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Submission + - Contest for Guessing When Ice will Melt Has New Record in 97 Year History (adn.com)

JimboFBX writes: The Nenana Ice Classic is a contest held in Alaska where a tripod is placed on the Tanana River in the winter and for the past 97 years the winner(s) is whomever is closest at guessing the exact date and time it will fall over from the ice underneath it melting in the spring. This year a new record was set as it melted on May 20th at 2:41 pm, the latest ever. The Ice Classic has been a barometer for climate change as one can see it has on average melted earlier and earlier, especially in the past decade. To put things in perspective, the last time it fell on May 8th or later was in 2001. This is the first time in the past two decades it has lasted longer than that. In 1992 it melted on May 14th and that was a freakishly strong winter. Seven of the past ten years the ice melted May 2nd or earlier. Does this start to mark the turning point for climate change, or is it more proof of the extremes that are to come as the Earth continues to heat up?

Comment law enforcement (Score 3, Insightful) 405

Law enforcement and the justice system needs an overhaul. Long delays for trials, a system where you must show up in person to defend trivial offenses or even ENTER YOUR PLEA, even if you don't live in the same state, one where your own state won't help defend you but they'll help arrest you for outstanding warrants or FTAs. That's a system where it can be more expensive to defend your innocence than to falsely admit guilt. One where you can call up a clerk and they literally won't give any assistance at all because "they aren't allowed to give legal advice". A system so complex and full of contradictions you need a degree to understand it, and even then a lot of it is up to interpretation. A system where laws are intentionally set against social norms (speed limit) or are ridiculously outdated with the only purpose to rob people for the purpose of filling coffers (speed cameras in a school zone near a high school).

The definition of highway robbery now means I got pulled over for doing something trivial that people violate on a daily basis (such as speeding when the flow of traffic is over the speed limit) and given a completely unfair and expensive ticket ($115 for 1 mph over the speed limit), rather than being robbed by actual criminals.

Submission + - Baseball Software Can't Score What Jean Segura Did Friday (go.com) 1

JimboFBX writes: Interesting piece of baseball history happened on Friday. Jean Segura of the Milwaukee Brewers stole second, tried to steal third too early, but made it back to second before being tagged. The problem was that teammate Ryan Braun already made it to second on the steal attempt. After tags were applied to both baserunners, Segura started trotting to the dug out before realizing that he wasn't out, Braun was, and his only option was to make it back to first. He then of course proceeded to try to steal second base again. The software for keeping the box score? Doesn't (yet) support someone running backwards on the bases. Looks like that will have to change.

Comment Stream still didn't work behind a firewall (Score 1, Informative) 298

I had the privilege of trying to install stream from behind a hotel firewall/router. Still doesn't work. Would download at under 16 kb/sec and there is hundreds of megs to download. I seen to recall that this is because it only uses a single tcp connection when there is a firewall and basically steam wasn't designed with this in mind. Remember, steam is fundamentally a web browser and file downloader. I know a few games where the stream based server browser also is very spotty. Firewall/NAT issues are pretty common, so if valve is aiming for mainstream then they have so far failed miserably. You need system administrator privileges to get stream to work.

Comment Easy game to fake it (Score 2) 56

Ut2004 is a chaotic game. Very bot friendly especially since you never see a player's perspective (judging was done in game using a tag gun). I'd be more impressed if a bot could recreate the muscle memory twitch and intelligence of a counterstrike player via the first person perspective.

Comment Re:CS is not = IT and IT needs more trades based l (Score 1) 630

I agree, most "CS" or software engineering jobs are actually IT jobs, and most IT jobs seem to require a lot of depth in someone else's technology or a series of technologies. It doesn't help that companies don't let you do your own on the job training. Most CS graduates with proven job experience can learn anything if you give them the chance.

Maybe there wouldn't be such a mercenary culture if companies wouldn't all conglomerate in Seattle or San Fran. $90k can go really really far in most of the US.

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