>Noticed something annoying: in most web pages having an embedded youtube video, Fullscreen doesn't work unless you go to the youtube site"
I noticed things MORE annoying- websites with AUTO PLAYING video. And videos where your only option is to watch a postage stamp or take over the whole freaking monitor (like a "larger" or even full *window* option would be so difficult?)
>"Now, Ebay is asking me to switch from the key fob to text messages, the latter being a form of authentication that security experts say is less secure than other forms of two-factor authentication (2FA)."
It is not just that it is less secure... it is AN INVASION OF PRIVACY. There is absolutely NO WAY I am going to give my cell phone number to Ebay, Microsoft, Amazon, Bank of America, or any other company. It is a marketing wet-dream for them to get that information such that they can spam you with impunity in the most egregious and annoying way I can think of, and sell that information to others.
This is not a move to increase security or improve convenience for the end user. It is to lower THEIR cost and to increase THEIR knowledge about their users. And it is so common now it is shocking... and people just give it up!
True story- a group of us went to TGIFriday's for dinner last week. We approached the hostess and told her 4 people. We expected to get a pager/fob. Nope, she asked us for our phone number! Every one of us in the group said "you have to be kidding" not over our dead bodies! We asked her "seriously? People will give you their private cell number for this?" She said almost nobody bats an eye." Of course we declined and they had to physically come look for us when the table was ready.
>" You don't care about injustice for a poor black kid falsely accused of a gang murder, because you assume that such an accusation will never be directed at you. But a false accusation of child porn could actually happen to YOU, so you care. So now you are motivated to vote for the guy that wants to fix the justice system, rather than the guy that wants to build more prisons."
I hope you are using some type of metaphorical or hypothetical "you" in your postings. I most certainly do care about justice and equality on all levels and for all people. It has nothing to do with how likely some matter is to affect me. And if you are implying otherwise, I should be deeply offended except for knowing you can't possibly know much of anything about me, so why should I care?
>"So if 90% certainly is good enough to lock up some poor black kids for life, why isn't it good enough for a rich white guy with a Macbook Pro?"
So it is suddenly about race or socioeconomics? I prefer to play my thought games with "everyone is equal in the eyes of the law" as a ground rule. And it is the rule in this country, even though it might not turn out that way sometimes, unfortunately. Two wrongs don't make a right. Address each problem separately.
>"upheld a lower court ruling of contempt against a chap who claimed he couldn't remember the password to decrypt his computer's hard drives"
I am not saying that is the case here, but what if a defendant really doesn't remember the password? Throw him in jail forever? Some devices don't need a key/password UNLESS they are disconnected or reset, and it is very plausible someone might have been using something for a long time without knowing.
>"The spam problem would [...] probably almost go away, [...] if DMARC was rolled out everywhere in order to verify if messages come from legitimate domains, it would be a major blow to spam distributors"
Except we can already deal with that type of spam using RBL and other methods. The majority of spam that remains is the worst kind- from businesses sending us endless marketing crap from legitimate domains, claiming we "opted in", which of course we did not. Every single place we interact with demands a verified Email address- for every account, for every transaction, for every service. And many companies happily spam us to death with it and even sell the information to other companies too.
The marketing companies take no responsibility, because they now increasingly use third-parties to deliver that crap. It used to be fairly easy- block marketing companies like Constant Contact and their ilk. But now they moved to some "too big to block" services- like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon's infrastructure.
There is more than one type of spam. There is no one magic solution. It is no different than caller ID- Even if we could force it to be 100% correct all the time, do you really think that will stop unsolicited calls? Nope.
>"The dreaded -- or totally necessary -- Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks"
Properly called the "serial comma."
Why is the serial comma ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) dreaded? This is what I was taught as proper writing in a very good school system in the 80's. It is also what I use today. To me it seems logical, functional, lessens ambiguity, and makes common sense. (Note the use of it in that last sentence).
No, I haven't tried USB-C yet. I know it will be a lot better than microusb, but still can't compete with just slapping it on my pad and walking away:) I really don't want to lose that feature and don't care how long it takes to charge.
>An always-on 5-inch AMOLED display is built into the case, which runs the Android 7.1 Nougat; microSD card slot provides up to 256GB ; 2,800 mAh battery ; Qi wireless charging. Two SIM card slots are included ; 4G LTE connectivity ; 3.5mm headphone ; IR blaster" "The estimated retail price is between $189 and $229"
Hey, I have a better idea. Instead of messing around with being a "case", why not just forget the whole iphone nonsense and release it AS A PHONE ITSELF. Make sure the battery is swappable, throw in some decent cameras, and add $50 more for it and sell at $250 to $275 (based on the claimed retail price). Many of us have been waiting for a suitable replacement for the Nexus 5, this might be it; we had a fast, decent phone for around that price, with a nice 5" screen and QI charging.
In a way, that is true. Although most are locked-down and difficult to run plain Linux on reliably/easily (crouton is neat, but still mostly a hack). I think that is probably the key difference.
>"Every battery is removable if you own a screwdriver, this is a non-issue. "
Well, that is not true... look at phones for an example. Some have the battery nearly impossible even for a regular tech to replace without great risk of severe damage.
>" Especially given the battery lives on laptops. Who is using a laptop for over 10 hours without being near a charger? 0.1% of the market, maybe."
And in two years with heavy use the battery has lost half its life and needs replacing for any reasonable runtime. Been there, done that with phones. Been there with my Lenovo non-easily replaceable laptop too.
>"I do not think it is a good experience to go with a non 1080p screen"
That depends on the screen size and the audience. I will take a guess that at least 70% of people will notice no difference in anything higher than 1920x1080 on a 10" screen. Probably 90% of people on a 5" screen. If it means keeping the cost low and performance high, it is worth it to keep the resolution reasonable.
I would like to see netbooks come back. The original concept was a smash hit- small size, excellent battery life, SSD, and running Linux, all at a small price. Lots of reasons led to their demise- Microsoft hostility, powerful phones, tablets, and client-side browser load increase were probably the three biggest.
I think there might still be a market for something small, inexpensive, and different. Maybe not a big market, but something with unlocked dual-boot Android and Linux with physical keyboard, larger than the largest phones but smaller than the smallest laptops (notebooks). Where having a keyboard and good, SWAPPABLE battery trumps being stupidly thin.
Oh, the Gemini PDA isn't it... too expensive, too small. Cool, no doubt, but it is more of a phone factor.
There is really nothing wrong with Daylight Saving Time. For modern people, it is better to have daylight later in the day than earlier. The problem is the change to and from Saving Time to Standard Time; that messes everything up.
Change to DST (summer time) and just STAY THERE and stop changing time and all our problems go away.
>"Okay...twice every year Slashdot disses Daylight savings time,
Most people on Slashdot are not dissing Daylight Savings Time. That isn't the issue. The issue is CHANGING TIME TWICE A YEAR. Just put it on DST and leave it there permanently!
The more people, the more cars. The reason there are more cars is because there are more people. There are not more people because there are more cars. It is the fact that more people moved to this area (population) that what caused more cars to be on the road.
Smug comments about freedom or not understand how large a REAL large country is, or what it is like to live in a TRULY diverse land, or other things they don't understand or can't relate to? Must be a European.
>"The root problem is too many cars, not overpopulation."
No, it is pretty much overpopulation. I moved to this area 30 years ago and traffic was X. Now it is about 2X and so is the population. Car ownership rates hasn't changed all that much in 30 years. Most adults own a car and use it regularly.
>"How about finding ways to push the utilisation rate of those mass transit buses instead?"
Will it start with you? Everyone wants EVERYONE ELSE to use the buses/train/whatever. That is the problem. Here, the buses are slow, smelly, loud, and EXTREMELY inconvenient. With 7 interconnected cities, there is no standard commute, everyone is going everywhere, making it a logistical nightmare. You would spend MORE time getting home while hating the experience even more than sitting in your own car crawling through traffic. And with a bus, there is no real practical way to run chores while on the commute or transport than very minimal stuff. Like standing in the rain with 20MPH 33F temps for 15 min? Like having to sit near someone blasting their damn phone or with a screaming kid or eating gross food? Like having to walk through questionable areas to get to each stop, dragging whatever stuff you need with you? Like having to arrive X min early or leave X min late from work to fit your life to someone else's schedule? That's the bus!
There are lots of places where mass transit just doesn't work well and even when it does work well, most people really still don't want to deal with the other factors.
That's funny. Two local buses and an express bus gets me from my front door at 6AM to the front door of my job 30 miles away at 7AM. Best commute I ever had in 30 years of taking public transit.
And you probably represent a small fraction of a small percent. In many areas of the county, the mass transit simply doesn't work well because everyone is going everywhere and there are not enough routes or connections. Nobody is going to trade crawling in a traffic jam for an hour (in their own car) to standing outside multiple times in the rain, jumping from one bus to another, dealing with smelly and loud people for 1.5 hours.
>"state and national databases that restrict who can provide genetic samples and how long that information is held."
If you really believe that the government actually completely lets go (forgets/purges) DNA information it collects, I have some nice swamp land for sale in Florida...
Slashdot Mirror
>Noticed something annoying: in most web pages having an embedded youtube video, Fullscreen doesn't work unless you go to the youtube site"
I noticed things MORE annoying- websites with AUTO PLAYING video. And videos where your only option is to watch a postage stamp or take over the whole freaking monitor (like a "larger" or even full *window* option would be so difficult?)
>"Now, Ebay is asking me to switch from the key fob to text messages, the latter being a form of authentication that security experts say is less secure than other forms of two-factor authentication (2FA)."
It is not just that it is less secure... it is AN INVASION OF PRIVACY. There is absolutely NO WAY I am going to give my cell phone number to Ebay, Microsoft, Amazon, Bank of America, or any other company. It is a marketing wet-dream for them to get that information such that they can spam you with impunity in the most egregious and annoying way I can think of, and sell that information to others.
This is not a move to increase security or improve convenience for the end user. It is to lower THEIR cost and to increase THEIR knowledge about their users. And it is so common now it is shocking... and people just give it up!
True story- a group of us went to TGIFriday's for dinner last week. We approached the hostess and told her 4 people. We expected to get a pager/fob. Nope, she asked us for our phone number! Every one of us in the group said "you have to be kidding" not over our dead bodies! We asked her "seriously? People will give you their private cell number for this?" She said almost nobody bats an eye." Of course we declined and they had to physically come look for us when the table was ready.
>" You don't care about injustice for a poor black kid falsely accused of a gang murder, because you assume that such an accusation will never be directed at you. But a false accusation of child porn could actually happen to YOU, so you care. So now you are motivated to vote for the guy that wants to fix the justice system, rather than the guy that wants to build more prisons."
I hope you are using some type of metaphorical or hypothetical "you" in your postings. I most certainly do care about justice and equality on all levels and for all people. It has nothing to do with how likely some matter is to affect me. And if you are implying otherwise, I should be deeply offended except for knowing you can't possibly know much of anything about me, so why should I care?
>"So if 90% certainly is good enough to lock up some poor black kids for life, why isn't it good enough for a rich white guy with a Macbook Pro?"
So it is suddenly about race or socioeconomics? I prefer to play my thought games with "everyone is equal in the eyes of the law" as a ground rule. And it is the rule in this country, even though it might not turn out that way sometimes, unfortunately. Two wrongs don't make a right. Address each problem separately.
>"upheld a lower court ruling of contempt against a chap who claimed he couldn't remember the password to decrypt his computer's hard drives"
I am not saying that is the case here, but what if a defendant really doesn't remember the password? Throw him in jail forever? Some devices don't need a key/password UNLESS they are disconnected or reset, and it is very plausible someone might have been using something for a long time without knowing.
But can the jamming rifles be used on boom-box cars? THAT would be nice...
>"The spam problem would [...] probably almost go away, [...] if DMARC was rolled out everywhere in order to verify if messages come from legitimate domains, it would be a major blow to spam distributors"
Except we can already deal with that type of spam using RBL and other methods. The majority of spam that remains is the worst kind- from businesses sending us endless marketing crap from legitimate domains, claiming we "opted in", which of course we did not. Every single place we interact with demands a verified Email address- for every account, for every transaction, for every service. And many companies happily spam us to death with it and even sell the information to other companies too.
The marketing companies take no responsibility, because they now increasingly use third-parties to deliver that crap. It used to be fairly easy- block marketing companies like Constant Contact and their ilk. But now they moved to some "too big to block" services- like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon's infrastructure.
There is more than one type of spam. There is no one magic solution. It is no different than caller ID- Even if we could force it to be 100% correct all the time, do you really think that will stop unsolicited calls? Nope.
>"The dreaded -- or totally necessary -- Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks"
Properly called the "serial comma."
Why is the serial comma ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ) dreaded? This is what I was taught as proper writing in a very good school system in the 80's. It is also what I use today. To me it seems logical, functional, lessens ambiguity, and makes common sense. (Note the use of it in that last sentence).
No, I haven't tried USB-C yet. I know it will be a lot better than microusb, but still can't compete with just slapping it on my pad and walking away :) I really don't want to lose that feature and don't care how long it takes to charge.
Yes, it is important. Primarily convenience.
(It is the Huawei Honor, not HTC)
Looks like none of them have QI charging.
>An always-on 5-inch AMOLED display is built into the case, which runs the Android 7.1 Nougat; microSD card slot provides up to 256GB ; 2,800 mAh battery ; Qi wireless charging. Two SIM card slots are included ; 4G LTE connectivity ; 3.5mm headphone ; IR blaster" "The estimated retail price is between $189 and $229"
Hey, I have a better idea. Instead of messing around with being a "case", why not just forget the whole iphone nonsense and release it AS A PHONE ITSELF. Make sure the battery is swappable, throw in some decent cameras, and add $50 more for it and sell at $250 to $275 (based on the claimed retail price). Many of us have been waiting for a suitable replacement for the Nexus 5, this might be it; we had a fast, decent phone for around that price, with a nice 5" screen and QI charging.
>"They're called Chromebooks now.
In a way, that is true. Although most are locked-down and difficult to run plain Linux on reliably/easily (crouton is neat, but still mostly a hack). I think that is probably the key difference.
>"Every battery is removable if you own a screwdriver, this is a non-issue. "
Well, that is not true... look at phones for an example. Some have the battery nearly impossible even for a regular tech to replace without great risk of severe damage.
>" Especially given the battery lives on laptops. Who is using a laptop for over 10 hours without being near a charger? 0.1% of the market, maybe."
And in two years with heavy use the battery has lost half its life and needs replacing for any reasonable runtime. Been there, done that with phones. Been there with my Lenovo non-easily replaceable laptop too.
>"I do not think it is a good experience to go with a non 1080p screen"
That depends on the screen size and the audience. I will take a guess that at least 70% of people will notice no difference in anything higher than 1920x1080 on a 10" screen. Probably 90% of people on a 5" screen. If it means keeping the cost low and performance high, it is worth it to keep the resolution reasonable.
I would like to see netbooks come back. The original concept was a smash hit- small size, excellent battery life, SSD, and running Linux, all at a small price. Lots of reasons led to their demise- Microsoft hostility, powerful phones, tablets, and client-side browser load increase were probably the three biggest.
I think there might still be a market for something small, inexpensive, and different. Maybe not a big market, but something with unlocked dual-boot Android and Linux with physical keyboard, larger than the largest phones but smaller than the smallest laptops (notebooks). Where having a keyboard and good, SWAPPABLE battery trumps being stupidly thin.
Oh, the Gemini PDA isn't it... too expensive, too small. Cool, no doubt, but it is more of a phone factor.
There is really nothing wrong with Daylight Saving Time. For modern people, it is better to have daylight later in the day than earlier. The problem is the change to and from Saving Time to Standard Time; that messes everything up.
Change to DST (summer time) and just STAY THERE and stop changing time and all our problems go away.
>"Okay...twice every year Slashdot disses Daylight savings time,
Most people on Slashdot are not dissing Daylight Savings Time. That isn't the issue. The issue is CHANGING TIME TWICE A YEAR. Just put it on DST and leave it there permanently!
>"Really? How much are you willing to bet that I cannot name a city with more people but fewer cars than yours? Ha ha!"
I wasn't talking about another city. I was comparing my city now to 30 years ago.
The more people, the more cars. The reason there are more cars is because there are more people. There are not more people because there are more cars. It is the fact that more people moved to this area (population) that what caused more cars to be on the road.
Yes, that is what I meant by "traffic." Although the traffic [problems] is [are] actually worse than 2X because it is non-linear.
Smug comments about freedom or not understand how large a REAL large country is, or what it is like to live in a TRULY diverse land, or other things they don't understand or can't relate to? Must be a European.
Jealousy doesn't become you.
>"The root problem is too many cars, not overpopulation."
No, it is pretty much overpopulation. I moved to this area 30 years ago and traffic was X. Now it is about 2X and so is the population. Car ownership rates hasn't changed all that much in 30 years. Most adults own a car and use it regularly.
>"How about finding ways to push the utilisation rate of those mass transit buses instead?"
Will it start with you? Everyone wants EVERYONE ELSE to use the buses/train/whatever. That is the problem. Here, the buses are slow, smelly, loud, and EXTREMELY inconvenient. With 7 interconnected cities, there is no standard commute, everyone is going everywhere, making it a logistical nightmare. You would spend MORE time getting home while hating the experience even more than sitting in your own car crawling through traffic. And with a bus, there is no real practical way to run chores while on the commute or transport than very minimal stuff. Like standing in the rain with 20MPH 33F temps for 15 min? Like having to sit near someone blasting their damn phone or with a screaming kid or eating gross food? Like having to walk through questionable areas to get to each stop, dragging whatever stuff you need with you? Like having to arrive X min early or leave X min late from work to fit your life to someone else's schedule? That's the bus!
There are lots of places where mass transit just doesn't work well and even when it does work well, most people really still don't want to deal with the other factors.
That's funny. Two local buses and an express bus gets me from my front door at 6AM to the front door of my job 30 miles away at 7AM. Best commute I ever had in 30 years of taking public transit.
And you probably represent a small fraction of a small percent. In many areas of the county, the mass transit simply doesn't work well because everyone is going everywhere and there are not enough routes or connections. Nobody is going to trade crawling in a traffic jam for an hour (in their own car) to standing outside multiple times in the rain, jumping from one bus to another, dealing with smelly and loud people for 1.5 hours.
>"state and national databases that restrict who can provide genetic samples and how long that information is held."
If you really believe that the government actually completely lets go (forgets/purges) DNA information it collects, I have some nice swamp land for sale in Florida...