+1 - I fly with a ridiculous assortment of cables and spare batteries as well (2-3 cameras with two extra batteries each, two cell phones with extra batteries, a laptop, a sony e-reader, sometimes a hiking gps, all of the chargers and cables that go with those things, and other stuff I'm probably forgetting), I fly quite frequently, and I never have a problem. I used to sometimes get extra scrutiny and hand-searches of my DSLR lenses, but those must be getting a lot more familiar to the TSA recently because they don't seem to raise any eyebrows anymore. Even back when they did, usually they just would put my bag through the x-ray a second time (at a different angle I presume) rather than hand searching. I got the explosives swab check twice, but I was pre-selected for additional screening.
Also, one time I put a PS3 and all the controllers and cables and everything in checked luggage, on two flights (a round trip). I was kind of expecting it to get stolen, but it wasn't;) That said, I know things do get stolen by baggage handlers and I don't put anything valuable in checked luggage if I can avoid it. I think the parent's assertion that it was stolen (or confiscated) is probably valid, lack of direct evidence aside.
I thought Google Earth was bad - still 15mb on internal storage after you move to SD - but something like that seems like it should use a lot of space, whereas a browser doesn't.
Yes I saw the comment earlier from someone linking to an explanation of the size. Still pretty outrageous - I've never seen an android app anywhere close to that big.
Considering what a sufficiently creative person *could* do with that account, I was really, really disappointed. I was actually expecting the "word of god" i.e. bible quotes, or whatever is considered the word of god, applied to current events (or whatever). Or, since I'm an atheist, I expected satire at the very least.
Instead it's the same as any other random person's twitter - random crap no one's interested in. What a waste.
Not sure if anyone's mentioned it yet, but there was an exploit that allowed one-click root. I think you just had to run an APK that you download. Not sure since I rooted my N1 the old-fashioned way.
The recent OTA update (2.2.1) that was pushed out fixes that hole. But the point is that such exploits are possible, and thus are possible to be used with malicious intent.
The other thing is that if you read e.g. the xda-developers forums after that root exploit was available, most of the people discussing things and having problems were people who only used the exploit. It became difficult to find discussion of regular rooting, and it took quite a while for someone to come out with a version of the update that people with root and unlocked bootloaders could install (this besides the point that it's fairly easy to generate this yourself using the official update file, but in the past a repackaged version was available very shortly after the official version was available). My point is that once root becomes easy - like jailbreaking is/was for iPhones - a lot of less-technically-competent people are going to do it, and that's where bigger problems and malware can start to show up.
I ran Google Navigation for a cross-country drive (CA to NY) and it really didn't use that much bandwidth. I don't have the figure at hand but it did not bump up my monthly average very much, if at all. I didn't use the satellite/aerial photo view, except on a couple of occasions, so it just needs to get the street data which (I hope for their sake) is in a vector format.
On the other hand, if you're not really careful, browsing the internet via a tethered laptop easily uses a *lot* of data. Your 5mb figure shows that you are indeed being really, really careful. Most people won't be, and they wouldn't realize if their laptop is part of a bot net either, which is why the carriers are so wary of making it cheap and easy to tether.
I have an unlocked, rooted Nexus One, and I have it set up to tether (with an app before 2.2, and now using the built-in capability). I have only used it a couple of times and only to test it, because either I'm on the move and can use the internet directly on the phone, or I'm stationary someplace that has wifi. I, too, would be careful about bandwidth if placed in a situation where I had to use my laptop tethered, of course. I suppose I could also mention that I have the phone with the wrong 3G frequencies for my current carrier, so I'm stuck on EDGE;)
In Southern California the poor/homeless still run that racket. In some towns and cities all trash and recyclables go in just one bin - it's all sorted for you later at a processing facility. To get your 10 cent deposit back for bottles you have to find a place to return them, which are not that common and are open during fairly limited hours. So many (most?) people just toss them in the bin since the city will recycle them anyway. If your town has you sort trash and recyclables, most people just put the bottles in with the recyclables rather than go get their deposit back. I see people picking through garbage bins big and small for bottles almost every day.
In western NY where I grew up it's a lot easier to return bottles - most every grocery store takes them back, as well as other stores that sell food. Most have the automated return machines you feed your bottles into (though these are more common in some parts of the state than others) which are available 24/7 since almost all grocery stores are open 24/7 - which also isn't true in California.
I'd be interested to see statistics regarding recycling in the two states - I think despite the 10 cent CA deposit people in CA are less likely to pay much attention to recycling because of the way the bottle return and trash collection is set up, while in NY with only a 5 cent deposit, it's much easier to return bottles so people do that, and most people take separating trash from recyclables (most towns provide the different bins) seriously.
I have not done, nor seen, any estimates, but I did tectonics research as a grad student and know a little bit about heat in the earth. Frankly there is so much of it down there that I would suspect the only long-term problems would come after thousands and thousands of years of continuous global leaching of heat on a huge scale - like most of the world's energy usage coming from geothermal. Obviously, that's not the most likely scenario for the long term once other things come online (like fusion).
Think about how much waste heat the earth puts out as it is, through volcanoes, mid-ocean-ridges, geyser fields, and other geothermal areas. Quite a lot is literally thrown away through these processes. It's certainly prudent to think about the long-term effects but I just don't see geothermal scaling up to the point where we'd have to worry about it. The supply is on a vastly different scale than any other resource on the planet.
Just curious... if your kid sister who isn't a linux wiz needs to install kernels, compile drivers, and modify grub configs, is an ubuntu laptop really the best choice for her?;)
Of course I encourage it and it sounds like she probably learns a lot along the way, but it seems like an awful lot of hassle for someone to deal with if they aren't doing anything too complicated on a day-to-day basis with the computer.
I think what makes the OSS alternative better in your case (and in the cases of most slashdot readers including myself) is that you can more easily get it to do exactly what you want, not just accept the defaults. For example I use LaTeX as well because I like the output, but I also highly customize the output for my purposes. Meanwhile, I've never seen a document made in MS Word that looked particularly nice, no matter how much the author had tried.
However, it's more difficult to use LaTeX if all you ever do is just type something simple up. In that case, MS Word is good enough. For most people in the world, then, MS Word is good enough and even overkill for 99.99% percent of the times they need to word process something.
So it's a good analogy to the GUI vs. CLI debate - in most cases for most people the GUI lets you do something that's good enough. For anything else, one hopes the CLI is good enough to let you do what you want to do. But software authors understand that most people will never use them. A different story entirely from the gist of TFA, which is GUIs in a sysadmin context, of course:)
I think it's funny you mention that, because the reality plays off of the Indiana Jones joke - if you seriously relied on Google Translate in a foreign country you'd be just as lost as Marcus Brody:)
(by the way I do use Google Translate sometimes, and have it on my Nexus One, but it's quite bad for many languages - European ones are OK)
As others have noted, this is because of the practice of making the internet connection the most easy to select thing on the phone... despite the fact that extremely few people without smartphones use the internet on their phones. The two phones I had before I got an unlocked Nexus One were like this - you had to be careful because it's so easy to start the web browser, and there's no way to disable it. Nowadays, people also complain about the bloatware on Android phones, and now there's no easy way to get an unlocked Android phone.
Sure, these companies can get away with whatever they want because there's not really a cell phone free market in the US. Since they're already getting away with whatever they want, though, why do they purposefully make customers angry with this kind of stuff?
They act as if they don't actually make any money on selling phones and service, and their business model relies on tricking people into ridiculous charges. That's obviously not true, and it's simply insulting to the customers not only to nickel and dime them "legitimately", but also to trick them into paying ridiculous fees like this.
I *don't* think there should be more regulation, but I hope that the FCC continues to do things like this, to the point where it's no longer profitable for the cell carriers to act like such assholes. Maybe then people won't hate them so much, too.
I completely agree with you, and I certainly fall into the nerd jealousy trap sometimes, but there's a limit.
In this case, they've done something that several others have already done. Those other people already figured out most of the problems one will run into along the way, and came up with good designs. The MIT student group that did it recently had a website with a lot of detail, so one could easily duplicate what they did.
So at this point, essentially what they've done is little more than a science kit project. This is something that almost anyone reading Slashdot could do in a couple of weekends.
I think it's awesome that this dad and his son actually did something interesting. Really. If/when I have kids I plan to be a cool dad like this too.
But is this really news? That's what people are complaining about. The first time someone did this trick, sure, it was cool and I appreciated there being a slashdot article because I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise. Later attempts where people upped the ante (with GPS tracking, science data collection, simply reaching higher, etc.) might warrant an article on a slow news day. The only thing different this time is that an eight-year-old kid "helped" his dad do it.
I don't think anyone drives on the 90 to get to NYC from Buffalo (perhaps go as far as Batavia or Rochester). Adds quite a bit of distance to go that way, not to mention the outrageous toll, and the endless speed traps in every little town along the way.
That said, it's relatively near if you take a flight to see your data center, and that one-hour flight it won't cost that much more than driving would.
Anchor Bar is hugely popular in the area, and there's even a second Anchor Bar restaurant at the Buffalo airport. They sell the sauce in grocery stores (I don't know how widely they're distributed, but I believe they have them in Wegmans in Rochester, don't know about Syracuse).
Really it shouldn't take much to do really well here in Buffalo. Locally-owned restaurants are a particularly lucrative business, I imagine, since there's so little else to do in the area and some of the national chains (which are crap compared to these local places) are closing down around here.
That said, I went to school in Rochester (UR) and then grad school in California - I'm only back in Buffalo, where I grew up, "living in my mom's basement" as it were until I can find a job. It won't be a job in the Buffalo area... it's really not a great place to live, at least for me.
As someone else noted - this is an obvious place to build things like datacenters, because not only is it cold, but literally most of the buildings are vacant, at least in Buffalo itself (some of the suburbs are doing a lot better) and rent is cheap.
Just an anecdote, I drove - alone - from California to Buffalo, NY, 2530 miles, in 2.5 days elapsed a few months ago. Driving the other way (two years earlier) I took three days because I wasn't in a rush;)
Is it reasonable? Of course not... I wouldn't go at that pace if I wasn't young, and if I could afford to stay in hotels (I slept in Wal Mart parking lots).
I agree that the chance of particularly useful sequestration techniques coming out very soon is slim, however, just because that research was funded by oil companies doesn't mean anything.
Oil companies fund *a lot* of geology research, in addition to their extensive in-house research. They understand how science works - they don't just fund stuff that will directly help them find oil. They look to the future as much as anyone else.
There's plenty to vilify oil companies over, but funding university research really shouldn't be one of them.
Finally, I have reason to point out that despite this being slashdot, I didn't choose this name because I like linux (although I do, the name came from before I started using it or signed up for slashdot), I chose it because I like penguins!
I have a degree in geology but never took any paleontology courses... I knew I should have, then I'd be able to comment on this important scientific discovery... er... make that, this important... linux development? I'm confused.
I scrolled down to the comments on there and nearly guffawed... those are among the most ridiculous comments I've seen on an internet article. Some really stupid people in Australia I guess;)
Still, thanks for the link - I remember that game. I tried to play a demo version of it (or something) back before it was released, but remember not being able to get it to go past the menus - and then I never heard anything about it again (and forgot about it) until now.
General practice is to define all acronyms (even common ones) the first time you use them*. From then on, if the reader forgets, they just have to look back for where you defined it.
I sense that your sig refers to the IANA*/IAA* acronyms used on slashdot, where * equals an acronym for whatever professional or other expert one ideally would be in order to be a reliable source of information about whatever the topic is. Of course, this declaration is normally only used once, and it must be defined, so you get situations like in your sig where realistically it makes more sense not to use the acronym.
I reside in California, voted against prop 8 of course, but you're absolutely right - the protests were pointless. They took place and I saw a couple in person, and I got social media invitations to join them (though I don't use "social media" besides having a facebook account I never look at). I honked to support a group of protesters on a street corner (while driving a state-owned vehicle no less) but it was obvious to anyone who looked that it was pathetic.
If people had given this any kind of thought, which they obviously didn't, they would have realized that protests could never sway the vote on such a thing.
My form of protest was to humiliate people I knew who supported prop 8 by tearing apart their arguments with logic in front of their friends. There is just no changing the minds of these people, though.
I think the situation could be vastly improved if there was an explanation like that for each permission in each app. Not that shady developers wouldn't just lie about it, but requiring them to explain why they need the permissions they do would still be useful.
Also, it would be great if the market allowed longer descriptions - the developer could also explain things there, but there's no room.
I think you missed the point... as it tends to work out there aren't third-party candidates taking votes away from both sides. Instead, there'll be *one* third-party candidate who manages to get any significant number of votes.
Using the parent's example, a liberal candidate from, say, the Green Party gets 10% of the vote. We don't also see 10% going to the conservative Orange Party, because they're a bunch of whack-jobs and even conservatives who agree with some of their points don't want to vote for them. Let's say that for the two main parties (Democrat and Republican) the votes are 50-50 - it's generally pretty close to that lately.
The Orange Party gets 1% of the vote, leaving the Republicans at 49%. But - the Green Party got 10%, leaving the Democrats at 40%, and the Republicans win. Meanwhile, no one who voted Green Party would ever in their right mind vote Republican. Yet effectively, that's what they did.
That's the parent's point and is the reason why third parties can't take hold in the US. You're effectively voting for the opposite of what you want, unless you can guarantee that there are equal and opposite third-party votes, which you can't.
I have almost always voted for third parties, but that's because I've only lived in places where my vote doesn't matter for another reason - they always vote the same way no matter what (New York is always Democratic, Orange County CA is always conservative) and since winner takes all my vote literally doesn't count.
I use Skype almost daily to video chat with someone on the opposite side of the earth. Not sure why there are so many haters - I know there are problems with the company and I wish it was more open, but for most people (including Linux users as they do have an official Linux client) it's an incredibly useful service that just works.
Anyway at my end, I use a macbook pro and since I'm on slashdot you might guess I have no problem doing anything on computers. But, at the other end is someone with much less education who doesn't know much about computers beyond how to use it for basic stuff. She didn't even set up the Skype account herself, her sister did. She uses a Windows netbook that's a couple years old, and connects to the internet with a cellular 2G modem (I think - 3G is available but limited). We like Skype because it tends to "Just Work" despite the multitude of potential issues with this setup. Every other video chat solution I've tried in the past was unreliable even in more ideal conditions.
I suppose iChat would work, but that'd require a new expensive computer. What I'm looking for is an alternative that's dead simple to get going, free, and reliable (i.e. it'll work every time). Basically, Skype. But, I foresee a lot of problems that could come if they get too involved with Facebook, and want to have alternatives available just in case. And if there's something better out there anyway, then that's great, because Skype as it is does have some problems. I know I can just google this - and I have - but I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with alternatives.
I'm 5'11" and from western New York. Around there, I feel at least average in height all of the time, and occasionally feel tall depending on who's around me. I never feel particularly short, though I know a lot of people who are taller than me.
Conversely, I've been living in Southern California for a couple of years, and I feel short *all the time* there. So what I'm saying is I have a contradictory anecdote - you say at 6'1" you feel tall in California, but having lived in California I'd say you had an unusual experience:) My story mirrors yours - most everyone I know (at least those who were born in California) is over 6'.
Regarding the story, I can (easily) appreciate the attractiveness of tall skinny girls but I prefer short skinny girls. Because everyone's so tall and/or fat, those are in short supply in California. My girlfriend is from Thailand, I think she's the most beautiful girl there is, and I think she's around 4'10" (and very skinny):)
Now, in Thailand, I genuinely feel tall, but not all the time as you might think. I don't tower over everyone all the time. Come to think of it, a relatively "average" 5'11" is a pretty good place to be at - I don't ever feel out of place, and I'm not short:)
Slashdot Mirror
+1 - I fly with a ridiculous assortment of cables and spare batteries as well (2-3 cameras with two extra batteries each, two cell phones with extra batteries, a laptop, a sony e-reader, sometimes a hiking gps, all of the chargers and cables that go with those things, and other stuff I'm probably forgetting), I fly quite frequently, and I never have a problem. I used to sometimes get extra scrutiny and hand-searches of my DSLR lenses, but those must be getting a lot more familiar to the TSA recently because they don't seem to raise any eyebrows anymore. Even back when they did, usually they just would put my bag through the x-ray a second time (at a different angle I presume) rather than hand searching. I got the explosives swab check twice, but I was pre-selected for additional screening.
Also, one time I put a PS3 and all the controllers and cables and everything in checked luggage, on two flights (a round trip). I was kind of expecting it to get stolen, but it wasn't ;) That said, I know things do get stolen by baggage handlers and I don't put anything valuable in checked luggage if I can avoid it. I think the parent's assertion that it was stolen (or confiscated) is probably valid, lack of direct evidence aside.
11? Try 45+. OK, 30 if you move to SD.
I thought Google Earth was bad - still 15mb on internal storage after you move to SD - but something like that seems like it should use a lot of space, whereas a browser doesn't.
Yes I saw the comment earlier from someone linking to an explanation of the size. Still pretty outrageous - I've never seen an android app anywhere close to that big.
Considering what a sufficiently creative person *could* do with that account, I was really, really disappointed. I was actually expecting the "word of god" i.e. bible quotes, or whatever is considered the word of god, applied to current events (or whatever). Or, since I'm an atheist, I expected satire at the very least.
Instead it's the same as any other random person's twitter - random crap no one's interested in. What a waste.
Not sure if anyone's mentioned it yet, but there was an exploit that allowed one-click root. I think you just had to run an APK that you download. Not sure since I rooted my N1 the old-fashioned way.
The recent OTA update (2.2.1) that was pushed out fixes that hole. But the point is that such exploits are possible, and thus are possible to be used with malicious intent.
The other thing is that if you read e.g. the xda-developers forums after that root exploit was available, most of the people discussing things and having problems were people who only used the exploit. It became difficult to find discussion of regular rooting, and it took quite a while for someone to come out with a version of the update that people with root and unlocked bootloaders could install (this besides the point that it's fairly easy to generate this yourself using the official update file, but in the past a repackaged version was available very shortly after the official version was available). My point is that once root becomes easy - like jailbreaking is/was for iPhones - a lot of less-technically-competent people are going to do it, and that's where bigger problems and malware can start to show up.
I ran Google Navigation for a cross-country drive (CA to NY) and it really didn't use that much bandwidth. I don't have the figure at hand but it did not bump up my monthly average very much, if at all. I didn't use the satellite/aerial photo view, except on a couple of occasions, so it just needs to get the street data which (I hope for their sake) is in a vector format.
On the other hand, if you're not really careful, browsing the internet via a tethered laptop easily uses a *lot* of data. Your 5mb figure shows that you are indeed being really, really careful. Most people won't be, and they wouldn't realize if their laptop is part of a bot net either, which is why the carriers are so wary of making it cheap and easy to tether.
I have an unlocked, rooted Nexus One, and I have it set up to tether (with an app before 2.2, and now using the built-in capability). I have only used it a couple of times and only to test it, because either I'm on the move and can use the internet directly on the phone, or I'm stationary someplace that has wifi. I, too, would be careful about bandwidth if placed in a situation where I had to use my laptop tethered, of course. I suppose I could also mention that I have the phone with the wrong 3G frequencies for my current carrier, so I'm stuck on EDGE ;)
In Southern California the poor/homeless still run that racket. In some towns and cities all trash and recyclables go in just one bin - it's all sorted for you later at a processing facility. To get your 10 cent deposit back for bottles you have to find a place to return them, which are not that common and are open during fairly limited hours. So many (most?) people just toss them in the bin since the city will recycle them anyway. If your town has you sort trash and recyclables, most people just put the bottles in with the recyclables rather than go get their deposit back. I see people picking through garbage bins big and small for bottles almost every day.
In western NY where I grew up it's a lot easier to return bottles - most every grocery store takes them back, as well as other stores that sell food. Most have the automated return machines you feed your bottles into (though these are more common in some parts of the state than others) which are available 24/7 since almost all grocery stores are open 24/7 - which also isn't true in California.
I'd be interested to see statistics regarding recycling in the two states - I think despite the 10 cent CA deposit people in CA are less likely to pay much attention to recycling because of the way the bottle return and trash collection is set up, while in NY with only a 5 cent deposit, it's much easier to return bottles so people do that, and most people take separating trash from recyclables (most towns provide the different bins) seriously.
I have not done, nor seen, any estimates, but I did tectonics research as a grad student and know a little bit about heat in the earth. Frankly there is so much of it down there that I would suspect the only long-term problems would come after thousands and thousands of years of continuous global leaching of heat on a huge scale - like most of the world's energy usage coming from geothermal. Obviously, that's not the most likely scenario for the long term once other things come online (like fusion).
Think about how much waste heat the earth puts out as it is, through volcanoes, mid-ocean-ridges, geyser fields, and other geothermal areas. Quite a lot is literally thrown away through these processes. It's certainly prudent to think about the long-term effects but I just don't see geothermal scaling up to the point where we'd have to worry about it. The supply is on a vastly different scale than any other resource on the planet.
Just curious... if your kid sister who isn't a linux wiz needs to install kernels, compile drivers, and modify grub configs, is an ubuntu laptop really the best choice for her? ;)
Of course I encourage it and it sounds like she probably learns a lot along the way, but it seems like an awful lot of hassle for someone to deal with if they aren't doing anything too complicated on a day-to-day basis with the computer.
I think what makes the OSS alternative better in your case (and in the cases of most slashdot readers including myself) is that you can more easily get it to do exactly what you want, not just accept the defaults. For example I use LaTeX as well because I like the output, but I also highly customize the output for my purposes. Meanwhile, I've never seen a document made in MS Word that looked particularly nice, no matter how much the author had tried.
However, it's more difficult to use LaTeX if all you ever do is just type something simple up. In that case, MS Word is good enough. For most people in the world, then, MS Word is good enough and even overkill for 99.99% percent of the times they need to word process something.
So it's a good analogy to the GUI vs. CLI debate - in most cases for most people the GUI lets you do something that's good enough. For anything else, one hopes the CLI is good enough to let you do what you want to do. But software authors understand that most people will never use them. A different story entirely from the gist of TFA, which is GUIs in a sysadmin context, of course :)
I think it's funny you mention that, because the reality plays off of the Indiana Jones joke - if you seriously relied on Google Translate in a foreign country you'd be just as lost as Marcus Brody :)
(by the way I do use Google Translate sometimes, and have it on my Nexus One, but it's quite bad for many languages - European ones are OK)
As others have noted, this is because of the practice of making the internet connection the most easy to select thing on the phone... despite the fact that extremely few people without smartphones use the internet on their phones. The two phones I had before I got an unlocked Nexus One were like this - you had to be careful because it's so easy to start the web browser, and there's no way to disable it. Nowadays, people also complain about the bloatware on Android phones, and now there's no easy way to get an unlocked Android phone.
Sure, these companies can get away with whatever they want because there's not really a cell phone free market in the US. Since they're already getting away with whatever they want, though, why do they purposefully make customers angry with this kind of stuff?
They act as if they don't actually make any money on selling phones and service, and their business model relies on tricking people into ridiculous charges. That's obviously not true, and it's simply insulting to the customers not only to nickel and dime them "legitimately", but also to trick them into paying ridiculous fees like this.
I *don't* think there should be more regulation, but I hope that the FCC continues to do things like this, to the point where it's no longer profitable for the cell carriers to act like such assholes. Maybe then people won't hate them so much, too.
I completely agree with you, and I certainly fall into the nerd jealousy trap sometimes, but there's a limit.
In this case, they've done something that several others have already done. Those other people already figured out most of the problems one will run into along the way, and came up with good designs. The MIT student group that did it recently had a website with a lot of detail, so one could easily duplicate what they did.
So at this point, essentially what they've done is little more than a science kit project. This is something that almost anyone reading Slashdot could do in a couple of weekends.
I think it's awesome that this dad and his son actually did something interesting. Really. If/when I have kids I plan to be a cool dad like this too.
But is this really news? That's what people are complaining about. The first time someone did this trick, sure, it was cool and I appreciated there being a slashdot article because I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise. Later attempts where people upped the ante (with GPS tracking, science data collection, simply reaching higher, etc.) might warrant an article on a slow news day. The only thing different this time is that an eight-year-old kid "helped" his dad do it.
I don't think anyone drives on the 90 to get to NYC from Buffalo (perhaps go as far as Batavia or Rochester). Adds quite a bit of distance to go that way, not to mention the outrageous toll, and the endless speed traps in every little town along the way.
That said, it's relatively near if you take a flight to see your data center, and that one-hour flight it won't cost that much more than driving would.
Anchor Bar is hugely popular in the area, and there's even a second Anchor Bar restaurant at the Buffalo airport. They sell the sauce in grocery stores (I don't know how widely they're distributed, but I believe they have them in Wegmans in Rochester, don't know about Syracuse).
Really it shouldn't take much to do really well here in Buffalo. Locally-owned restaurants are a particularly lucrative business, I imagine, since there's so little else to do in the area and some of the national chains (which are crap compared to these local places) are closing down around here.
That said, I went to school in Rochester (UR) and then grad school in California - I'm only back in Buffalo, where I grew up, "living in my mom's basement" as it were until I can find a job. It won't be a job in the Buffalo area... it's really not a great place to live, at least for me.
As someone else noted - this is an obvious place to build things like datacenters, because not only is it cold, but literally most of the buildings are vacant, at least in Buffalo itself (some of the suburbs are doing a lot better) and rent is cheap.
Just an anecdote, I drove - alone - from California to Buffalo, NY, 2530 miles, in 2.5 days elapsed a few months ago. Driving the other way (two years earlier) I took three days because I wasn't in a rush ;)
Is it reasonable? Of course not... I wouldn't go at that pace if I wasn't young, and if I could afford to stay in hotels (I slept in Wal Mart parking lots).
I agree that the chance of particularly useful sequestration techniques coming out very soon is slim, however, just because that research was funded by oil companies doesn't mean anything.
Oil companies fund *a lot* of geology research, in addition to their extensive in-house research. They understand how science works - they don't just fund stuff that will directly help them find oil. They look to the future as much as anyone else.
There's plenty to vilify oil companies over, but funding university research really shouldn't be one of them.
Finally, I have reason to point out that despite this being slashdot, I didn't choose this name because I like linux (although I do, the name came from before I started using it or signed up for slashdot), I chose it because I like penguins!
I have a degree in geology but never took any paleontology courses... I knew I should have, then I'd be able to comment on this important scientific discovery... er... make that, this important... linux development? I'm confused.
I scrolled down to the comments on there and nearly guffawed... those are among the most ridiculous comments I've seen on an internet article. Some really stupid people in Australia I guess ;)
Still, thanks for the link - I remember that game. I tried to play a demo version of it (or something) back before it was released, but remember not being able to get it to go past the menus - and then I never heard anything about it again (and forgot about it) until now.
General practice is to define all acronyms (even common ones) the first time you use them*. From then on, if the reader forgets, they just have to look back for where you defined it.
I sense that your sig refers to the IANA*/IAA* acronyms used on slashdot, where * equals an acronym for whatever professional or other expert one ideally would be in order to be a reliable source of information about whatever the topic is. Of course, this declaration is normally only used once, and it must be defined, so you get situations like in your sig where realistically it makes more sense not to use the acronym.
However, the thing is - it's a joke, laugh :)
* IANAEM (I am not an English major)
I reside in California, voted against prop 8 of course, but you're absolutely right - the protests were pointless. They took place and I saw a couple in person, and I got social media invitations to join them (though I don't use "social media" besides having a facebook account I never look at). I honked to support a group of protesters on a street corner (while driving a state-owned vehicle no less) but it was obvious to anyone who looked that it was pathetic.
If people had given this any kind of thought, which they obviously didn't, they would have realized that protests could never sway the vote on such a thing.
My form of protest was to humiliate people I knew who supported prop 8 by tearing apart their arguments with logic in front of their friends. There is just no changing the minds of these people, though.
I'll sell you the lawn darts in my parents' basement... what's your offer :)
I think the situation could be vastly improved if there was an explanation like that for each permission in each app. Not that shady developers wouldn't just lie about it, but requiring them to explain why they need the permissions they do would still be useful.
Also, it would be great if the market allowed longer descriptions - the developer could also explain things there, but there's no room.
I think you missed the point... as it tends to work out there aren't third-party candidates taking votes away from both sides. Instead, there'll be *one* third-party candidate who manages to get any significant number of votes.
Using the parent's example, a liberal candidate from, say, the Green Party gets 10% of the vote. We don't also see 10% going to the conservative Orange Party, because they're a bunch of whack-jobs and even conservatives who agree with some of their points don't want to vote for them. Let's say that for the two main parties (Democrat and Republican) the votes are 50-50 - it's generally pretty close to that lately.
The Orange Party gets 1% of the vote, leaving the Republicans at 49%. But - the Green Party got 10%, leaving the Democrats at 40%, and the Republicans win. Meanwhile, no one who voted Green Party would ever in their right mind vote Republican. Yet effectively, that's what they did.
That's the parent's point and is the reason why third parties can't take hold in the US. You're effectively voting for the opposite of what you want, unless you can guarantee that there are equal and opposite third-party votes, which you can't.
I have almost always voted for third parties, but that's because I've only lived in places where my vote doesn't matter for another reason - they always vote the same way no matter what (New York is always Democratic, Orange County CA is always conservative) and since winner takes all my vote literally doesn't count.
I use Skype almost daily to video chat with someone on the opposite side of the earth. Not sure why there are so many haters - I know there are problems with the company and I wish it was more open, but for most people (including Linux users as they do have an official Linux client) it's an incredibly useful service that just works.
Anyway at my end, I use a macbook pro and since I'm on slashdot you might guess I have no problem doing anything on computers. But, at the other end is someone with much less education who doesn't know much about computers beyond how to use it for basic stuff. She didn't even set up the Skype account herself, her sister did. She uses a Windows netbook that's a couple years old, and connects to the internet with a cellular 2G modem (I think - 3G is available but limited). We like Skype because it tends to "Just Work" despite the multitude of potential issues with this setup. Every other video chat solution I've tried in the past was unreliable even in more ideal conditions.
I suppose iChat would work, but that'd require a new expensive computer. What I'm looking for is an alternative that's dead simple to get going, free, and reliable (i.e. it'll work every time). Basically, Skype. But, I foresee a lot of problems that could come if they get too involved with Facebook, and want to have alternatives available just in case. And if there's something better out there anyway, then that's great, because Skype as it is does have some problems. I know I can just google this - and I have - but I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with alternatives.
I'm 5'11" and from western New York. Around there, I feel at least average in height all of the time, and occasionally feel tall depending on who's around me. I never feel particularly short, though I know a lot of people who are taller than me.
Conversely, I've been living in Southern California for a couple of years, and I feel short *all the time* there. So what I'm saying is I have a contradictory anecdote - you say at 6'1" you feel tall in California, but having lived in California I'd say you had an unusual experience :) My story mirrors yours - most everyone I know (at least those who were born in California) is over 6'.
Regarding the story, I can (easily) appreciate the attractiveness of tall skinny girls but I prefer short skinny girls. Because everyone's so tall and/or fat, those are in short supply in California. My girlfriend is from Thailand, I think she's the most beautiful girl there is, and I think she's around 4'10" (and very skinny) :)
Now, in Thailand, I genuinely feel tall, but not all the time as you might think. I don't tower over everyone all the time. Come to think of it, a relatively "average" 5'11" is a pretty good place to be at - I don't ever feel out of place, and I'm not short :)