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antipaganda

Emotionless? This proves that you're not a Data fan. He had tons of emotion.
You've got to understand that it is very hard for highly technically proficient people to be nice to everyone. For someone at Linus's level, a LOT of time is spent answering what seems like the worst kind of stupid questions.

This causes massive compassion fatigue. Take that into account, and it becomes clear that Linus is not as big an asshole as you think.

Re:Twitter Was Act One on Thursday March 03, 2011 @08:34PM (#2286558)
He was just reading over the guy's shoulder. Nothing weird there.
Re:Gary Taubes: The Inanity of Overeating on Saturday January 01, 2011 @07:22PM (#2058931)
Was he always thin?
Re:Honeybees are found to interact with Quantum fields on Monday December 27, 2010 @10:56PM (#2044572)
ahahaha. The idea that bee brains contain a structure known to exist already in many other types of brain is equivalent to bees being able to use virtual particles for computation?

That's crazy talk, and you know it.

Re:Why I will not analyze the new WikiLeaks data on Sunday December 05, 2010 @03:14AM (#1971225)
That's why they work with journalists, relevant experts and, when possible, the governments involved to filter out sensitive names. They seem to be doing the best they can, and so far they haven't been called out on it.
Gray's Sports Almanac.
Re:Why I will not analyze the new WikiLeaks data on Sunday November 28, 2010 @08:52PM (#1949058)
Wikileaks edits its releases to avoid harming human sources of intel, sir. Put away your strawman.
My mistake, I was thinking macroeconomic instead of microeconomic.

You're right, it's yet another aspect of the "Australian invents something, Australia refuses to invest, Australian goes overseas and makes tons of cash" phenomenon.

Re:Wikileaks says it is under attack on Sunday November 28, 2010 @08:42PM (#1949035)
The BNP is an overtly racist party. If you join them, it is assumed you follow their policies and general belief structure. Those policies and beliefs are incompatible with what the police are ordered to do as part of their jobs.

It's better than a policy of ignoring the beliefs of your officers, isn't it?

Yes, our finance system lacks sophistication, uhuh... which is why we banned credit default swaps BEFORE the financial crisis, and our banks were never in danger of collapse because of the currency reserves we make them hold. And our foreign debt is miniscule.

So call us primitive if you like, but look at what your sophistication has brought you.

Re:Ballmer sells Windows 1.0 on Saturday November 20, 2010 @06:55PM (#1925735)
wait... I had that clock on my Amiga 500! And Reversi! And notepad! ...or something like it. So what gives?
Re:Ask HN: Etiquette at conferences? on Sunday November 07, 2010 @02:08AM (#1878907)
Important safety tip there, thanks Egon.
Re:A hell of a time on Sunday November 07, 2010 @01:38AM (#1878868)
She was trying to go to the goddamn toilet in a pub! Exactly what did she do wrong here? The drunken twat asked her to come have a talk, she thought it was a professional thing, since they were at a conference, it's what you do. He tried the kiss, she pushed him off and said no. He shoved his fucking hand into her pussy. After she said no.

I am getting sick and tired of "it must be her fault".

Re:A hell of a time on Sunday November 07, 2010 @01:05AM (#1878816)
Probably because she's mentally ill. Same thing happened to a friend of mine; a girl who turned out to be schizophrenic accused him of rape; luckily her story didn't make sense and she later realised that she'd been delusional. On the other hand, I know at least five women who've been raped; only one went to the cops. The rest had credible stories and witnesses; they still couldn't do it.
Re:Wind powered vehicle nearly 3 times faster than downwind on Saturday November 06, 2010 @12:26PM (#1877190)
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Ten minutes of feeling like an idiot for not getting it, then a moment of glory when it finally became clear.

For those who still feel like idiots, here's the post on Autopia that made me a believer:

"Let me get this straight. It is common knowledge that a sailboat can tack at an angle to the wind sufficiently fast to reach a directly downwind point faster than the wind itself. Yes? And yet people actually thought that merely doing this in a straight line would be “impossible”?

Assuming the former is true and commonly accepted, all you have to do is imagine an arbitrarily small (narrow) “zig zag” tacking pattern — which is roughly the equivalent of your “cylinder earth” thought experiment. If the zig-zag is small enough to be contained with in the width of your “boat”, that’s all you need, in principle.

The rest is just engineering (and using a propeller is much better than a zig-zagging mechanical device of some kind). I had never heard of this controversy, and halfway through the article I’m thinking “this is just obvious.”"

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/08/ddwfttw/2/

Tacking within the width of the boat is the key, right? Now, think about changing the angle of the sail not by swinging it horizontally back and forth, but by TURNING THE SAIL UPSIDE DOWN. In other words, constantly spin the sail at the correct rate, and it's the same as tacking back and forth; and we already know that you can beat the wind that way.

Re:Paul Graham : uses this. on Saturday November 06, 2010 @11:47AM (#1877092)
What the hell? American McGee has large eyes like a classic angel: http://american.mcgee.usesthis.com/

edit: Look, I'm not dissing the man. His eyes are angelically beautiful. I must admit, probably not an insight into what tools he uses, but I just hadn't noticed before.

There is a HUGE flaw in your analogy here: "If people did go in there and got killed we'd cover the event in detail on TV, as a warning to others (like Shark Week). Even really stupid people would know not to go into the "valley of the stabby monsters."

Dolphins don't have TV. They have no technology, apart from using sponges to protect their noses.

Imagine that, back before the Stone Age, you were a primitive hunter-gatherer, and you had to warn the entire world population about the valley of stabby invincible guys, since you were the only survivor of the last massacre there. How the hell would you do it? Who would even believe you?

Re:Remind HN: Vote on Tuesday November 02, 2010 @06:18PM (#1862642)
Poor bastards in NSW... they've had the same corrupt Labor government for what, fourteen years now? The tragedy is that the opposition don't have to be much better to win, they just have to not fuck a goat on live TV.
Re:China Is Said to Halt Exports to U.S. of Some Key Minerals on Tuesday October 19, 2010 @10:24PM (#1809701)
Yeah, but much less than usual. Even in the Congo, Sudan, Somalia and the like it's pretty quiet.
Re:Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered on Thursday September 30, 2010 @02:51PM (#1744368)
If you can visit them, they're not isolated.
Uh, play the alpha: the world is procedurally generated and about six times the size of Earth.
Re:Bill Gates Enrolls His Kids In Khan Academy on Tuesday August 31, 2010 @11:09PM (#1651684)
That won't be happening. The Nobel Prize cannot be given to a dead person. It's in the rules.
Re:China to build giant buses that cars can drive under on Monday August 02, 2010 @08:52PM (#1569688)
The same way we solve all of life's problems: Giant spinning blades!

Or, y-know, fines. And a bored cop sitting on the top of the giant bus with a crane.

Re:-2000 lines of code on Sunday July 25, 2010 @08:58PM (#1546747)
It was if this is the first time you'd come across the concept. :D
Re:Toshiba intros dual-screen, keyboard-less netbook on Monday June 21, 2010 @10:21AM (#1448859)
Well, it's a virtual screen, you can rearrange the keys.
Re:A Cure For ‘Nigerian Internet Scams’. on Monday June 14, 2010 @07:10AM (#1429343)
You know what? I was expecting, at the end of the article, that there would be a request for banking details to help this worthy venture get off the ground. Missed opportunity for comedy. Oh well.
Calling him smart was to try to get him to read the rest.
Except in North Korea, he wouldn't have a choice between working for the military and working for someone else.
Only Irishmen bring up true Scotsmen all the time.

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