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User: Simulant

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Comments · 679

  1. If you are well off, you can afford the fantasy? on The Mathematical Case For Buying a Powerball Ticket · · Score: 1


    Justify your purchase however you like but ultimately state lotteries are a highly hypocritical tax on the poor & middle class who don't do math well.
    I know people making minimum wage who purchase a ticket or two every single day of their lives. It's kind of sad. The only thing sadder is that my kid's school now depends on these people for funding.

    If we are ok with allowing the state to promote vice, I'd rather my government just sold me recreational drugs.

  2. Re:Yes meanwhile.. on Google Quietly Unveils Android 5.1 Lollipop · · Score: 1

    " Looking at Windows phone is like forgoing a wife who needs time to become accustomed to being a wife for a $2 whore that you saw hanging out it in the seedier areas of town, all in the hopes of a long term relationship."

    LOL... yes and I feel dirty just thinking about it.

  3. Re:Yes meanwhile.. on Google Quietly Unveils Android 5.1 Lollipop · · Score: 1

    To be fair, the 2012 N7 is broken to begin with... yet Google somehow gets to pretend it isn't.
    Google seems to get away with far less customer service than most other companies.

  4. Re:Yes meanwhile.. on Google Quietly Unveils Android 5.1 Lollipop · · Score: 4, Interesting


    I'd lay much of the blame at Google's feet. 5.01 remains pretty broken on my Nexus 4. The carriers are wise not to jump on it.
    For two months now I've lived with a dialer that takes 3-4 seconds to respond to screen touches and random, complete phone lockups (about 1 every few days)
    I'm not the only one: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=81593... and NO ACKNOWLEDGEMENT from Google.

    I have a phone that can't reliably perform the most basic function of a phone and I'm fairly pissed off about it at this point... Windows phone is looking like a real possibility now. And you can forget about converting my iphone using wife. She's laughing her ass off.

  5. Re:Charms Bar vs Action Center on Windows 10: Charms Bar Removed, No Start Screen For Desktops · · Score: 1

    I've always found the Action Center to be an unwanted middle-man. If it's going to be central now, please make it quicker to get to. Right now I have to aim, click, aim again, and click again. I'm sure there's a hot key but the extra aim/click can go, IMO. Or add a double-click option.

  6. Re:Be afraid, be very afraid on Microsoft Reveals Windows 10 Will Be a Free Upgrade · · Score: 1

    If Microsoft said it then it must be true.

  7. Re:Fact: Free Trade doesn't work on IEEE: New H-1B Bill Will "Help Destroy" US Tech Workforce · · Score: 1


    If you condemn free trade without condemning capitalism in general, all you are doing is redrawing the lines so they suit you. Capitalism, in the long term, seems fundamentally incompatible with basic human decency (and most religious morality) and will eventually produce gross inequalities. As Americans, possibly as humans, this usually doesn't bother us as long as we perceive ourselves to be ahead or at least believe we have a path to get ahead.

  8. Lollipop is broken for many. on Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake? · · Score: 1


    Very broken. The dialer isn't even reliable. (https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=81593)
    Not to mention that the interface is more inconsistent than ever.

    OEMs are wise to wait a bit and I now fully realize that as a Nexus owner, I'm a beta tester. I might reconsider my next purchase.

  9. Re:Well understood technologies ... on US CTO Tries To Wean the White House Off Floppy Disks · · Score: 1

    She complains of having to use a laptop from 2013? WTF? The same goes for the Blackberry, if it's doing it's job - what's the problem that it's not "cutting edge"?

    The problem here isn't the technology the White House is using, the problem is a manager without a clue. (Which shouldn't come as a real surprise, as she doesn't appear to have any actual qualifications for the job other than having worked at Google.)



    Is she complaining or the NYT? I couldn't tell.
  10. Why leave home? on Box Office 2014: Moviegoing Hits Two-Decade Low · · Score: 1

    There are only 1 or 2 movies a year which I feel are worth a trip to the cinema. Anything else can wait to be watched on my home system which, like most these days, delivers a very nice viewing experience. I still feel like most of what I watch is crap though and wouldn't cry if there were less of it.

    Sometimes I feel we are all "fiddling" while "Rome" burns. And while I know I'm getting old, watching people do horrible things to each other is not as fun as it used to be... it's just more explicit. Extreme violence seems to be the lowest common denominator in TV & cinema.

  11. Re:Call Comcast? on Ask Slashdot: How To Unblock Email From My Comcast-Hosted Server? · · Score: 1

    My employer runs their entire business on Comcast business class internet and we are not being blocked as you describe. Are you sure something else isn't going on?

    That said, I also run my own mail server at home, on a comcast consumer connection, and I use google's mail servers to proxy my outbound mail. I got in on free google apps for your domain account back during the beta... but you may be able to pull this off with a normal gmail account. Just set your mail server to forward through googles smtp servers using your gmail credentials. Not sure if this will work if your reply to address domain is not hosted by google.
    What really sucks is that Comcast also blocks inbound port 25 on consumer accounts so I have my mail delivered to google and then I transfer it to my own mail server via pop/imap, in theory leaving nothing on the google servers but probably rather pointless in practice. This is what I'm reduced to unless I wan't to pay more for a business connection. There has never been any such thing as net neutrality at the consumer level here, afaict. Every internet connection I've ever had has been asynchronous and limited in some way.

  12. I'm less disgusted by the people responsible... on Discovery Claims It Will Show a Man Being "Eaten Alive" By an Anaconda · · Score: 2

    I'm less disgusted by the people responsible for this than I am by the people who are going to tune in to watch it, but not by much.

  13. Against it. on Ask Slashdot: Where Do You Stand on Daylight Saving Time? · · Score: 1


    Partly because I'm now posting on Slashdot at 5 am but mainly because it was a silly idea to begin with. As if pretending that it's an hour later than it actually is would improve the lives of the majority.

  14. This is America... on Is the Outrage Over the FBI's Seattle Times Tactics a Knee-Jerk Reaction? · · Score: 2

    ... and if there's nothing to be outraged about we'll manufacture it.

  15. Planet Money has credibility here? on NPR: '80s Ads Are Responsible For the Lack of Women Coders · · Score: 1



    One of the worst shows on NPR if you ask me.

  16. All my LEDs still work. on The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy · · Score: 1

    hmmm.... I've got 20 or so LED bulbs in my house, installed over the last 2-3 years and have not lost one. Most are Phillips, purchases when on sale. The most I ever paid for one was about $15 and the latest ones cost $5.

    I've gotten better results with LED than either CFL or incandescent.

  17. Re:Capitalism is enamored with Fascism on Why a Chinese Company Is the Biggest IPO Ever In the US · · Score: 2

    Profit trumps ethics.

  18. Re:half nonsense on The Minecraft Parent · · Score: 1

    It's relatively safe environment if you run your own invite-only server. If the setup is too much to handle, you can rent one.

  19. Re:It is not just the "extra" channels... on Verizon Working On a La Carte Internet TV Service · · Score: 1

    It sounded to me like the author just wants some of us to continue to subsidize his ESPN viewing.
    There is literally nothing on basic cable I miss after 15 years of no cable. HBO was extra anyway.

  20. Re:Abject brand mismanagement on Microsoft Killing Off Windows Phone Brand Name In Favor of Just Windows · · Score: 1

    Microsoft is trying to be Google and Apple at the same time and they will likely fail badly at both.
    All because they can never stop growing....

  21. Re:No surprise here on L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing · · Score: 1

    The US mainstream press has rarely been more than a non-analytical echo chamber for US policy, or worse yet, has/had an agenda of it's own (Hearst... Murdoch) What good is a press that merely repeats what the government says? A press that gives equal credence to two sides no matter how ridiculous one (or both) might be? A press that only bares it's teeth for scandal no matter how inconsequential? A press beholden to advertisers over readers?

    At least now, we have variety at our fingertips if we wish, but it's hard not to be cynical about any of it. I personally think that Google News has been the best thing to happen to news in this century as at least we can now easily get a (theoretically) random sampling of all kinds of coverage, flawed though that coverage may be. It makes it a little easier for the critical reader to figure out what's really going on.

  22. Re:Binoculars on Slashdot Asks: Cheap But Reasonable Telescopes for Kids? · · Score: 1

    Binoculars won't cut it if you want to see Jupiter's moons or Saturn's rings. Even if they have the magnification you still need a tripod to hold the view steady and you really need something with an equatorial mount to follow the objects or they will slip out of view very quickly I used to have a 90mm refractor with a manual equatorial mount (you had to rotate with knobs).. I'd go electric if I got one today... especially if a bunch of kid's are taking turns looking through the thing.

  23. Re:My wife has a Twist too... on Microsoft Surface Drowning? · · Score: 1

    I find that my Twist has twitchy or broken touch & mouse control. All pointers can randomly jump around no matter if you are using the trackpoint, touchpad or external mouse. Touch misses so often it's practically useless for anything other than launching apps. Auto-rotate is unreliable and frequently sticks in the wrong orientation. I expect (or hope) that these hardware problems don't exist on the Surface but I would still expect any Windows 8.1 hybrid to act like a slow tablet and mediocre laptop combined into one device which frequently does what you did not mean to ask it to.... Even the appearance is hard to get used to. I can't see the windows controls/scroll bars very well, for instance, no matter the color scheme.

  24. Re:I have a Lenovo Miix 2 11" on Microsoft Surface Drowning? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've got a Lenovo Twist and it is, by far, the most frustrating device I've ever used. It's partially Lenovo's fault for bloatware & minor hardware issues but mostly I blame it on the schizophrenic OS that is Windows 8.1. Want to use it as tablet? Try manipulating that file with your fingers when a default app takes you to the desktop. Want to use it as a desktop? Whoops... That file just opened up in some crippled, full screen metro app...
    Just want to login to the damn thing? Why is the screen stuck upside down? I just pulled a neck muscle.... <Sigh>

  25. Re:Yay.. This is easy to imagine on Microsoft's CEO Says He Wants to Unify Windows · · Score: 2

    You'd think someone would have thought to allow separate default apps for desktop/tablet mode. Launching a file from one mode only to have it open in the other is aggravating hell... desktop windows controls don't work well with touch input.. not on my 8.1 tab/laptop anyway. And if you went the other way, you find yourself in a crippled metro app that doesn't have the function you were looking for.