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User: james_pb

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Comments · 66

  1. Re:Hot Housing Markets a Sign of Too Few Houses on Seattle Region Home To 10 of Nation's 30 Most Competitive Neighborhoods For House Hunters (geekwire.com) · · Score: 1

    That's exactly what Seattle is doing. http://www.seattle.gov/hala

  2. Re:What happened to Common Sense? on NYC Asks Google Maps For Fewer Left Turns · · Score: 1

    Far too often I see pedestrians step into the crosswalk in such a way as to make it all but impossible for the left turning car to safely stop.

    That's not a real objection.

    Competent drivers don't put themselves into that situation. It's the driver's responsibility to be driving at a reasonable speed so they can stop when someone who has the right of way (as in a pedestrian) steps into an intersection. If you can't stop, by definition you're going too fast.

  3. Re:Seattle Will Soon Implode on Is the Amazon-Led Economic Boom Wrecking Seattle? · · Score: 1

    Seattle's new "feel good legislation" will put the city in a huge turmoil/ quagmire within a few years. when the mandatory new $15 an hour minimum wage goes into effect, there will be massive small business layoffs.

    If the minimum wage increase were going to cause major problems here, you'd be seeing it already. No one would start new small businesses here, and large businesses would already be ramping down.

    It's not happening. Our economy is fantastic and getting better. It's a great example for the rest of the country - arguments against the minimum wage aren't doing well when faced with actual evidence.

  4. Re:That Seattle broadband issue on Is the Amazon-Led Economic Boom Wrecking Seattle? · · Score: 1

    You realize 50k is lunch money, right?

    Yes, broadband is getting much better. I'm in West Seattle and just got gigabit fiber from Centrylink.

  5. Re:Takes two to tango on Apple Faces Large Penalties In EU Tax Probe · · Score: 1

    So if deal between Apple and Ireland was illegal, shouldn't Ireland be fined as well?

    Why? Not fining Ireland serves a very useful purpose: it means any country can easily agree to these schemes, and then back out painlessly. Apple pays all the costs of crony capitalism (presumably they have to spend time and money placating politicians), and receives none of the benefits. Attempting to fine the Irish government would just make it harder to punish Apple, since presumably the Irish would also fight any penalties directed at them.

  6. Re:Read the source code on Ask Slashdot: What To Do About the Sorry State of FOSS Documentation? · · Score: 1

    And don't take this as a condemnation of Fusion 360 - it's a really useful tool, and it's improving quickly.

  7. Re:Read the source code on Ask Slashdot: What To Do About the Sorry State of FOSS Documentation? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Setting up a resource like that doesn't mean that it's filled out in a useful way, and it's not.

  8. Re:Read the source code on Ask Slashdot: What To Do About the Sorry State of FOSS Documentation? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is silly. I've been trying to use Autodesk Fusion 360 - it's most definitely a proprietary bit of software from a large developer.

    The documentation is worse than awful; you'd be better off just reading the source.

    And iOS vs Android? iOS is pain layered on suffering. Reading the source would be _so_ much better than depending on Apple.

    Commercial != good doc.

  9. Re:Job Hopping on Ask Slashdot: How Often Should You Change Jobs? · · Score: 1

    Consulting and contracting are completely different - when people talk about job-hopping, they're almost certainly talking about full-time salaried employees.

  10. Re:prepare on Ask Slashdot: SIM-Card Solutions In North America? · · Score: 1

    There are a bunch of companies selling SIM cards online (e.g. Telestial), both for the US and for global roaming; just search on Google.

    When I looked at these, they had crazy pricing for data. It only made sense if you were going through a different country every other day and couldn't be bothered with local sims.

  11. Re: Straight Talk GSM or Ting CDMA on Ask Slashdot: SIM-Card Solutions In North America? · · Score: 1

    Should be straightalk customer service is awful, as I said the phone service is great.

    Awful is relative. I'm a happy straighttalk customer; at various times I've been an unhappy customer with Sprint, TMobile, and ATT contracts. You'd have a hard time convincing me straighttalk is worse than any of those - but they're all variations on bad. Absolute worst case, you wave goodbye to straighttalk early in a month, and you're out something like $45. No early termination fees makes it much easier to deal with bad service.

  12. Re:P4 on Used IT Equipment Can Be Worth a Fortune (Video) · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    He didn't say P4, he said "older". And yes, there are servers that sell, new, for many thousands that will sell, used, for a fraction of that - still in the thousands, just many fewer thousands. This isn't mysterious, happens many times a day on eBay.

    What is mysterious is that the original poster thinks that a new company in the used-equipment space is interesting on slashdot. It's not.

  13. Re:Get a local phone number on Ask Slashdot: Why So Hard Landing Interviews In Seattle Versus SoCal? · · Score: 1

    And the counterpoint to this is that, since it's _so_ hard to hire in the Bay Area, many companies from down there have opened engineering offices up here in Seattle.

  14. Re:Get a local phone number on Ask Slashdot: Why So Hard Landing Interviews In Seattle Versus SoCal? · · Score: 1

    I've lived in Seattle since 1994, and getting interviews and jobs here has always been easy. Today, it's really easy. Just show up at any sort of networking event and announce that you can write code, and you'll be swarmed by people who are hiring. Really. It's not quite the Bay Area (or at least it's not what I think the Bay Area is like now), but it's still booming. I haven't sent out a resume for a long time and I'm constantly getting email from recruiters.

  15. Re:Computer vs human drivers on Most Drivers Would Hand Keys Over To Computer If It Meant Lower Insurance Rates · · Score: 1

    Another 64% said computers were not capable of the same quality of decision-making as human drivers.

    That's right. Based on my observations of human drivers (not to mention traffic fatality statistics and the nightly "single vehicle accident" reports), the quality would consistently be better. Don't mod me funny, please. I'm not joking.

    I suspect the number of slashdotters who assume that robots will quickly be better than humans is close to 100%.

  16. Re:people better than computers... on Most Drivers Would Hand Keys Over To Computer If It Meant Lower Insurance Rates · · Score: 2

    True, but we know that human drivers slaughter vast numbers of humans every year.

  17. Re:Yes, let's bring that back on Vastly Improved Raspberry Pi Performance With Wayland · · Score: 1

    The age of low level fast optimization is all but dead.

    In the embedded systems world, you can turn more optimization into cheaper hardware into (lower prices/higher profits). It's not dead.

  18. Re:Recruiter Commision on $30,000 For a Developer Referral? · · Score: 1

    Knowing something about _houses_ is almost irrelevant. Knowing something about _land_ is useful.

    The sticks you pile on your investment are not the investment. The land is.

    Whether or not it's a _good_ investment is a different question.

  19. Re:Visas are going to be an issue on Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way To Work On Projects While Traveling? · · Score: 1

    "As long as you do not get paid from the EU you do not need a work Visa."

    Sure about that? When I was looking at the situation in Ireland, the answer seemed to be "it depends - you need to talk to us." The laws just aren't set up for remote international working.

    You do not want to assume that you're going to fly under the radar. As a working professional, you do NOT want to be in a situation where it's hard for you to travel to country X because of visa violations when you were younger.

  20. Re:depends where you are. on Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way To Work On Projects While Traveling? · · Score: 1

    The link you posted only compares a part of Europe with the United States; Europe is much larger than that. Western Europe != Europe.

  21. Visas are going to be an issue on Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way To Work On Projects While Traveling? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are time limits on how long you can stay on a tourist visa everywhere (something like 6 months for Americans in the EU, and you can't just leave and come back to reset the clock). Plus, it's not really clear that you can legally do what you're talking about; countries haven't adjusted to the new reality of working from anywhere. You may find that you need a work visa to do this, even if you're not making money in the country.

  22. Re:they once had these things..... on Ask Slashdot: Teaching Typing With Limited Electricity, Computers? · · Score: 1

    Why would you need ribbons? Manual typewriters will make a physical impression on the page - it's good enough for teaching.

  23. Re:Save your money on Ask Slashdot: Best Protection Plan For Your Phone? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The insurance is roughly 1/3 the cost of a replacement. Do you really think the odds of loss are so high that you need to pay that premium?

    The original post was pretty clear about this: yes, they intend to destroy the phone multiple times. Remember that part about the OP submitting multiple claims previously?

    "Insurance" is a great buy if you're paying less than 100% of the value of the item - if you _know_ you're going to use it. You're just buying n phones for something like $(1.3n).

  24. Re:Sure on A Tale of Two Countries · · Score: 1

    And (heavily socialist, although strangely often claiming to be conservative) farmers own lots of Republican politicans, so there's no chance they'll have to play in a free market any time soon.

  25. Re:EU hopefully shields us on Apple Ordered To Pay $8M For Playlist Patents · · Score: 2

    Replace your law firm _immediately_. They're not competent.

    Yes, the EU has software patents, they just don't call them that. You get them in through mechanisms that looked to me (a non-lawyer) kind of like US business method patents, but that's too much of a simplification. When you're interviewing new legal firms, have them talk you through their process for European software patents. It's not that complicated, and only a little more expensive than the US. It's been a couple years, but I think the numbers for a simple software patent from a top-tier US law firm were roughly $20k for US, $30k for Germany, and then some increments for other EU countries. But get a more recent and less vague quote :-).