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User: mattyj

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  1. They can't even manage to keep my email address private, now I'm going to trust my finances to their imaginary currency that nobody wants? Sure thing. Let me sign up for that right away.

    I wonder what the pitch is: "It's like US dollars, except only online, and harder to spend."

    Can't wait until we have entire exchanges based on made-up , house-brand currency. Facebook Dollars, Amazon Samoleans, Starbucks Bucks. I feel like people have tried building a system of imaginary currency before. Can't recall the name because why would anyone know the name of that any more.

  2. Dumb on Philadelphia Bans Cashless Stores (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    I can sympathize with poor people, I was one at one time, but if a bodega wants to only accept chickens as payment, I think they should be able to do that. People that don't have chickens can then go someplace else to buy goods.

    I do the same, but opposite, by not patronizing cash only establishments. There's no excuse for not taking credit cards (or variations) in 2019. If you can't be bothered to have a cheap phone and Square, then I'll be bothered to buy my tacos from the next truck over.

  3. Re:Gen X vs Millennials again on Netflix Makes Statement In Wake Of Steven Spielberg's Attempt To Block Streaming Giant From Oscars (deadline.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Spielberg gave his opinion, _as the guy that heads the governing board that decides such things._

    I'd like to know his opinion on shorts, which show in a few theaters in LA and NY environs two weeks before the awards.

    The Academy Awards predate television and were a place for both long-form and short-form media long before the Emmys were around.

    I'm not sure what the solution is, but most films/movies are made through the studio system, large or independent, then find distribution on TV or in theaters later.

    The problem is that movie theaters are a racket that are in cahoots with big studios to keep non-traditional studio fare out of the theaters in the first place, which is why Netflix had to directly rent auditoriums to be Oscar eligible. They were not skirting the rules, they were busting up a monopoly. And I welcome the practice.

    Maybe I'm dumb and don't have a memory, but I don't recall Roma being up for any Emmys. I don't recall any movie being up for both an Emmy and an Oscar. I don't know if it's an unwritten rule, but if it is I think a nice compromise would be for both governing bodies to allow a film to be up for one or the other, not both.

    Spielberg is and always has been the mouthpiece for the big studios, and he's just the figurehead the studios are putting forth to protect themselves from more nimble 'rogue' studios like Netflix from eating their lunch.

  4. A system of made-up currency run by any number of idiots in their virtual garages is shady? What? How could this possibly be?

  5. I think I've got it on Thunderbolt Vulnerabilities Leave Computers Wide-Open, Researchers Find (itnews.com.au) · · Score: 3, Funny

    So if I leave my laptop out when I go to the bathroom at Starbucks and nobody steals it, and I come back and there's some weird thing hanging off a Thunderbolt port, I guess I unplug it? Sage advice, this.

  6. Re:You mean, like iPhone already does? on Android Is Helping Kill Passwords on a Billion Devices (wired.com) · · Score: 1

    How does that thing even turn on any more?

  7. Re:If my Samsung Blu-Ray is an indication - Good on Samsung To Stop Making 4K Blu-Ray Players, Report Says (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    If the three 4k players I've had to buy, the Samsung was the worst. It's like they mounted the motor crooked and it makes a loud vibrating noise when you play a disc. I sent it back for repairs and it still does the same thing, only maybe 10% quieter because they put some foam in there.

    I finally opted for an Xbox One X, which supports Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and hey, it plays games to boot.

  8. Re:30 years old? on Software Engineer Loses Life Savings in Quadriga Imbroglio (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    And 6x the cost of living ...

  9. Re:So, trying to understand on Software Engineer Loses Life Savings in Quadriga Imbroglio (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Part of that fee is to guarantee that your money, you know, doesn't end up in the grave of some tech-bro who had the bad fortune of dying.

  10. Re:He didn't say "investment" on Software Engineer Loses Life Savings in Quadriga Imbroglio (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    More succinctly, you shouldn't put all your eggs in a basket with no bottom.

  11. I'd like to know where someone acquired tinfoil in 2019 and why we aren't talking about time travel.

  12. Re:but don't worry on Software Engineer Loses Life Savings in Quadriga Imbroglio (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    Just like stock exchanges, except that your life's savings are on a thumb drive buried with some rando tech-bro.

  13. Re: Sterotype much? on Software Engineer Loses Life Savings in Quadriga Imbroglio (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    De-regulated? Try never regulated. People invest in imaginary money at their own peril.

  14. Not sure who's dumber ... on Digital Exchange Loses $137 Million As Founder Takes Passwords To the Grave (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    ... the guy who died without a password post-it in his safety deposit box or people that converted their actual cash into imaginary money and trusted it to some random 30 year-old with a laptop. I'd posit that the customers got what was coming to them.

  15. Re:They didn't change passwords when he/she left? on Popular WordPress Plugin WPML Hacked By Angry Former Employee (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I would hardly categorize this as a 'hack', and more like a company that knows nothing about how to handle terminations. The headline should read:

    "Popular WordPress plugin WPML fails to properly off-board former employee, website defaced"

  16. Waiting with bated breath on Google Just Spent $40 Million For Fossil's Secret Smartwatch Tech (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Maybe they acquired some sort of wrist-based ECG technology that we can expect to see in a Google watch in two years or so.

  17. Re:iOS has been 64 bit for years now on Google's Transition To 64-Bit Apps Begins in August, 32-Bit Support To End in 2021 (ndtv.com) · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Android itself is nothing but an advertising platform masquerading as a pointless marketing stunt.

    Add this to the list of things Apple did two years prior that Android is finally getting around to...

  18. Re:A more accurate headline should have read as... on Security Firm Kaspersky, Which Has Been Accused by US of Working With Russian Spies, Helped Catch an Alleged NSA Data Thief · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Kasperksy Lab is incorporated in the UK, by the way, only HQ'd in Moscow, so the company as a whole can't really be taken over by the Russian government. My guess is that a 20 year old cybersecurity company HQ'd in Russia has the good sense to have their digital assets stored/cloned outside the reach of the government.

    It's pretty standard for a cybersecurity outfit to employ former government agents. You know, like all the American ones that have former NSA spooks on the payroll. Standard operating procedure because that's where the best people come from.

    Maybe it all just a front, but I'm not believing it. Kaspersky Labs has had a pretty stellar reputation for a very long time now.

  19. This is the worst reasoning. You sound like one of those "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" guys re: the Surveillance State.

    Kaspersky has had a stellar reputation in the community for two decades. They've consistently been one of the top cybersecurity researchers in the world.

    That being said, who knows, maybe Putin has an office at their HQ, but all this FUD without a shred of evidence whatsoever isn't helping anything.

  20. Re:Silly name on DuckDuckGo Denies Using Fingerprinting To Track Its Users (betanews.com) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Because of the aforementioned not-tracking stuff? And the results are as good as Google, which is apparently a non-goofy name now?

    If you care about your privacy then you use DuckDuckGo.

  21. I'm guessing that it's not just encryption but the ability of any yahoo to hook up an insecure IoT device to it and inject malicious xml or what have you. They just don't want to deal with that in their ecosystem, which leads me to believe something happened that we don't know about that probably f'ed up their servers/systems/whatever.

    If the XMPP system wasn't designed for that, then why is it there, and why is it not needed now? That's the question that came immediately to mind for me, not people using a device in an unsanctioned way then complaining that the door was closed on it. That's the risk you run playing with open doors you're not supposed to see.

  22. Color me skeptical on Ex-Uber Engineer Claims a Self-Driving Car Drove Him Coast-To-Coast (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This guy is mostly famous for being a big liar and a thief. Not buying it. Also not sure why anyone would care about this.

  23. Maybe Edge just sucks in the first place? on Former Edge Browser Intern Alleges Google Sabotaged Microsoft's Browser (ycombinator.com) · · Score: 1

    That might be the #1 reason M$ is ditching their own engine ...

    I find it hard to believe a company with 10's of thousands of software developers have a hard time overcoming an empty div. I'm old enough to regard anything coming out of Microsoft, regardless of the vehicle, as FUD.

  24. Different applications on Ask Slashdot: Why Don't HDR TVs Have sRGB Or AdobeRGB Ratings? · · Score: 2

    Broadly speaking, TV's are for consumers, monitors for creators. We consumers just wanna know if it looks good and numbers won't necessarily tell us that. There's a high quotient of subjectivity there.

    It's like when you take your car to be smogged, you get that printout with all kinds of numbers on it. Do you care? No, you just zoom into the pass/fail part. The DMV and the guy doing the test might care, but the numbers are irrelevant to your purposes.

  25. Re:Please, explain it to me on Google Bridges Android, iOS Development With Flutter 1.0 (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    If you think the Unity or Unreal game engines are merely software libraries, you really don't know what you're talking about.