Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:A great idea (Score 1) 69

Yeah, the joke I was expecting, but thanks anyway. Slashdot favors low-hanging fruit these years?

You could have mentioned the robots. Mostly thinking about those Chinese robots, but the critical question is when the robots are capable of building enough infrastructure needed for a factory to produce more robots.

Beware the paper clips!

Comment Re:Money and lobbying talks (Score 1) 55

YOB stands for YUGE Orange Buffoon because I don't like the brand. You guessed correctly even with the minimal context and I have no doubts about your reference.

Heck, at this point I don't even want to use the word as a verb. But you might prefer to think of a different word for B depending on the context and your sentiments.

But mostly disappointed (again) that the active discussion failed to produce any jokes. Or perhaps the moderation failed again. But a day-old discussion is effectively dead on Slashdot and I don't want to search for the possible jokes that might be lurking around here somewhere...

Comment Re:Money and lobbying talks (Score 1) 55

But Xi still wants some samples of the American products to know where the Chinese products are in relative terms. The better to set higher targets.

Still wondering what sort of trap he'll spring on the YOB. The tricky part is that Xi can't pull too hard on the buffoon's strings or everyone will notice. Has to let the YOB think it's really his latest brilliant idea. Even though Xi has been rehearsing with the YOB's GAIvatar for weeks already...

Comment Re:But they are the best of the best! (Score 1) 177

Sandel's position is somewhat different. Been a while since I've read the book, but as recall it he said that admissions should involve two phases. The screening stage would eliminate the least qualified candidates, basically the people who are not going to be able to do classwork. I don't think he gave any numbers but he estimated that the percentage wasn't that large. Most of the applications are based in reality and therefore most of the applicants have a pretty good idea about their own capabilities. The lottery would start with the pool of qualified applicants.

It got more complicated when he started dealing with other aspects of admissions policy, especially the degree to which a university wants future graduates to have different demographic characteristics than previous graduates. I remember one idea was to give some categories extra tickets in the lottery to tilt the odds in favor of desired changes. Not to deny admissions to any specific person, but to sometimes give more chances to other kinds of people.

(He covered some of the same material in a later book. Which reminds me that it's probably time for me to check what else he's written lately. I've read a number of his books and found all of them interesting.)

Comment Re:But the real cost is increased service prices (Score 1) 72

Nuclear reactors use most surface water, not ground water.

Datacentres are no pickier. You can even cool a datacentre with saltwater, you just need a heat exchanger.

Also, closed loop does not evaporate. The loop is not closed if stuff escapes from it.

You're arguing with the actual terminology used in the nuclear industry. "Closed loop" or "closed cycle" designs have the water pumped in a cycle through cooling towers. The towers lose water to evaporation, taking heat with them, but the rest of the water is returned to be reheated again. "Open loop" or "open cycle" designs have no cooling towers. The water is heated and just discharged hot. They consume much more water (over an order of magnitude more), but most of that is returned. Closed loop are more common, but you see open loop in some older designs, and in seawater-cooled reactors.

Comment Re:According to the summary... (Score 1) 107

I've printed many hundreds of kg on my P1S, thanks.

I do not consider having to write data out to a card and transport it back and forth between the printer and the computer to be the pinnacle of convenience. That's something that would be considered embarrassingly inconvenient for a 1980s printer, let alone a modern net-connected device. And it's designed to be inconvenient for non-cloud prints for a reason.

Comment But they are the best of the best! (Score 0) 177

Let's go on the theory that they got into Harvard because they are the best of the best. If that were the case, then at most universities they should expect a top grade against the "lesser" students and why should they be penalized with sub-A grades just for being the best?

Yeah, I'm going for funny, but I'm not laughing. Upon reflection, I'm not sure if I wouldn't have been better served and served better by not graduating and teaching at top universities. (Though most of my early teaching was at schools not near the top.)

So I'll recommend The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandel (of Harvard). The more I think about it, the more I like his lottery ideas.

Comment Finally! A use case for cryptocurrency! (Score 0) 83

Pretty sure you were going for Funny, but it's too dark and there are too many hostages in this situation.

However I do think it's hilarious for them to believe the blackmailers didn't keep a backup copy. Also funny that they are involved in education and don't seem to understand the lesson to be learned here.

Need some kind of anti-funny mod for the responses of the various police authorities, though in a sense it's hard to blame them. We are in a time of perfect crime. There should be a joke in here about "When cryptocurrency is outlawed, then only outlaws will..." The problem with the attempted joke is that it seems to require outlawing the greedy parts of human nature or something?

Slashdot Top Deals

Promising costs nothing, it's the delivering that kills you.

Working...