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User: littlewink

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  1. One War I Don't Wanna Watch! on Chatroulette Working On Genital Recognition Algorithm · · Score: 1

    I've seen the captcha wars: this sounds 10x worse. Who know what kind of new Japanese porn will evolve as a result.

  2. May Be An Improvement on The South Carolina Primary and Voting Machine Fraud · · Score: 1

    Look, SC has been voting crooks into office for generations. So finally they can elect a man who is openly flawed, i.e., human. He'll probably be better (and more honest) than most of his predecessors.

  3. Yet Another Reason to Skip High School on Texas Schools Board Rewriting US History · · Score: 1

    Roger Schank is right. The American educational system is a failure. Here we have boneheads arguing about the details of history texts when the real question is whether history is even relevant. What did anyone get from history other than that it's one damn fact after another?

  4. Re:Doesn't explain... on Ball Lightning Caused By Magnetic Hallucinations · · Score: 1

    "showing a guy with his balls on fire (this is for all intents and purposes considered 'ball lightning')"

    That would be Joe Mulroy, Fall of 1967.

  5. Kill Them And Eat Them on Don't Talk To Aliens, Warns Stephen Hawking · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That was the conclusion of a Playboy interview concerning aliens years ago (I don't remember who they were interviewing). The analogy was, if I remember correctly, to the Piraha people of South America, who did just that to the Spanish invaders. As a consequence the Piraha were left alone for another hundred years, while all other triebes who allowed the Spanish in were devastated.

  6. And Once In Shanghai, Chinese will seize all... on VisLab Sponsors Milan-to-Shanghai Driverless Trek · · Score: 1

    systems and use them to create SKYNET.

  7. Re:How Do We Know the NSA Is Any Smarter Than Goog on It's Time To Split Up NSA Between Spooks and Geeks · · Score: 1
    Total utter horse puckey. You're saying that the current NSA is the "best of all possible worlds". Congress doesn't have any idea of what the NSA does. Even the congressmen "overseeing" the NSA have given up. We're coasting on fears left over from WWII and the NSA exploits those fears to keep its budget. Shitcanning the NSA and starting over would:
    1. Save billions of dollars, dollars that could be used for better purposes (e.g., see below),
    2. Clean up some of our government's violations of civil rights,
    3. Provide an opportunity to build agencies that were properly monitored.

    The NSA isn't cost-effective and it's a wasteful duplication of effort by other agencies: we don't need to spend trillions on electronic monitoring. We need feet on the ground in enemy territory. That isn't the NSA's domain.

  8. How Do We Know the NSA Is Any Smarter Than Google? on It's Time To Split Up NSA Between Spooks and Geeks · · Score: 1

    We don't know all of what the NSA does, what it spends, how often it succeeds/fails (or even what that means). Nobody is measuring the NSA for cost/effectiveness. One of the few things we _do_ know about the NSA is that some of the shit they pull violates U.S. citizens' constitutional rights.

    What we should do is shitcan the current NSA and start over again. But this time build something that is monitored to ensure that, whatever it does, it does that effectively.

    Of course the same could be said about the CIA, FBI and hundreds of other government agencies. But we spend so much more on the NSA. It is a true budgetary black hole.

  9. This happened on my Citroen 2CV... on $1M Prize For Finding Cause of Unintended Acceleration · · Score: 1

    but nobody noticed.

  10. What About Stops On Hills? on $1M Prize For Finding Cause of Unintended Acceleration · · Score: 1

    When at a stop while driving uphill a common technique is to use the left foot to control the brake and the right to control the throttle. When the light changes to green, you don't let off the brake until the throttle has been opened sufficiently to prevent the car from rolling backwards. If you don't use this technique then, when you lift your foot from the brake, the car rolls backwards! Note that this is done only in this particular circumstance and that, in general, it is dangerous to drive using both feet. This is a rare instance where it is unsafe to drive without using both feet.

    With the proposed modified software, this will no longer be possible. So on a hillside stop your car may roll backward into following cars because any brake pedal pressure whatsoever will reduce throttle to 0. What is worse, pedestrians skipping between cars may be crushed. Please convince me I am wrong.

    There are advantages to the "analog" feedback present in the drivetrain of older cars that lack software control.

  11. Line the Wall With Aluminum Foil on Killer Apartment Vs. Persistent Microwave Exposure? · · Score: 1

    But first roll a giant ball of foil and go into the apartment. If it starts to spark, then you probably will need to do what the subject line says.

    Foil is cheap: sanity is priceless.

  12. What About Stops On Hills? on Should I Take Toyota's Software Update? · · Score: 1

    When at a stop while driving uphill a common technique is to use the left foot to control the brake and the right to control the throttle. When the light changes to green, you don't let off the brake until the throttle has been opened sufficiently to prevent the car from rolling backwards. If you don't use this technique then, when you lift your foot from the brake, the car rolls backwards! Note that this is done only in this particular circumstance and that, in general, it is dangerous to drive using both feet. This is a rare instance where it is unsafe to drive without using both feet.

    With the modified software, this will no longer be possible. So on a hillside stop your car may roll backward into following cars because any brake pedal pressure whatsoever will reduce throttle to 0. What is worse, pedestrians skipping between cars may be crushed. Please convince me I am wrong.

    There are advantages to the "analog" feedback present in the drivetrain of older cars that lack software control.

  13. Re:The racist 1940s on Two Chinese Schools Reportedly Tied To Online Attacks · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Chinese immigrants to the USA are far less patriotic (to the USA) than were Japanese immigrants to the USA during WWII. In fact, somewhere between one-third and one-half of Chinese immigrants are already spying/aiding for the Chinese mainland in some way. Ask any sample of Chinese immigrants to the USA about where their loyalties lie. At the very best they are ambivalent.

    In a war with China the USA would have serious problems with its internal Chinese population. The lessons of the unjust Japanese imprisonment in WWII would not apply. We would be forced to imprison the Chinese. That would not be a racist act but a reasonable and necessary one.

    You have made the mistake of comparing two situations that appear to be similar but that are in fact quite different.

  14. What use is a gun that won't shoot? on Gun With Wireless Arming Signal Goes On Sale Soon · · Score: 2, Informative

    And a similar system has been available since the 70's: The The Magna-Trigger Conversion is a ring that activates a firearm.

    Costs about $350 + $60 for each ring.

  15. Re:So? on The FBI Wants To Know About Your IT Skills · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Did they also give you permission to shoot to kill when martial law is declared?

  16. Members allowed to "Shoot to Kill"? on The FBI Wants To Know About Your IT Skills · · Score: 1

    You too can become a James Bond of IT with rights to"shoot to kill".

    More details.

  17. More Valuable As Fireworks Display Than as Weapon on Russia Confirms Failed Missile Launch Caused Norway's Light Show · · Score: 1

    The Russians have produced the most stunning fireworks display I've seen in 20 years. If they can reproduce it and commercialize it they may be able to compete with the Chinese. Forget about ICBMs: the money's in fireworks.

  18. They're All Owned By the NSA on Mozilla Exec Urges Switch From Google To Bing · · Score: 1

    Google's has everyone's searches and is taking over DNS now. Microsoft has likely inserted backdoors for the NSA. Undoubtedly open-source developers are recruited by the NSA (and other governments) to implement backdoors in Linux. In the USA the combination of sure money and government strong-arming is just too convincing. How could you say no?

  19. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain... on New Research Forecasts Global 6C Increase By End of Century · · Score: 1

    nor to the statistician modifying data values.

  20. Any Known Backdoors in Win9x, WinNT, Win2K, or XP? on Microsoft Denies It Built Backdoor Into Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    I haven't heard of any, although all had plenty of bugs.

  21. Re:Brain Drain on Study Says US Needs Fewer Science Students · · Score: 1

    Weren't most of the USA's scientists working on the big name projects of the last 50 years foreign born anyway?

    Not nearly. Immigrants compose a fraction of researchers. And this is true of the Manhattan Project. But it's easier to write and sell stories about the big names.

  22. Re:how many scientists are enough? on Study Says US Needs Fewer Science Students · · Score: 1

    A single Einstein is worth an infinite number of mediocre physicists who never end up producing any work in their careers.

    Often histories show a winner-take-all attitude toward scientific progress. Such an attitude ignores that many, if not most, great advancements result from periods of intense competition between highly-skilled scientists. It's a crap shoot as to who gets credit.

    Today we might be praising Poincare instead of Einstein. Poincare was Einstein's equal or better in most fields but he didn't "click" as fast on certain aspects of the theory. Poincare, Lorentz, Fitzerald, Larmor and others had worked out the math. At the time Einstein published, Poincare and others were running neck-and-neck with Einstein. But Einstein saw the missing piece of the puzzle first and so is often credited with creating all of relativity theory out of thin air, which is far from the truth. Given another month Poincare or someone else would have cracked the nut. Poincare was certainly leading in the early part of the race.

    My point is, even without Einstein, a better understanding of the theory of relativity was imminent.

  23. Re:Look before you leap on Moving Away From the IT Field? · · Score: 1

    I know several IT companies that will only hire Gitmo alumni as managers.

    That's because they hold better interviews!8-))

  24. NSA An Incredible Waste Of Money and People on Google Envisions 10 Million Servers · · Score: 1

    What a shame that huge dollar amounts are tossed to this un-audited (even by itself) organization with no or even negative return (they keep providing incorrect information in critical cases). Perhaps someday US citizens will realize we're better off getting an answer of "I don't know." instead of a supposedly definite "yes" or "no" when asking questions about foreign countries (and now, about us). Then we can lay off the staff of the NSA, go back to humint techniques and get something done.

  25. Cooking Made Us Fatter, Not Brighter on Cooking May Have Made Us Human · · Score: 1

    The article: "leading to larger brains and more free time."

    A larger brain is not the key to man's intelligence. Some Neanderthals had larger brains than we. Derek Bickerton lays to rest the idea that "larger brains" make us human. See any of his academic books for details.

    As for more free time, if that made us any brighter then /. would be crock full of blinkin' geniuses.