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User: Ken+D

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Comments · 329

  1. Re:Depends on your CEO's outlook on Ask Slashdot: Why Won't Companies Upgrade Old Software? · · Score: 1

    Your problem is that you suggested spending money to save money. Sometimes there's NO MONEY.

    What you needed to do was show that they could FIRE an employee, and use the savings to upgrade the computer and get the same amount of work done with the remaining employees. Save money, then spend money.

  2. Re:When will this apply to medicines? on Supreme Court Upholds First Sale Doctrine · · Score: 1

    And not only do they check your ID, they actually report the date, and amount of pseudo-ephedrine that you purchased against your ID. http://www.nplexservice.com/

  3. Re:Crappy software on Ask Slashdot: Why Is It So Hard To Make An Accurate Progress Bar? · · Score: 1

    Yes, not enough of the commenters seem to understand that most of the things that people want progress bars involve not only guessing how long each task will require, but ALSO having no idea what specific set of tasks are required.

    "Primitive" tasks might be easy (e.g. copy File A), but as you build up a sequence of these tasks in becomes impossible. (e.g. Copy Disk A; Copy All Media on PC X; Copy All Media on the LAN)

    Throw in a few tasks that are really slow, but are difficult to predict if they will need to occur or not...

  4. Re:Pain on 'Gorilla Arm' Will Keep Touch Screens From Taking Over · · Score: 1

    The number of features that are up front and visible to the user is drastically increased from Office 2003.

    I'm sorry, perhaps you didn't know about this feature called 'toolbars' ? I could have half a dozen toolbars up in the space that the ribbon takes up and it was easier to control the set of tools I like to work with together.

  5. Re:NEVER trust and AC on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Anti-Spam Service Extortion? · · Score: 1

    Comcast's outgoing spam filtering is crap.

    I send little email, and when I do it often gets rejected by comcast because it is something like a "todo" list or a list of URLs for future reading that I am sending from my home email to my office email.

    Inevitably, to get the email to send I have to make it look MORE like spam by inserting some useless text like: "Hi me, this is that information you were sending to yourself, hope you like it!"

  6. and here I thought it was because most PCs that ship with Windows X barely can (or is that can't?) run Windows X + 1

  7. Re:Elections have consequences on Amid Fiscal Uncertainty, Venture Capital Is Way Down In Silicon Valley · · Score: 1

    You'll bitch and moan too, because your retirement benefits are taxed with the same tax: higher capital gains taxes means less money for you, whether you have a defined benefit plan or a 401k.

    See, you need to get a financial education. Neither defined benefit, nor defined contribution plan distributions are taxed via capital gains. It's all ordinary income. That's one of the trade-offs for tax free growth pre-distribution phase.

    Also, in case the abstract thinking is too much, A society in which one day you have 100% employment and X production, is no more productive the day after 20% of the workers are laid off. Sure, an individual company may be, but the society... no. Not unless those workers actual get another job. Idle workers are not productive, whether they are on someone's payroll, receiving unemployment, or begging in the streets.

    Meanwhile, based upon my interactions with actual companies, I'd say that their 'products' (physical or non-physical) have lower quality due to their lack of employees, so their production value has probably gone down in real terms.

  8. Re:not a question on Ask Slashdot: To AdBlock Or Not To AdBlock? · · Score: 1

    When I do use Hulu, I get a screen that says "Sorry, we're unable to load a message from our sponsors."

    Which is much better than the experience I had the other day on ADC (I think?) where I was tormented with 4 sets of 3 back-to-back copies of Microsoft's PC + Xbox360 back to school ad.

  9. Re:Plain text on LinkedIn Password Hashes Leaked Online · · Score: 1

    And no numbers that could be letter substitutes.
    So no 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or 9 is allowed. You must include numbers not in this set. (Also please remember that NaN is not a number and thus does not satisfy the numeric requirement).

  10. Re:touchpad scrolling with PDF in background on Firefox 13 Released, Debuts Brand New Tab Page and Homepage · · Score: 1

    Is this a generic fix? There are miscellaneous FF navigation controls that stop working when one of the (background) tabs is open to certain plugins (PDF is one, YouTube/Flash is another)

  11. Re:Generally, when prescription drugs.... on FDA May Let Patients Buy More Drugs Without Prescriptions · · Score: 1
    A useless baseline. What's important is the negotiated (discounted) price. Then the insurance covers what they cover, and you pay the rest, whether that is a percentage, or a co-pay (and which of several possible co-pays)... example for BCBS:

    To fill your prescription at one of the participating Network retail pharmacies, ... you pay only the appropriate coinsurance or copayment amount.

    coinsurance = % appropriate = it varies based on the drug category

    which really means the more expensive the drug, the higher percentage of the higher price you will need to pay

    To file a claim for reimbursement from an out-of-network pharmacy: When your claim is processed, you will be reimbursed up to 55% of the drug's Average Wholesale Price (AWP) for covered medicines and supplies purchased at an out-of-network pharmacy.

    Where AWP is code for, "determined however the insurance company feels like", much like Reasonable and Customary is.

  12. Re:Generally, when prescription drugs.... on FDA May Let Patients Buy More Drugs Without Prescriptions · · Score: 2

    It's more complex even than you have stated. The cost is going to depend upon which drugstore you go to, what your insurance company has negotiated with that drugstore (considered a trade secret BTW).

    It's a nightmare.

    And anyone who claims that Americans are not cost conscious when it comes to medical expenses is being willfully obtuse. They system is designed to make it impossible to comparison shop. You have a procedure done and you don't even know how many different entities are going to send you a bill.

  13. Re:Premium is dead on Millions of Subscribers Leaving Cable TV for Streaming Services · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I bet there are thousands of people who would be willing to subscribe to HBO.... if they didn't have to spend $80+ to be eligible to subscribe.

  14. Re:Science Fiction on Millions of Subscribers Leaving Cable TV for Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    Witchblade is on Netflix streaming. Watch it everywhere.

  15. Re:Regulation on Mobile Operators: Creating Artificial Demand For Capacity? · · Score: 1

    The dismantling of AT&T in the 80s.

  16. Re:250GB on Comcast Not Counting Their Video Service Against Bandwidth Cap · · Score: 1

    No, Comcast provides 250G at my current cost.
    I'm fairly close to cancel cable TV entirely (I've shifted to a less expensive package) because we do not watch it.

    Comcast precipitated our whole migration by re-jiggering their offerings and they telling us we needed to spend $40 more a month on a package we don't want in order to keep the other packages we were already getting. Already unhappy with how little there was to watch when I could sit down and watch, I decided to drop a package instead and use my savings to pay for Netflix plus have money left over to buy DVDs or downloads at Amazon. Add in Amazon Prime to help with the Xmas shopping and we now have enough streaming content queued up to watch that no one ever complains that there is nothing on, at a lower monthly cost.

    The cable box almost never gets turned on now. Comcast On-Demand is not available because it's not "included" in our package, so even if we wanted to PPV from Comcast we CANNOT. They deserve to have their business melt.

  17. Re:250GB on Comcast Not Counting Their Video Service Against Bandwidth Cap · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's what I thought too.
    Then since we got a Roku and Netflix for Christmas, our monthly data usage has steadily climbed up from 10GB to 125GB. If our data usage continues to climb we will be at the limit in a few months and we have done nothing except basically replace cable TV with internet TV.

  18. Re:current laws and terms of service on Facebook: Legal Action Against Employers Asking For Your Password · · Score: 1
  19. Re:This is just misleading on As Nuclear Reactors Age, the Money To Close Them Lags · · Score: 1

    Which is ackward, because you can't very well require the funds for cleanup up front because it would make buisnesses that use radiation in any significant way (radiopharmaceutical companies, as an example) impossibly expensive to start.

    Well if you can't pay to clean it up when you start, what makes you think they'll be able to pay to clean it up later? This is why projects should require bonding up front.

    It's especially painful in the nuclear energy sector, where licenses are issued for 20 years(?), and the corporations all assume that the plant will operate indefinitely. If you assume the plant will never be decommissioned then you don't have to budget for it. It's not part of your costs, it's not part of the plan. Someone is going to end up paying to decommission the plants, but they don't plan on it to be them.

  20. Re:Would multiply my bill by five on Do You Really Need a Smart Phone? · · Score: 1

    PagePlus prepaid plan requires only a $10 recharge every 120 days.
    voice minutes are $0.10 or less
    uses the Verizon network

  21. You cannot demand from youtube or the RIAA to flag it all manually...

    So Tech News should alert youtube to unblock their video and move on.

    What? Manually? Why not make it automated? Tech News can't hire a bunch of people to do all this counter noticing.

    Perhaps right next to "Submit" button, there could be a "Submit (and no this material is not violating any copyrights" button that Tech News could press to submit with automatic counter noticing.

  22. Re:I notice on Ticketmaster Customers, Get Ready For Your (Tiny) Class-Action Payout · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then they should take a stack of coupons as their share, since that's what the class members are getting.... coupons off future ticketmaster ticket purchases.

    Hey, if cash is good enough for the lawyers, it's good enough for the class members too!

  23. Twitter Terms of Service on Tech Site Sues Ex-Employee, Claiming Rights To His Twitter Account · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Twitter clearly indicates in their ToS that the service can only be used if you can enter a binding contractual relationship with Twitter.

    Unless the company gave him the ability to enter a contract with Twitter on the company's behalf, then the account is either in violation of the ToS, or it is personal.

    Twitter gives the company various options for dealing with an account that infringes their marks.

  24. UX fad will die on Microsoft Killed the Start Menu Because No One Uses It · · Score: 1

    Someday the UX fad will go away and stop making things more 'usable' and 'discoverable'

  25. Re:Tabs on top still broken on Mozilla Ships Firefox 5, Meets Rapid-Release Plan · · Score: 1

    Yes, and tabs on top is stupid.
    My mouse is in the content window where I can click links. Putting tabs on top moves them farther away and makes them less convenient.