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User: Virtucon

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  1. Re:Buy Surge Protectors on Insurance Claims Reveal Hidden Electronic Damage From Geomagnetic Storms · · Score: 1

    Well most "country" wiring I've experienced has multiple problems. Mostly from old, unmaintained wiring and transformers but it sounds like you've got enough of that already. While most storms will cause havoc, just the utility not giving a shit will probably cause most of the failures inside a home.

  2. Re:Lyft drivers dangerous? on Lyft's New York Launch Halted By Restraining Order · · Score: 1

    Gotta love those LGA taxi rides, full of bumps, extras and routes to nowhere. Just like EWR. It's all a racket and Lyft along with Uber are going to erode the Taxi Commission revenues as well as those of the yellow cab consortia.

  3. Re:New York has commissions for everything on Lyft's New York Launch Halted By Restraining Order · · Score: 1

    You're behind the times. In Texas we can get the mega 64oz drinks in about every gas station, 7-11 and liquor store. 40oz is so right coastal.

  4. Re:Buy Surge Protectors on Insurance Claims Reveal Hidden Electronic Damage From Geomagnetic Storms · · Score: 2

    My data comes in on fiber optic cable, no worries there. Also I buy APC units, they're worth the investment.

  5. Re:Buy Surge Protectors on Insurance Claims Reveal Hidden Electronic Damage From Geomagnetic Storms · · Score: 1

    That's next in the budget. I've had two neighbors with lightening strike damage and with our voltage problems, the Type 1 surge protector has done well for us.

  6. Buy Surge Protectors on Insurance Claims Reveal Hidden Electronic Damage From Geomagnetic Storms · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you haven't already bought them, buy surge protectors. After replacing the fourth dishwasher in our less than 8 year old house due to circuitry issues we installed a whole house surge protector. They work and it doesn't take a magnetic storm to cause issues, most of the grid delivery is +/- 15% on voltage just in my area normally.

  7. Re:Orwellian on Google's Experimental Newsroom Avoids Negative Headlines · · Score: 1

    Meet the new media control overlords. It used to be we had filters like News Editors, TV Anchors etc. who had a set of principles and presented the news based on those principles. Of course individuals like William Randolph Hurst realized how powerful this was and fashioned and tailored the news to their own agendas. This gave their already immense power even more capabilities to shape the dialog and issues of the day. Google, Huffington Post et al. are all in the same business and both actually don't generate actual news content but merely serve as spin doctors pushing the issues to their suited direction. We shouldn't be surprised that Google is trying to influence our opinions, it's been done for hundreds of years and although the media distribution may have changed controlling public opinion is an old game.

  8. Re:Thanks Al The bravest Senator of them all. on Senator Al Franken Accuses AT&T of "Skirting" Net Neutrality Rules · · Score: 1

    You know in his early days on SNL he wasn't all that funny. I never thought he'd be a Senator but you know he actually makes a lot of sense.

  9. If you need one then yes.. on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    For most of us, no. Onboard sound is great and getting better all the time. If you're an audiophile or using your system to do professional mixing or music then it is worth it.

  10. Re:Can't figure out their plan here on How Google Map Hackers Can Destroy a Business · · Score: 1

    It's a big fat book full of useless entries with names and places you'll never deal with. They still occasionally drop them off at my front door where I obligingly use the pages for starting camp fires and to level my wonky kitchen table.

  11. Re:Best on Ask Slashdot: Best Dedicated Low Power Embedded Dev System Choice? · · Score: 1

    vim is where it's at.

  12. Ms. Ginni Rometty - a tard on IBM To Invest $3 Billion For Semiconductor Research · · Score: 5, Informative

    She's been driving IBM into the ground and even investors wonder if you can continue to cut your way to earnings. IBM used to be a company that could and would compete in any market it chose, now it's a shell of its former self. Sad really when you think of the great things IBM has done, and the not so great.

    They've started entire industries and markets only to see them taken away by competitors because their executives weren't agile. In a lot of respects I think IBM will be gone in 10 years because of retarded management decision making and focusing too much on EPS.

  13. Re:one word poem about libertarians... on Here Comes the Panopticon: Insurance Companies · · Score: 1

    Again, your comment is so full of horseshit it's staggering. I'm surprised you've made it this far in life or you've got a silver spoon shoved up your ass in which case you don't care about producing anything useful other than horseshit. The typical liberal mantra is that if anybody disagrees with them they're some how uneducated or poor and their opinions don't matter. Fuck that.

  14. Re:libertarians are pawns for rich people on Here Comes the Panopticon: Insurance Companies · · Score: 1

    Horseshit

  15. Re:It's getting scary on Coddled, Surveilled, and Monetized: How Modern Houses Can Watch You · · Score: 1

    all the more reason, get more of those dollars from the government. It's all about the extras.

  16. Re:It's just a mater of time... on Coddled, Surveilled, and Monetized: How Modern Houses Can Watch You · · Score: 1

    You can put web cams on your house to see meth addicts in hoodies trying to break into your car. The cameras do help but I wouldn't go with them as a service, rather just get your own system. I have one and it's been especially good to get the lawn care folks to do their job. ;-)

  17. Re:It's getting scary on Coddled, Surveilled, and Monetized: How Modern Houses Can Watch You · · Score: 2

    I went to the hospital a while back and they started collecting all sorts of private data. They even insisted on getting a blood sample, probably for some kind of DNA database. Then, when the doctor left me alone for a minute I looked on the counter at his clipboard and there it was. The smoking gun. He had PAGES of information on me. So be warned, the government is already doing everything it can to monitor the population.

    No, it's just the Doctor and the Hospital trying to upcode your bill with a lot of unnecessary services. Lawyers are now hovering in on upcoding fraud. People think auto dealerships are bad, hospitals and doctors make them rank amateurs by comparison.

  18. Another example on Blue Shield Leaks 18,000 Doctors' Social Security Numbers · · Score: 1

    Another example of why stupid people shouldn't be left in charge. These folks are responsible for managing billions of dollars in health care premiums and payments and a failure in data management policies has lead to a breach. I'm sure they'll just offer the poor doctors "Lifelock" for a year. No wonder our healthcare system is so fucked up.

  19. Re:NO-NO-NO, a thousand times NO! on Airbus Patents Windowless Cockpit That Would Increase Pilots' Field of View · · Score: 1

    You're not going to stop the technology integration into aircraft. It's proven to delivery a safer and more comfortable flying experience. When things go pear shaped ultimately you want the pilot in control + technology assisting to regain control. The reason for that is you can't possibly plan for every contingency and human intervention is still required. Whether or not the Pilots believe their instrumentation is another thing.

    Now, I personally think that the biggest objections to this planned technology will be the pilots themselves because I can't see them flying in a dark room and they'll argue for a way to see outside.

  20. Re:T-Mobile and the customer liable here on FTC Says T-Mobile Made Hundreds of Millions From Bogus SMS Charges · · Score: 1

    Seriously? They're back peddling because I've had t-mobile and it was a PITA to get rid of those charges and to block them from happening again. At the time I could get them removed from future billing statements. Their position was once I was billed I had to pay them because they were used. I had to argue the point that a 14 year old inadvertently used the feature, that I didn't authorize. Once I did that the charges miraculously disappeared. I'm glad the FTC is calling them out on this but it's a horrible business practice. Granted T-Mobile hasn't been doing all that well but still these services are shit and a way to scalp you.

  21. wait, Myhrvold..? on Nathan Myhrvold's Recipe For a Better Oven · · Score: 1

    Has he patented it yet?

  22. T-Mobile and the customer liable here on FTC Says T-Mobile Made Hundreds of Millions From Bogus SMS Charges · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's funny to see T-Mobile back-peddling on this issue however anybody who could have had the premium services dropped could have done so at any time. For somebody to not review their bill and see that $10/mo was getting charged for this is a bit incredulous. Sprint, hell all the Cell providers have this kind of shit. Having gone through it with teenagers, I can tell you I had to scrutinize the bills monthly. T-Mobile's problem is that their billing and customer service practices make it a pain in the ass to get these things turned off. So there is merit in this suit moving forward but IMO there is no premium SMS service. Shit jokes, daily bikini girl pics. It's another way to bilk you out of your money like 900 numbers. and that's something the FTC should be going after as well.

    I'm also wondering about the timing of this with the pending Sprint acquisition. It'll definitely put that on hold, which will force T-Mobile to pay some hefty fine (tax) that you and I will have to pay to cover the costs of giving the government more money. It's funny how that works out: company gets fined and then the same company passes those costs onto consumers.

  23. Re:Not bad on Samsung Release First SSD With 3D NAND · · Score: 1

    Well with the 840s coming down in price over the recent months you had to wonder when the next generation would be available. I already have two 840 pros in my laptop, the previous was Hybrid drives which are pretty decent over the old 5400 RPM laptop drives that folks are still pushing these days. Still, in 4TB sizes I think rotational media will still be around for awhile. I have two Hybrid 4TB drives right now in one desktop and there about 70% faster than the old 7200RPM 3TB drives they replaced.

  24. Re:Not bad on Samsung Release First SSD With 3D NAND · · Score: 1

    OH yeah, 100K IOPS of course most drones keep a 4K cluster, what a waste. Unfortunately all I see are tech/press releases nothing in terms of "buy it now" option.

  25. We may never know. but... on Winners of First Seized Silk Road Bitcoin Auction Remain Anonymous · · Score: 1

    We do know they won't be using MTGOX as an exchange...