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User: N1AK

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  1. Re: 9 whole billion? OUTRAGEOUS! on GAO Denied Access To Webb Telescope Workers By Northrop Grumman · · Score: 1

    that could make sense if the addition was 3 million / 30 guys - not 1 billion. 1 billion extra needs some manufacturing contracting price to rise.

    Not at all. You're confusing the cost of staff (which he didn't talk about) with the cost impact on the project of a drop in staff quality. When you're making decisions about things that cost millions, or billions, then losing a top talent with experience could lead to gigantic cost increases. The difference in shock resistance between a $200 million design that can withstand launch and one that can't will be small, but get it wrong and the worst case could be throwing it out and starting over.

  2. Re:superficial on A Bechdel Test For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    Will I look back on my life and consider it a success if I watched these shows?

    No, but you're spending your time on /. attacking an innocuous measure of how seriously female characters are taken in film so I imagine this is way down on the list of things you'll have to deal with to be able to say yes.

  3. Re:Someone doesn't undestand the Bechtel test. on A Bechdel Test For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    This point can't be made often enough. We're already seeing any meaningful discussion drowned out by claims even checking for sexism is sexist, that they should have something better to do etc, and they're hiding an underlying issue.

    Checking whether two functions coded by different women interact is a really poor proxy for the lack of gender issues at a firm. It would comically easy to game, and I can't see what it offers that simply looking at the proportion of women employed in coding roles doesn't do better.

  4. Re:Here's MY test on A Bechdel Test For Programmers? · · Score: 0

    If you can substitute the term "white male" into your premise and suddenly find it offensive, then was actually racist/sexist all along.

    Why on earth would you find this offensive if you made the swap? Because you're a white male and it would highlight how virtually no software fails the white male test, but a huge amount fails the female test?

  5. No it isn't, though it does happen. I don't think anyone is suggesting that their aren't raids anywhere else in the world than America, what they are saying, and for some reason you're trying to re-direct away from, is that using armed raids as often as they do in the US is probably not a good idea.

  6. Re:Fuck those guys on Online "Swatting" Becomes a Hazard For Gamers Who Play Live On the Internet · · Score: 1

    Where the calls originate doesn't really change the discussion of whether police in one country are too heavy handed or not.

  7. Re:I guess she got tired of blaming weed... on Child Psychotherapist: Easy and Constant Access To the Internet Is Harming Kids · · Score: 1

    I've had to use it precisely once. It's fine for establishing a baseline in young children, because they don't accept abstract arguments. If they ever question another punishment regime like the naughty step, that's where you have to go

    It may have worked for you in the circumstances that you chose to use it, that doesn't make it something that everyone has to use at some stage to draw a line. If you'd used physical violence, then your child had done the same thing again would you have done it again? What would you have done if they then did something worse? Then did something worse again? By your own logic you'd need to ratchet up the punishment because consistency is key. I don't think violence is lazy, and I think bad parenting is an unhelpful allegation, but I've never seen a compelling case made for why it's the better option.

  8. Re:"Drama of mental illness" on Child Psychotherapist: Easy and Constant Access To the Internet Is Harming Kids · · Score: 1

    Its a pretty damn meaningless term, and it seems to get thrown at scientists and academics a lot on this board.

    It's very helpful when you use it in reverse. If you hear someone being called a SJW you can pretty much assume that the person doing the calling exists on a spectrum starting at "can barely interact socially, and feels oppressed for not being allowed by society to be the douche they want to be" and continues down to some pretty fucking disturbing sub-humans.

  9. Re:"Drama of mental illness" on Child Psychotherapist: Easy and Constant Access To the Internet Is Harming Kids · · Score: 1

    A pointless distinction given that it also highlighted a 70% increase in hospital admissions due to self-harm over a decade. Unless we have a plausible alternate theory for why there's such an increase in that time period then it's compelling evidence to start from.

  10. Re:Fuck those guys on Online "Swatting" Becomes a Hazard For Gamers Who Play Live On the Internet · · Score: 2

    And there it is! That European smugness.

    America the brave. Land of the free. God bless the USA. Leader of the free world. The American dream. Manifest destiny. American Exceptionalism.

    America where it was controversial for a drama to include someone saying America wasn't the greatest country in the world.

    But how dare those Europeans think they've made a better choice by now having the police routinely SWAT houses like they're playing at urban warfare!?

  11. Re:Doesn't smoke or drink or have tattoos on Online "Swatting" Becomes a Hazard For Gamers Who Play Live On the Internet · · Score: 1

    employers and customers alike need to stop giving a damn about anything other than the ability of the employee to do their job.

    Yes, and the fact it is still something they need to do means that it is still common for things like visible tattoos to have some impact on careers; which undermines the rest of your post. Things will change, they have already changed hugely in a lot of places, but that doesn't make it the norm now.

  12. There clearly is because the whole concept of SWATing doesn't seem to have made it to Europe. I can't help that's because we just don't seem to do the full on wanna-be military style raids as standard response to so many crimes.

    So yes I agree completely that overusing extreme force is an issue and should be dealt with, it still doesn't mean that you shouldn't target the people trying to make the police use that force to SWAT someone. I find it hard to believe that in more than 50% of SWATing cases you couldn't put together an evidence chain strong enough to justify a warrant against a suspect for less than $10k, which would be a price well worth paying to vastly decrease the number of SWATings happening.

  13. Re:Big difference on Amazon Launches One-Hour Delivery Service In Baltimore and Miami · · Score: 1

    I wish I was! Years in I know better than to hope it'll change :(

  14. Re: Impossible Fair Trial on German Vice Chancellor: the US Threatened Us Over Snowden · · Score: 1

    Obvious retard troll is obvious and retarded.

  15. Re:Big difference on Amazon Launches One-Hour Delivery Service In Baltimore and Miami · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It can be for some items and some buyers. I don't see why people who can't immediately see a use for something are so quick to jump to the conclusion that their isn't one. One random example might be someone working at home who needs to do a disproportionate amount of printing and runs out of ink. $8 to have it solved in an hour or less might be a bargain for them. I can think of a few dozen more, although they aren't likely to be reasons why I'd pay to upgrade personally. But then, I don't know if I've ever paid for next day, and that service seems to be pretty useful and popular.

  16. Re:LOL on How To Make Moonshots · · Score: 1

    All these people using the moon landing as an example of why FAIL FAST isn't needed are making me chuckle. You're absolutely right about the very high risk of the mission. Arguably NASA took some huge risks purely because speed was seen as critical; they could have done dozens more missions with smaller evolutionary steps and/or waited for technologies to be better tested or refined.

    There's a certain demographic that hear "Fail Fast, Fail Often" and create the most absurd straw-men. Fail Fast doesn't mean try to fail, it means try to do the riskiest stuff first so that you know if you have issues quickly. Fail Often doesn't mean try to fail, it means don't be afraid of trying to do something just because their is a good chance of failure. It's been pointed out enough times before, but sadly it's like trying to explain the wonders of beverages to a block of sodium.

  17. Re:Google glass choices on How To Make Moonshots · · Score: 1

    Google glass isn't a spice rack, moonshots aren't equivalent to fudging together a basic circuit. Those analogies make it appear that you think developing new high-tech products for categories that don't is equivalent to building a basic wooden item that millions have done before; it obviously isn't and it undermines any credibility the rest of your post may have had.

  18. Re:Ridiculous on How To Make Moonshots · · Score: 1

    Further, there are many scenarios where failing is not an option (e.g., medical, military, and space ventures).

    Of course it is. It makes clear in the summary they are talking about failure during the experimental stage, not in production products. You think Lockhead, Pfizer, SpaceX never, ever, have a failure during the design or testing phases? Hell, military history is littered with thousands of weapons, planes, other tech, that never made it to production.

    The article never suggested that they should fail for the fuck of it. The argument was that if you're pushing forward quickly on with something bleeding edge then sometimes things will break, and safety concerns aside that's not an issue for Google.

  19. Re:Bulls... since when will self driving cars have on Lyft CEO: Self-Driving Cars Aren't the Future · · Score: 1

    Do you really think so little of thought that it never occurs to you that it's important?

    I'd follow your own advice, and I'm be more courteous as well but that's mainly because I don't like looking like a keyboard warrior.

    Nothing you said in any way highlighted a short coming of a automated car. You made a few unsubstantiated remarks about machines being 'moronic' etc. Personally when I look at the behaviour of many road users, and too many internet posters, it certainly seems like flesh-bag morons are pretty common already!

  20. Re:Google Product on Google Code Disables New Project Creation, Will Shut Down On January 25, 2016 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not unreliability...

    I think it is. When I am choosing a service one important consideration is how much effort getting onto that solution is, and how likely it is it will last. Even if Google provides a better service, I reconsider using it over a slightly inferior alternative because they're track record is terrible on this front.

    I understand completely why they want to kill of unpopular projects, but from a user perspective it sucks that they launch a service, try and persuade people to put the non-negligible effort in to learn it, then kill it because they screwed up and couldn't make it worthwhile maintaining.

  21. Re:Britain is only 10 years ahead of the US on Scotland Yard Chief: Put CCTV In Every Home To Help Solve Crimes · · Score: 2

    Just remember this the next time you see a post claiming that we should be doing things the way they do in Europe.

    Yeah, look at us with people suggesting we do something. It's practically Orwellian... I'm sure that totally outweighs anything worthwhile they do in an entire continent.

  22. Re:Seriously? on Scotland Yard Chief: Put CCTV In Every Home To Help Solve Crimes · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Personally, I'd have thought that for anyone willing to pay for a home security system this would be a no brainer today. There's countless wireless enabled camera systems that are obviously going to be useful in the event of a burglary.

    Why? By the time someone has broken into your house the only benefit of security systems for the owner (deterrence) is gone. Sure I could get loads of head-height cameras set up in my house, maybe even get the burglar caught (not that the police in the UK give a fuck about catching burglars) but my shit is long gone.

    The solution to burglary is for the police to move a fucking finger to try and do something about it, which they clearly don't in the UK.

  23. Re:Sounds good on Self-Driving Cars Will Be In 30 US Cities By the End of Next Year · · Score: 1

    All the reasons you give for why buses apply to subway systems, trams, trains, and planes. Often they are even stronger reasons to automate those tasks but yet most aren't yet... A bus has to be able to handle interactions with lots of passengers which adds considerable complexity. I'd expect trucks will be some of the first automated vehicles. They get loaded up at one depot, drive to another depot without needing to stop or enter dense urban areas, then stop at another depot. Bus drivers also tend to be paid notably less than lorry drivers (no idea why given the similar/identical license requirements). If a lorry full of goods is at risk of crashing it can make selfless decisions because their is no risk to life, which is a considerably easier legal situation than a bus that has to decide between killing a pedestrian vs risking the lives of dozens of passengers.

  24. Re:Kickstarter's Fundamental Problem on How a Kickstarter Project Can Massively Exceed Its Funding Goals and Still Fail · · Score: 1

    What does the quality of budgets etc have to do with Kickstarter not being a zero risk pre-order store... please try and keep up.

  25. Re:Thing everyone is missing on Quebecker Faces Jail For Not Giving Up Phone Password To Canadian Officials · · Score: 1

    I think this is an oversimplification, but one that suits some government so they act like it works. If I haven't entered the country when I'm speaking to the border guards then they have no jurisdiction under which to compel me to do anything; clearly they feel they do...