Slashdot Mirror


User: yoghurt

yoghurt's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
74
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 74

  1. Re:If you regulate properly, we'll stop our busine on Major ISPs Threaten To Throttle Innovation and Slow Network Upgrades · · Score: 1

    > Would a TV cable company count as "media"?

    Does NBC count as "media". Comcast owns them.

    > What if the ISP *IS* also a cable company?

    And what if your cable company ISP also owns a major network with original programming and multiple cable channels?

  2. Re:Distressed Babies? on AOL Reverses Course On 401K Match; CEO Apologizes · · Score: 5, Informative

    Um, yes. It's called "self insurance". For a large company, they will often outsource the administration to a regular insurance company but they pay the medical bills out of the company pocket. It makes sense because with ten thousand employees, you have enough of a pool to lessen the statistical variation percentage wise. So some years you spend a few percent more and some a few percent less. Insurance charges for this statistical pooling so the company can save money. I guess there were a couple of outlier expenses that broke the average. CEO shouldn't complain - while he expected cost savings, he agreed to take the risk.

  3. The donors ARE the constituents. Voters are just chumps to be exploited. The problem with giving Inhofe some money is that other monied interests are giving him much more money. Inhofe is going to drop Google in a New York minute if it were to hurt his supply from Exxon/Mobile &c.

  4. Re:A good start on Ask Slashdot: Should More Math and Equations Be Used In the Popular Press? · · Score: 1

    It's worse than that. They invariably uses the wrong unit for the quantity. Measuring power in Joules or current in Volts or similar nonsense. Every time I see an article with any science in it I cringe in anticipation of the incorrect units and quantities.

    In crosswords, I come across the clue "electrical unit" for which the answer is "rel". I am an EE and have no idea WTF a "rel" is.

  5. home router firmware sucks on One Year After World IPv6 Launch — Are We There Yet? · · Score: 1

    In theory, you are correct. In practice, the home router firmware is a lousy piece of work and is seldom, if ever, updated. A bug in the NAT implementation will usually cause things to to not connect. These bugs are obvious and get fixed. A bug in the stateful firewall can easily leave it open. The bug is not as obvious. It will never get fixed.

  6. Lobsters on UN Says: Why Not Eat More Insects? · · Score: 2

    We already eat lobsters, crab and shrimp. And you don't have to directly eat the insects, you can process them through a hog to get yummy bacon.

  7. Re:Chutzpah on Text Message Spammer Wants FCC To Declare Spam Filters Illegal · · Score: 1

    No, the literal translation of schmuck is jewelry and it is a euphemism for penis. From there you get the insult.

  8. 1040EZ for the win. on Ask Slashdot: Open Source Tax Software? · · Score: 1

    It's not like 1040EZ is hard. It's only got like 10 lines - 4 of which are name and address. Really, it's just copy a few numbers off the W-2 and look it up in the tax table. Do a couple of adds and a subtract. Sign. Stuff envelope and put a stamp on it. It used to take me about 15 minutes to do my taxes when I could do EZ.

    If you can't do 1040EZ, I would suspect "freedom edition" wouldn't work either.

  9. Re:Consumers will foot the bil for AT&T on AT&T Charged US Taxpayers $16 Million For Nigerian Fraud Calls · · Score: 2

    Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral^H^H^H^H^H^H CEO pour encourager les autres.

  10. Re:As a Canadian... on Outgoing CRTC Head Says Technology Is Eroding Canadian Culture · · Score: 1

    Looking at the music industry, perhaps it is the cancon rules that let them get a boost when they are relatively unknown. Maybe that is why we see lots of Canadian content successful south of the border.

  11. Alaska needs all the global warming it can get! on Ask Slashdot: Classroom Eco-Projects Suited To Alaska? · · Score: 0

    Why would Alaska want renewable energy? If you produce more CO2 then maybe you could go out and play in the winter.

  12. Manned space flight is a bust on Space Shuttle Atlantis Last Night In Space Orbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People stopped going to the moon and skylab because they ran out of useful things to do there.

    The reason for people in space is because it makes for better marketing.

    All the science is done by unmanned probes. The Mars rovers have been a huge success. Sure they are less capable than a human, but they are much cheaper, they can stay there a long time, you don't have to bring them back and if something goes wrong on Mars at least nobody gets hurt hence you can tolerate a modest risk of failure.

  13. Re:why? How can you send to IPv6 from within LAN? on IETF Mulls Working Group For IPv6 Home Networking · · Score: 1

    Assume that you get an IPv6 address assigned to your router. Assume that a computer on your LAN wants to talk to a internet host with IPv6. The NAT box can translate replies from the internet host to IPv4. But how are you going to talk to the IPv6 host? How can you send a packet to an IPv6 address if all you got is IPv4 on your LAN?

    I suppose the NAT box could run DNS and make a look-up table mapping IPv6 internet addresses to IPv4 for your home computer to use. This seems a bit of a kludge and it doesn't help you with raw IPv6 addresses.

    Clearly, we are stuck with IPv4 for legacy devices for at least 10 years (estimate based on time for floppy to die after it became somewhat useless). Assuming IPv6 does come (I am not certain we won't be living with some awful kludge instead), you will want to also do IPv6 within your LAN.

  14. Re:This is a hidden price - externalities! on DVRs, Cable Boxes Top List of Home Energy Hogs · · Score: 2

    The problem is that the buyer is the cable company. They don't pay for your electricity and they don't care if you do.

    I mean, the end user is typically paying "rent" on the set-top box that the cable company provides, but it's not like you get much of a choice of models. Unless you go with TiVO or myth but I think those are in the minority.

  15. Re:And 64-bit Will Be Updated When? on Adobe Patches Second Flash Zero-Day In 9 Days · · Score: 1

    Why use an x64 browser?

    Because *everything* on my linux system is 64 bit. Why should I install *any* 32 bit?

  16. Re:Solution on Obama: 'We Don't Have Enough Engineers' · · Score: 1

    Yes, but that's not how the calculus works.

    An executive says, "hey, let's outsource this to those guys in India who work at half the rate!". He sacks the locals, hire new guys. The executive gets a big fat bonus, promotion and pay rise.

    As for getting less work done because of inefficiency due to distance &c., well, that's some poor project manager's problem. The executive has already made his bonus.

    Did the mortgage meltdown, financial crisis teach you nothing? To paraphrase Lombardi, short term gain for yourself isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing.

  17. Re:How it doesn't works on Mediacom Using DPI To Hijack Searches, 404 Errors · · Score: 2

    I have a great solution for reducing spam. Don't reply and it will stop. If you don't buy any h3rb4l V1agr4, they eventually notice and stop.

    They won't ever notice. For example, my not buying Sony products over the past dozen years is of no discernible impact to Sony. I haven't bought a Dell, but that isn't due to any problem I have with them. How is Sony to infer that I don't care for them, while Dell I just haven't bought from yet?

  18. Re:Well crap on Samsung HD Unit Bought By Seagate · · Score: 1

    On the contrary, the "I" in "RAID" stands for INEXPENSIVE.

  19. Firefox 5? on Rivals Mock Microsoft's 'Native HTML5' Claims · · Score: 1

    Are they shipping Firefox 5 now? It may have "native HTML 5" whatever that is, but if it ain't shipping then how does Mozilla ship a native HTML 5 browser?

  20. Re:Ridiculous Reporting on Boston College Says Using WiFi Is a Sign of Infringement · · Score: 4, Funny

    There are bits and then there are naughty bits. It's especially bad if these naughty bits belong to someone underage.

  21. Re:Sounds like an ISP problem. on Ask Slashdot: Is There a War Against Small Mail Servers? · · Score: 1

    How is "telnet smtp.example.com 25" a server? As per the RFC, outbound is NOT a server; it's a client. The SMTP server listens and receives mail on port 25. So I don't understand why a no server TOS clause should prevent sending mail. Another TOS clause is probably more relevant.

  22. Re:Solution on Why Are We Losing Vertical Pixels? · · Score: 1

    Q: Why not just buy a monitor with the correct/best resolution?

    A: Because they no longer sell them.

    TFA was talking about laptops.

    Until lightning wiped it out, I had a thinkpad t42 with a 14" screen. It was 1440x1050 and 8.5" tall. That's near 120 dpi. The machine weighs under 5 lbs. It was a perfect size and weight. The high resolution was awesome. No current laptop comes close to those specs.

    You can no longer find ANY laptop with a screen 8.5" tall and under 5 lbs.

  23. Re:Form factor for laptops on Why Are We Losing Vertical Pixels? · · Score: 1

    This is bogus because the old laptops used to have a screen that would fill out the lid. With "widescreen" they just lopped off half an inch from the top and bottom and filled in with a big plastic frame. Same size lid. Less screen. Losing with shortscreen.

  24. Re:Consumers are cheap. on Why Are We Losing Vertical Pixels? · · Score: 1

    But you can't get a laptop with a 14" 1400x1050 screen any more. You are stuck with something short and squat or wide and heavy. Turning your laptop sideways is not really an option. Nor is dragging an external monitor around with you any better.

  25. Los Links on Microsoft Cancels Bing Cashback Program · · Score: 1

    Bing, otra vez.