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Comment I admit to putting too much time into Flappy Birds (Score 2) 113

So, yeah, I downloaded Swing Copters. And then I played it... for about two minutes.

Nguyen stated he wanted to come up with a game that was "less addictive" than Flappy Birds, and I think he accomplished that - by creating a new game that will almost certainly irritate and annoy most people very quickly. That game is freaking impossible!

Comment Re:I doubt it even makes it to the atmosphere (Score 4, Funny) 273

Excuse me, but - discussions here will be more free flowing and productive if people's opinions aren't pre-biased by any so-called "facts" which might appear in the linked articles. This is why we have a longstanding prohibition against reading them. Please remember that next time.

Thank you.

-- The Management

Comment Re:Better ways to track users (Score 5, Funny) 76

Because 90% of the time the bad guy knows it takes 20 seconds, and has a stopwatch by the phone, and hangs up at like 19 seconds, just to toy with the good guy.

Which is why, back in 2007, the NSA infiltrated stopwatch manufacturers and altered their timing mechanisms so they run slow - when a stopwatch says 19 seconds, in truth it's been a bit over 20 seconds. So now when the bad guy thinks he's outsmarted the beautiful police detective, she's had time to set up that GUI in Visual Basic and knows exactly where he is.

Don't believe me? Just look at the number of world records that have fallen during the last few Olympic Games.

Comment Re:Do they? (Score 1) 329

Check my math, okay?
100 tech women
56% leave the private sector (56 in this example)
75% of the 56 continue to work full time (42 in this example)
~50% of 42 continue in tech (21 in this example)

So that 21 plus the 44 that did not change is 65. So only 35% of women in tech leave tech in mid-career. 65% are in tech and stay in tech full time.

Well, there is also a dearth of women studying mathematics.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Mars, Ho! Chapter Forty Four

Nitrous
I pulled out my fone and called the fleet commander who I was amazingly boss of and told him about our little power problem, then asked the computer what the robots were doing about repairs. Or tried to, anyway.
"Computer, what is the, uh... status of..." and the God damned machine interrupted me, of course. Who programs this junk anyway?
"All cargo unconscious except specimen in com

Comment Interesting difference between GPS and Galileo (Score 1) 140

Unlike existing GPS, Galileo has an interactive "search and rescue" function that can interact with the unit on the ground.

Given how infrequently this would be useful in the grand scheme of things - and the likely higher power requirements over passive GPS - the paranoid person in me wonders if the real reason this was included is because spy agencies requested it. With GPS being passive, taking advantage of it to locate a target requires a second piece of software be loaded onto the device.

Comment Bill Nye the Science Guy (Score 1) 364

As a long-time "Puget Sound"-ite, I was always under the impression that - prior to his big break with Almost Live - Bill Nye had already been trying to break into comedy and/or show business (although he was indeed a Boeing engineer).

I do know that he didn't start out as "Bill Nye the Science Guy" - it was a name John Kiester offhandedly coined which stuck (because, frankly, it was perfect for him).

Comment Re:Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.... (Score 3, Interesting) 116

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts....

Remember, the NSA is the group that originally gave us Tor. If I was one of the original developers, and I took pride in my work - it is likely I would continue to help the project improve, even if my employer had changed focus.

Also, remember that the NSA is not just one huge monolithic group with only one task on their plate. I find it easy to believe that some folks there question the wisdom of attempting to cripple security (such as they seem to have done with the elliptic curve ciphers). Plus code breakers and cryptographers are, in general, going to be working at cross purposes - it's the nature of their jobs.

Comment Re:Yes Google and FB are the ones to protect us? (Score 1) 116

Are you aware that Google is one of the last big internet guys who refuses to cooperate with the Chinese government?

What are you talking about? Google pretty much capitulated to the Chinese government on all fronts a couple years ago.

Do some DuckDuckGo'ing if you don't believe me. I'd suggest not searching for this using Google, since using that engine for this seems to bury some of the less favorable stories - the ones at the top are the ones that use language refer to Google "reluctantly" giving in.

But in any case there have been multiple instances over the past several years where Google has made noise about standing up to China, then more quietly reversed course months later. But people only seem to remember the original noise, which means Google has an effective PR team.

Comment Re:Feh (Score 1) 10

It IS about race, you stupid fucking racist. Brown wasn't a thug, he had never been in trouble with the law and was enrolled in college to learn engineering.

The protests started peaceful, and only turned into rioting when the idiotic, racist Ferguson police acted like the racist morons they are.

People (and I use that word grudgingly) like you are the problem. I'm a white man who grew up in the St Louis area, and can tell you from experience that Missouri is indeed the most racist state in the union.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Mars, Ho! Chapter Forty Three

Monsters
"Hold on, Destiny," Tammy said, "we're still in trouble."
I got it. Finally, even being so tired that my brain wasn't working right. God, what a dumbass I was! I really needed some sleep, but I wasn't going to get any for a while. "Computer, lock all doors," I said. "She's right, Destiny, We're in trouble. I finally get it. She left them short of drops and told them the pirates stole them. They're not even human a

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