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User: Technician

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  1. Already abused on On the Coming Chatbot Revolution (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    They are working full time here on my phone lines. One calls regularly and asks if Barbara is home. When answered no, it lets me know it will call back at a better time and hangs up. It is not smart enough to understand she died.

    It is not smart enough to know what that better time is.

    I get other calls trying to interest me in college. I started asking them if they will answer a capita for me. The fun ones try to find a class for me on capita and want to know how soon I would like to take a class.

  2. Re:The regulations have destryed Dishwashers on Ask Slashdot: Any Dishwasher Hackers Out There? · · Score: 1

    At one time having done apartment complex maintenance, I found the planned obsolescence is in the hardware, not the software. After doing some failure analysis on some dishwashers, it broke down to 3 primary failure items.

    1 the water pump. The pump contains a plastic impeller on a steel shaft. The water seal was on the metal steal shaft. The plastic impeller on the steel shaft would fail when the steel shaft inside the impeller rusted and split the impeller. This resulted in non repairable failure of the entire pump as both the motor and impeller failed.

    2 the drain valve. The drain valve, a solenoid operated valve diverted water between the wash cycle and the drain. Much like the rubber toilet flush valve in the commode, this rubber part broke down with the use of chlorinated city water just the same as the flapper valve in the toilet. Unlike a toilet, this valve, often integrated into the pump volute assy was not consumer replaceable. The failure was not obvious to the consumer as the wash water was lost during the wash cycle leaving dirt deposits on the dishes at the end of the cycle. Dishwashers were replaced thinking a newer model would work better than an older model. In reality the performance declined over the life of the valve.

    3 The fill valve. The fill valve has a strainer that clogs and is relatively easily replaced, but the valve itself often fails when the plastic permeates with water and the magnetic core rusts. This results in the valve failing to open or limiting the motion resulting in only a trickle of water in the fill cycle. This too is seen by the consumer as a failure to properly clean dishes as the timed fill cycle results in too little water for the wash and rinse cycles and is often compounded by the failing drain valve. The consumer knows the dishwasher is running, but doing a poor job driving the desire for a replacement that works better.

    These problems are seen on both electronic and mechanical timer models.

  3. Maybe it is being knifed in the cradle like the DAT cassette tape.

  4. Re:Try offering service to your entire... on Cable Providers Still Have No Answer For Netflix As Cord-cutting Accelerates (bgr.com) · · Score: 1

    There is a void. Serious competition is already looking at moving in.

    If Google fibre or other service moves in with good high speed service, the local incumbent will be in for a ride.

  5. Re:Cox's Solution: A return to pay as you go prici on Cable Providers Still Have No Answer For Netflix As Cord-cutting Accelerates (bgr.com) · · Score: 1

    As a cable cutter of 2 decades because I am not a sports fanatic, I dropped cable when the commercial free channels went away (cable started as subscriber funded and add free for those old enough to remember) which was combined by rising prices, and better content removed and placed in even higher priced priced packages.

    In one channel, Netflix offers what cable dropped. Commercial free content at a reasonable price.

    If Netflix is paying attention, if they break their model they will loose customers.

    Cox, some customers want Internet to receive their content. In the days of increasing competition and larger data plans, if you try to ride the ragged edge of profitability between industry churn and retention, any serious competition for internet services will clean out your customer base that has TV to subsidize your internet service. Unhappy customers will flee as soon as a viable alternative penetrates the market. If you don't want to provide internet becasue it cuts into your base services, you will have the same problem SONY has when they added a media division that crippled their excellent hardware.

    Comcast in my market lost me this way. I transitioned from dial up to cable and saw first had the attack on torrent traffic. A Linux distribution gradually slowed to nothing over 3 days, but a direct download mirror would download in less then 30 minutes. The connection fee was about $100 even though the cable was already in place and my home LAN already existed for wireless internet, printing, etc. $100 just to watch the tech plug into a modem, configure nothing, and connect it to my router WAN port always truck me as very wrong and over a barrel.

    As soon as DSL was offered, the cable got cut. New customers got a $100 rebate, I more then doubled my speed and my subscription was about $20/mo less.

    Comcast still tries to recruit me, and I still remind them why I am not interested as they did NOTHING in advance to retain me, or ensure I was sastified with the service.

    Centruy link on the other hand has Increased my service speed without any action on my part. Comcast kept me on a 2 meg connection. Centeruy link signup was for 6 meg. Recently I've had much higher verified speeds, unlike Comcast who often ran well under the plan 2 meg.

    Until the cable company makes major restructuring oriented to serving the customer base and providing advertised bandwidth (including peering with Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc) the competition is eating their lunch for both internet service and content.

  6. Re:Read the settlement on The Ups and Downs of AMD (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The article is repeating a lie. The actual settlement and case do not contain the lie.

    The Lie is Intel sold below cost.

    Due to a fixed cost to operate a fab and process wafers, the cost per die is greatly impacted by line yield.

    Due to the competitors line yield of about 50% at the time, it was assumed Intel had to be selling below cost. This was investigated and found to be false based on the number of raw wafers purchased and the number of die shipped. If two identical companies manufacture identical chips and one has 45% yield and the other 90% yield and offers bulk discounts that is 20% below the other companies cost to produce, it does in no way indicate the company is selling below cost. Read the lawsuit and settlement.

    Intel agreed to change some business practices and settled, but still claimed they did nothing wrong such as dumping below cost, because they were not.

    The cost per die was calculated based on the number of wafers purchased and the number of die shipped. Intel had much higher line yield than AMD.

    AMD cut corners trying to compete, but did not solve the yield issue. AMD on the other hand had a policy of undercutting Intel on Price, but with their lower yield, they ran into the problem of having to sell below cost to meet their price points. This is where the incorrect assumption was made that Intel had to be selling below cost. This has been proven otherwise.

    http://www.cnet.com/news/intel...
    http://www.intel.com/pressroom...
    "By contrast, AMD's investments in manufacturing capacity during this period were anaemic - because AMD had elected to change course. Through the late 1990s, AMD itself has acknowledged, AMD had persistent quality problems with manufacturing production and insufficient capacity."

    Please do not repeat the lie that Intel sold under cost. They didn't. They had lower production costs due to higher yield.

  7. If you could pay based on a percentage of their advertised speed, I could save a bundle. 25 meg, but still buffering with 2 Netflix streams. Pay the fill for 3 Meg instead of 30. Cable companies should and sometimes are shamed for their poor peering with the internet..

  8. Another store near me prominently displays prints from the surveillance cameras of shoplifting.

  9. Re:Amazing view of modern technology on Take a Visual Tour of CyberKnife Radiosurgery (jeffreifman.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My wife had that but for anal canal cancer. I recognized the machine and steel door. Amazing surgery. A year later there is no sign of the tumor. Unfortunately she is in radiation and chemo again for tumors on her lymph glands in her chest. I'm hoping they get it and it doesn't spread. Chemo has been rough.

    I hope after you get your treatments completed that there is no new ones elsewhere. Be sure to keep up on the follow up appointments. Good luck.

  10. Return to write protect/enable jumpers on Ask Slashdot: What Single Change Would You Make To a Tech Product? · · Score: 1

    Add write protect to all routers, BIOS, USB sticks, etc. Eliminate infections from and to memory sticks,

  11. Re:Austin? on Ask Slashdot: Undervalued, Livable American Tech Towns? · · Score: 1

    Follow some of the tech companies that thought the same thing and looked for lower cost data centre cooling bills. Hate to have the neighborhood become crowded, but have you seen the location of the air cooled Facebook Datacenter? Others are moving in for the same reasons. Nearest interstate freeway is about 50 miles away.

    https://www.facebook.com/Prine... If you don't like big cities.

  12. Re:Go to bars to drink on BadBarcode Attack Forces Host System To Carry Out Commands (threatpost.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    Since many are USB devices, and programmed by special barcodes to enable and disable various symbologies, with enough info on the target scanner, you can reprogram the scanner with a barcode to enable a full ascii symbology, then scan in the attack code. Like many thumb drives, BIOS, etc, there is no write protect to prevent unauthorised alteration of the configuration.

  13. Re:Gun free zone = target rich zone on Explosions and Multiple Shootings In Paris, Possible Hostages (cnn.com) · · Score: -1, Troll

    I wonder if they are going to learn from the Swiss that a Gun Free zone is a target zone. People should be trained and armed when there are valid threats in the area. Why just be victims? They have had one mass shooting. Want to guess how it ended?

    http://world.time.com/2012/12/...

  14. Re:Then what are they going to do with the extra t on TV Networks Cutting Back On Commercials (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Someone tried to tell me that programs are the same length they used to be with the same amount for station breaks and words from sponsors. I didn't take them at their word but looked online for episodes of old shows and news shows and compaired the lengths.

    Do it yourself. Find online episodes of Gilligan's Island or other popular '60s and '70s shows and check the run length of modern shows.
    Season 1 episode 3 on Youtube is 23min+
    Survivor Season 30 episode 8 is 37 min and 2 seconds.

    Oldies 46 min of program per hour. Now 37 min per hour. Almost 10 minutes per hour more than what I grew up with. Save a lot of time just watching the episodes online on Youtube a couple years later with the commercials cut.

    Don't let anyone pass the lie that there are not more commercials. It is a fact that in an hour there is LESS program.

  15. Re:Streisand effect to the rescue on UK Gov't Can Demand Backdoors, Give Prison Sentences For Disclosing Them (arstechnica.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    Overseas security companies and the Streisand effect. Anonymous tip-offs by post with false return addresses of backdoors to security researches will be published. Streisand effect can't be stopped by 1 rogue nation on the global internet. Search for photos of Barbara's coastal home, Tienanmen square, German concentration camps, etc.

  16. Re:All Robocalls should be illegal on Senators Attempting To Remove Robocall Loophole · · Score: 1

    Had an unlisted number when we had foster kids. The new number used to belong to some deadbeat. Started getting automated calls for Joseph T****. I was not him, so the calls continued for several months. The recording gave a callback number and the automated call did not have any option to talk to anybody. Did a search online to find the culprit and found a collection agency in Illinois. Called their direct number and asked to be removed from their telemarketing and add me to their do not call database. They informed me it was not a telemarketing call. When given the number they claimed to fix it for me. This calling continued another couple of months with several calls to get it fixed. Last time I called they claimed the number the automated system was calling did not contian my number. I called BS and informed them continued calls will be recored by the answering machine with time and date stamp and will be billed at $50 each. They finally quit calling. If I didn't speak English, there would have been no way to get the calls stopped.

    Runaway autmated collection calls must be stopped. I sould not have to spend that much time and effort to stop the calls. Almost had to change my number to end the calls. This should not be rockt science to fix. /End Rant. This does need fixed. All automated collection calls should have an option to contact a live person. No Exceptions. The BS of not fixing it because I am not the target is bad business. And yes they were reported to BBB.

  17. Light field re-defined on Lytro Announces World's First Light Field VR Camera · · Score: 1

    This appears to be a new meaning from the old established Light Field used in microscopes. Light field is the normal microscope view. Normal is often referred to bright field. Dark field is a special illumination technique.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Wikipedia article

  18. Re:Detecting weapons is NOT the purpose of TSA... on TSA Screeners Can't Detect Weapons (and They Never Could) (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Before 9/11 I had a service call. Took an 18 inch mechanics toolbox as carry one. Appologiezed for forgetting to remove a box cutter in screening and mentioned for them to take it as it would be easly replaced. They let me keep it but was more concerned with the screwdrivers at the time. I assuered them it would be kept under the seat and remain closed for the trip. They let me keep the box cutter.

    Post 911 is more difficult to travel with tools.

  19. Re:OMG! What can we do!? on What Your Photos Know About You (itworld.com) · · Score: 2

    LAT and LON data has been used to steal items listed on Craigslist or Ebay. Got a snowmobile or quad for sale? Got a really cute pet or child. It may be a good idea to use a camera without a GPS instead of your cell phone.

    I've looked at some photos on the web to see where they were taken.

  20. send congress the bill on UK Plans To Allow Warrantless Searches of Internet History (telegraph.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    Quickest way to kill it is to send them the bill for coding, power, location hosting, backups, etc. As soon as they fund the expense it happens. It'll die as an unfunded expense.

  21. Re:The real issue Conflict of interest on University Reprimands Professor For Assigning Cheaper Textbook (slate.com) · · Score: 2

    The professor has a solid ethics case against the school fot a clear conflict of interest case. The reprimand could get the school in serious legal trouble.

  22. Re:Droning on and on on Meet the Drone Registration Task Force (roboticstrends.com) · · Score: 1

    This should be covered by the AMA instead. www.modelaircraft.org/

  23. Re:they know EXACTLY what to do on Hackers, Activists, Journos: How To Build a Secure Burner Laptop (vice.com) · · Score: 2

    For travel, I have considered simply traveling with a Raspberry Pi with no thumb drive and a fresh install of Raspberian. The TSA is welcome to examine it in it's entirety including making a mirror copy of the micor SD. Be upfront with them that the device is entirely devoid of any personal information and contains only the fresh boot image. After reaching your destination, you can SSH into your personal files and buy a local thumb drive. Upon return, replace the micro SD with a fresh copy againi.

    If you don't travel with the info, there is no info to be stolen by the governments. Be upfront and honest about it.

  24. Re:EEW Permit for hotwork required on $600k Fine Over Data Center Death (datacenterdynamics.com) · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, the case appears to be improper Energized Electrical Work (EEW) Google EEW hotwork. There are many cases where EEW is performed. Common applications include linemen replacing cutouts, changing insulators, installing new cutouts for new home construction, etc. EEW hotwork requires special permits and tools and protective clothing.

    Death and resulting fines was due to the failure of following proper proceedures for EEW hotwork. LOTO is preferred over EEW, but there are reasons to do EEW. Only those prpoerly trained and follow the permitting process may do EEW.

    Google EEW Permit for more info. Many pepole are killed as in some codes 600V and under is considered LOW Voltage, not to be confused with Limited Energy Class 2.

  25. replicate earth air purification on The International Space Station Is Home To Potentially Dangerous Bacteria (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Unfortunately much of the ISS is protected against harmful radiation. Some of the harmful radiation is very damaging to micro organisms..

    I don't know much about the station's air filtration and purification. It may be time to introduce some UVA and UVB into the station to control the growth. This will both directly kill many as well as generating some ozone.

    As the environment is adding food, and has no effective breakdown in place (soil), outbreaks taking advantage of the food source will be a normal cycle.

    Cleaning to remove the food and colonies and population control with UV and ozone are options.