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User: rsilvergun

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  1. What I hate is on Verizon Ends Smartphone Subsidies · · Score: 1

    that my cell phone company has managed to get me about to the old unsubsidized price over time. The trick they used on me was piling on "regulatory compliance" fees that they assume I'm too dumb to know aren't taxes (it's not a tax if you're pocketing the money).

  2. Rewrite IE 8 apps on How To Make Money As an Independent Developer · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is dropping support on January 26 2016. There's gonna be a ton of apps that have to be rewritten when the patches stop coming.

  3. He didn't take them out of the labor force on Good Economy? Tech Layoffs Are Up · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Poor health did. All he did was pick up the slack assclowns like Scott Walker left with their right wing blather so we didn't have 2 mil new homeless.

  4. I think you just described on Israeli Security Company Builds "Unhackable" Version of Windows · · Score: 3, Funny

    My Commodore 64.

  5. Does the UK recognise software patents? on U.K. Government Seeking To End Reliance On Oracle · · Score: 1

    If they do then you're right. They're screwed. Otherwise I say go for it. As the saying goes, you can't fight city hall.

  6. This. on Will Robot Cabs Unjam the Streets? · · Score: 1

    my kid doesn't like buying used stuff because she says someone might have peed on it. If you're rich enough to matter your rich enough to have your own stuff.

  7. Poor kids might grasp MacBeth on Google: Poor Kids Might Grasp Macbeth If They Code Like Kids At $43K/Yr School · · Score: 1

    if they didn't go home to an over stressed and overworked parent (singular, since it's hard to keep a Marriage together when you're poor), didn't suffer from food insecurity (it's coming back in the South & Rust belt) and didn't have 40+ kids in their class.

    Naw, Google's right. We just need more coders (which will coincidentally reduce the value of software programming skills, who knew?)

  8. Because $1 billion isn't a lot of money to him? on Why Bill Gates Is Dumping Another $1 Billion Into Clean Energy · · Score: 1

    And renewables have probably hit the point where they're profitable. We know this because power companies have called them out as a risk factor in their SEC filings. It does bother me that we let the 1% toss that kinda money round willy-nilly though.

  9. You wouldn't even need to do that on Counterterrorism Expert: It's Time To Give Companies Offensive Cybercapabilities · · Score: 1

    You'd have to be a certain size to have the resources to mount the attack, to defend from counter attack, and to settle out of court when you (inevitably) attack an innocent target by mistake.

  10. UBER is not even close to that on Sociologist: Job Insecurity Is the New Normal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uber only works when there are lots of drivers who used to have good jobs or who had family that had good jobs. That's because the $15/hr that Uber drivers max out at (if you account for gas & maintenance) isn't enough to buy a new car when the old one starts falling about at 200k miles. Maybe in a country w/o safety regulations, professional drivers insurance and emission standards Uber could work. But again, it all falls apart as soon as Uber stops externalizing it's costs onto either the driver, their family or society at large.

    Uber isn't a solution. It's a symptom of a very diseased and dysfunctional system that'll eventually collapse in on itself.

  11. Soviet Russia wasn't socialist on Sociologist: Job Insecurity Is the New Normal · · Score: 1

    it was a fascist dictatorship. It didn't even look a little like socialism, let alone communism. It was just a bunch of thugs looting and pillaging. I'm sorry you got caught up in all that, but you've never lived in a socialist society, any more than I (as an American) have lived in a Representational Democracy.

  12. That's nice too on Sociologist: Job Insecurity Is the New Normal · · Score: 1

    Our parents didn't have to settle for crappy little houses. Why do we have it worse than our parents did? Why are things getting worse, not better?

  13. That's lovely on Sociologist: Job Insecurity Is the New Normal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now where do I start? 1. The "Luxuries" you speak of are pretty much Cell Phones, cable tv / Internet and eating out once a week. These are a drop in the bucket next to the cost of a car/house/college education. Get rid of all the luxuries you want, it won't make up for the 40 years of declining wages while productivity has more or less doubled.

    2. I like this one: "learn a practical skill". Reminds me of a neighbor of mine who'd been to night school 3 times and each time seen her new career outsourced. What you really means is "Somehow develop a significantly higher IQ as if by magic so you can get the STEM degree that you couldn't get when you were 18".

    3. The working class doesn't get to pick where they live. It's expensive as hell to up and move. You live where you're born and hope for the best. If people could just move somewhere that's better there'd be no 3rd world countries.

    4. See Point # 1.

    5. See this. Specifically the chorus ("Turning 30, 40, 50 gotta move in with my Parents...").

    Fuck the American Dream. It's a bill of goods we've all been sold.

  14. I can't bring myself to care on In Windows 10, Ad-Free Solitaire Will Cost You $10 -- Every Year · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've had Win 7 for years and never once started up solitaire. I've got Steam yah know. And if you're going to goof off at work we've all got pocket computers as cellphones now :)

  15. And with those robot arms he'll be able to go even faster! (looks) Oh, _JAXA_. Drat. Well then. Carry on I suppose.

  16. Doesn't sound like it's going to go anywhere on "Happy Birthday" Public Domain After All? · · Score: 1

    They're just claiming the song book wasn't officially licensed. Without proof that it was it's the copyright holders word against theirs, and judges in America always, always side with property rights.

  17. Re:Not really on Genetically Modified Rice Makes More Food, Less Greenhouse Gas · · Score: 1

    Hostess Donuts. There's Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil with a token amount of wheat so that qualify as 'food' for folks on food stamps...

  18. That's not really the point on Genetically Modified Rice Makes More Food, Less Greenhouse Gas · · Score: 1

    the point is that some people are looking for it on a label, and the companies are hiding the content knowing full well folks are looking for it.

  19. Not really on Genetically Modified Rice Makes More Food, Less Greenhouse Gas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    companies use all sorts of tricks to hide stuff like that. Soup companies use yeast to put MSG in Soup without reporting it (it's a by product of the yeast, which serves no other purpose). Cookie and Donut companies have for years claimed "Zero Grams Trans Fat" on products that are literally made of trans-fat by putting a token amount of wheat in there and adjusting portion sizes. You've got to make these 'warnings' really, really blunt or they just work around it.

    As for labels, that's all well and good for the top 10%. What about the other 90%? You know how we found out sodium nitrate causes cancer? It wasn't the FDA. It was a farmer feeding old herring to cows and noticing they kept dying of liver cancer. The food industry doesn't exactly have the best track record....

  20. I suppose you don't on Ask Slashdot: Everyone Building Software -- Is This the Future We Need? · · Score: 1

    the mega-corps will be happy to do that for you. Especially since you're so willing to give it up. Now go ready some history about Unions and stfu. Seriously, you have no bloody idea what you're talking about.

  21. Um... you're not nearly cynical enough on Ask Slashdot: Everyone Building Software -- Is This the Future We Need? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is really just Apple, Microsoft et al trying to get cheap programmers. Not everyone can code the Linux kernel, but anyone without a learning disability can be a rank and file coder banging out data driven apps. Right now Apple has to pay $100k+ for some of those guys. The H1-B program helps, but it's never enough, is it? How 'bout $50k? $20? $15? How low can you go. All you need is enough food and drink to keep 'em going long enough. And so long as they get to look down on all those "non-Coders" (sorta like you're doing right now...) they'll be a-ok with this.

    Screw that. Let's get back to Unions, worker solidarity and high minimum wages.

  22. That won't work on Senate Passes 'No Microsoft National Talent Strategy Goal Left Behind Act' · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but it won't. They'll just fudge the numbers. The trouble your having here is your blind faith in the free market taking care of you. The solution is 20% more pay, it's protectionism. You can't possibly compete with foreign labor. Weight of numbers alone gives them an advantage. Some people don't need sleep. Some people can push themselves harder than others. There's 3 billion of them. The odds are in their favor. On top of that their economy means they can be trained for a fraction of the cost of you, and you can treat them as completely disposable. This isn't a fight you're going to win. It's like that old quote from Wargames (you old enough to remember that?): "The only way to win is not to play"...

  23. Yeah, but that's the point on Plan To Run Anti-Google Smear Campaign Revealed In MPAA Emails · · Score: 2

    You're right about our 2 party system. But it was designed for that. Our entire constitution was written to protect wealthy landowners from the working class. That's why we have a senate, it prevents populist movements from taking off :(. About the only times we've ever seen any reason progress have been when one of the 1% broke ranks (FDR) and after WWII when too many workers had died off and when we were the only country left with working infrastructure...

  24. I don't think it's a ho-hum on Plan To Run Anti-Google Smear Campaign Revealed In MPAA Emails · · Score: 2, Interesting

    but what are we going to do about it? We're too diverse and too different. Nothing in the pot actually melts. There are also way too many single issue voters. The Gun Lobby, Gay Rights, Abortion, Cuba (it screws with our presidential election). These things bring folks to the polls to vote and they don't care about economic issues economic issues (which at it's heart this MPAA flap really is).

    The reason Germany & the Icelandic countries are doing so well is they're united. Their working class has solidarity. Things are looking up a little. Gay Rights is more or less done. The Left is dropping gun control and Obama opened up Cuba. But looking at crap like this shows me they're just as good at dividing and manipulating us as every...

  25. Tried that on FCC Approves AT&T's DirecTV Purchase · · Score: 1

    doesn't work if you've got a teenage daughter. There are a tonne of shows not on netflix/amazon. I suppose I could tell her no, but TV for teens is a social thing. Kinda like how us nerds used to gather round and trade strategies on beating Zelda/Mario. Since most of the shows are on at 8pm (just after most teens finish their Homework but just before bed) it's not practical for her to just go over to her friends house. It's part of a finely honed machine designed to entrap parents...