Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:What would I do? (Score 1) 86

Top priority: prepare an easy and painless way out. ... Better do it early and be ready for later, with a plan simple enough to execute when the illness already has a significant effect (but before it makes me forget I have that option).

It would take a little bit of thinking but the best solution if you really wanted to do this would be some sort
of dead man's switch that exploited your forgetfulness. i.e. a drawer that explodes if you open it. A
bottle of soda in the fridge that is poisonous, etc... You could easily have multiple booby traps in your
house rigged to go off if you forget they are there. As long as you were of sound mind, you would know
not to trigger them but how to do this safely without accidently endangering a caretaker would be the tricky
part.

Comment Re:What would I do? (Score 2) 86

This is better than carbon monoxide, because nitrogen is completely inert and doesn't leave a hazardous scene for those who are present/recovering your corpse.

Wouldn't a room full of pure nitrogen be just as dangerous to the person recovering you if they also will continue to breath normally
until they black out and die as well?

Comment Re:As a neurologist. (Score 2) 86

Alzheimer's has been a multi billion dollar graveyard for Pharma over the past ten years - and Solanezumab isn't looking too healthy. Best of luck to Merck and TauRx.

I think the issue is that they are trying to solve a complex aging issue with a pill. It's like being able to solve old age with a pill.
There are certain things that can help. Taking an aspirin can reduce the chance of a heart attack and a different pill might lower
blood pressure but you aren't going to find a single pill to cure heart disease either. Until we figure out a way to eliminate the
signs of aging and the way the body starts to break down, most of these "cures" are nothing more than stopgaps. Then again,
if the average person only has alzheimers for the last 20 years of their life maybe a stopgap is all we need.

Comment Re:yeah. (Score 1) 417

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

This sounds like a long time ago someone was sold on the idea that a firewall that scans all network traffic for malware would be a very good thing, and part of the requirements for that would be installing the root CA so the HTTPS traffic can be decrypted and scanned for malware

Even this is given them alot more credit. My guess is that it was simply someone lazy who wanted to prevent a warning message appearing
for a non-trusted certificate. The odds of this actually ever being used at a school for a man-in-the-middle even to remove malware is close
to nil. The fact that it was immediately removed attests to this. The current administration probably doesn't even know why it was added so
instantly removed it when someone complained and will probably add it back in a week when someone else complains about an untrusted
certificate.

Comment Re:i interpret it to mean (Score 1) 497

Everything you do requires a little bit of faith. You've never been to the moon nor done the
countless experiments that our science is based on but you trust it and have faith in it
because you trust the people and books relaying the information and although a single
person could never verify every experiment they could randomly pick one and verify it if
they wanted. That's why we have peer review, etc... I have faith in the scientific process
and faith that for the most part the books are not being manipulated by someone with an agenda
which is why I can read a science book and for the most part trust it without replicated
every experiment. That being said it is good to question and verify when you can and even
more important when said scientific doctrine is considered unquestionable.
The most glaring case in recent history is that the "standard procedure" for treating a heart
attack victim was actually worse than doing nothing and the exact opposite of what you should do.
It took a long time to prove this though as it's very hard to do an A/B test with dying patients
and not do what is considered "best practice" just because you think it might not be.
That's one of the reasons most guinea pigs for new procedures tend to be very ill people who
have already exhausted all the known "best practice" procedures.

Comment Re:Cramming a data plan onto a voice SIM (Score 1) 205

You can use freepbx which makes asterisk fairly simple, and use a carrier like flowroute who will provide you all necessary config info. You can even buy a device from most SIP providers which you can hook your POTS phones up to, if you don't want to think. I have a rtp300, but I'm having problems with it. But I also have a PoE SIP phone and some android phones, which have pretty good SIP support.

You're either making a joke or have never delt with "normals" much.
I count probably a dozen words in that sentence that would make a normal's eyes glaze over.
There is no way the average person is going to do that. To give you one example, my dad
called me once because all his applications disappeared. Come to find out he had maximized
a program. Once I showed him how to hit the X to close the window he was fine.
Most normals I know can't or are at least too scared to hook up a computer. They have even
been color coded for at least a decade. Freepbx will never be mainstream with normals.

Comment Re:How did this go to trial? (Score 2) 236

Why do you say "whined"? It sounds like several people probably had valid cause for complain. I certainly don't want random assholes buzzing me with their drones or RC aircraft, or getting in the way of manned aircraft.

I would mostly agree with this except that he was presumably doing this on university property at
a request of the university so even if he was buzzing people this is something that needs to be
taken up with the university not with the FAA or the police. Laws for drones probably need to be
completely rewritten. If he is low enough to the ground to "buzz" people then in my opinion he
would fall into a vague "university airspace". Likewise if someone is flying over my house low
enough to "buzz" me at my house, then are in my "air space" aka "personal space". There
should probably be some minimum distance that every property owner is allowed to claim as
their own personal airspace. Just like you can't walk through my backyard without my permission
you shouldn't be able to fly through my backyard without my permission or some sort of
relationship with me. A UPS driver gets temporary permission to walk through my yard and a
public sideway gives temporary permission to walk through my yard but otherwise it's mostly
considered my yard.

Comment Re:HEY (Score 1) 268

I have no idea why this is scored a -1. This almost perfectly describes me as well.
I don't own any cds, mp3 players, etc.. Interestingly enough my mother can play
the piano but she also never listens to music of any kind and never has to my knowledge.
We've actually had conversations about it and she for some reason feels weird about it.
I can go months without listening to music. I can't listen to it at work as it disrupts my
concentration. I will occasionally turn the radio on on long car trips to keep me awake
but after about an hour I get overstimulated and have to turn it back off again.
I do enjoy the lyrics of certain songs the same way someone would enjoy listening
to a poem or reading a short story but the music itself does very little for me.
For the record, I took the survey and was in the 10s and 20s for most of the scores
so definitely outside of their standard deviation.

Comment Re:Absolutely (Score 1) 212

I never even get to the interview stage for jury duty.
The first question on the mailed pre-questionaire asks "has a close family member ever been sued for personal injury?"
My dad owns a few dump trucks and tractor trailers so of course people have tried to sue him pretty much every
time any of his vehicles have been in an accident whether it was their fault or not. This seems to limit the pool
severely though as they are basically eliminating practically all small business owners and their families right off the
bat. Several other questions are equally as broad. It's amazing they find anyone who can honestly answer those
questions and still be a juror.
I also question the "jury of peers" problem. If it's a malpractice suit is it a jury of the doctor's peers or the patient's peers?
Patents specifically state it's suppose to be someone with similiar expertise in the field but I don't think courts work that way
even in patent cases.

Comment Re:First time? (Score 1) 205

Check out "Was god a volcano"

Guys, we have another one! You, go with them. We have a nice padded cell for you, with a lot of beautiful volcano posters.

This coming from someone with a bizarre scripture in their signature. Did you even look at the video?
My guess, based on your signature, it would probably be something you could possibly agree with.

Comment Re:Yes, that's obviously safer (Score 4, Interesting) 142

Stop and go traffic is among the most accident prone situations.

This might be true. But accidents are not all equal. You are MUCH more likely to die
or seriously injure someone while driving at high speed than in slow stop and go traffic
because of both the speed of collision as well as reaction time.

Comment Re:If Comcast were Exxon (Score 1) 520

With no government, paper money has no value, and corporations have nothing to pay employees. The root of it all is money, and that's a creation of the government. If the government went away, everything would fall apart because of that simple fact; people would have to move to some other form of currency, and corporations would mostly cease to exist unless they control something that can be used as currency.

I actually agree with most of what you say except for this part. Money is a creation of the government only because the government
has laws and a military saying it is so. Without the government, corporations can easily create their own currency. Without a government
a "walmart gift card" would probably be worth more than government issued money. Same with a "taco bell certificate", etc... You don't
need a government to create money, a store of wealth, or an incentive for people to work.

Comment Re:Do we care? (Score 1) 115

I guess I should have been more specific that I was saying that tongue in cheek.
You're right, they come down very quickly on that. The secret service is actually
pretty good at their job. When I was in high school someone emailed a joke
threat to the president. He didn't think it was very funny when they showed up
at the school and started questioning him. Likewise I know someone who did
try to spend counterfeit money. Needless to say she quickly ended up in prison
in a matter of days. They traced it back pretty quickly. It only took a couple
of hops back to find her.

Comment Re:Do we care? (Score 2, Insightful) 115

Transfers from 1 -> 2, 2 -> 3, and 3 -> 4 need not involve a bank at all.

In theory this might be true but in practice cash is very tracable. US currency has serial numbers.
You get your money from the bank. You buy food at a restaurant. The restaurant deposits it in the bank.
There might be an extra hop or two if you're lucky but the number of hops without passing a bank is
minimal. If you don't believe me, try to pass off a counterfit bill. The secret service is extremely good
at tracing backwards the route it took to get to the bank and can usually do it in only a couple hops.
Smaller bills might get passed back and forth a bit more but even a place like walmart rarely gives back
$20 bills as change except for a tiny bit of cashback but the majority goes straight back to the bank.

Slashdot Top Deals

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Working...