I wish I hadn't already posted so I could mod you up. Beautiful!

Slashdot is not a your blog. Go away.

Nowhere does it mention the Declaration. Go ahead, try citing it as legal authority in a courtroom and see how far it gets you, Mr. Constitutional Scholar.

Don't confuse "legal" for "ethical", Mr. Rules Lawyer.

All people have a right - An obligation - To resist an oppressive government to the greatest extent possible. For some people, that means voting. For some, it means running for office. For some, it means running issues ads. For some, it means stalling paperwork as a low-level clerk in some office deep in a government building. And for some... It means preparing for when, not if, all the lesser options fail to achieve the desired result.

FWIW, I don't think we've reached that point - yet. Getting harder and harder not to notice that the asshats in Washington seem intent on getting us there as rapidly as possible, however.

They know everything that could go wrong in ten years of space travel.

...Except landing in a shadow in the most important 30 seconds of the mission?


Though overall, I agree, and offer the ESA a hearty congratulations - Well done! Just somewhat disappointing that the coolest part of the whole mission, while "technically" successful, won't get to do anything more than drill a few small holes.

Y'know, I realize that all the self-righteous "Papa knows best" crowd recently learned the term "Dunning Kruger", but casually tossing it out as a way to instantly shut down any discussion works about as well as complaining about "privilege".

More importantly - For all you know, koan works for the Mars Rover program, and has a legitimate right to mock the ESA's lack of foresight.

On a purely practical level - Yes, more instruments means more weight. But to have no maneuvering capabilities, not even the ability to flip itself over if it landed on its side, or make short hops around the surface - Keep in mind the gravity here - A tiny piston slightly off-center on each side of the cube would have added a few hundred grams and meant a billion dollar mission wouldn't die later today because of shadows, of all things.

What does "court order" mean? Are they going to require an actual warrant, or will they just cough up your data on any request by a court? Because if a warrant ain't required, I ain't interested.

Even if they do require a warrant, I ain't interested. They can keep their BS extra features that require tracking me. I can call AAA on my own. I can read a map on my own. I can remember to schedule my regular maintenance without automated reminders based on telemetry data.

Free hint, automakers - Any feature that requires data to leave my car, I will actively disable. And even any feature that requires the car to log data locally, I will minimize to the greatest extent possible. I don't trust you, I don't trust the NSA, I don't trust the state government not to retroactively issue speeding tickets in a revenue-tight year (like they've already proven they will do with EZ-Pass type toll transponders - You know, the ones they promised (just like in TFA) they'd never use for anything other than paying your tolls).

Someone want to get rich? Develop an ODBC-II dongle that erases my car's EDR every time I turn the car off... Or for that matter, continually if possible.

Think you're smarter than a Supreme court justice?

Argumentum ad verecundiam. Try again.


Do not assume that you know the law better than a prosecutor that's poring over emails after your dean forwarded them on with a note "Hey frank, I hate this kid... screwer him if you can"

The fact that, given "six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, [you] will find something in them which will hang him" doesn't have any bearing on whether or not plagiarism itself counts as a crime. Which it doesn't.


I never said it would be a copyright law you broke. You have no idea which laws you could break... none what-so-ever...

Put up or shut up - Pick an actual law, or cede the point.

First, I agree with almost all of what you said. Never implicate yourself. Ever. Don't lie about it, don't tell the truth about it, don't say anything about it unless compelled to speak by a court (and even then, run every word by your lawyer first). However, before we go all tough-guy with "get a warrant"...


By admitting to copying someone else's code you could be confessing to a real crime that could result in time in prison.

Complete and utter bullshit. Plagiarism does not commit a crime, period. Academic violation, yes. Institutional violation, yes. Intellectual violation, yes. Probably a workplace violation in some cases (though typically only if you create content for your employer intended for public consumption). But criminal violation? No, no, no.

At most, the real author could sue for copyright violation - non-commercial, academic, non-distributed copyright violation. Good luck even finding a lawyer to waste time on that goldmine of a case.

In a way, using the internet to get the answer is the way it works in IT these days. I routinely get my solutions for problems at work by going to the internet â" I don't memorize every command and algorithm. These kids aren't cheating, they're doing it the current/modern way.

In third grade, you don't do your math homework by Googling "what is 153/17", because learning how to do it counts as the entire purpose of the exercise.

The working world cares about results. School doesn't; it cares about the steps you took to get your result.


It is to hard to decide exactly what is research and copying in these cases.

Not really, no - Unless they all copied a stock answer right out of their textbook, programming assignments don't involve "research". They require either implementing the algorithm of the week, or solving a toy "problem" that, if you speak English and have a high school diploma in the US, you need to turn in the latter if you need to look up how to approach the problem.

Just say no - To allowing the SJWs to destroy yet another site. "Once a poster crosses this line, they should lose all credibility". Indeed!


We can start by stating the obvious:

You fucktards have no sense of humor.


Similarly, it is never acceptable to ... post nude pictures

Ahahahaahahaha... 10/10, perfect, friend! I actually took you as serious up to that point. Truly a magnificent FP troll!

And we all wonder why there is a GamerGate scandal ....

Because some people still don't know what Naughty By Nature's lyrics meant, 23 years later?

Sorry, bud, not making the connection...

Power-save -> 0, Performance -> 1

Laptop-safe -> 0, crotch-burn -> 1. :)

But yeah, I see your point, that it wouldn't have any side effects in the output-integrity sense.

I notice TFA has almost no detail beyond what TFS says. Yeah, so they found this bit that apparently has no side effects to anything else but magically boosts performance by 20%? I'll admit I haven't written a graphics card driver since back in the VESA2 days, but I can't even conceive of what function such a bit could have, without having some down side... Something like (and I don't mean this literally) disabling vsync but accepting tearing.

Okay, I take some pride in usually understanding at least the basics behind cool science tricks like this, but I have to admit, this one just blows me away - I still don't "get", it even after reading TFAs.

So can someone explain what really happens here? Does the light keep reflecting between the two surfaces, as though caught between two "perfect" mirrors? Or do the photons (and does this depend on wave behavior, or could we do it for particles as well) just basically stop mid-air, something like an event horizon as seen from the inside? Or something else entirely?

/ Bonus points for a car analogy. XD
// Serious question, though... Thanks!

Sure, but on the other hand nobody but a novelist or a lonely weather station operator would bother uttering the phrase "fine, dry snow blowing in the wind". They'd just say "it's snowing."

Know how I can tell you don't live somewhere that requires you to remove that fine dry blowing drifting pooling pain-in-the-ass snow from your driveway before work the next morning?

/ Though I'll take that over wet, sticky, clumping snow with a crust of ice any day! I might need to clear it three times, but it goes easy each time.