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Comment Re:Not surprising. (Score 1) 725

by dargaud (#47397757) Attached to: When Beliefs and Facts Collide

The problem is that admitting it puts you at a significant disadvantage at debates. If you can no longer summon the (self-)righteous fury your opponent can, not only are you more likely to give in from sheer exhaustion, but people viewing the debate are likely to consider your opponent as dominant and confuse that as being right.

This is why I hate debates. It's not the person who is right who wins, it's the one who flings the poo the farthest. I was aghast to discover those 'debate competitions' in US schools: pick a subject and 2 people, one has to debate pro, the other against. And fuck the truth, let's just get ready to form another generation of lawyers and politicians.

Comment Some idea (Score 1) 88

Well, I RTFA and it's bullshit. I was hoping for a way to have a drone follow you automatically by following the tension of the tether, like a kite, but that's not the case here. What I'd like to find is a way to hook up the drone/kite to me while mountain biking / extreme skiing and have it film from above while not having to control it. Does such a thing exist ?

Comment Re:Sad, sad times... (Score 3, Interesting) 333

I also found this very strange I'm both extrovert and introvert, meaning I have to problem taking with groups of people, even at the center of attention sometimes. But I can be alone. I'm a climber and I've done numerous solo ascents and expeditions, the longest was 28 days alone. It's a good thing that nobody was around because of the smell, but I didn't have any problem 'being with myself'. I even think that people who can't stand 'being with themselves' are not people _I_ want to be with in the first place !!! I mean, if they can't stand themselves, why should I ?!?

Comment Something like that (Score 1) 235

by dargaud (#47382063) Attached to: Radar Changing the Face of Cycling
I was thinking of building something like that, but I would want to get the min distance of a passing car and its speed. Which would give me a good reason to beat the shit out of them when I catch them. I ride half an hour on a fairly large but winding mountain road every morning. Not much traffic (150 cars on average during those 30 min). But on average there'll be one car that passes within 10cm of me every day. At 90km/h. Assholes not fully awake yet who think they know their daily commute road by heart and cut all the curves no matter if there's a cyclist.

It gives me plenty of time to imagine remedial solutions. Yelling is no use. A 120dB air horn sometimes surprises the asshole afterwards. A paint gun in the windshield (not precise enough and I'm no Doc Holliday) ? A real one shot in the air (not in my country) ? A piece of ultra-hard sharp ceramic on a thin stick held at windshield level ? What I've been doing so far is writing down the license tags and then looking for them around my small town. So far I've caught two and made a very public scene. They've been plenty cautious since then.
Crime

Judge Frees "Cannibal Cop" Who Shared His Fantasies Online 185

Posted by timothy from the not-my-first-choice-for-babysitter dept.
AthanasiusKircher (1333179) writes The story is classic: Boy meets Girl. Boy likes Girl. Boy goes on the internet and writes about his fantasies that involve killing and eating Girl. Boy goes to jail. In this case, the man in question, NYC police officer Gilberto Valle, didn't act on his fantasies — he just shared them in a like-minded internet forum. Yesterday, Valle was released from jail after a judge overturned his conviction on appeal. U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe wrote that Valle was "guilty of nothing more than very unconventional thoughts... We don't put people in jail for their thoughts. We are not the thought police and the court system is not the deputy of the thought police." The judge concluded that there was insufficient evidence, since "this is a conspiracy that existed solely in cyberspace" and "no reasonable juror could have found that Valle actually intended to kidnap a woman... the point of the chats was mutual fantasizing about committing acts of sexual violence on certain women." (A New York magazine article covered the details of the case and the implications of the original conviction earlier this year.)
Bug

Bug In Fire TV Screensaver Tears Through 250 GB Data Cap 349

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the should-have-stuck-to-xscreensaver dept.
jfruh (300774) writes Tech writer Tyler Hayes had never come close to hitting the 250 GB monthly bandwidth cap imposed by Cox Cable — until suddenly he was blowing right through it, eating up almost 80 GB a day. Using the Mac network utility little snitch, he eventually tracked down the culprit: a screensaver on his new Kindle Fire TV. A bug in the mosaic screensaver caused downloaded images to remain uncached.
United Kingdom

Seven ISPs Take Legal Action Against GCHQ 65

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the ways-to-get-on-a-watch-list dept.
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes with this excerpt from the BBC: ISPs from the U.S., UK, Netherlands, and South Korea have joined forces with campaigners Privacy International to take GCHQ to task over alleged attacks on network infrastructure. It is the first time that GCHQ has faced such action. The ISPs claim that alleged network attacks, outlined in a series of articles in Der Spiegel and the Intercept, were illegal and "undermine the goodwill the organizations rely on." The complaint (PDF).

Comment Re:Slashdot fails at reporting. (Score 5, Interesting) 158

by dargaud (#47366795) Attached to: Russia Moves From Summer Time To Standard Time
Well, when the days are short, one hour of difference can mean a lot of light and temperature difference. When I was working in Antarctica Dome C, in order to 'simplify' things, 'they' decided we would have the same timezone has the logistical base of operation on the coast which was actually located 5 time zones ahead. So we had to get up when the sun was actually at 3am solar time. In other words the coldest time of day and in summer it was ofter -50C at that time while it could be a balmy -25C at noon even though there was little difference in sun elevation. To make a long story short after a few days we all started to get up at 11am to compensate. The next year they gave us our own proper timezone.

Comment Something I'd like to see (Score 4, Interesting) 162

by dargaud (#47323929) Attached to: Hospitals Begin Data-Mining Patients
I live in a country with full healthcare. One thing I'd like to see is a (somewhat) obligation to give results on your treatment. Each time you go to the doctor to get some treatment, some time later you'd receive a mail with a link to a webform with a few _simple_ questions such as: did the treatment help ? Did you feel any adverse effect ? For how long were you sick ? For how long did you take your treatment ? Did you take any extra drugs, etc. And if you fail to respond to too many emails, your 'free' health care starts being dinged in you pocket. Of course, with exemption for some people and/or disease.

It wouldn't cost much to implement, and would be a trove of info. Have a public structure derived from the national healthcare in charge of it which enforces strong anonymity, and provide anonymity data to big data analysts. It wouldn't take long to figure out scandals such as the Mediator. I mean, if you can't take ONE minute to answer some questions that WILL help others, why should you get free health care ?
Education

College Offers Athletic Scholarships To Gamers 102

Posted by Soulskill from the prospective-students-zerg-the-admissions-office dept.
New submitter MdotCpDeltaT writes: Robert Morris University will be the first school in the country to offer athletic scholarships to students who play the video game League of Legends. It's a move that seems to stretch the definition of sports and athletes. Associate athletic director Kurt Melcher said, "It's a team sport. There's strategy involved. You have to know your role in the game. Obviously it's not cardiovascular in any way, but it's mental. There are elements that go into it that are just like any other sport."The article says, "Though the gaming scholarships are primarily designed to attract what the school calls an 'underserved male' population, they are open to all, and Melcher said some women have inquired about the program. Even if the awards end up going mostly to males, he added, it should not upset the school's scholarship gender balance, which already has strong participation in women's sports."

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