Slashdot Mirror


User: gsslay

gsslay's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,633
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,633

  1. Re:Gatling guns? on Will This Flying Car Get Crowdfunded? · · Score: 1

    If we were ever to have flying cars, it would have been 20-3- years ago. Having them succeed now is simply not going to happen for two basic reasons;

      - Airspace in the places most people will want to use them is crowded/strictly controlled.
      - Fuel costs would be prohibitive for most people, and only likely to get higher.

    The idea that the average commuter can afford to, and have the space to, fly their own car to work is simply not credible. And that's even before you consider the safety concerns and the skill required.

    Like it or not, the future belongs to mass public transport.

  2. Re:It was a "joke" back then on This 1981 BYTE Magazine Cover Explains Why We're So Bad At Tech Predictions · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The cover image is obviously not supposed to be an attempt at predicting what a real working computer on your wrist would look like. If it had attempted this, most readers at a glance would probably not recognise what it was suppose to be.

    So the artist simply took a recognisable object (early 80s computer) and shrunk it onto a wrist. Job done, eye catching cover that the reader can immediately understand.

  3. Re:At least someone appreciates work-life balance on New French Law Prohibits After-Hours Work Emails · · Score: 1

    It was sarcasm at what is "*REALLY* American". American labour laws are like medieval serfdom compared to Europe's.

  4. Re:It's a Planet on Pluto May Have Deep Seas and Ancient Tectonic Faults · · Score: 1

    Pluto is the only planet to be discovered by an American.

    How is this in anyway relevant to whether it is a planet or not?

  5. Re:At least someone appreciates work-life balance on New French Law Prohibits After-Hours Work Emails · · Score: 4

    You're "compensated" by keeping your sorry ass in a job.

    See me in my office first thing tomorrow, Freeze. Security are boxing up your belongings and will escort you from the building. This is the last time you ignore my 1 a.m. emails.

  6. Re:Sex discrimination. on Google: Teach Girls Coding, Get $2,500; Teach Boys, Get $0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You appear confused. A few points that may help you.

    No one is offering excuses for anything.

    The ones who might suffer here are high school boys. Not "menz" and not CS graduates. So your scorn is addressing an irrelevant target.

    Google, the ones offering this discriminatory money, are very much part of the nasty, unpleasant industry you speak of.

  7. Re:Sex discrimination. on Google: Teach Girls Coding, Get $2,500; Teach Boys, Get $0 · · Score: 1

    The key difference is between between separate treatment and unequal treatment.

  8. Re:technobabble =! "technobabble" on Scientists/Actress Say They Were 'Tricked' Into Geocentric Universe Movie · · Score: 1

    I think it is unreasonable for anyone to expect an actor to fully research all the meaning/implication/history/research/studies of everything they are paid to say. Particularly when, like Star Trek, the factual content is heavily scrambled in amongst the most nonsensical technobabble fiction.

    Why should Mulgrew want to spend her time sorting out the nonsense from the fact? She's not a scientist. She's not even a writer. She's an actress. She says what she's told, how she's told.

    However, you do wonder just how much attention she paid to what she was saying in this film. Was it all just words to her?

  9. The Voyager 1 Principle on Last Month's "Planet X" Announcement Was Probably Wrong · · Score: 2

    So does this now mean that Voyager 1 has, or hasn't, left the solar system?

    Cos that's how I usually gauge astronomical retractions.

  10. Re:diminished placebo effect on Australia Declares Homeopathy Nonsense, Urges Doctors to Inform Patients · · Score: 1

    This is very true for just about everything. People like to believe that things that cost more are intrinsically better than cheaper alternatives. Even if all the evidence indicates no difference, or even that they are worse.

    Otherwise you'd feel like you were a sucker that had been ripped off in paying more for no good reason. And no-one likes to think they're a sucker.

  11. Re:Car analogy on Should Microsoft Be Required To Extend Support For Windows XP? · · Score: 1

    And if Windows XP is running my kidney dialysis, or controlling my nuclear power station?

  12. Re:Nah just have copyright last for 14 years on Should Microsoft Be Required To Extend Support For Windows XP? · · Score: 1

    Could someone show me how?

    Inventing something that might set me up for life, never need to do anything ever again? Sounds like a good spur for innovation to me.

    You want some of that? Then invent something that's more "gold" than mine. Another spur.

    If I don't want you making my "gold" obsolete, robbing me of my easy profits/retirement? Then maybe I better keep innovating myself. Yet another spur.

    Not saying its perfect, but it works.

  13. Plenty of time on Will Living On Mars Drive Us Crazy? · · Score: 1

    In all seriousness, this isn't a personal hygene snark, I don't see how 8 minutes showering a week could be considered such a massive hardship.

    Say you shower every second day, you're not going to be the freshest thing on Mars, but you'll not stink that bad. So that gives you a little over two and a quarter minutes to get a wash. No time to luxuriate. But plenty time to get clean if you get on with it.

  14. Re:Seems like a fine line on Jimmy Wales To 'Holistic Healers': Prove Your Claims the Old-Fashioned Way · · Score: 1

    Yup. That's the ultimate disapproval of homeopathy. At the levels of dilution involved, every single drop of water on the planet is likely to have "inherited" the magical healing of every possible substance on the planet that has ever gotten wet. So every random sample of water cures everything.

    And that's before you even consider the goofy logic that determines which original substance cures which disease.

    The only way homeopathy can counter this is to suggest that its the special way that the water is shaken between dilutions that makes all the difference. Because practitioners of homeopathy are skilled in shaking bottles of water in a way that makes a difference at molecular level.

  15. Re:You know what they call alternative medicine... on Jimmy Wales To 'Holistic Healers': Prove Your Claims the Old-Fashioned Way · · Score: 1

    You are absolutely correct, but for the wrong reasons. You have the chain of required events backwards.

    It is no-one's responsibility to prove that alternative medicine does not work. It is alternative's medicine's responsibility to prove that is does work.

  16. Re:slight exaggeration on Adam Carolla Joins Fight Against Podcast Patent Troll · · Score: 1

    Why, you almost make it seem reasonable. What right thinking person could have any problem with this troll taking a few pennies of you for doing absolutely nothing? Its not so much to ask for, is it?

    Certainly not worth getting slapped with court action simply because you have "principles". Just pay little money and nothing bad will happen to your nice little podcast. It would be a shame if you had to stop. Think of it just like extortion... , I mean, a tax. There, not so bad, was it?

  17. Re:Privacy nutjobs take note on Facebook's Face Identification Project Is Accurate 97.25% of the Time · · Score: 1

    During any price negotiations, the company wants to best maximise their profit. Any inside info they have on you will be used to their benefit, not yours. It skews negotiations in their favor, because you don't have the same inside knowledge on them.

    All from just looking at your face before you even open your mouth.

  18. Re: Ridiculous. on Time Dilation Drug Could Let Heinous Criminals Serve 1,000 Year Sentences · · Score: 1

    gets through to the perpetrators' minds

    What message are you hoping to "get through"? All you'd be conveying is "We think you are a bad person, so we are going to do bad things to you".

    Yes, at the basest of levels, vengeance might make victims, or friends of the victim, feel better. But is this the only way?

  19. Re:Privacy nutjobs take note on Facebook's Face Identification Project Is Accurate 97.25% of the Time · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You are blind to the fact that this is not a matter of going online to facebook. This is the reverse. This is the point where facebook starts coming to you. In real life. In the street, at the airport, in the store, at the dentist. And it'll know you, not necessarily because you've told it, but because all your acquaintances have.

    Facebook will pass that information on to the airport/store/hospital because they'll pay to know who you are before you even approach the counter. "So they can better serve you."

  20. Re:not even close on A Call For Rollbacks To Previous Versions of Software · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately when you are dealing will phone apps you have to deal with two things;

    Firstly a continual stream of minor updates. Are you going to test every single one? Personally I have a life, and am not intent on being a beta tester for most of it.

    Secondly, automated updates. Again, I don't want to spend half of my free time performing manual updates. So often allowing automatic updates is the only solution.

    But yes, there is nothing more annoying to discover that the latest version is broken in some regard, and you would be better off with the older version, which is now unobtainable.

    Same goes for applications that have bloated to the point where what used to be functional on your moderately aged phone, is now unusable because it has been coded and tested on the very latest hardware.

  21. Re:Huh? on Transhumanist Children's Book Argues, "Death Is Wrong" · · Score: 1

    If you're immortal, then this already is paradise and hell.

  22. Re:School is boring smart kids on The Poor Neglected Gifted Child · · Score: 1

    This is very true. And you don't even have to be gifted to suffer from it.

    I was not a "gifted" child, merely above average. Yet I can still recall the horror of classes taken by teachers who insisted that everyone progressed at the same speed as the slowest pupil. So I'd be forced to sit idle while listening to something being explained to the entire class, something that many of us had already successfully mastered. I was bored stupid, hated the teacher, and not progressing at the rate I was capable of. My exam results reflected that.

  23. Re:"...were not confronted..." ? on Major Wikipedia Donors Caught Editing Their Own Articles · · Score: 1

    Except we did read it, and most likely reached the same conclusion. He's got next to nothing, but hopes that darkly hinting at future revelations of much worse will fool us into taking him more seriously than he deserves.

    If you're going to have a series of revelations about anything, best start with one that doesn't have people saying "meh".

  24. Re:IAU? on IAU To Uwingu: You Can't Name That Martian Crater Either · · Score: 2

    Well just like the star naming scam, no-one "gets to decide" and anyone can name anything they like.

    I could rename the craters of Mars after my relatives if I wanted to. Yes, even the ones that already have names. No-one, however, is likely to pay my naming the slightest bit of attention, because I have neither authority nor importance. Just like UWingo.

    The International Astronomical Union, on the otherhand, have a fair degree of recognition. Feel free to ignore them, but you'll find that most people concerned with Mars are happy for them to take the lead on naming.

  25. For as little as $5 on IAU To Uwingu: You Can't Name That Martian Crater Either · · Score: 1

    I imagine that using buzzwords like "crowdsourced" means we're not supposed to spot that this is just a way of fleecing people of money for a totally worthless certificate.

    Maybe the cause is good. But this method of fundraising is just sleazy.