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User: KGIII

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  1. Re:legislate Pi = 3 while you're at it. on Top Democratic Senator Will Seek Legislation To "Pierce" Through Encryption (dailydot.com) · · Score: 1

    It does. They're known as statistical anomalies or outliers and are accounted for. How do I know? Well, I'm a mathematician who modeled traffic. Vehicular traffic is fairly tame compared to the compute power required to model pedestrians. You humans are damned close to chaos. Anyhow, no, they're accounted for. They're not perfectly modeled but they're accounted for. We know that, on average, X% of people will do something stupid and engineer around it (where possible) or accept it and move on. Perfection is not an option.

  2. Re:Still one critical flaw around, and MS won't ki on Microsoft Kills Many Critical Flaws, Some 0-Days, Un-Trusts One Wildcard Cert · · Score: 1

    I don't actually use Windows but I have it on good authority that there are quite a few free versions that don't have ads right in the store and available with the same search query.

  3. Re:I just added it to my resume. on Tech Giant SAP Seeks To Hire More Autistic Adults (cio.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hmm... I expect no more unemployed people on Slashdot.

    That said, they're going to capitalize the ever living hell out of people's mental disorder and are trying to spin this as a positive thing? What's next? Hiring people in wheelchairs specifically so you can save money on office furniture? We want to save on the water bill, it's a green initiative, so we're hiring people with catheters!

    Hmm... I'm a cynical bastard today.

  4. My body just won't let me. The funny thing is, I was left-handed until I went to Kindergarten. The teacher forced me to write with my right hand. Over the years that ability, for some things, has been lost. I just can't write with my left any more and I can't seem to get the mouse under control with my left hand. I've tried. I've tried numerous times.

    It doesn't flare up too often but it does kind of suck when it does. I can wear a brace, just a wrist wrap, and that makes them far less frequent but then New England weather hits or something else triggers it and it flares up and stays that way for a couple of weeks. They want to go in, clean it out, maybe repair a tendon (they think one might be torn partially), and clean out some sheath but I'm simply not going to let them do that. I've known too many people who have had surgeries and had them fail. I, myself, have had one that went reasonably well but right now - it still works and is only subject to flaring up infrequently. I figure I'm ahead of the game and it's a risk not worth taking - at this time.

    They say that it's unlikely to progress much/any further so it doesn't really matter a whole lot if I put the surgery off. Ice and Ibuprofen. I immobilize it to some extent (I have a second, firmer, brace) if it gets bad but usually I just wear the wrap. Meh... I'll live. I guess. It could be *much* worse and, frankly, I don't have anything to complain about even if I do have a little pain. (It was likely caused from keying in piles and piles of data back in the day. I can/could run a number-pad like a champ but not like the accountants with their 10-key or whatever-key stuff it is that they do.)

    Err... Ergonomics wasn't really a thing back then. Well, it was just starting to become something we paid attention to. It also doesn't help that I've had a very fun life and have broken that wrist twice and probably never let it fully heal properly but just kept using it. Yay! Opiates!

  5. Re:Anyone else think she could be a plant? on Yahoo To Spin Off Everything That Makes It Yahoo (nytimes.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course you can. Just read things like your post. A fine example would be that I bought a buttload of shares in Tesla when they were $24 each. Why? Well, I read a *lot* of comments and pay attention. Timing the market doesn't appear to be too difficult at all, if you're not greedy. I am not a professional but if I include the first year and a half of rather miserable investment performance, I'm averaging a 17 or 18% growth as of six months ago when I crunched the numbers. They're higher now but that's without excluding my first year and a half where I lost about 43%.

    It does not appear difficult. ;-) So, you might know more than I (and I'd not contest that) and that's likely a good thing but, frankly, it's been pretty damned lucrative. I don't do the short-term investing thing. I invest for at least a year. Then, I'm just patient. My next one will be to watch VW to see how low they go this spring (maybe summer) and then I'll jump on that and probably buy at least 1000 shares while they're dirt cheap as it finally reaches the court systems and they're being dragged through the mud. Then I'll hold it, perhaps for years.

    So far so good. But, certainly, I've not had much trouble timing the market. I just read comments like yours and know enough to know that I don't know everything so I learn from 'em and use the comments and use them to aid my decision making. I tend to buy and just wait. I've got patience. Then when it reaches a reasonable value, I bail. I'm not that greedy and there's no reason to stay all in if I can make a healthy profit. Hell, I don't even check stock prices daily, sometimes not for weeks.

  6. Re:Anyone else think she could be a plant? on Yahoo To Spin Off Everything That Makes It Yahoo (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    About a year ago, I sold a bunch of Yahoo! shares and made a mint. I believe it was a year ago last November, mid-month. You can probably find the valuation at one of the many stock ticker sites. I'm not sure of the exact dates but I believe I'd held the shares for about a year and a half. It was pretty lucrative and those should let you figure out some of the numbers involved.

    I'm kind of thinking that you're not really up-to-date with that whole investor thing. I'd suggest hiring a professional if you opt to go that route. No, I am not a professional. However, myself and a number of other people certainly enjoyed the ride. Depending on what the market does, I may even loan 'em more money. They've already shown that they pay it back with a very good interest rate.

  7. Re:Sign #9 on Signs You're Doing Devops Wrong (infoworld.com) · · Score: 2

    I am, quite happily, retired. I sold out about eight years ago and I sometimes miss it but I'm never really unhappy with my choice. The thing is, it doesn't seem like this is a difficult thing to figure out. I mean, hell, I managed it. I'd never taken a single business course in my life. I'm a mathematician, not a manager or a business graduate. The hardest thing was letting go, emotionally, and learning to listen to smart people. I don't know everything. I can't. If I need those skills then I should get the best person I can to provide them and then listen to them when they tell me what needs to be done. Otherwise, why hire them?

    It was definitely a life-changing event. Or, more accurately, a series of events. I certainly did not expect to be where I am today. I expected to be in academia somewhere, maybe at an old rustic New England university, and driving an antique Saab to work while I lived in a fixer-upper house from the turn of the 19th century. But, life throws you strange chances and, if you dare, you can try to take advantage of those things and do something different. I was lucky and happened to be in a position where I was able to take risks and then capitalize on it.

    I think that, in particular, was probably what led to the above mentioned management style. "Buggered if I know? That's why I hired you. Tell me what you need and I'll get it for you." Also, I've no moral qualms about poaching good employees, training them, or even sending them to school if they show talent. There weren't a whole lot of traffic engineers at the time and most of them were in fleet management, things like mine vehicular flow management, or dealing with choo-choo trains. Damned right I'll pay for good talent and pay to train someone or cross-train someone who has an aptitude.

    Then again, I sometimes wonder if it was that I didn't have the preconceived notions and I had no idea how to manage people "by the book" that made it work? They weren't employees. They are people without whom the business would have been impossible. Sure, we sometimes made errors and had to crunch to meet deadlines but, yeah? We buckled down and did it. Maybe management school would have killed that. I don't really know.

    I'd probably write a book detailing my experiences and lessons learned but I doubt anyone would read it and actually listen to it. I do, sometimes, hope there's a manager or two on Slashdot that reads these responses from people like you. They won't listen to me but they might listen to you and understand that it impacts you in a meaningful fashion and that also impacts the bottom line. Not to mention, from the way some of you folks describe it, it must suck to be a "human resource." Even when we finally had over 200 employees, we didn't have an HR department. I kind of find the idea appalling.

  8. Re:Fuck Wired, Fuck Gizmoto on Wired Thinks It Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    Nah, if anything someone in the police probably leaked it. I really am not sure where these fall as far as taxation but I'm pretty sure they're gonna have to declare them somewhere and that might be before they're liquidated, it really depends on how they classify it. I mean, it's earned income and capital gains. It's not by a standard means.

    You know, I don't know how mining works for declaration. I wonder if that might actually be how it is classified? Though I think they use an estimated value and depreciation and costs for taxation purposes? I'm really positive they're gonna wanna know about it and it's probably covered by some regulation if they're at all like the US. Where that line item is, I have no idea. It should be interesting. I really wouldn't be surprised to see it work however mines work in Australia.

  9. Ah, just in time. See the new Yahoo! thread? ;-) Nah, they're not trash. They might not be of any value to *you* but they're certainly of value to someone. They've got like a billion users and own a whole bunch of other properties. I don't actually know any of those users, come to think of it. But they've got 'em and they're hard at work taking what they can from 'em. We've got people on this site who pay them to host their email, in this day and age and on this site. Nah, they're not trash just not what you want to use.

    On the other hand, they did make me some rather decent money just by loaning them some cash for a little while. So, they're not trash in those regards either. In fact, it was (and still is) a fairly healthy asset and you should know better than to pay attention to market caps. ;-) Those numbers don't mean a whole lot, at least not as far as I can tell. Half the time I'm pretty sure they just make 'em up.

    Also, remember this conversation and look at VW stock for the next 18 - 24 months. Expect a drop in early 2016 and consider buying then. *nods* They're not going anywhere and you'll almost certainly make a good percentage on it. A few people have pushed the value back up instead of letting it stay flat for a while but it'll go back down some - maybe lower than it was in November, this may depend on the fallout but the timing should be fairly close. Then just sit on it until you've reached the percentage growth you want. If you're as lazy as I am, you can even automate this sort of thing with your favorite online trade site. It's kind of neat. I dunno what I'm doing but I'm doing it fairly well so far. Err... If you're adventurous, take out a loan or something but keep in mind that it's just really high-stakes gambling - play the player, not the house.

  10. Re:Why IoT ? on XSS Can Take Down Your IoT Wind Turbine (softpedia.com) · · Score: 2

    My solar and wind both have a box that display output, current storage, what's going out over the mains, etc. It has a history and all that. I can connect to it via a browser but I can't do it from outside of my LAN. If the source traffic isn't from within the local network, it's not getting there. Yes, there is a firewall and a NAT router between them and the 'net. Hell, I'm pretty sure one of the settings will let me configure it so that I can only connect to it with a specific IP address and then I still need user/password to view it. I'd also add, I can't actually *do* anything to it from the information panel. That requires that I go down and use physically use the controller in the basement.

    So, no... I don't think XSS can take down my wind turbine. It just doesn't seem likely. It might take down somebody else's but the odds of it taking down mine are pretty damned slim. I might not be the most intelligent person on the planet and that's my saving grace. See, I know that I'm not intelligent enough to put it on the internet safely.

  11. Re:Fuck Wired, Fuck Gizmoto on Wired Thinks It Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is (wired.com) · · Score: 2

    Hmm... I'm not sure where to begin and I'm not an expert in Australian tax law.

    If, for instance, you sell your business you can't just stuff the money into an investment account quickly and avoid being taxed at the income tax levels. You get taxed at income tax levels and then you invest and the profits from the investments (and just the profits) are taxed as capital gains rates. If not listed and taxed (regardless of liquid status) this might be income in Australian law.

    I think it's interesting because for them to tax this as income they'll have to declare it has value, officially. They may even need to declare it's a currency. This could have wide-reaching implications.

    That said, I'm not an accountant nor an expert on their tax code. I do, however, have a passing familiarity with such and I do employ an accountant. For the record, I pay all of my taxes. In my case, it was a little odd. When I sold my business a goodly portion was payment in shares from the now-parent company. They actually increased in value and I was unable to sell them or trade them immediately because of SEC(?) rules. (I don't remember if it was 60 days or 6 months but it was one of those. You can't just sell 'em immediately.)

  12. Re:Police were quick to act! on Wired Thinks It Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is (wired.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hmm... I can kind of, sort of, see tax information being private for individuals. Back in 2008 or so, someone doxxed me, partially, and that resulted in someone posting my tax information online. It kind of felt intrusive and sucked to have it made public. I did the only "rational" thing that I could think of and that was just to accept it and move on. Sure, they got to see that I'd donated a bunch of money and had made a few dollars but it wasn't too bad. I'd made the mistake of mentioning the parent company that bought my company and, sure enough, that information was enough to get them started.

    It was just felt intrusive. I know it's public information and all that but, really, it just seemed excessive. The forum's dead but I'm sure the stuff is cached somewhere. It might not seem like much and, really, so they learned I give money to Red Cross, ACLU, Heifer International, etc... I did have some negative repercussions. I had people crawling out of the woodwork to email me and asking me to support this cause, that cause, etc. I got hate-mail (I even got some snail mail) for not donating to a few causes. (The urge to name and shame is strong but these weren't "official" things but just zealots.) I'm not entirely sure how they got all of the information but they managed to put enough together and dox me pretty well.

    Now, I'm running for office in 2016 and that means I'll be subjected to more scrutiny but that's because I'm electing to do put myself in that position. I'm accepting that I'll be public information (for a very small group of people, it's a rather tiny district) and I'm okay with that. There's a big difference between that and being doxxed and having your tax information posted online. I was already in the process of moving so it wasn't too tough to change some of the information but I ended up closing a few sites, getting rid of some email addresses, and things like that.

    So, I guess, I can kind of see keeping tax data private for individuals or I can at least see a reason why we might want to have that discussion as a society. I'd not done anything wrong and I didn't stress over it a whole lot but it sucked. I got some pretty crappy emails, a bunch of begging emails, regular mail, and had to clean up after that but it really felt intrusive. It did show that I paid my taxes, in full, to the letter of the law. It did show that I have some favorite charities. I can imagine that it'd be much worse if I didn't pay my taxes or if I'd been donating to causes that were harmful. I also imagine that it would have been different if I'd stressed out over it and gone on an internet rampage trying to take it all down.

    Meh... It's probably cached somewhere. One could probably find it by Googling my SSN. The genie doesn't go back in the bottle. 'Snot much I can do but it still kind of sucks. So, as I said, maybe we can have that discussion but it does presuppose that the government is doing its job and collecting taxes effectively and efficiently.

  13. Mine double-clicks. However, I'd like to (without bothering to use a fancy mouse, I own a few but haven't liked many of the larger ones) be able to do combinations. I'd like to be able to left-click + middle-click and have it do one thing and all the combinations therein up to and including variations depending on which was pressed and held first. I've had some nice Microsoft mice that did a decent job and weren't too uncomfortable but I have an RSI (and won't let them operate on it) in my right wrist and I just find the larger mice to be uncomfortable.

    For the record, the wrist is sometimes flared up to the point where opening a door is difficult, turning the handle doesn't work well. Any rotation, at all, is quite painful and any weight sucks. Oddly, if I just use a keyboard then it flares up less often so I do a lot of that but the rodent still gets used until it flairs up again and I start the cycle anew. I'd still like to be able to press and hold the middle mouse button and then right click or left click to perform different tasks such as copy/paste, save, open, etc... A combination would be awesome.

    Hmm... It might not even be that difficult, really. I should look into that and be a little less lazy.

  14. Re:Devoops on Signs You're Doing Devops Wrong (infoworld.com) · · Score: 1

    I've been to your site before! I recognize it from mousing over the penguin images and they yelled at me. It took me a minute to figure out how the squawking was being initiated the first time I visited. Now I think I know how I got there. I assume that I followed your signature or a link you posted. I might have just been looking for penguins, I guess, but that's unlikely.

    No, I have no real point but I do encourage folks to click your link and check out the penguins. I got distracted so I have no idea what actually did there but, damn it, penguins!

  15. Re:Sign #9 on Signs You're Doing Devops Wrong (infoworld.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm glad you asked... I could preface this with a long-winded history but I'm going to skip that (this time) for the sake of brevity (really). Well, I'm going to *try* to be articulate.

    I started programming because I had a need to. I did this for quite some time along with a Comp Sci grad who was my first employee but he didn't do as much of the programming as one might think -- he had other things to do as we were really pushing the hardware further than it was meant to go. Imagine, if you will, the 1990s and, by the end of the 1990s, we were working with data sets that were nearly a TB in size and spread out over giant disk arrays.

    Anyhow, the business grew. This meant that my time was severely constrained. I was putting in 20 hour days, often for weeks at a time, and sleeping in the office. This could not last and eventually I hired competent people who were skilled in the mystical art of programming. They were far more adept than myself and much quicker. They were expensive but worth it. They even went so far as to re-write the entire code base because, "Code comments go in the code, not on a coffee stained index card on your desk, asshole!" (That's pretty close to verbatim.)

    Now, we didn't have a name for it and I don't know if there is a name for it. But, I tried micromanaging and I tried to keep up and to keep things directed, I really did. I tried to be involved in every commit and every push to production. I tried to understand the new complexity and the new functions when, really, all I needed to do was help them tweak algorithms and help them learn to automate data manipulation tasks. I was still putting in 20 hour days.

    Then, I realized I'd hired them for a reason. I'd hired them because they were the best in their field. I hired them because they knew what they were doing and were better at it than I was (which is not a hard task, let me assure you). I paid them very good salaries and gave them great benefits because they were keeping my company afloat and enabling us to expand exponentially. Yet, I wasn't really letting them do their job to the best of their ability.

    See, I learned to shut the hell up and get out of the way. Now, I suspect there's no "Shut the fuck up and listen to smart people" mode of development but I can tell you that it is quite successful. I gave them clear directions. They told me what they needed. They told me when it would be done. I gave them the tools they asked for, not the ones a vendor suggested, and shut the hell up and got out of the damned way.

    In the interests of brevity, it worked. I am where I am today because of them and because of my being willing to set my ego aside and accept that I'd hired people for a reason. It was hard, this was my baby. No, seriously, it was damned hard to let go. Now, I don't know what they did internally but it looked like they took directions, planned, and then executed. The difference is, they were given what they said they needed, rewarded for their effort, and had a vested interest in success. They didn't have a leader, a supervisor, or anything like that. They had a goal, picked what they did best, and worked on it until it was done.

    I don't know what you call it but, well, hire smart people and pay them well. Let them do what you hired them to do. Give them help when they need it. Give them the tools they ask for. Give them a reason to KNOW that they can screw up. Be willing to screw up and admit your errors and learn from them yourself. Treat them like adults and they'll sort out who does what and when - all on their own and without any input from you beyond giving them direction. If they can't then you hired the wrong people.

    So, yeah, thanks for asking. That's what worked best for me. Try it sometime. It means letting go of your ego, it means being willing to admit you're wrong, and it means treating people like adults who deserve to be rewarded for hard effort and earn a decent living. It means being smart enough to know what you don't know and being willing to ask someone who does

  16. Re:who gives a shit? on Wired Thinks It Knows Who Satoshi Nakamoto Is (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    Err... Hmm... You know, I live on the border and cross with an alarming frequency. I have property in Canada and, by heritage, am a citizen of Canada as well as the United States. I don't think I've had an issue with a credit or debit card and I've never had an issue with cash - ever. And yes, I go further than just beyond the border but that doesn't really apply as the vast majority of the Canadian population lives within something like 50 miles of the border.

    I've carried credit and debit cards around the globe. I've carried cash to those same areas. I have had to make exchanges or have been limited in what I was allowed to spend or exchange but I've never really had a problem paying for goods, even illicit goods, anywhere I've ever been. Hell, I'm in a foreign country right now (Washington D.C.) and they seem content to take my money!

  17. Re:possible leaked insider letter? on HTC Delays Vive VR Launch Until April 2016 (htc.com) · · Score: 1

    If you want to follow the trail, start here:
    http://www.neogaf.com/forum/sh...

    Basically, likely debunked and some known-troll on Reddit originated the pastebin as far as people are claiming. I'd respond to a slightly more topical AC below your post but then you mightn't see it and ACs are not generally a priority. You seem legitimately interested. I was curious so I copied a sentence and searched Google and followed a couple of links.

  18. Re:the what, now? on Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    For you and for the uninitiated:
    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

    Yeah... Just, umm... Just, yeah... Have a peek at that review. ;-)

  19. Re:Burnt by early adoption, again. on Mozilla Will Stop Developing and Selling Firefox OS Smartphones (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    I have a fairly cheap Samsung phone with Windows on it. I wanted to give them a try. Considering the hardware specs? It's fantastic! I even get *updates* in a timely fashion. I can't think of anything that I want to do with it that I can not do with it and I'm a pretty happy Linux user. I don't like Android.

    I should also add, I'm not overly fond of the devices as compute devices. I do browse, send emails, send texts, and make phone calls but I've never installed an application on it and I've already got dedicated GPS devices but the phone works for that just fine. I've bought upwards of a dozen tablets (for my own use) and just sent a couple off not that long ago (before I left home to go on my romp). I've just not been able to get any real use out of them for anything other than browsing the web and the few other things I mentioned.

    I want to like them. I mean, I really want to like them. The closest I've come to liking them is a phone with a sliding keyboard and then I only use it for composing texts, emails, and entering URLs into the browser. At any rate, I'd been pondering buying a Windows phone for a while and someone here finally pushed me over the edge. I had one sent to me from home and have been pretty happy with it.

    I know... I know... Yes, it's a Microsoft product. I'm pretty happy with it. I guess I can put Windows 10 on it but I've not bothered figuring out how to nor will I probably bother doing so. I'm probably just going to stop in and buy one that takes a SIM card at some shop somewhere (I now know my carrier supports this - they didn't the last time I'd checked, which was years ago, and they wouldn't activate an unbranded phone) and I'll probably get something with a bit more compute power and space. No, I'm not sure why. It's just what I do.

  20. Heh... We're gonna get the clipboard functioning with the kernel used to serve it up and implemented with systemd. It'll get tied in to the kernel, parsed with clipboardd, and you'll be able to use your favorite middle-button-click settings that way.

    I'm only partially kidding. Actually, I'm not sure where the clipboard is stored, I've never bothered to look, and I'm not sure how it is implemented - it may already be functioning at a server level for all I know. Seems unlikely but I'm not gonna go chase it down and look. At any rate... The middle-button-click is for double-click! (I sure as hell hope that that's supported.)

  21. I made a killing on Yahoo! just recently. Almost exactly a year ago, I don't have the date handy, I dumped some shares (like 1800) that I bought for far less than what I paid. I don't know as I'd call them trash, they seem to be doing just fine. You might not like them and, indeed, I don't use a single service they offer nor do I even have their site in my browser's history or bookmarks but that's not an indication that they're trash.

    You never used their services but feel compelled to tell us how it worked and that you had to sift through stuff, while not using their services. You seem to know a lot about something you never used. Then you tell us how it was cluttered and full of ads... On a site you 'still never used their service.' Which one is it?

    Hell, I used to use their curated site and their search engine wasn't really that bad. I used their email and chat. I just don't any more because I've migrated away from those things and found alternatives. I'd still not call them trash.

    Oh, wait, you wanted to feel smug and trendy. Never mind then. I'll just be over here enjoying my stock market lottery winnings. ;-)

    Seriously, I don't actually know what they do but it was a pretty damned good buy. Lots of people were saying they were dead 'cause their stock value had plummeted but others pointed out that they had a ton of assets so, I bought a bunch. I bought a bunch more a few days later. Then I just sat on it and it increased by a factor of about 10 as I recall. I think I held the shares for a year and a half, maybe a bit more. I'd hardly call that trash and it would appear that someone agrees with me. Hell, if they get back down to a price like that again, I'll do it again. I dunno what I'm doing but I'm doing pretty good at it.

    At any rate, I'd not recommend buying them at the moment but don't take it from me as I'm just patient and able to take the risks. If you can put money in and leave it then wait for these companies to slump and then buy. If you want a tip then let the fallout from VW happen and just as they're back in the news for going to court over it - buy and wait a few years. Take a loan out, if you have to. Spend 100k on shares and just sit on them and pay your loan off. I almost guarantee you'll make a shitton of money doing this. I just watch trends and read the gibberish you folks write on sites like this and then I take a look at the actual numbers and assets. It's more lucrative than working ever was. I don't even check values daily or weekly as a general rule. Sit on it like an investment and it's not a bad deal. Just wait for something to make something sell low then wait patiently.

    Oh wait... Err... Mozilla? Yeah, I think the worst phone review that I ever read was about Firefox OS being put on some really cheap phone and being pretty much useless. This might not be a bad idea. It'd be nice if someone good picks up Thunderbird. And Yahoo! isn't that shitty, really. Lots of people still seem to use it. They've got some value which means they're not really trash. Hell, I made some money on 'em. So, they're good for something. (Also, keep an eye on VW. I expect mid-2016 to be when they head even lower than they were in November.)

  22. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    History is littered with the bones of the people who came from peaceful civilizations. Not one, not one single one, lasted for very long when they came into contact with other people. Given that contact is so trivial to make, we can extrapolate from there. Keep in mind, I'm a Buddhist. I'm telling you right now, peaceful doesn't work long-term. (I'm sure you agree, I'm just expanding and not arguing.)

    We're a pragmatic lot, we Buddhists, and I don't think people are going to just suddenly listen to reason and change their behavior. They haven't changed yet. I'm not entirely sure why people say that it could happen when all evidence points to the contrary. Every peaceful civilization has been conquered. This has not changed nor is it going to so long as people are people.

    On an individual level, some of us can be acceptable. That's all well and good until someone else decides they don't want to be an acceptable human being. From a purely objective view, I'd suggest that we might have evolved to have these characteristics for a reason. It's good for genetic swapping, culling the herd, innovation, and finding the most fit specimens. I'm sure we can think of other things that it is good for.

    No, I don't have the solution. I don't even pretend to have the solution. I do have a way to cope. "Put on your man-panties and suck it up. Shit happens. We can do what we can to minimize it but conflict is inevitable. It's surely as much a law as is entropy." And, again, this is just taking your idea and running with it and not an attempt to argue. Sadly, with some, this needs clarification. Some folks seem to think that communication isn't possible without arguing. You see that here often. I dare say that it ties in nicely with the topic of this very post.

  23. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    The 18th was repealed and the number remains empty, I assume this will be true if any of the others are repealed. The 21st is not the 20th, after all.

  24. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    You've probably gone through the thread and missed it. Check sycodon's post:
    http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...

    It's something to throw into the mix. I knew the president had that power, sort of, but I thought it was an enumerated war power or emergency power. They link to an actual authoritative source which, of course, doesn't make them right but does lend some weight to it. It is from Cornell and probably a bit more authoritative than a couple of pundits in an op-ed piece with the various biases such might include.

    I do not, as of yet, know enough about this to hold an opinion but their quote and link indicate that this might be constitutional. That does not, of course, mean it is good policy, sane, or even going to help anything. Nor does it mean that I agree that we should elect Trump but that's probably a given.

  25. Re:Oh, for cryin' out loud.... on Eric Schmidt Proposes 'Hate Spell-Checker' For Radical and Terrorist Content (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    It seems there's a few targeting the 2nd. Oddly, people seem to be convinced it's one side or the other that's targeting the first. I'd submit that it is both and for varied reasons but the end result is surely the same.

    I do sometimes wonder if it would be worth trying to find somewhere else to live. The only problem with that is that I'm not a coward and I am, truly, a patriot. It mightn't seem like that, to some, but I can assure them that I am, indeed, a patriot. Just because I want free speech and the right to own firearms to be maintained (or even strengthened) does not mean I hate my country, it means I love my country.

    I dare say, I can't think of any amendment that I'd want revoked in their entirety. I'd probably tweak a few if I had a good idea what the outcome would be and it were favorable, long-term, but I can't think of any that I'd revoke. Oh, sure, I'd get rid of some laws and want to overturn some rulings, were I elected Supreme Ruler of the Galaxy or something, but I don't think that makes me less a patriot than others. Were I elected as such then I'd probably only act for a single year and then return things to their slightly amended/repaired state.

    And, by now, you're surely aware that specifics are available but I'll save the bytes as I understand it's hunting season right now so I should save some for the rest of the world. I'd make sure the first month of my Supreme Galaxy Ruling Duties were filled with getting the entire population, adult of course, completely wrecked on their substance of choice and making them all turn off their televisions and go outside and interact with each other - face-to-face, and then help each other deal with the massive hangovers afterwards. Yes, we'll be dysfunctional but it just might work. It might take more than a month of intoxication. Those that don't get intoxicated will be tasked with cleaning up after the rest of us.

    Hmm... I have a plan! To the voting booth! Sadly, the post is both vacant and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Whilst I shall, perhaps, be elected in 2016 - I'm pretty sure a mere State Senator from Maine will not be allowed to wield such power. As near as I can tell, the only perks that come with that job are the right to not be interfered with while traveling to an open-session. That means means, basically, I could be purposely late and drive as fast as I want and, if the Senate is in session, the police may not stop me. I believe policy is that they give me an escort and write tickets and/or arrest after the session is officially closed.

    I have a plan! To the voting booth! Well now, that's kind of off-topic. ;-) Moderators, to the voting booth!