Slashdot Mirror


User: kamapuaa

kamapuaa's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2,004
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2,004

  1. Re:Big Old Liar on Maps Suggest Marco Polo May Have "Discovered" America · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a little stronger than "ha ha I forgot to mention, you don't have to leave tips!" He (essentially) wrote a book about China, and didn't mention chopsticks, foot-binding, or tea? But does mention a race of men who had dog-heads instead of human-heads? He also claimed to be governor of Yangzhou and other obvious bullshit.

    Centuries before Marco Polo, Arab Traders were well-established in China, Italians had extensive contacts with the Persian and Arab world, and it seems very likely that Marco Polo just compiled stories he had heard. We know his stories were full of BS, exactly how much is BS is impossible to say.

  2. Re:The industry will NEVER allow you free energy.. on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    Currently, of course the government is actually heavily subsidizing solar power for the home. Not taxing it out of existence.

  3. Re:Why not KDE on Debian Switching Back To GNOME As the Default Desktop · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've used OS X for 4-5 years and have used Unity since it came out, and I find them very similar. There's differences, but they're much more like each other than they're like Windows. My wife, who isn't a computer person and has always used Macs, occasionally uses Unity on my laptop, and finds it almost the same as Mac except the colors are different.

    Jeff

  4. Re:Mind boggling on Now That It's Private, Dell Targets High-End PCs, Tablets · · Score: 2

    Shareholders are very happy with risk, as long as the potential profits justify the risk. Nobody would invest in junk bonds if they didn't pay better rates, nobody would invest in Amazon if there wasn't the possibility that it will one day become the largest company in the world...

    Amazon is an excellent counter-example. It's a publicly traded stock with ambitious plans that has made money in just one of the previous eight quarters, and yet the stock market values the company at $150 Billion, because they see the value of its long-term plans over the value of short-term profits. Even when it has bizarre public plans like drone delivery or entering the cell phone business or a huge network of redundant warehouses.

  5. Re:Comparable? Not really. on Is Alibaba Comparable To a US Company? · · Score: 1

    Sure, it's a lot of luck to day trade stocks, you might as well go to Vegas. However, over time the US economy and stock market has consistently gone up. Just buying and holding a broad spectrum of stocks or a good mutual fund has long been a way for average investors to make a pretty good return, just for doing nothing with their money.

    If you simply bought an incredibly boring total market mutual fund 5 years ago and held on to it, your money would have doubled already.

  6. While we're coming up with nonsense ideas - If you put it in your closet, it can pick out your entire wardrobe!

  7. Re:A non-UNIX OS in a UNIX world? on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 0

    Windows is 90%+ of the desktop market, 90% of the office suite market. I don't think separate companies be better at developing Windows Phone. Basically, your idea is wrong and you should feel bad.

  8. They exist, but they typically have 1 gig ram memory, 4-8 gigs internal storage, a crappy camera. The screen is lower-resolution, the external speaker is on the weak side. Build quality and reliability is a bit lower.

    They're perfectly usable, and for a kid they're fine (although kids do load up on apps, which might be a problem with a cheaper phone).

    The point was that they're phones you're going to want to upgrade before too long. Whereas a computer is fine for 5 or more years, unless you're a gamer.

  9. Drones are being used. on Drone-Based Businesses: Growing In Canada, Grounded In the US · · Score: 1

    Drones are pretty commonly used. My friend who does aerial photography tells me that drones are pretty much taking over real estate. Drones are used for investigating animal rights claims, are commonly used in agriculture, are being researched by Amazon as a near-future way to deliver packages...I just don't see drones as something being grounded by over-regulation.

  10. Re: I can simply ignore all health and diet advice on Link Between Salt and High Blood Pressure 'Overstated' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Cigarettes are undeniably bad. So are trans-fats, alcohol overconsumption, and too much stress.

    The issue is that health publications yry to extend everything into being undeniably bad, on the scale of smoking, when in fact the food or habit may only be bad in certsin cases. One current theory on salt is that diabetics, the overweight, and blacks are higher risk groups for salt being linked to blood pressure, but for the large majority of people there is no association. Of course that's boring health advice, people like to hear something strong like "quit now and live longer," so health claims get wildly exaggerated.

  11. She deserved it. on Researcher Fired At NSF After Government Questions Her Role As 1980s Activist · · Score: 1

    Read the article. The terrorist group wasn't tangentially related to the organizations she belonged too, they were "affiliated." As in, "officially attached to or connected." Not "oh a few people were in both groups," like many people are suggesting. The article doesn't explain the connection, but presumably they were all of the same blanket organization. She visited a convicted terrorist from the group in prison, suggesting that she knew the terrorists and was in an organization that she knew was connected to terrorism, even if she herself did not assist with any terrorist acts.

    Knowing terrorists and having been tangentially involved in a terrorist organization is not in itself a crime, but yes without a doubt that is something she should have disclosed. Essentially, she lied on her background check and got fired. Good.

    Of course not everything should be asked on background checks. I think it's fair to say, sexuality shouldn't be asked, or political affiliation, or a number of other things. The potential for abuse is too high. But if you can't ask employees if they have a connection to terrorism, what are background checks for at all?

  12. Re:What makes you think it was environmentalists? on To Really Cut Emissions, We Need Electric Buses, Not Just Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    Also, there are other nations, such and France and Japan, who have used nuclear power extensively and done quite a bit of research and still haven't developed Mr. Fusion. The US power industry isn't the only R&D in the world.

  13. Re:So what exactly is the market here. on Apple Announces Smartwatch, Bigger iPhones, Mobile Payments · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because right now, Apple faithful only need a single iphone. If it was possible, Apple would love to sell them a second iphone for their other hand, but that doesn't quite work due to usability issues. This technology boldly allows people to have an iphone for both their left and their right hand.

  14. Re:Doesn't this pretty much kill 4chan? on After Celebrity Photo Leaks, 4chan Introduces DMCA Policy · · Score: 1

    Depends on the board. I'm not a huge 4-channer, but I know /fit/ posts can last 12 hours, and glancing at a slower board, /cgl/ posts last for a few days.

  15. Re:I never realized how bad it was on Facebook Blamed For Driving Up Cellphone Bills, But It's Not Alone · · Score: 0

    It's that cheap/easy in the US too, just people whine about it. I get the cheapest and it's 1 gig for $30/month, and after that it throttles down, it doesn't charge extra.

    And realistically, I can't see people using more than a couple megs of data on low-quality Facebook videos.

  16. Re:Stop Making Up Words! on Reno Selected For Tesla Motors Battery Factory · · Score: 3, Informative

    Am I missing something? Reno is a ten hour drive from Mexico.

  17. $90 deductible on Why Phone Stores Should Stockpile Replacements · · Score: 2

    Like everybody else says, this article is stupid. BUT THERE'S MORE!

    T-Mobile sells a number of Android phones for less than the deductible of $90. $50 Alcatels, for instance, or the Nokia Windowphone. The LG L90 is a half-decent phone, better than the LG F3 he broke, for $100. Or he could even use the money to get a better phone. People use their cell phones a lot, presumably Bennett Hasselton is gainfully employed, it would have been worth the $1/day.

    Why would a person who is pinching pennies by getting a crappy phone also spend money on a high-deductible insurance policy, on a phone that probably cost him $200 new in the first place?

  18. Re:"Book Deserts"? WTF? on E-Books On a $20 Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    Of course the idea is that some areas don't have libraries (and likely don't have bookstores). My current city is fairly large, 225,000 people, and basically only has one library.

    Reading on computers and phones and e-readers is indeed an alternative for people who live in such areas. I love my e-reader, but just because it's easier I read on my cell phone almost as much. It may seem ridiculous, but you quickly adapt and honestly I don't really mind it. It works for fiction, not so much for a cookbook or programming book or something where you'd want to flip back and look over pages.

  19. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... on Grand Ayatollah Says High Speed Internet Is "Against Moral Standards" · · Score: 1

    If man is five then the devil is six. If the devil is six then god is seven.

  20. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... on Grand Ayatollah Says High Speed Internet Is "Against Moral Standards" · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except no...a little Googling shows that first mention of the number is in a widely distributed book from 2nd century Christian author Irenaeus, who affirms that the number is 666, and mentions some texts with the wrong number. The only evidence for 616 is an old papyrus from the 3rd century. It may be the oldest known copy of the book of Revelations, but it wasn't the original copy, the text was written 150 years earlier. Furthermore, papyrus was valuable and was often re-used, so it may not even be the oldest known version of Revelations.

    In order to prove that the original number was 616, one would have to find either the original version of the text, or a large number of texts (from various locales) which wrote 616, or perhaps have a well-regarded and well-preserved early Christian author like Irenaeus or Augustine say that the actual number was 616.

  21. Re:Aboriginal First Nations on DNA Reveals History of Vanished "Paleo-Eskimos" · · Score: 1

    Oh, that proves that Indians didn't get fucked over by last 500 years of history! Very convenient!

  22. Re:Today's "Natives" eliminated the Clovis culture on DNA Reveals History of Vanished "Paleo-Eskimos" · · Score: 2

    There is a lot of scientific reasons to doubt the Solutrean hypothesis, and very little scientific reason to back it. For instance, the lack of DNA or linguistic similarities. As of now, it is a theory mostly supported by the Discovery channel and such.

    40 thousand years of contact, with no evidence to show for it? It seems very unlikely. There's been pretty good written records in Europe for more than 2,000 years, surely if there was constant contact with the New World there would have been some kind of record. And monopolization of the East-West trade didn't cause exploring. The lack of Mongolian monopolization was the reason for the push. Pre-Roman civilization simply wasn't complex enough or sea-going enough to travel across the Atlantic.

  23. Re:Impressive on Anand Lal Shimpi Retires From AnandTech · · Score: 1

    GP meant "laudable" in the sense of "undertaken under the influence of laudanum."

  24. Story is false on Google's Megan Smith Would Be First US CTO Worthy of the Title · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the link BY THE FUCKING CONTRIBUTOR HIMSELF:

    Prior to his career in government, Park was the co-founder of two successful health information technology companies.

    So a man who started two IT companies by the age of 35 doesn't have a background in Technology, because he got a graduate degree in business?

  25. My wife makes fun of me... on Ask Slashdot: What Old Technology Can't You Give Up? · · Score: 2

    My wife makes fun of me, but

    1) Film cameras...I have a bunch but mostly use the Olympus Stylus Epic. Get them developed & scanned at Costco for a few dollars. I also have (and use) a phone camera and a DSLR, but film cameras are pocket-able and pictures look great.

    2) Records - Mostly it's just for fun, but fuck the haters - my 180 gram jazz LPs sound WAY better than any CD or MP3 and NO it's not psychosomatic.

    3) Dreamcast - shit is fun, although the HD re-make of "Jet Set Radio" makes my Dreamcast far less essential.

    4) 1950s Yamaha Guitar - not a classic, but the age helps, mostly it's sentimental (my grandmother gave it to me).