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User: Ihlosi

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  1. Re:Logical Fallacy on WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes · · Score: 1
    Traceability != Public Domain

    Of course not. All that juice data will be kept safe, very safe, in the hands of the all-benevolent government (which, of course, is completely free of corrupt individuals and never, ever will turn into an evil behemoth that turns against its own citizens, right?).

    I read a history book once where people thought burning witches at the stake was a good thing.

    Today, there's laws against that. Don't think that people wouldn't go back to burning witches because they're so "enlightened".

    So something like being a Muslim post 9/11 ?

    Do Muslims need to register with the government? Are they required to show in any way that they're Muslims?

    I never said that those records should be publicly accessible,

    Of course you didn't. But that's not the question. The mere existence of these records will ensure that they'll be abused eventually.

    and in the culture today, I don't think anyone gives a flying bleep who you vote for, or if you vote at all.

    Even if 99% of the population don't give a flying bleep, that still leaves a few million @$$holes that do. They'll be the ones sending you death threats, firing you or keying your car.

    So you just recount and recount (and hope and pray that none have gone missing, because no one knows how many there were in the first place), until everyone gets heartily sick of it and says to "hell with it, he won".

    You could repeat the election if things get bad enough.

    You carry on clinging to 300 year old dogma about Nth amendments and rights and freedoms, which have no relevance, and bear no resemblance to the original intents of those who created them.

    If you had actually read some history books, you would have found examples of why anonymous voting is a good thing within the last 100 years. The lists you so wish to have are ideal, for example, for picking out the people that require re-education.

  2. Re:Logical Fallacy on WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes · · Score: 1
    WHY must a vote be anonymous ... if it was properly traceable WHO cast what vote, then there would be no issues about incorrect votes, incorrect counts, fraud, dead people voting, etc, because every man and woman would be identifiable and the traceability of the system would be complete.

    Read a history book to find out why this is a good thing.

    And no, idiot neighbors who'll vandalize your property, random idiots who send death threats to you and your family, and idiot bosses who fire you for voting for the wrong guy are only a minor point.

  3. Re:Parallax, touch screens, stupidity, and conspir on WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes · · Score: 1
    If the machines were "switching votes", they'd do it internally and secretly, and not make it look like they're putting checkmarks next to the wrong boxes.

    That would, if found out, be clearly discernible as malice and cause a major uproar. And with the election being this close, it's not even necessary. You don't need to produce "Yeah, 99.8% of the population approve of the Great Leader(tm)"-style results from dictatorships, you just need to make sure that a fraction of a percent of the votes go to your desired candidate by some kind of unfortunate error.

    If I had to guess, the way the ballot is organized in terms of candidate ordering probably makes it easy or possible to look like you're pressing the right area, but the boxes and/or your perception of the boxes' location isn't perfectly aligned with the touch sensing elements.

    Yes. And this makes user errors more likely. And if you can make it so that these errors are biased towards your candidate, statistically you'll improve his chances of winning. A badly calibrated touchscreen _will_ do the trick, and can be explained away by "that darn technology" or sloppy maintenance. No malice required, see?

  4. Re:1984? on Gov't Computers Used to Find Info on "Joe the Plumber" · · Score: 1
    You know that IngSoc was newspeak for English Socialism, right? That doesn't seem too unclear.

    You don't seem to understand how the Ministry of Truth works. Do you really think they'd, of all things, make the Partys name spell out the truth? You swallowed their lies hook, line and sinker.

    Orwell was a socialist, at least when using the rather nebulous term used in the US. In Europe, he'd be correctly labeled as a social democrat, but that contains those evil six letters and therfore must be "socialist".

    Orwell hated communism;

    Stalinism. He hated Stalinism and the Soviets.

    both Animal Farm and 1984 were symbolic portrayals of communism.

    Stalinism and/or the rise thereof.

    Big Brother and Goldstein represented Stalin and Trotsky.

    Both of them were most likely a fabrication of the Minitrue. If you're looking for Stalin and Trotsky, you need to look in the other book. They're called Napoleon and Snowball there.

    Orwell came to the conclusion that socialism

    Can you make up your mind? Socialism or communism or Stalinism? They're not synonyms.

    And I have traveled around Europe, extensively. I am somewhat unimpressed.

    Uh-huh. Have you lived there for any length of time? No, don't tell me. "No and I wouldn't want to."

    Well, I've traveled around the US extensively, and even lived there for a while. I found many things fairly impressive. I could move back any time I wanted. But I don't. Not yet anyways. Even though that could probably add another figure to my salary.

  5. Re:Libertarians say Federal Reserve is Theft. on Greenspan Tells Congress Bad Data Hurt Wall Street · · Score: 2, Informative
    The exposed surfaces of both oxidize and lose their thermal conductivity rather readily.

    The extremely thin oxide/sulfide layer has little effect on the overall effectiveness of the heat sink (and silver and copper are better at conducting heat than gold in the first place). The effect of dust collecting on the heat sink surface probably exceeds it by orders of magnitude, so if you don't clean the heat sink religiously, the effect of the oxide layer gets lost in the noise.

    If it wasn't so expensive, it would be much more widely used.

    It's not just expensive, it's also heavy - gold has more than twice the density of copper. And mass is a constraint in many applications.

  6. Re:Libertarians say Federal Reserve is Theft. on Greenspan Tells Congress Bad Data Hurt Wall Street · · Score: 1

    Gold also makes _wonderful_ heat sinks, as long as you don't run it too hot.

    Both silver and copper beat gold single-handedly in the thermal conductivity arena. And do you really want a heat sink that gets bent out of shape when you look at it wrong?

  7. Re:Libertarians say Federal Reserve is Theft. on Greenspan Tells Congress Bad Data Hurt Wall Street · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Many people like gold for its beauty. This is a utility, and one people are ready to pay a huge lot for.

    So the value of gold as a currency would depend entirely on enough people thinking "Ohhh shiny!"? Beauty is highly subjective.

    I'd rather base a currency on something that has more objective utility. Stored energy would be a good example, though I think people would object to enriched uranium coins.

  8. Re:absurd on Afghan Student Gets 20 Years For Blasphemy · · Score: 1

    That government should be abolished, and a new one instituted, which recognizes the liberty of the individual.

    By whom? Apparently, the people living there would prefer a government that would have handed out an even harsher punishment.

  9. Re:And yet... on Afghan Student Gets 20 Years For Blasphemy · · Score: 1

    Actually, under the Taliban, you could get get executed for growing heroin poppies.

    Drug lords don't like competition.

  10. Re:thieves standing around on TSA Employee Caught With $200K Worth of Stolen Property · · Score: 1

    Why can't they do a search in the owner's presence, then lock it afterwards?

    Time, for one thing. This would take for-freakin'-ever.

  11. Re:I don't understand... on TSA Employee Caught With $200K Worth of Stolen Property · · Score: 1

    (he did repeatedly ask the same questions in different ways, presumably hoping that I'd contradict myself).

    They're not primarily looking for contradictions. Only amateurs would contradict themselves. Semi-professionals would, however, answer the same questions (asked in different ways) with pretty much exactly the same wording every time (since they're expecting the question and have memorized a "plausible" answer).

  12. Re:Who needs a study: science != medicine/biology on Why Most Published Research Findings Are False · · Score: 1

    My apologies if this is a naive question...but what on earth is the value of doing such a study then?

    Well, the study itself does not say that the drug increases the chance of heart attacks. It says that there's a correlation between taking the drug and an increased chance of a heart attack (and will probably state, at some point, that neither of these is the cause of the other, but that both are caused by a third factor - bad cholesterol levels). However, reporting this would be boring. "Drug X causes heart attacks!!!!" is a much better eye-catcher for any magazine or newspaper.

  13. Where's your geek license? on Why Most Published Research Findings Are False · · Score: 1

    Please replace "false" with "incorrect". The word "false" implies deliberate fraud,

    To anyone doing boolean logic, "false" implies "not true". And I'm sure you could drive any programmer bananas by disallowing these traditional terms (under threat of compiler warnings and calling the PC police) and requiring the politically correct versions "correct" and "incorrect" instead.

  14. Let me say this: I am shocken, truly SHOCKED, ... on TSA Employee Caught With $200K Worth of Stolen Property · · Score: 4, Funny

    that there might be people who find this surprising.

  15. Re:Good ruling on UK Court Rejects Encryption Key Disclosure Defense · · Score: 1
    If search warrants are required to search your house and the cops show up with a search warrant to search your house...and they find a lock box under a loose floor board, doesn't the search warrant entitle them to get the key from you?

    No. Just like you don't have to open the door of your house if they show up with a search warrant. If you do that, then only to save you the trouble of replacing the door.

    And with the lock box ... the warrant entitles them to open it. You only need to give up the key if you hope to get the box back in one piece. They'll open it without the key if they have to.

  16. Re:Fuel economy on Fuel Efficiency and Slow Driving? · · Score: 1

    I am sure you will agree that the lost energy spent turning your engine will have to be made up at some point, and that usually takes gas.

    Duh. If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that we're talking about energy that is going to be wasted (by pushing the brake pedal) in the very near future. You're using part of this energy to keep your engine turning without the need for fuel.

    Either you're trying to deliberately misunderstand things, or, well, look at your first line, it goes for your posting, too.

  17. Re:sweet!! on Single Neuron Wired To Muscle Un-Paralyzes Monkeys · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hopefully the diaphragm is able to be connected like this, I believe it would as it behaves as a skeletal muscle?

    Yes, it does. However, the question is whether you can get the respiratory center of the brain to recognize the "bypass" - else you could breathe voluntarily, but would stop as soon as you stop thinking about it (or fall asleep, for example).

    The fun part about those is that, while binary signals may work for them, I would really prefer no sensation to the choice of "OK" and "OMG MY HAND IS ON FIRE" with no gradient between.

    Nerves also deal in binary information only, as far as the value is concerned - the intensity of the sensation is encoded in the frequency of the pulses. For low intensity, the nerve only fires once in a while, for higher intensities the frequency can go up all the way to the inverse of the refractory period (the time the nerve needs to "reset" after a pulse).

  18. Re:sweet!! on Single Neuron Wired To Muscle Un-Paralyzes Monkeys · · Score: 1
    I see particular use with pacemakers. Rather than just pulse the heart at a given frequency, read what the brain wants the heart to do, and do that!

    Err ... that's not how the heart works. The heart contains its own pacemaker, which can be influenced by to autonomous nervous system and hormones, but even in the absence of such will make the heart beat.

    Also, modern pacemakers can actually sense the activity level and regulate their frequency accordingly.

    You could do the same thing for the lungs as well, although I'm not sure how often someone who damages that nerve makes it to the hospital in time.

    That's a possibility, but to do that the technology would have to be mature enough to have lives depending on it, literally.

    And yes, victims of such injuries do make it to the hospital in time. Right now, that means that they're dependent on a ventilator for the rest of their lives.

    Other use could be with amputation victims. Helping restore function to reattached appendages/digits, or controlling prosthesis...

    If at all possible, you want the body to rewire reattached limbs itself, so they function correctly. And you don't just need motor control, you also need sensitivity, else the limb isn't that useful.

    Prosthesis control is a good point, though.

  19. Unfortunately ... on UK Court Rejects Encryption Key Disclosure Defense · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... my encryption key consists of a complete confession of my latest crime plus GPS coordinates of where I've buried the evidence. I'd definitely be incriminating myself by divulging it, so I won't.

  20. Seriously, what's this for? on Software Holds Cell Phone Calls While Driving · · Score: 1

    Is it an optional feature? Then it's fairly useless. Anyone who's driving and wants to make calls will simply turn it off.

    Or are they going to make it mandatory? Great, then the passengers in a car, bus or train can't make calls.

  21. Re:Fuel economy on Fuel Efficiency and Slow Driving? · · Score: 1
    You are an idiot. The catalytic converter is there to burn unburned fuel along with cleaning up nox and co2.

    A catalytic converter doesn't do anything about CO2, in fact, most things it does actually increase the concentration of CO2 in the exhaust. It catalyzes the reactions of CO to CO2, and HxCy to H20 and CO2

    And if your engine is exhausting enough unburned fuel that you can hear it detonate somewhere in the exhaust system, then your engine is most likely broken, and it's going to take the rest of the exhaust system with it soon.

  22. Re:Fuel economy on Fuel Efficiency and Slow Driving? · · Score: 1

    Don't US-cars come with fuel-consumption-meters ?

    They tried that, but customers were a bit alarmed by the "(ERROR: Division by zero) mpg" display when the fuel is shut off.

  23. Re:Fuel economy on Fuel Efficiency and Slow Driving? · · Score: 1
    Assuming you're right (which I'm still highly doubtful of), then what cars in specific 'feature' this?

    Any car that uses fuel injection is likely to have it. Model years later than about 1982.

    Of the list I'd say that at least the BMW should have it, unless they specifically disable the feature for the American market (it's probably just a matter of setting a check mark in the ECU configuration program), since other than saving fuel (which isn't, or wasn't, a big selling point in the US market), it provides no other benefit. And it only saves fuel if you adapt your driving habits accordingly.

    *None* of them cut fuel input while rolling in gear.

    How do you tell that they don't? The sound of a gasoline engine doesn't change significantly. One way to tell is that when rolling, the car decelerates more slowly below a certain rpm threshold (1000-1500 rpm) than above this threshold, since the engine is being supplied with fuel below the threshold.

    It's usually easy to tell if the car have a mpg display - it goes blank (--.- mpg) when the car is rolling and the fuel is cut off. If the fuel isn't cut off, then a car rolling at 60 mph would still have a mileage of about 120 mpg, which most displays can still show.

  24. Re:Drive a diesel on Fuel Efficiency and Slow Driving? · · Score: 1
    80mph driving a 1.9TDI = 42MPG

    And that's exactly why you should stay away from the 1.9TDI and get a 2.0TDI instead, since it's going to get close to 48 mpg and has 140hp instead of 100hp.

  25. Re:Fuel economy on Fuel Efficiency and Slow Driving? · · Score: 1
    What am I missing here, since I obviously am missing something!

    Yes. You're missing the fact that gasoline engines shouldn't produce a lot of sound during combustion. If they do, then they're most likely knocking and that means there's something wrong with them.

    Now, if you shut off the fuel injection on a diesel engine, then you'll hear a clear difference (since a diesel engine is supposed to "knock", and the absence of this distinct sound is very easy to notice).