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User: Locke2005

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  1. Re:She has a point. on My High School CS Homework Is the Centerfold · · Score: 1

    I suspect most teenage girls (and boys) have looked at porn sites out of curiosity, since access is so easy. However, I'm pretty sure the majority of views are by men. No doubt there are a significant number of girls that use them in much the same manner as the boys do.

  2. Re:Proof of concept on The World of 3D Portraiture · · Score: 1

    My coworker used to refer to his "Two inches of terror!" I _think_ he was joking...

  3. Re:No longer anatomically impossible. on The World of 3D Portraiture · · Score: 1

    No, but it does bring a whole new meaning to the phrase "playing with yourself"!

  4. Re:America is finished! OVER! on Robots Step Into the Backbreaking Agricultural Work That Immigrants Won't Do · · Score: 1

    Leveling out of wages should be seen as an inevitable consequence of globalization. If you want to have huge inequalities of compensation again, the only way to achieve it is to make transportation much more expensive. We live in an age where jetting halfway around the world and owning cell phones is considered normal by low wage workers in even the most impoverished countries -- which is both a good thing and a bad thing. More of a bad thing, if you're used to being one of the privileged few. More of a good thing, if you're used to being poor and easily exploited.

  5. Re:Labor is supply and demand on Robots Step Into the Backbreaking Agricultural Work That Immigrants Won't Do · · Score: 1

    You've summarized the H1B Visa argument in a single sentence...

  6. Re:How did we manage before 'immigrants' came? on Robots Step Into the Backbreaking Agricultural Work That Immigrants Won't Do · · Score: 1

    Child labor laws were different then, and a greater percentage of families lived on small family farms. Huge corporate farms make it possible to amortize the costs of millions of dollars worth of equipment over significant acreage, but they require huge amounts of seasonal labor to function. The only way to keep seasonal labor employed is to have them move with seasonal demand; migrant labor can just as easily come from another country as another state. Oh, yeah, and 500 years ago, we picked all our own maize ourselves, without any help from you damn undocumented immigrant whites!

  7. Re:OT: Unskilled labor shouldn't be 100% free-mark on Robots Step Into the Backbreaking Agricultural Work That Immigrants Won't Do · · Score: 1

    Seems more like a simple supply-and-demand problem to me. Exploitation is easy when you have a huge oversupply of unskilled labor. Cut way back on the labor supply, and wages would rise automatically, with no need to force companies by state fiat to pay employees more than they are worth in a free market. How do you "cut back on the labor supply"? Aye, therein lies the rub...

  8. Picking strawberries is extremely labor intensive, but it still seems like human beings would be better at picking out the good ones without damaging them than robots would. I've always thought swarms of small robots would be more useful for pest control: Seeking out and terminating with extreme prejudice any weeds, bugs, or rodents in the field. This could eliminate the use of herbicide and pesticide, hence no more need for "Roundup Resistant" and other GMO seeds. Grain losses to mice run into double-digit percentages in some states; seems like a mouse hunter-killer system could pay for itself.

  9. Doesn' t the computer have a huge advantage? on In New AI Benchmark, Computer Takes On Four Top Professional Poker Players · · Score: 1

    The computer can count cards perfectly and brute force calculate the odds of each possible hand. The computer has no "tell"; but on the other hand, it probably can't read any human tells either. Over enough hands, the computer is always going to come out ahead, just by better calculation of probabilities. Artificial Intelligence isn't really required to give it an advantage, and other than being able to read the faces and tells of opponents, I'm not sure AI is even useful for poker. Of course, the software is probably also trying to use past bluffing history to predict when opponents are bluffing, giving this somewhat of the flavor of the Rock, Paper, Scissors programming competition (my quick and dirty algorithm sucked at that).

  10. Proof of concept on The World of 3D Portraiture · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're missing the most obvious use of this technology: you use it to make a full scale model of just one portion of your anatomy, not your complete body. You then give that model to your girlfriend to use when you're not there. Of course, guys being guys, most will be tempted to make a 150% scale model instead...

  11. Re:This happens about... on How Mission Creep Killed a Gaming Studio · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Agreed. I've been writing software for 32 years, and "We've completely changed your requirements, but that shouldn't affect your schedule or your budget any!" happens all the time. The point is, you have to push back. Tell them exactly what every change is going to cost (padded heavily). Unless they agree to add time and money to the project, then just deliver the originally agreed to project. Don't let people make unilateral changes in the contract after it is signed, unless you actually like working on money-losing projects!

  12. You can automate backing up to the cloud. Much more difficult to automate rotating media through a safe deposit box. Unless you're driving to the bank every day for deposits anyway, I suspect the safe deposit box is not going to get refreshed as often as it should.

  13. He meant that they are commonly referred to as "safe deposit box", not "safety deposit box". However, since we all know what he is talking about, who cares?

  14. "Long future"? on 220TB Tapes Show Tape Storage Still Has a Long Future · · Score: 2

    How long does the tape media last until it deteriorates to the point where it becomes unreadable?

  15. Re:It's a farce on Uber Finally Accepts Cash -- For Autorickshaws In Delhi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Lower prices at what cost? It appears their business model is based on not paying taxes licensing fees and not paying for commercial insurance. Lower cost due to an unfair competitive advantage gained by being scofflaws... is that the kind of business model we want to encourage?

  16. Re:New revenuestream? on Uber Finally Accepts Cash -- For Autorickshaws In Delhi · · Score: 1

    If they accept cash, they're pretty much guaranteed the uber "drivers" are going to lie about the actual distance and short them on their percentage, so it's not much of a revenue stream. I'll bet they are amazed how many of the rides they arrange only travel a single block...

  17. Re:BASIC on Ask Slashdot: How To Introduce a 7-Year-Old To Programming? · · Score: 0

    Because it's a bad language that teaches people bad habits. On the bright side, you used to be able to write programs in it on a $99 Timex Sinclair, which was a pretty low barrier to entry.

  18. Turtle Graphics? on Ask Slashdot: How To Introduce a 7-Year-Old To Programming? · · Score: 1

    I haven't used this personally, but: http://sourceforge.net/project...

  19. Re:Negotiation on Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Bans Salary Negotiations To Equalize Pay For Men, Women · · Score: 1

    No, valuing gender above talent is by definition discrimination. The whole point is to be gender-blind in valuing talent. You don't do that by eliminating negotiation, you do that by figuring out WHY women don't to as well in negotiation, then restructuring the negotiation process to eliminate that disadvantage.

  20. Wrong approach on Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Bans Salary Negotiations To Equalize Pay For Men, Women · · Score: 1

    How about if women just grow some balls and learn how to negotiate so we don't have to "protect" them -- that only perpetuates the stereotype of the helpless woman, which you'd think real feminists would be against. Women can be every bit as aggressive and vicious as men; I can't see any reason why they would have a "natural" disadvantage in negotiation. It not like having a deep bass voice makes you a better negotiator, is it? Personally, I'd do better negotiating via email, perhaps everyone should do that to eliminate any gender discrepancies.

  21. Stop dragging it out on Verdict Reached In Boston Bombing Trial · · Score: 1

    Go ahead and give him a life sentence and get this over with. He'll die soon enough in prison, especially of the guards "accidentally" happen to be looking the other way. He's pretty recognizable, and he definitely won't be the most popular position no matter where he is sent to.

  22. Re:Sound is more important than Syntax and Grammar on Ask Slashdot: What Would a Constructed Language Have To Be To Replace English? · · Score: 1

    Can't be done. Languages evolve over time, and regional dialects will inevitably creep in. Also, people frequently live in proximity to speakers of other languages, and tend to "borrow" words and pronunciation. Most languages are a pidgin of 2 or more languages; even if you created a "pure" language, it would evolve into pidgins over time. For example, I tend to use swear words from non-English languages to avoid offending the naive.

  23. Re:Think about the economics of the language on Ask Slashdot: What Would a Constructed Language Have To Be To Replace English? · · Score: 1

    I've seen Europeans pick it up in less, although they were extremely bright people and were "helped" by having English speakers constantly correct them. In general, if forced to use a specific language for conversation, you should be able to pick it up in about 2 years and be fluent enough in conversational use to be understood. It helps if you already know a language that comes from common roots (e.g. Latin). The biggest problem is moving to a language that contains phonemes your ear isn't trained to hear and you mouth isn't trained to generate.

  24. We already have a de facto Lingua Franca: Broken English. Prior to that, French and German came close to being "universal" languages. Not sure what the chances are of Mandarin become the Lingua Franca of the future. The problem with languages is, they evolve. Force everyone to use the same language, it would quickly devolve into regional dialects anyway. Eventually you'd get the problem you have with Hindi in India: Everybody speaks it, but the dialects are so diverse that every uses English when they need to converse with someone from a different region.

  25. Re:english has problems, just use a better languag on Ask Slashdot: What Would a Constructed Language Have To Be To Replace English? · · Score: 1

    On the bright side, English is a GREAT language for puns due to having a large number of homophones!