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User: xeos

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  1. Re: We are having Cylance forced on us at work. on BlackBerry Buys Cybersecurity Firm Cylance For $1.4 Billion (securityweek.com) · · Score: 1

    Agree completely. Cylance is completely junk for small executables, and they have zero interest in fixing it.

  2. I don't agree that there's too much sodium. And while my opinion isn't worth much, the current science on the topic suggests that sodium is mostly harmless (and certainly has little effect on blood pressure). Your Dr. probably doesn't agree, but Dr.s are often pretty far behind the state of the art. Do a pubmed search and come to your own conclusion though.

  3. Overstated on Health Apps Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good, Warn Scientists (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The example of 10,000 steps being too much for some people seems like a silly criticism. It's like saying just because some people are missing a finger, (5-fingered) gloves are bad.

    Not to say that research isn't needed, just that decrying something for not being a universal solution is pretty weak.

  4. A neat idea but it doesn't solve a real problem on Electric Fork Simulates a Salty Flavor By Shocking Your Tongue (med.news.am) · · Score: 1

    For about a decade most nutritional science has agreed that there is no real harm to consuming the amount of salt that is common in the western diet. Of course most doctors don't read science journals and thus continue to tell people to reduce salt intake. Personally I'd be much more afraid of what this might do to my taste buds then I would be concerned about consuming the salt that makes the food taste good.

  5. It wouldn't be fallout without bugs on "Fallout 4" Release Raises Questions About Reviews of Buggy Games (kotaku.com) · · Score: 1

    Remember Fallout 1? Fallout 2? Heck, I'm just guessing here, but Fallout 3?

    Why mess with a successful formula.

  6. Absurdly complex solution to a simple problem on How Scientists Are Circumventing Journal Paywalls (bbc.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The abstracts are always available, and nearly universally include the author's email address. I've yet to meet a scientist who wasn't enthusiastic to email a copy of their article to me. And I've had plenty of requests for my own papers that I've responded to, usually within hours or minutes. I don't think that the amount of delay incurred materially slows down the pace of scientific research. Frankly, I've got a pile of papers on my desk I'm meaning to read, all of which are days old, if not older. While this method of dissemination may be slightly annoying, it works very well for modern papers. Something published decades ago can be a lot harder to find via email, but generally it's a lot more useful to read current research than older results.

  7. Re:a Mac user praising Windows on The Long Reach of Windows 95 · · Score: 1

    True, but the mac interface sucked. W95 was much nicer than any of the OS7/8/9 competitors. 2nd mover advantage, and all that. Not that it always works that way - nextstep was a nicer OS IMHO than OSX.

  8. Re:newshell.exe on The Long Reach of Windows 95 · · Score: 1

    Let's see any citations for this load of BS, otherwise you are just making things up.

  9. Re:Sorry to say so, but... on The Long Reach of Windows 95 · · Score: 1

    Most people I knew found the GUI much nicer to use. Since we were out in the country, none of us had networking for the first couple years of W95, but we all upgraded. So I strongly doubt your claims.

  10. Re:Just a fancy DOS shell on Windows 95 Turns 20 · · Score: 1

    Windows 95 had hardware drivers. Dos was just used for booting. Not at all fair to call it a DOS shell.

  11. Re:I remember feeling sorry for Windows users on Windows 95 Turns 20 · · Score: 1

    W95 had better dos compatibility (read games) than NT. That counted for quite a bit back in 1996.

  12. Re:Looked slick, but so unstable on Windows 95 Turns 20 · · Score: 1

    Depended a lot on your hardware. Mine was stable.

  13. Re:Walnut Creek CD-ROM on Jason Scott of Textfiles.com Wants Your AOL & Shovelware CDs · · Score: 1

    Yeap. I wouldn't call Walnut Creek shovel-ware.

  14. Re:Cannot Have Mine on Jason Scott of Textfiles.com Wants Your AOL & Shovelware CDs · · Score: 1

    Nice idea. BUT: I wonder if there's any issue with toxic chemicals from the breaking down of the disks? Even if it's small, if you do it a lot of times it would accumulate.

  15. Keytronic lifetime on Ask Slashdot: Good Keyboard? · · Score: 1

    I've used the keytronic lifetime series for a long time (since 1998), and am very happy. They have good travel, but are reasonably quiet. And the "lifetime" part of the name refers to the warranty, which they stand behind, without any attempt get out of it. I use the lifetime trackball, which is ergonomically awesome, but unfortunately uses a mechanical trackball, which means that it doesn't last very long (about a year!!!!). The keyboard part always outlasts the trackball.

  16. Re:Homeschooled K-12 on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    Exactly, Home school does not require the kind of time commitment that "public school at home" would. It would be insane to replicate that broken educational model at home.

  17. Re:I was "unschooled" in the 1980s... on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    Agreed. Pretty much the same experience I had. Why was this downvoted???

  18. Re:pros on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    You haven't' met many teenagers, huh?

  19. Re:No to home schooling on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    Personal experience, I'm sure.

    There's no reason that home schooling means being with the parents 24/7.

  20. Re:Homeschooling doesn't have to be weird on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    I homeschooled with almost no agenda at all, and it worked great for me, in terms of college prep - I did great in college and went on to get a PhD.So take it easy and don't stress so much!

  21. Re:Opinion from experience on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    The key observation from you post is that college classes don't have any prerequisites (this was my experience as well). You can learn everything there for the first time, no harm. So maybe it doesn't matter how much material you cover in home school. I covered very little before college, but went on to get a PhD

  22. Personal experience: easy and excellent outcome on Ask Slashdot: Pros and Cons of Homeschooling? · · Score: 1

    My personal experience as a homeschooled kid was excellent academically, and somewhat difficult socially.

    First, academics: my parents did little beyond the first couple years. They helped me learn to read and do basic math, and then let the books teach me, but really I didn't bother much with the books. I was intellectually curious about the world, however, which I think more than made up for book learning. At 16 I started taking college classes, first at a community college, then at a reasonable state school (VT.edu). By 18 I had 1/3 of a degree's worth of college credits, all As, at which point I transferred to a good liberal arts college (Hampshire.edu), which didn't have grades. I also did well there, as evidenced by getting into several very good PhD programs (MIT, UCSD, Brown). I chose UCSD, and aside from taking a long time to get the PhD I also did very well there.

    Did my easy going home schooling experience hurt me? I don't think so. Yes, there were many topics I learned about the very first time in college, but as it turns out that's a fine time to first encounter difficult material. My first community college class was all I really needed to adjust to school learning. It wasn't an easy adjustment, but we are only talking 3 months of my life here, and I still got an A in the class. So, to sum up: home schooling can be pretty easy on the parents and the student.

    As for the social side: it was isolating. But I was living in a very small town, where the only other kids were 15 minutes car ride away, or more. I was lonely a lot, and only had a few friends. That started to change when I first went to college, but as a commuter at a state school, the opportunities weren't that good for a shy kid. Going to the residential liberal arts college really helped, and I made lots of friends there, some of which I keep in touch with in the real world (not just facebook). I hope that living in a big city (san diego) will make the socialization part easier for my daughter at an earlier age than it was for me.

    To conclude: it worked well for me, and wasn't that hard for my parents. I plan to homeschool my daughter.

  23. Re:So they've finally fixed Pause & Resume? on YouTube Ditches Flash For HTML5 Video By Default · · Score: 1

    Flash does seem to perform better for video. Why does every new software solution run slower than what came before? BAH! I miss, uh, animated gifs? Wait...

  24. Re:solution: religious protection on Parents Investigated For Neglect For Letting Kids Walk Home Alone · · Score: 1

    Care to elaborate rather than just calling names?

  25. solution: religious protection on Parents Investigated For Neglect For Letting Kids Walk Home Alone · · Score: 1

    It seems like >95% of the posts here are in support of the parents. The next logical question should be "what can we do about this"? Sure, there are political avenues, but those are slow.

    I think there might be a much faster way - we already have a special class of people who can mistreat their children by most of societies standards and get away with it - I'm thinking here of the Christian Scientists who deny almost all medial treatment to their children, and the Jehovah's witnesses who deny a smaller but still measurable subset (anything requiring blood transfusions).

    If you can use religious freedom to justify clearly life-threatening decisions for your children, then I suspect so called "free-range parenting" could also gain protection given the right scripture. Perhaps the religion that offers this already exists; if not it shouldn't be so hard to create....