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User: CaptQuark

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Comments · 271

  1. Re:Plumbing. on Ask Slashdot: How to Avoid The Worst of a Tech Bubble? · · Score: 1

    They aren't if you learn to do them yourself. Building a shelter, killing your own food, sourcing your own water, keeping up with your own sanitation problems -- all of these should be learned by everyone.

    Oh, you would rather pay someone to grow your food, handle your sanitation needs, bring your water? If they are doing this for you, they need some profit to pay another person to do the things they don't have time for because they are working for you.

    Essential life services could mean giving everyone a tent, matches, and a fishing line. Everything above that becomes a comfort item and a reasonable amount of profit to compensate the provider isn't morally repugnant.

    ~~

  2. Re:Brings back memories on Toshiba Introduces a Cortana Keyboard Button For Windows 10 · · Score: 1

    I agree. I use the Window-e key combination daily to bring up Windows Explorer. It is one of the consistent ways of starting Windows Explorer no matter which version of Windows the user has installed.

    Less frequently I use Window-D to minimize all windows and show the desktop, Windows-+ to start the magnifier program to show users something small on their display, and Window-Break to display the system page to check Windows version, RAM size, and machine name.

    ~~

  3. Re:Will be highly upset? on Tron 3 Is Cancelled · · Score: 2

    "will be highly upset." What's that?

    Oh, I get it. Another user that thinks the subject and incomplete comment make up a complete post. I don't know who started that practice, but it should stop.

    ~~

  4. Re:Enterprise Tester on Ask Slashdot: Best Test Case Manager Plugin For JIRA? · · Score: 1

    In the first 20 minutes after you posted, one person modded you "troll" and you panicked?

    To paraphrase Ford Prefect, "Always know where your towel is and don't panic!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

    ~~

  5. Re: other people's money on FCC Proposes To Extend So-Called "Obamaphone" Program To Broadband · · Score: 2

    If you RTFA, this $9.25 subsidy only applies to people ALREADY receiving it for phone service. The only change described in the article would be to allow those people to apply the subsidy to cell phone or broadband service instead.

    ~~

  6. Re:other people's money on FCC Proposes To Extend So-Called "Obamaphone" Program To Broadband · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you read the full article, this $9.25 subsidy only applies to people ALREADY receiving it for phone service. The only change described in the article would be to allow those people to apply the subsidy to cell phone or broadband service instead. I assume there would be a few people that currently qualify but don't receive the subsidy because they don't have a land line, but $9.25 would barely cover the cheapest broadband plan the companies would offer.

    ~~

  7. Re:Win 3.0 and 3.1 on 25 Years Today - Windows 3.0 · · Score: 1

    Windows used a special format on the floppies called Distribution Media Format (DMF). It forced extra sectors into each track, allowing them to fit 1.68 MB instead of the normal 1.44 MB ont each disk.

    There were special commands that let you format floppies with DMF. You had to buy quality floppies to be sure the media would handle the higher density, but sometimes it was worth the extra work to fit a large program onto fewer floppies. It also made it harder for the average user to copy software. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

    ~~

  8. Addicts on How MMO Design Has Improved Bar Trivia · · Score: 1

    So the game is attempting to find a balance that both trivia masters and compulsive gamblers can enjoy.

    ~~

  9. Suicide mission on Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The unfortunate part is the two gunmen knew this was a suicide mission before they attempted the attack and decided a less violent form of protest didn't convey their message well enough.

    ~~

  10. Re:Garbage on NASA Gets Its Marching Orders: Look Up! Look Out! · · Score: 1

    Mod +1

  11. More things in space on Hubble Spots Star Explosion Astronomers Can't Explain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It just means there are more things in space that we don't fully understand yet. But every discovery adds knowledge so we can understand it better.

    ~~

  12. Re:Correction: 4,300 times on Baltimore Police Used Stingrays For Phone Tracking Over 25,000 Times · · Score: 1

    Without knowing how many stingray devices they use, that is nearly two devices running every day for the 8 years they have been using them. It sounds like they turned the devices on and let them run constantly. More like a dragnet usage and hope they can find something later.

    ~~

  13. Proxies share key? on Google To Propose QUIC As IETF Standard · · Score: 1

    QUIC is designed so that if a client has talked to a given server before, it can can start sending data without any round trips, which makes web pages load faster.

    So, if I have three clients behind a NAT or proxy, do they all share the same TLS key? Does that mean my encryption is compromised in a WiFi environment?

    ~~

  14. Re:"Almost two decades"? on Legislation Would Force Radio Stations To Pay Royalties · · Score: 2

    I think it means they didn't get the previous bill to give them payment that they wanted, so they want to try again. I agree, a 20 year old law doesn't sound that out of date yet.

    ~~

  15. Re:Even worse. on After Anti-Donation Executive Order, Bitcoin Donations For Snowden Jump · · Score: 0, Troll
    OK, I'll remind you again. Snowden is currently outside the United States. He is releasing information that meets the requirements "by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States that are reasonably likely to result in, or have materially contributed to, a significant threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States..." The President is declaring it a "National Emergency" to be able to use economic means to block access of certain parties to donations.

    Section 4 also now blocks some people from entering the US. The President finds that the unrestricted immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens determined to meet one or more of the criteria in section 1(a) of this order would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of such persons.

    As usual, non-lawyers read something think it means something that makes them upset, and it spreads and no one actually sits down to read the actual law.

    Yes, you did.

    IANAL, but I think there is much more going on here than meets the eye. Why block people that contribute or materially represent "certain persons"? Is this to prevent Snowden from accessing funds or accepting payments from people wanting him to release specific information? Is this to prevent other parties from accessing assets for him? Much more in play here that I don't understand.

    ~~

  16. Re:Err... on Graphene Light Bulbs Coming To Stores Soon · · Score: 1

    Your post doesn't give enough information to explain why you think $10 is a better price point. I'm assuming you're talking about 60 Watt bulbs, so $22 would be high. For the new 100 Watt bulbs, that is about average. For the new Bright White, omnidirectional, dimmable 100 Watt bulbs, $22 is a little low.

    ~~

  17. Re:Still too dim on Graphene Light Bulbs Coming To Stores Soon · · Score: 1

    You mean like any of these? http://www.cnet.com/products/p...

    ~~

  18. Re:Paranoid, but mostly appropriate on Amazon Wins US Regulators' Approval To Test-fly Drone · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Requiring a drone operator to get a private pilot's license is just another way to discourage commercial use of drones and does nothing to improve the safety of the drone.

    It makes about as much sense as requiring a bicyclist to get a motorcycle license or a snorkeler to get a diving certification.

    ~~

  19. Re:How does this compare to radio? on Pandora Pays Artists $0.001 Per Stream, Thinks This Is "Very Fair" · · Score: 1

    Interesting. I will have to update my mental reference of iPods, iPads, and iPhones. Thanks for the clarification.

    ~~

  20. Re:How does this compare to radio? on Pandora Pays Artists $0.001 Per Stream, Thinks This Is "Very Fair" · · Score: 1

    Interesting. I thought only iPhones did audio conferencing and video conferencing. I had guessed that an iPod was just a music player, an iPad was a larger tablet, and iPhone was for communicating.

    If you are referring to an iPod doing all those things then it is a strange device indeed.

    ~~

  21. Re:NSFW? on The History of Sex.com, the Most Contested Domain On the Internet · · Score: 1

    Link is NSFW.

    The link is NSFW because it shows a girl's bum in a bikini? Or because it has "sexual relationship" in the text?

    How many cities allow men and women to be topless in public and we are still worried about seeing women's swimwear?

    ~~

  22. Re:How does this compare to radio? on Pandora Pays Artists $0.001 Per Stream, Thinks This Is "Very Fair" · · Score: 1

    And does your "pod" give you local weather forecasts, traffic reports, local events, road closures, or emergency notifications?

    You can listen to your Three Dog Night's Greatest Hits over and over again, but most people need to get their local news from somewhere.

    ~~

  23. Re:Good grief... on Bill Nye Disses "Regular" Software Writers' Science Knowledge · · Score: 1

    Just because someone has a college degree doesn't mean they are exposed to concepts outside the scope of their field of studies. How many people could explain the math and science of say, the Doppler shift, if their studies are in Art History, Theology, History, Political Science, Agriculture, Forestry, Pharmacology, or Medicine? And I'm sure those other fields of study include knowledge that they consider very basic concepts that I am unaware of.

    ~~

  24. Re:Overstamp twice. on Crystal Pattern Matching Recovers Obliterated Serial Numbers From Metal · · Score: 1

    Why would you need anything resembling the original font? You are trying to disrupt the original number shape enough so that the crystallized pattern remaining after everything is filed off won't resemble the original number.

    You could overstamp the original number with a symbol of a duck if this would disrupt the original pattern enough.

    ~~

  25. Re:The Secret of Nim on Nim Programming Language Gaining Traction · · Score: 1

    Those are the programmers that work with COBOL instead.

    .