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User: gtall

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  1. Re:How about a straight answer? on Warmer Pacific Ocean Could Release Millions of Tons of Methane · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You don't have to believe in climate change to realize dumping large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is a problem. Just look at the acidifying oceans. Yes, it isn't methane (hence the difference in name and molecular structure). The implication of your statement is that since we have no good way of separating out the influence of man made climate change and natural climate change, we can forget about the controversy until the science resolves it. The science around the acidifying ocean is not in doubt except possibly by Sen. Sessions who never met a scientific fact he couldn't contradict.

    You do recall the ocean, yes? Base the food chain? Screwing it up means you eventually go hungry.

  2. Re:Counterpoint on Microsoft's New Windows Monetization Methods Could Mean 'Subscriptions' · · Score: 1

    It isn't clear that Red Hat's model can scale to the size of MS.

  3. Re:C is primordial on How Relevant is C in 2014? · · Score: 1

    So, you think you are smart enough to figure out what your optimizing C compiler did to your code?

  4. Re:Hara Kiri on Sony Hacks Continue: PlayStation Hit By Lizard Squad Attack · · Score: 1

    Honor my ass. Their notion of honor is to not look bad, not being bad has nothing to do with it.

  5. Re:Sony needs to invest in their IT on Sony Hacks Continue: PlayStation Hit By Lizard Squad Attack · · Score: 2

    You mean when company officers start having penalties for getting hacked and leaking people's information, they might do something. Otherwise, the officers are likely to pass the buck to anyone but themselves. Boards' of directors are also complicit in the low value companies put on their customers' information. Suing the company won't really do it, customers should be able to sue the officers and boards. This fiction that companies are individuals should be taken seriously. They are collective individuals comprised of their officers and boards. They should be held legally responsible.

  6. Re:Kim Il Sung getting even on North Korea Denies Involvement In "Righteous" Sony Hack · · Score: 1

    In a bizarre twist of relativity, it turns that Little Kim is Kim Il Sung's grandfather. This prevents the chestnuts from falling very far from the tree, and given the size of the Kim family's chestnuts, extreme care must taken lest they get overlooked and lost forever.

  7. Re:What happens in Thai Hotels stays in Thai Hotel on North Korea Denies Involvement In "Righteous" Sony Hack · · Score: 1

    Unless it is just the S. Koreans still pissed off about Japanese aggression in the 20th century and the repeated insults like visits to the war shrine by Japanese PMs. Hate dies hard.

  8. Re:Leak, not Hack on North Korea Denies Involvement In "Righteous" Sony Hack · · Score: 1

    It also bears resemblance to the Saudi Arabia hack generally attributed to those well-adjusted Iranians. It appears likely that the Iran and N. Korea cooperate on cyber war. They already cooperate on missile technology.

  9. Re:One hotel in Bangkok make a Sony humble on North Korea Denies Involvement In "Righteous" Sony Hack · · Score: 1

    Murray Head, is that you?

  10. Re:Loss of context and common sense on NSF Accused of Misuse of Funds In Giant Ecological Project · · Score: 1

    It is helpful to have a sense of proportion. The biggest tickets in the budget are non-discretionary (grandma and grandpa are expensive, so are their children who are disabled), and defense. The former is roughly $2.4 Trillion, the latter is roughly $600 Billion and of that last, about $240 Billion is personnel costs. NSF's 2014 budget was roughly $7 billion, out of an approx $3.6 Trillion total budget. The main expenditure are direct transfer payments to...Americans.

    Put quickly, your "observation" is bogus.

  11. Re:Drawing doodles on The Ancestor of Humans Was an "Artist" 500,000 Years Ago · · Score: 1

    If they get fossilized and buried for millennia, then its art. You did have them fossilized, yes?

  12. Re:Birds on FAA Report Says Near Collisions With Drones On the Rise · · Score: 1

    Bird don't know any better, people do yet they still think it is acceptable to act as thought they had the brain the size of a peanut. Wait until your airliner goes down because of one of these.

  13. Re:*sigh* on FAA Report Says Near Collisions With Drones On the Rise · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I rather think the problem is that too many assholes can't figure out flying around airports (or over 400 feet) was a bad idea. Just look at the number of assholes who cannot figure out shining lasers at airliners on approach or leaving airports is a bad idea, yet they still do it; now why would that be....why, why, why?

  14. Re:Contamination on Swiss Scientists Discover DNA Remains Active After Space Journey and Re-entry · · Score: 1

    Please explain you philosophy to Putin and ISIS. I'm sure they'll listen to you.

  15. Nah, you are thinking rap.

  16. Re:Already been done on Security Experts Believe the Internet of Things Will Be Used To Kill Someone · · Score: 1

    Shoot, Biden was dead before he was ever in office, his senate career shows it.

  17. Re:How is that startling? on Mathematicians Study Effects of Gerrymandering On 2012 Election · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmmm...how about social security and medicare, should that be handled by the states so that poor states get shafted...well, their older citizens will. That will cause a migration to a few states and leave rest to the wilderness. How about OSHA and workplace safety regulations? Each state is going to produce their own? FDA? Each state will have its own? The list goes on. We have these government agencies to regulate those well-adjusted nice companies that will cut grannies throat if they thought they could increase their profit by doing so. A collection of polyglot regulatory agencies is how we got the current insurance industry. These are those nice, well-meaning companies that want to cherry pick the healthy people and only insure them.

    So your libertarian utopia is an academic exercise in futility.

  18. Re:Super-capitalism on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places? · · Score: 1

    We have a sense of perspective and don't pull facts out of our ass.

  19. Re:Super-capitalism on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, but power companies have local monopolies, so there is no super capitalism there unless you equate super capitalism with monopolies. In this person's case, it is probably that his power company is an REMC, Rural Electric Membership Cooperative, they are state chartered and receive federal subsidies. They are also run by people who cut their teeth in electric power about 50 years ago. Being a cooperative and rural, they do not have the ability to raise rates very easily. They compensate by stiffing care and upkeep. So they do not go around cutting down trees near their line except if absolutely necessary. Also being rural, they have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of trees to clear. The easy consequence is that storms frequently topple trees onto their lines. Ice storms really kill them because they have so much ground to cover and now all the lines on that ground stand to receive ice and tree damage.

    Comparing the U.S. the little toy countries in Europe is silly. They are about the size of one of our states. It is much easier given their pop. density to keep their little toy grids up and running. It is also easier to run the lines underground because there is much less distance to cross. The pop. density also makes it easier to spread the cost which is much greater than running lines above ground. It is impossible for the U.S. to run its rural lines underground given the cost.
     

  20. Re:Ob on The Schizophrenic Programmer Who Built an OS To Talk To God · · Score: 1

    "Windows 8 UI"??? I don't think we need to bring Satan into this.

  21. Re:Pathetic on Officer Not Charged In Michael Brown Shooting · · Score: 1

    Really? Allowing Chiang Kai-shek to fight the Japanese while he kept his forces in reserve so he could conquer China after the war did exactly what for the Chinese? Gave them another 20 million dead, that's what. Stalin is a similar story. He did nothing for the Soviet Union, even his deal with Hitler blew up in his face.

    Millions died solely as a result of their actions, nothing else.

  22. Re:STEM is for suckers.. at least now. on Researchers Say the Tech Worker Shortage Doesn't Really Exist · · Score: 1

    "Stupidity" is paint it with a euphemistic brush, "excuses" is more to the point.

  23. Re:The French are the world's Standards Board on Blame America For Everything You Hate About "Internet Culture" · · Score: 1

    Yes, it is a shame the rest of the world equates Americans with Texans.

  24. Re:Americans are known to be ignorant an shallow.. on Blame America For Everything You Hate About "Internet Culture" · · Score: 1

    As opposed to the Europeans who, now that Putin is acting like a Tsar, appear to have rediscovered the value of military power...not that it will make them defend themselves yet. When they realize the U.S. cannot do it for them, I expect it will change...or Putin's little toy government collapses and the Europeans will go back to sleep until....

    The MidEast crazies decide they're entitled to making Europe the cesspool that is the MidEast. The regular pop. is too scared of the nutjobs to instill law and order, and when they do, it comes out like Egypt which sees an Islamist behind every grain of sand...which echos the Saudis thinking about the Iranians. And after Iran get the Bomb, the rest of those well-adjusted countries will decide they need one as well.

    India is mire of corruption and presumably they will last the century without getting nuked by the Pakistanis, who are in the process of turning their country into nutjob central.

    China is doing wonders...in fouling their environment so that one cannot even see more than a mile in Beijing on a good day. Japan is into their 20th year of failed economics, when they aren't hiding from the few foreigners they've so graciously allowed in to work for them.

    Africa still cannot produce a stable democracy except in a few small nations. The economic problems will only get worse now that China had decided to export any economic progress they were making.

    Yep, compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is ignorant and shallow and these other countries are beacons of enlightenment.

  25. Re:Constant Planning on It's Not Developers Slowing Things Down, It's the Process · · Score: 1

    Not a fan of agile, I take it. Thank you for that accurate perspective, made my whole day.