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User: aurispector

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  1. Re:Two browsers? on 'Why I'm Switching From Chrome To Firefox and You Should Too' (fastcodesign.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Vivaldi?

    Firefox is kind of bloated and their leadership is succumbing to the "we must be politically active" bullshit.

    Brave is still a work in progress, I refuse to use browsers that send tracking information directly to the big data companies so edge and chrome are out. I didn't realize that opera had been sold to the chinese so that can be assumed to be spyware.

    The picken's are getting slim. Any others out there?

  2. Why no "Idiots" tag? on How WIRED lost $100,000 in Bitcoin (wired.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All this does is highlight one of the many the serious problems relating to cryptocurrency.

  3. Re:Political Mish Mash on Floating Pacific Island Is In the Works With Its Own Government, Cryptocurrency (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    They *already* have to have some form of agreement regulating how the residents help contribute to maintaining the place, hence they have a rudimentary government. Disputes will arise, mechanisms for dealing with future disputes will be agreed upon and it goes from there.

    Beyond governing issues, the physical and logistical challenges of maintaining the islands will be enormous. It remains to be seen if they will be able to generate enough revenue to maintain it.

    And of course, all they have to do is piss off any nation with a navy and the entire thing gets seized.

    It will fail spectacularly and it will be a glorious moment of human hubris.

  4. Re: Actually iOS is safer, more likely to get patc on Android Devices Can Be Fatally Hacked By Malicious Wi-Fi Networks (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    The upside is that most cheap phones are only in service for a year or two at best. Unpatched flaws get thrown away with the phone.

    This kind of thing is uninteresting at this point. Flaws are found, patches are issued and the sun rises every morning. I'd like to see good statistics (which are likely impossible to collect) about the amount of real world harm caused by most of them.

    Far more damaging is people's own idiotic behavior. We have know about HIV floating around for decades yet people still have unprotected sex with relative strangers all the time. You reap what you sow.

  5. Apple has never been consumer friendly on Apple Taken To Court For Refusing To Fix Devices (bbc.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They are more like a boyfriend who is really good looking but kind of an asshole when you really get to know him.

  6. Re:I still don't 'get' realistic war simulations. on Two Studies Suggesting a Link Between Violent Video Games, Real-Life Behavior Have Been Retracted (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    I'd like to point out that in actual real-world wars you have no fucking idea who you just killed, other than it was somebody who was trying to kill you.

  7. or there is another agenda at work. on $7 USB Stick Aims To Bring Thousands of Poor People Online · · Score: 1

    It's also not clear if this is just another get rich quick scheme using poor africans as fodder. When they start talking about selling "inexpensive" devices that are "affordable" your bullshit detector should go off. A while back someone was flogging a solar powered usb battery used to charge cell phones that was going to "revolutionize" etc., these poor african communities for the low low price of $125 or whatever. A quick check of amazon.com revealed a product with identical specs retailing for about half that much. Hence actual cost was probably 30% or more lower.

    In this case, puppy linux has had this capability for several years and thumb drives bought in bulk cost pennies. Exactly whom does this project benefit the most?

  8. Not a problem at all on Startup Employees As an Organized Labor Group · · Score: 1

    Why is this a problem? The entire premise of this article is false. People (at least for now) are free to make their own decisions, no matter how stupid. Don't like the prospects? Get a different job. Encoding this kind of entitlement mentality into law is not only counter to the entire entrepreneurial engine that powers the US economy, but is a death knell for the same. Make the US anything but the absolute best place in the world to start up a business and you kill the start up market. Large established companies don't innovate but they do provide stability. Start ups are exactly the opposite. The entire point is high risk and reward.

  9. Re:20 year old news? on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 2

    Yep. This is one of the coolest things to come out of American car manufacturing in decades and will have a far greater environmental impact than every hybrid vehicle produced thus far. Hybrids will always be a sham feel-good item due to their reliance on expensive exotic materials for the batteries.

    AFAIK this is the first time a major manufacturer has gone all aluminum for a popular mass market product. Cutting weight is something so basic yet so crucial to future auto manufacturers it's a wonder no other manufacturer has tried it, but the cost and risk of switching to aluminum is the most obvious reason. However, due to it's wide use for years in aircraft manufacturing the chief reason would appear to be cost. Other than that there appears to be no reason why it won't succeed.

    Now for the next leap: all composite material vehicles!

  10. Re:Fuck the TSA on TSA Screening Barely Working Better Than Chance · · Score: 2

    Because you can't implant enough to be certain of causing destruction of the plane? It's an interesting question. The fluids thing is actually based on a real threat from binary liquid explosives so the ban on larger bottles is rational. The other thing is that the screening process was developed in Israel and has been found effective in identifying terrorists. It's hard to find an actual terrorist bent on killing in order to test the method but Israeli experience is a good indicator.

    The point is that perhaps the way they're measuring "effectiveness" of the technique is fatally flawed, not to make a pun.

  11. Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... on Venezuela: Cheap Television Sets For All! · · Score: 1

    You have absolutely no clue about the economics of health care or economics in general. Importation has nothing to do with the failures of socialism. One of the main drivers of increased cost is malpractice liability and neither obamacare nor socialism do anything to address that. Your apparently unquestioned belief in the good obamacare will supposedly deliver, betrays your lack of critical thinking skills. I suggest you look up something they call the "law of supply and demand" for more information. If you artificially decrease prices as is being done in venezuela for televisions and in the US for health care, supply drops. In the case of the US health care market, the fact that primary care physicians are leaving the profession in droves should be a clue. Sure, you can replace them with less well trained proviiders like nurse practitioners but then overall quality suffers. Of course, a good party member toes the line for political correctness. March forward into bright, shining future of democratic party, comrade!

  12. Re:Do Away With This Disease? on Malaria Vaccine Nearing Reality · · Score: 1

    Many of the areas hardest hit by malaria are the same areas stricken by endemic poverty, corruption, famine, etc.. There is a long way to go before curing malaria even puts a dent in their problems.

  13. Re:Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already. on Rupert Murdoch Wants To Destroy Australia's National Broadband Network · · Score: 1

    You aren't cynical, you're realistic, which is exactly why government has no business being in, well, business. The political influences present in an open market are a thousand times worse when the it's government that is the only player.

    I swear, half of the people posting here have never been in the real world, the other half don't understand the meaning of the word "politics".

  14. Re:Rupert Murdoch can die in a hole already. on Rupert Murdoch Wants To Destroy Australia's National Broadband Network · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you're not making money, you're losing money. But only a government can simply tax you for more or worse borrow it and let your kids pay it back.

    Put the government in charge of the Sahara desert and in five years it will run out of sand. Any organization tends toward inefficiency. A free and open competitive market tends to put pressure on participants to be efficient.

    Governments have no idea how to run a tech (or any) business except to make it late, over budget and under spec. Every decision is made for political rather than economic reasons. The only people who think that's a good idea are fools that thing government is always good, or wolves that want the power.

    Which are you?

  15. When tech companies start being run by business... on Alcatel-Lucent Cuts Go Deeper — 7,500 Jobs Gone and Counting · · Score: 1

    Anytime a tech company starts being run by business types they tank. The business guys have no idea what really drives the company and inevitably see R&D as an unnecessary expense. HP went from a tech innovator to a company pimping branded products made in china and designed by monkeys.

    It's only when you get that rare combination of technical AND business savvy that you get an Apple or HP in the first place.

  16. Re:too much (underlying) left-wing bias for my tas on Google Engineer Wins NSA Award, Then Says NSA Should Be Abolished · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This times eleventy billion. If congress, etc., didn't want the NSA they could change it. Besides, the ability to view private communication has been a core capability and even the purpose of national spy organizations forever.

    The larger question is what government is allowed to do with it. Honestly it would be disappointing, even outrageous if the NSA didn't have the technical ability to collect this kind of data. Being on the cutting edges of information gathering and technology were crucial in the allies winning WW2, for instance. Certainly russia and china are champing at the bit to do it. This is the major reason why they keep pushing to "decentralize the internet" and wrest control from the US for their own purposes.

    The hijacking of government for political purposes (e.g., the IRS scandal) is far more worrying simply because it's a clear indicator that those in power have no qualms about abusing it. Hence ultimately you could blame not congress but rather the electorate.

  17. Re: 29 years old on Silicon Valley In 2013 Resembles Logan's Run In 2274 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gosh darn that silly market for determining wages.

    It's not just the IT market, it's ANY market - if you're over 40 and don't have very specific technical skills you're unemployable.

    No company wants the increased wage and insurance costs, not to mention having to deal with employees who actually know how to negotiate instead of being fearfully compliant.

    Of course, walmart is hiring. There is that.

  18. Re:Conjunctivitis on How NASA Steers the Int'l Space Station Around Asteroids & Other Debris · · Score: 2

    ...and here is a perfect example of why Slashdot is a moribund husk of it's former self.

  19. Re:Sorry, you're wrong here. on With Sales Down, Whale Meat Flogged As Source of Strength · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The "corporations" are not greedy. Saying they are is like saying guns kill people. The PEOPLE that run the corporations are responsible. Furthermore, their actions are entirely legal under Japanese law - laws set by their elected government.

    It's really no different that that old "beef, it's what's for dinner!" ad campaign. Running an ad campaign is simply an effort to sell their product and maintain cash flow so everyone working for the corporation still has a job. The part you seem not to grasp is that if they go broke, they can't simply tax rich people for more money like a socialist government. Run out of money and everyone is out of a job.

    In the end, if the Japanese decide they don't like whaling it they can vote for representatives who can change the laws. In the meantime it's simple supply and demand. Economic forces are what will ultimately stop whaling, not a bunch of whining hippies.

  20. Re:Mostly good except for electronics counterfeiti on Multiple Studies Show Used Electronics Exports To Third World Mostly Good · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And greenpeace just making up statistics to support their agenda? Unthinkable!

  21. Re:New phone every month? on The Days of Cheap, Subsidized Phones May Be Numbered · · Score: 0

    WHO doesn't need a smartphone? For anyone who works and needs email and web access it's a must-have. I could not function anywhere near as efficiently without one. Phone, email, scheduling/calender/contacts all go everywhere with me. Google maps is extremely useful on the road. It's not a ball and chain, it's the key to freedom - otherwise I would be stuck at a desk all day.

  22. Re:Topsoil-based fuels are wrongheaded in every wa on 'Energy Beet' Power Is Coming To America · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Note that it's a government grant, not private industry. This is basically political patronage; whatever people running it will be contributing heavily to whatever political party was responsible for the grant. If sugar beets were a viable fuel source someone would be doing it already.

    This just shifts the problem from one of directly increasing world corn (and therefore food) prices by diverting corn production to fuel to one of indirectly increasing world food priced by diverting farmland from food production to fuel production.

    The worst part is that large scale farming has a significant environmental impact in terms of pesticide and fertilizer use as well as runoff into waterways. We don't gain much benefit from carbon reductions and a lot of costs from the farming itself.

    It's a dead end and everyone knows it. Political hypocrisy at it's finest.

  23. Re:No on Could Twitter Have Stopped the Media's Rush To War In Iraq Ten Years Ago? · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    By every measure the Iraq war was a screaming success. Saddam hanged, their military de-fanged and a regional force for totalitarianism neutered. The surge worked, despite democratic hand wringing to the contrary, including obama and kerry.

    The democrats will never admit as such, so they and their media sycophants continue to bang the drum that the war was a failure. It wasn't and history will reflect that.

  24. Re:So then... on Gov't Report: Laser Pointers Produce Too Much Energy, Pose Risk For the Careless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's why we can't have nice things. Idiots point lasers at aircraft blinding the pilots and the .gov bans them. Nobody has any common sense.

  25. Re:Typo in summary on West Virginia Won't Release Broadband Report Because It Is 'Embarrassing' · · Score: 1

    Corporations operate under laws created by government. They do wield influence and most people are incredibly stupid, Hence government needs to be limited.

    There is corruption and waste in every organization. Concentration power in the hands of the government is simply asking for politics to be included in that toxic mix.