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User: Rakarra

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  1. I assume what you mean is "It's not perfect, and not RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, so it's a load of crap.

    I think that he, and I for that matter, have heard so many false promises and so many pie-in-the-sky dreams about the future that we no longer trust ANY technology promise until it is actually in the market. Nothing else is worth getting excited about.

  2. To those that believe EVs will catch up with ICEs in time I will tell you that physics are against it. Batteries, fuel cells, capacitors, or any other electrical storage device you can think of simply cannot compete with hydrocarbons in energy density

    The range on a newer battery is not that far off from your standard gas tank. The density is not that far off. The difference is that you can pour more hydrocarbons in pretty quickly, and in electric vehicles we go the recharging route rather than the replacement route at charging stations.. for obvious reasons.

  3. Re:Bootstrapping use of online trouble tickets on 'Only Voice Memos Can Save Us From the Scourge of Email' (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    If you're actually at a company, then you get your officemate's/neighbor to do it for you, unless you really are the only person with a computer at the company with a computerized support system.

  4. Re:Ads on 'Only Voice Memos Can Save Us From the Scourge of Email' (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    Isn't it odd all major email providers (gmail, yahoo, ms live) want your cellphone number for "verification"?

    You don't actually GIVE your phone number to them, do you?

    At this point, I'm not sure why I should care if they have my number or not. Every spammer on the face of the Earth has my number, and your number as well. At this point, I think cell phone numbers and identities are totally public information, and we're only fooling ourselves if we think there's some privacy involved there somehow.

  5. Your statement has no relevance to this story or the trial whatsoever. Oracle v. Google dealt with copyright and fair use. Patent abuse/trolling is an entirely different issue.

    This entire lawsuit has been an enormous trolling and power grab by Oracle.

  6. Re:Much rejoicing... on Transfer of Internet Governance Will Go Ahead On Oct. 1 (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    But then how would we all exercise the Republican-sponsored right to see what Republicans want us to see, think what Republicans want us to think, and do what Republicans want us to do?

    I'll clue you into something -- Democrats have traditionally been the Party of Censorship in the US, not the Republican Party.

  7. Re: Much rejoicing... on Transfer of Internet Governance Will Go Ahead On Oct. 1 (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    And that would be bad because... ?

    Because of...

    Face it: the internet needs policing. We as a society do not need or want hate speech and political heterodoxy

    Which is why you shouldn't be involved in the decision making.

    People need to be told what to think and only the EU can legitimaly do that

    I see what you did there! And I fell for it for awhile. This post should be modded up, not down.

  8. Re:Your console is the new PC on Microsoft Says Upcoming Project Scorpio Might Be the Last Console Generation (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    You go to the store, put in your disk,

    People still do that in the 21st century?

    Yes. Online content distribution sucks. I trust Blizzard to be able to download and play their games 15 years from now (mostly because they've shown that they will
    do that). I don't trust any other game company. When I get a game, I'm usually not getting it to play it for a month-and-done. A really good game is something I'll come back to after a decade has gone by. I want physical media that I can use to install things from a long time ago.

  9. Re:All about control and second party apps on Twitch Acquires Curse, Its Sites, Tools For Gamers, and Databases (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 1

    I hosted a couple of TS servers for several years until I finally moved to Mumble.

    For the longest time I had a difficult time getting my friends to switch to Mumble from Ventrilo a few years back but when I finally got them to switch they would never go back.

    I'm conflicted. Once it's installed, it works, but Mumble is a PAIN to set up because their audio wizards screw up a lot. Every time I get someone new into the raid, they have to download and set up mumble (few groups use it anymore, most people use TS or Ventrilo). It's almost always a pain in the ass because you have to debug why sound recording is not working even after going through all the damned steps. It's become a disincentive to inviting new people in because it's a frustrating experience for them, and a time-waster for us.

  10. Re:Using myself as an example on Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    It *may* depend on the timeframe measured. I change between cable & Verizon dsl or fios depending on price. Once one gets too pricey (always do) at end of a year long contract I switch to the cheaper one(s) until they rise in price & I do it again.

    This is a pretty good idea,and sometimes you don't need to actually quit to get a lower price. Just threatening to quit can sometimes put you back on their promotional offer or some other deal.

  11. Re:No broadband competition where I live on Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Most of those issues CAN'T even possibly happen with a corporation,

    They absolutely can, almost all of those issues you brought up CURRENTLY happen with Comcast, who in many areas has no competition. I love competition as a way to give the customer choice and find a company which fulfills their needs, but you can't have competition in local utilities; it makes no sense.

    The gas and water lines running under major cities are notoriously over a century old, only getting replaced when they fail in spectacular fashion.

    Good Lord, I wish ISP/network service in the US worked half as well as gas and water utilities do.

  12. Re:DSL shouldn't be considered broadband any more. on Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Comcast TV, on the other hand, I've never had more problems with a company than them. Absolutely horrible, horrible customer service, and I'm sorry, but a $20 credit on my bill doesn't make up for a missed appointment when I took the day off from work, but their internet service has been great (in my case).

    I wonder if they're feeling the pinch. I've noticed a lot of commercials on TV recently from Comcast telling me how important they consider it to be to make appointment times.

    I've always had bad service calling into Comcast phone centers. The people you get there are not high quality, but it's worse than that, they're forbidden from doing certain checks unless the call is coming from a Comcast rep in the field. Recently I added HBO to my cable TV, but my Tivo wasn't picking it up. (Tivo's are always a problem. It's not Tivo's fault, but Comcast hates them and want you to use their inferior DVRs, so they have to use flaky, finnicky cablecards that few comcast reps know how to handle) The problem, as I guessed after reading up online, was that a typo was made when the Tivo's cardcard number was entered into Comcast's database. That number apparently isn't used when all you have is basic cable, but it is checked when you subscribe to another package or a premium channel. Well the comcast rep couldn't check that when I called them on the phone. They had to send out a tech, who called his special tech contacts, and read the 16-digit hex number to them, where they verified one of the digits was off. They fixed the issue, and everything worked. There was no need to schedule a tech to come out for that, nor was there need for me to take half a day off from work. Ugh.

    However, I hate Comcast's phone centers with a passion, but I've always had great interactions with their field techs. They almost always know what they're doing, you can chat with them about this technical stuff, and they've been friendly as well.

  13. Re: DSL shouldn't be considered broadband any more on Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Funnily, back in 1998, I had cable; I had a lot of lag playing Quake3, so I switched to DSL and actually got better results. Of course, that was almost 20 years ago

    It may even still be true now, but it was DEFINITELY true back in the late 90s and early 2000s that cable had the bandwidth advantage, and DSL had the latency advantage. My download bandwidth is still pretty bad on DSL by broadband standards, but I still get 18ms pings to my game servers.

  14. The root problem is that the ISPs in USA want to sell their non-ISP services, and price the services accordingly. E.G. Cable + internet is just a few dollars more than internet only.

    Pretty much because the physical work is the same whether you cable cable only, cable+internet, or internet only. The same ground lines are used, the same data centers, the same infrastructure. The only thing that changes is you get a cable modem with cable internet, there's a bit more bandwidth usage, and they get to lock you in with more control.

  15. Re: DSL shouldn't be considered broadband any more on Cable Expands Broadband Domination as AT&T and Verizon Lose Customers (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    DSL has always been slower than cable, the only reason anybody ever thought otherwise is because the telcos spread FUD about cable being a shared medium.

    It was not FUD. 10-15 years ago it was a real problem for cable, especially for @Home which was pretty popular before they went bankrupt. DSL often WAS faster due to the build-out architecture of cable, and consumer demand was often underestimated, especially with no data caps. That problem has mostly been solved, so you don't hear about it much anymore.

    What they conveniently left out was the fact that the backbone is shared no matter what media is used,

    Of course the backbone was shared, but backbone was not the limiting factor in either Cable or DSL... back then. In cable's case, the local neighborhood network was the limiting factor. During prime time, the backbone would be underutilized, your local connection might be underutilized, yet your connection would be slow because you were sharing the bandwidth with some neighbor who had Napster or eDonkey or Limewire up 24/7.

    meanwhile DSL being on inferior voice grade copper has to use interleaving to prevent insane amounts of packet loss, which means retransmits that count against your rated speed with accompanying deliberate latency to compensate for jitter, in addition to the fact that they never heard of 802.1x, instead relying on PPP for authentication, which gave you about 15% layer 2 overhead that also counts against your rated speed

    I've had three DSL connections, one with a static IP from 2000 - 2008, one with a dynamic IP from 2008-2009, and one with a semi-dynamic IP from 2009-current. The only time I've ever had to use PPPoE was in the 2008-2009 era.

  16. Care to share your findings?

    Not the AC, but in my case, AT&T didn't even need to do that. They were my ISP at the time (Pacbell Internet was great before they were bought by SBC, who were in turn bought by AT&T), I paid my monthly bill on time, they then sent me a refund check for the same amount, thus putting my account in the red for that month, and then charged a late payment to me. Their billing department claimed never to have received my payment, even though I could see the canceled check on my bank's website, and I had their refund check in my hands. They just wanted to charge me a late fee.

    During the dispute they claimed to put a "hold" on my account so nothing would be done with it while this "mystery" was unraveled. That was another lie (which I should have gotten in writing), the account was terminated for non-payment about a week later. Pretty much everything I had signed up for in those days used my pacbell email address. I signed up again for a one-month term to try to get access back to migrate things off of that address, but of course their company policy was that email addresses can never be returned to a returning subscriber. If you ever unsubscribe, that address is gone forever. Even though the account had been closed for a whole day due to a dispute with their fuck-up billing department.

    The lessons I learned from this:
    1) Never use your local ISP email to sign up for online services, because you may want to change ISPs. If you move, you usually don't get your choice of ISPs. I have a fantastic one now, but I don't know that that will be the case in the future. I just use various Gmail accounts now.
    2) Get every promise made in writing. NEVER accept that a company representative on the phone will do what he or she says.
    3) If you can, punish companies who pull this sort of shit by canceling service. AT&T thinks it can get away with overbilling or the nonsense they put me through. If they lost customers, a lot of customers, they might be motivated to improve. Don't ever say "well I'm just one guy, it won't matter to them if I come or go."
    4) Choose companies that make customer support a priority. That shit is so useful, and it feels so nice to actually be treated well by a company; it seems like we've just gotten used to being treated like shit, and resigned outselves to that just being a part of life. I'm sure that I could get faster Internet service if I went with Comcast, but my slower local ISP has amazing customer support, and of course I've had to use it from time to time.

  17. I believe in human-caused global warming, vaccinations, gay marriage, racial equality, unfettered access to abortions, single-payer healthcare, and I'm a registered Republican proudly voting for Trump.

    Go fuck yourself, your wide-brush stereotypes, and your smug self-righteous bullshit.

    Wow, talk about boldly embracing contradictions. And I always wondered how the Log Cabin Republicans did it, embracing a party that really detests them.

  18. It's almost like having a token figurehead won't actually fix the underlying problems that will still exist!

  19. Re:What is Chaos [Re:Climate [Re:Duh!]] on Your Political Facebook Posts Aren't Changing How Your Friends Think (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    In a chaotically dripping faucet, you can predict the average number of gallons per hour

    The problem with chaos is that it's too often used as a handwave. Tons of disciplines deal with chaos. Physicians. Lawyers. Chefs. Farmers. Fishermen. Some handle it better than others. If Physicians treated the chaotic system the same way that climatologists did... can you imagine? "The way your blood pressure has increased from last week... you're going to literally explode like the world's most disgusting water balloon in less than a year, and the only way to stop it is to give me millions of dollars to ration your blood pressure pills."

    If they could show that your blood pressure has been increasing for the last 10 years, maybe sometimes with an outlier trough or lower spike, then maybe you should go on medication and/or make some major changes. Then perhaps your analogy would be a bit more apt.

  20. Re:Climate [Re:Duh!] on Your Political Facebook Posts Aren't Changing How Your Friends Think (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    That's not quite a fair assessment of their stance. In general they believe that the profit motive applies to scientists as well as business-persons such that scientists will bias their results to get more money just like any salesperson would.

    This always relied on reducing scientists to caricatures, that every major climate scientist is living a total lie and has abandoned professional ethics, and is keeping all of this a secret from the rest of us. It's incredibly insulting to a very large number of people who have made professional study the greatest portion of their lives. I think it's as ridiculous an assertion as the one that the drug companies are conspiring to hide a cure for cancer, or the enormous number of people that would be required to hide 9/11 being an inside job.

    And climate scientists don't need "global warming" to be real to keep their jobs anyway. The climate will always be changing, and there will always be a climate that needs studying.

  21. I seem to recall in the Gilded Age, private organizations like the Pinkertons were hired to protect companies, and also to break strikes and smash (physically) attempts of workers to organize. The government was fairly hands-off -- I think it's the perfect example of how things will go to crap if we adopt the Libertarian paradise. Low wages, company towns, and an underfunded-by-design government who won't be able to protect personal health or property rights.

  22. OK, so the Treasury actually has a donate option [treasurydirect.gov].

    I bet they had a real big laugh the day they implemented that button!

  23. How does an emulator like DOSBox or a third-party VM such as Oracle's open-source VirtualBox fail on Windows 10 Home?

    Are we talking legally or technically? Technically... yes, yes you can do that. Legally, it depends on the version of windows. Most of the home versions do NOT allow you to do so. The Windows 8 Pro OEM license specifically says "This license allows you to install only one copy of the software for use on one computer, whether that computer is physical or virtual." Others probably have similar statements.

    If you don't particularly care about MS's terms, then of course bets are off the table. My 32-bit Windows XP VM works just fine on Virtualbox under Windows 7, but I won't pretend it's legitimate.

  24. So what you are saying is that hardware backward compatibility is fine since you could just run Windows XP. Good to know.

    I'm saying is it works for me because I happened to have an old key of XP that I got semi(sortof) reputably. As I had mentioned in another post, it's an option open to everyone, but it's not cheap.

    Most operating systems only support backwards compatibility for so long. I doubt my old Slackware binaries would still work. My old copy of Acroread for Linux doesn't work because filesystems have changed too much. New Macs don't run PPC binaries. It's just damned hard to support (including libraries!) programs 10+ years old.

  25. I seem to recall I write my own programs for the Commodore and Apple II, or purchase third-party programs that didn't require any authorization from the computer makers. That's what I meant by "strictly controlled" -- in order to distribute any program on the consoles, you have to go through the console makers.