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Comment: Re:Invent your own exercises (Score 5, Insightful) 284

by jarbrewer (#41973449) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Catch Photoshop Plagiarism?
On the grading machine, keep the history window open. It's stored as part of the file. File history should give a very good idea if the student is resorting to shenanigans. Yes, a student could delete the file's history, but the teacher could require 'showing your work' through the history.

Comment: Re:not sure (Score 1) 470

by jarbrewer (#40157185) Attached to: Windows 8: More EULA, Fewer Rights.

>>>Scalia is an asshole

That may be but he has consistently applied the laws as written. (Unlike that other justice: Sotomayor who ignores that law & makes random decisions based on her beliefs.) If you don't like the laws don't blame the judges who merely enforce them. Blame the Congress for producing bad law.

The judiciary doesn't enforce the law. The executive enforces the law. The judiciary interprets the law. In other words, the judiciary takes the law as written as well as an actual set of facts; then, based on belief, determines how the law applies to the set of facts. Thus, interprets. As justices, this is true of both Sotomayor and Scalia.

Comment: Re:It can beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy, but... (Score 1) 674

by jarbrewer (#35233472) Attached to: Watson Wins Jeopardy Contest

But it may be able to answer a lot of questions asked by, say, a phone support caller.

Or better yet, questions posed from a phone marketer. I would certainly consider purchasing a product that was able to engage a telemarketer for a non-trivial length of time without committing me to buy something from that telemarketer.

Comment: Re:I'm sitting this one out (Score 1) 836

by jarbrewer (#34103690) Attached to: 'Cellphone Effect' Could Skew Polling Predictions
Show up to the polling place and take a ballot. Submit the blank. A vote for 'nobody' is still a vote, in the sense that you're marked as having voted in the election. The obligation that ties to the rights you (may or may not) enjoy is to show up on the first Tuesday in November and cast a ballot.

Comment: Re:Reality check (Score 1) 662

by jarbrewer (#33798590) Attached to: Can We Travel To That Exciting New Exoplanet?

Considering that the fastest space vehicles ever created took 3 months to travel a mere 8 light *minutes* (somewhere around one-16000th the speed of light), the assumption that we will ever reach even a significant fraction of the speed of light with a vehicle created anytime in the conceivable future is a bit of an overstretch to say the *least*.

No problem... A quick application of Moore's Law and we should be ready for launch in about 30 years.
