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User: snsh

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Comments · 318

  1. Re:Treatment sort of worked on Site of 1976 "Atomic Man" Accident To Be Cleaned · · Score: 1

    Those are the side effects of Khan blood.

  2. Solved problem on Hierarchical Membrane For Cleaning Up Oil Spills · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Easier to follow Exxon's example and dump tons of dispersant into your oil spill, and watch the globs disappear from plain sight.

  3. Make watches thinner on Ask Slashdot: What Would It Take For You To Buy a Smartwatch? · · Score: 1

    Watches are still way too thick. You still can't find a digital watch (except for some ridiculous e-ink devices) less than 5mm thick.

    While they're at it, why do dial watches still have crowns? You should be able to hold them up to a computer screen to set the time and date like those old databank watches. All they need is a sensor or solar cell and a tiny bit of logic.

  4. Alito voted against the cops? on Supreme Court Rules Cell Phones Can't Be Searched Without a Warrant · · Score: 5, Interesting

    During his confirmation hearings, Ted Kennedy noted that Sam Alito "never saw a police search he didn't like."

    Alito wrote up his own opinion on this decision, not-quite agreeing with the rest of the bench, but still voting against this particular search. I guess there's a first for everything.

  5. Re: You know ... on Florida Man Faces $48k Fine For Jamming Drivers' Cellphones · · Score: 1

    If he used the jammer selectively, when he was next to a distracted driver, that would one thing. But he left it running all the time. That's going too far.

  6. Re:Which trademark? on Zazzle.com Thinks Depictions of Pi Are Protected Intellectual Property · · Score: 1

    I think a diligent trademark examiner would approved the trademark registration, but would have inserted the line "NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE THE SYMBOL 'PI' APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN"

  7. Which trademark? on Zazzle.com Thinks Depictions of Pi Are Protected Intellectual Property · · Score: 2

    The original deep link to USPTO.GOV is broken. Are we talking about registration# 4473631? That specifically covers the stylized "pi mathematical symbol followed by a period." There is no exclusive right given for the symbol pi by itself or in other contexts.

  8. Re:Comment from a Chemist on Has the Ethanol Threat Manifested In the US? · · Score: 1

    i thought it was to siphon money into corn-producing states in the midwest, states which are obscenely overrepresented in the US Senate.

  9. Re:Little known MIT fact on An MIT Dean's Defense of the Humanities · · Score: 1

    They require you to take 8 subjects, of which several are distributed among predefined categories. I believe they discontinued the most ridiculous requirement of having a specific HUM-D/HASS-D subset of 20 or so subjects which were frequently oversubscribed because everyone in the school had to take ~three subjects from that subset. Those HASS-D subjects often covered obscure topics like "fairy tales".

    Years and years ago, MIT's humanities department had a simple mission to "teach these nerds something about civilization" but since then it's grown and tries to compete with Harvard. They give out minors and majors. From what I've seen, half the the students who major/minor in HASS do it on top of a STEM degree, since it's not that hard to complete the extra subjects if you work efficiently. The other half of HASS majors are mostly dropouts from STEM courses.

  10. Re:My biggest gripe on How the USPS Killed Digital Mail · · Score: 1

    I challenge you to print out a first class envelope with (or without) a 49-cent stamp from click-n-ship.

  11. My biggest gripe on How the USPS Killed Digital Mail · · Score: 0

    USPS is still about 15 years behind in adopting the Internet. Today in 2014 you still cannot go online and print out a stamped (or unstamped) first class envelope or address label. You still have to fill out silly ink forms to send mail certified, registered, or proof of mailing. USPS has self service kiosks in a few post offices, but not any supermarkets. It's far easier to get a zipcode from a search engine than USPS.com.

    USPS needs to just buy Stamps.com for a billion dollars or whatever they're worth, and make it a free service available to the public.

  12. Re:Panasonic on Tesla: A Carmaker Or Grid-Storage Company? · · Score: 1

    Not to mention, batteries for cars are are optimized for weight, while batteries for grid power are optimized for everything but weight.

  13. dollars vs. lives vs. dollars on Department of Transportation Makes Rear View Cameras Mandatory · · Score: 1

    If you want to treat this as an engineering tradeoff, then you have to not only measure deaths but property damage.

    Myself I've never reversed into a human being, but I have reversed the car into 1) dozens of other bumpers in tight parallel-parking spots, 2) a fence 3) several curbs 4) the side of a car, 5) a stone wall, and just two months ago 6) a trailer hitch. All those dings and dents cost money, and are much easier to assess than the actuarial dollar-value of 15 deaths.

    The real scandal in this news, though, is that the NHTSA has delayed crafting this simple rule for so long. The law was passed in 2008 with a deadline of early 2011. The Obama administration delayed the rulemaking for so long presumably because most auto makers make money selling cameras as optional equipment. The NHTSA gave the excuse that they needed time to do a 'required cost-benefit analysis' of the 15/deaths per year against the $150 cost of the camera. What the heck takes so long? Congress already passed the law requiring the cameras. All NHTSA had to do is take out a piece of letterhead, write down "10 million cars/year * $150/car / 15 lives/year equals $100 million/life", sign it, and file it away.

  14. Re:The problem with eBay to sell electronics on Used IT Equipment Can Be Worth a Fortune (Video) · · Score: 1

    You should care. If someone needs your widget right now, is unwilling to wait a week for your auction to end, and is willing to pay more than your reserve price, then you're losing that sale opportunity. That's where the reserve == BIN assumption fails.

  15. The problem with eBay to sell electronics on Used IT Equipment Can Be Worth a Fortune (Video) · · Score: 1

    eBay could be the perfect place to sell used electronics. The problem is the way they handle auction / buy-it-now listings.

    Suppose you have a used Dell-brand server. You know that almost nobody is going to spend more than $800 on it, because for that money you could buy a new model. On the other hand, you figure someone out there might spend $500 on it because they're nearby and need it ASAP. And, you're willing to let people bid on it for a week and get it rid of it at the end of the week.

    You can't accomodate all three parameters at once. If you set a reserve price, then once auctioning hits that reserve, then the buy-it-now is killed. On the other hand, if final bids are less than reserve, then the auction is effectively cancelled, and you're stuck holding the item.

    Until eBay changes this, it will remain a non-ideal place to sell old IT equipment.

  16. Re:Does it really cost $100k? on The $100,000 Device That Could Have Solved Missing Plane Mystery · · Score: 1

    Most people are never involved in an airplane crash. Making air travel more expensive makes travel a tiny bit less safe, because more people will drive instead of fly.

  17. Re:Longtime Softimage Users Are Stunned By The New on Autodesk Says It's Killing Softimage Development, Support · · Score: 3, Informative

    Autodesk has done this before. GeneriCAD, Drafix, were just a few competitors which Autodesk acquired and shutdown. Their practices are very anticompetitive.

  18. Re:Delivery Tool on Physics Forum At Fermilab Bans Powerpoint · · Score: 1

    Powerpoint has been best described as a "projector operating system".

  19. Re:Unregulated currency on Bitcoin Exchange Flexcoin Wiped Out By Theft · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Unregulated and not watched by the government"

    You mean like silver and gold?

  20. Re:No on Does Relying On an IDE Make You a Bad Programmer? · · Score: 1

    I thought it's Sussudio.

  21. Only 12% of workforce on Layoffs At Now-Private Dell May Hit Over 15,000 Staffers · · Score: 1

    A tech company laying off around 10% of its workforce isn't drastically shrinking. They're just doing routine housekeeping.

  22. Re:how many products? on Price of Amazon Prime May Jump To $119 a Year · · Score: 1

    The biggest shame of Prime is that it defaults to free, 2-day shipping for every purchase, including large objects like major appliances that you don't need in 2-days. One heavy item can easily cost Amazon more for expedited shipping than what they charge for the Prime membership fee. It's a huge waste.

  23. Trumba on Ask Slashdot: Events Calendar Software For Local Community? · · Score: 1

    Consider Trumba. It's not a free service, and it will cost you around $100/month, but they give you a lot for your money. We've been using them for our local public-facing calendar (~500 events a month) for several years.

  24. Re: Get a real mail account on Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Misdirected Email? · · Score: 1

    Except there is no "correctly spelled domain". You're saying that the owner of "ashley.com" can stake a claim to owning "ashlee.com" or "ashleigh.com". You also presume (incorrectly) that the multinational registered their domain first. Pay attention to context. This thread is about personal names as part of domain names where there's a lot of variation, not about fanciful marks which enjoy stronger trademark protection.

  25. Re: Get a real mail account on Ask Slashdot: What To Do With Misdirected Email? · · Score: 1

    Nope. For a UDRP to go anywhere, you need to meet a pretty high bar, as in you actually registered a domain with the intent to confuse the public, and have no legitimate claim to it otherwise. And since when does ICANN award damages?

    But more to the point, you're basically saying that the recipient of a misdirected email (like the OP) is required to delete it. That's not the law.