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User: localman57

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  1. Great! Where do I send money? on SourceForge Eliminates DevShare Program (sourceforge.net) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No bullshit. I'll really send you money. I remember loving sourceforge. If you have a gofundme, or paypal account, or something like that, I'll send you $5 to help offset the lost revenue from that program you scrapped. There are people out there who will help support those who do the right thing, even if they're companies or for-profit corporations, or whatever.

    Give me my "Turn this ad off because you've got good Karma" option back, and there's another $10 in it for you.

    It's been 2 1/2 years since I've posted. I see the potential in this for something I loved to come back. So I'll post now.

    Who else will support these guys?

  2. Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... on Venezuela: Cheap Television Sets For All! · · Score: 5, Informative

    The important phrase here is official rate. The bolivar is bullshit, and everybody knows it. That's why it trades at 10 times as many per dollar as the official exchange rate. Venezuela doesn't make televisions. They're imported, and the people who do make them price them in yen, RenMinBi, or Won, or perhaps dollars. The people who sell them are likely to want hard currency to pay for them. So the price in bolivars looks nuts. This is what happens when you peg an artificial exchange rate, folks.

  3. Re:Wow on Venezuela: Cheap Television Sets For All! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah. It's real. And the ironic part is that Chavez died at just the right time that a lot of people are going to look back on his rule as the good ole days. The path he laid out was utterly unsustainable, but was pleasant in the sort term for a lot of the people who ended up on the right end of his ultimately self-defeating economic policies. A lot of what he did was paying for things on credit against oil that wasn't even pumped yet. The wheels would have come off the bus eventually, but now they're going to come off while Maduro's driving, not Chavez. And people will blame Maduro (not that he doesn't have it coming as well, as is obvious from this article).

  4. Re:It's a Stalling Tactic on Syrian Gov't Agrees To Russian Chem-Weapon Turnover Plan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My conclusion is that if he's a better poker player than us, then we shouldn't play poker with him. We either don't play any game, or choose one that plays to our strengths.

    Just because you acknowledge someone's capacities, it doesn't mean that you admire them. To the contrary, my whole point is that we have to understand how he's gotten this far, if we want to have any shot at a positive result.

  5. Re:Taken to school on Syrian Gov't Agrees To Russian Chem-Weapon Turnover Plan · · Score: 1

    Plus, the Russians and the Chinese win because we don't set a precedent of having one country take unilateral action when a country decides it's anything-goes on protesters/rebels. Both the Russians and the Chinese want to keep their ability to pull a Tienamen Square without external interference, as long as they can bork things up in the Security council. Neither of them want to see more Kosovo type stuff.

  6. It's a Stalling Tactic on Syrian Gov't Agrees To Russian Chem-Weapon Turnover Plan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's important to remember how Assad played Kofi Annan for a chump for weeks near the beginning of this conflict. The whole time, he kept everybody talking, dangling the bait of a peaceful solution- some compromise - while he was using tanks on protesters that were overwhelmingly peaceful, and at worst lightly armed and totally disorganized.

    He may well be doing the same thing now. He has masterfully played the hand he was dealt with delays, and a gradual escalation of tactics and brutality, essentially boiling the frog of public opinion to avoid any one escalation that yields a response. Dictators for decades will study this. I watched the interview last night with Charlie Rose, and I'm pretty convinced that Putin is probably the only major world leader who'd have a chance against this guy in a poker game.

  7. Re:Let me get this straight on Goldman Suspends 4 Senior Tech Specialists After Trading Glitch · · Score: 4, Funny

    In the grand scheme of things, though, it isn't that much money. Their plan to blow up a nursing home, for instance, won't be affected by the loss.

  8. Re:Very dangerous on NASA Visualizes Asteroid Grab Mission · · Score: 1

    At which point the House will decide that it will only pay for this asteroid-protection plan to save the earth if equivalent cuts are made some place else. Now, the Senate ain't gonna buy that. So the asteroid will just go ahead and hit the earth, but fortunately hit someplace nobody (here) cares about. And, for some fucking incomprehensible reason, fully 90% of these asshats will be reelected the next cycle.

  9. Re:Fragmentation of the "old internet" on China's .cn Domain Servers Suffer DDoS Attack · · Score: 1

    Very good post. Mod points if I had them.

  10. Re:No more "the dog ate my homework" on Students At Lynn University Get iPad Minis Instead of Textbooks · · Score: 0

    Either of these cases seem like weeding. If you can't remember the parts you need to make your tech work, or can't figure out how to survive an outage without losing work product, you're probably not cut out to go work in the business world, either...

  11. Re:ada issues on Students At Lynn University Get iPad Minis Instead of Textbooks · · Score: 2

    How is this different from textbooks? You had to make an exception for some people by making a large print version, or a braille version. It seems to me that this transition, particularly if there's a text-to-speech option, should make the books more accessible, not less. Some extra tech required, but it seems much easier than creating multiple editions of each book.

  12. Re:Actually, I like the dead trees on Students At Lynn University Get iPad Minis Instead of Textbooks · · Score: 1

    As I remember, For 80% of my books, that's still a good deal. Book Store used to sell em to us used for $50, and maybe give you back $10. Unless there was a new edition (frequent), in which case you got jack. So, that was 20%, or 0% off, and I didn't own a damn thing.

    15 years into my career, I have used exactly 0 of my text books I chose to keep in the last 10 years. But only recently finished paying off the last of my student loans.

  13. A conversation with David Cobden on Physicists Find Solid-State 'Triple Point' In Material That Conducts, Insulates · · Score: 3, Funny
    Professor Cobden:

    These solid-state triple points are fiendishly difficult to study, essentially because the different shapes of the solid phases makes it hard for them to match up happily at their interfaces

    Me:

    Oh, yeah. That's pretty cool. So...you..uh...see that new Pacific Rim movie? Those giant robots were pretty awesome, huh?

  14. FIRST POST! on Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World · · Score: 5, Funny

    FIRST POST! -This automated post is a service of S4BB Slashdot First Post Blackberry App

  15. Re:Would probably be outlawed... on New Drug Mimics the Beneficial Effects of Exercise · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, it's terrible to think that professional sports players should actually be rewarded for training and talent rather than drugs.

    I'm so sick of people lecturing me about how bad steroids are, so why don't you SHUT UP! I've got half a mind to come over there and RIP YOUR HEAD OFF just for saying that! What? You gonna look at me like that? THAT'S IT!

  16. Re:Uh huh on The Steady Decline of Unix · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, but that's just splitting hairs. If you factor in all the *nex's , people are blowing about the same amount. It's just more diversified.

  17. Re:Uh huh on The Steady Decline of Unix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would anyone in their right mind switch servers from HP-UX to Windows?

    Why wouldn't one? Based solely on who_stole_my_kidney's anecdotal argument, and your rather content-free counter-argument, I'd be inclined to follow his advice.

  18. TO: Weather Gang. FROM: J. Bezos on Why Weather Control Conspiracy Theories Are Scientifically Ludicrous · · Score: 4, Funny

    TO: WeatherGang
    FROM: J. Bezos
    SUBJECT: Weather Conspiracy Theories


    Guys,
    I know you're not that great at the whole internet thing and all, being a newspaper and such. But one of my other companies is actually pretty good at it. So take my advice. Don't feed the trolls.

    Regards,
    Jeff

  19. Re:Where did those studies go .. on Excess Coffee May Be Linked To Early Death · · Score: 1

    Prostrate cancer? What is that, like a benign tumor or something?

  20. Re:Not always... on Excess Coffee May Be Linked To Early Death · · Score: 3, Funny

    Huh. You know how you can take your social security earlier in exchange for a smaller monthly payout? Take a good look at that.

  21. Re:I'm worried! on Excess Coffee May Be Linked To Early Death · · Score: 3, Funny

    Agreed. And fully half of those people die younger than the median mortality age in that group.

  22. Re:I will agree that VR is cool on John Carmack Joins Oculus VR As CTO · · Score: 1

    Where, exactly, do you anticipate wearing them that how they make you look matters? Your argument about Google Glass is somewhat founded. But not Rift. Hell, the whole point of Rift is that if you and the other people in the room are all wearing them, to each other you look like the ripped manly warriors slaying Orcs in the forest rather than a bunch of flabby gamers waiting to cancer from the radon in your parents' basement.

  23. Re:Encryption: on Snowden and the Fate of the Internet As a Global Network · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If Random Joe doesn't share it with anybody, they probably don't give a shit. The NSA is perfectly happy to let Random Joe sit around enjoying his porn collection. But when people start working together, they get interested. They care if Random Joe is going to share it with somebody at somepoint. And they're real interested in that. Even if they never decrypt it, they can tell that Random Joe uploaded it, and Random Bob downloaded it. Now, the interesting question is what is the relationship between Random Joe and Random Bob? That connection between those two is valuable information, and you can get it without ever decrypting the actual data.

  24. Re:Who'll bet against... on Sony & Panasonic Plan Next-Gen 300 GB Optical Discs By the End of 2015 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    By making all the writers that they license to use the technology incorporate anti-piracy detection software in the driver? Then use some kind of unlocking scheme so that the hardware will only write when using their drivers? That sounds about right.

  25. Re:So just download wordpress on Yahoo Censors Tumblr Porn · · Score: 1

    Do we know for a fact that it is Yahoo that is in fact driving this change? Maybe it was a strategic decision that has been in the works for some time. Without transparency into the organization, we don't know for sure where it came from.

    The other thing to remember is that its fun to scream at corporations about censoring you, but most of the stuff we use is funded by advertising. If the place becomes a pornorific cesspool, their ability to get legitimate companies to advertise there will vanish, and then the thing will likely be gone. It's just like the old free press argument. It applies to YOUR press. If some other paper won't print your letter to the editor, buy a press and start your own paper. Or create your own Tumbler. If your proposed culture is really that much better, people will move.