Slashdot Mirror


User: enter+to+exit

enter+to+exit's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
187
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 187

  1. No Incentive To Change on Glut of Postdoc Researchers Stirs Quiet Crisis In Science · · Score: 1

    There needs to be a financial weight that relates to the employment prospects of a university's graduates.

    If a faculty produces too many graduates that are unemployed years after graduating, the university should suffer a financial loss. Perhaps less student funding for a particular course or less government grants.This will incentivise them to make modifications to a program or cut intake.

    Of course, this is a complicated area, but currently it makes no difference to a University if they produce masses of unemployed/unemployable people.

  2. Condescending on Test-Driving a $35 Firefox OS Smartphone · · Score: 1

    In a couple of years, you're going to be able to buy hardware with x4 the specs of what this phone has for less than $50.00 and it'll be able to run an older version of android decently. If you look at China it's starting to happen now although not yet in bulk supply.

    "It's good enough for poor people" is very condensing. Just because they have no money, it doesn't mean they'll be happy to use an unusable phone. They're better off with a feature phone until hardware prices drop.

  3. Product Name != Version Number on Possible Reason Behind Version Hop to Windows 10: Compatibility · · Score: 1

    Considering windows 95 and 98 would return an version number of 9, there is no reason that Windows 9 couldn't have returned a totally different number, say 10.

    I bet it they went with 10 only as a symbolic leap from 8/8.1.

  4. Useless Elements and Padding. on GNOME 3.14 Released · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There's still an inordinate amount of padding on everything. It maks my screen feel like 800x600.

    On top of that, gnome have an activity bar and each application a window decoration bar and then a menu bar. When running a maximized program, the bars are placed directly under each other and good chunk of the upper screen is wasted.

    The activity bar still does nothing and the window decoration bar typically has a single close button. It's a gigantic waste of space.

  5. Aliexpress on Why a Chinese Company Is the Biggest IPO Ever In the US · · Score: 1

    I've used aliexpress.com (the consumer site for alibaba). It's incredibly scammy.

    The prices are not that different to those offered by ebay sellers (usually the same). Ebay accepts Paypal, Aliexpress doesn't. Although they have an ill reputed escrow service.

    Aliexpress selers have a lot of things you can't buy on ebay. It's great for buying knockoffs. I used it to be Gameboy and NES clone.

    It's very popular with women, who use it to buy cosmetics at very low prices (probably fake brands).

  6. Ugh Metro. on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 2

    Metro Apps aren't particularly good or useful. They haven't seen mass usage by the Market or Developers, why keep it around on the desktop? It's a design clearly meant for touch interfaces. The design insist on hiding things in a submenu of a hidden side-menu - all that's visibly left is padding.

    There might have been a reason for it a couple of years ago, when the world thought all laptops were going to have a touch screen but that's clearly not going to happen. The use cases are thin - and they're just plain uncomfortable to use. What the world really needed was better trackpads.

    MS should remove Metro from the desktop and license WP8.1 for tablets.

  7. Netflix might try..but not to help quickflix. on Quickflix Wants Netflix To Drop Australian VPN Users · · Score: 1

    When Netflix eventually deems fit to grace us with it's presence, it's offerings are going to be nowhere near the same as the US version. It's doubtful if it'll be the same price as well. They might crack down on VPN users to force them to move to the Australian version.

    Netflix could play cat-and-mouse and block known VPN IPs until customers simply give up (and probably torrent the shows they want).

    Most Aussies use the same couple of VPN services, they could easily fatigue the vast majority of illegitimate Aussie Netflix subscribers.

    It takes minimal effort for netflix to do this, but they have no reason to until they launch in Australia.

  8. Face Saving on Why Munich Will Stick With Linux · · Score: 1

    There will never be an explicit plan to go back to MS. There are too many egos involved - heads may roll if this is perceived as anything other than a huge success. Remember this is a government bureaucracy with all the inherent office politics. It could get embarrassing.

    I'm sure they have made provisions for people who absolutely need to use MS products. If they ever want to go back to windows, they will expand the use-case requirements for a windows PC until over time, it becomes a checkbox on a form for new employees.

  9. Inevitable on Twitpic Shutting Down Over Trademark Dispute · · Score: 2

    There was a time when twitter didn't do anything other that links and text. When third-party twitter clients existed they used twitpic to display images.

    Twitter doesn't allow third-party clients anymore (basically) and have their own image service embedded into their UI. Third party image services are just rendered as links in the official client. twitpic was dead in the water years ago.

    The guy who owns it (It's a small self-funded business) should have seen the writing on the wall and taken the $10M he was offered years ago. I suspect when twitter tightened their grip twitpic's revenue, profit and users dissipated. In it's heyday it was allegedly making ~$700K a year.

  10. Don't Ask. on Why Women Have No Time For Wikipedia · · Score: 2

    How about not asking about gender on account registration and assigning a random username?

    It'll make it hard to claim that Wikipedia treats females differently.

  11. Re:1 Billion Mobile Users? on $33 Firefox Phone Launched In India · · Score: 1

    Apparently the less affluent use their phones in lieu of a PC/radio/TV. Some parts of the world even use phones to manage microfinancing.

    Phones are ideal for these people in many ways especially in rural areas, where a constant electricity is rare.

  12. Google Has Other Services Less Used on Google+ Photos To Be Separated From Google+ · · Score: 2

    Considering Google killed off Orkut at the end of last month, and still haven't killed blogspot/blogger i suspect Google+ will hang around for a while longer.

    It's a lot more integrated into their other services than Orkut and blogger ever were as well.

    I suspect Google+ will morph into a "Value added" social backend for some of their products, youtube, hangouts, gmail all have Google+ hooks. They are starting to use Google+ to rank your searches, I see my friends posts in my search results often now. They could use this to add personalization to Google Now.

    In a couple of years Google+ may be closer to Discus's "embed everyone" model than Facebook's silo. They might end up using Google+ to integrate the data across their products, which were (and still are) siloed until recently and just remove the Google+ homepage.

  13. Firewalls and Condoms on Ask Slashdot: Is Running Mission-Critical Servers Without a Firewall Common? · · Score: 1

    The case for not having a firewall is a lot like the case for unprotected sex:

    > The horror stories only happen do dumb people who should have known better (I'm different).
    > I know exactly what's coming in and out of my systems
    > It adds an extra layer of complexity i don't want to deal with.
    > She's taken contraceptive measures anyway.
    > It'll probably be fine.

  14. Hidden Cost and Bias. on Switching From Microsoft Office To LibreOffice Saves Toulouse 1 Million Euros · · Score: 1

    Whenever i hear of local councils (or any bureaucracy) claim that project X has saved $Y i am cautious. They have every incentive to fudge the numbers, and no one has an incentive to debunk them except MS (who no one will believe). I have no reason to doubt their claims, but a third-party audit would be nice.

    I have heard of a few municipalities doing this now, perhaps some sort of coalition to exchange knowledge and coordinate development funding is warranted?

    I usually have LibreOffice installed on my computers alongside MS Office. I find LibreOffice sluggish and not as responsive or as easy to use as MSO (although this might be a familiarity thing). I am one of those people who like the ribbon. Sometimes formatting doesn't come out properly as well. There is also the question of productivity.

  15. Intel NUC on Ask Slashdot: Best Dedicated Low Power Embedded Dev System Choice? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The OP doesn't need Solaris (He currently has a Linux Dev box) or an ARM system. He needs a low powered machine that can compile to ARM (and other things).

    I would look into an Intel NUC.

  16. Floating Slave Ships on China Starts Outsourcing From ... the US · · Score: 1

    Just build floating factories, sail to international waters and and breed slaves. Fuck paying people, what a waste!

    It will save all this wage currency speculation and the burden on having to move once the host country has dried up. Hell, the elites could even live on an adjoined isand-ship and use the slaves for pleasure and work.

    The biggest problem would be Energy, a floating nuclear reactor? Something to harness the power of the sea? Perhaps a sympathetic country will relinquish a portion of its offshore oil in exchange for the services a lawless island could provide? Maybe just breed more slaves to push the turbines?

  17. RHEL is everywhere.. on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Released · · Score: 1

    I don't think I've ever seen a large company use anything but RHEL..

    Most smaller/mid-range orgs use CentOS or Debian/Ubuntu, maybe more Debian.
    Those people comparing it to Arch Linux are cheerleaders/hobbyists.

  18. Lincoln's Sexuality on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    Apparently the humanities wasn't always so broken. There was a time, before the mythical 60s that a few of our politicians and influencers would have an understanding of the Arts. Having a degree that tried to make you "well rounded" might have been a bonus in some non-technical fields.

    Now that culture has deemed that _everybody_ must have a degree, the humanites has become what people who shouldn't have a tertiary education study. It's been dumbed down just to get these people through the course and by the cult of postmodernmism.

    On top of that, it's become overly politcal and aggressively liberal - you can only dissect Lincoln's sexuality (btw, the only acceptable anwser is that he was gay) so many times without the whole thing becoming a meaningless farce.

    As a result we're governed by technocrats - people with a lot of niche knowledge, but little broad knowledge.

  19. Start8 on Microsoft Won't Bring Back the Start Menu Until 2015 · · Score: 1

    I'm only half joking when i say MS should buy Start8 and offer it as a free download.

  20. Re:I've Seen This Movie Before. on Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't want to stop you from running free software, the FSF wants to stop me from non-free software. This is the fundamental difference. I don't impose my views on you, they want to impose their views on everyone. Their views are fundamentally extremist, mine are not.

    Their ideas of a total ban on non-free software would infringe on my views. My way allows for you to run a free-software system while allowing me to run non-free software. They don't want to give me the option of running non-free software. They would rather i have nothing that use proprietary software

    You are like the insane anti-abortionists who wants to ban the practice. I am the one who wants to make individuals to have a choice. I don't impose my views on you and would like you not to infringe on my right to do what i like. It's very simple.

  21. Re:I've Seen This Movie Before. on Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox · · Score: 0

    The FSF wants to stop me from running non-free software. They can't stop me, but they would like to. They would like it to be impossible to run non-free software. That's the whole point of the FSF. It's why they have a list of kosher distributions, Debian doesn't make the list because it allows for the installation of non-free repositories. They would like to choose for users what is morally acceptable to install.

    My stance on software is less restrictive than the FSF, I want to run whatever i want regardless of license. The FSF wants me to run only free software. They by definition have the more restrictive view.

    Anyway, arguing with a FSF zealot is like arguing with a religious extremist, they think they are the only ones with a valid view and that everyone is corrupt and blind for not seeing "the truth". You seem to be a sort of FSF apologetic.

  22. I've Seen This Movie Before. on Free Software Foundation Condemns Mozilla's Move To Support DRM In Firefox · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Here we go again. The usual FOSS battle between impossible idealism and pragmatism.

    If Firefox wants to allow for a plugin that enables DRM, what of it? The users can make their own choice. They're not including it in the browser.

    I know it's popular to pay lip service to the FSF but if they had their way we would all be hypocrites. Just posting on /. with all the evil minifed javascript would make us sinners. Of course, the FSF morals don't extend to it having qualms about taking HP, Google and IBM dirty money.

    The idea that software needs to free is bullshit, i want to run whatever i want on my system. Don't you? I don't want my morals decided by the FSF.

  23. Not Official on Journalist vs. the Syrian Electronic Army · · Score: 2

    Their affiliation with any Syrian government is likely nil.

    They seem to be an uncontrollable incoherent, loosely affiliated group without any hierarchy who just use the brand as a PR banner. Like Anonymous or Al-Qaeda.

  24. Over Management on Mozilla Ditches Firefox's New-Tab Monetization Plans · · Score: 1

    According to Wikipedia Mozilla Corp has 1000+ employees. That's an amazing amount of people for a web browser. Remember, Firefox is the only thing they do that's gained traction.

    That's about 950 too much. What the hell are they all doing over there? It just smells like a huge corruption scandal waiting to explode.

    More than anything, it's over-management that's made Mozilla an elephant. It can probably explain FirefoxOS as well.

  25. Just Experiment. on Ask Slashdot: Which VHS Player To Buy? · · Score: 1

    I've only converted home tapes ;)

    Homemade VHS quality is not great to begin with, I used a new (old but in the box) VCR and an EasyCap (a clone i think). It worked fine. There was no noticeable degradation of quality. The mpeg was about 20GB for a two hour tape. The software i used was Virtual VCR

    To be honest, i think a lot of these best practices are voodoo (it entirely depends on how and when it was recorded), just to jack up the price. As for not wanting to risk a tape on an old player, just test it out on a junk tape first, if it works 10 times in a row, chances are it'll work the 11th time.