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User: bruce_the_loon

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  1. Mandatory Pratchett quote. on How a Hardware Designer Was Saved By His Own Creation · · Score: 3, Funny

    Suppose this article inverts the story, but still...

    It's a pervasive and beguiling myth that the people who design instruments of death end up being killed by them. There is almost no foundation in fact. Colonel Shrapnel wasn't blown up, M. Guillotin died with his head on, Colonel Gatling wasn't shot. If it hadn't been for the murder of cosh and blackjack maker Sir William Blunt-Instrument in an alleyway, the rumour would never have got started.

  2. Re:The sad part? on DEA Planned To Monitor Cars Parked At Gun Shows Using License Plate Readers · · Score: 1

    Correction, the South Africa Police still have these and deploy them when going into active violence, like the gang wars in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, and striking mine workers.

  3. Re:better than rushing steaming piles of shit. on George R. R. Martin's "The Winds of Winter" Wiill Not Be Published In 2015 · · Score: 1

    Pratchett's are too short for this argument.

    To really drive the point, use Steven Erickson's Malazan Book of the Fallen instead. 10 books, one at 700 pages, 4 at 1000 pages and 5 at 1300 pages from 1999 to 2011. Love it or hate it, he kept the plot lines neat, didn't forget major characters and actually came got it to an end.

  4. Re:Did Congress pass a law? on Cuba's Pending Tech Revolution · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Then Congress should pass that law ASAP. It's ridiculous, just like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

  5. Re:Colour me apprehensive. on Ridley Scott Adapts Philip K. Dick's 'Man in the High Castle' For Amazon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of the Prometheus complaints seem to originate from the concept that the crew should have been a 100% perfectly professional team that knew exactly what to do in all situations. Given what Weyland was trying to accomplish, it's not surprising that some of the crew weren't up to the job.

    Vickers' team was intended to die to hide what Weyland was up to, so the "exploration" specialists that weren't critical to the process were chosen to be expendable and characterized as such. They were stupid idiots because they weren't professional explorers, but lured there by money to fill an gap in the roster. If they had pulled in a completely professional team, Weyland and David wouldn't have been able to get the situation to the state they needed it.

    I'm constantly amused by the number of people who get so upset when a movie portrays characters this way. It isn't a failure of the writers, it's a success in portraying an imperfect, greed-motivated person who thinks they are in the position they are in because they are the best, but actually aren't. Maybe that hits a little close to home for some.

  6. Re:Pretty Fine Line There on Indiana Court Rules Melted Down Hard Drive Not Destruction of Evidence · · Score: 1

    Since the automated Comcast etc letters are polite, in legal terms, requests to take down the allegedly infringing media, you can argue that they are the entity requesting the destruction of evidence in their own case. Since they allege they own the media, they assume it is within their rights to do so. Until you actually get sued, acting on those legal requests is perfectly valid even if you delay the deleting of the media. It would only be once you were served with notice of intent to sue with instructions to preserve the evidence that you may become liable.

  7. Re:Pro-Life & Planned Parenthood on Would Twitter Make President Obama 'Follow' the Tea Party If the Price Is Right? · · Score: 2

    Lovely strawman, I tip my hat to you. Quoting a line from an era when eugenics was considered good science and not following up with her change of stance when the whole eugenics crap was discredited following WW2.

    I've said it many times over, people are allowed to change their minds when new knowledge comes to light and old stances should not be commented on in solo when their enlightened stance has replaced the old one. It's bad science and bad argument.

  8. Re:Pullin' a Gates? on How We'll Program 1000 Cores - and Get Linus Ranting, Again · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you went and read Linus' rant, then you'll find you are actually reinforcing his argument. He says that except for a handful of edge use-cases, there will be no demand for massively parallel in end user usage and that we shouldn't waste time that could be better spent optimizing the low-core processes.

    The CAD, video and HTPC use-cases are already solved by the GPU architecture and don't need to be re-solved by inefficient CPU algorithms.

    Your Linux workstation would be a good example, but is a very low user count requirement and can be done at the compiler level and not the core OS level anyway.

    Your Linux gaming machine shouldn't be doing more than 3/4 cores of CPU and handing the heavy grunt work off to the GPU anyway. No need for a 64 core CPU for that one.

    Redesigning what we're already doing successfully with a low number of controller/data shifting CPU cores managing a large bank of dedicated rendering/physics GPU cores and task-specific ASICs for things like 10GB networking and 6GB IO interfaces is pretty pointless, which is what Linus is talking about, not that we only need 4 cores and nothing else.

  9. Re:uArm on An Open Source Flat Pack Robot Arm That's As Easy To Build As Ikea Furniture · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Only in the sense that it is also a striking copy of every robotic arm in existence. The mechanical design is significantly different to the uArm. Compare MeArm versus uArm and look at the design of the support and actuator arms.

  10. They are modular, but apparently the design of the F-35 airframe can't take the newer modules because they are larger than was planned for and stick out a bit, thus breaking the stealth.

    The US should just give up on this stealthy size of a bumblebee crap, yes it has a low radar return and looks like a bumblebee on a radar, but it's moving at Mach 1.5.

  11. Re:Supercharger? on Tesla Roadster Update Extends Range · · Score: 1

    Yep. Probably one of a few. Those who have followed Tesla over 2014 know what Superchargers are in the Tesla context. Also, the capital was a giveaway.

  12. It's how fantasy heroes are written on Ars: Final Hobbit Movie Is 'Soulless End' To 'Flawed' Trilogy · · Score: 2

    Even in Middle Earth. This can't be classed as a problem with the movies, the issue exists in the source material as well.

    Throughout both The LoTR and The Hobbit, the heroes are mostly invincible. Aragorn and the Nazgul on Weathertop, the Mines of Moria, the Orcs at Amon Hen, Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep, and so on and so on.

    Even Boromir was nigh-on unkillable at Amon Hen and only died because Tolkien needed him to. The book has him "pierced by many arrows" and the heroes there had a kill-ratio of at least 10-1. More if you discount the hobbits.

    If anything, the kill-ratios were lowered for the movies. Read the LOTR Wikia entry for Amon Hen http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Skirmish_at_Amon_Hen for a comparison.

  13. Re:Time to strike back at N. Korea with a meme on US Seeks China's Help Against North Korean Cyberattacks · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ce_954P20I. Nuff said. Let the humiliation of world leaders begin.

  14. Overblown concern by the anonymous submitter on Australia Moves Toward New Restrictions On Technology Export and Publication · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Firstly, this isn't a general law, it's an amendment to the law governing foreign sales of military technology. It only applies if a specific technology is classified as solely defense or strategic. Yes that classification can be manipulated, but a court would have to be convinced that the classification is valid.

    Secondly, the bill isn't doing away with the presumption of innocence globally. It is saying that if a person selling the regulated technology relies on the exceptions and regulations to decide whether it is safe to supply technology, that they have documented that reliance properly. Basically they want people to do their homework before handing classified military information over to a foreign actor. Seems fair enough.

  15. Re:Come on people, on Cisco Slaps Arista Networks With Suit For "Brazen" Patent Infringement · · Score: 3

    There's a difference between copying the command syntax, which has been held as valid in some jurisdictions, and photocopying the manuals.

  16. Come on people, on Cisco Slaps Arista Networks With Suit For "Brazen" Patent Infringement · · Score: 4, Funny

    If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, run the manuals through Google Translate twice and then run Word's grammar checks.

    If you copy verbatim, you gonna get caught.

  17. Re: Billions and billions: on Who Needs NASA? Exoplanet Detected Using a DSLR · · Score: 2

    Google has $550 million, the article has $550,000 million. Out by 10^3.

  18. Re:I agree on Finland Dumps Handwriting In Favor of Typing · · Score: 1

    Generalize much? Things are never the same for everybody. I haven't done joined-up writing since the beginning of high school, but my time to write the same sentence is currently about 40% faster in rough print against illegible cursive. Maybe if you're comparing it to formal block writing like you do on a form, but not for note-taking rough printing.

    If my cursive was several times faster, I'd set fire to the paper with the friction.

  19. Come on Slashdot, get your news current on Bad Lockup Bug Plagues Linux · · Score: 5, Informative

    The last mail in the thread, dated the 26th of November, explains that the Xen bug was a Xen bug and that the lockup was something different and traceable once the chap experiencing the bug managed to get a kernel backtrace.

  20. Re:These idiots are going to ruin it for everyone on Drone Sightings Near Other Aircraft Up Dramatically · · Score: 1

    It might have been the pilot's choice, but it negates the assertion that the downwash would prevent a bird or drone from reaching the chopper's hull.

  21. Re:damn on No, You Can't Seize Country TLDs, US Court Rules · · Score: 1

    Justified by ignorance. Used twice and once they found out what happened, they tried their damnedest to never use them again. If you want to be honest about it, accept how ignorant they were and without the hindsight we have now.

  22. Re:These idiots are going to ruin it for everyone on Drone Sightings Near Other Aircraft Up Dramatically · · Score: 2

    Not an engine incident, but a bird strike that forced a medical chopper to land yesterday. http://www.ems1.com/animal-attacks/articles/2021439-Bird-strike-downs-Texas-medical-helicopter/

    Also, search for images for bird strike helicopter and see what shows up. Some serious damage.

  23. Re:In the uk on Washington Dancers Sue To Prevent Identity Disclosure · · Score: 1

    ; and unlike gun owners who managed to get carry permit applications exempt, the lack a powerful lobby.

    Except for Justices Cummerbund, Letcher and Ogler who would be quite upset if Candy and Tandy disappears from their local joint because they got harassed by a bible-thumper trying to SAVE them.

  24. Postgres-XL on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Data Warehouse Server System? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Open-source so you don't have to cough up millions of dollars to see if you can get business.

    Clusterable, scalable and standards-based so you're not locking down too far into one solution-space.

  25. Re:Disgusting on Discovery Claims It Will Show a Man Being "Eaten Alive" By an Anaconda · · Score: 3, Informative

    Constrictors are able to regurgitate their meal in a danger situation. If they succeed in getting the snake to swallow an uncrushable prey item in the first place, it's pretty easy to corner it, provide a visual threat and have it regurgitate him.

    Youtube clip of one getting rid of a dog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Ge4Xsuijs