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User: tverbeek

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Comments · 4,188

  1. Re:He who cares the least holds the most power. on Bill Gates Doesn't Work At Microsoft Anymore · · Score: 1

    I'm just glad Bill's decided to do something constructive with his life/billions.

  2. Re:It's somewhat expected. on Developers Expect iOS and MacOS To Merge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Microsoft seems to be moving in a better direction these days with their mobile platform"

    You haven't been following very closely then, have you? It's a jumbled mess of mutually incompatible systems, all with the label "Windows" on it. They almost seem to be trying to emulate the diversity of Linux systems. Microsoft's mistake, however, isn't with having multiple OSes, but having multiple OSes that are all UI clones of each other (without the common code base) regardless of the platform.

    Jobs and his lieutenants have talked at length about what a mistake it was to try to put desktop Windows (with extensions) on tablets. This is why the TabletPC platform has been such a snoozefest in the market: it's the wrong UI for the hardware. Apple could have released a MacBook Touch (a laptop with a touch screen or a slate, either running OS X) five years ago, but they knew it wouldn't work, so they didn't. The same story applies to Windows Mobile: wrong UI for the hardware. Same outcome: dismal sales for something with the Microsoft brand on it.

    Clearly Apple believes that "iOSX everywhere" is the wrong approach. Adobe CS would make no sense on a phone or slate, and neither would Tap Tap Revenge make sense on a desktop or server. They put a whole lot of effort into developing a new OS for slates and phones, using the parts of OS X that fit that platform, and engineering new parts for the rest. They'd be fools to throw out the parts of OS X that still make all kinds of sense for the desktop or traditional laptop just to merge it with iOS, and I see no evidence that they're fools of that sort.

  3. Re:i've seen plenty of older IT workers on At Google, You're Old and Gray At 40 · · Score: 1

    Entitlement-mentality nonsense. The difference is intent.

    By your "logic", if tech jobs go disproportionately to people with a tech-school education, that's age discrimination against middle-school students (who also happen to be young), religious discrimination against seminary students (because they happen to be theists), and sex discrimination against nursing school graduates (who are predominantly female), because they won't get hired. But it isn't. It's just real qualifications that have the unintended consequence of excluding a non-random population. It's only when the screening characteristic doesn't have any bearing on the job requirements that they are unfair and (consequently) illegal. You (or any one else your age) are not entitled to a senior management position when you graduate from high school just because there's a disproportionately small number of 18-year-olds with keys to the executive toilet.

  4. Re:i've seen plenty of older IT workers on At Google, You're Old and Gray At 40 · · Score: 1

    "reverse age discrimination is even more common than age discrimination"

    Snort! Every (unoppressed) party thinks they're more oppressed than the other guys, because they only see it when it happens to them.

    The difference between what you're describing ("must have X years experience") and simply not hiring people over a certain age, is that the former reflects what legal types call a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification. Someone who has no professional experience programming simply cannot walk into certain programming jobs and do them; you really do need to have certain skills that take time to develop.. On the other hand, someone who has "too much" experience probably does have the BFOQs to do jobs that are usually reserved for younger people. You just don't believe that because you've never been in the old guy's shoes. (But he's been in yours.)

  5. Re:Not just Google on At Google, You're Old and Gray At 40 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have you considered that, at some point, new technology might reach the point of being "enough"? Is it possible that communication that takes months is not as good as communication that takes days, which is not as good as that which takes hours.... but at some point there is no actual benefit? to shortening the timeframe, and maybe doing so becomes detrimental?

  6. Re:Duh on Why Being Wrong Makes Humans So Smart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This isn't talking about overlooking things. It's talking about the human ability to make decisions without being able to know all of the necessary facts, the ability to reach a conclusion that could be incorrect... but is still probably correct. That's something that computers cannot do (at least not yet).

  7. already a platitude on Why Being Wrong Makes Humans So Smart · · Score: 3, Funny

    To #ERR is human, to forgive divine.

  8. Re:It doesn't quite roll off the tongue on Microsoft To Add Yet Another Smartphone OS This Year · · Score: 1

    Microsoft can't come up with - and stick to - a good name to save their life, but that's not the real issue. Despite the shall-we-say limited adoption of their legacy smartphone OS (WinCE/PocketPC/WinMobile), there's a pretty substantial installed base of vertical-market apps and users of those apps. (Even Apple was stuck using it for a while in their stores, before they started making their own handhelds.) MS needs to compete with iOS and Android and WebOS in terms of functionality, and that means something completely different. But if they only chased after those, they'd lose their entire installed market, as developers of niche mobile apps (for retail, nursing, inventory, maintenance, etc.) - suddenly forced to switch toolkits - went after the "hot" platforms instead. MS needs an upgrade path for WinMobile 6 as well, even if that is - by definition - lame.

  9. Re:libraries of congress... on NASA Says Moon Has More Water Than Great Lakes · · Score: 1

    This article isn't using the greatlakesbasin as a unit of measure, but as a point of comparison. I'm sorry if you aren't familiar enough with one of the more prominent features on geographic maps of North America to have a sense of its size, but it's a valid reference. And I'd argue that it's more meaningful to most people than being told a number of gallons ending in -illions that they can't really envision. I don't know how many millions of gallons of a water there are in the Great Lakes either, but that's because I wrap my head around how big a millions gallons is; I can see how big the Lakes are.

    As for measuring distances in units of time, that's just a reflection of modern reality. Back when getting from A to B was a matter of physical effort, distances of length were probably more appropriate. But these days it's usually more important to know how long it takes to get there than the number of steps (as if we would ever walk). Knowing that it's 20 miles doesn't help me unless I also know whether that's thru downtown, by country road, on an interstate, etc.

  10. Re:libraries of congress... on NASA Says Moon Has More Water Than Great Lakes · · Score: 1

    Already stipulated.

  11. Re:Guess the other nations on NASA Says Moon Has More Water Than Great Lakes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Somehow I don't think the Earth-Bound States of America will suffer from not getting its hands on the water that could theoretically be extracted by laboriously pulverizing the entire volume of the moon. Since - as the article points out - the EBSA already has that same amount of water, already in drinkable form, lapping at its shoreline from Minnesota to New York. We'll manage.

  12. Re:"US" Great Lakes? on NASA Says Moon Has More Water Than Great Lakes · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's nice, but Ryan Island is in Siskiwit Lake, which is on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. It is the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake* in the world". Which, I might add, is really close to Canada and could have been Canadian if the border were drawn more reasonably, but... it's in Michigan. :)

    *This doesn't count the Black or Caspain Sea because they're saline, and it doesn't count Lakes Huron and Michigan as a single lake because no one but a nit-picking hydrologist would. But if you were such a person, you'd count Manitoulin Island as the largest island in the largest lake (and in any case, it's is the largest island in any lake), and Lake Manitou (a different one from the one you cited) as the largest lake on it. There are at least a couple islands in that Lake Manitou, but I can't find names for them.

  13. Re:libraries of congress... on NASA Says Moon Has More Water Than Great Lakes · · Score: 1

    42 football fields.

  14. Re:Can we drink it? on NASA Says Moon Has More Water Than Great Lakes · · Score: 3, Informative

    More importantly: Can you go sailing on it? Swim in it? Fish salmon, trout, and invasive asian carp from it? Ride a scooter along hundreds and hundreds of miles of it?

    If not, I'll stay here in Michigan, the Great Lakes State.

    We're Bi-peninsular and Proud.

    Yes! Michigan!

    (This message has been a public service announcement, brought to you in cooperation with the Michigan tourism office and my summer travel plans.)

  15. NASA is just acting on orders: on Kepler Mission Finds 752 Extrasolar Planet Candidates · · Score: 5, Funny

    "All these worlds are yours, except for this list of 400. Attempt no landings there."

  16. Re:If you are distracted by horns at a football ga on Digitally Filtering Out the Drone of the World Cup · · Score: 1

    If you stop noticing this noise, it actually demonstrates your short attention span, retard boy.

  17. Re:Wow, bad editing on Digitally Filtering Out the Drone of the World Cup · · Score: 1

    Nothing but excuses for not having the balls to stand up to hooligans.

  18. Re:Am I the only... on Digitally Filtering Out the Drone of the World Cup · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Would you want to see a ban on the fan traditions in your country?"

    Only the fucking stupid and purely assholish ones.

    This qualifies.

  19. Re:a day late... on Digitally Filtering Out the Drone of the World Cup · · Score: 1

    You seem to have sports journalism confused with... journalism.

  20. Re:Kudos on Video Games Linked To Reckless Driving · · Score: 1

    How do you feel about the word "reckless"? Because that's the one that applies here. Kids who learn their driving habits in games aren't likely to remain wreckless in real life.

  21. A/D conversion in macrocosm on DTV Transition - One Year Later · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For me it's been a true analog-to-digital conversion. I no longer sort-of-get any TV stations; I either get them or I don't. The stations I used to pick up pretty well, I now get perfectly. The stations I used to pick up poorly, I now don't get at all.

  22. Re:About Time on Project Natal Renamed 'Kinect' · · Score: 1

    "Kinect" sounds like something you do with your hot cousin.

  23. Re:That's Great But... on $1 Trillion In Minerals Found In Afghanistan · · Score: 1

    Great, so some time around A.D. 2600 or so we should see the natural emergence of representative democracy there. Good to know there's an end in sight.

  24. Re:That's Great But... on $1 Trillion In Minerals Found In Afghanistan · · Score: 1

    Who do you think works for the corporations? Answer: The taxpayers.

    I think you mean "taxdodgers". Sure, there will be worker-bee employees, but the execs will – like in all modern corporations – make much more, and pay much less of it in taxes. Plus, do you really think that mines and ore processing facilities in a third-world country are going to involve any significant number of W2 forms?

    Before this discovery of mineral resources, the US had the reserve option to just give up on Afghanistan and let the Medieval sky-god worshippers run the place, hoping that if we left them alone, they'd return the favor. That's no longer an option. Just like we cannot afford to pull out of the Arabian peninsula because of its oil, we will be stuck in Afghanistan to secure its mineral wealth.

  25. Re:news at eleven on Chrome OS To Support "Legacy" PC Apps Through Remote Access · · Score: 1

    What would be different is making this easy enough for a typical user to do, and reliable enough to be practical. Apple has tried to do this with Back To My Mac, but that still has enough technical gotchas in most cases to be impractical for most people.