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User: metalmaster

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  1. Another misfit project? on Google Announces "Classroom" · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This has that misfit stank all over it. Google will be all excited to get it out into the world. They'll let you play with it for a semester or 2 and then it'll get the axe or be absorbed as feature bloat into some other project.

  2. the real issue.... on Bachelor's Degree: An Unnecessary Path To a Tech Job · · Score: 2

    Many employers require a bachelors' degree or unattainable amounts of experience for even entry-level jobs doing menial tasks. I understand they dont want folks with the attention span of a gnat, but they should keep requirement realistic. I see job listings every day requiring 5 to 10 years of experience but only offer entry-leve or even minimuml wages.

  3. Re:Spoken like an American; come to Europe instead on WSJ: Prepare To Hang Up the Phone — Forever · · Score: 1

    The only grocer that usually checks my receipts is a wholesale warehouse where they dont have grocery bags. If you're seen carrying out a case of water bottles they'd like to see that you paid for that item. The folks at my local walmart just greet me at the door.

  4. Re:Hack it to add American names like "John Smith" on One Person Successfully Removed From US No-Fly List · · Score: 1

    If there's any hope for the human race, this "list" is a bit more extensive than just a name

  5. Re:Not a good idea on Ask Slashdot: Modern Web Development Applied Science Associates Degree? · · Score: 1

    Associates' refers to a 2 year program, but i agree that anything that's relevant now will not be 2 years from now.

  6. privacy nuts need not reply on Google Starts Tracking Retail Store Visits On Android and iOS · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    no seriously....we've heard it all before

  7. Re:What a self serving twat on Do Comments On Web Pages Ruin Science? · · Score: 1

    surely it's because they're trolling the trolls of the trolls

  8. Re:Windows 8 is not Keyboard friendly on Microsoft Shows Off Its Vision For Gesture-Controlled PCs · · Score: 2

    you're doing it wrong....

    All of my goto shortcuts that I use on a daily basis work just fine. That includes some of the ones introduced in Windows 8 to access charms. I edited a registry key to disable the mouse-in/mouse-out actions for left, right and bottom screen. However I use win+i to open the control panel charm to shutdown the computer when I need to. You may just need a primer for windows 8 shortcuts

  9. proper e-books maybe? on No Child Left Untableted · · Score: 1

    A tablet per child sounds like a ridiculous way to spend money, but a valid point brought up in a previous article suggests that perhaps a donation is/was made that cannot be spent on any other budgetary concerns. So....kids get tablets.

    Perhaps this can be a good thing though. If we can get a gadget in to every child's hand maybe we can force the hand of major textbook publishers and get them to put out electronic copies of their books that are actually usable. I dont mean "Here is the foreword for the book get a dead tree copy to read the rest" or webpages for chapter objectives that refer back to a 5lbs hard cover book for the rest of the work.

  10. hm.... on Will Robots Replace Rent-a-Cops? · · Score: 2, Funny

    gimme a roomba, a broom stick and a pivoting webcam.

  11. Re:MVNOs are a great option on Mobile Virtual Networks Are Booming Again · · Score: 1

    Oh, i know. I paid outright for my GS3 last year and through some trade-in magic I got a HTC One a few months back all to keep my plan as cheap as possible

  12. MVNOs are a great option on Mobile Virtual Networks Are Booming Again · · Score: 2

    You often get the coverage and reach of the leased carrier for maybe half the cost. A typical "all you can eat" from a MVNO will cost $50-60 compared to a $80-100+ bill from the leased counterpart. The caveat here is that you're going to pay closer to retail for your handset

    Contract carriers are beginning to do some interesting things to their plan structure and handset pricing like abolishing contracts and handset "lock in" but they still want you to pay an arm and a leg for such services. T-Mobile has done the best as far as price goes....they'll lower your recurring monthly charge to $50, but then you have to tack on a $20-30 fee for a handset that youre basically financing

  13. Re:Catch-up because on Microsoft Needs a Catch-Up Artist · · Score: 2

    the MSiah cometh..... no, but seriously im sure each of these ideas(as awesome as they may sound) are impossible to execute. A.) There's so much red tape that even our most awesome cutting implements wouldnt get through it. B.) They are simply impractical from a developer standpoint. It's easy to throw out idea after idea, but it means nothing until you put it in motion.

  14. Re:What About the MVNOs? on Crunching the Numbers On Shared Cellphone Contracts · · Score: 3, Informative

    The "wifi first" aspect of the service is what makes it so cheap. The more minutes you use over wifi the less time republic has to lease from it's provider. That looks great on paper.....really great! But then you have to look at the state of wifi these days, and more specifically secured wifi. You can only piggyback your calls from an open wifi connection or one you have a password/login to use. More and more homes and small businesses are using passphrases to secure their network. Even if that password is "password" it does you no good when you drive by and the network declines you access and passes your call to the cell network.

  15. Hey, Look what I can do! on Consumer Device Hacking Concerns Getting Lost In Translation · · Score: 0

    Of course you're going to be shamed when you showcase a fatal flaw in a pacemaker to a bunch of people at a convention. It may not be the easiest thing to do, but the most responsible thing to do is to go to the company or governing body and explain things

  16. no support for linux on The Black Underbelly of Windows 8.1 'Blue' · · Score: 0

    I dont think Joe User is ready for desktop linux quite yet. The posts I have read here all talk about using the OS as it it, but you forget one thing....third-party hardware and software. Users wont be ready to use linux flavors on the desktop until vendors are ready to support them.

    Case in point, I recently worked a call center job for an ISP that served rural America. The service worked for "every operating system and every browser." However, we supported Windows XP onward and Mac OSX(limited). As far as browsers we supported IE 7+, FF 3.x+ and Safari(limited). If you could connect your modem and run it smoothly using your linux box be our guest, but dont come to us with your problems. It is a process-based job which means there are step by step solutions for agents to walk users through with pretty screenshots. Your screen doesn't match? You can't follow the process with me over the phone? Powercycle your equipment and tell me if that solves your issue. If not i'll note your account and move on. Bye.

    The company i worked for isn't the only one out there that's process-based as im sure most if not all level 1 helpdesk positions are. I wasn't scripted, but there are only so many words you can use to tell a customer to do what they need to do.

    Until a company can step up and develop a locked down no config necessary(by which i mean changing/creating values in a text file or terminal) that looks and acts uniformly on any hardware vendors and dumb users wont touch it.

  17. There's this really cool app that... on Ask Slashdot: How To Stay Ahead of Phone Tracking ? · · Score: 1

    I suspect that's the answer you were looking for, but i'm afraid that's not an answer. Something like this would probably require hardware switches to be truly effective. It's much simpler to take out your battery as a few others have already stated. and dont forget to discharge the device by holding in the power key for a good 10-15 seconds.

  18. Gotta love the lack of imagination here at /. on Animation Sophistication: The Croods Required 80 Million Compute Hours · · Score: 1

    It's been said that as we grow older we lose our sense of wonder about the world. That's certainly true of the slashdot crowd. Here we have an article talking about the technology behind creating an animated movie, and I see a bunch of comments bashing the script and progression of the movie. Face it folks, this movie isnt for you. Dreamworks wasnt trying to make it for you, and as long as youre older than 14 Dreamworks wont try to cater to you with this genre ever again. Let the kids have their fun with fart jokes, bright colors and possibly some cartoon violence. Take them into the theatre, cuff them to the seat then go down the hall to enjoy your movie with mile deep character development and a plot that takes 1:30 to make sense of.

  19. Re:AHAHAHAhahaha on ITU Aims At 20Mbps Broadband For All By 2020 · · Score: 1

    i'm sure that's a goal too, but that's not news for nerds now, is it?

  20. Re:Just wait for the news media to pick this up. on Growing Consensus: The Higgs Boson Exists · · Score: 1

    c'mon.....this is slashdot not huffington post

  21. Palm? on Don't Write Them Off: A Palm Retrospective · · Score: -1, Troll

    What the hell is a palm? Is that one of those $99 android tablets you can buy at your local drug store?

  22. Re:Why is this necessary? on Dad Hacks "Donkey Kong" - Now Pauline Rescues Mario · · Score: 2

    Regina of Dino Crisis is a strong female role. If you dont know the game it's pretty much Resident Evil with dinosaurs

  23. Re:PC gaming revival on The End Is Near for GameStop · · Score: 2

    The whole attraction to console gaming is that it used to "just work" Now there's the BS with internet enabled games and dlc and the like, but guess where that came from? Ya, that idea was brought to you by PC gaming.

    The pain with PC gaming is that everyone's PC is configured differently. Games have dependencies that may not exist on your PC. A game may take advantage of a niche feature of a video/sound card that doesnt exist in other cards. A game might work with a specific version of a hardware driver. This list can go on and on. Console developers and users dont have this problem. The hardware is there. The software is there and all of the capabilities are the same. Console gaming just works.

    You donn't complain that networks dumb down your tv programming to account for your tv. Imagine if your tv were as complicated as a PC, and you had to account for audio/video codecs, aspect ratios, and framerates. Sure, you may have to do this if you download content from the net, but imagine if broadcast programming were this complicated.

  24. one word on Pepsi To Release New Breakfast Mountain Dew · · Score: 5, Informative

    awesome...

  25. Re:I'm still grandfathered in on Unlimited Data on As 4G Seeps In, Verizon Offers Cheap(er) No-Contract 3G Plans · · Score: 3, Informative

    You'll either have to keep the phone you have or buy your phones outright. As soon as you get a new subsidized phone you'll be moved to their new plan model which includes unlimited minutes and text with a bucket of data