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User: TheDormouse

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Comments · 178

  1. Re:Not a daily-use thing on Google Maps Directions Adds Real-Time Traffic Estimates · · Score: 1

    As long as you stay to the right and allow faster traffic to overtake you on the left*, be my guest. And, to be very clear, this applies to any road with multiple lanes for one direction of travel, not just highways.

    *This is for U.S. driving, the customary lanes for slower travel may vary in your country.

  2. Re:Why it doesn't matter on Redbox Raises Its Prices To $1.20 Per Day · · Score: 1

    I don't think I know anyone who uses anything other than Redbox or Netflix to pay to rent new-release movies on DVD. I know lots of people who left Netflix's DVD mail service a couple years ago when Redbox came to town. The storefront of practically every Walgreens, CVS, grocery, and convenience store has one now.

    You must live someplace with few Redbox machines.

  3. Re:I am not a lawyer, but... on Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Buy Legal Game ROMs? · · Score: 1

    Interesting. In this case, could the original CD not be considered the backup (since you probably aren't using it anymore) and the ripped mp3 now be the "primary" format?

  4. Re:not going to find it on Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Buy Legal Game ROMs? · · Score: 1

    Legal or not, it stands to reason that if you medium-shift something that
    1) you have paid for and have proof you paid for, and
    2) you aren't making any money by medium-shifting (i.e. not selling the original medium to someone else, or redistributing the digital copy)
    then the original content owner has little reason to waste their time jumping on your back when they could find someone who is breaking one of those two rules and have an easy case.

    Sure, it's legally shaky ground and the original content owners probably have better lawyers, but reason occasionally triumphs and it's fun to live dangerously.

  5. Re:From who? on Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Buy Legal Game ROMs? · · Score: 1

    Imagine what happens when most books are only available on e-readers and most e-readers no longer read the format the book was put out in (not so hard to imagine: think of some of the books that only exist on B&N Nook format and imagine that B&N goes under and nobody bothers to code a translator....

    Good thing the B&N books are in ePub, a free and open e-book format, which is really pretty much just HTML and easily translatable.

  6. You don't want a B.S. on Ask Slashdot: CS Degree Without Gen-Ed Requirements? · · Score: 1

    A B.S. means you have a well-rounded undergraduate education with focus in a particular major. That's not what you are asking for. You're asking for specific technical training in a single field. That's called a technical school diploma.

  7. Re:Been using it for years on Canada Rolls Out Plastic Money · · Score: 1

    Many (most?) US banks charge you something like 2% if you bring them a roll of coins nowadays. No joke: they charge you to change money into other money.

    It's complete madness here.

  8. Re:Interesting trend. on The Most Common iPhone Passcodes · · Score: 1

    I'm suprised 1998 is a common passcode, is this a birthdate?

    I think it must be that the age bracket that has the greatest number of iPhone users also had significant life events in 1998. 30-31 year-olds graduated high school in 1998. Lots of 30-40 year-olds got married or had their first kid in 1998.

  9. Re:Geosync is only 26200 miles on Small Asteroid To Pass Close To Earth Tomorrow · · Score: 1
  10. Re:wait...broadcast TV is still alive? on FCC To Open Up Vacant TV Airwaves For Broadband · · Score: 1

    Since broadcast went digital, I know lots of folks (me being just one) who dropped cable TV and busted out the rabbit ears. HD over-the-air + Netflix streaming + DVDs of whatever isn't available OTA or Netflix = happy wallet.

    If the game is only on cable, go to a friend's house with cable or watch it at a sports bar for the price of some nachos.

  11. Re:Pointless. on Orchestra To Turn Copyright-Free Classical Scores Into Copyright-Free Music · · Score: 1

    1. You presume incorrectly: "Artists credits on the public domain orchestral reference work" is a big joke. Most recordings list no more than the conductor and name of the orchestra, and if they do list a complete personnel list almost no one cares. If they hire a major professional orchestra(s) to record these, merely being a member of that orchestra will be a better line on the resume. And if they hire a pick-up ensemble, it's going to be a big "who cares?" line on 80 people's resumes.
    2. A recording project done by a bunch of amateurs (definition: people who just love the music and want people to hear it) is not going to have much viability. Sure, listening to a big-city community orchestra (or maybe even a crappy small-town group) live may sound pretty good in the moment, but once you listen to the recording a few times you'll notice how much better you'd enjoy a more polished recording of professionals who will require they be paid a reasonable wage for their time.

  12. 1. Even warhorse orchestral music requires some rehearsal to get the musicians on the same page regarding interpretation.
    2. Other than the conductor, no individual musician in these recordings is going to receive one bit of publicity, certainly not publicity that would be worthwhile to do this gig for anything other than the pay scale a professional musician would expect to receive for any other recording gig.

  13. Re:Blended or Single Malt? on Scottish Scientists Develop Whisky Biofuel · · Score: 1

    What about the Americans? Will we develop a fuel based on Budweiser or Tequila?

    Bourbon.

  14. Re:They collected $75,000... on Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools · · Score: 1

    Congratulations. You may be in the 1%* of people who know what the hell they are doing.

    (*statistic made up by Lumpy may be inaccurate)

  15. Re:There's nothing magical about 70% on School District Drops 'D' Grades · · Score: 1

    The most obvious example of this not being true is the SAT. Average is 500 out of 800 which is 62.5%.

    Actually, the SAT is on a 200-800 point scale, so 500 is the 50% mark on the scale. If I remember correctly (and assuming scoring is similar to when I last took the SAT about 12 years ago) SAT scoring is weighted: correct answers earn a raw point, incorrect answers lose fractions of a raw point, and skipping a question scores zero raw points. I seem to remember raw scores translate to actual scores on some kind of statistical model.

    (Just a nit; not really disagreeing with your argument.)

  16. Re:You can't get Internet over an antenna on One In Eight To Cut Cable and Satellite TV In 2010 · · Score: 1

    Everywhere I've lived the line fee is an extra $10. If the cable company offers a "basic TV" package for just $10 (they never have where I've lived) it's just the OTA stations + public access anyway. You get hd with an antenna but not with basic cable and I don't care about public access. So if it's worth it to get the lowest tier cable, go for it whether you watch it or not. Otherwise just pay the line fee and consider the cable company your "internet company."

  17. Re:Bribery on Mark Cuban's Plan To Kill Google · · Score: 1

    I hear myself and many of my peers say "grab a soda from the fridge for me." This may, however, be regional in use. Only when I lived in the southeast did 'coke' ever seem like a generic term. In the midwest, the generic is 'pop.'

    I don't think I've ever asked someone to xerox something, and everything I knows calls that machine a 'copier.' I don't remember ever working somewhere with a Xerox-brand copier anyway. I think I've heard my grandmother refer to her vacuum cleaner as a 'hoover,' even though it's another brand, but not my parents or any friends/coworkers my age. To me 'xerox' is similar: something old people might say. (I understand 'hoover' is pretty common among the Brits, though.)

    There seems to be a definite subset of 25-35-years-olds who are resisting 'google' as a verb. Not that any of these same people would go to anyplace other than google if I suggested they "search the web" for something. My parents and their peers (50-70 age range) seem to have completely adopted 'google' as a verb.

    'Kleenex' is hard to argue. I have, however, heard proper southern ladies say "Could you hand me a tissue?" when sitting at the opposite end of a couch from the box of Kleenex. Too bad, since I find Puffs to be the superior tissue. Kleenex brand always seems to flake away paper dust that just makes you keep sneezing.

  18. Re:captain obvious on Warez Moving From BitTorrent to Conventional Hosting Services · · Score: 1

    If you do business in the US, you ought to have to accept US currency.

    If I understand things correctly, US businesses must accept US currency for debts. So if you provide a service where payment isn't due until after services are rendered, you must accept US currency for that debt. If you sell goods retail (including counter-service food) you can choose to accept or refuse any method of payment, since there is no debt involved.

    So if you must pay for your $5 cheeseburger with a $50, looks like you'll have to find someplace that will serve your order before you pay.

  19. Re:Sony phailed on PSP Go Debuts, Disappoints · · Score: 1

    Hmmm... Your comment implied to me that you thought customers who would otherwise never buy Blu-ray would go ahead and buy the Blu-ray/DVD pack, thereby "hooking" them on Blu-ray. You also implied that Disney is "giving Blu-ray discs away free." This would only be true if Disney DVDs were *only* available in the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, which (so far) isn't true. As it stands now, the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack is $5-10 more expensive than the DVD alone.

    My reply merely stated that they're not creating a new Blu-ray customer by bundling. They just found a gimmick to get existing Blu-ray customers to buy kids' movies on Blu-ray too.

  20. Re:Digital distribution has been needed for a whil on Hidden Fees Discovered For "Free" Windows 7 Upgrade · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I recently bought some printer paper from them minus a $25 mail-in rebate. They never bothered to tell me that it's on a credit card and therefore I have to spend the money - I can't just cash it and put it in my savings like I originally planned. :-|

    Really? Just save an extra $25 into your savings account and use the $25 rebate debit to buy groceries that week. It's $25, not $200. Whine much?

  21. Re:I'm sure it didn't help. on Did Chicago Lose Olympic Bid Due To US Passport Control? · · Score: 1

    a cashier almost told us we were nuts when we paid for ice cream with a $ 100 bill. My impression has become that Americans are much more fond of paying with credit cards than we are in Europe since noone I know thinks it's unusual to have 100-200 euros in your wallet.

    In a shopping mall, it's not completely unusual for an American to carry around a lot of cash. American ATMs usually give out nothing but $20 bills, so larger bills always seem somewhat exotic. Furthermore, when you tender a $50 or larger note in a situation where you'll get more than 60% of that note back in change, it usually throws off the change in the till, which may have as little as $100 total inside it at the beginning of a shift (and contain nothing larger than $5 bills).

    The look from the cashier probably wasn't so much about the $100 bill itself, but about using a $100 bill to pay for (I'm assuming) less than $10 worth of ice cream.

  22. Re:Sony phailed on PSP Go Debuts, Disappoints · · Score: 1

    They are spinning it as letting consumers take advantage of Blu-ray while getting the portability of DVD, but a less charitable way to put it is that consumers don't want to be locked into Blu-ray and have stayed away in droves, so Disney are giving Blu-ray discs away free with the DVDs in the hope of hooking them.

    Nope. It's just a way to actually get anyone to buy kids' movies on Blu-ray.

    These are kids movies. Kids nowadays watch movies non-stop in the car. Effectively no one has a Blu-ray player in their car. Geeky dad with his cool home theater wants to buy movies on Blu-ray, but he's smart enough to know that the kids' movies need to be on DVD so they work in the car. He's not insane enough to buy one Blu-ray copy and one DVD copy since it's just a kids' movie.

    So Disney's great idea is to include the DVD in the same package as the Blu-ray so geeky dad will spend the extra $5-10 on the Blu-ray ('cuz it's cool) even though only the DVD (in the car) will actually ever get watched.

    Parents without a Blu-ray player will just buy the plain DVD.

  23. Re:More business for Craigslist!!! on eBay Denies New Design Is Broken, Blames Users · · Score: 1

    It's not the seller's shadow account I'm worried about, it's the stupid eBay bidders who can't decide how much they're willing to pay.

    If you place a bid early, it gives the idiots days to decide "oh I guess I can spend a little more." This just inflates prices (which is what eBay wants and what sellers want). If everyone waits until the last possible moment and just bids whatever they are *actually willing to pay* then the item goes to the buyer who actually perceived the item to have the greatest value, instead of some dope who keeps convincing himself to spend just $5 more.

    People who bid early are just fueling other people to outbid them and artificially driving up prices.

  24. Re:Sounds like the leeches are out again on iPod Fee Proposed For Canada · · Score: 1

    Extreme expense that goes into making music? What extreme expense? I am an artist and I have yet to encounter this.

    Oh, I dunno...

    1. 1. The hours you practiced, without compensation, to get to the point to where you could record the music in the studio without wasting too much time with retakes.
    2. 2. The years you practiced, without compensation and possibly paying someone else for lessons, trying to get good enough that you could actually record something someone else wants to listen to and (hopefully) purchase.
    3. 3. If you're an instrumentalist: the instrument you had to buy, accessories (strings, etc.), and periodic repairs to keep that instrument in good working order.

    Just to name a few.

    Other than musician and surgeon, there really aren't many professions I can think of where you're expected buy equipment and learn how to use it at your own cost, then perform essentially flawlessly the first time every time or you'll soon lose your job.

  25. Re:Depending on who you believe on Earth's Period of Habitability Is Nearly Over · · Score: 1

    Just not by humans.

    manbearpig?