Maybe its a queue for Linux developers to pull their heads out of their asses

There's a line for that? Man I just thought we were supposed to do it on cue...

Reading comprehension fail?
First, I said there were ways it *could* happen, not that I thought either had occurred. So no, I don't "really, honestly" believe that...
Second, bribes don't need to be anything explicit - in fact, they rarely are, simply because it's so likely that people will report it - there just needs to be some kind of incentive. It doesn't need to be anything traceable to Microsoft; the people taking the hypothetical incentive never need have known from whence it came.
Third, there are always tons of people upset about any given change; with the years this project has run, MS has had plenty of time to find them and encourage them to complain. No need to bribe people to file false reports; just convince those who wouldn't otherwise have complained to do so (and maybe those who would have sent praise not to do so).
Fourth, I'm a security consultant. It is literally my job to be paranoid about potential attack vectors. That doesn't mean I think they'll happen - in fact, another part of my job is rating the risk of each threat coming to pass - but it's there.
Fifth, anybody who *doesn't* see that as the obvious answer to how MS having a bunch of money at stake could lead to this is (IMO) dangerously naïve. It's not complicated; it just requires asking yourself how you could generate complaints if you had lots of money and no morals.

In fairness, there are at least two ways that could happen:
1) MS bribes people to complain. Unlikely, but not impossible.
2) MS bribes the relevant officials to *say* there have been overwhelming complaints. I mean, there are inevitably going to be complaints; that happens any time *anything* changes. The question is at what point they become important enough to sway the overall decision.

With that said, I suspect you're right.

"Long-term" in this case meaning hours rather than seconds or minutes, which are typical times for a capacitor to discharge to an effectively useless voltage (though I admit to not having tried building a system that could use them). The system my parents use can run off stored capacity for around three days if needed (assuming typical usage but no charge for whatever reason), although the batteries would suffer damage from being drained (typically you don't want a nominally-12V lead-acid-chemistry battery to drop below about 11.5V if you can help it, anything below 11V and you're probably losing significant capacity; empty is around 10.8V).

Gel batteries are a form of sealed lead-acid, yes, although not the only such form. Another common one is AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat). I forget exactly why we went with gel instead of AGM cells, but there was some reason (and it wasn't cost; AGM is cheaper). In any case, there's some interesting reading about sealed lead-acid batteries on the mighty Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...

Apologies, you're correct. You'll note that I used "energy density" later on.

Also, it may cast doubt on my knowledge (which is actually fair; that's a easy mistake but also a beginner or casual one) but I don't think it casts aspersions; you should look up what that word means. Anyhow, I'm a computer security engineer, not an EE or an electrician. I've only ever wired one large PV-charged, DC-stored home electrical system, and did it with under my father who *is* an EE. I'm guessing that's still one more than you, though, and the aforementioned system is still going strong some 12.5 years later (though the batteries did need replacing once and the charge controller got upgraded).

I'm not sure if the sarcastic approach was the right one here, but I agree with what I'm pretty sure you mean. Sarcasm has no place in rational debate, though; it's a tool to play on the emotions (humor for those who support you, anger in those you lampoon).

The concept of making a post endorsing the presentation of rational arguments via the use of sarcasm is... weird. You aren't going to get many people disagreeing with you that, objectively, logic and citations are goo things, so there's no need for satire, either. What gives?

While I agree with your central claim...

the major news media trends centrist.
its only according to the far right wing / Fox News...

Are you aware of the inherent hypocrisy of saying those things together?

The major news media trends in whatever direction will get them the most subscribers. That is frequently done by being *more* polarized than society as a whole, because most people appreciate being told things that align with their biases and don't like being told that issues are complicated or that their point of view isn't entirely correct.

Politicians, on the other hand, trend centrist. Most people will put up with a lot of stuff they don't like so like so long as they get a candidate who claims to agree with them on their few key issues, so the two non-trivial political parties divide the key issues between themselves and take the centrist view on everything else. Sure, they *blame* the other party when they compromise in a way their constituents won't like, but you rarely catch them actually going all out on a non-centrist view that isn't one of those few key issues; it costs them too much bargaining power on those issues for too little gain.

Why are you co-opting the term "trolling" - which historically had only negative connotations, and referred to actions such as inciting flamewars or consistently derailing online discussions and actively counteracting efforts to get them back on track - by conflating it with the (much older) term satire, which does neither of those things at all? Those aren't "crusades"-style examples, either; that's actually what the term has meant from its inception in this context of online discussion. Another (relatively minor, given the moderation system here) example is that flood of HOSTS file BS that came through here a few months back.

Seriously, trolling already had a definition (and it doesn't even approximate yours). There's no need to redefine it. What benefit do you obtain by attempting to paint trolling as a somehow more noble or victimized than it is? Do you just get you jollies out of calling what you do "trolling" despite it having a different, well-established, and considerably more positive definition already?

Are you trying to say "Don't call those people trolls; *I* am a troll and I'm not that bad" or something like that? Fine, call them griefers - that's another relatively well-established term, for people who want to cause pain rather than merely anger or confusion - but don't then try to pretend that trolling is some noble but misunderstood practice. It's not, and there's absolutely no benefit I can see to trying to make trolling as a whole more acceptable; it will just grant the real trolls legitimacy.

Or are you just attempting to divert the discussion from the subject of what the people mentioned in TFA are doing, and the harm it causes?

Um, no. Pastafarianism is satire, a parody of religion. It is *EXPLICITLY* that; it makes no claim to existing for any reason other than to demonstrate the stupidity and danger of religious public policy. Sure, there exist trolls who take it in other directions and act simply to piss people off or derail conversations - the characteristic actions of a troll, unless you have a better one to offer that isn't simply appropriating other concepts - but the organization as a whole does not engage in such behavior.

The thing I think you're missing is that trolling is a matter of intent. It's quite possible for a troll to argue in favor of something logical or even correct, but their intention is not to educate. Similarly, it's probably possible for somebody to genuinely believe (for whatever reason) that the moon landing was faked and make posts referencing that belief with the intention of demonstrating why a given idea won't work; such people are not trolls simply for making that claim.

Now, if the moonshot-deniers attempt to turn an entire discussion (that was about something else entirely) into one about the fake landing, against the wishes of the discussion participants, *that* would be trolling. Similarly, if somebody were to crash a discussion of theology and start telling people they're all wrong because the FSM is the One True God with the intention of riling up "those religious idiots" that would also be trolling. However, I'm not aware of any time that the so-called CotFSM, as an organization, has done any such thing. I'm also not aware of anybody who takes "pastafarianism" seriously enough to actually proselytize it as a religion. That would take a really serious case of Poe's Law, given that it is obviously and explicitly humorous and satirical.

Out of genuine curiosity:
Do you have even a *single* coherent and defensible argument for how any amount of trolling is actually beneficial to the purpose you mention? I mean, I'm not saying you can't possibly be right, but I don't see it. Society existed for millennia without anonymous forums wherein users could troll others without serious social consequences. Why is it "necessary" now?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I can't tell for sure if that entire post was satire and you fell for it, or if the author of the post was the dupe, but either way Poe's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law) clearly applies.

With that said, I'm not dismissing the claims that there are government employees who would work to derail conversations they don't like. However, I very much doubt it's responsible for any major portion of the behavior discussed in the article. Diverting sensitive topics? Yes. The kind of people who get modded Troll every day here on /. (and run rampant on sites without an effective moderation system)? No. There's no value in it for the gov, and there are (sadly) plenty of people who really are quite that worthless of human beings.

Because money is not, in and of itself, good? Their intentions may not have been evil - turns out it's not a dichotomy after all - but for their intentions to be *good* they would need to have intended greater benefit than harm. It's possible they did, in fact, intend that - and were just really, stupidly naïve (does Slashcode present that correctly?) - but I am having a hard time seeing it. Getting other people to give you money is not an inherently good thing. Producing something of greater value than the cost to produce it and thus enriching society is good, I would argue, but I'm not sure that's what they did here and I'm not even sure that's what they intended. The pursuit of wealth does not inherently produce a net positive value to the world.

I don't imagine either company has much room for dead weight. Firing the bottom N percent of the workforce every year (where N was occasionally 10%) has been standard practice at some very competitive companies in the past; it really strongly dis-incentivizes slacking off at work (like, reading /. in the middle of the day. Can you imagine?!?).

If your goal is job security, the government (or a similarly massive and bureaucratic monstrosity) is a good bet.
If your goal is to actually produce stuff, to get things done, then a place like SpaceX makes a lot of sense!

Me, I work at an in-between place; small, but not a startup any more. Minimal bureaucratic overhead, but no overwhelming need to keep costs minimal. Specifically, we do information security consulting; as long as we can find work for all our people, employees are how we make money in a very direct and linear sense. On the other hand, sometimes job scheduling falls through and, for reasons I cannot personally control, I find myself on the bench for a week. Thus, /.

Well, we do have prototype fusion (thermonuclear) power plants. You need a way to actually extract power from the plant, though. one of the standard ways to do that still is, and always has been, to use the heat it generates to boil water, and use the resulting steam to drive something. As far as I know, all nuclear (fission) power plants - not to be confused with RTGs - use steam turbines. It seems like the obvious approach if you're building a fusion plant, too.

Or the GP could just be wrong. That's possible, certainly.