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User: gsslay

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Comments · 1,633

  1. Re: magic is the same as science? on University of Toronto: Anti-vaccine Homeopathy Course Is Fine · · Score: 5, Informative

    The placebo effect is merely a name for something we don't understand.

    No. No it isn't. If this is the starting point for your argument then you are already wrong before you say another word.

  2. Why do this? on NYC Asks Google Maps For Fewer Left Turns · · Score: 2

    Could someone explain for the non-Americans why it is possible to have cars turning left at a green light, at the same time as pedestrians crossing the road have a green light? What was the thinking behind this? And why is the solution not just to stop this happening?

  3. Re:Curious... can I... on CSTA: Google Surveying Educators On Unconscious Biases of Students, Parents · · Score: 1

    It's an interesting idea. Perhaps an unconscious bias for a particular search engine, brought about by its name being synonymous for a verb?

  4. Re:There's something you have to ask yourself. on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Ongoing Suspected Identity Theft? · · Score: 1

    Cable company is incompetent. Some people who use cable companies are idiots. Like all services that request an email address, they should verify the email address before using it.

    By the sound of it, this is a simple case of the above. Idiot doesn't know their correct email address, Incompetent doesn't verify when given it. OP keeps fixing the situation, only for the idiotic, incompetent process to be repeated.

    I get emails all the time from companies because they don't do this. Various idiots with the same, or similar, name to me sign up for something, get their email address wrong, and I end up getting either spammed with junk or fed information about their account. This wouldn't happen if the email address was sent a confirmation email before it's used.

  5. Re:ridiculous man on Harry Shearer Returns To the Simpsons · · Score: 2

    How many millions do you need? If you've got that kind of money, it's amazing just how little you'd value another $1 million. There are things that are much more finite that become more important. Like your time. Or enjoying your life. Or doing work that means something to you.

    He's very lucky to be in that situation. That's why he really doesn't need the gift horse anymore, and it may need him more than he needs it.

  6. Re:The difference... on BBC Reveals Its New Microcomputer Design · · Score: 1

    This looks a lot like the BBC puffing itself up, and trying to needlessly and damagingly compete with people who are already informing, educating and entertaining

    You're going to have to explain how giving an educational computer device to schools for free is "puffing up" and "needlessly damaging" to anything.

    Otherwise I may reach the conclusion you're an idiot grinding entirely unrelated gears.

    This is the BBC doing what we pay them to do. I have my doubts about how successful it may be, but I see absolutely no problem with its intentions.

  7. 100% failure in 72 hours on Pluto Probe Back To Normal, Cause of Snafu Found · · Score: 5, Funny

    It can only be attributable to human error. They checked out the AE-35 Unit and it had no problems at all.

    I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission.

  8. Re:Ah That's Good Shit on UK's National Computer Museum Looks For Help Repairing BBC Micros · · Score: 2

    This was in the early 90's, just before the 286 really started to catch on.

    I think your dates may be a bit out. By the early 90s the 286 was vintage.

  9. Re:What a confusing summary! on AP CS Test Takers and Pass Rates Up, Half of Kids Don't Get Sparse Arrays At All · · Score: 1

    It would appear that the submitter thinks all that is required to construct an article summary is to string tweets together in a single paragraph.

    It's all just words and numbers, isn't it? No suitable effort or consideration for the communication medium required. Consider yourself lucky it isn't written in emojis.

  10. Re:Weird on BBC Curates The "Right To Be Forgotten" Links That Google Can't · · Score: 1

    Maybe they had second thoughts and regret talking to the BBC.

    Maybe they decided it wasn't such a great idea that their children go through their early years labelled as the gay fertility child by anyone who googled Mum's name.

    Maybe they decided that their medical history is like anyone else's; personal and private.

  11. Re:People need to learn to stop giving a shit on The Town That Banned Wi-Fi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are they interfering with your life?

    Did you RTFA? They are interfering. They are going about town demanding that other people turn off electrical stuff that they imagine causes their imaginary disease.

  12. Re: Horray for Taylor Swift. on Taylor Swift: Apple's Disdain For Royalties Is 'Shocking, Disappointing' · · Score: 2

    You miss the point.

    If an artist who wasn't already very successful (and therefore very rich) made this stand the world's media, and Apple, would go "So what, who cares?" and we wouldn't be discussing it here.

    In order for this to get attention it needs someone like Swift to make the stand. Whatever you may speculate her motivation is. Someone who has a genuine need and complaint about the money would get ignored.

  13. Re:that's funny... on Taylor Swift: Apple's Disdain For Royalties Is 'Shocking, Disappointing' · · Score: 2

    If she wants to protect the little people in the music industry, she should offer to allow Apple to use her music royalty-free for six months if they pay new artists during the three month free period.

    A pathetically naive solution. Who gets to pick who is "little" and "new"? What if you're a just a bit bigger than "little" and just a bit older than "new"? Tough luck, you get to help multi-millionaire company Apple build a new business for themselves, at no recompense.

    There is always a problem when people try to draw an artificial line, where the rules totally change, in the middle of a market. Because there is always someone who falls on just the wrong side of the line that gets hammered, while someone else, practically identical, on the other side of the line reaps the benefits.

    Without sharing the risk of the free trial.

    Why should she feel obliged to share any risk with Apple? It's not her business venture. She's doing just fine without it.

  14. Re: that's funny... on Taylor Swift: Apple's Disdain For Royalties Is 'Shocking, Disappointing' · · Score: 2

    I'm going to give your work away for nothing. You'll get nothing, but it's ok because I'm getting nothing too. I'm fine with this because I'm already insanely rich. Your financial position does not concern me.

    What you complaining about? This is a valid model.

  15. Re:Yes it matters on Is the End of Government Acceptance of Homeopathy In Sight? · · Score: 1

    Homeopathy is completely inappropriate for all branches of medical practice. That's the joke. It's funny because it's true.

  16. Re:Wiki-Enquirer? on WikiLeaks' Latest: An Even More Massive Trove of Sony Documents · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) Airing Sony's misdeeds, with the possibility of bringing them to justice.

    What misdeeds are being brought to air here?

    2) Encouraging other companies to not be evil. If everyone knows that their illegal activities might come to light, it'll act as a deterrent.

    So this is like taking a random child out of the class and beating them in front of the others, just so they know what'll happen to them if they're naughty.

    Hold off a bit before passing judgement. If a more journalistic outlet finds something newsworthy, it might paint the data dump as worthwhile.

    No, actually it's like arresting someone because maybe they've done something, then looking for the evidence afterwards. If none found, meh, tough luck.

  17. Re:Problem is other people on Face Recognition Tech Pushes Legal Boundaries · · Score: 1

    I might look remarkably like George Clooney. Any attempt to sanatize George from my data might actually result in an image less like me.

  18. Who? on Woz To Be Immortalized In Wax · · Score: 1

    Isn't part of the deal with waxworks is you're supposed to be know what the people look like? So you recognise their uncanny likeness in wax?

    Steve Wozniak is the only one of those suggested I'd have any hope of recognising. Heads of IT companies are not really people I need to see or remember. I'd consider myself doing well if I recognise the name. It's their product that matters, not their faces.

  19. Re:Problem is other people on Face Recognition Tech Pushes Legal Boundaries · · Score: 4, Informative

    Upload to Facebook a whole heap of random pictures of people (actors, the famous etc) or all kinds and tag the lot as yourself. Make yourself appear to be a mashup of every possible gender/race/age and physical appearance. So any photos of yourself that do get tagged are drowned in a pool of misinformation.

  20. five years later than originally planned

    Better late than unsafe.

  21. Re:Reddit, like Digg, is eating itself... on Reddit Removes Communities To Address Harassment, Users Respond · · Score: 1

    I get very frustrated watching completely factual information get downvoted or subreddits banned because it doesn't fit users' or moderators' view of the world.

    Reddit is like this because people are like this. Every site is the same, it just manifests itself if different ways according to the mechanisms used there.

    If you want to change how this happens on social media; first change people.

    (Hint: people won't change.)

  22. Re:In other words... on Fake Mobile Phone Towers Found To Be "Actively Listening In" On Calls In UK · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But isn't it reassuring that the first thing stopping them doing surveillance that comes to Sir Bernard's mind is the lack of resources? Not things like legality or moral justification?

    Lack of money; the police's new moral compass.

  23. Re:Those are not true threats on Feds Want To Unmask Internet Commenters Writing About the Silk Road Trial Judge · · Score: 1

    Just some indeterminate point in the future, someone "will" do something to perhaps other people like this one. That's not a threat.

    At some point in the future, and I'm not saying when, people like you will be pummelled with pillows. I'm not saying you. Just people like you. You have absolutely nothing to worry, and the fact I'm saying that in a very menacing tone should not be taken as a suggestion that I'm actually specifically meaning you.

    For all you know, no one has your personal address and is not in the habit of parking outside your home in the dark. No. Although some people have a psychopathic hatred of people like you, you are excluded. You will not be pummelled with pillows when you least expect it, sometime. You can count on it.

    This is not a threat and no-one could reasonably expect your life is in any danger. Not even when slashdot's past criminal history of arranging pillow pummelling is taken into account.

  24. Re:Meh on Presidential Candidate Lincoln Chaffee Proposes That US Go Metric · · Score: 1

    Those seem stupid and arbitrary by comparison.

    And water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Nothing stupid and arbitrary about that! No sir!

    Being a relatively average-sized man, my foot is about a foot long, for example.

    Except the average sized man's foot is not a foot long, but shorter.

    With meters, when you round, basically everyone is 2 meters tall.

    So maybe use centimetres?

  25. Totally fooled the cops! on Billboard Advertising Banned Products In Russia Hides If It Recognizes Cops · · Score: 1

    If only there was some way for police to disguise themselves. Or if there was some way to see this advert from a distance. Thank goodness there isn't, or this advert would appear to be nothing more than an advertising stunt.