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User: gestalt_n_pepper

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  1. There will be biomarkers, but then what? on Scientists Seek Biomarkers For Violence · · Score: 1

    You're dealing with probabilities at that point. Child A has a 5% chance of becoming a violent psychopath. Child B had a 95% chance. Do you strangle child B at birth? Or give them their 5% chance of becoming something other than a violent psychopath? Where's the cutoff? And who decides?

    Disclaimer: I live in Texas. We'd let child B grow up malnourished and abused in a slum before killing him for obvious psychopathic behavior verified by objective measurement, but we wouldn't abort ahead of time even if it was an option.

  2. My girlfriend does the same thing. on Researchers Find Some Volcanoes 'Scream' At Increasing Pitches Until They Blow · · Score: 1

    More than coincidence?

  3. Sounds legit. Ater all, what could go wrong? on Colorado Company Says It Plans To Test Hyperloop Transport System · · Score: 1

    Compressed air. Constant 1G acceleration. Underground tunnels. No problem!

  4. Re:Fixed that for you on Steve Ballmer Reorganizing Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Agreed. I like what it *does.* It's just that the syntax adds nothing to the functionality. Any C-form or VB-form language is more readable and maintainable. Powershell, like Perl, follows the naive notion that the most efficient language is the one that is perfectly consistent and uses the smallest number of characters. While this might be correct from a mathematics point of view, it's laughable from a human factors/psychology point of view.

  5. Modern CEOs and managers want slaves on Electrical Engineering Labor Pool Shrinking · · Score: 1

    Preferably unpaid interns. Second in preference are outsourced $2/hour engineers in Sumwaristan. Absolutely dead last are competent, well paid native English-speaking engineers who can be brought up to speed in a month or two.

    Competence and actual productivity of new hires are irrelevant. Neither quality shows up on a spreadsheet. If they do, they can't easily be traced back to the division head who made the hiring policies. If some troublemaker points out the problem, the division head will have moved on to another company or division before it becomes a problem.

    An MBA is now the last resort for psychopaths who are just functional enough and smart enough to avoid jail.

  6. Re:UC admission process on DHS Chief Janet Napolitano Resigns · · Score: 1

    The body cavity search was just a deposit. For the actual fee, they charge and arm and a leg.

  7. Re: Fixed that for you on Steve Ballmer Reorganizing Microsoft · · Score: 1

    The point is that they shouldn't have had to.

  8. Re:Fixed that for you on Steve Ballmer Reorganizing Microsoft · · Score: 2

    Agreed. It was NOT better, however the tools provided by Powershell could have been more easily provided by extending the net framework to be *easily* available via vbscript or jscript. Changing the environment to use tags where old code would work, while allowing new code to be gradually included would have provided backward compatibility AND NOT screwed a few hundred thousand system administrators with a significant code investment.

    And this is the fundamental problem with the shambles that is Microsoft's development platforms. "Well you have to recode...." IS ALWAYS THE WRONG ANSWER.

  9. Re:Fixed that for you on Steve Ballmer Reorganizing Microsoft · · Score: 5, Informative

    A more rational organization would have strangled the syntactic abomination that is powershell at birth.

    Full disclosure: I use and despise Powershell every day. I'm getting better and better at both using and despising it.

  10. Well, yes, it'll work for browsers... on Study Finds Bug Bounty Programs Extremely Cost-Effective · · Score: 2

    where you have millions of folks looking at your free software for long periods of time. If you're a commercial software vendor, however, with a $10,000 non web-based package and at most a few thousand users (There are still a *lot* of these), then this approach is very unlikely to succeed. Commercial software users are rarely interested enough to report a bug that doesn't actively interfere with their daily work.

  11. Re:Gang members ARE domestic terrorists... on Fighting Street Gangs With Military Counter-Insurgency Software · · Score: 1

    if it's used for "good" now, it may not be later.

    This argument can be used for everything from kitchen knives to word processing software. It's an algorithm, with no value in and of itself. People will undoubtedly use it for purposes we might see as both good and evil. It's neither desirable nor possible to suppress technology because of it might one day be used in a way some arbitrary authority thinks is undesirable.

  12. Re:Gang members ARE domestic terrorists... on Fighting Street Gangs With Military Counter-Insurgency Software · · Score: 1

    Wow. Leap to conclusions as your major form of exercise?

    Yes, police can be no better than terrorists. That said, most aren't. Moreover, there's no possibility of having a coherent industrial scale society without policing of some sort.

    If you really think the police are worse than gangs, I suggest you take residence in the Greenspoint or Sharpstown area of Houston for a year or two. Assuming you survive the experience, your opinion of gangs vs. police may end up changing a tad.

    And actually, the biggest gangs are the ones you never see. They wear suits and live in the Hamptons. They wield money which is equivalent to, and often more potent than political power. Both the police, the mafia and the low level gangs work for them whether they know it or not.

  13. Gang members ARE domestic terrorists... on Fighting Street Gangs With Military Counter-Insurgency Software · · Score: 2, Interesting

    whose targets are citizens rather than government personnel or buildings. Frankly, this is one case where I'd say the use of this technology is appropriate and overdue.

  14. Re:A military solution? on Fighting Street Gangs With Military Counter-Insurgency Software · · Score: 1

    But these particular citizens are essentially domestic terrorists whose targets are other citizens, not buildings. Strikes me as an appropriate use of the technology.

  15. Nuke it from orbit. on Got Malware? Get a Hammer! · · Score: 1

    It's the only way to be sure.

  16. This is why the good lord invented Linux and VMs on The Black Underbelly of Windows 8.1 'Blue' · · Score: 1

    Install Linux as base OS. Always surf from a Linux virtual machine. Only use Windows when virtualized, and only when necesarry.

  17. This will be very handy... on Researchers Complete New Gondwana Map · · Score: 4, Funny

    The next time I take vacation in Gondwanaland.

  18. Re:Ok, lets talk about what Silicon Valley REALLY on Silicon Valley In 2013 Resembles Logan's Run In 2274 · · Score: 2

    Open source may be where "it" is at, but you'll notice that the dinosaurs like Apple, Google and Facebook are shuffling around a wee bit more money than even the most successfull "open source" anything.

    Yes, Silicon valley is a consumer of open source. Why not? "Never give a sucker an even break," is an adage businesspeople still take to heart.

    So, feel free. Go do some work for free on your latest "open source" project. Someone will be along to collect it and sell it, by and by.

  19. Because of course, nobody influences poll results on According To YouGov Poll, Snowden Support Declining Among Americans · · Score: 1

    Certainly not the NSA. I'm shocked. Shocked! to hear anyone suggest such a thing. What was your name again?

  20. Re:29 years old on Silicon Valley In 2013 Resembles Logan's Run In 2274 · · Score: 5, Funny

    At 55, it sure *looks* that way.

  21. The future is now... on Detroit's Emergency Dispatch System Fails · · Score: 1

    It's just not evenly distributed. On the plus side, Detroit would make a great game backdrop.

  22. Accountants. HR. Insane/Malignant managers... on Things That Scare the Bejeezus Out of Programmers · · Score: 1

    In no particular order. Microsoft "dead ending" whatever technology I've committed to for a client. That's become a big one. Stupidity in general. Aging and its effects on my cognition. Typpos. The return of my cancer. Economic collapse. The price of gasoline by 2020 ($12/gal. in today's money. Ouch!). The next version of Windows (Shudder....).

  23. Microsoft doesn't want to be bothered... on Microsoft To Shut Down TechNet Subscription Service · · Score: 1

    ...with the OS or the language platform anymore. Not enough long term profit in it. They want to be a sort of Cloud/HP/Apple. They want to be a smartphone/tablet and internet based business services vendor and that's it. There's apparently just not enough profit in the OS or supporting application developers.

    Why don't they just admit it so we can all move on? Linux awaits.

  24. Moron Alert! Moron Alert! on Microsoft To Shut Down TechNet Subscription Service · · Score: 1

    (Or, What can a clueless Microsoft management fuck up this week?)

    Microsoft wants to cut down on piracy of its development tools.

    All Java developement tools are free.

    SharpDevelop is free.

    Any questions?

  25. Re:Yet another great argument... on D.C. Awards Obamacare IT Work To Offshore Outsourcer · · Score: 1

    If you mean "The Heritage Foundation" I have a bridge I could sell you...