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User: darnkitten

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Comments · 127

  1. Re:I don't understand this... on Iconic Star Wars Actress Carrie Fisher Dies at 60 (people.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but fortunately, his will forbids Disney from using them...

  2. Re:She was more than Leia on Iconic Star Wars Actress Carrie Fisher Dies at 60 (people.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm sure due to your positive influence, your children will become highly successful prostitutes/gigolos...

    Not a gigolo, 'cause...

    I-I-I-I-I Aint. Got. No. Bo-o-o-ody.

  3. Re: The reason opt-in does not work on France Begins Opt-Out Organ Donation (theoutline.com) · · Score: 1

    This happened in Israel fairly recently: Israel had one of the lowest rates of donation in the world, due to a general perception that Judaism forbade organ donation (it being equated to desecration). There was a long list, however, of people waiting for transplants (as receiving an organ was not forbidden), many deaths per year among those waiting for organs, and a thriving trade in "transplant tourism" among those wealthy enough to afford it.

    The Israeli government passed a law that, in essence, said that a person who was a donor received priority over one who wasn't, and a long-time donor received priority over a recent one. Combined with incentives for live donors, including reimbursement for expenses/time off when donating, this "don't give, don't receive" policy has resulted in a steady increase in donor registration, though rates are still lower than in Europe.

  4. Re:NIMBY in full effect on France Begins Opt-Out Organ Donation (theoutline.com) · · Score: 1

    ...or the lawyers have a $100000+ incentive to tie things up in court...

  5. I just figured they wanted a common "E-word" so they could use a variation on their "Big Blue E" trademark.

    "Excel(lent)" was already taken, and "Edge" likely tested better than the logical alternatives "Error," "Eruption," "Evil," "Exit" or "Brand ECCHS" (with all due apologies to MAD).

  6. Re:Better vs. Perfect on NIST Prepares To Ban SMS-Based Two-Factor Authentication (softpedia.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm in the password-only era, you insensitive clod!

    Seriously. I live in a rural town without cell service. And with a lot of poor and elderly people who either can't afford or can't effectively use smart tech.

    Something these tech wonks never seem to think about.

  7. Volthoom!

  8. Re:Small Government? on Theranos Faces Congressional Inquiry Over Faulty Blood Tests (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    Does the implied warranty of merchantability even apply to services? My understanding was that it applied to goods. (A blood test would be a service; a blood test kit would be a good).

    Fitness might be arguable, though again, it seems only apply to goods. Maybe workmanlike quality--I am assuming that applies under US common law, but I am not sure how one would apply it to a medical service.

  9. Re:Let's see how it works out on Italian Military To Switch To LibreOffice and ODF · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Anecdotally as well, I have had the opposite experience.

    Admittedly, I don't see complex spreadsheets or macro-heavy documents in my library, but patrons bring in old doc, docx, MS Works or WordPerfect documents, as well as a variety of simple spreadsheets and presentations--LibreOffice opens them all, with only minor formatting problems. Libreoffice will even open a large number of Office templates.

    The only persistent problem I have is that whenever I do a LibreOffice upgrade, Windows switches all the open/save preferences from Libreoffice back to MS Office.

  10. The Lone Gunmen could have been good... on The X-Files To Return · · Score: 2

    ...if they had respected the characters and the world.

    It should have been a darkly comic thriller with a team that only managed to hold together because of the importance of what they were doing. Instead, "they" derailed the cast with Jimmy Bond (and also with Yves Harlow--what, they couldn't find a woman ANYWHERE who could become a functioning part the team?) and turned The Lone Gunmen into a shallow, slapstick-ridden mockery of its X-files version.

    Still disappointed after all these years.

  11. A two-way wrist radio on Ask Slashdot: What Smartwatch Apps Could You See Yourself Using? · · Score: 1

    ...and it should come bundled with a trenchcoat and fedora.

  12. Re:Amazon on Why the Public Library Beats Amazon · · Score: 2

    Oddly enough, as a small rural librarian, (small library, that is--I am over 6' and overweight :) ), I also purchase obscure ex-library books on Amazon or half.com, for myself, for patrons who can't-or-won't-use-the-internet, and for my library's collection. I can't say I've had any interest in your reading list locally (though it sounds fascinating), but we've purchased reprints of obscure pre-colonial religious texts, archaeological texts on the Vikings, the Kievan Rus, and prehistoric Britain, German-language texts on the period of WWII, and a variety of sociological texts (sociology of American military base design, anyone?). most of these have been at the request of patrons.

    Ask--you might well have a local librarian who can justify purchasing interesting reading material from Amazon so that others in your community can enjoy them as well.

    BTW, have you thought of thought of joining an online book-lending program? You could be someone else's lending library and someone else could be yours, as well...

  13. Re:selection on Why the Public Library Beats Amazon · · Score: 1

    You might check if your library is considering joining a lending group or partnership. My library is currently a member of a 10-library lending group spread over three counties. We have a volunteer courier system that moves books between libraries fairly efficiently and a shared catalog that allows you to order or borrow from any library in the group. This allows us to specialize in some of the less popular or more obscure materials instead of all having to carry the "popular titles or oft-read items like magazines, romance novels, recent biographies, etc" and to tailor our collections in more interesting ways. My small rural library library has started collecting fiction and non-fiction books published in the UK and Australia, films based on books, and obscure mystery and sci-fi series, while another library in the group collects all the popular political books, thus sparing the rest of us that expense. This last month, almost a fifth of my library's physical checkouts were ordered from other libraries and and we loaned out about two-thirds of that total to other libraries (mostly from the obscure series). It works well enough we are negotiating to join a nearby 7-library system and another 90-something-library system, though that might require us to pay for courier services.

    In addition, we offer interlibrary loan services, and have borrowed from as far away as Alaska and Florida. We have ordered academic materials in support of local patrons pursuing graduate degrees and for homeschooling families (we help to cover costs for academic .interlibrary requests, but request return postage for other requests beyond a certain amount). Additionally, many journal articles, some textbook chapters, and similar materials can be provided free as electronic copies through ILL.

    I would ask your librarian directly, though. For some inexplicable reason, some libraries don't publicize the the many fine services they offer.

  14. Re:My local library on Why the Public Library Beats Amazon · · Score: 1

    More likely, your library provides e-books through Overdrive or a similar service, but because you have a Kindle or are downloading a Kindle-format book, Amazon requires your library checkouts to go through the Amazon site before you can download, so they can serve you a few ads and offer you the "opportunity" to purchase the book instead of checking it out. Other brands of e-readers may do something similar, or may allow you to check out through the Overdrive site and read if you have the appropriate DRM software installed. The publishers don't trust libraries enough to allow us to check e-books out to you directly or without DRM.

  15. Re:Libraries are one thing Amazon is not on Why the Public Library Beats Amazon · · Score: 1

    My library's online catalog is scheduled to have a "browse" function--you will be able to see a row of covers in shelf order that you can swipe/scroll along for that kind of discovery. Unfortunately, it won't duplicate the rows above and below, as I would have liked for that shelf-jumping serendipity of discovery, but it will allow a combined browse of all 10 libraries in our user group as if all our books were shelved together.

    Of course, Sirsi-Dynix (the company providing the system) has been promising us this new version for, what, three years now? .

    "Sometime this year, my arse...".

  16. Re:Working as intended on Getting IT Talent In Government Will Take Culture Change, Says Google Engineer · · Score: 1

    Agreed-- What would be a redundant engine on an Air Force or Army aircraft could save a Marine or Navy crew's life over water.

  17. Re:Does it have that bullshit Firefox 29 theme? on Firefox 30 Available, Firebug 2.0 Released · · Score: 1

    In Ubuntu studio (xfce) I got the full horror. Nothing makes your day like reverting all the changes I had made since 26 to keep things the way I like them. I still have a few features that don't work the way they used to.

    As soon as I upgrade to the latest LTS, I'll try installing Palemoon For Linux.

  18. Re:Bug: Not updating to v30? on Firefox 30 Available, Firebug 2.0 Released · · Score: 1

    Had I a mod point, you would be funny.

  19. Re:User interface randomization feature? on Firefox 30 Available, Firebug 2.0 Released · · Score: 2

    I hear yah. I just switched all the public computers in the library I run over to Pale Moon, after hearing yet another patron complain that "Firefox is broken!" A large proportion of the users here laboriously learned to use a computer and rely on careful repetition of the steps they memorized to access email or other simple tasks. Suddenly, the back button is in the wrong place, the tabs are on top, the progress bar is gone and so is their weather! They can't cope with the changes, and aren't savvy enough to be able to figure them out on their own.

    So, after years of evangelizing Firefox, I find myself saying, "Just click on that little moon there; and they click; AND IT JUST WORKS LIKE FIREFOX.

    Honestly, dev-folks--Unity, Australis, Gimp2.8 (File>>Save!!), etc.--don't you want us to spread the gospel of F/LOSS? Why do you have against average users? --or solid, functional user interfaces THAT ANYONE CAN USE?

    Sorry. I guess I'm getting tired of being shot in the foot by my own side.

  20. Re:Criminal scum on Torrentz.eu Domain Name Suspended · · Score: 1

    Ad revenue?

  21. applicability? on The Flaw Lurking In Every Deep Neural Net · · Score: 1

    So, are they saying that if a car is dusty or has too many rust spots, that it won't be recognized as a car? ...or that you could escape a pursuing driverless cop car with flying chaff?

    Somehow, I can't imagine that we would risk ourselves in a car without robust and redundant identification systems.

  22. Re:Erroneous opening statement on The Exploitative Economics of Academic Publishing · · Score: 1

    The UK requires that that publication be publicly accessible if it receives public funding.

  23. Re:education on US Forces Coursera To Ban Students From Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria · · Score: 1

    Yeah--Paul appeared on the primary ballot in my state, after he had already withdrawn from the race, and Santorum was only pretending to run at that point. You only have a choice if you live in an early-primary state.

  24. Re:education on US Forces Coursera To Ban Students From Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria · · Score: 1

    And in other states, such as mine, you declare your party affiliation at the point where they hand out the ballots. That way you can vote against the most dangerous OR for the least offensive of the candidates on one or the other ballot. A minor boon for the independent voter.

  25. Re:RIAA = pig stuck in mud, dying on Canadian Music Industry Calls For Internet Regulation, Website Blocking · · Score: 1

    Can you define "popular" in such a way that it doesn't mean/imply "promoted by a major label?" In my circles, Jonathan Coulton is "popular," and unsigned; he is also not mainstream.