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Comment Re:Roll On Next Week (Score -1) 445

If you think that something that happens 11% of the time (less than 7%, if you discount Adams and Hayes) is "really frequent", then I can't help you.

I'm not sure why we're focusing on a "11% of the time" either. This isn't the 1800s, the country has changed a lot, including the Electoral College. Due to the limitations on the total number of electors, the EC power of more rural states has grown over the years and is at an all-time high.

Comment Re:Roll On Next Week (Score -1) 445

There has to be something to drag into court.

His sycophants, including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, have already signaled that they're open to having the courts make the decision, including on the flimsiest of grounds, like mail-in voting being inherently fraudulent. Kavanaugh specifically mentioned in a recent decision that if mail-in votes arrive after election day, then it has the stink of impropriety, and that the election results should be available on election day -- despite that not being part of any rules, and not having been true in many prior contests.

We are dealing with a group that openly states, as Mitch McConnell did on the Senate floor, that making it difficult for groups of people to vote (he was talking about federal employees in this case) was a-okay if those groups tended to vote predominantly Democratic. He used to coach voter suppression efforts under the excuse of fixing election fraud, which we know isn't a problem. But the mask has fallen off completely. There are no norms or laws, there's only what they can get away with, by hook or by crook.

Comment Re:Republican Traitors face an uphill battle (Score -1) 59

Trump yelled at government officials that he wants to execute the whistle-blower

Please provide a source for that statement.

This video, for instance: "He added: "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now."

He said the whistleblower was a spy and had committed treason. When he refers to "The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now," the penalty for treason in the US Code is death, and we have a history of spies who have received the death sentence.

Comment Re:Hey, halfway to matching the Model A Ford (Score -1) 172

Jesus, I can't believe I'm falling for a piece of shit troll. Thanks a lot, now I'm wasting my time going through your bullshit.
Fine. FINE.
Here's a report of a Nissan Leaf catching fire.
Mitsubishi has had problems with their Lithium Ion batteries overheating, it resulted in a temporary halting of the production of the model.
Apparently the Dodge Ram had a hybrid for awhile (who knew?). They were designed to have a reverse power flow, so vehicles plugged in could power a building in the case of a power outage, but the battery packs overheated again.
GM redesigned the Chevrolet Volt to reduce the chance of fires in an accident.
There are a number of incidents with a bunch of smaller EV manufacturers outside of the US as well.

Submission + - Engineers Teach a Drone To Herd Birds Away From Airports Autonomously (techxplore.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Engineers at Caltech have developed a new control algorithm that enables a single drone to herd an entire flock of birds away from the airspace of an airport. The algorithm is presented in a study in IEEE Transactions on Robotics. Herding relies on the ability to manage a flock as a single, contained entity—keeping it together while shifting its direction of travel. Each bird in a flock reacts to changes in the behavior of the birds nearest to it. Effective herding requires an external threat—in this case, the drone—to position itself in such a way that it encourages birds along the edge of a flock to make course changes that then affect the birds nearest to them, who affect birds farther into the flock, and so on, until the entire flock changes course. The positioning has to be precise, however: if the external threat gets too zealous and rushes at the flock, the birds will panic and act individually, not collectively.

To teach the drone to herd autonomously, Soon-Jo Chung, an associate professor of aerospace, and his colleagues [...] studied and derived a mathematical model of flocking dynamics to describe how flocks build and maintain formations, how they respond to threats along the edge of the flock, and how they then communicate that threat through the flock. Their work improves on algorithms designed for herding sheep, which only needed to work in two dimensions, instead of three. Once they were able to generate a mathematical description of flocking behaviors, the researchers reverse engineered it to see exactly how approaching external threats would be responded to by flocks, and then used that information to create a new herding algorithm that produces ideal flight paths for incoming drones to move the flock away from a protected airspace without dispersing it. The team tested the algorithm on a flock of birds near a field in Korea and found that a single drone could keep a flock of dozens of birds out of a designated airspace. The effectiveness of the algorithm is only limited by the number and size of the incoming birds.

Submission + - Ankiâ(TM)s new robot has artificial emotional intelligence (fastcompany.com)

harrymcc writes: Toymaker Anki, whose Cozmo robot has been a hit, has announced its next bot: Vector. Though it looks a lot like Cozmo, it packs far more computational powerâ"Cozmo relied on a phone app for smartsâ"and utilizes deep-learning tech in the interest of giving Vector a subtler, more engaging personality. Over at Fast Company, Sean Captain has a deep dive into software engineering that went into the effort.

Submission + - Georgia Defends Voting Machines Despite 243% Turnout in one Precinct (arstechnica.com)

lunchlady55 writes: In Chicago it used to be claimed that even death couldn't stop a person from voting. But in the deep south there are new reports of discrepancies in voter turnout with the approval of new electronic voting systems. From the article:

...if any state is a poster child for terrible election practices, it is surely Georgia. Bold claims demand bold evidence, and unfortunately there's plenty; on Monday, McClatchy reported a string of irregularities from the state's primary election in May, including one precinct with a 243-percent turnout...Multiple sworn statements from voters describe how they turned up at their polling stations only to be turned away or directed to other precincts. Even more statements allege incorrect ballots, frozen voting machines, and other issues.


Submission + - Apple Tells Lawmakers iPhones Are Not Listening In On Consumers (technologyreview.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Apple told U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday that its iPhones do not listen to users without their consent and do not allow third-party apps to do so either, after lawmakers asked the company if its devices were invading users’ privacy. Representatives Greg Walden, Marsha Blackburn, Gregg Harper and Robert Latta wrote to Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) chief executive Larry Page in July, citing concerns about reports that smartphones could “collect ‘non-triggered’ audio data from users’ conversations near a smartphone in order to hear a ‘trigger’ phrase, such as ‘Okay Google’ or ‘Hey Siri.’”

In a letter to Walden, an Oregon Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Apple said iPhones do not record audio while listening for Siri wakeup commands and Siri does not share spoken words. Apple said it requires users to explicitly approve microphone access and that apps must display a clear signal that they are listening.

Submission + - The Internal Report Proving the FCC Made Up a Cyberattack (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An investigation carried out by Federal Communication Commission’s own inspector general officially refutes controversial claims that a cyberattack was responsible for disrupting the FCC’s comment system in May 2017, at the height of the agency’s efforts to kill off net neutrality. The investigation also uncovered that FCC officials had provided congressional lawmakers with misleading information regarding conversations between an FCC employee and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s cybercrime task force. A report from the inspector general’s office (OIG) released Tuesday afternoon states that the comment system’s downtime was likely caused by a combination of “system design issues” and a massive surge in traffic caused when Last Week Tonight host John Oliver directed millions of TV viewers to flood the FCC’s website with pro-net neutrality comments.

Investigators were unable to “substantiate the allegations of multiple DDoS attacks” alleged by then-FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray, the report says. “At best, the published reports were the result of a rush to judgment and the failure to conduct analyses needed to identify the true cause of the disruption to system availability.” [Here's an excerpt from the report:] “While we identified a small amount of anomalous activity and could not entirely rule out the possibility of individual DoS attempts during the period from May 7 through May 9, 2017, we do not believe this activity resulted in any measurable degradation of system availability given the minuscule scale of the anomalous activity relative to the contemporaneous voluminous viral traffic.”

Submission + - TCP Flaw Lets Remote Attackers Stall Devices With Tiny DoS Attack (zdnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Security researchers are warning Linux system users of a bug in the Linux kernel version 4.9 and up that could be used to hit systems with a denial-of-service attack on networking kit. The warning comes from Carnegie Mellon University's CERT/CC, which notes that newer versions of the Linux kernel can be "forced to make very expensive calls to tcp_collapse_ofo_queue() and tcp_prune_ofo_queue() for every incoming packet which can lead to a denial of service (DoS)".

It lists a number of network-equipment vendors, PC and server manufacturers, mobile vendors, and operating-system makers that may be affected but notes that it hasn't confirmed whether any of them actually are. But, given the widespread use of Linux, the bug could affect every vendor from Amazon and Apple through to Ubuntu and ZyXEL. A remote attacker could cause a DoS by sending specially modified packets within ongoing TCP sessions. But sustaining the DoS condition would mean an attacker needs to have continuous two-way TCP sessions to a reachable and open port.

Submission + - Verizon 'Grossly Overstated' Its 4G LTE Coverage In Government Filings (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Verizon "grossly overstated" its 4G LTE coverage in government filings, potentially preventing smaller carriers from obtaining funding needed to expand coverage in underserved rural areas, a trade group says. The Federal Communications Commission last year required Verizon and other carriers to file maps and data indicating their current 4G LTE coverage. The information will help the FCC determine where to distribute up to $4.5 billion in Mobility Fund money over the next 10 years. The funds are set aside for "primarily rural areas that lack unsubsidized 4G," the FCC says. If Verizon provided the FCC with inaccurate data, the company's rural competitors might not be able to get that government funding. "Verizon's claimed 4G LTE coverage is grossly overstated," the Rural Wireless Association (RWA), which represents rural carriers, told the FCC in a filing yesterday.

Comment Re:Hypocrisy, thy name is Boshevik Republican (Score -1) 437

Like I said, I posted almost 20 years on the account without a problem, and now that account is trashed. Slashdot operates on a completely "hands-off" approach to administration, with no way to settle harassment, and that only works as long as you have the perfect system. As we've seen elsewhere, if you have no approach to handling harassment, harassers win.

I see, you might have a point. I thought slashdot editors with unlimited mod points take care of that.

Like I said, I don't have much evidence anymore that editors even read the site, other than whipslash's occasional community engagement. Certainly not enough to handle something of this frequency.

Comment Re:Hypocrisy, thy name is Boshevik Republican (Score 0) 437

Despite some limitations slashdot voting system is OK in most of the cases.

I'm fine with the mod-up/mod-down system for the most part. I do think that one account shouldn't have so much power to affect another account, especially through the karma system which is easily exploited by someone with no life. That one account can karma-bomb another into useless oblivion is a design flaw that couldn't possibly be what the coders had in mind, and that's the flaw that should get fixed.

It's not usually -1 Troll or Flamebait either, it's usually Off-Topic or Redundant that gets used. Things someone could individually look at and think "Well, that's a subjective opinion. I wouldn't have gone that far myself, but maybe you could make the case for it." Something that might look innocent in isolation, but when you gather all the posts and look at them as a group, it's pretty clear what's going on.

Like I said, I posted almost 20 years on the account without a problem, and now that account is trashed. Slashdot operates on a completely "hands-off" approach to administration, with no way to settle harassment, and that only works as long as you have the perfect system. As we've seen elsewhere, if you have no approach to handling harassment, harassers win. I've had a lot of my preconceptions about communication on the Internet challenged over the last year. I used to hold Slashdot up as a gold standard of discussion, but this site has definitely taken it's lumps of late.

Comment Re:Require bio-degradable packaging. (Score -1) 251

> This will encourage packaging to be redesigned to utilize plastics that can be processed along with compost

This will encourage manufacturers to increase the cost of the product and pass it on to the consumer.

This will encourage competitors to use different packaging not subject to the tax, thereby allowing them to undercut the ones still using high-tax packaging.

Comment Re:JOB FOR AMERICANS! (Score -1) 251

So we have been blaming the Chinese taking over all of our American jobs. Now, the Chinese don't want these garbage scavenging jobs, then my question is why don't Americans take these jobs if they are so desperately trying to win back jobs from China.

Because in the United States, we are obsessed with lowering the costs of (some) things. Americans will have a hard time doing these jobs because we don't want to pay the workers a living wage. We got used to lowering prices in the US by having goods manufactured in countries where the workers could survive on a fraction of what Americans could survive on. Have the prices on those goods dropped? Yes! They have, and they're far more affordable now than they were then. A decent quality stereo color television cost $659 in 1983, $1600+ in today's dollars. I can get a decent 50" Ultra HD 4k from Costco for $429.

Many goods are cheaper now compared to the past.. but not all things. Food is not that cheap. If anything, housing costs have gone way up in the last 30 years. So the cost of living is still pretty high compared to many other countries. If we had to employ people to sift through recycling, they would need to be paid at a certain minimum level where they can still live, and that level may be too high than people want to pay to have someone sort recycling.

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