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User: metiscus

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Comments · 47

  1. Re:$10,000?!? on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    I wish I had mod points.

  2. Re:Drone Occupation on US War Machine Downsizing? · · Score: 2

    The real heart of the issue is not if we think he needed to die or not. The question is, does our constitution allow the president to command the military to kill people in a country with which we are not in a state of declared war? As per the AUMF, he was justified in using military force if he believed that the target was part of the 9/11 attack or was affiliated with organizations that would perform similar attacks in the future.

    A deeper and more pressing question should be, is it right that we are now in an unmitigated state of unending war against a nameless enemy, basically for a long as the people and congress condone it? I leave the answer to this question as an exercise to the reader.

  3. Re:Beta is illogical on Leonard Nimoy: Smoking Is Illogical · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    "Slashdot Media was acquired to provide content and services that are important to technology professionals in their everyday work lives and to leverage that reach into the global technology community benefiting user engagement on the Dice.com site. The expected benefits have started to be realized at Dice.com. However, advertising revenue has declined over the past year and there is no improvement expected in the future financial performance of Slashdot Media's underlying advertising business. Therefore, $7.2 million of intangible assets and $6.3 million of goodwill related to Slashdot Media were reduced to zero. "

    Fuck Beta, Fuck Beta, Fuck Beta.

  4. Re:Why? on Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds! · · Score: 1

    I couldn't agree with you more. Slashdot is attempting to make the same kind of move that Facebook did when it went from requiring a .edu email from certain colleges to allowing anyone and his brother in. The Facebook change leveraged the desire of the existing user base to interact with their friends who were not able to get accounts at the time and tapped into the buzz generated by facebook being exclusive to generate interest. It is apparent that Facebook made the right decision as far as growing itself as a more general brand and opening itself up to mass appeal.

    The changes here at Slashdot are destined for a much worse fate. Currently, anyone with a web browser and an email address can fully integrate themselves into the Slashdot community within 5 minutes of landing on the website. There is no physical gate preventing the mass audience from coming to slashdot, instead our gate is (more like was, given the current trend in articles but I digress) is the technical level of the discussions and the niche appeal of our interests in general. The average slashdot user does not come to slashdot with the desire to interact with the average idiot with a web browser. I personally read slashdot for the high signal to noise ratio among the more insightful commentators. Changing the site to "broaden" its visual appeal would do nothing to increase the readership, it will have a marked negative effect on the number of existing users who visit slashdot. The visual changes are possibly a sign of a much more sinister intent to broaden the specificity of slashdot as a technical news outlet and to reduce the level of area specific knowledge required to understand the content here to a level far below what most of the commentators here consider tolerable. If Dice continue on this tack, I feel that a large number of the people who frequent this site will leave for / start up alternatives. These changes will push out exactly those in the community who are capable of creating a competing product that will maintain the spirit of the original slashdot under another name and the technical users will flock to that alternative leaving slashdot simply as another Web 2.0 Information Super Highway rest-stop bathroom.

    I would suggest to the people who are behind these changes that you seek your obvious path to monetization in some way other than by broadening the audience through alienating the existing users.

  5. Re:The issue has moved to the Internet on A Year After Ban On Loud TV Commercials: Has It Worked? · · Score: 1

    If you are on android and are willing to root, there is an adblock that works via the hosts file. I have been using it for several years and it works great. You can find it via f-droid.

  6. Re:Getting tired here on Most Tor Keys May Be Vulnerable To NSA Cracking · · Score: 1

    All it is these days is NSA, NSA, NSA.

    You have a uid of >3,000,000 and you are complaining about "these days" as though you have been here a long time. Just go back to wherever you came from, a week or so ago.

  7. Re:Of course it did on Ubuntu Edge Draws Nearly $13M, But Falls Short of Indiegogo Goal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AC calling a poster in the 6 digit club an astroturfer. People are allowed to have opinions that are different from yours you know. Different opinion != shill/astroturfer

  8. Hrm on The College-Loan Scandal · · Score: 2

    Problem 0: Not enough students are going to college
    Solution 0: Add state and federally funded grants / loans to incentivize students to attend
    Problem 1: Too many students are overcrowding our Universities
    Solution 1: Increase admission standards to appear more "selective" and thus become more desirable so we can charge more
    Problem 2: College is too expensive
    Solution 2: Increase the availability of loans to everyone to help them offset the increased cost
    Problem 3: None of our students are able to get jobs in their field now that they have graduated
    Solution 3: ???
    Problem 4: College students are coming out college with too many loans
    Solution 4: ???

  9. Re:dumb on Post Office Proposes Special Rate For Mailing DVDs · · Score: 1

    Thank you for a very reasonable response. I didn't intend to come off as snarky in my reply. I'm not certain that they would both have to raise their prices, competition generally causes price levels to decrease. The situation I can envision where prices might increase is when due to the halving (let's say that there is only one competitor) of volume, marginal costs might be higher ending up in everyone paying more. I'm not sure if the outcome of the duopoly would result in a price equilibrium situation or if eventually the market would either fragment or revert to a monopoly. Economics is pretty bad at telling us what will happen, but it describes the past quite well :)

  10. Re:dumb on Post Office Proposes Special Rate For Mailing DVDs · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company the post office was not always the cheapest. Who is to say that it would be cheapest today if companies were allowed to compete against it freely? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

  11. Re:dumb on Post Office Proposes Special Rate For Mailing DVDs · · Score: 2, Informative

    In the USA, it is illegal to deliver first class mail unless you are the USPS, unless it is delivered at a cost of 6x the current USPS delivery rate.

    http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/universal-service-postal-monopoly-history.pdf

    We have laws preventing exercise of free enterprise in the delivery of standard mail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes

    Companies in the past have attempted to circumvent these restrictions and have been run out of business by the government through legal means. The competing company was quite successful financially. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Letter_Mail_Company

  12. Re:network ignorance on U.S. Army Block Access To The Guardian's Website Over NSA Leaks · · Score: 3, Informative

    Classification is carried out under the instructions in a series of executive orders, dating back to the early part of the 20th century, as well as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13526
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12958
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13292

  13. Become a SME on Ask Slashdot: Exploiting 'Engineering And ...' On a Resume? · · Score: 1

    I'd suggest hunting down Lockheed, Boeing, or L-3 Communications (or another DoD contractor) and start working with them as a Subject Material Expert in whatever you did in your career. You get a very decent salary, don't really have to do much, and generally you can work with multiple companies at a time if you set yourself up as an independent contractor. Effectively, you can do what you like and what you know, and get paid for it.

  14. Re:So... on New Links Found Between Bacteria and Cancer · · Score: 1
  15. Re:So... on New Links Found Between Bacteria and Cancer · · Score: 1

    l-carnitine is one for sure

  16. Re:I am not from USA on The Free State Project, One Decade Later · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure where you are coming from with a lot of that? It would seem to me that you have quite an axe to grind with a logical construct. If you can find me some examples of the things about which you write (e.g. a libertarian stating that " if the kid doesn't like getting bad touched or beaten for dinner they have the right to run away"), I will gladly attempt to address your particular grievances, otherwise I'll just have to assume that your ideological opposition has overridden your sense of logic.

    Clearly many things that are intellectual constructs have aspects that one can fallaciously conjure into untold horrors, Democracy is no different in this respect. In a Democracy a large mob of people could vote to kill all of a smaller group of people just because they don't like them. Communism is equally vulnerable to the sort of analysis you apply to libertarianism above, if you are unable to work and contribute, what value are you to the collective? Surely you would be a burden and would best be dealt with by elimination or exclusion. If in response you assume that the commune would have a good heart and let you stay in contention to the interests of the mass, then you are allowing your predilection for the same to color your response.

  17. Re:Someone start a defense fund on USA Calling For the Extradition of Snowden · · Score: 1

    Agreed, "Don't confuse the nation's security with the regime's security." - RMS

  18. Re:I am not from USA on The Free State Project, One Decade Later · · Score: 3, Insightful

    don't even think about forming a Union, Liberty!

    Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free")[1] is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end.[2][3] This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty,[4][5] political freedom, and voluntary association. A voluntary association or union (also sometimes called a voluntary organization, unincorporated association, common-interest association,[1]:266 or just an association) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body (or organization) to accomplish a purpose.

    Sounds like Unions are fine so long as they are voluntary.

  19. Re:Classic 2D is best on The Hobbit's Higher Frame Rate To Cost Theater Operators · · Score: 1

    If the motors used in the projector were brushless DC motors, then your basic premise of the motors operating at 2x speed would be correct. If the system used some sort of AC motor, then if you could somehow double the power input frequency, then the same basic premise would apply. Both of these examples assume that there is no power shaping going on inside the projection equipment which is most certainly false.

  20. Re:Bad Slashdot on Zimmerman Charged With 2nd-Degree Murder · · Score: 2

    I have a highly reliable (scoff), but nonetheless true anecdote for you. My friend owns a Kel-Tek pf-9 and has had it for a number of years. After he fired a few hundred rounds (store bought Winchester target rounds) through it, the extractor sheared and the weapon would fail to extract the round. He contacted Kel-Tek support and they responded by sending him a replacement. He replaced the extractor and it promptly broke within the first magazine of rounds during his next trip to the range. When he contacted Kel-Tek again, they sent him a bunch of extractors because apparently they were had a bad batch of them. Our local gunsmith checked his work, and within a few hundred rounds, the new extractor broke again.

    What good is a gun that will not fire and cycle reliably? I guess if you need a club or something...

  21. Re:Solyndra on The F-35 Story · · Score: 1

    But we keep funding projects that never get off the ground.

    Looks like they are off the ground to me?

  22. Re:Solyndra on The F-35 Story · · Score: 1

    Just so I am clear, there is quite a bit of openness about the history and current state of the f-35 program. Where are the Solyndra documents?

  23. Re:Solyndra on The F-35 Story · · Score: 4, Informative

    The difference is that Lockheed isn't a bankrupt company, financed with taxpayer funds, given under dubious circumstances. The contracts for the F-35 and F-22 are well known and derived from congressional authority. If you want congress to investigate the largess at Lockheed, contact your senator, but at least the F-35 contract was awarded openly. We don't know much about the loan that was given to Solyndra since the administration has refused a lawful congressional subpoena.

  24. Re:1% on When Having the US Debt Paid Off Was a Problem · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Based on historical facts, your implication that it was all the Republicans would be false. That graph shows that it was both the Democrats and the Republicans, and that the greatest year over year increases occurred while the Democrats were in control.

  25. Re:Ron Paul should give away his money on Ron Paul Wants To End the Federal Student Loan Program · · Score: 1

    My point is that I was able to obtain an education from a prominent university without accepting any form of federal subsidization, particularly with respect to college loans. I did it by working very hard. Since your position is founded on the fallacy that you could not be where you are now without a government subsidized loan, I simply provided a counterexample to your entire argument by recounting my story.