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Comment Re:LaserJet II and LaserJet 3 (Score 1) 702

The most wear sensitive part of a laser printer is the copy drum. If I recall correctly the old LaserJets had the drum integrated with the toner cartidge, so you replace to most quickly wearing part of the printer four or five thousand pages. It's no wonder they lasted so long. The mechanical parts that move the paper through the printer are pretty robust, so I wouldn't be surprised if the printers go until the capacitors in the electronics dry up, or the internal power connectors go bad.

Comment Re:A bit of background for slashdotters (Score 4, Informative) 348

This isn't a case "insisted upon by a conservative group". This is Mann suing a journalist for libel, and the journalist requesting info from the university under FOIA to prove his case.

That would be interesting, if it were true. Here's what TFA says:

The ruling is the latest turn in the FOIA request filed in 2011 by Del. Robert Marshall (R-Prince William) and the American Tradition Institute to obtain research and e-mails of former U-Va. professor Michael Mann.

"Del." I assume is short for "delegate". According to their website, the American Tradition Institute's tag line is "Free Market Environmentalism through *Litigation*" I assuming this means they aren't pals with Greenpeace, or even The Sierra Club, any more than the National Socialists in Germany were pals with the socialist Republicans in 1930s Spain.

Comment Re:Why do these people always have something to hi (Score 4, Insightful) 348

Depends on what you consider "hiding the research". A fishing expedition through a scientist's personal correspondence is an invitation to judge his work on *political* grounds.

In science your personal beliefs, relationships, and biography are irrelevant. There are evangelical Christian climate scientists who believe climate won't change because that would contradict God's will as expressed in the Bible. These scientists may be regarded as religious crackpots by their peers, but that hasn't prevented them from publishing in the same peer-reviewed journals as everyone else. Since their papers invariably are climate-change skeptic, clearly they are publishing work which supports their religious beliefs. But their motivations don't matter. What matters is in their scientific publications.

In 1988, Gary Hart's presidential bid and political career were ruined when he was photographed cavorting on a yacht named "Monkey Business" with a woman that wasn't his wife. Now I didn't care how many bimbos he was boinking, but a lot of people *did*, which made it a political issue (albeit a stupid one in my opinion). Do we really want to use the coercive power of the state to dig through the private lives of controversial scientists?

It's a pretense that that would serve any scientific purpose. Maybe Mann is intent on overthrowing capitalism and creating a socialist utopia. That would be relevant if he were running for dogcatcher, but it's irrelevant to what's in his scientific papers. Scientists publish papers all the time with ulterior motives, not the least of which is that they're being paid to do research that makes corporate sponsors happy. As long as what's in the paper passes muster, it's still science.

Comment Re:authenticity (Score 1) 56

What about acting? Or fiction? These are artificial experiences that evoke real emotional responses. Once the right buttons in your brain are pushed, most of your brain can't tell the difference between what is real and what is synthetic.

Granted, authenticity in human interactions is important, but it's overrated. Fake engagement often is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Situations where people put considerable effort into *seeming* pleasant usually *are* more pleasant than they would be if everyone felt free to paste their indifference to you right on their faces.

So this is a very interesting technology. What's disturbing about it isn't that people might be fooled into thinking the user is truly interested; it's that the user himself no longer puts any effort into creating that illusion. What if that effort is in itself something important? What if fake engagement is often the prelude to real engagement? Maybe you have to start with polite interest and work your way up to the real thing; I suspect the dumber parts of your brain can't tell the difference. If that's true, taking the user's brain out of the interaction means that interaction will automatically be trapped on a superficial level. This already happens in bureaucratic situations where employees are reduce to rules-following automatons. Take the brain out of the equation and indifference follows.

I suspect that the researchers are well aware of these issues; I believe that I discern a certain deadpan, ironic puckishness on their part. People who truly view engagement with other people as an unwelcome burden don't work on technologies that mediate between people.

Comment Re:Hipsters generally do ok (Score 1) 336

The hipsters should arm themselves. Michigan's gun laws aren't too restrictive, and with the money saved on housing they should be able to afford to arm and train themselves well. Your average hoodlum barely knows how to operate his gun, which is often a piece of junk, so the bar isn't too high.

Comment Re:Nothing new - Always had tech jobs (Score 1) 336

Top two cities with the highest density of engineers are Huntsville Alabama and Palm Bay/Melbourne Florida for what should be obvious reasons.

I'm sure that's true if you're counting traditional engineering fields, meaning not including software engineers. I'm not sure it would still be true if you included software. Of course many would argue that software engineering isn't yet mature enough to be a real engineering discipline, but it definitely is a big part of "tech", which is the subject of discussion.

Comment Re:do they have a progressive view? (Score 1) 336

I've spent about half of my life in Texas. I've lived in Houston, Dallas, and Austin. I've also lived in Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Southern California.

Every conversation about living in Texas I've had with a West Coaster: "How can you stand living in Texas. Everyone is so bigoted and prejudicial?" "Oh really, have you ever been there?" "No." "..."

And, of course, they completely miss the irony in their own statements.

Comment Re:Security compiler? (Score 1) 235

Why not a security compiler? Seems some clever, creative hackers could work up something which would take raw code, subject it to some scrutiny and give output/feedback. Perhaps even a security switch to the standard compilers or even a security test suite. Shouldn't be that hard to do.

Shouldn't be too hard... in the sense that solving the Halting Problem shouldn't be too difficult. I conjecture that with an appropriate set of assumptions it's possible to use Rice's Theorem to prove that security analysis is equivalent to the Halting Problem.

Of course, static analysis can catch some vulnerabilities, and can highlight potential vulnerabilities. That's what Coverity does. But I don't think any mechanical process can defeat a creative attacker.

Comment Inductive Fallacy (Score 1) 235

This analysis is based on an erroneous assumption which is derived from an inductive fallacy. Specifically, the author assumes that because one researcher who found one bug believes he could have found a second for roughly the same level of effort means that the researcher believes this process could be repeated indefinitely. I'm certain that if Kohno were asked he would deny the validity of this assumption. I'm sure he would say that his team could find a handful of similar bugs for similar level of effort, but once the pool of low-hanging fruit bugs was exhausted, the cost and difficulty would rise.

Comment Re:I switched from sitting to standing. (Score 1) 312

The desk I have is motorized. Push a button, takes about five seconds. Another option is to get a desk that is always positioned at standing level and a tall chair. That seems cheaper and more convenient but there are some downsides. One is that you have far fewer options in chairs than if you're getting normal-height chairs. Another is that changing the level of the desk is difficult, which is particularly problematic if the seating gets rearranged regularly.

Comment Re:Switching from Mercedes to Tesla after $12K bil (Score 1) 360

First you bought an SUV which only an idiot would buy

My late father-in-law designed inertial guidance systems. He worked on the Apollo program and the Trident missile. And he bought a Mercedes SUV, so it's clear it isn't an SUV that only an idiot would buy. He needed a vehicle that could pull a small boat trailer but had reached an age where he wanted a vehicle that was a little easier on the tuckus than a pickup truck. As such it wasn't a bad choice for him, especially as he had the dough to pay the eye-popping maintenance costs.

I prefer small cars myself, but I've driven a few SUVs and the Mercedes wasn't a bad choice for someone who wanted a truck that drives more or less like a car and doesn't care about the cost.

Comment Using DD-WRT (Kong latest "old" driver version) (Score 1) 104

on a Netgear R6300 and it has been very fast, great with signal quality, and the QoS features are working as expected.

Both the R6250 and R6300 have a dual-core 800MHz CPU, so they have the power to handle a decent QoS requirement without bogging down potential throughput too much. I'm satisfied, and it wasn't that expensive. If your situation isn't too terribly complex (many dozens of users and extensive QoS rules) then it might be a good choice.

The R7000 is even faster and supports external antennas, so I second that suggestion, but it's also twice the price of the 6250/3000, which can be found on sale from $100-$125 brand new if you're a good comparison shopper and/or patient.

Comment Re:I switched from sitting to standing. (Score 4, Interesting) 312

I'd recommend a standing desk to anyone with the willpower to make it through the transition.

And I'd recommend a sit-stand desk to anyone at all. Even if you don't stand all the time (I don't), being able to spend part of your day standing will make you feel better without discomfort, in fact being able to switch back and forth is more comfortable than sitting.

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