Posts by Jtom

Re: Any laws being broken?

Tens of thousand of scientists studying climate change? Seriously? You are off by at least an order of magnitude. The “97% of climate scientists” meme is the result of the responses to a survey by 77 climate scientists.

When absurdities like the earlier comment are posted - and goes unchallenged- it just gives more fodder for people to attack the credibility of climate change.

Re: sorry or not

My comment when this issue comes up is, if meritocracy is not the basis of selecting doctors, airplane pilots, and jobs, why is it allowed in trivial pursuits like sports teams? Do people really demand the best on the playing field, but less than the best for open heart surgery is perfectly acceptable?

Re: DNA?

Wow, if that had actually been done for the past few decades, there is at least one US Senator who would be an unemployed person lacking a college degree.

Re: Nine Seniles

Charles 9. You are wrong. If your initial appeal did not include an argument, you can not use that argument in an appeal of that Court’s ruling. You can not appeal based on something that was not ruled on. You must argue that the previous Court was wrong on its ruling of your appeal, not that there are additional issues to consider.

Re: Hasn't this been decided in the other direction already?

“Right-wingers” know full well that juries get things wrong sometimes (e.g., O. J. Simpson). Judicial activism is when a judge creates a law that did not exist prior to his rulings. That clearly is not the situation here. The reason right-wingers object to activist judges is clear; legislatures should make laws, not a handful of non-elected judges. Yet another concept those on the left do not understand (but watch them suddenly understand it if judges rule that a ‘person’ exists at some point before birth).

And wtf does this issue have to do with right/left politics? Are you that obsessed with right-wingers?

Re: Umm... nope.

There is no new energy being added to the system unless you are claiming the sun is getting hotter.

The question is, how is the energy being dispersed. Actual data, as oppose to the primary speculative nature of those debating this topic, over the last decade suggest that polar winters are not as cold (but still well below freezing), and nights are not getting as cool. elsewhere.

There his been niether a rise in average high temperatures, nor more extreme temperatures, either hot or cold.

That’s just what the data show. I’m not interested in debating it.

Re: Level of engagement?

No, I think this is more the question of, why are the young so disinterested in the news that they don’t share it, fake or not.

Re: Presidential private thoughts

Co-equal, but with different responsibilities. Courts are to rule, yes or no, on the Constitutionality of laws, not “this law does not meet Constitutional requirements, so we’re going to change it to this,” or worse, “we’re going to change what the wording of the Constitution means.”

If a law doesn’t pass muster, then it should be nullified and left to the legislature to make appropriate changes. Moreover, if there is a huge grey area of what is permissible, they need to leave the decisions to the lawmakers as well.

Re: Presidential private thoughts

And this is a recent thing? How quickly people have forgotten Obama’s war on Fox News.

Re: Also facebook

But what constitutes hate speech depends on which side of the issue you are on. I hate fascists, for example, would cause no stir. Post that you hate LBTGQs and you will be banned.

Also, people interpreted support for one thing as being hate for the other. If someone were to say, I love white cars, someone will immediately claim you are posting hate for black cars. But is that true? Does preference for one thing mean hatred for the other? I personally believe you can prefer one thing and be completely apathetic about other similar objects; hate is not simply the lack of love, but incorporates a degree of ill will and a wish for harm.

Then, finally, there are groups who believe you disagree with what you do, then you are espousing hate. The ‘hate the sin, but love the sinner’ concept is completely beyond their comprehension.

And if you think Conservatives are primarily the ‘haters’, then you are just espousing your own hatred (using your opinion of what passes for hate). They have OPINIONS that differ from you. I seriously doubt that you have seen more examples of ill will or wishing harm on others by Conservatives than any other group.

Re: What an engineer does in the UK

One high-level idiot (but I repeat myself) decided everyone should be called some form of manager, e.g., manager, senior manager, general manager, division manager, state manager...

It made titles completely worthless, unless you only wanted to know a person’s ranking in the company. Interdepartmental meetings were humorous, though, as we introduced ourselves at the table - Joe Blow, manager; Jane Doe, manager; Bob Brown, manager, ... - then proceeded to go around again to describe what it was we were managing.

Finding the right person for something using the corporate directory was worthless. If you needed an IT tech for a problem, every person in that department would just be listed as manager. So calling for help just got responses like, I don’t fix printers, I install mainframes, until you finally found someone in company support.

Re: What an engineer does in the UK

First job title was ‘outside plant engineer’ for a telephone company. We designed the outside network - what cables and equipment to install, specified where the installations would be, specified pole placements, obtained permits and rights-of- way, etc. We weren’t ‘engineer’ engineers, but what else would you call us, outside plant network designers?

Never touched a cable, pole, or terminal, but could not convince my grandmother that I did not climb telephone poles.

Re: I give SuperMicro the benefit of the doubt.

The elements of a libel/defamation claim are: 1) intentional publication of a statement of fact 2) that is false 3) unprivileged 4) has a natural tendency to injure or which causes "special damage," and 5) the defendant's fault in publishing the statement amounted to at least negligence.

Unless you are a public figure, the false statements need not be malicious, nor must you know that the statements are untrue. Failure to adequately vet a story is negligence.

For a media outlet to print a false story like this (assuming it is) is prima facia evidence of negligence, and sticking to it increases the liability. They will have to reveal what their basis were for determining the story’s veracity, and it better be solid. Otherwise, they are clearly negligent in determining the facts. Did they get access to a ‘corrupted’ board? Get it checked by an independent research group? How did they verify any internal documents they obtained? They can likely protect their sources, i.e., not be forced to reveal names, but they cannot use that as a defense. When they protect the source, they give up any firsthand evidence that source could attest to.

If they cannot prove they had credible reasons to believe the story was true, a good attorney would sue them for whatever shortfall in revenues suffered that could reasonably be shown. Considering that the company had a great previous quarter, the assumption would be that the next quarter would have been at least as good without the article.

Re: I give SuperMicro the benefit of the doubt.

Amazon has pulled their ad money. That’s the most painful cut of all for a news org. Do you have any idea how the media are struggling for revenues?

Re: No way ready!

I was at an intersection, first in line waiting for a green arrow to turn left (US street. Left means turning in front of traffic going in the opposite direction). The cross streets had had the green light for over two minutes, meaning traffic in my direction, and the opposite direction, had been red for that long.

When I finally got my green arrow, there was a car coming from the opposite direction. All expectation was that he would slow and stop for his red light. But something just didn’t look right. I unreasonably hesitated for perhaps a full second, risking getting honked at by the car behind, before it was obvious; the car was not slowing down. The car blew through the light at fifty-plus miles an hour. I would have likely made the turn unscathed, but if the car behind me just followed me through the light, the most likely scenario, it would have been destroyed.

I have no idea why I suspected the car was going to run the red light. If I have no idea what alerted me to a dangerous situation, how could I, or anyone else, program a car to avoid it?

This brings up other considerations. Once I saw that the cars in front of me were about to hit each other, so I slowed down and changed lanes to avoid becoming part of it. Other times, I’ve anticipated that a nearby vehicle was about to get in a hazardous situation, and I moved over a lane to give him a way out. Are those capabilities going to be programmed into an autopilot? What about the simple courtesy of slowing just a bit so another car can safely merge into your lane ahead of you?

Re: Whisper it…

The trouble is, defiler, you don’t know in advance if you are a ‘fringe case’. Any of us can be the one getting a 2 am (when all but ‘fringe cases’ are charging their EVs) call from a hospital saying a relative is in a bad way. Would you rather have a car that can be refueled in less than five minutes, if necessary, or one that takes far, far longer?

My car purchase is influenced not just on expected needs, but unexpected needs as well.

I live a rather boring, conventional life, but have had to make long, immediate drives to help eveacuate family members from storms, and get to a hospital a thousand miles away quickly (flying was not an option, airports shut down by storms). I have also rescued a neighbor in the middle of the night, stranded by a flat tire. Being low on petrol is not a problem. Being low on a charge would turn a bad situation into a disaster.

Re: someone will complain t

More accurate to say ,”greater than 700 degrees Celsius”, acknowledging the clear SWAG of 1000 degrees k.

Re: Mass Dialers

Many of us have chosen not to be slaves to anyone who may email us or send a text message, immediately looking at our device when a notification alarm is triggered. Alerts like for weather, disaster, or amber (kidnapping) are used very sparingly, and are usually via cellphone networks, not internet. A phone ringing implies there is a live person at the other end of the circuit who needs to talk to you NOW.

Send be a text or email notice, and I may not see it for a day or two.