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User: LocalH

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Comments · 1,302

  1. Re: Books aren't special on Amazon Confirms Hachette Spat Is To "Get a Better Deal" · · Score: 1

    And yes, I meant to put "explaining" in scare quotes both times at the end there and neglected to do so. This is not some "smoking gun" that I have an ulterior motive to support Hachette, for all you conspiracy nuts out there.

  2. Re: Books aren't special on Amazon Confirms Hachette Spat Is To "Get a Better Deal" · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Spot on. I take issue with Amazon's handling of this not because of anything to do with whether books are a "consumer good" or not, which they clearly are in the first place (they're sold at retail, buyer gains first sale rights concerning the physical object, sounds pretty much like a good to me). It's because it's anti-consumer. It punishes people who dare to buy from vendors or publishers which the marketplace provider has some sort of issue with. It's exactly like the fights between cable/satellite providers and distributors. The only thing they do is punish the people who enjoy the things they air. Exactly like those situations, we have public communication from each entity blaming the other and confusing the average person. I half-expect Amazon to start putting a little ad-size box on pages for Hachette books "explaining" to the potential buyer why they shouldn't even buy the book in the first place, and Hachette adding extra pages into Amazon-destined copies explaining how shitty Amazon is.

    It's all a big dick-waving contest and doesn't help anyone but the one with the biggest dick.

  3. Re:Books aren't special on Amazon Confirms Hachette Spat Is To "Get a Better Deal" · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But things that are considered consumer goods, like many technologies, are not completely fungible by that standard. Sure, you have devices that can serve the same purpose, but in most cases they're not really interchangeable without some major changes in what you're doing. You can't really replace a Wii U with an Xbox One and consider them "completely fungible".

  4. Re: Yeah, but.... on Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem isn't misogyny itself, on an individual basis, any more than the problem is invidualized misandry. The problem is when such hate is institutionalized, and I think it's arguable that institutionalized misogyny is at its lowest point in decades. If you start trying to tell individuals what's right and wrong to think, then you are dangerously close to Orwellian thoughtcrime for my tastes. What matters is how people act, which is where any protections need to be placed.

  5. Re: A, B or C. on Ohio Prison Shows Pirated Movies To Inmates · · Score: 1

    I think that part is intended for works that have not been released yet. Notice it says "being prepared for commercial distribution". As in, leaking things early.

  6. Re:Asinine on LA Police Officers Suspected of Tampering With Their Monitoring Systems · · Score: 1

    When you gain the power that comes with being a police officer, then everything you do when on duty and filling that official capacity should be open to public scrutiny. Since abuses of that power have very direct and damaging effects on the victims of said abuses, I feel that all officers must sacrifice some of their freedom, while on the job, in order to help protect civilian rights. Those who are good officers that go by the book in every situation (outside of emergency situations that can and do occur, that require nearly instantaneous reaction time) and don't abuse their power have nothing to worry about - if something bad happens that is questionable, having a record of it would also protect the officer.

    Yes, I realize that's dangerously close to "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide". However, there is a difference between applying that to civilian individuals (including off-duty police officers) who have a very real right to privacy, and applying it to people who we have allowed to have legal power above and beyond what we allow civilians to do (for example, while civilians in many areas have the right to make a "citizen's arrest", they most likely do not have the right to use physical force to detain that individual, whereas the police do have that right). With power comes the responsibility to ensure that those powers are used properly, and having such interactions recorded as a matter of law protects the civilian and the officer.

    I personally think this would be a good idea with civilians too, but the difference is, with officers (and other public officials with power above an ordinary civilian), those recording devices should be mandated by law and such footage available for review by any member of the public, but with civilians, the control over such devices (and indeed, the entire decision to wear them at all) should rest with the individual device owner. I really wish people would get over their Google Glass hangups and realize that, while in public, there is no right not to be recorded. Having a record of the day's interactions (that would automatically fade into the ether after, say, 24 hours, unless a segment is explicitly reviewed by the user and saved) would help prevent or at least reduce the "he said, she said" arguments that sometimes occur when a claim is made, because there is an impartial record of what happened (and in fact, in a society that doesn't have such a hangup about "public privacy", all parties would be recording, making for a way to corroborate what happened and have a fighting chance at detecting editing or other tampering).

  7. Re:Ethics is Relative. PERIOD. on NASA Can't Ethically Send Astronauts On One-Way Missions To Deep Space · · Score: 1

    Humans will travel into deep space when it's "safe".

    So, in other words, never.

  8. Re:Ethical is irrelevant. on NASA Can't Ethically Send Astronauts On One-Way Missions To Deep Space · · Score: 1

    If I decide I want to die and I hand you a gun and ask you to shoot me, is it ethical for you to do so?

    Yes.

  9. Re:Don't raise wages. Demand lower prices. on Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate · · Score: 2

    This would effectively outlaw automation, given that the costs are not zero to operate such machinery. I can understand the argument that prices should be lower, but to say that they should be near zero is to argue that those who use automation heavily shouldn't be allowed to make a profit at all. I can't get behind that philosophically.

  10. Re:Not even close to the worst. on It Was the Worst Industrial Disaster In US History, and We Learned Nothing · · Score: 0

    Pragmatically speaking:

    Nuclear and wind power will likely never reach the public support necessary to eclipse the use of fossil fuels. Nuclear power because of the perceived harm, and wind power because "ohh those windmills are ugly and I don't want to see them".

    That leaves solar+hydro. Since pure hydrogen does not occur naturally, that means it must be manufactured somehow, so you're basically reduced to solar power (unless you use fossil fuels to generate the hydrogen, which sort of defeats the purpose here). I don't think our solar extraction technology is quite efficient enough to cover all of our fuel needs, or we'd already be doing it.

  11. Re:Not even close to the worst. on It Was the Worst Industrial Disaster In US History, and We Learned Nothing · · Score: 1

    As opposed to the release of massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere from animals exhaling?

  12. Re: Watch It Succeed on Sony Announces Virtual Reality Headset For PS4 · · Score: 1

    I know this is possible with other devices as well, but I can stream 1080p content directly from my computer to my iPad and given that the total bitrate doesn't exceed my network capacity, there is no re-encoding.

  13. Re: Victim blaming on Author Says It's Time To Stop Glorifying Hackers · · Score: 1

    You can be the victim and still be a dumbass for leaving the key outside for anyone to find.

  14. Re:Pretty easy. on Ask Slashdot: How Can I Prepare For the Theft of My Android Phone? · · Score: 1

    Good luck restoring iOS to that device and making it usable as anything other than a stylish paperweight, if it was running iOS 7 and had Find my iPhone enabled.

  15. Re:You keep using that word on Author Says It's Time To Stop Glorifying Hackers · · Score: 1

    Welcome to the real world, where old systems operate together in a mish-mash of different protocols and standards. Why do you think companies even exist solely to provide the service of screen-scraping old terminal-based servers in order to provide a "modern" GUI (that is often times just as archaic and messy, if not more so, than the old text-based setup).

  16. Victim blaming on Author Says It's Time To Stop Glorifying Hackers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the hell is there a trend nowadays to call it "victim blaming" to give people advice on protecting themselves? Is it really such a bad idea for people to do things to protect their passwords?

    I guess telling people to run antivirus is now "victim blaming", too.

  17. Re:Why? on Apple Refuses To Unlock Bequeathed iPad · · Score: 1

    Technically correct, but pragmatically useless. Devices running iOS 7 with Find my iWhatever enabled will not be able to activate, even after a DFU restore, without the original Apple ID and password. The only way around this I know of would be to have an A4 device with the requisite SHSH blobs to downgrade below iOS 7.0, and whether one could then change the Apple ID and restore to iOS 7 I don't know.

  18. Re: No, not those who don't understand... on Woman Attacked In San Francisco Bar For Wearing Google Glass · · Score: 1

    She didn't start recording until she was in fear of bodily harm. You know, in case she was actually attacked, there would be video evidence? She was demonstrating it to someone, and someone mouthed off to her out of fear, because they had obviously been misled into thinking that Glass is some sort of uber spy device that records everything that's happening with no external notification. Which is precisely how all the detractors paint the issue, so that's not unsurprising. What is surprising is the number of people on a supposedly tech-savvy site who have this misconception.

  19. Re: Not generally accepted!? on Woman Attacked In San Francisco Bar For Wearing Google Glass · · Score: 2

    There are no general laws about wearing Glass in public, ergo it's a right thanks to the 9th and 10th. Unless you're aware of a state legislature that has passed such a law?

  20. Re: It's a keyboard on Nostalgic For the ZX Spectrum? Soon You Can Play With a New One · · Score: 1

    You just said that to tepples, one of the more prolific commenters on here.

  21. Re: Still abusive on Gabe Newell Responds: Yes, We're Looking For Cheaters Via DNS · · Score: 1

    You didn't actually read what they did. Or the fact that they're not doing it anymore because it lost it's usefulness.

  22. Re: what price increases? on Time Warner Deal Is How Comcast Will Fight Cord Cutters · · Score: 1

    Blu-ray is not an inferior product. It has one chief advantage that streaming can never match - permanence. You will always be able to play the Blu-ray, but you have no control over whether your chosen video streaming provider keeps the content available for streaming.

  23. Re: Cellular is the business model on Time Warner Deal Is How Comcast Will Fight Cord Cutters · · Score: 2

    If you have portions of the outside of your dwelling that are "exclusive access" to you as a tenant, then the property owner can not legally prevent you from putting up a dish. One of the few things the FCC gets right.

  24. Re: I don't understand on Nintendo Could Base Comeback On Improving Peoples' Health · · Score: 1

    Mega Man isn't a Nintendo franchise, btw.

  25. Re: Anything to not admit they screwed up on Nintendo Could Base Comeback On Improving Peoples' Health · · Score: 2

    GBC was more than turning the grey into color. It surpassed even the Super Game Boy in total color count (excluding the SGB OBJ mode which almost no games used). It also increased the CPU speed. It certainly wasn't a four-color system unless you were playing legacy GB games.

    NES/SNES weren't really slower than their counterparts. Sure, the number of CPU cycles per second was lower. However, the 6502-based architecture had lower IPC than the Z80 and 68000, and if you analyze that you'll see that the NES/SNES were a lot more competitive in performance than you might think by CPU speed alone.