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User: Dynedain

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  1. Re:The pubic school system on Foxconn Replacing Workers With Robots · · Score: 1

    I hear the pubic school system is also run by Foxconn beings. There takeover began when spell checkers was installed.

    Literary irony, or subtle joke?

  2. Re:PHP is a very solid choice on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Web Language That's Long-Lived, and Not Too Buzzy? · · Score: 1

    Foundation is not a server-side or even an web app framework. Neither is Bootstrap.

    Both are layout frameworks for HTML and CSS, with a smattering of JS thrown in to make some nice client-side widgets behave consistently. The original post is asking about languages and application frameworks, not layout systems.

  3. When building pages to send to the client, there's a lot of value in building DOM structures server-side. Having powerful DOM-manipulation tools is an advantage.

    Plus, if you run the same language on both ends, you can start to do some really interesting things, like the Meteor framework, where the same functions exist on both sides of the fence, and work the same way.

    Think of the power that exist(ed) in using .NET on both the server and IE. It was proprietary, but made huge advancements in rapid development and deployment.

    Node.JS and other JS-on-the-server approaches are making this happen in a OS and browser agnostic way.

  4. Re:Perl still works, and PHP is fine on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Web Language That's Long-Lived, and Not Too Buzzy? · · Score: 1

    Until they start developing widgetFactoryFactoryFactoryFactory structures. I'm not exagerating. I've seen a senior developer/architect with a Java app build a PHP system that way, while spending every free moment bitching about how bad PHP is.

  5. Re:Smart-watches are for watch-wearers on Ask Slashdot: What Would It Take For You To Buy a Smartwatch? · · Score: 1

    Did you forget what you wrote?

    because it's easier to look at my wrist (especially while driving) than it is to pull my phone out

    In your justification for a watch you emphasized the one scenario where you are in the extremely small minority, to the point of it being almost incredulous. That's why people are focusing in on it.

    Your larger point is valid, but got overshadowed by how you phrased your position.

  6. Re:Smart-watches are for watch-wearers on Ask Slashdot: What Would It Take For You To Buy a Smartwatch? · · Score: 1

    What are you driving that doesn't have a clock already built into the dash somewhere?

  7. Re: Why not just make it a percent? on 2 US Senators Propose 12-Cent Gas Tax Increase · · Score: 1

    Future Job security for those paid to dick around with it.

  8. What's old is new again on 3D Windowing System Developed Using Wayland, Oculus Rift · · Score: 4, Informative

    Everything cycles around.

    This tech existed 10-15 years ago. There were "popular" options for IRIX, and common in CAVE setups.

    I attended SIGGRAPH in 2000 or so on an exhibitor pass for a company that was producing a 3D window manager to do exactly this.

  9. Re:taxi? or limo? on Uber Demonstrations Snarl Traffic In London, Madrid, Berlin · · Score: 2

    Neither.

    Uber offers 2 services. The one that made them popular was operating as a limo service, but cheap, with fast booking and automated account. All the pluses of limo service, but none of the pains for scheduling, tipping, billing, etc. It's just a modernized towncar service without the legacy overhead.

    Uber's second service is UberX, which they introduced to compete with Lyft. Same principal as lift applies, in that it's community ride-sharing with some monetary compensation, but backed by Uber's existing peering infrastructure and billing systems.

    It's the second service that's getting them into so much trouble, not the first. The first service follows all the livery laws. The second service has all the uninsured, unlicensed, poor quality drivers. Like Lyft or AirBnB, the peer2peer "Sharing Economy" is fundamentally at odds with the legally-protected and regulated systems currently in place.

  10. Re:Huh, really? on House Majority Leader Defeated In Primary · · Score: 1

    You're right that the Tea Party started as a fiscally-conservative, but socially-agnostic movement. It was basically a conservative response to the Occupy Wallstreet movement moving strongly into the liberal end of the spectrum

    But the Tea-Party movement quickly turned into a far-right grouping of people against the the Republican leadership because they weren't sufficiently conservative in either social or fiscal matters.

    Long story short, the Tea Party now represents a more extreme faction of conservative politics and agenda and the social conservatism they represent scares a wide swath of the general populace that otherwise sympathizes with their fiscal conservatism.

  11. Re:American Date Format on New IE 8 Zero Day Discovered · · Score: 1

    Reread my comment, I was responding to someone who likes M-D-Y because that's how he speaks: "event happened on May fifth, 2001"

    I'm completely in agreement that it's stupid in written and datestamp formats and leading to confusion. I always use YYYY-MM-DD to avoid ambiguities.

    My point was that the grandparent's argument only holds true for English. In many other common languages, the day comes first: "event happened on fifth of May", so the natural inclination of making written dates match speaking order doesn't apply.

  12. Re:American Date Format on New IE 8 Zero Day Discovered · · Score: 3

    Depends on the language. English lends itself to day followed by month, but the latin-derived languages tend to the opposite.

  13. Re:Pixar on Should Tesla Make Batteries Instead of Electric Cars? · · Score: 1

    And Pixar still sells their software, Renderman, which is the leading 3D rendering engine in the movie industry.

  14. Re:Don't sell Open Source, just present the option on How To Approve the Use of Open Source On the Job · · Score: 1

    Consider the scenario:

    Product A has technical features X,Y,Z
    Product B has technical features X and Y (not Z).... but it's OSS!

    Most decision makers will then ask, what's OSS? And when you get into the weeds of explaining nuanced differences in licensing, they'll quickly decide that the features outweigh the license benefits.

  15. Don't sell Open Source, just present the options on How To Approve the Use of Open Source On the Job · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So in other words, put Open Source on the table just like any other software. Don't try to differentiate it as "Open Source", because if you do, decisions makers and stakeholders will wonder why you're putting extra effort into justifying it.

    Put it up with a support contract and necessary consultants just like any other piece of software and you'll get approval.

  16. Re:If it was just the banks that would be one thin on Reason Suggests DoJ Closing Porn Stars' Bank Accounts · · Score: 2

    I personally know people who got audited because of contributions to the IRS watch list. And they love to claim that it was a coordinated political attack against the right wing.

    It wasn't.

    When "non profit" groups form that are closely aligned with or have explicit anti-government agendas (particularly against the IRS, tax code, and the claimed illegality of personal income tax) then it's a no brainer place to look for those skirting the law.

    No one was intimidated, their tax reporting was just flagged for the extra-scrutiny pile.

  17. Re:9000 times faster than an PC... on Stanford Bioengineers Develop 'Neurocore' Chips 9,000 Times Faster Than a PC · · Score: 1

    Even for only neural simulation, this should be a no-brainer.

    At $40,000 to perform the task of 9,000 PCs, you'd need the PCs to be $4.44 each in order to match the price to performance ratio of this board.

    I imagine the kinds of computing networks being used for neural simulation research are well in excess of that $40,000 price tags, so why wait for mass-production to bring the price down further? There's value today. Unless of course something is horribly off in the reporting.

  18. Re:My biggest gripe on How the USPS Killed Digital Mail · · Score: 1

    Congratulations, you've reinvented metered mail.

    Anyone can get their own postal meter where they load it with prepaid funds and print out per-item postage labels with bulk pricing rates. These meters have scales built-in, provide options for picking different delivery rates, and most have feeders just like your printer so you drop in a stack of envelopes and let it go.

    Far more efficient that sending someone to pick up stamps.

  19. Re:Multiple Factors on Are Habitable Exoplanets Bad News For Humanity? · · Score: 1

    Would you be able to tell which one had the message and what the message is?

    Which one had the message? Yes. Pattern detection would quickly pick out which file had a message. That's exactly the approach SETI uses.

    Figuring out the message itself is a much more difficult problem; look at the research into the Voynich Manuscript to understand how this kind of thing would be tackled.

  20. Re:P2P on How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM? · · Score: 1

    There are many other questions, specific to the situation at hand, but that general one is a good abstracted start that you can use to generate the questions that this community will thrive on.

    But separate your answer from your question. Generally speaking the Slashdot users want to engage, and when you present something as a fully answered question akin to a thesis or whitepaper, it turns off this crowd. In that scenario you will only get contrarian responses at best.

    Use the medium and the community for its strengths, rather than a comments section for an otherwise push-technology like the typical news website.

    But again, consider your goals for the discussion, and structure your message to drive the kinds of responses you want. By this I mean the formatting, the voice the length, and the style rather than the content of your argument. In a technical analogy I'd point to the underlying SQL structure of a database query and response, rather than the specific field names requested (your argument) or data returned (responses).

  21. Re:P2P on How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM? · · Score: 1

    That would have been a much better question.

    My short hypothesis to this new question is that Netflix and Hulu are tied to a business model that requires focuses on ease of use. If you've used either of their apps, they are very simplistic, especially compared to an interface like iTunes which tries to do it all. Netflix and Hulu both focus on doing one thing in the digital distribution space, and doing it well.

    In fact, it's quite telling that Apple, the undisputed king of focusing on user experience, has such a challenge in iTunes. Making a myriad of conflicting user scenarios straightforward and non-daunting is a very difficult task. Once are talking about offline storage, you open up your platform to be impacted by a lot of things that are outside your control. The most obvious ones being available space, library management, and available resource management. Imagine having to replicate all but the sharing functionality of DropBox, and do it within your simple media browsing and playback app. The result is going to be something akin to the monstrosity of iTunes.

  22. Re:P2P on How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM? · · Score: 2

    If your question truly is "how much bandwidth is wasted", you didn't try to answer it. Instead you immediately veered off into a different argument about DRM = Streaming = BAD = Business Decisions.

    If you want an answer, total up the estimates of YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu traffic and divide it by the estimated number of unique views (instead of repeat views).

    Compare with the data rates of download-only services and make a case for whether or not instant availability is worth the sacrifice.

    Do that, and this probably would have been the discussion you had hoped it to be.

  23. Re:P2P on How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM? · · Score: 2

    1) The argument doesn't hold just because you swap the terms. Instead, the article should be titled "Why doesn't Netflix allow local caching of streamed content like Google Play?". Your entire argument is that there are business decisions at play, which has absolutely nothing to do with the technical delivery methods or hot-button issues like DRM and data caps. And the fact that this is driven by business decisions is the blatantly obvious answer that anyone in this community would give. So what is the value to the Slashdot community in your long post vs. an open-ended question?

    2) I used Music because it's a clearer example of sequential changes in business models being driven by user behaviors rather than DRM or business decisions. Video digital distribution effectively happened later (bandwidth feasibility) and so the various models of distribution are being tested and offered simultaneously, and content providers are trying to learn from the Music example.

    Your approach to this whole story makes it look like you're abusing your editorial privileges to pat yourself of the back for proving how smart you are. I'm sure this is unintentional, and you truly meant to inspire discussion. But the format and content of your message is insulting to your community who are here to engage, not to simply listen. (did you pay attention to the community vs. audience discussion in the beta shitshow?). John Katz has been mentioned elsewhere on this topic. As an editor he did the same thing back in the early 2000's, and the Slashdot community universally loathed him for it.

    I said this elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here. If you ask us a question, let us answer it. Ask good questions, that are designed to draw out discussion, and we'll like you for it. Ask the obvious, and then proceed to give us the answer in sermon form before we get a word in edgewise, and you'll continue down the John Katz road.

  24. Re:P2P on How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM? · · Score: 2

    Congratulations, you just said in 3 sentences what previously it took you 9 paragraphs and a misleading title to do.

    You answered your own question, and pointed to several companies doing it in ways that are very public and which are well understood by the /. audience.

    You didn't bring any new understanding, and you didn't prompt a meaningful discussion with an open-ended question. You simply ranted for 9 paragraphs about how Streaming and DRM collectively suck because you personally can't pre-download specific content from certain specific services.

    Tips:
      Tailor your questions to your audience. If you know the answer already, the /. users probably already do as well. When that happens, rewrite your question to be open-ended!
      If your goal is to encourage discussion, ask the question, and then step back to let your audience answer it.
      Use the right terms, don't redefine them to mean something else just so it supports your argument.

    Overall, you would have gotten a lot less flack if your post was:

    What's the future of digital media delivery?
    With recent focus on streaming media services, customers are caught in the battle between content producers and network provider data/bandwidth caps. Will more streaming services build in local caching like Spotify or Google Play? Will we see the end of DRM-protected content like iTunes? Will DRM become enshrined in cross-service standards like HTML proposals? Does anyone manage this problem well and make money at? Is the idea of personal content libraries dead? Is streaming a sustainable business model?

    Everything you said in your original post would have been brought up and compared in the discussion threads and /.ers would be appreciative of the discussion instead of badmouthing your writing abilities and your non-argument.

  25. Re:Here's the real waste: on How Much Data Plan Bandwidth Is Wasted By DRM? · · Score: 1

    DRM is a tool for ensuring copyright is respected.

    In this case the parent is pretty clearly arguing copyright alone is insufficient because digital distribution has made supply and demand an ineffective tools for managing copyright.

    DRM brings back the ability for publishers to use supply and demand economics by enforcing copyrights.