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User: lophophore

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Comments · 518

  1. what is the true cost? on Statisticians Study Who Was Helped Most By Obamacare · · Score: 2

    1.36 trillion dollars over 10 years (http://obamacarefacts.com/costof-obamacare/). That is 136 billion dollars a year. For 10 million people to have insurance.

    By my calculations, that is $13,600 per covered person, per year.

    Hardly "affordable".

  2. Re:Solution: Drop H1B and make immigration easier on Skilled Foreign Workers Treated as Indentured Servants · · Score: 1

    There is no shortage of skilled IT workers.

    There is a shortage of skilled IT workers who are willing to work for what they perceive are "below market wages."

    I can tell you as a person who has been hiring, you need to be willing to pay for quality. If you aren't willing to pay, the next best thing is H1B, where you get almost as much quality for significantly less cost.

  3. planned obsolescence on Apple Doesn't Design For Yesterday · · Score: 1

    It's planned obsolescence. That's no surprise from Apple, the people who brought us iPod touch with a un-replaceable batteries, macbooks with soldered in RAM, and 17 steps using 2 specialized tools to change battery in iPhone 5 etc.

    The new OS looks like crap on your old (non-"retina") hardware that is otherwise still working fine. Sounds like time to drop another $1500 for the latest macbook. Super for Apple and their stockholders, sucks for you. I'm liking my Lenvo T-series laptops running Linux better and better every day.

  4. let them suck it on FBI Chief: Apple, Google Phone Encryption Perilous · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the feds come to me with a valid warrant to decrypt my phone -- I'll do it -- rather than risk contempt of court. Their warrant better say what they are looking for.

    Anybody else wants to look at it -- they can suck it.

    Police & other government agencies have been snooping on suspects' phones for too long, without a warrant, and that is in direct contradiction to this:

    "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

    That is the fourth amendment to the constitution, and it remains the law of this land. No, you cannot search my phone without a warrant.

  5. don't let on Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway · · Score: 1

    Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

    Microsoft has been successful because of their American engineering talent.

    If they want to go, they should go. G'bye!

  6. Re:An entire legion of your worst non sequiturs on Apple Announces Smartwatch, Bigger iPhones, Mobile Payments · · Score: 1

    The ad hominem! I'm so proud of you.

  7. Re:Hot Damn! on Apple Announces Smartwatch, Bigger iPhones, Mobile Payments · · Score: 2, Informative

    They did have the first iPod, no doubt. But as far as the first portable MP3 player, no. Try PJB100, invented by Digital Equipment Corporation.

    They did have the first iPhone, but that was not the first smart phone, no. Sorry again. Palm.

    They did have the first iPad, but that was not the first tablet computer, not by a long shot. GRiD was first.

    Oh yeah, that GUI they claimed to invent and sued Microsoft over? Yeah, not theirs, either. Xerox. Sorry.

    Apple is a marketing company, not a technology company. They have brazenly stolen others ideas and (quite successfully) marketed them.

    Enjoy your lock-in.

  8. Hot Damn! on Apple Announces Smartwatch, Bigger iPhones, Mobile Payments · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They've caught up with last year's Nexus 5!

  9. so don't use them! on Comcast Using JavaScript Injection To Serve Ads On Public Wi-Fi Hotspots · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't use random hot spots. It's like safe sex, only for your computer. Stay away from sketchy connections.

  10. What is cool? on If Java Wasn't Cool 10 Years Ago, What About Now? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What is cool? Programming isn't cool. Programmers aren't cool. Being a guitar player in a great band is probably cool. Being a chick magnet might be cool. When has being a Java dev gotten anybody laid?

    The only people who care about how "cool" a language is are posers. A professional developer is going to choose the tool that is going to let him/her build what he/she wants with the least fuss. For a lot of today's applications, that tool may well be Java.

    What's uncool is a skill that won't get you a job. Java can get you a job, help you buy a car, a house, live your life.

  11. remind me not to use your code on Ask Slashdot: What Recliner For a Software Developer? · · Score: 0, Troll

    working "short on time" with "wife and children around" "in a recliner" does not sound conducive to quality code.

  12. Late 1989, on a VAXstation II/GPX on X Window System Turns 30 Years Old · · Score: 1

    Late 1989, on a VAXstation II/GPX running VMS 5.0. Not exactly a desktop workstation, it was a desk-side box as big as a 2-drawer file cabinet. That newfangled DECWindows came out and killed off the old VMS GUI "VWS". Right about that same time the VAXstation 3100 came out, a true desktop VAX workstation...

    The early versions ran a "desktop" called "XUI", which was replaced with Motif in 1991.

    Another commenter wrote that the performance has not improved that much since the early 90s. My current desktop Linux box has the equivalent CPU horsepower of 10,000 VAXstation 3100s, but it boots to the login window only about twice as fast. Progress?

  13. what utter bullshit! on Wikipedia Mining Algorithm Reveals the Most Influential People In History · · Score: 2

    Michael Jackson, and Hitler?

    What utter bullshit!

    This is like mining Facebook to decide who the best rock band ever was! Think there's any bias?

    My vote goes to Gutenberg. You want to talk about inflection points in human knowledge? Gutenberg, and then Tim Berners-Lee.

    Jeff

  14. Re:rot in pieces on After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out · · Score: 1

    Sun stood on the shoulders of giants.

    That 68000 processor that Sun used? Modeled after DEC microprocessors. That ethernet wire they connected to? They don't call it Digital-Intel-Xerox Ethernet for no reason. That "new thing" unix Sun used? And the C language? Built on DEC PDPs. Your terminal emulator? Emulates a DEC terminal. USB? A consortium, including DEC. That X-Window System sun used after NeWS tanked? Yep. Came from Project Athena, sponsored by DEC. MIT & IBM.

    One of the many reasons that DEC died was that many people in the company were blinded by the brilliance of VMS and the layered products, and could not understand why anyone would want to settle for less. Digital had stuff in the 80s and 90s that the rest of the industry caught up with 10 or more years later, and in some cases, have still not caught up. The problem was that DEC's stuff was very, very expensive, and very proprietary, and DEC was out-marketed by other vendors selling supposedly "open", and certainly cheaper unix based solutions (See "snake oil".)

  15. Re:rot in pieces on After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out · · Score: 1

    You're not very old, are you?

  16. rot in pieces on After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There were a lot of Sun people who celebrated the demise of Digital Equipment Corporation.

    Well, what goes around comes around eventually. Sun got theirs, let them rot in pieces. They never made the impact that Digital did.

    (and no, I'm not bitter about Sun. I'm waiting for HP's turn. It's coming...)

  17. Detention on Ask Slashdot: What Inspired You To Start Hacking? · · Score: 1

    I was in Detention in 7th grade.

    My teacher had a book "101 Basic Computer Games" on her desk. I was bored. I opened the book. I read the BASIC source code, and I thought "I can do that."

    That was in 1975 or 1976. The rest is history.

  18. ultra low latency over microwave and laser link on Grace Hopper, UNIVAC, and the First Programming Language · · Score: 2

    not fiber. point to point laser and microwave links.

    I believe you are referring to ultra-low-latency trading.

    They prefer microwave links to fiber because the microwave signals propagate faster through air than light does through a glass fiber. Light travels through glass fiber at about 65% of c, which is also pretty comparable to the velocity of a electric signal in a transmission line (.65 to .75 c) (which is where Admiral Hopper ties in)

    Microwave signals propagate though air at damned close to the speed of light, and the microwave signal paths are direct by necessity. That means the path can be significantly less than half the distance a cable (electric or optic) and the speed about 50% faster.

    Optical paths are also used, they are by laser through the air. This has the same direct path, near c speed advantages as microwave.

  19. seen 'em on The Struggle To Ban Killer Robots · · Score: 3, Funny

    I saw the Killer Robots. They opened for the B-52s at the House of Blues in Orlando.

    They were... interesting. Why does the UN want to ban them? I've seen many worse bands.

  20. Re:Hmm on Ask Slashdot: Practical Alternatives To Systemd? · · Score: 2

    systemd is best avoided. Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

    (pulseaudio, avahi, systemd. Why are these things all such a f*cking bear to deal with? Why, oh why?)

    CentOS might work for you, if you don't feel the need to be completely modern. No systemd in Centos 6. I expect to see in in RHEL 7 / CentOS 7, though.

  21. use hearing protection now on Implant Injects DNA Into Ear, Improves Hearing · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is an article about "hearing loss." Much hearing loss is preventable.

    Use hearing protection now.

    Use hearing protection when running your leaf blower, weed whacker, power sander, lawn mower, and especially when making like a war-mongering imperialist at the shooting range. Use hi-fi hearing protection at rock concerts and loud clubs.

    Once your hearing is damaged, it is not recoverable, unless you become The Bionic Woman -- and for about 50% of us, that is pretty much completely impossible.

    Hearing protection is cheap. I like the Etymotic ER20 for rock concerts. Maybe I look silly wearing them. But... I can still hear after the show. I really don't care if people think I look silly. I've been to some literally deafening rock concerts, and my ears have suffered for it... Now I always bring (and wear!) my ear plugs to shows, And I use hearing protection when running noisy power equipment.

  22. in other news on Apple Patent Could Herald Interchangeable iPhone Camera Lenses · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apple receives patent #999666 for "power adaptor allows handheld device to be charged from AC mains" and patent #666999 for "Handheld device User-interface buttons".

    I hope this is an April Fools joke. How long have cameras had a bayonet lens mount?

  23. not "news for nerds" on Million Jars of Peanut Butter Dumped In New Mexico Landfill · · Score: 0

    this "does not matter". it is sad, yes, but it does not matter. there are many worse things that happen every day. I do not visit slashdot for this kind of news. Samzenpus -- **you suck**. Thanks for wasting my time.

  24. good luck with that on Yahoo May Build Its Own YouTube · · Score: 1

    Yahoo cannot even make yahoo mail work right. The "redesign" -- when it works -- is not user friendly at all. Most of the time it doesn't load pages and show mail at all.

    Good luck getting video going.

    They need to pack their shit and go home, not blow more shareholder money on a(nother) losing venture.

  25. Slightly more user friendly than Windows 8 on GNOME 3.12 Released · · Score: 5, Informative

    Gnome 3.12: **slighltly** more user friendly than Windows 8, which is like saying it is slightly more user friendly than a rabid zombie wolverine in a kindergarten playground.

    I watched the video. Gnome 3.12 still sucks. It is an embarrassment to Linux; it is one of the reasons why after 10 years we still don't have "the year of the Linux Desktop". This is a continuing example of the developers deciding how the users should work, not thinning about how the users are used to doing things. Yecch.

    Thank goodness for XFCE. XFCE's developers seem to actually have the user experience in mind.