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User: danlip

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  1. Re:Statistics and.. on As Prison Population Sinks, Jails Are a Steal · · Score: 2

    And California's prisons are still overcrowded, despite the reduction. As are many other states

  2. Re:Prison population on As Prison Population Sinks, Jails Are a Steal · · Score: 1

    That sounds like you are claiming that black and hispanic populations are fundamentally more criminal, regardless of all other factors.

    Finland has lower crime because they have less poverty, and they have less poverty because of their policies, not some Finish magic. We could do the same thing, we just choose not to.

    Also the drop in US crime could be due to any number of factors. It may have nothing at all to do with tough-on-crime policies. Lead pollution correlates well with crime rates (and yes, correlation is not causation, but it often indicates causation).

  3. Re:Apparently on Microsoft, Facebook Declare European Kids Clueless About Coding, Too · · Score: 1

    Learning to code is learning logic and critical thinking skills, which everyone needs. And it gives an understanding of computers that you can't get from a class where you just memorize terms like client, server, network, etc. And that barista may one day be sitting on a jury judging a technical case.

  4. Re: It's like the metric system... on Maps Suggest Marco Polo May Have "Discovered" America · · Score: 1

    True, but the system of slavery in the US and Caribbean really brought slavery to an industrial scale and drove demand through the roof.

  5. Re:Blood batteries on Blood For Extra Credit Points Offer Raises Eyebrows In Test-Mad China · · Score: 1

    If you want to turn people into energy the most efficient thing is probably to just have them pedal bikes hooked to generators. Blood powered batteries would be great for medical implants but not much else. And the Matrix was just plain silly.

  6. Re:Maybe not so silly on Blood For Extra Credit Points Offer Raises Eyebrows In Test-Mad China · · Score: 2

    Although perhaps the child with the least supportive family who needs the most help, e.g. affirmative action. Isn't China supposed to be communist?

  7. Re:The worst part on Bioethicist At National Institutes of Health: "Why I Hope To Die At 75" · · Score: 1

    "Science advances one funeral at a time." - Max Planck
    Social issues do too. Support for gay marriage breaks very much along generational lines, as did segregation and just about every social issue ever.

  8. Re:Repair on Inside Shenzen's Grey-Market iPhone Mall · · Score: 1

    in the US about 3 years ago it was easy to find a guy on craigslist with a mobile iPhone repair service - they drive to you and repair it in the back of their van while you wait. Clearly a low budget single person operation, but I had no reason to believe he was using stolen parts or anything else dodgy. Repaired a broken screen and got several more years of good use out of the phone. I assume such services still exist, plus many small shops offering repairs.

  9. Re:Working in Tech - or DOING Tech? on Ask Slashdot: Any Place For Liberal Arts Degrees In Tech? · · Score: 1

    I don't need a lib arts degree to write well documented code. I need a good technical understanding of the code and an understanding of what difficulties the next person who comes along will have reading the code - and understanding that I have acquired from lots of experienced reading other peoples code. And a desire to do a good job - I can't emphasize that last point enough.

  10. Re:I, Robot from a programmers perspective on Developing the First Law of Robotics · · Score: 1

    Do remember these stories were written as far back as 1941. "I, Robot" was published in 1950. Your experience with technology and real world edge cases is very different from his.

  11. Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... on New Nail Polish Alerts Wearers To Date Rape Drugs · · Score: 1

    Yes, but that's a completely different thing from what I was saying. An unarmed black man is far more likely to be shot by police than an unarmed white man.

  12. Re:This is what they mean by "point of no return" on Numerous Methane Leaks Found On Atlantic Sea Floor · · Score: 1

    It also doesn't "clean up" nearly as nicely after a couple of centuries of forest expansion/ocean calcification.

    Methane has less than a 9 year lifetime in the atmosphere. Still bad, but very different from what you imply.

  13. Re:TOR on Ross Ulbricht Faces New Drug Charges · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I'm pretty much a bleeding heart lefty and I still think blaming the Republicans for Obama signing NDAA is pretty ridiculous. There are plenty of things to blame the Republicans for, but Obama is hardly blameless either.

  14. Re: The world we live in. on New Nail Polish Alerts Wearers To Date Rape Drugs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    frat is just an abbreviation for fraternity. What is the distinction you are trying to make?

    And they have a terrible reputation, which they have earned.

  15. Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... on New Nail Polish Alerts Wearers To Date Rape Drugs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the main point is to prevent the woman from drinking the spiked drink. I think it is rather unlike that a guy gets convicted (or even prosecuted) based solely on this test. Perhaps arrested, but more likely just questioned. Unless he's black, in which case he would probably be shot by the police, but that's a problem which has nothing to do with this product.

  16. Re:Seriously, we're not rapists.... on New Nail Polish Alerts Wearers To Date Rape Drugs · · Score: 2

    No, it is not suggesting that every man is a despicable scum, it is suggesting that there is a reasonable chance that at least one man at a party is a despicable scum. And that seems like a reasonable suggestion.

  17. Re:That's no moon.... on Spot ET's Waste Heat For Chance To Find Alien Life · · Score: 1

    Dyson Spheres are a rather silly thing to search for, as the technology required is too advanced to fathom (perhaps impossible). It seems the TFA was just talking about looking for aliens with huge power sources. That is certainly possible. But my point was that an advanced alien civilization may just have figured out how to be so efficient as to not need huge power sources. I was also responding to the "makes no assumptions about what alien civilizations may be like" statement in the summary, because it seems that they are making a pretty big assumption that could be easily violated without resorting to exotic materials or new laws of physics. We could even be there in 100 years.

  18. Re:Please, don't tell them ... on South Carolina Student Arrested For "Killing Pet Dinosaur" · · Score: 1

    I believe Dan Savage coined the term unicorn, and it applies specifically to females (as it is generally much easier to find men who are up for MMF threesomes). Urbandictionary agrees too (mostly).

  19. Re:Thermodynamics on Spot ET's Waste Heat For Chance To Find Alien Life · · Score: 1

    That seems like a fairly safe assumption. On the other hand if they get all their power from solar (or wind, hydro, etc., which are just secondary affects of solar) then it seems to me they'd be in equilibrium and they'd have the exact same thermal signature as a no-civilization planet. That seems more likely.

  20. Re:Sigh on News Aggregator Fark Adds Misogyny Ban · · Score: 1

    While you say homosexuality is not a choice (and I agree) the people on the other side of the debate says that it is, and it committed to not changing their mind based on facts (they call it "faith"). So that argument is not going to convince anyone.

    And that Baptist resolution you sited says they "deplore homosexuality as a perversion of divine standards" and it "is an abomination in the eyes of God". That's much stronger language than "dislike". The phrase about God loving everyone despite their sin is just a throw-away phrase to try and make them look less like huge assholes (didn't work).

  21. Re:I'm not so sure.... on Why Chinese Hackers Would Want US Hospital Patient Data · · Score: 1

    You may be right with prescriptions. And the people using the fake medical identity would not be getting the prescriptions for themselves but for resale on the black market, and would probably be a career criminal. If they are local (relative to the real person) and they go to the same pharmacy (which would already have the account info in their computer) maybe they wouldn't be asked for ID or flagged as fraudulent. Although it's still a little hard to believe, because the drugs that are valuable on the black market are narcotics and I am pretty sure they ask for ID every time for those.

  22. Re:Just red tape? on Delays For SC Nuclear Plant Put Pressure On the Industry · · Score: 1

    Your classifying Fukushima as a minor accident? It's classified as level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the highest level possible. I agree that it is not as bad as Chernobyl, but hardly minor.

  23. Re:Diagnosed on Involuntary Eye Movement May Provide Definitive Diagnosis of ADHD · · Score: 1

    Getting enraged when interrupted probably isn't normal. Although I do the hyperfocus thing and it is pretty annoying to get interrupted. My wife knows not to call me at work. But I don't think I'm ADHD.

  24. Re:Are You Kidding? on Geneticists Decry Book On Race and Evolution · · Score: 5, Informative

    Read the TFA. People aren't getting upset about skin color: Quote: "In the book, Wade suggests that such genetic differences may help explain why some people live in tribal societies and some in advanced civilizations, why African-Americans are allegedly more violent than whites, and why the Chinese may be good at business."

  25. Hi, it looks like you are writing difficult code! on Wiring Programmers To Prevent Buggy Code · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The last thing I need when I am focused of a difficult chunk of code is Clippy popping up and breaking my focus. Some tasks are just much harder than others. I think any decent coder knows when they are struggling and increases their focus or grabs someone on their team to help. Bad coders may not, but bad coders are always bad coders, and no tools will help someone who just can't get it or just doesn't care.