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User: vikingpower

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  1. Not quite correct on Happy Public Domain Day: Works That Copyright Extension Stole From Us In 2015 · · Score: 2

    The works of the famous painter Mondriaan will fall into the public domain as per February 1, this year.

  2. Re:I live in Austria, first thing I hear about thi on Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site · · Score: 4, Informative

    You are wrongly informed, did not search deeply enough, or maybe simply don't read German ? A team of Austrian archeologists is preparing to start digging, as soon as the weather allows it, i.e. as soon as precipitation and hydrology levels are so low as to let them work without danger of being suddenly flooded. Here in Austria, this would typically be from the end of April to the beginning of November.

  3. Re:I actually live here on Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site · · Score: 2

    Sounds like an idea. It would, however, entail to break the law by getting into the complex in this place. ( Pic featured in this Wikipedia article, in German. ), as well as, literally, walking over a certain public feeling of decency, as this place is a memorial to so many victims from nearby concentration camp Mauthausen, who were forced to work an die here.

  4. Re:Tunnels everywhere, A-bombs nowhere on Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site · · Score: 4, Informative

    "The whole 3rd Reich and occupied territories were tunneled..." is vastly exaggerated. See the overview map provided with this rather well-informed article, which will now need to be updated with the newly found complex in Austria.

  5. I actually live here on Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And St. Georgen-an-der-Gusen is about a good hour's drive away. I'll certainly visit the place once it is opened up for the public. It is quite amazing what lengths the Nazis went to in order to shelter their weapons production from Allied bombing. Just outside the town I now live in, the Nazis dug out an existing cave complex, which had been a gypsum mine up to WO II, until the volume was large enough to facilitate a complete HE162 jet fighter production line.

  6. Malala Yousafzay: courage & intelligence combi on Slashdot Asks: The Beanies Return; Who Deserves Recognition for 2014? · · Score: 1

    If I had a daughter, I would dream of her developing the same courage, and a comparable intelligence. What she ( Malala, not my inexistent daughter ) advocates trumps anything else on the list, however important it may be. Malala should get the prize.

  7. MX Blue is made for people who really type on Know Your Type: Five Mechanical Keyboards Compared · · Score: 1

    I type on two computers:

    - my ThinkPad laptop, which I carry with me around all of Europe and give courses with. I have a Storm CM Mech keyboard that I also lug around, in my suitcase, and always hook up to it. Not only does it draw attention, people also express amazement at how fast and precisely one can type with it. I don't care that it is a gaming keyboard. It is nearly impossible to destroy, can be taken apart because of the aluminium cover fixed with screws, and has Cherry MX red switches for fantastic tactile feedback.

    - my Fujitsu Celsius workstation, for when I am at home. There is a Razer Black Widow with Cherry MX blue switches hooked up to it. I can type for an entire day and not grow tired of the loud clickety-click. Of course, that is something not to burden your colleagues with - but then again, the Celsius is in my private work room, at home ( I am independent ).

    Going back to the rubber-dome keyboards most people use, when I occasionally must use someone else's computer, e.g. during a course to quickly correct something, feels horrible: mushy, imprecise. Yes, mechanical keyboards have a certain cost, here ( in Central Europe ) about € 70 for a Storm CM Mech to € 120 for a new Black Widow. So what - they'll last me for years, and years, and years. I can guarantee you: once you make the move to a mechanical keyboard, you'll never look back.

  8. This on TripAdvisor Fined In Italy For Fake Reviews · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    is a fake frist psot.

  9. Re:The most mesmerizing is not the video itself on NASA Video Shows What It's Like To Reenter the Earth's Atmosphere · · Score: 1

    Your glass is half empty. Mine is half full.

  10. The most mesmerizing is not the video itself on NASA Video Shows What It's Like To Reenter the Earth's Atmosphere · · Score: 1
    ...but the text under it:

    New video recorded during the return of NASA’s Orion through Earth’s atmosphere this month provides a taste of the intense conditions the spacecraft and the astronauts it carries will endure when they return from deep space destinations on the journey to Mars.

    NASA is quietly, but openly, talking about going to Mars. It means I will be over 60 years old when they finally do it. But I will be there to watch the launch, and will be cheering and crying when they land on Mars. My parents saw the first man walking on the moon, via TV, and barely understood what they say. We *will* understand what we'll see. We will.

  11. The arxiv paper on A Common Logic To Seeing Cats and the Cosmos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    offers an interesting look upon what generalizes, and what does not generalize, when you "zoom out" from a system built up of neighbouring spins, replacing groups of neighbouring spins by single-spin blocks. The interesting link with CS is the fact that the arxiv paper considers binary spins. Thinking this through, the paper might indeed offer some explanation for large-scale behaviour ( read: macroscopic ) as composed of small-scale ( read: microscopic ) interactions. Quite interesting, indeed.

  12. Re:Edge on perspctive on How Astronomers Will Take the "Image of the Century": a Black Hole · · Score: 2

    You overlook one thing: bending of light by the super-intense gravity of the black hole. The "back" side of the accretion disk, i.e. the side turned away from us, emits light. The black hole's gravity will pull that light around the bh and bend it in all possible ways; see Kip Thorne's results found in simulating the Gargantua black hole for the move "Interstellar", he's actually working on a physics / astrophysics paper with his findings. Bending of the accretion disk's light, which the bh will throw forward to us, will produce a halo effect around the bh. What you'd expect to see would be an intensely black sphere, surrounded by a great glow. ( The glow, btw, would be there in nearly all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio through infrared and visible light into the hardest X-ray reaches. )

  13. Interstellar pic ? on How Astronomers Will Take the "Image of the Century": a Black Hole · · Score: 2

    I can not help but wonder at the question: "Will the produced image in any way resemble the black hole depiction in the 'Interstellar' movie ?"

  14. Fucking unbelievable this is an OS "feature" on Windows 10 Adds Battery Saver Feature · · Score: -1, Troll

    Take the latest BlackBerry, the Passport, with Blackberry OS 10.3: the phone simply puts itself into "sleep" mode when you put it face down on a plane surface. No need to be loud about that, at Blackberry. How fucking desperate IS Microsoft ?

  15. A few words from a 47-year old guy on Ask Slashdot: IT Career Path After 35? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I developed for years, moved into software architecture / lead engineer roles, and then, some years ago, noticed that - although my experience increased and increased - I got "stuck" at a certain employment and salary level. I did not want to make the jump into management for the life of me, so I established myself as an independent software architect. msobkow, above, points out that willingness to travel is of paramount importance to stay in the business, and I absolutely second that. I have gigs all over Europe ( am writing this post right now from a Berlin hotel, on a Sunday evening, in order to be at my customer's tomorrow morning ) - and I never, ever enjoyed work as much as since I became independent. It even does not feel like work anymore: I have made my hobby out of my work, so to say. I simply advertise myself as the "programming and software architecture guy who deals with the hard problems the young guys are afraid of". It works. Yes, I stay informed of new developments in my field, learned a new language ( Julia ), am learning a new language right now ( K ). For sure, there is a future in non-managerial IT. You just need to set a sensible course, be flexisble enough to seize opportunities, and off you go. I plan to work way beyond 65, for sheer pleasure, and you'll have to pry the keyboard from my cold, dead hands.

  16. US-centric post on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places? · · Score: 1

    Power outages ? Here in central or western Europe ? Hardly ever. The electric power infrastructure in the USA is almost on the level of that in the Soviet Union just before the end of the cold war.

  17. Re:Seems pretty benign on Fish Tagged For Research Become Lunch For Gray Seals · · Score: 1

    People taste great. I was once offered the forearm of a human being in Port Moresby. With curry sauce. Yum.

  18. Re:Early adopters on For Some Would-Be Google Glass Buyers and Devs, Delays May Mean Giving Up · · Score: 0

    Mod parent up. +1 "Insightful". Where are my mod points when I need them...

  19. Re:"Computer" on Real Steampunk Computer Brought Back To Life · · Score: 1

    A computer does not necessarily have to be Turing complete. There is no formally constrained definition of "machine performing computations" that also involves "Turing complete", being simultaneously universally valid. At least, none that I know of.

  20. Sounds like a great name for my /. alter ego on How To Anesthetize an Octopus · · Score: 1

    "AnaesthetizedOctupus". And the userID, of course, being a prime number.

  21. Re:"Computer" on Real Steampunk Computer Brought Back To Life · · Score: 2

    I checked that in vol. 3 of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, my proudest material possession. You are right. Up to at least the 1850s, as supported by the extensive corpus of citations in the OED, "computer" meant "a person performing computations". The first solidly documented occurrence of the word as "machine performing computations" is from 1897; from 1915 on, the word is only found in this sense, i.e. the sense of "person performing computations" has then fully disappeared, in a period of only 18 years.

    Interesting. You made me discover something I did not know. Thanks.

  22. "Computer" on Real Steampunk Computer Brought Back To Life · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Computer", actually, has the meaning: "Machine that performs computations". In that sense, this contraption truly is a computer. It probably only has a memory size of only a few bytes, in modern terms, and can only do a few FLopS also. Yet, it is a computer, in all senses of the word.

    Funny. I always thought of Michelson as of one of the two guys involved in the "failed" mirror experiments that allowed A. Einstein to come up with the theory of Special Relativity. Not so, it turns out now: the guy was an accomplished engineer. How great.

  23. Re:510kph is airliner speed? on Japanese Maglev Train Hits 500kph · · Score: 1

    Yup. So would mine. Kittens taste good.

  24. Re:510kph is airliner speed? on Japanese Maglev Train Hits 500kph · · Score: 0

    That whole short movie is simply super-über-cute. Kittens. Wow. This could become an internet hit, and go viral. It has the genes for it.

  25. Re:510kph is airliner speed? on Japanese Maglev Train Hits 500kph · · Score: 0

    LOL. You got me. Only objection: there are way more ( more or less attractive ) female actors in that video than there are men. Otherwise.... I think it is, indeed, time to take my dog Keks for a walk. Thank you.