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User: zanderredux

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  1. well done, google on Google Challenges Facebook Over User Address Books · · Score: 5, Interesting

    awesome. fuck facebook for not giving the option to export contact lists with useful information. I had to pull a list of e-mails from facebook and I ended up going page by page and copying the e-mails by hand. facebook wants to hold all e-mails within it's walled garden and doesn't reciprocate...

  2. Same players, same outcomes on BP Says "Top Kill" Operation Has Failed · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, really. If Rachel Maddow is right this has happened before and continues to happen in the same way. All same players, all same tactics, all same outcomes.

    Kinda WTF, but check this out:

    http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/c8sqn/rachel_maddow_finds_one_massive_wtf/

  3. Re:Sony is very lucky... on Passage of Time Solves PS3 Glitch · · Score: 1

    so what happens when the battery that keeps the RTC running dies or cannot be recharged again? if there's no way to write a new date or remotely synchronize it with sony servers, would the console be effectively bricked?

  4. Re:May be a good time to discuss alternatives on 20 Years of Photoshop · · Score: 1

    have a try with Lightroom. It provides all the ease of use of, say, Picasa, with all the quality of Photoshop.

  5. Severely missing the point on SSN Required To Buy Palm Pre · · Score: 1

    You guys are all missing the point. The ssn requirement is there because sprint will be running periodic credit checks on its customers. Sprint is probably subsidizing the phone and, internally, they must have customer activation goals to meet (like, the number of new customers who remain active after X months and so on) The credit checks are there because, as sprint subsidized the phone, you'll be actually repaying it back in installments through the phone usage fees. they could sell the device at full cost, but then wouldn't be able to force you to sign up for a 18 month contract. After you become a customer, the ssn is used for credit checks. If your credit score indicates trouble, then sprint will use that information to either try to get you to move to another plan or will send the collectors to get their money before you actually miss a payment. This is not about privacy, but about managing an instrument sale.

  6. Re:Financial fail ... on Computer-Controlled Cargo Sailing Vessels Go Slow, Frugal · · Score: 1

    (and, I know you later said that the actual savings were higher -- but the point is, you should _never_ just multiply reoccurring costs or savings by the number of periods to get the equivalent present value, especially for periods of years.)

    out of legimitate curiosity... why?

    really, I just want to know the implications of doing so and what needs to be done to incorporate that information into financial models

  7. changing 6 with half-a-dozen on Microsoft Caves, Will Change UAC In Windows 7 · · Score: -1, Troll

    the uac model is inherently broken. I cannot understand how these paliative measures will improve security beyond just the sense of it....

  8. Re:Can you really patent food preparation? on McDonalds Files To Patent Making a Sandwich · · Score: 1

    Let's patent, then, a way to check if something is already patented.

    That should short-circuit the whole system.

  9. Re:Sample group of 246 does not a statistic make.. on Report Indicates Widespread H-1B Visa Fraud · · Score: 1

    assuming they did things properly, tru;y random sample, blah blah.

    Honestly, with such a small sample, the likelihood that the sample has some sort of bias corrupting the analysis is quite high. One would be exceedingly naive to take the results at face value without some evidence that the sample was done properly.

  10. Re:Excel is a horrible tool on Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis · · Score: 1

    Absolutely agreed. Not only Excel (and all the MS Office tools in the VBA level) promotes a sloppy programming model, the overall sloppiness it facilitates has originated the concept of "spreadsheet risk" since data relations tend to become obsfuscated and hard to debug. Formulas that should be applied uniformly throughout data now have to be double-checked by filling the columns manually with copies of one single formula.

  11. Re:Oh dear. on HP Releases Hackable ARM-Based Calculator · · Score: 1

    the only way to be 100.1% sure is to read the source, recompile and upload yourself. if you cannot do that, you should consider returning your geek card....

  12. Yes on Let the Games Be Doped · · Score: 1

    That'd be interesting. Athletes lives would not last for more than one Olympics game, once they reach minimum age/height required for the competition. Think of Formula One engines: those are designed to last one race weekend and that's it.

    The games would display the apex of human achievement and give a lesson on balance at the same time. Everyone can relate to that lesson, I guess.

  13. Important concerns on One of the Coolest Places In the Universe · · Score: 1
    I'm just concerned about how the CMS detector looks like Sauron.

    I mean, it's evil, it's right there!

  14. Re:2 Numbers / 1 Phone? on Nokia's Cellphone Anthropologist · · Score: 1

    that is... 2 phone numbers on the same SIM card

  15. Re:2 Numbers / 1 Phone? on Nokia's Cellphone Anthropologist · · Score: 1

    all nokia phones I ever had can do 2 numbers / 1 phone. just hold the # key until a "2" icon shows up - it means that you switched to line 2.

    the problem is that the telcon may not support it.

  16. Side effects on commercial flights on Earthquake In China · · Score: 1
    A friend of mine just came from London to Hong Kong and he told that his flight had to be diverted because radar and other navigational aids (sp?) in China, around the quake region, are currently off-line.

    Wow.

  17. GPS Accuracy on GPS Used To Find Graves In Eco-Burial Sites · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We promise there will be no internments within five meters.

    How can they guarantee this if civillian GPS is (said to be) only accurate to 15 meters?

  18. Re:Oh, the humanity. on Microsoft Should Acquire SAP, Not Yahoo · · Score: 1
    Or... MS learns to work "the SAP way", and every part of the OS becomes a separate "module": file system module, registry module, COM+ module, etc.

    Then you'll need to hire a MS-business partner to configure that to you, since the very basic modules won't be useful by themselves.

    MS would create a steady, endless cash flow from that!

  19. Two things on Followup On Java As "Damaging" To Students · · Score: 2, Insightful

    C/C++ gives a nice inside view to the core of the machine and you have to learn all the good stuff you mentioned, but I still think the best way to understand programming as an abstract exercise is through some Lisp variant. It forces you to think about data structures and exposes to a whole different way of programming, which is quite useful.

    Then you mentioned you feelt sorry for those who started with Java, but then I really feel sorry for those who started with VBA...

  20. US telecoms are quite... peculiar on The Cultures of Texting In Europe and America · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I, for the life of me, cannot understand why in the US telecom users get billed for stuff they receive. I read somewhere that it had to do with technical limitations around billing systems and that it just became like that by tradition (or because US law made it impossible to reverse it)

    Clearly, who makes the call is the party who has the necessity to communicate, not the receiving end. Why continue to bill in a way that contradicts basic economic reasoning???

  21. Re:"haha" on Data Loss Bug In OS X 10.5 Leopard · · Score: 1

    /. Tagging System Impossible To Figure Out meta, bug, mystery, haha ... there, happy now? :)

  22. that's CHEATING! on Slashdot 10-Year Anniversary Party Grand Prize Winner · · Score: 3, Insightful

    no photoshopped pics! that was the rule as I understood!

  23. Badly needed changes in Contacts feature on Google Begins "Gmail 2.0" Rollout · · Score: 1
    Contacts management in Gmail has always been horrendous. It always felt like a hack, an afterthought. Contacts seem so kludgy that I completeley gave up using it at a certain point....

    I haven't tried it yet, but any change in Contacts is welcome.

  24. duh on Wolfram's 2,3 Turing Machine Not Universal · · Score: -1, Redundant

    From TFA:

    As Chomsky showed half a century ago, linear bounded automata are not universal Turing machines.

    Well, hello-o? This is absolutely obvious! How could they not realize this? I mean, the universality of Turing machines is... gosh, what the heck does this mean?

  25. Oh... shucks.... on Microsoft to Pay $240 Million for Stake in Facebook · · Score: 1

    Time to close the facebook account. It was fun while it lasted....