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User: WillAffleckUW

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  1. Calculus - No -- Linear Algebra and Stats - Yes on Ask Slashdot: How Many of You Actually Use Math? · · Score: 1

    You almost certainly won't use Calculus.

    Even math professionals rarely use it.

    You are much more likely to use linear algebra and statistics. Focus on those.

  2. A lot of universities are rolling 100 Mbps or more on US Adoption of 10 Mbps+ Broadband Nearly Doubles In a Year · · Score: 1

    A number of large universities are rolling 100 Mbps or more to surrounding neighborhoods and cities, actually.

    Wake me when you realize that.

  3. I work in research you insensitive clod on Ask Slashdot: How Many of You Actually Use Math? · · Score: 1

    My floor and the floor below are filled with statisticians and genetics researchers.

    Now go back to making crayon drawings like a good boy and stop bothering the female-dominated hard working biostatistical and medical research fields that solve your problems ..

  4. Meaningless Mumbo Jumbo on US Gov't Can't Be Sued For Warrantless Wiretapping · · Score: 1

    The only thing that matters is if the litigant has standing.

    Which, technically, limits it to either a US national with dual citizenship with a country that has an international data treaty with the US or a member of Congress, either House or Senate.

    The Administration can't sue itself, of course, either current or former.

    The only other person would be a named person that the Supreme Court had already ruled was intercepted without a warrant, and said person would have to be a US citizen.

  5. There are 2 kinds of fake FB accounts on The Underground Economy of Social Networks · · Score: 1

    There are two kinds of fake Facebook accounts.

    The first kind are ones that are just spambots.

    The second kind are ones where the people using them, due to the pervy privacy-hating nature of Facebook, don't give personal information like their cell phone number or other data and refuse to let themselves be facially identified.

    Please be precise.

    There are also ones for children (like my sisters have for their kids, but only the mom knows the password and uploads pics and approves all postings), pets (similar, if you like pics of cats and dogs), and professional versus personal accounts (I myself have three accounts, only two of which you may be able to find).

  6. Re:Meaningless - we already have interrupt devices on US Resists UN Push For Control Over Internet · · Score: 1

    This isn't published data. Look, I know you'd like to believe we play fair, but we don't. And we never have.

  7. Meaningless - we already have interrupt devices on US Resists UN Push For Control Over Internet · · Score: 1

    Pretty meaningless, the US Navy already has cutters on most transoceanic cables and all the satellites have interrupt circuits.

    The Internet is owned by America.

  8. Information just wants to be free on US Viewers Using Proxies To Watch BBC Olympic Coverage · · Score: 1

    How do you know they're not actually holders of UK passports who just happen to live in the US, you nosy parkers?

  9. Re:Sooooo...... on Existing Solar Tech Could Power Entire US, Says NREL · · Score: 1

    Most cells range from 8 percent (various thin biofilms) to 40 percent. But the cost factors differ greatly.

  10. Here at the UW we hold many solar tech patents on Existing Solar Tech Could Power Entire US, Says NREL · · Score: 1

    Here at the University of Washington, our tech patent group holds many solar patents, ranging from biofilm solar you can wrap on cars to large building tech systems.

    I know it's cloudy here, but the solar radiation level is around 80 percent virtually all year round (the clouds mostly drizzle and keep in the heat).

    The main problem is payoff over time. Return on Investment (ROI) is higher for passive solar technology - e.g. hot water heating and similar methods, which can then be used to heat/cool buildings or store energy. Storage is expensive for other techs, depending on which of the many battery technologies you use.

    A particular problem for us here is that hydroelectricity is very cheap here, although that does allow us to run the 2nd most green campus in the USA.

    Remember, 40 percent of energy consumption in the US is just for one thing: heating and cooling buildings. Moving more of that to technologies such as solar - given that people tend to be at work during daylight hours - would be the most effective. The next largest group is for transportation - economies of scale make combined solar/wind storage in fuel cells for large vehicles attractive - both for trains, which could be refueled along their lines, and for large trucks. Smaller vehicles are much less efficient, and have less of an impact - more efficient engines that get 60-100 mpg and, in areas with cheap non-coal non-oil electricity, electric vehicles that can be charged passively using variable sources at work or home (plug-in electric) are a good use.

    Can we adapt? Yes. Is it the most efficient method? Depends on what you're talking about and where you are, quite frankly.

    But in almost all cases, passive solar usage for heating and cooling water and managing internal lighting is a good choice and could be implemented now with a good ROI.

  11. Re:If you don't have javascript, you're a bot? on Company Claims 80% of Facebook Ad Clicks Are From Bots · · Score: 0

    Since the ads require Javascript to be visible, yes. If you don't believe me just disable Javascript on Facebook and watch as all the ads disappear until you reenable it.

    But ... this is why I disable most JavaScript using NoScript when I surf using Firefox.

    Seriously, it's only when I'm surfing with Chrome that I even let stuff like that run.

    So, maybe the "startup" needs to learn that people only turn on their specific pervy scripts when we DECIDE to buy. And that's AFTER we make sure the page is legit.

    Either that or code in some decent language like real people do.

  12. Re:Skill Requirements on Are Indian High Schoolers Manning Your IBM Help Desk? · · Score: 1

    Might cost a bit to ship the diagnostic module data to said student, but in theory, you could just have a "service station" set up with one person who plugs in the modules, the data is then interpreted (doesn't matter where) and either the problem is fixed locally or remotely.

    For example, if a part is going bad, it just orders the replacement part and tells you where to pick it up for installation. If it's timing, that's a software patch.

    But the analytics - yeah sure that can happen anywhere. Maybe a housewife in Outer Mongolia could do it.

  13. Re:Passwords can be changed when compromised... on Reverse-Engineered Irises Fool Eye-Scanners · · Score: 1

    No, viral insertion works by literal infection of cells. You're confusing germ distribution, where you alter the DNA once, with viral DNA insertion at a spot, which infects a literal cell and uses the cell mechanism via a docking ligand to deliver a target viral payload which inserts itself into the cells DNA.

    We make cancer cells glow so that we can perform surgery on them. It's not the cancer cells we target per se, but all cells. The cancerous cells have certain biochemical characteristics which are used to trigger the phosphorescence tags.

    Then we let the cell death cycle clear it out.

    Modern medicine has changed dramatically in the past few years.

  14. Re:REAL Warming coming soon on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 1

    Last time I checked you're still ignoring half of the writings that weren't even included in the "Bible", such as the ones attributed to Judas or Mary.

    Most of which was written many centuries AFTER the events of the Bible, of course.

  15. Re:More H, less C on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 1

    Some of problems arise due to the complexity of the molecules.

    Not all gasoline in your engine is burned. Not all diesel is burned.

    A fuel cell has a high burn rate, because it's pretty much H and O without a lot of C added.

    I could point you to rafts of scientific articles on different fuel cell technologies, and the chemical methods used to store the energy, if you wish.

  16. Re:In short? No. or y Boomer suck so bad on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 1

    I don't recall the kids in high school (boomers) thinking about any of the above things at all.

    All they cared about was how hot their car was and how loud the engine was.

    Or did you know someone who claimed that Boomers were different?

    Cause I can tell you they were obsessed with speed and noise. ... which leads directly to today's problems, if you think about it.

  17. Re:Now see, it's hyperbole like this on record on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 1

    While Japan did keep records much longer than we have, and France has some that go back a bit, most of the world doesn't have recorded temperatures, just inferred temperatures.

    China kept a lot of records, but I don't recall that temperature was one of them. They have a few thousand years of history too.

  18. Re:Skill Requirements on Are Indian High Schoolers Manning Your IBM Help Desk? · · Score: 2

    Perhaps, that is all the skills that is required for the job. Just like car mechanics, IT support is becoming less and less of a highly skilled job.

    Actually, car mechanics nowadays is more of an IT skill, in that the diagnostics are run by instrumentation.

  19. Re:Our best hope? Please. on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 1

    Please. The average lifespan of vehicles used to be 3-5 years before they were swapped out.

    Even with GDP stagnation, it's around 5-10 years.

    We're making tires out of soybean oil already.

    Why do you hate technology?

  20. Re:Our best hope? Please. on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 1

    Actually there is no hope.

    Energy consumption growth with economic development of emerging economies is inexorable.

    Population growth looks like it's going to take off soon because the largest generation of human beings in history is reaching breeding age.

    Flooding of lowlands coastal areas may change the total population load of the Earth.

  21. Our best hope? Please. on Is There Still a Ray of Hope On Climate Change? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Our best hope is a radical alteration using chemical means?

    Are you kidding me?

    We still use HALF the energy in the US and Canada heating and cooling mostly empty buildings. We could easily just change zoning and tax laws to encourage buildings to have green roofs, provide their own power, use half the energy to heat and cool, and build them for barely more than we pay for buildings nowadays. Practically the entire campus here is built using such buildings now.

    We still have massive untapped energy sources of hydro, mini-hydro, micro-hydro, geothermal, wind, urban wind, tidal and other energy sources that would dramatically impact GHG impacts. In America.

    We still use cars that only get - and this is from an ad last nite - only 36 mpg when we can easily crank out 60 mpg cars today. Or replace 15 mpg vehicles with 30 mpg versions that function THE SAME using technology we HAVE TODAY. Heck, we could replace them in areas where electricity is mostly green (e.g. populated coastal areas) with plug-in electric cars. Or people could bike or walk more.

    There are a lot of very simple things we could do today.

    But ... we're lazy whiners. Period.

  22. Re:Passwords can be changed when compromised... on Reverse-Engineered Irises Fool Eye-Scanners · · Score: 1

    Actually, you can engineer a virus to alter the DNA. We do it all the time with mice.

    We also do it with adult humans with cancer, so that their cancer growths glow in the dark during surgery. Use the docking receptors on the cells.

  23. This is why my sister installed Hazel (tm) eyes on Reverse-Engineered Irises Fool Eye-Scanners · · Score: 2

    The advantage is her eye color changes all the way from purple to blue to brown so just think of her eyes as Enhanced Security Eyes.

  24. Lessons for Release Day from Panda Beta on World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Launches On September 25 · · Score: 1

    First, the starting area will drop - a lot. You may have physical problems getting the first quest.

    If that happens, Quit the game, forcing a save of your newly created panda character.

    This will help the next load.

    Second, no, it's not that hard. Until you get to the frog ponds and the cranes eat you.

  25. Re:Said it here first... Day Z on World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Launches On September 25 · · Score: 1

    Never heard of Day Z.

    I think you may think you're a hipster, but you're just one of those zombie wannabes.