Slashdot Mirror


User: neminem

neminem's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,608
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,608

  1. Re:ASUS Acer on We'll Be the Last PC Company Standing, Acer CEO Says · · Score: 1

    MSIs are indeed pretty great, in my admittedly small experience of one machine. My current laptop is an MSI - I was a little hesitant at the time to get a machine from a moderately unknown company, and one with, I've heard, pretty crap support, but the price and specs were fantastic at the time, I figured it couldn't *possibly* be worse than the HP I was replacing.

    4 1/2 years later, this is the longest I've gone on a single laptop yet, since I got my first one... dang, almost 20 years ago. Haven't had to call support even once, and this is a machine I use daily. (I did have to replace the keyboard a few months ago, but it was a 10 buck ebay purchase and an easy self-swap. The plastic around the bottom of the screen is also cracking, but all the mechanical and electronic parts seem to still be working perfectly.) I would absolutely buy another MSI when my current machine eventually did die (other than, I'd be sad, that I would be forced to buy a stupid 16:9 screen no matter where I looked...)

    MSIs are pretty cool... still sad Fujitsu pretty much completely got out of the "desktop replacement" market. My first couple laptops were Fujitsus, and that was a quality brand. Now they mostly just make ultrabooks and stuff.

  2. Re:"lawful" on Drone Killed Hostages From U.S. and Italy, Drawing Obama Apology · · Score: 1

    Heh. It just now occurred to me just precisely how appropriate Harry Dresden's name is, given the frequency with which he, intentionally or unintentionally, burns down buildings.

  3. Re:Google should just buy Sprint and T-Mo on Google Launches Project Fi Mobile Phone Service · · Score: 2

    Just use Ting.

    Ting was also a Sprint-only MVNO, until a few months ago, when they started supporting T-Mobile as well. They do allow you to do use any device that is capable of connecting to either of those providers, and their plan is, while not quite the same as Google's, the most similar of any existing provider.

  4. Re:How does this set a precedent for more lawsuits on German Court Rules Adblock Plus Is Legal · · Score: 1

    Oh yeah, that's reasonable. I can see how the sentence could be open to that interpretation - I only saw the "in relation to" parse the first time, but I can see how both would be valid parses (but only one would actually be a true statement :p).

  5. Re:How does this set a precedent for more lawsuits on German Court Rules Adblock Plus Is Legal · · Score: 1

    Huh? A precedent means that there have been rulings on a subject. Clearly, there have now been rulings on the subject. There being a precedent doesn't say, without further specification, which *way* the precedent went...

  6. Re:What happens... on LAUSD OKs Girls-Only STEM School, Plans Boys-Only English Language Arts School · · Score: 1

    Context? Sources? I went to Harvey Mudd (admittedly several years ago, maybe this is something new?), and have no idea what you're talking about - punishing male students for being "macho"? Yes, everyone knows it's easier to get into top tech schools if you're female, but that's not remotely specific to Harvey Mudd, and doesn't have anything to do with "punishing" or being "macho"...

  7. Re: AAA studio? on 2K, Australia's Last AAA Studio, Closes Its Doors · · Score: 0

    It's not about quality at all - there are tons of awful, buggy, moronic AAA games. It's not about quality - it's about *budget*.

  8. Re:Better on Can Online Reporting System Help Prevent Sexual Assaults On Campus? · · Score: 1

    Fun fact: if it's nonconsentual, it's still rape even if it's your wife. Wait, actually by fun I meant "totally the opposite of fun", sorry about that.

  9. Real question on Google Sunsetting Old Version of Google Maps · · Score: 1

    Will anyone be willing to create a working "theoldmaps.com" to go along with "theoldreader.com"? Because the new and nominally-"improved" google maps definitely doesn't work particularly well on my home computer, and having a working google maps is pretty much necessary.

  10. Re:Some Republicans oppose campaign finance limits on Gyro-Copter Lands On West Lawn of US Capitol, Pilot Arrested · · Score: 1

    > "dudebro pissbaby fuckboy"

    Next up on stage, Pissbaby Fuckboy!

  11. a mailman from Ruskin, Florida on Gyro-Copter Lands On West Lawn of US Capitol, Pilot Arrested · · Score: 0

    > "An anonymous reader writes that Doug Hughes, 61, a mailman from Ruskin, Florida"...

    I'm tired, and managed to somehow read that as "a mailman from Russia". I was pretty impressed with the guy's dedication, flying a gyro-copter all the way to DC!

  12. Re: Choose the right people on Road To Mars: Solving the Isolation Problem · · Score: 1

    Nice troll.

    Introversion *is* a thing. You might not believe it (or you might just be a troll), but plenty of people actually don't want nonstop social interaction, and voluntarily choose to be left alone. They may not even be ostracized at all!

    Now, do introverts want to be 100% alone all the time? No, they usually have a few friends they see fairly often, and are usually happy to be more widely social every so often, just not all the time. But mostly they would be just as happy having a few friends, and *not* ever going to big parties or anything, too.

    I doubt a Mars mission would only send a single person, so, mission accomplished? (As far as this one problem, which seems tiny compared to all the jillion other bigger problems with sending people to Mars, goes.)

  13. Half-right, maybe... on Smartphone-Enabled Replicators Are 3-5 Years Away, Caltech Professor Says · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I *can* imagine the possibility that within 5 years, we'd have portable enough 3d imagers and powerful enough phones to both stick the hardware in a phone-sized device and have a phone-sized device run the required software. I have no real understanding of how the physics of that would really work, granted, but it doesn't seem totally outside the bounds of possibility.

    But that's just the input. I *can't* really imagine the possibility that within 5 years, we'd have powerful enough *printers* to take the output of such a precise scanner, and recreate it anywhere near so precise, even if you're only talking about an object made entirely out of one or two kinds of plastic, which is unlikely to be the sort of object people would really want to "replicate". "Just about anything"? Yeah right.

    Wake me up when we can replicate food, say, and have it taste the same as the original. Will we see that in my lifetime? Maybe, if I'm lucky. Will we see that in 3-5 years? I'd bet quite a lot of money on "no", and I'm not a betting sort of person.

  14. Re:Isn't John Oliver fucking awesome!?! on Snowden Demystified: Can the Government See My Junk? · · Score: 1

    > Are you pissed off enough to take the time to hand-write a letter to your congressional rep? Are you pissed off enough to get 20 people to sign it? These aren't monumental tasks, nor are they expensive.

    They also aren't terribly *useful*. I'm pissed off too, but I'm not so pissed off that I'm going to hire a bunch of people to go door to door to get the signatures that would be required to get something on the ballot, which even if it passed, they'd probably just sneakily ignore it anyway.

    Public opinion and people actually knowing it happens is way more important than your congressman knowing about it (anyway, he probably already does, probably thinks it sucks, but knows that if he ever tried to touch it, he'd be labeled as not "tough on crime" and his career would be over.)

  15. Re:Why bother? on Judge Allows Divorce Papers To Be Served Via Facebook · · Score: 1

    A few years ago, I got served a lawsuit regarding a person entirely unrelated to me, but who happened to have the same name as me and live in the same city. When they couldn't track him down at his home, they found *me* listed as working at my work address, and gave it to me instead. I called him frantically, he said that's fine, mistakes happen, he was sure I wasn't the guy, he'd talk to his server and he was sure it was a mistake.

    He called back the next day, said the server confirmed I was totally the guy he had a picture of (very unlikely, given I'm like 15 years younger...). I actually had to get a lawyer to get the guy to back off me. Luckily my mom knows a jillion people, and a friend of a friend of hers said he'd be happy to send the guy a nastygram on my behalf pro-bono. When the guy heard from an actual lawyer, he must have decided it wasn't worth it and went back to actually tracking down the guy that was supposed to get it, because I never heard back from him again.

    So yeah. Not at all surprised there are a lot of awful lazy process servers out there who would rather just drop a lawsuit off randomly then actually make sure they gave it to the person who deserved it.

  16. Re:Hate groups should die on Hugo Awards Turn (Even More) Political · · Score: 1

    Come on, at least properly quote Tom Lehrer: "There are people out there who don't love their fellow man... and I hate people like that."

  17. New Microsoft Slogan: on Microsoft Rolls Out Project Spartan With New Windows 10 Build · · Score: 1

    Give them nothing! But take from them... everything!

  18. Don't hire douchebags on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With User Resignation From an IT Perspective? · · Score: 1

    And if you do discover that you have inadvertently hired a douchebag, fire them already.

    As a consultant, I have privs to do all kinds of damage in all sorts of places to not only my company, but any number of companies I'm doing work for or have done work for in the past.

    First off, I'm not a dick; even if I were leaving because the company had shafted me horrifically, rather than, as it sounds like here, because I hypothetically just found some other opportunity that suited me more... even then, even if I felt like being vindictive (unlikely), I'd still restrict any harm I thought I could get away with causing, to those people who actually deserved it, not indiscriminately start screwing things up in a way that would harm all kinds of other people who had nothing to do with whatever hypothetical thing I'm imagining the company had done. Anyone who you imagine might start deleting crap out of random databases or whatever, you should can the guy right now, cause what's stopping him from doing that *now* over some slight, real or imagined?

    But secondly and far more importantly, if I were that sort of person, and I was disgruntled, do you think I'd tell you and give you a chance to lock me out? That'd be pretty stupid. If I were disgruntled and wanted to cause harm and then quit, I would obviously do it *in that order*. cause I mean... duh?

  19. Re:Easy Solution on Broadband ISP Betrayal Forces Homeowner To Sell New House · · Score: 1

    Fixing that for you:
    > If it turns out they can't provide service, they'll claim they refunded your deposit, but never actually send you a refund. When you call them later that month to ask about it, they'll insist that they did, redirect you a couple times to people who don't have your information, then eventually say they'll call you back tomorrow about it, which they also won't do.

  20. What does this have to do with London or NYC? on Russian Official Proposes Road That Could Connect London To NYC · · Score: 1

    When a headline says a road is proposed to connect "London to NYC", it's hard to imagine that could possibly mean anything else but the truly mind-bogglingly dumb idea of creating a road all the way across the Atlantic ocean. Which would be hilarious, but rather monumentally unlikely.

    The actual proposal, which I've seen before, so it's not like it's a totally new idea, would connect Alaska with Russia, thus connecting the western US with Asia. Would still be stupidly expensive, but not *impossibly* so, and would be fantastic for shipping. But I can't imagine it would be the best way to ship something from NYC to London or reverse? They're both basically coastal on the Atlantic, and we're talking about connecting the *Pacific*. It would connect London to NYC in the same way that it would connect Denver to Zimbabwe.

    I don't think it's a terrible idea, though.

  21. Re:Safety Speed on Ford's New Car Tech Prevents You From Accidentally Speeding · · Score: 1

    > "Well the sentiment here definitely seems to lean toward "let me speed, limits are for dummies" camp."

    I don't think that's quite the sentiment. I think the predominant sentiment is more like "let me speed - speed limits are artificially low as a revenue generator". Which, 99% of the time, they sure freaking are. There are *so* many places where if you drove even remotely close to the speed limit, everyone would be justifiably honking at you because you were going way slower than you had any safety-related reason to be going.

    Vast majority of places, at least around here, speed limits exist as a guideline, and the guideline is actually "it's safe to go about 5-10 mph faster than whatever is posted". Vast majority of places, if you are driving the speed limit, you *are* going stupidly slow, and *are* kind of being a dick unless you know there are cops around. So let's, instead, make speed limits *actually* reflect safe driving speeds, and at *that* point I'm fine having automated systems like this and harsher penalties for ignoring it.

  22. Re:I choose MS SQL Server on Why I Choose PostgreSQL Over MySQL/MariaDB · · Score: 1

    Ok, fine, you win. Oracle does technically work on Linux (for sufficiently gross values of "work"), so it does beat MSSQL in that regard. Still... while I certainly understand the existence of non-Microsoft ecosystems and that that could in some cases be the smart choice, I definitely can't understand going with a Linux setup and then choosing to use *Oracle*, for *anything*. Why would you possibly hate yourself that much?

  23. Re:I choose MS SQL Server on Why I Choose PostgreSQL Over MySQL/MariaDB · · Score: 2

    More like for 100% of tasks. MSSQL is pretty good; a bit of a pain to install, and obviously crazy pricy unless you're just already paying for it for some other reason, but it's plenty powerful and pretty simple to use.

    Oracle, on the other hand, is a steaming pile of turd.

  24. Re:Kickstarter! on Gabe Newell Understands Half-Life Fans, Not Promising Any Sequels · · Score: 1

    Wow. Epic Slashdot it's-2015-and-still-no-unicode-support fail. :(

    (Those were supposed to be small-caps, as per Death, pointing out that Death is a pretty nice guy, at least. Fail!)

  25. Re:Kickstarter! on Gabe Newell Understands Half-Life Fans, Not Promising Any Sequels · · Score: 1

    SÊoeááoeÊYá...É'á Ê(TM)á ááá ÊoeáÊá...... DáááÊoe És á áÊáááÊ ÉÉáá ÉáoeÊ, áÒ"ááÊ áÊYÊY.