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User: steelfood

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  1. Re:Typical of the Federal Government too on California Cancels $208 Million IT Overhaul Halfway Through · · Score: 2

    Nobody wants to fucking do their jobs.

    That about sums it up right there.

  2. Re:How do we generate the power? on CNN Replicates John Broder's Drive In the Tesla Model S · · Score: 1

    It's more like putting your data onto a central server and doing all your work on terminals. Whereas the old way would be like having all of your data on 3.5 ROM diskettes behind you and you've got an Apple II with one disk drive.

  3. Re:270 mile range seems good on CNN Replicates John Broder's Drive In the Tesla Model S · · Score: 1

    Put one station with four plugs at the center of every two parking spots, and it'd guarantee usage. They can even begin a phased rollout fairly easily. Mark four spots as dedicated to EV only, like the way handicap spots are handicap vehicles only.

  4. Re:It's a good start, but... on IE Standardization Fading Fast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I rather they do use Flash and Shockwave than put everything in HTML5. Then I would have even more trouble disabling everything.

  5. Re:It's called the key on Driver Trapped In Speeding Car At 125 Mph · · Score: 1

    Handbrake at those speeds would either be useless, or suicidal. Even pulling the handbrake at lower speeds can be extremely dangerous.

    Have you ever even tried pulling on the handbrake? It's not easy braking with it. If your transmission is in gear, you're only going to slow down. Unless you were super strong, you'd never come to a dead stop without also shifting into neutral at the same time. The most likely scenario is that you'll wear out your brakes, which would be quite dangerous, and your fuel economy would go down the drain. You can lock your wheels up, but only if you're on low-traction tires.

    The handbrake techniques you might've seen on TV are special. They're not easy to pull off, usually requiring tremendous arm strength, and the purpose is less to stop as it is to lock the wheels up. Even for a panicked driver who yanks on the handbrake, it'd be difficult to pull one of those off accidentally.

    Trust me, when your brakes go while you're driving on a highway, the handbrake and the ability to quickly downshift are your best friends.

  6. Re:27" FTW on Ask Slashdot: What Is Your Favorite Monitor For Programming? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a shame 4:3 and 5:4 monitors are so hard to find. That solves both the length and width issues when coding. I find one 4:3 is good enough to replace two 16:9 (one of which is portrait).

    I'm also a huge fan of a low dot pitch, which also seems to have gone the way of the dodo these days. I'd rather code on a 15" 1600x1200 over a monstrous 27" 2560x1440 any day.

    My setups are otherwise similar when I'm required to use 16:9 monitors. Otherwise, I'll go with a pair of old 4:3 whenever I have a choice. I'm usually significantly more productive on those than on the 16:9 (having to drag the right window to the right monitor is a huge distraction).

  7. Re:Let me get this straight... on Elon Musk Lays Out His Evidence That NYT Tesla Test Drive Was Staged · · Score: 2

    Because you won't get horse shit on your face if you stick your head out the window while it's moving.

    Duh.

  8. Re:A new attempt to balance the budget on Radar Guns Primed For Asteroid Spin Trap · · Score: 1

    Separation of Church and State dictates that dieties cannot be ticketed or otherwise held accountable for their (mis)deeds by the government.

  9. Re:A new attempt to balance the budget on Radar Guns Primed For Asteroid Spin Trap · · Score: 1

    $195 billion is hardly a dent in our national debt.

  10. Re:The EPA has always been headed by industry flac on Scientist Removed From EPA Panel Due To Industry Opposition · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would just like to take this opportunity to remind die-hard libertarians that the solution is not to do away with these agencies that are supposed to provide oversight. It is to change the appointment rules and process so that the people who are appointed cannot have worked in the industry within a certain amount of time, and cannot have any conflict of interest with the industry (e.g. close relative is an industry exec).

  11. Re:Interesting, but ... on Paleontologist Jack Horner Answers Your Questions · · Score: 1

    We figured out how to fit lasers to sharks.

  12. Re:I didn't watch the speech on Obama Proposes 'Meaningful Progress' On Climate Change · · Score: 1

    The State of the Union is as much a platform for the president to promote his agenda as it is about informing the public of the current situation of the United States.

    The various things Obama outlined during his State of the Union are a part of his agenda. If you listened carefully, you'd catch that Obama was very careful about what he said he wanted to do. These were not campaign-style promises. He did not claim to put solar panels on every roof, or do away with gasoline-powered vehicles. He wanted to increase alternative energy research. He wanted to promote high-mpg vehicles. He wanted to cut tax subsidies for already-successful corporations. These are things that can be put into a bill and voted upon by congress. They are action items, to borrow from corporate-speak, and this speech is Obama telling congress that these are the action items he'd like to see happen.

    Do I agree with him on all counts? No. I think his use of drone strikes is unconstitutional, and a broad overreach of executive power. He may be Commander in Chief, of the military, but the military's purpose is not to kill civilians, much less American citizens who under the constitution are afforded a trial by jury before execution.

    I also find the notions of "gun control" he outlined laughable, but I recognize the need for him to appease the idiots who are only interested in the appearance of safety, and cowards who see gun and shoot first (or in more recent cases, see truck and shoot first). These people form a significant and vocal part of his constituency. If he really wanted to prevent mass shootings, he'd push for mental health legislation. He'd increase the quality of care for veterans coming back from hell. And he'd work to curb the pharmaceutical companies' power over the people (via their insane prices) and the government, who are by far the largest roadblock to a working health care system.

    Likewise, if he really wanted to bring jobs back into American soil, he'd push for significant copyright and patent reform that's strangling research and innovation. He'd push for union reforms. He'd push for judicial reforms that would allow individuals to defend themselves in court without going bankrupt. But he made no such mentions. The most he did was ask to simplify the tax code, and more for the purpose of increasing tax revenue than for simplifying running a small business.

    But Obama is trying to nudge us back in the right direction after twenty-odd years of going in the wrong one. This speech shows he has a long-term vision of prosperity for everybody and not just for the wealthiest. It signifies that he might not have all the solutions, but he recognizes the problems. And I will give him that much credit.

  13. Re:Re-position the Planet on Earth-buzzing Asteroid Would Be Worth $195B If We Could Catch It · · Score: 2

    6 megatons is not even a zit. The pores of your skin would be more prominent than the explosion this would cause. This planet is huge. 6Mt will just flatten a lot of trees and kill off a bunch of animals (humans included) in a localized area, but it probably won't cause a supervolcano eruption unless the human species got real lucky.

  14. Re:Why do these phones always suck? on £6700 Phone Uses Android Instead of Windows · · Score: 1

    Which is to say, car manufacturers under-spec their non-luxury brands so that they can justify the higher prices of their luxury brands.

  15. Re:So... on Alleged Operator of Demonoid Released From Jail · · Score: 1

    Because first, they come for the torrent tracker owners, though nobody speaks up as they do not own torrent trackers.

  16. Re:Security is only as good as its weakest link. on How To Sneak Into the Super Bowl With Social Engineering · · Score: 1

    You are right. He called them huge sacks of protoplasm, and put "people" in quotes.

  17. Re:"they" can fuck off, the binary units are the o on When 1 GB Is Really 0.9313 Gigabytes · · Score: 1

    So since it makes no sense to talk about bytes on a hard drive, maybe hard drive manufacturers should be advertising their disk sizes in bits instead of bytes. Or perhaps they really ought to be advertising it in sectors (Up to 200M sectors!), which is the real atomic unit of space on a drive.

  18. Re:"they" can fuck off, the binary units are the o on When 1 GB Is Really 0.9313 Gigabytes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you read GiB in your head, do you say "gigabyte" or "gibibyte?"

  19. Re:do not want on Should the Start of Chinese New Year Be a Federal Holiday? · · Score: 1

    The worst part is, it tends to happen sometime between MLK and President's Day. I'd much rather have an extra long weekend during April or October or some such, when there's typically a long weekend dry spell.

  20. Re:Time to haul the red herrings on Eric Schmidt To Sell Up To 42% of Stake In Google · · Score: 1

    He's cashing out when he has the chance. I'd too. After all, owning too much Google stock prevents me from investing in or working on other things, especially stuff that might compete or be perceived to compete with Google.

  21. Re:Taxes aren't the problem either on Eric Schmidt To Sell Up To 42% of Stake In Google · · Score: 1

    The military complex is part of the problem. But what's more visible are the contractors and their sub-contractors, wasting away taxpayer dollars. That's what's causing the big government backlash recently.

    Most people don't care that half of our tax dollars are funded for military research. After all, part of that goes to DARPA, which gave us the internet. However, it's a bit upsetting when we see the government pissing out tax dollars away by paying a contractor several hundred dollars an hour for three or four people to stand around and drink coffee for six out of eight hours a day.

  22. Re:It's Quite Disingenuous on MS Targets Google With Another Smear Campaign · · Score: 1

    Actually, Hotmail sucks in this regard. If an e-mail address isn't on your contact list, but you receive a ton of e-mail over time from that address (there's a certain threshold), at some point, any additional e-mail sent by that address is automatically marked as spam. And you can't get it to not be marked as spam until you actually put the address into your contact list. So I have a whole bunch of mailing list e-mails that end up in my spam folder along with all the Viagra e-mails, as well as correspondences from certain individuals, making the spam folder utterly useless.

    I don't know if things have changed recently, but that's been the way it worked for a long, long time.

  23. Re:Saw an ad on ABC last night with my wife on MS Targets Google With Another Smear Campaign · · Score: 1

    Yes, and we all have a "sex inspector" that goes to every house and takes notes. If we don't have enough quality sex, we'll receive "death points".

    Holy shit! Where do you live? And most importantly, can you use these death points to purchase quality sex?

  24. Re:Morning Show on Fox News: US Solar Energy Investment Less Than Germany Because US Has Less Sun · · Score: 1

    Chill dude. It's merely an article for our amusement.

  25. Re:Nice Ad on How Red Hat Hires · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's just a slashvertisement. We get these every so often. At least this one's for a respected, FOSS company. And it's a fairly transparent slashvertisement.