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User: Dabido

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  1. Help! Help! Help! on Searching the Internet For Evidence of Time Travelers · · Score: 1

    Please, help! I am trapped in 1985. Please send a DeLorean with a Flux Capacity quickly.

  2. ESR on Emacs Needs To Move To GitHub, Says ESR · · Score: 1

    I thought ESR was a Gnu name for ESR's Still Recursive.

  3. Re:Use public DNS on How One Man Fought His ISP's Bad Behavior and Won · · Score: 1

    Someone told me 127.0.0.1 was the best DNS server out there. I'll just change it on my computer now ...

  4. Hmmm ... on Are High MOOC Failure Rates a Bug Or a Feature? · · Score: 1

    I finished one, am halfway through another and signed up for another about two months ago that I haven't actually started yet, but intend to. It probably counts as 1 finished and 2 incomplete, but given time I will complete the other two.

  5. A short list off the top of my head on Ask Slashdot: What Are the Books Everyone Should Read? · · Score: 1

    Spring Snow - Yukio Mishima

    The Outsider - Colin Wilson

    A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

    Ringworld - Larry Niven

    Junky - William Burroughs

    The Plague - Albert Camus

    Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

    Fox in Sox - Dr Seuss

    Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel García Márquez

    Shogun - James Clavell

    In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

  6. Watchmen Burgers on What Would French Fries Taste Like If You Made Them On Jupiter? · · Score: 1

    I think Sally Jupiter would be unimpressed if people starting making French Fries on her.

  7. Re:Cost center only? on Australian Dept. Store Chain's Website Crashes and Can't Get Back Up · · Score: 1

    We don't have Thanksgiving in Australia, but you are correct that most IT departments (whether in retail or not) put a freeze on changes over the Xmas period. Companies I work for usually had them start the week (or week before) of Xmas (i.e., if Xmas falls on a Wednesday, then the Monday before, 23rd is when the moratorium on changes happen). Depending on the company, the freeze will usually run for two or four weeks. (To get past January 1st). Mainly as it is also when summer holidays occur, and most workers take the time off to coincide with when their kids are off from school for the summer break. In order to get a change put through during this time it has to be a major emergency (like the website going down and not being able to be brought back up again). Most departments I notice ignore the freeze and submit changes anyway, most of which get postponed, much to the yelling and screaming of managers from the departments that ignore the freeze. :-)

    I doubt it is a load issue or DoS. Would more likely agree with the parent that the IT department was treated as a cost centre and not much was done to ensure that the site remained workable. Companies I worked for in Australia often make statements like ,'When you can get the 10/100 switches to run at 1 GB we'll consider upgrading the switches.' or 'I don't see why we have these firewall things? They just cost us money. I think we should sell them and put the money to better use elsewhere.' or (concerning IT security) 'I'm a manager and you're just an IT worker. You have no idea how a company really runs.'

  8. Re:There must be a very good reason... on Utilities Fight Back Against Solar Energy · · Score: 1

    I get 8 cents for every MW I produce that goes back into the grid and I get charged 23 cents for every MW I use that comes in off the grid. People not on solar get charged that 23 cents as well. That means the MW I sell back to the utility gets to make them 15 cents every time my solar system produces 1 MW for them. So, I pretty much make 15 cents for free for the utility. They don't have to burn their natural gas or use their power station to produce that. I have no idea if it is cheaper than 8 cents for them to make 1 MW of electricity from natural gas. But, it isn't the point. They're still making a profit off of electricity that I'm creating that they on-sell to other consumers from the solar panels on my roof that they didn't have to pay for. I'd love to disconnect from the grid altogether and just run off my own solar, but the law in my area states that I have to be connected to the grid and can't store the excess power I produce.

  9. Slash on UK Govt's Censorware Blocks Tech, Civil Liberties Websites · · Score: 1

    Maybe it filters it, because 'taking a slash' is sometimes used as a colloquialism for taking a pee. We don't want those kiddies in the UK to be accessing fetish sites with 'pee pee porn'.

  10. Re:Legality vs Enforceability on DoD Public Domain Archive To Be Privatized, Locked Up For 10 Years · · Score: 1

    Coastguard is busy fighting sharks with lasers on their heads!

  11. Whalers of the moon! on How To Avoid a Scramble For the Moon and Its Resources · · Score: 1

    Won't someone please think of the moon whales!!!

  12. Re:I have to laugh over the rolling vs howling... on Wikipedia's Lamest Edit Wars · · Score: 1

    Is that pronounced 'Touchie' like the slang term for being sensitive or pronounced 'Tow-Chee' like the Chinese Tao Chi? These foreign words are confusing for some of us. :-)

  13. Re:so how will they earn a living on Chimpanzee "Personhood" Lawsuits Fail In New York Courts · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't that lower their chances of being declared legally human?

  14. The Outsider on Study: People Are Biased Against Creative Thinking · · Score: 1

    I think a lot of this was covered in Colin Wilson's book, 'The Outsider' back in 1956. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(Colin_Wilson)

  15. Re:Can they recreate old world wine? on Scientists Uncover 3,700-Year-Old Wine Cellar · · Score: 1

    Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

    I was sort of wondering if they used any old DNA to recreate the old root system of the European wine. They would need an environment without the aphids (sterile environment). Someone could then produce it. Like you said, the European vines are still being grafted onto the American root systems, so maybe this discovery is irrelevant as the DNA is already there. Which now makes me wonder if they can use the European vines to grow an old root system in a sterile environment in order to grow some old world grapes. It would be interesting to know what the difference in taste really is.

  16. Re:Paper on Storing Your Encrypted Passwords Offline On a Dedicated Device · · Score: 1

    So do I. Just wish they all weren't 'password' though.

  17. Can they recreate old world wine? on Scientists Uncover 3,700-Year-Old Wine Cellar · · Score: 1

    When Chris Columbus brought back samples of 'wild grapes' from the Americas, he apparently also brought back a parasite that attacked the roots of European grape vines. (Sorry, no citation as I read this in a book so many years ago it isn't funny. Hopefully it wasn't an old wives tale, else my question will become invalidated - I did google for it, but couldn't find a reference). Apparently, the parasite was so bad that the only way to save the European grape vines was to graft the American roots onto European grapes. This made the European grapes taste different (more bitter, not as nice) and the story claims that wine has never tasted as nice since. So, wondering if this old wine cellar from pre-Columbian Europe has some residual old wine DNA that might help them get wine to taste like it used to taste.

  18. Er ... Relativity? on Two Supermassive Black Holes About To Embrace · · Score: 1

    '... objects circling each other at a distance of about a few thousand light-years. As the black holes continued to spiral in toward each other, they were separated by just a few light-years.'

    Maybe I'm missing something, but if they were observed a few thousand light years from each other, then as far as I can tell, at the speed of light it would take them a few thousand years to get near each other. But, they are now 'a few light-years' from each other. How did they close that massive gap in the years they were being observed, considering it is a lot less than a few thousand years they have been getting observed?'

  19. Re:RIP Bill Cosby on Nelson Mandela Dead At 95 · · Score: 1

    I've already been seeing the ones with Morgan Freeman on them.

  20. Re:Rename it.. on Getting Evolution In Science Textbooks For Texas Schools · · Score: 1

    Christians didn't rename it 'Intelligent Design', 'literal creationists' did. Majority of Christians in the world have no problem with evolution. (i.e. half of Christendom is Catholic, and the Catholics official stance is evolution is correct and they teach evolution in their schools. Orthodox church is the same, as are many Protestant churches, and Anglican {aka Church of England}). They still believe in creation, and creation does not equate to 'Intelligent Design'.

    Maybe you missed it, but the literal creationists have already redefined 'micro-evolution' to mean 'adaptation'. Arguing with them can cause problems, because when they speak of micro-evolution, they are not speaking of micro-evolution. In fact, when I included a definition of micro-evolution from a biology textbook during an argument with one, they said it proved that I didn't understand what micro-evolution was. Trying to explain that evolution explains adaptation is met with denials. They think that if a person cuts their fingers off, then teach their children to cut theirs off, and then they teach their children to cut theirs off, that eventually a human will 'adapt' that can grow fingers back, like a gecko can grow a tail back.

    So many of them think 'Origin of the Species' is a book about humans evolving from apes.

    The real problem is they are mis-informed and/or don't understand the science when presented to them. (And I'm sure some of them deliberately choose to 'misunderstand' - in fact, they make humungous truckloads of money off of it.).

    My suggestion then, is to try to get everyone on the same page as to the definitions they are using. Try to get the 'literal creationists' to understand what micro-evolution actually means, and that what they are referring to as micro-evolution is in fact 'adaptation' and the two are not synonymous. It's not a renaming as you suggest, in fact, it is the opposite, it is a reclaiming of a definition.

  21. Not working ... on Geeks For Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries · · Score: 1

    As much as the current form of democracy isn't working too well (turning into police states), the problem with monarchy is it pretty much was a police state. So, we'd be trading one system of oppression back to another one we got rid of because we didn't like its system of oppression. Maybe these 'geeks' need to try thinking forward rather than backwards. A way to guarantee less oppression and more freedom would be good.

  22. Common sense isn't that common on CMU AI Learning Common Sense By Watching the Internet · · Score: 1

    I can't find common sense on the internet. I doubt a computer could. I fear we're going to produce some sort of crazy computer that thinks (if AI is achieved) the world revolves around what Justin Beiber and Miley Cyrus are up to ... and enjoy it. Then, it will develop some sort of religion and make the rest of us worship them or something. This can only end badly!

  23. Re:The interesting question on Study Suggests Link Between Dread Pirate Roberts and Satoshi Nakamoto · · Score: 1
  24. Re:Who will buy my turnip?? on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    After saying that though, I had another thought, maybe NASA will just have a growers market on the moon, in which case, 'Good luck getting to the NASA growers market, humans!' Prices will be kept reasonable for our alien friends ... as long as our turnips don't mutate and return to take us over!!! (Yes, I am setting that up for a punch line).

  25. Who will buy my turnip?? on NASA's Next Frontier: Growing Plants On the Moon · · Score: 1

    Good luck bringing those tasty turnips to market, NASA! :-)