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Comment Re:I know you're trying to be funny, but... (Score 2) 739

by Wonko the Sane (#47545917) Attached to: Linus Torvalds: "GCC 4.9.0 Seems To Be Terminally Broken"

If you'd actually read the linked mailing list post (or even just read the quotes of it in the summary) you'd see that none of the abusive comments are aimed at people, they're aimed at the code. He calls the code a bunch of mean, nasty, insulting things, but he doesn't say anything about the people who worked or released that code. I think the distinction is important here. It's not abuse if there's nobody to be abused.

Secondarily: if you read the rest of the thread, he goes on to work with everyone very productively on tracking down the exact nature of the underlying bugs, posts deep analyses of the code generation differences, proposes a patch for his own kernel to work around this GCC bug, and goes and files the upstream Bugzilla report with the GCC team himself. On the whole I'd say this is pretty responsible and cooperative behavior.

What are you doing bringing objective facts into a Slashdot debate, I mean SWJdot?

Submission + - New released NOAA data now confirms decades long cooling (forbes.com)

Submitted by bricko
bricko writes: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least the past decade.

Responding to widespread criticism that its temperature station readings were corrupted by poor citing issues and suspect adjustments, NOAA established a network of 114 pristinely sited temperature stations spread out fairly uniformly throughout the United States. Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments to provide an accurate nationwide temperature record. USCRN began compiling temperature data in January 2005. Now, nearly a decade later, NOAA has finally made the USCRN temperature readings available.

According to the USCRN temperature readings, U.S. temperatures are not rising at all – at least not since the network became operational 10 years ago. Instead, the United States has cooled by approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is more than half of the claimed global warming of the twentieth century.

USCRN data debunk claims that rising U.S. temperatures caused wildfires, droughts, or other extreme weather events during the past year. The objective data show droughts, wildfires, and other extreme weather events have become less frequent and severe in recent decades as our planet modestly warms. But even ignoring such objective data, it is difficult to claim global warming is causing recent U.S. droughts and wildfires when U.S. temperatures are a full 0.4 degrees Celsius colder than they were in 2005.

Submission + - Forbes: Government Data Show U.S. in Decade-Long Cooling (forbes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most accurate, up-to-date temperature data confirm the United States has been cooling for at least the past decade. The NOAA temperature data are driving a stake through the heart of alarmists claiming accelerating global warming.

Responding to widespread criticism that its temperature station readings were corrupted by poor citing issues and suspect adjustments, NOAA established a network of 114 pristinely sited temperature stations spread out fairly uniformly throughout the United States. Because the network, known as the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), is so uniformly and pristinely situated, the temperature data require no adjustments to provide an accurate nationwide temperature record. USCRN began compiling temperature data in January 2005. Now, nearly a decade later, NOAA has finally made the USCRN temperature readings available.

According to the USCRN temperature readings, U.S. temperatures are not rising at all – at least not since the network became operational 10 years ago. Instead, the United States has cooled by approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is more than half of the claimed global warming of the twentieth century.

Of course, 10 years is hardly enough to establish a long-term trend. Nevertheless, the 10-year cooling period does present some interesting facts.

Submission + - Can dogs sniff out computer memory like drugs? (providencejournal.com) 1

Submitted by FriendlySolipsist
FriendlySolipsist writes: A dog can be trained to detect computer memory, say the Rhode Island State Police in taking delivery of the second such dog in the nation from the Connecticut State Police. Being able to find hidden computer flash memory cards hidden in drawers and over ceiling tiles will aid their fight against child porn, the police say.

But is there any scientific evidence that such a thing is even possible? Computer parts are made from plastic and metal like almost everything else in a home or office, and computer parts unlike organic plants give off no odor. Without any plausible scientific explanation for how a dog can detect computer parts, is this all just a legal sham to bypass Fourth Amendment probable cause warrant requirements, allowing the human handler to signal the dog based on exactly the kind of "police intuition" that violates constitutional rights?

Comment Re:How long before... (Score 5, Interesting) 105

by Wonko the Sane (#47334415) Attached to: Fixing Faulty Genes On the Cheap

Did you know human livers are a single broken gene away from maufacturing vitamin C from glucose, just like almost every other mammal?

The liver perform every step in the process except the final one, because of a single transacription error that was introduced into the germline back in ancient times

It would be cool to see what happens when they fix that.

Comment Re:I can stop any time!!! (Score 5, Funny) 710

by Wonko the Sane (#47311359) Attached to: Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy

And what's up with this "In 1942, more than 80 percent of Americans slept seven hours a night or more. Today, 40 percent sleep six hours or less" part?

I had to do some mental math to convert those equilvent comparisons 20% got less than 7 hours in 1942, and today 40% get less than 6.

Why would they make me do mental math when they know I probably didn't get enough sleep last night?

Comment Re:Unwritten rule of parking tickets. (Score 2) 286

It reminds me of an acquaintance who claimed to have worked at a red light camera company, where he bragged about at random times, the traffic signal light could flash red just for 50-100 ms, snap a picture, then change back to green. That way, they could keep the flow of red light camera tickets going but without being caught on driver dash cams with extremely short (or no) yellow lights.

Probably the best way tourists can fight back is to blacklist towns doing those shenanigans, but with larger cities like NYC, that can't really be done.

The best way to fight back is to blacklist everybody who has ever been employed by a red light camera company.

Use LinkedIn to track them down, create a public website where you name and shame them.

If you can find out where they live, confront them at their houses in front of their families and neighbors.

Until there's a social cost which makes acting like an amoral mercenary unprofitable, the number of amoral mercenaries will continue to increase.

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