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User: cyberjock1980

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  1. Re:The point of this is what, exactly? on New York State Approves Two Dollar-based Cryptocurrencies (engadget.com) · · Score: 2

    Exactly. I'm really not sure how this is supposed to be "new" or "innovative" in a way that makes anyone want to use it. Sure, you can use "that thar newfangled blockchain" but most people don't care how the money is stored, as long as it can be spent. What companies are going to want to use this when there are plenty of other payment methods that are widespread, they work well, and there isn't the risks of things like losing your "wallet" and having no recourse.

    This screams of a solution in search of a problem. At least, to me.

  2. Lifespan? on New Research Suggests the Appendix Has a Purpose After All (qz.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So this makes me wonder if people without their Appendix have a different lifespan than those that keep it. I tried to google for the answer, but I came up short. Anyone know of any studies on this subject?

  3. Re:Well this is exciting on Wells Fargo Employee Informed the Bank of Fake Customer Accounts in 2006 (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    A small number of employees engaging in a given behavior may be those employees trying to game the system.

    A large number of employees engaging in a given hbehavior is called a business model.

    Plain and simple.

  4. Bread? on The Most Popular Product Of All Time · · Score: 1

    What about loaves of bread? How many loaves of bread have been sold?

    I'd call bread a product, certainly sold more than 1 billion loaves over the years. In fact, I'd bet quite a large sum of money far more than 1 billion loaves of bread have been made over the years and sold.

    This seems like a desperate attempt to take a big number and wack off to it while claiming Apple is the greatest ever.

  5. I may be a conspiracy theorist... on Microsoft To Make Saying No To Windows 10 Update Easier (zdnet.com) · · Score: 2

    Anyone else notice that the "12 month" window to 'upgrade to Windows 10 free' is closing (tomorrow in fact) and so they can now change the behavior and try to act like a poor victim while perhaps posting "1 year adoption rates" much higher than would have been otherwise.

    When this crap started I told myself that this will be "rectified" once they have 1 year of Windows 10 being out. Then they can post "their great numbers" which will, naturally include, a lot of accidental upgrades and other people that didn't even want to upgrade.

    It really sickens me, and is why I'm still on Windows 7, and dual boot with Linux and FreeBSD. Microsoft's behavior is totally unacceptable.

  6. Re:Memory on Users Find Renting a Movie On iTunes Frees Up Space On iPhone, iPad · · Score: 1

    It's not "reportedly". I can tell you that my M9 that is happily running with Marshmallow works great with my 128GB SD card "formatted as internal storage". Works great. I've had zero problems.

    The only downside I can think of is that the SD card is effectively unformatted storage if the phone breaks. Most people store backups and things on their SD card so that if/when their phone breaks they can pop the SD card in the next phone and do a restore. You can't do that when the SD card is formatted as internal storage. :D

    If cell phone manufacturers are disabling the feature, that's screwed up and I'd be returning my phone that day. The feature is so useful that I can't imagine not having it now.

  7. Re: Not about fear on Slashdot Asks: Do You Support Nuclear Energy? (gallup.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure how valid your argument is about. Olkiluoto Unit 3 is not in the USA, and the post is clearly discussing issues involving the opinion of Americans. Sure, I won't try to argue that your points about Olkiluoto aren't true (in fact, I haven't tried to verify them) but I can tell you that the issues at Vogtle 3 and 4 are nothing like Olkiluoto's issues.

    As someone who may or may not have proprietary knowledge of Vogtle 3's construction and status, I'm inclined not to comment much further. I'll let the reader make their own opinions based on available information on the internet.

    But... I am excited to see how Vogtle 3 and 4 are doing.

  8. Re:These companies keep giving us reasons on Underground Piracy Sites Want To Block Windows 10 Users · · Score: 2

    Care to elaborate on which ones, a link to this info, etc? I've never heard of this and interested in reading more... yet Google searching is turning up very vague information on this topic...

  9. pfsense for the win on Critical Vulnerability In NetUSB Driver Exposes Millions of Routers To Hacking · · Score: 1

    Still glad I'm using my pfsense router.

    I have no doubt that there are plenty of devices that suffer from this vulnerability and will never see a firmware update because they'd rather you "buy some shiny new hardware that will not have this vulnerability". Well, guess what? I bought my last 2 routers for that reason, and I shouldn't have to buy a new one every 2 years because the manufacturer went cheap-and-dirty.

  10. Re:Unreliable indeed on Nuclear Plant Taken Down In Anticipation of Snowstorm · · Score: 1

    What's funny mdsolar is that your last 6 posts (and counting) have been to *this* story, and every single one (except one) is rated a 0, or -1, 1/2 of them are identied as "troll".

    The one exception post... the one I just replied to.

    Hahaha. Sounds like you got exactly what you deserve for your ignorance.

  11. Hidden agenda that might bite us? on Confirmed: FCC Will Try To Regulate Internet Under Title II · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This sounds too good to be true. And we all know what that means...

    So I've got this suspicious feeling that there's some devil in the details that is gonna be a major drawback to this. Anyone got any insight into some key word or tricky phrase that might indicate an ulterior motive?

  12. These on XP? on Infected ATMs Give Away Millions of Dollars Without Credit Cards · · Score: 2

    I remember back when XP was officially discontinued there was some article that said something like 70% of ATM machines worldwide still ran XP. Anyone able to confirm if this is the case? If so, are they exploiting some vulnerability in XP that is never-to-be-patched?

  13. I'll take his word for it. on Bill Gates: Bitcoin Is 'Better Than Currency' · · Score: 2

    There's an old Chinese proverb that reads "A wise man will always take his own advice!"

    So Bill Gates has owns how many millons/billions of dollars in Bitcoins?

  14. Re:Here's hoping. on The GNOME Foundation Is Running Out of Money · · Score: 1

    As a relatively new Linux user, and a Linux Mint user, which desktop environment do you recommend? I've been using Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon for about 3 months, and despite not doing much that is too complicated or customized, I've crashed Cinnamon quite a few times. Felt like a flashback to Windows 98. With the LTS version around the corner I was going to do a reinstall so I could keep it around for 2+ years. So should I be considering the MATE or KDE version instead?

    I'm really looking for a new OS to learn that is stable and functional for my day-to-day activities. Been a Windows user for years and the oasis of both linux versions and choices of desktop environments, then to choose to use LTS or non-LTS has confused the living hell out of me. And with no friends to call on the phone and say "tell me about this stuff.. does it apply to me and if so,why?" is just not an option.

    I've been dual-booting Windows and Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon for about 4 months. But I've dabbled in Linux Mint going back to version 13. I spend lots of time in Linux when I know I won't need to run any Windows applications/games. Unfortunately, the lack of good support for my gaming needs(mostly Diablo) makes me have no choice but to go back to Windows regularly. :(

  15. Re:MMR Outcry? on Measles Outbreak In NYC · · Score: 2

    Actually, a bunch of the doctors that helped create some of these vaccines did deliberately expose themselve to the diseases as proof to the public that it worked. This was back in first part of the 20th century when people couldn't believe that vaccines actually worked as well as claimed. Go read up on how some of them were created. Back then scientists were hardcore and all about proving their stuff was safe and better for the public at large. They felt they had a committment to society to:

    1. Make the vaccine.
    2. Make the vaccine safe.
    3. Make the vaccine effective.
    4. Convince the public of #2 and #3, at almost any cost, including their own safety.

    Of course, today it would be considered attempted suicide if you deliberately exposed yourself to some of these diseases. But, in a twist of irony it's okay to not vaccinate a child because a parent "is a dumbass".

    Some immunologists allegedly died trying to prove that some bogus vaccine worked too!

  16. Well... on Measles Outbreak In NYC · · Score: 1

    "How do you think we can get through to the anti-vaxxers?"

    Easy... ever heard of the phrase "I say we take the safety labels off of all products and let the problem sort itself out"?

    I know several people that refuse to vaccinate their children. They don't care what evidence you provide. They will argue until the day they die that vaccines cause autism. You can't argue with that level of conviction(or stupidity).

    Yes, there's a good chance we're going to lose people that were vaccinated and still caught the (insert any vaccinated disease here) but that's the breaks when you deal with society. They won't always agree with you. And their stupid mistakes will sometimes cost you more than you are ever willing to pay.

  17. Re:Pollution from Cars? on Face Masks Provide Chinese With False Hope Against Pollution · · Score: 0

    Except there's not enough known, proven lithium reserves on the planet to make enough cars to help with the air pollution there. That is, assuming that the pollution is mostly from cars.

    The fact that so little lithium is available on the planet is one of the reasons why vehicles produced at very large scales will never be electric vehicles or hybrids. I remember reading somewhere that if you had every ounce of lithium on the planet right now that is reasonably expected to exist(regardless of the cost) available you couldn't make enough batteries for 1/5 of the vehicles in the USA that are currently on the road. Nevermind the rest of the world.

  18. Re:Goiânia Accident on Medical Radioactive Material Truck Stolen In Mexico · · Score: 2

    The Mexican government and several other sources have already said that they'll know who opened the container with the Co-60 soon enough. Unless they had significant amounts of shielding they could have received a lethal dose in a few minutes. They said that just 5 minutes worth of exposure will kill the individual in about 3 days.

  19. Re:STILL not accurate and STILL misquoted on SSD Manufacturer OCZ Preparing For Bankruptcy · · Score: 1

    I think you are missing the bigger picture.

    Regardless of how well or how poorly an item sells, regardless of a company's reputation, and regardless of what you and I "think" about their product, if significant quantities of their product is being RMAed that is going to kill the profits of that product. If its a very high failure rate it might bankrupt the company. OCZ has some products that have been claimed to have a 40% return rate during the warranty period. Oh look, OCZ is filing for bankruptcy. Coincidence? I think not.

    Even if the claimed return rate is 1/2 of reality, that's still 20%. If just 1 out of every 5 customers is having to do an RMA you can expect people WILL be upset and people WILL complain. Just think about how many do a second RMA and that one fails too!

    The bottom line, products should not regularly require an RMA during the warranty period. Both so a customer gets a feeling that the product lived for the duration of its expected life and because the company doesn't need to go bankrupt while dealing with failed product processing, return shipping, customer service calls/emails, etc.

  20. Re:STILL not accurate and STILL misquoted on SSD Manufacturer OCZ Preparing For Bankruptcy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I disagree. I've had several friends(at least 4 off the top of my head) that have bought OCZs. None of them lasted 6 months without having to do an RMA. One friend had 3 RMAs in about 9 months. Despite having 3 months left on his warranty he went with Intel(because of my recommendation) because it wasn't worth his time to continually have to restore from backup to a temporary drive while he does the RMA.

    Even in forums I hear people talk about failed OCZ drives regularly. Sure, there's the occasional Samsung and Intel in there. But OCZ sure is mentioned FAR more frequently than the other brands. I'm not convinced that their market share is 90% to offset the number of users that complain about failed disks.

    Personally, I don't care if they used 1-million write cycle flash memory instead of Kingston's 3000 cycle memory. If every drive I've had second hand experience with has to be RMAd in less than 6 months something is horribly wrong and I'd be avoiding that product or brand. There's alot more to a drive than just the number of write cycles. Poorly written SSD firmware could easily make a drive with a very long lifespan be abnormally short due to write amplification. So feel free to keep talking numbers, cause the comparision of write cycles is only a very small part of what makes an SSD reliable(or not).

    In my opinion OCZ has undoubtedly made some bad models. Are they all bad? Probably not. But, it doesn't take much to earn a reputation for being crappy. And once you've earned that reputation it's going to take some serious convincing to get people to spend money on your product again. In my case, they'd have to give me a drive for free to prove that they really are just as reliable as the 3 Intel drives I've had in my 3 main machines that haven't failed in 3 years+ of use.

  21. Re:tough love on How the NSA Is Harming America's Economy · · Score: 1

    Got a link? I haven't read that. I read that a backdoor may have been the cause, but it wasn't proven conclusively.

  22. Re:tough love on How the NSA Is Harming America's Economy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just goes to show what I asked a few weeks ago. Back in Oct I posted a comment that this may lead to a IT revolution of sorts because of all of this.

    No surprise that when I commented about it before I was labeled 1:Redundant.

    Think ahead people. If I were a competitor from outside the USA I'd be asking Snowden to release more details. Heck, I if I were a CEO of one of them I might be writing him a "thank you" check. The worse the NSA spying appears to be(or even that looks plausible to do with financial resources) the more people will want to avoid US companies that might be in bed with the government.

    At this point, it doesn't really matter "how much" worse it gets. Everyone's already figured they can source hardware from outside the USA. What would be an interesting twist is if decades later we find out that all these people started buying from China or some other country and those do actually have backdoors while the US companies actually didn't.

  23. Re:20 year lifespan on NYC's 250,000 Street Lights To Be Replaced With LEDs By 2017 · · Score: 2

    This is precisely correct. LEDs, when properly designed and manufactured, have lifespans that are just phenomenal. I have all LEDs in my house. The ones that I bought that were high grade CREE LEDs I expect to have the rest of my life. Zero failures after 5 years of use so far.

    On the other hand, some of the cheaper ones I've bought have often not lasted 2 years. I tried some cheaper ones just to see how well the worked. They often didn't even produce the amount of light they were claiming.

    In conclusion you absolutely get what you pay for. And who is going to convince the government to NOT buy from the cheapest bidder. So this will probably be an epic fail since NYC is probably looking at the short term savings vice the long term savings with quality components.

    Note that I did not check the actual vendor model to see what brand they are using for this NYC deployment.

  24. Re:I wish they'd do it here. on NYC's 250,000 Street Lights To Be Replaced With LEDs By 2017 · · Score: 2

    I admire your "plan ahead" approach, but in 2 small cities I've seen where they had some that were solar powered, they ALL were damaged by the accompanying natural disasters so they really didn't help even when disaster strikes. :(

    They are just too fragile to hope to survive things like hurricanes, tornadoes, really bad thunderstorms, and earthquakes.

  25. Re:Pardon my ignorance but... on USB Implementers Forum Won't Play Nice With Open Hardware · · Score: 1

    So just say "uses an interface that is physically and electrically compatible to the USB standard".