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User: Dr_Barnowl

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  1. Re: Why are people bullying? on Child Psychotherapist: Easy and Constant Access To the Internet Is Harming Kids · · Score: 2

    Weird that we disapprove of Nazis so much isn't it? Kinda like meta-bullying.

    or - fuck off.

    *Especially* today, where technology can magnify the effects of an individual so greatly, some population of individuals being different is essential to the progress of the species. If we're all the same, we're all doomed to die as the ocean displaces us inland and the biosphere is ruined by our over-exploitation.

    It's a genuine mechanism, but one that evolved to serve the selfish gene. The problem is that your fate (and the fate of your genes) no longer depends on your local tribe, but on the greater race of humanity. It's highly likely (whoever you are) that the solutions to our 21st century problems are not going to emerge solely from you and your immediate geneology, or from folks that think like you, dress like you, etc. So it's now become a retrogressive, anti-survival behaviour.

    I'd humbly suggest that you go remove yourself from the gene pool... if that wasn't an example of the very behaviour we must overcome. I hope someone changes your mind and you find peace in this world of increasing diversity.

  2. Re:I guess she got tired of blaming weed... on Child Psychotherapist: Easy and Constant Access To the Internet Is Harming Kids · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Physical violence as a behavioral teaching mechanism is both lazy and bad parenting.

    If you use it frequently I agree.

    I've had to use it precisely once. It's fine for establishing a baseline in young children, because they don't accept abstract arguments. If they ever question another punishment regime like the naughty step, that's where you have to go - you'll have to deploy some sort of violence, even if it's physically restraining them so they stay put on the naughty step.

    Consistency is key. If you arbitrarily deal out physical violence you'll find your kids doing it too. If you make it the ultimate sanction, you'll rarely have to use it.

    I suspect most of the problems with the use of violence are not with it's use as a discipline, but as an emotional outlet for the frustration of the parent.

  3. Re:Light levels, not computer games on Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates · · Score: 1

    Internal lighting is so much dimmer than light outside that this is probably not practical.

    The eye is very accomodating and will adapt to great extremes of light.

    This is credible as a mechanism. Optical acuity is improved by having a smaller pupil (this is why squinting to improve your vision is a thing - you're sacrificing light collection to reduce the number of stray unfocussed lightpaths entering your pupil). Therefore if you don't get enough light, your iris muscles will atrophy making your pupil wider.

    If your lenses function perfectly this is of no consequence, but if you have imperfect lenses wider pupils will make your vision worse.

  4. Re:sOrRy ChArLiE WrOnG tUnA on Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's you who is the dumbass. Perhaps you should actually think about it, or research it, before calling people out.

    This is school level physics.

    The mirror doesn't emit light, it reflects it. Which means the light has the same path as before, just bounced into a different angle, convergence and everything.

    Try this simple experiment - hold a mirror close by so as to reflect a tree in the distance. Hold a page of text (or a glistening penis, I suppose) next to the mirror. Focus on the text. Now focus on the tree.

    Can't do both at the same time, can you?

  5. Re:Here's a test for this hyoothesis on Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates · · Score: 1

    As I post further down, you can just wear +1D reading glasses.

  6. Preventative Glasses on Excess Time Indoors May Explain Rising Myopia Rates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I started noticing this when I was revising for A-Levels. (17-18)

    My distance vision would start to fuzz after hours on the books, and be restored by a long walk.

    It's pretty much done the same thing ever since.

    One thing I do is make sure to focus on distant objects while looking out of the window a few times an hour.

    The other thing that helps is wearing +1D reading glasses (just cheap ones from the supermarket). These are designed for oldies who can't focus on close objects anymore - so they move the focal point of close up material much further away. A foot or two away, my monitor is basicaly at infinity, which stops/reverses the atrophy of my distance vision.

    Focussing is mediate by muscles! Like any others, use them, or lose them.

  7. Ideally, I'd want a registrar that does PGP. on GoDaddy Accounts Vulnerable To Social Engineering (and Photoshop) · · Score: 1

    They should only accept orders as signed emails from a public key you provide on first registration.

  8. Re:Godaddy are thieving wankers dot com on GoDaddy Accounts Vulnerable To Social Engineering (and Photoshop) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For a 2 word .com domain name that had been previously unregistered for 30 years? And was registered for the first time shortly after I fed it into a whois query box on their site?

    No. There's no coincidence there.

  9. Godaddy are thieving wankers dot com on GoDaddy Accounts Vulnerable To Social Engineering (and Photoshop) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... is the name of a domain name I searched for on their site to see if they'd bite.

    A few years ago I thought I'd buy a domain for myself. Went and searched for it on their site. NEVER DO THIS.

    It wasn't taken.

    I ummed and aahed and slept on it.

    I came back. It was taken. By Domains By Proxy LLC. Who are owned by GoDaddy.

    It seems to have been sold on to another speculator, unless Afternic are them too. (I just checked. Afternic were bought out by GoDaddy in 2013).

    I own the .co.uk variant of it now. I used GANDI, who by all accounts, are not wankers.

    So, if you want a domain, be prepared to buy it on the spot if it's available. And use a registrar who aren't arseholes.

  10. Re:OEMs should prepare for rage on OEMs Allowed To Lock Secure Boot In Windows 10 Computers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    SecureBoot is a reasonable thing. It's when it's under the control of Microsoft, rather than the owner of the hardware, that it becomes a problem.

    Make sure the OS is composed of files that are cryptographically signed and entirely legit? Fine.

    Define "legit" as being "only those things signed with Microsoft keys"? Not so fine.

    The current solution of a Linux bootloader signed by Microsoft is a stupid, half-baked compromise. I wouldn't have settled for it - nothing less than the ability to load my own signing keys into the BIOS being mandatory for all SecureBoot installations. And of course, disabling it.

  11. Re:No boot? on OEMs Allowed To Lock Secure Boot In Windows 10 Computers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    True - the problem is not the security, the problem is who it's working for.

    If this comes to pass, you'll have to beg Microsoft's permission to run any software at all on hardware locked down like this.

    First, you had to switch off SecureBoot. This probably discouraged a bunch of users who may have tried Linux out. Who wants to turn off a feature that sounds all... secure.

    Now, you'll have to obtain and install special signed binaries. That will be a stumbling block for a few more.

    Then eventually, they'll stop signing binaries, and the only operating system that will be bootable will be Windows.

    And finally, they'll change the OS not to load anything that isn't signed with an MS key. Only MS approved and certified developers (with valid Visual Studio Cloud accounts!) will be able to produce software for Windows, and sell it through the Windows App Store only.

  12. Re:I can't wait for the Linus Torvalds rant over t on OEMs Allowed To Lock Secure Boot In Windows 10 Computers · · Score: 1

    Quite. This was forseen. This is just another whack of the mallet driving the thin end of the wedge a bit deeper.

    First you had to turn off a feature that said "Secure Boot". How many standard users are going to turn that off?

    Now there will probably be "considerations" for those who make their hardware less easy to boot Linux on.

    "Oh, yes, fewer config options make things more reliable - less to misconfigure, less to go wrong - we prefer that kind of device, gives Windows a good name by being more reliable..."

  13. Re:I'm all for this on Scientists: It's Time To Resolve the Ethics of Editing Human Genome · · Score: 1

    I always thought Star Trek's objection to this was a bit hokey - the episode where Geordi points out that the technology to save a colony of carefully genetically managed humans wouldn't have existed without his VISOR having been invented.

    His VISOR was no doubt based on a huge number of components that were individually created for other purposes.

    What's more of a surprise is how few enhanced humans there are around in Star Trek. The tricorder seems a clumsy and stunted way to extend the human sensorium.

  14. Re:and what will happen to people automated out of on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 1

    .. .and incidentally, many of his predictions are already true - Amazon and other players already have warehouses where the humans are mere robot arms serving a computer. The only thing really lacking for his Manna 2.0 version is the federated web API for employment contracts, which can't be far off.

  15. Re:and what will happen to people automated out of on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 1

    I periodically link Marshall Brain's "Manna" into these discussions ; his novel basically describes what you just said, only the rich guys "won" by ushering all the "useless poor" into government subsistence camps policed by robots.

    His proposed robo-utopia is probably going to rub most libertarians up the wrong way, seeing as it includes panopticon surveillance and implants that can deprive you of your liberty (in exchange for a life of self-determinism and luxury that would otherwise give most of them a wet dream...).

  16. Re:Does this hurt 3D printing? on Amazon Launches One-Hour Delivery Service In Baltimore and Miami · · Score: 1

    The print time, and certainly the queue time for the printer head, for many things probably exceeds the delivery time.

  17. Re:change password before going to NewZealand on NZ Customs Wants Power To Require Passwords · · Score: 1

    New install of Windows? Not suspicious at all - it's a new computer, or it got "corrupted by a virus", and you had your helpful nephew reinstall it for you.

  18. Re:and what will happen to people automated out of on Musk Says Drivers May Become Obsolete, Announces Juice-Saving Upgrades · · Score: 2

    Universal Basic Income, funded by the recognisation that if the only things in the loop are energy and material resources that are rightfully property of everyone on planet earth, and robots manufacturered from said resources, then everyone should get a share.

    By all means, have bonuses for those who like to innovate, but Luxury Automated Communism!

  19. Re:Kickstarter! on Gabe Newell Understands Half-Life Fans, Not Promising Any Sequels · · Score: 2

    That would be one seriously impressive Kickstarter....

    "For the first step, we will breach the barrier into the next world..."

  20. Re:He's not always right. on The GNU Manifesto Turns Thirty · · Score: 1

    > I put my time and effort into creating it so it is MY choice.

    He would be right up there with the notion of personal choice. His contention is that closed software removes your personal choice to do what you want to with your hardware, because the hardware is under the control of the software, and the software isn't under your control.

    The freedom to do whatever you want with a given piece of GPL software is enshrined in the license, where it does not conflict with the freedoms of the next person to receive the software. You can use it to build a kitten-immolating satellite deathray if you like.

    And he's right - some people have to make the choice to have Free Software, or there will be no choice - we'll all be stuck with hardware that only does the bidding of it's maker.

    e.g.

    * It's no longer your choice to be able to scan most banknotes. The firmware in most scanners has a feature that will terminate your scan if it finds particular features.
    * If you use your cable provider's hardware, your abiity to retain recordings may be limited - even though the right to timeshift is enshrined in law

    etc.

    Using GPL components as part of your software is another choice - your project benefited from a lot of work by others given freely, so you choose to either pay it forward (but ONLY if you distribute, unless you're using AGPL parts) or not use those components.

    > Why should I give away my source code if I don't want to?

    You don't have to, as explained above - it is definitely your choice.

  21. They should focus on the detail as well on New 3D Printing Process Claimed To Be 25X Faster Than Current Technology · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The detail on the electron micrographs at the bottom is really good.

    That kind of level of detail fundamentally changes not just how fast you can print (which is just a matter of time), but what you can do with it. Imagine suspeding catalyst particles in the resin and printing fluid channels with incredibly large surface areas. Or other things that require lots of detail.

    Changing WHAT you can do is more interesting than how fast you can do it.

  22. Re:Does not work on Hertz Puts Cameras In Its Rental Cars, Says It Has No Plans To Use Them · · Score: 1

    Probably works better when the tape is further from the camera, and suspended in air for a bigger difference in refactive indices, as it would be in a typical camera enclosure with a shroud to make it less likely that objects touch the lens. The tape scatters the light - but if it's stuck on a thin piece of glass, not so much.

  23. Re:The answer has been known for over 100 years. on Elon Musk Pledges To End "Range Anxiety" For Tesla Model S · · Score: 1

    Plus in Europe, various jurisdictions have different tax rates on fuel.

    It makes a lot of economic sense for truckers to have an extended tank and fill up in the place with the lowest fuel tax, and avoid places like the UK with high taxes.

  24. Re:Or, it could be unrelated to actually extending on Elon Musk Pledges To End "Range Anxiety" For Tesla Model S · · Score: 5, Funny

    Knight Rider : the car automatically drives up a ramp into the back of the truck where an attractive brunette personally sees to your charging needs while the truck continues toward your destination.

    Gay Porno : The attractive brunette is David Hasselhoff.

  25. Re:Still American so NSL on Yahoo Debuts End-To-End Encryption Email Plugin, Password-Free Logins · · Score: 1

    you can be compelled to give the encryption keys to the security services

    In America, there would be a strong argument that this is in contravention of the Fifth Amendment of the consitution (as it would be self-incrimination). Not sure how that's played out though.

    But yes, in the UK, there is a specific criminal offense of "Not disclosing your encryption key" which carries a 2 year sentence... and you can of course, be asked to disclose your key again once you've served it...