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User: SSCGWLB

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  1. tronclub on Ask Slashdot: Your Favorite Subscription Services? · · Score: 1

    I like:

    Tronclub (electronic kits)
    Amazon Prime
    Netflix
    GitHub

  2. Re:Hope and change! on White House Pressures Legislators Into Gutting USA FREEDOM Act · · Score: 1

    I conceed your point. Maybe the printers left off the second part of the slogan:

    "Yes we CAN ... do exactly the same thing as the other guy"
    "Yes we CAN ... keep the status quo"
    "Yes we CAN ... screw up everything we touch"

    I certainly didn't exact anything to change. I just enjoy poking the people who did. I have to admit, they aren't fighting as much as they used to. Now they just twitch a little, I guess the realization has finally set in, shame it took them this long.

  3. Re:Hope and change! on White House Pressures Legislators Into Gutting USA FREEDOM Act · · Score: 1

    We? Have a mouse in your pocket?

    #1) By healthcare reform you mean forced to buy insurance? I don't see a lot of reform going on, so far it hasn't exactly been a stunning success (and major parts of it have been delayed repeatedly). More signs of awesome I am sure.

    #2) So 'we' found Osama? Or years of work (started while Bush was in office) finally bared fruit? It's not like Obama was out there with a flashlight.

    #3) 40% of Democratice Representative and 58% of Democratic Senators voted for the Iraq war. Both parties own that war. I realize that 'we' have a short memory.

    I really hope you can come up with some bigger wins then that. Maybe the fact that Obama has added more debt then any other president in history? Go him!

  4. Hope and change! on White House Pressures Legislators Into Gutting USA FREEDOM Act · · Score: 1

    How is that working out?

  5. Re:Here are my numbers on Will Electric Cars and Solar Power Make Gasoline and Utilities Obsolete? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the info about your setup!

  6. Re:That's nice on The First Fully 3D-Printed Gun Has Been Successfully Test-Fired · · Score: 1

    Where to start.

    First of all, using the term 'assault weapon' or 'assault rifle' is a red flag. This term has been miss-used so much it has lost any meaning. The military doesn't consider the AR-15 a 'assault rifle' because it is only semi auto (i.e. does not have select fire). Some people consider anything scary looking an "Military style assault rifle", use term at your own risk.

    Fortunately for all of us, you don't get to dictate what somebody can 'reasonably' have in their house. An AR15 is no more of an 'accident waiting to happen' then any other firearm. The AR15 is a perfectly acceptable home defense weapon, some times more then one bad guy shows up. According to police statistics, one in every three too four rounds hit (here is one of many links discussing it: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/nyregion/08nypd.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Despite what the movies tell you, it typically takes several shots to disable/kill. So, assuming two hits to disable (low according to statistics) + three 'bad guys' = 18 to 24 rounds expended. And these are numbers for people who are required to train and qualify with their weapons. I will gladly take my 30 round standard capacity mags, thank you! Personally, I do prefer a pistol for home defense. I like my .45 "military style assault pistol" for this purpose. It also has "assault clips", FTW!

    Lets also not forget that they are many sporting and competetion uses for an AR15.

    It also gladdens my heart that the AR15 is currently (and has for quite some time now) been selling in record numbers, by far larger numbers then any other single firearm. Magpul, which makes 30 round (standard capacity) magazines, is well over a million magazines on back order. Last I heard they estimated 3+ million AR15s in the hands of US citizens.

    "...one possibility is you expect to fight the military, in which case you are hopelessly outgunned anyway..."
    Not really a fan of history are you? Wars have been fought and won by a bunch of out-gunned untrained peasants for centuries.

    "The second amendment does not say you have a right to buy the biggest gun ever made just so you can imagine something else was that big, I'm sure if they knew what an effective killing tool firearms would turn into they would've been a bit more restrictive even then."
    Our founding fathers were smart men, I am sure (some of them being inventors and tinkerers themselves) that they knew that better weapons would be invented in short order. They didn't put any restrictions on the state of the art in 1787, why would they put any restrictions on future weapons? I am sure glad they didn't.

    "The Constitution was never intended to be unalterable, that's why they created a process to allow changes to be made to it, it's only supposed to need a majority vote. And unlike the first amendment, that could realistically happen with the second."
    Of course it can be changed, it is very very hard to change the constitution (by design). The US Senate cannot even pass a bill (with few restrictions), how do you expect an amendment (with a much larger % of yes votes) to pass? Pure fantasy.

    Bun and bullet registry is a poor idea, for so many reasons. Canada tried it, spend 20 years and hundreds of millions of dollars on it, they are now the process of dismantling it. Their own words: “The Harper Government has always been clear; by eliminating the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry, we can instead focus our efforts on measures that actually tackle crime and make our streets and communities safe,”. It sounds like they still have a registry for handguns, I am curious how long that lasts.

    Good day.

  7. Re:This was proposed in Oregon on Dutch Government To Tax Drivers Based On Car Use · · Score: 1

    There is tax free diesel for construction and agricultural use, it is dyed red so use in on road can be detected. There is a serious fine for having red diesel in the wrong vehicle.

  8. Re:You vote for a lawyer and you get the status qu on Military Drone Attacks Are Not 'Hostile' · · Score: 1

    Actually, 'Change we can believe in' was Obama's campaign slogan and something they pushed very hard, not 'Republican propaganda'. Remember the 'first 100 days' feeding frenzy, where all the changes Obama was supposed to be making was discussed at great length? The only problem is the geniuses that believe him and voted him into office.

  9. Re:What moron destroys original data? on Where the Global Warming Data Is · · Score: 1

    Petabytes? Are you serious? WTF where they storing? If you have 256 sites, each logging 100MB a day of climate data (a ridiculous amount of data), that's a bit more then 108 years of storage per petabyte.

    I would also point out that its not as simple as getting the data from the original source.
    1) First of all, there are a lot of original sources, which ones exactly did they get data from?
    2) The data was on magnetic tape and paper form, who knows what is still readable or available
    3) Data gets skipped, overlooked, entered in error, etc.
    4) Often times there are several steps involved in post processing the data.

    This is why you keep your raw data every step along the way. Do you really think a person now, 20+ years after the fact, can go through the process ( accumulating, organizing, ingesting, analyzing, and processing data from disparate data sets) and come up with the same data set? Really?

    I would seriously doubt UEA would be able to reconstruct 90% of the original data set with a high degree of certainty

  10. Re:Science as Open Source on Where the Global Warming Data Is · · Score: 1

    I agree, your methods and results should be reproducible. However in this case they destroyed the original temperature data for a bunch of stations for many years. This data is not reproducible (unless you have a time machine). You can’t rerun this simulation.

    In their own words: "We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenized) data." Thus, all anybody has access too is their post processed data after it has been cleaned up and who knows what (if anything) removed. Even if you trust them to not massage the data in any way (suspect given their recent history) there is still no way to verify the assumptions, method, validity and correctness of the post processing.

    This is at best catastrophic and unbelievably sloppy scientific work.

  11. Re:I'd never do it, but on Moving Away From the IT Field? · · Score: 1

    Thank you!

    I have never understood why some IT people have to be dicks. Yes, sometimes you will have to deal with morons, the clueless, the malicious, and everywhere in-between. Welcome to the real world, put on your big boy pants and deal with it! The vast majority of people are just trying to do their job and made a honest mistake. I think it's time IT realizes that their job depends on 'DFUs'. Do you know what you call a IT guy without any user? Unemployed.

  12. Re:Diversity of features on 50+ Android Phones Expected In Near Future · · Score: 1

    I second this comment, the Droid looks like a pretty sweet piece of engineering. Thinner, lighter, faster processor, camera with flash, etc. My only problem is how to get rid of my G1 (and T-Mobile) without getting screwed!

  13. Re:Any have a decent Camera? on 50+ Android Phones Expected In Near Future · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Motorola Droid (not out yet I think) is supposed to have a 5 megapixel camera, auto focus and flash. I have not heard much about the picture quality. On the up side: the camera GUI, auto focus, and responsiveness have significantly improved on my G1 with every update. In good light on a mostly still subject the G1 takes acceptable pictures.

  14. Re:Thank god I'm from Austria (Europe) on Student Loan Interest Rankles College Grads · · Score: 1

    Wow! Students around the world must be flocking to Austria to study!

    Global Destinations for International Students at the Post-Secondary (Tertiary) Level, 2008
    United States 20%
    United Kingdom 13%
    France 8%
    Germany 8%
    Australia 7%
    China 7%
    Canada 5%
    Japan 4%
    ...
    Austria 1.3%


    Source:
    http://atlas.iienetwork.org/page/Country_Profiles/
    Well, you get what you pay for I guess. I wonder if the ~600K foreign students came to the US for the excellent education or to get saddled with 'crippling debt'? I graduated with a BS and MS with $0 of student debt because I worked hard and didn't go to a absurdly expensive university.

    You can keep your educational system, thanks!

  15. Re:They only want nukes for self defence... on Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution" · · Score: 1

    Personally, I take Israel over Iran any day. I have heard a lot of mumbo jumbo about 'massacres Palestinians' and not a while lot about shooting rockets at Israel? Funny that. I think it's safe to say both sides don't like each other and have done some bad things to each other. However, only one country has refuses to acknowledge the other while threatening to destroy it. That country isn't Israel.

  16. Re:A suggestion to Mr. Abdullah on Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution" · · Score: 1

    So true, those christian suicide bombers and all of those christians beheading 'infidels'... One of these things is not like the other, I will leave it up to you to figure that out. I am sure not all muslims are hateful, but they sure do have a vocal and cruel segment who are.

  17. Re:Gandhi isn't always right on Iran Moves To End "Facebook Revolution" · · Score: 1

    What about 2008? How did the current idiot get elected? Image the current world without obama...

  18. Re:DVD Jon is a brave man on DRM Group Set To Phase Out "Analog Hole" · · Score: 1

    Hey! The party line is:
    1) Apple is awesome
    2) Their OS is the best in existence...it's UNIX!!
    3) Their i$OBJECT_OF_DESIRE is the best in existence; The more expensive and shiny a object is the more awesome it is
    4) Apple is always right, even when they aren't
    5) Steve Jobs defends us from alien invasion(s), Windows, and Zerg rushes
    6) All the cool kids use Apple

    Get with the program man....

    /tongue in cheek

  19. Re:Look.... on Is China Creating the World's Largest Botnet Army? · · Score: 1

    How is that? Are you trolling or is my 'humor' button stuck?

  20. Re:Python? on Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran? · · Score: 2, Informative

    I guess it depends on the type of scientific computing you are doing. If you need a cluster to crunch numbers, don't use python. However, there are huge areas in scientific computing where: 1) speed isn't the primary concern or 2) languages like python are fast enough. Also, python has some pretty significant scientific computing tools like scipy (see http://www.scipy.org/), visualization using matplotlib (see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/ ), etc. I personally know a lot of people doing scientific computing and general research who use python.

    If speed was the only concern, people wouldn't be using tools like Matlab, IDL, python, and the like. Obviously, a significant number of people doing scientific computing find these tools fast enough.

  21. Re:Dammit Japan... on Japanese ESRB Bans Rape Depiction In Games · · Score: 1

    Maybe they are, unless you are a 12 year old?? Maybe?

  22. Re:Is software "engineering" really engineering? on How Software Engineering Differs From Computer Science · · Score: 1

    "Sorry, but Software Engineering houses most of its complexity in the actual complexity of the chosen language and Art of Design that has nothing to do with Traditional Engineering. I'll put it this way: Becoming proficient in C/C++/ObjC/Java is a matter of exposure to the language and various APIs with well-tested design patterns others have tested and shown to be useful, on a domain specific problem set."

    I would hazard to guess that you have no idea what programming or 'Software Engineering' is. In the software world there are plenty of plain old hard problems. I am not talking about computation complexity, I mean hard because of problem complexity, requirements, size, scope, limitations inherent to computers, data set, communications, etc. This is independent of design and programming language of choice. Of course a arbitrary problem can be made more difficult through a choice of poor tools (programming language) and/or poor design.

    Extreme examples of this would be compilers, operating systems, and DBMS. Do you honestly think the the majority of the complexity of a compiler is due to design decisions and programming language it's written in?

    Sorry, but I didn't bother to read past that point. Its hard to take a comment about software engineering seriously when the first paragraph shows a basic lack of understanding of the software domain.

  23. Re:wow on Breaking Down the Demigod Launch · · Score: 1

    They probably did (I sure hope so). However I would bet:

    1) Their QA people where co-located with the servers
    2) (and/or) Connecting via decent networking hardware.

    Naturally, this worked fine.

    Somebody should have thought: "Humm, people are going to be running this at home, using random ancient routers/hubs, connecting through a crappy ISP, maybe we should make sure it will work then."

    That is where they failed, not testing the software like it was going to be used.

  24. Re:Running away from a simple question still? on Apple Freezes Snow Leopard APIs · · Score: 1

    So, I got to know, at the conclusion of your ePenis measuring session who was larger?

  25. Re:Still just a slap on the wrist on Intel Receives Record Fine By the EU · · Score: 1

    Sorry to burst your bubble, couple of problems with this: First, you do realize there is a difference between a civil and criminal law? Second, the commission that levied the fine does not have the authority to throw Intel's board into jail.

    So, at best Intel will raise their prices. AMD isn't doing too hot right now so I am sure they could use the help. I don't think Intel will be loosing any sleep over this whole fiasco. If the EU doesn't like the new prices, I am sure they have a homegrown company that can step right in *chuckle*.