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User: Alan+Shutko

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  1. Re:SOCIALIZE! on Why American Internet Service Is Slow and Expensive · · Score: 1

    But what about from the buyer's standpoint? What is the most effective use of their money? Competition from privatization gives them that better than government can.

    You should read the book, not just the article above. Competition only works when there are enough competitors. Otherwise monopolies, duopolies, and cartels can form where the companies split up territories and agree not to compete.

    David Cay Johnston gives examples from water companies, electric companies, railroads, trash hauling, and telecom where privatization results in price increases massively outstripping inflation.

  2. Re:Well on Adobe Releases New Openly Licensed Coding Font · · Score: 1

    Seems to be very dependent on the font renderer. It looks great on OS X, but it definitely looks worse on Windows XP in Eclipse. (On my XP, the E and the digits are different heights. On OS X, they are the same height.)

    Hopefully some day my company will upgrade us.

  3. Absolutely. on Hardware Is Dead — At Least Most Expensive Hardware Is · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Expensive hardware has been dead for a while. That's why Apple had such disappointing preorders of the new iPhone and has been lagging behind Samsung in tablet sell-through.

    Or, maybe not.

  4. Re:That's strangely sane and oddly normal. on French Court Levies First Fine Under 3-Strikes Piracy Law · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, behaving within the law means the guy turned off his broadband completely. Needing to defend your home broadband against members of your family is crazy.

  5. Re:It's theirs no matter what they did with it. on Internet Brands Sues People For Forking Under CC BY-SA · · Score: 2

    The Creative Commons License that it was under gives you the right to do exactly that. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

  6. Re:As Steve Jobs might conclude on The Gates Foundation Engages Its Critics · · Score: 1

    If, as you say, the teachers are not correlated with student results, we'd might as well have cheaper teachers and get the same results.

  7. Re:One click for $235 on Calculating the Cost of Full Disk Encryption · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've gone paperless, so I have tax returns, medical info, SSNs, etc on my laptop. Full Disk Encryption means I don't have to worry about it.

    With FDE, you have to decrypt it every time you use the computer, so you're not going to forget the password. If you're worried about that, put the password on a piece of paper in a safe deposit box or some other type of storage at home.

  8. Re:It's too bad on How Apple Killed the Linux Desktop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    FWIW, I ran Linux full-time from 1994 through 2008. What finally did it for me was power management and the hassle it took to get laptops to work well under Linux. Linux worked well if you picked up a 1-2 year old laptop, because by then you could find support for most of the hardware, but you were in for a world of hurt if you wanted anything new.

    Anecdotally, I know a bunch of people who switched to Mac for the same reason. Get a MacBook, and you had a laptop that could suspend and resume reliably... And you had your shell underneath.

  9. Re:Um . . . just to point something out . . . on Would You Pay an Internet Broadband Tax? · · Score: 1

    TCP/IP isn't really following the OSI layer model, as convenient as that model is for discussion purposes.

    If you want to understand how assymetric speeds slow down TCP/IP, here's a paper: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.22.5293

  10. Re:Soon. on Gov't Approves Parts of Verizon-Cable Spectrum Sale · · Score: 1

    Verizon did it when they were trying to roll out FiOS, but now Verizon has stopped moving into new areas. AT&T has also stopped expanding Uverse into new areas. Instead, they're focusing on wireless where they can charge much more for less data.

  11. LISP is so great on AutoCAD Worm Medre.A Stealing Designs, Blueprints · · Score: 4, Funny

    That it's finally expanded into the virus industry!

  12. Re:Why not use a Linux distribution? on How Icaros Desktop Brings the Amiga Experience To x86 PCs · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's exactly what they did. Icarus Desktop is a distribution of AROS, in a prepackaged VM image to make it easy to use. AROS is similar to WINE, in that it can run programs within a hosting OS. It also has native ports, but those progress slowly on the hardware support side.

  13. Re:Who's the bigger troll here? on Oracle Sues Lodsys For Patent Trolling · · Score: 1

    The fact is that Oracle was trying to clobber competitors with the "Intellectual Property" card.

    Yes, that is the precise reason for intellectual property. What's your point?

  14. Re:NTP and hospitals on Know What Time It Is? Your Medical Device Doesn't · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't need to connect to an outside server. You can easily run your own time source (GPS is really easy these days), or have the devices talk to a single internal server which then securely contacts outward. If they're off, at least they're all on the same time. It's really dangerous if everything is reporting different incorrect times.

  15. Re:Samzenpus, Official /. Troll on Why Desktop Linux Hasn't Taken Off · · Score: 1

    Why? Because it drives page views, of course.

  16. Re:Inadvertently... on GIMP Core Mostly Ported to GEGL · · Score: 2

    Well, it's nice that after 12 years, GEGL is finally making its way into everything. Progress has been a little slower than I'd have liked....

  17. Multiple routes on Ask Slashdot: It's World Backup Day; How Do You Back Up? · · Score: 2

    I currently sync my files across three computers, each of which does a time machine backup. The files are also backed up via Jungledisk to Amazon S3. Occasionally I do full-disk images of things.

    Files that would be inconvenient to lose, but which are not irreplaceable, are stored on a Drobo (redundant drive enclosure). This includes, for instance, my music library which could be reripped from CD.

  18. Re:That didn't last long on Adobe Releases Last Linux Version of Flash Player · · Score: 2

    It's at least been since Flash Player 9 in January 2007. 5 years is more than a token gesture.

  19. It's all about size on iFixit's Kyle Wiens On the War On DIY Electronics · · Score: 0

    Making it easy for things to come apart and be put back together takes space. The bigger the space budget, the more repairable and upgradable things have been. This has always been the case. This is why laptops have been more hassle than desktops, and why the iPad, which is shoved in there VERY tightly, is even worse.

    So really, you figure out what's important to you. Is it more important to have a device you can easily repair, or is it more important that it be thin and light? With tablets, few people vote for heavy and repairable since they've been available for years in the Windows Tablet Edition space.

  20. Re:Wow on Ask Slashdot: Using Company Laptop For Personal Use · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nope. But that's life.

    In my case, I worked to get rid of the company-issued laptop in favor of citrixing into my desktop at work. That means I have to carry less, and since I'm not constantly on the road, works well for me.

  21. Re:Fujitsu ScanSnap or similar on Ask Slashdot: How To Go Paperless At Home? · · Score: 1

    My Scansnap can do 20 double-sided pieces of paper a minute. My camera can't.

    I to capture documents like books that I can't send through the Scansnap, but it's much more effort.

  22. Re:Fujitsu ScanSnap or similar on Ask Slashdot: How To Go Paperless At Home? · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is the simple answer. This scanner actually works, unlike other ones I've tried. Multifunction printers with scanners, or flatbeds with a document feeder are all much slower and much more prone to jamming. The Scansnap rarely jams but when it does, it tells you and lets you fix it. It hardly ever grabs multiple pages at once, but when it does, it can notice it (mine has an ultrasonic sensor) and will let you fix it immediately.

    I've scanned some 10k sheets with mine (not pages, as a double-sided document counts as 1 sheet but two pages). It works extremely well.

  23. Re:Good on Apple Could Lose $1.6 Billion In iPad Lawsuit · · Score: 5, Informative

    You need to read the history on this one before commenting. It's not a simple matter. In this case, Apple bought the mark from an intermediary who bought the global rights from Proview (Taiwan). Apple claims they bought the rights outright, Proview claims that the china rights were held by a second subsidiary, Proview (Shenzhen)

    From http://www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/archive/article/53231/update_apple_appeals_ipad_trademark_lawsuit#When:12:00:00Z

    Apple laid forth a number of views in its appeal, including that the case should be adjudged according to the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; that Proview (Shenzhen) had given written authorization for Proview International Holdings' Taiwan subsidiary, Proview Electronic, to sign a trademark transfer agreement, under the principle of unnamed agency, meaning that all iPad-related trademarks should be considered by the court to have already been transferred by Proview (Shenzhen) to Apple. Apple will also name Proview Electronic as a defendant in the case.

  24. Re:the one and only on Why Linux Vendors Need To Sell More Than Linux · · Score: 1

    Actually Slack is never intended for the entry level user.

    Once upon a time (around slack 2.0) Slackware WAS the entry-level distribution. By far easier to setup than the other distributions.

    Of course, this was before Ubuntu. And Debian. And Redhat. Come to think of it, compared to SLS, it was pretty newbie friendly.

  25. Of course! on Hackers Manipulated Railway Computers, TSA Memo Says · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hackers have been involved in railroads since the very beginning!