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Comment: Re:Pie in the sky (Score 1) 123

by JimFive (#39619349) Attached to: How To Share a Cake Over the Internet
A three or more person solution is to have each person except the last make a single cut that adds one more piece to the cake. Then the last person picks the first piece, and the choosing continues from the start.

e.g. for three people
'A' cuts the cake into two pieces
'B' cuts the cake into three pieces
'C' chooses one of the three pieces
'A' chooses one of the remaining two pieces
'B' gets the remaining piece.

This method assumes that all parties are interested in a fair division, however. A and C can collude against B because B will always get the smallest piece.
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JimFive

Comment: Re:The customer is the university..... (Score 1) 376

by JimFive (#38805883) Attached to: Apple Nets 350K Textbook Downloads In 3 Days

Lets assume the same number of textbooks each year for the student's four year run: 7 x 100 = 700 x 4 = $2,800.00 per student per four year period.

Most schools replace their textbooks every four - five years,

Which means each book is used by 4 students, not one: 2800/4 = $700 per student.
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JimFive

Comment: Re:Frettin' over the grindstone (Score 1) 948

by JimFive (#38685520) Attached to: Do Companies Punish Workers Who Take Vacations?

So I'll check some e-mail just to keep me informed, and if I'm within reach and able to do so.

I wanted to mention that if you are a salary-exempt employee in the US then any amount of work in a day requires that you get paid for the full day.

From: FLSA Overtime Security Advisor

As a general rule, if the exempt employee performs any work during the workweek, he or she must be paid the full salary amount.

...
Deductions for partial day absences generally violate the salary basis rule,

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JimFive

Comment: Re:As the tech guy at a church (Score 1) 188

by JimFive (#38610618) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Tech For Small Library Automation?

Agnosticism, is a lack of faith - a state of uncertainty, where you don't believe or disbelieve in either.

No it isn't, Agnosticism is a belief about reality and the nature of knowledge that some things (usually the nature/existance of god) are unknowable.

Either side, both theism and atheism, requires some faith.

No. Atheism is not belief in no god. Atheism is the lack of belief in god. I can clearly say that I do not believe in god without taking a position on the knowability of god.
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JimFive

Comment: Re:Why compare to LCDs? (Score 1) 83

by JimFive (#38369136) Attached to: Quantum Dots Will Make Flexible Displays

The 50% lifetime degradation for red and green is in the hundreds of thousands of hours for PHOLED. It's in the tens of thousands of hours for 95%, far longer than the usable life of actual products on the market:

There are ~9000 hours in a year, so tens of thousands of hours is a few years. That is not "far longer than the usable life..." I still use a flat CRT that I bought in 1993 so even the 50% degradation may not be within the usable life.
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JimFive

Comment: Re:Sounds like a good thing (Score 1) 159

by JimFive (#38361690) Attached to: Facebook Launches Suicide-Prevention Effort

Like other user said, I guess you could also "troll" your friend by calling police lines and telling them your friend is suicidal or "troll" your neighbor by calling firetrucks to his house.

Except, of course, that those things are illegal. Reporting a post as suicidal on facebook, not so much.
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JimFive

Comment: Re:Sounds like a good thing (Score 1) 159

by JimFive (#38361538) Attached to: Facebook Launches Suicide-Prevention Effort

Trolling is fishing with a dragline (never heard of that before),

I just wanted to point out that internet trolling is based on this definition. Trolling on the internet is tossing some bait out there and trying to get people to bite. A good troll will be taken seriously by enough people to make it funny to the troller (and amused bystanders).
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JimFive

P.S. If your "never heard of that before" was sarcastic just ignore this entire comment.

Comment: Re:Indeed - not just parents (Score 1) 845

by JimFive (#38343762) Attached to: Are You Better At Math Than a 4th (or 10th) Grader?

Seem to be plenty of people who quite happily just say they multiple 47*3 as a single mental process.

Not really. Most people doing 47*3 are just doing the long multiplication in their head which is (40*3)+(7*3). That is never explicitly taught, however, so it seems more confusing to use (50*3) - (3*3) even though it is the same thing. The question that comes up is: "Why 50?" and the answer is, of course, "Because 50 is easy to multiply." Which the non-math person doesn't like.
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JimFive

Comment: Re:Self-Replicating Probes (Score 1) 745

by JimFive (#38331992) Attached to: Is the Earth Special?
Yes, if you had 400 billion probes and started them from the center of the galaxy, the last one would reach its destination in 500-600 thousand years. Now, make some reasonable assumptions about material and energy usage--assume you want the probes to actually do something other than crash into its destination. Self replication is a gimmick to allow us to pretend that material cost and construction time are 0.
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JimFive

QOTD: "He's on the same bus, but he's sure as hell got a different ticket."

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