook? (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Unless you paid less than 1/3 of that for your ticket, in which case we're giving you just 3x the value of your ticket (yeah, the limit isn't even $1,350, it's 3x the value of your ticket capped at $1,350.)

    Nitpick, but it's still not capped. 3x the ticket price, up to $1350, is just the upper limit of what you're automatically entitled to. The airline can offer more. And in this case offering more might have attracted another volunteer costing far less than what the litigation, let alone bad publicity has cost them.

    What baffles me is that United didn't even do that. Passengers said the largest offer they heard was in the hundreds.

    They offered up to $800 according to all the reports I heard. That same trip taking off today has a list price of $437, so $800 is almost 200% the list price. By law if United could have gotten passengers to Louisville in 2 hours from their arrival time, they would have only been limited to 200% up to $675, so they might have been offering more than what people were entitled to already.

  16. Re:One of two things will happen on Bill Would Stop Warrantless Border Device Searches of US Citizens (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    How exactly would they move customs inspection from an airport firmly inside the U.S. to a spot outside of the U.S. without moving the entire airport?

    Some locations in other countries already have customs prelcearance facilities.

  17. Re:Back when IBM used to innovate on How the IBM 1403 Printer Hammered Out 1,100 Lines Per Minute (ieee.org) · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'd be completely fine with earning nearly $12b in net income by "not innovating" and selling my services to some of the largest customers in the world to make society run.

  18. Re:One of two things will happen on Bill Would Stop Warrantless Border Device Searches of US Citizens (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    Are those the only 2 things you can think of?...

    1. Border agents abide by the law, and no longer search your phone.

    Why would I bother to list all the things that won't happen?

  19. One of two things will happen on Bill Would Stop Warrantless Border Device Searches of US Citizens (cnn.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Americans' constitutional rights shouldn't disappear at the border,"

    One of two things will happen:

    1. Customs inspection will be moved from US soil to foreign soil if it wasn't already there. There. Problem solved. Your constitutional right never disappeared at the border because you never crossed it.

    2. You'll be asked to consent to search your device/property. Those that consent will be searched and allowed to go on their merry way if nothing is found. Those that don't consent will be redirected to holding pen where at minimum a lengthy process will commence to obtain a warrant. Best case, you lose a few hours, miss your connecting flight, and are now on a watch list for suspected activity which will increasingly delay future entrances. Worst case, you're never heard from again.

  20. Re:Nope, I'll use he, she, they, there, their etc. on Stylebooks Finally Embrace the Single 'They' (cjr.org) · · Score: 1

    You could avoid the issue at hand, and just refer back to the noun ("What is the queen wearing"). Maybe that's the best answer?

    I find this is the correct answer to a lot of grammatical questions I come across. If I'm proofreading something and it just doesn't sound right, or I can't figure out which exact words to use due to an unusual set of circumstances, just rewording the phrase or sentence usually solves the issue.

  21. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? on London Terrorist Used WhatsApp, UK Calls For Backdoors (yahoo.com) · · Score: 1

    certain number of bits for each key (let's say, half the length in bits) could be placed in escrow and could be obtained by the government under court order.

    And who is going to keep that escrow secure? And not provide a convenient back door for the intelligence community when that court ordered warranty is just too inconvenient of a process to go through?

  22. Re:Why the focus on communication tech? on London Terrorist Used WhatsApp, UK Calls For Backdoors (yahoo.com) · · Score: 1

    Maybe if some wacko Eagle Eye supercomputer were monitoring and evaluating all communications at all times in real-time,

    Aren't we attempting to nearly be there with locations like NSA's Utah Data Center, Fort Meade, and similar places? And isn't data already being collected at a faster rate than we have resources to process it in real time?

  23. Re:Gmail's chat tab and hangouts on The Days of Google Talk Are Over (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes. No. Maybe. Who knows. It doesn't matter. Whatever the answer is today, tomorrow may bring a completely different answer. It's Google, where everything's in beta until it's randomly announced it will soon be shut down with no reason why.

  24. Re:Sounds a lot like USB-Câ power delivery on Apple Explores Using An iPhone, iPad To Power a Laptop (appleinsider.com) · · Score: 1

    I haven't been keeping up with the latest USB spec but this direction of power flow sounds like it would have been in breach of earlier USB specs for everything except USB-OTG which turning a device into a host necessitates the reverse of the normal power flow.

    I believe USB-C and USB Power Delivery (USB PD) specs had this specifically in mind. They changed the fixed concept of one device being the host/master and one being the guest/slave in lieu of the devices being able to negotiate roles as needed.

  25. Oh you can't comply? Well sorry, visa denied. It's a practically impossible task, especially if you go back to the 80s for those BBS accounts, even earlier for phone numbers, or include one-time/throwaway accounts we've all created.