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User: brillow

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  1. Forget it on Automakers Struggle With Pairing Smartphones To Car Infotainment Systems · · Score: 3, Interesting

    All they need is a phone/tablet dock. Paying extra for an infotainment system is dumb. All I need is power and audio connections for my phone/tablet. All the car need provide is speakers and microphone and maybe some steering wheel buttons which can control some phone functions.

  2. never been a better example on Exxon Charged With Illegally Dumping Waste In Pennsylvania · · Score: 1

    Of big business controlling the gov't

    Why not just fine Exxon 3 billion dollars and send everyone in PA to college for free?

  3. Re:We owe our thanks to Mr. Snowden on Are the NIST Standard Elliptic Curves Back-doored? · · Score: 1

    We might have discovered these magic numbers if anyone ever critically analysed this document.

    Apparently "security experts" just blindly do things and don't critically examine what goes on.

    Scientists have been finding wrong analyses and bringing them down for centuries. In fact, I could read any journal issue in my field and find at least 5 utterly wrongheaded analyses of things. YOU HAVE TO READ SHIT.

  4. Re:Meta review on Are the NIST Standard Elliptic Curves Back-doored? · · Score: 1

    it's explained because dumbasses will apparently just accept whatever NIST says without critically evaluating this at all.

    I don't know anything about this field, but it baffles me how this important and widely used document is just being analysed now.

  5. Fossil DNA? on Evidence of 100,000-Year-Old Life Found In Antarctic Subglacial Lake · · Score: 1

    I am a biologist and I don't know what "fossil DNA" is.

  6. Bad business concept on Wireless Charging Start-Up Claims 30-Foot Radius · · Score: 1

    This whole idea is neat but just won't work. The premise is that there are lots of high-power devices out there which have really crappy battery life. Phone battery life is steadily improving and Qi etc. does just about everything you need.

    These people are assuming that in 5 years phone battery life will be crappier than it is now and it will just be essential to have this.

    The only thing this could be useful for is powering lots of little IOT devices, but I feel like this is just a really inefficient way of doing that. And IOT devices won't really be a big deal until they are powered by ambient thermal energy and RF.

  7. Rent Seeking on How Car Dealership Lobbyists Successfully Banned Tesla Motors From Texas · · Score: 2

    Rent seeking is among the most dangerous threats to a free society. These greedy bastards don't want the right to make money, they want the right to make money forever without that position being challenged.

  8. More crappy Ball Aerospace reactions wheels? on NASA Finds, Fixes Small Glitch in LADEE Moon Probe · · Score: 1

    I hope these aren't from the same company that built the crappy wheels on Kepler. Ball should stick with the mason jars.

  9. tech just isn't quite there yet on Can Even Apple Make a Watch Insanely Smart? · · Score: 1

    Right now I'd love a watch as small and light as my simple casio but which vibrates when I have a call. I am tired of my phone ringing when I don't want to it too and when it does ring I miss the call. The Pebble is about everything I want in a smartwatch, though it could be thinner and lighter. Unfortunately unless Pebble gets bought by Google or Google releases a GoogleNow API its not going to work. The next GoogleGlass product could very well be their headset in watch form. If it just provided notifications and a limited ability to screen texts and calls, it would be awesome, but it HAS to be light and unobtrusive. It should not look like a "SmartWatch!(TM)".

    Smartphones didn't happen big because of the iPhone, the singular tech which made them work was the capacitive multitouch screen. Only this allowed the device to have enough screen and still work well enough. The first iPhone didn't have GPS, apps, navigation, etc. and it was still a big success because of that screen.

    Smartwatches will need some similar tech breakthroughs before they work. Here's what they need:

    *They will need to be very light, very low-power, and physically flexible.
    *They will need to come in a variety of form factors to suit different tastes (watches are fashion accessories, not gadgets).
    *It should know who I am via some kind of biometrics.
    *It would be totally fine if its tied to a smartphone but it will need to have some functionality on its own (I can't even tell if this Samsung watch can tell time without help.
    *Battery life should be around a week.
    *It should have Google Now like functionality, giving me information without me having to ask.
    *It should serve as my cyber-implant on the outside. It should be the conduit through which I communicate with other machines. It should not only authenticate me, but allow me to interact with other machines via gestures.

    What it doesnt need:
    *an illuminated screen (at least not all the time). Flexible eInk/ePaper with a backlight would be more than enough.
    *a camera
    *a microphone
    *the ability to make calls on its own

  10. Their own proxy! on Epic: A Privacy-Focused Web Browser · · Score: 1

    What will keep a NSL from telling them to give the NSA the key's to their proxy?

  11. we also might be from on We All May Have a Little Martian In Us · · Score: 2

    we also might be from Uranus, I'm sick of this zombie story.

  12. For how long? on Half of All Research Papers Published In 2011 Already Free To Read · · Score: 1

    There are journals that let you see their current articles for free, and then lock them up after 6 mos or a year. Even at my school there are online subscriptions which only let us see things back to like 1996, then if we want to see past that we have to pay (or the university could pay for a more deluxe subscription).

    In any case, there needs to be a concerted effort to download all this stuff and torrent it or something.

  13. Re:What about all the non-researchers? on Half of All Research Papers Published In 2011 Already Free To Read · · Score: 1

    Generally? How about ever.

  14. What right do they have? on HeLa Cell Line Genome Data To Be Published · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tissue samples taken from your body, are not your property.

    Also, Ms. Lacks is long dead, why does anyone care what her family says about anything? They aren't their cells.

  15. You hate Gates but... on Remember the Computer Science Past Or Be Condemned To Repeat It? · · Score: 2

    You don't like Gates but wish programmers looked towards more "Great Masters?" Bill Gates was a Great Master Programmer.

  16. I would assume the same for art majors on Math and Science Popular With Students Until They Realize They're Hard · · Score: 1

    The reason kids drop out of art school, or art programs, is not because its "bullshit" as they always say, but because its a lot of work.

    Try doing 3 paintings a week as well as drawings, pottery, etc. Oddly enough they work more than science majors. I had a good science education in college but I wasn't writing more than 4 or 5 papers a semester. Art majors are producing 3 or 4 things a week.

  17. Re:like anything else.. on Math and Science Popular With Students Until They Realize They're Hard · · Score: 1

    People always says Feynman was a great educator, but what's the evidence for this? People liked hearing him talk, but how do we know he's a good educator? What metrics are available?

  18. Janine Benyus is not a biologist on Improving 3-D Printing By Copying Nature · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Janine Benyus has a BS in Natural Resource Management and english lit from Rutgers.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janine_Benyus

  19. They don't want you to think about other crimes on Boston Marathon Bomber Charged With Using 'Weapon of Mass Destruction' · · Score: 1

    People are dying in droves in Chicago, but I guess that's ok because they don't use bombs and aren't "terrorists" just "criminals."

    The WMD charge is supposed to make this look like something other than just a criminal trial.

  20. why would machines want to wipe out humans? on The Men Trying To Save Us From the Machines · · Score: 1

    We don't compete for the same resources. Also, machines could simply be programmed to not want to kill humans. There is not reason to think they would resent this any more than humans resent being programmed to not want to kill humans.

  21. Re:a bit too blatant on Using YouTube For File Storage · · Score: 1

    I dunno if Google would care. People have been using gmail as online storage since the beginning and Google didn't seem to care. Your 10gb video is not going to appreciably change Google's total bandwidth usage.

  22. Re:Bias on What's Actually Wrong With DRM In HTML5? · · Score: 1

    Apparently you like running Linux more than watching Netflix.

    Or do you just want to have your cake and eat it too?

  23. Re:What's Actually Wrong With DRM...? on What's Actually Wrong With DRM In HTML5? · · Score: 1

    So if that's all it's doing then what's wrong with it?

    If its such a minor and inconsequential thing, who cares?

  24. Re:from the father of handwaving on Terrible Advice From a Great Scientist · · Score: 1

    Are you a biologist?

    Because I am, and I'll tell you that most biologists are totally into sociobiology. Being against it is very 1980's. There has been a lot of research on it and while the evolution of sociality is an active area of research, very few people share Gould's views.

  25. Re:Understanding statistics ... on Terrible Advice From a Great Scientist · · Score: 1

    Yeah and Wilson agrees with this. NO ONE does stats by themselves though. We use a computer to do it. I understand what mathematical theory underlies an ANOVA or a Bonferroni correction or a Spearmann rank, but I could not do the math.

    What do I do then when I do these things which I do all the time?

    I use a computer. I use R.

    This is what E.O. is saying.

    This will do everything 99% of biologist eed to do. If you ever finding yourself really needing something high-level, you find a collaborator.

    Saying all scientists must know tons of math is like saying all home-owners need to be master electricians or plumbers. Home owners should probably know the basics of how pipes and wires work and should probably be able to unclog a toilet and change a lightbulb, but if they need something real done they are probably best to call an expert. It's not like they couldn't figure it out of they had to and had time, but an expert will be less hassle and will probably do a better job.

    This is what he is saying.