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User: jellomizer

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  1. Re:failure imminent on Microsoft Trademarks "Windows 365" · · Score: 0

    The problem I have seen is that Office had gotten too expensive in general. 365 is to ease the cost. However, that still doesn't stop me from using LibreOffice.
    But microsoft is still profiting off the idea that you need office and the free versions are severely sub par.

  2. Re:I've got this on An Argument For Not Taking Down Horrific Videos · · Score: 2

    Just because you have the freedom to say something, doesn't mean it is a good idea to do so.
    Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut.

    The risk of showing such videos may be counter effective to the point you want to bring across. You may want to explain how horrific war is, but the effect may be desensitizing people to such images, so when the next war is proposed the fact such things can happen just doesn't enter as being as bad as it actually is.
    Then you have gawkers who are less interested in the story, but just wants to see the gore.

    Free speech isn't just showing everything you have to show, but it is about explaining your point across. This is the free speech that a lot of people don't have. They are afraid to say that they support the opposition party, because they will get arrested. There are people afraid to bring up alternate ideas or bring up a new idea. That is freedom of speech.

    Now the government shouldn't stop you from doing whatever you want to try to make your point across, but that doesn't mean that you should use everything, because sometimes it is counter productive.

  3. Re:Stop looking for a single point of failure on Will Elementary School Teachers Take the Rap For Tech's Diversity Problem? · · Score: 1

    I think the teacher issue is that growing up we saw them as either role models or as someone holding you back.

    We have teacher trying to tout how much of a better person they are. Explaining how they are so grossly underpaid, however they do the work because all they want to do is teach. They want to help enlighten a child into adulthood.

    We have other groups who make them out as Over Paid, with way too many benefits, who work 6 hours a day and has months of vacation time off. And are so engrossed in politics that they will prefer to let the kids rot, then lift a finger to help them out.

    Now I expect the truth is in the middle.
    As for Pay, I did some calculations... I took the school schedule of all the vacation days and looked at the average teacher salary, I made some assumptions such as working 10 hours a day not 6, (I hear teachers explain that they work 12+ hours a day, however they seem to have free time that matches my schedule, so I expect that 12+ hours balance with the days that are only 8 hours. ) So I crunched the numbers and hourly I found that they make a bit less than a Computer Programmer hourly (for only 8 hours a day, with only 3 weeks of holiday/vacation) Now the Computer Programmer will probably work more then those 8 hours a day too, but that is an other issue.

    So... Yes you won't get rich off being a teacher, but at least in Update NY you won't be poor either. And you pay is equivalent to a standard college degree professional job.

    Which brings me to the point. They are professional educators, no better or worse then professionals in other fields, We have some super stars, with have the bulk of average, then we have a few of the under performing bumbs. There actual motivation is more diverse then they really care to admit. For a lot of them, it really is just due to lack of imagination, they grew up with school, and surrounded by teachers the only profession they can think of is teaching. There are a few, who go into teaching, because the class requirements are actually easier than other careers (a lot less math and science) and the classes line up to getting a job. Then you have the person who really cares about children and want to teach.

    But to the point these are professionals and should be treated as such (as well I would expect them to treat other professionals as they are as well). There is a lot of Arm Chair Coaching, that goes on from politicians, parents, and other members of the community. And unlike most other fields everyone has some experience with education, so they have their opinion. Just like how a mechanical engineer, may criticize a computer scientist for his programming, just because he took some of intro programming courses and good a decent grade in them.

    The real issue isn't on what teachers are or not doing, because they are only a small part of the child's influence, what are the parents doing, and what are the other kids doing.

  4. That is a problem with Slashdot.
    Different geeks have there area of specialties and they have their own set of acronyms, often the same as something different. Then you mix in political acronyms and company acronyms. It gets messed up.

    Also there are times where the acronym isn't used much, then the poster just decided to use it.
    For example "Network Nutrality" to NN. There can be a big topic on say how Verizon is fighting NN, and you are trying to guess what the story is about. Is NN some sort of wireless frequency name, perhaps they are talking about New Nodes.

    The general convention is if you are going to use an acronym is to spell it out once just so we get the gist.

    But what makes it worse is that we are so proud of our geekiness we rarely ask what does it mean, as it would make it seem like we need to hand in our geek card.

  5. Re:Guy allegedly does something stupid on Swatting 19-Year-Old Arrested in Las Vegas · · Score: 1

    The problem is there are too many people who glorify "Hackers". And fails to see what they do is wrong.
    They make lame excuses: well they should have had better security. People don't get hurt from this crime. It's freedom of speech.
    People can get hurt from hacking. That DDOS against a bank may be the same data center hosting someone's health care info. That open pc may be a vital equipment for a small town (with close to no budget) emergency system.

    But in short if you are not suppose to be there don't go there. You don't wander around a strangers home if they forgot to lock the back door.

  6. Re:WTF? on The First Ubuntu Phone Is Here, With Underwhelming Hardware · · Score: 1

    When people say Linux they mean GNU/Linux. Most people dont call it GNU Linux because it give Stallmen too much credit. But they never really came down to a better name.
    Linux is the kernel. GNU/Linux is the operating system. Ubuntu is the distribution.
    Linux is the kernel. Android is the operating system. The vendor provides the distribution.
    GNU/Linux has trouble getting into the end user space. Mostly due to the community belief in GNU licensing, where companies are not on board with, as they want to make money off of selling software, not consulting services (there software is too easy to use), not distributing (a download isn't that much work), they may be too specialized to get enough donations to keep running.

  7. So I can't play some old Sierra adventure games. on Xenon Flashes Can Make New Raspberry Pi 2 Freeze and Reboot · · Score: 0

    That means I can't play Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry at the same time.

  8. Re:Good to see. on Bipartisan Bill Would Mandate Warrant To Search Emails · · Score: 1

    Are you a kid or something?
    There was email before gmail.
    We had email back when it was only used across accedemic institutions.
    Email was not encrypted for a lot of reasons.
    1. Packet sniffing wasn't invented.
    2. Ease of coding
    3. No standardization on encryption
    4. Most computers would take too much CPU to encrypt
    5. Nothing else was encrypted and you are lucky if you got all your data

  9. Re:Plural of LEGO is NOT LEGOs! on LEGO Contraption Allows Scientists To Safely Handle Insects · · Score: 1

    Man I had a cold so I used a lot of Kleenexes, after I got better I went to the mall and got lost so I had to ride a lot of the Escalators to find the home and garden store, where I was able to get a few Weed Eaters one for me and another for my neighbor.

    Often a trademark becomes a noun too. Especially if such trademark represents a particular product.

    Or in other words, get over yourself, and enjoy live it isn't worth it to have a fit about useless stuff like this.

  10. Re:So who's going to buy them? on Radioshack Declares Bankruptcy · · Score: 1

    Radioshack hasn't been a tech-sector-friendly store for decades.
    The cell phone stuff you can get at your ATT Sprint or Verizon store.
    The networking wires you can get a Home Depot.
    I guess you will need to find someone who will have that 1 3'x3'x2' shelf that has switches, resistors, capacitors and LEDs. Heck I couldn't find logic chips anymore.

  11. Re:Who are you? on Bipartisan Bill Would Mandate Warrant To Search Emails · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nah it is general politics.
    The general population is getting weary of government surveillance.
    The President got on record defending such actions.
    So the republicans will side with this just to go against the President.
    The Democrats need to distant themselves from the incumbent president so the party will have new talking points during the next election, as position themselves as more moderate than their GOP counterparts.

  12. Good to see. on Bipartisan Bill Would Mandate Warrant To Search Emails · · Score: 5, Insightful

    America calls itself the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

    We need to make sure laws are in place to protect our freedom, even if it does mean reduced security. We as a culture should be brave enough to deal with the fact we may have less than perfect protection as so we can have our liberty.

    We have law enforcement groups doing their job, and asking for more powers, because they want to do their job to the best of their abilities. However we as a culture will need to go. We know this could cost lives, but our freedom is more important, than the risks.

  13. Re:Silly, and not silly on Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission · · Score: 1

    I find it more a fault in how academia works. It rewards people who take classes in topics they are good at, and comes to class with most of the information at hand, and punishes people who wants to learn something new.

    Most of the time the people who graduate with high honors are the ones with humanitarian degrees filled with coursework where they just explain their opinions of facts. While the engineering and sciences have a lower high honors turn out, because there is a lot of new information that you have to learn.

    If I were to take a foreign language class, and I know it isn't my strong class. I shouldn't get punished for getting a 2.0 in the class, because the material is new to my way of thinking and hard for me to adapt.

    I remember going to grad school, and the dean was looking at my college transcripts, and she was concerned about the variance in my GPA 4.0s and 2.5s averaging to the 3.5s. She seem really confused when I stated those classes that I got 2.5s in were the classes that I learned the most in. The classes I got a 4.0 in covered stuff I already knew, with a few simple to learn additions to my knowledge. However the 2.5 class I was handed a brand new topic that I wasn't experienced with before so I needed to spend more time learning it, and didn't test as well on it.

  14. Re:Lasers are easy to stop on The US Navy Wants More Railguns and Lasers, Less Gunpowder · · Score: 1

    Most jets are made with 11 inches of steel. Rail guns are against harden targets. Lasers are to shoot down aircraft. (Lasers kinda need a line of site to work)

  15. Re:Lasers are easy to stop on The US Navy Wants More Railguns and Lasers, Less Gunpowder · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am figuring your comment is in jest.
    A laser powerful enough to bring down an airplane would burn thru a mist and probably melt a mirror instantly before the can use a reflection to aim it back.

  16. Re:Hey Apple, here's some free consulting on Apple Said To Be Working On a Pay TV Service · · Score: 2

    Like of the time that you are spending watching Hulu is so valuable. You could have binged watched 2 more episodes that day if it weren't for those ads.

    Netflix normally gets away from the ads by offering "out of date" movies and shows. Basically the stuff that would end up in the bargain bin at the video store. So the monthly fee is enough to cover costs, and make netflix and the content owners happy.

    Hulu, deals more with the current TV shows. So they are in more direct competition with the broadcast companies. So they need to pay them more for the rights to show the content more timely. However they charge the customer the same amount, so they make up the difference with a few ads.

    This is still superior to Cable Where you pay a lot more per month, get ads to support the local broadcast company (These are often your local ads for car dealers), then adds to support the larger parent company (These are the adds for particular models of cars with no mention of the local dealers). The broadcasters fight with the cable companies all the time to see how should be paying who for rights to show the material.

  17. Re:Silly, and not silly on Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission · · Score: 1

    There is this circular argument about required courses.
    Person 1: Non-Required field of study should be required, it has these useful attributes that everyone should learn.
    Person 2: There are a lot of people who are not good at Non-Required field, by making them take it will hurt their academic standings.
    Person 1: Well I am not good at Required field of study and it is hurting my academic standing.
    Person 2: Required field has useful attributes that everyone should learn.

    If you want to expand required coursework, there is often a tradeoff that you must make, normally by non-requiring a current required topic. We want a larger portion of the population to be Computer Science literate, however there is only so much time you can teach people. So tradeoffs need to be made, Foreign language, compared to English, History, Math and Science seems to be a fair trade offs. Other tradeoffs I would think may be appropriate would be Art, Music, Civics, and PE. However these are already mostly all electives and few schools have them required.

  18. My College had a similar requirement. on Washington May Count CS As Foreign Language For College Admission · · Score: 1

    Student's needed to take a foreign language course or a computer science course, for the BS Degree. Being that I was a Computer Science Major.... I didn't need to take Foreign Language.

    In hind site, I kinda wish I did. Even though human languages are my worst subjects, and would probably have hurt my GPA, however I wished I was fluent in more languages, so my career isn't stuck in the english speaking world.

  19. Re:Front office workers doctor's office on US Health Insurer Anthem Suffers Massive Data Breach · · Score: 1

    Small practices usually range 5,000 - 40,000 patients. 15,000 patients per doctor. I have done a lot of practice data conversions, those are the numbers I tend to see.
    You have the following calculation.
    Normally about 50% of the visits are from new patients.
    8 hour day, with 10 minute intervals. for 5 days a week for 50 week. That is 6000 patients. They will need to keep 4-5 years of data on the patent. So we go up to 25,000 range.

    Now we have variances based on specialty, and level of care, but 25,000 for a small practice is rather normal.

  20. Re:That's why nobody sensible wants them on US Health Insurer Anthem Suffers Massive Data Breach · · Score: 3, Informative

    HIPAA requires all PHI to be encrypted when transmitted.
    The hack got into the systems after the data is at rest. As are most data breaches. There are very few hacks from packet sniffing. (Our infrastructure tends to be using Switches and Routers, instead of the old Hubs, so there is less packets being spread to less than trustworthy areas)
    If you were to encrypt the data a rest, where would you store the key? And if someone could gain access to that key you are in just as much trouble.

    Better rules would be for systems that access PHI, to be off the Internet entirely. So you will have two networks. That are physically on different networks. One where you have the PCs that are hooked to the normal intranet and internet. Then one system just for PHI.
    Now how do we send data from one institution to the next (say from the hospital to the insurance company) Then you will need a trusted point to point encrypted channel. Once the data is send, that point to point needs to be closed, and perhaps physically unplugged from the internet.

  21. Re:Front office workers doctor's office on US Health Insurer Anthem Suffers Massive Data Breach · · Score: 2

    SS# isn't a demand from the Dr. but from the Insurance Company... Yell at them for requiring it.

    Also of a note. Your doctor probably has a patient list of around 25,000 people. That he must record and track by law. The SS# is one of the easier ways to insure you have the correct patient matched in the system. Bigger institutions can work around it, ones with a large IT Staff. But the small Dr. Office is quite limited, and subjected to the whims of the vendors.

  22. Re:Incompetent IT in a health care industry? on US Health Insurer Anthem Suffers Massive Data Breach · · Score: 4, Informative

    Working in Health Care, the issue is much harder then you think.
    We have conflicting rules and regulations that we must follow.
    We are by law demanded to keep our data safe, at the same time, we need to share it with others (Insurance Companies, Legal Cases, Governments, individuals, competing health care professionals) at a whim. Complex rules for what is acceptable and not are in place, meaning there is an IT Infrastructure that is older, because it contains an organic set of rules. Dumping the old systems for new ones that are more secure are a major undertaking.
    Even with a skilled IT Staff larger then most organizations it is nearly impossible to keep up with all the changes required by law, and focus completely on security. Putting in a code freeze until we get security fixed cannot happen.

  23. Re:68th to 22nd and there are many to go on JavaScript, PHP Top Most Popular Languages, With Apple's Swift Rising Fast · · Score: 1

    Swift popularity is just due to the ability to make iOS apps. As iOS is a popular platform for apps.
    Before swift you had objective C. So you really didn't have much of a choice.
    Unless Apple opens their api a bit more so we can use swift in non-apple land and make cross platform apps. I will classify it in fad status.
    Because there could be many things that can disrupt it now.
    1. Cell plans get reasonable with their data plans and have better coverage. So we can go towards web apps again.

    2. Cross platform mobile development tools with a cross compiler, so you don't need a Mac to develope iOS.

    3. The next big thing that makes Apple look like blackberry.

    4. Apple pisses off a lot of customers. From a politically incorrect message from upper management to a bad product line, or a massive security breach.

    5. Fails to keep the OS current

    6. Massive legal action.

    7. Customers loose interest in the product.

    8. A competitor gets the killer app and will not port it to iOS

    9. Apple just stops liking swift (that is more of a Google thing)

    10. Failed to expand the language to meet demand.

  24. To summarize. on The Strangest Moon In the Solar System · · Score: 2, Informative

    I found this article to be rather long winded in order to create a story with suspense.
    The moon has a side facing away from Saturn which is darker then the side facing saturn. It seems to be due to collecting dust from a larger ring that is on the border of its orbit.

    Done, saved you a long and pointless naritive.

  25. Re:Holy shit on Too Much Exercise May Not Be Better Than a Sedentary Lifestyle · · Score: 2

    Nah, if you live that healthy, chances are someone will kill you because your smugness will be off the charts.

    BTW. Those are an old study, it seems while holds true for rodents no effect is shown on other species.