Slashdot Mirror


User: phallstrom

phallstrom's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
150
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 150

  1. The screech of a record player needle. on Ask Slashdot: Sounds We Don't Hear Any More? · · Score: 1

    And yet it's still used in movies (animated anyway) to indicate the "uh oh wtf" sound. Even when it makes no sense for it to exist.

  2. Profit? on Twitter Turns 8; May Drop Hashtags and @replies · · Score: 3, Interesting

    1. Build Twitter with features people love.
    2. Remove said features infuriating the masses.
    3. Re-introduce said features as a premium feature.
    4. Profit?

    Nothing else seems to be working for them...

  3. Answer a question on StackOverflow on Ask Slashdot: Really Short Time Wasters? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Build a filter on stackoverflow.com (or equivalent) focusing on the technologies you like/know-something-about and watch the new/unanswered queue. Answer one. Usually doesn't take that long, good questions put you in a different mindset, and you're helping someone out.

  4. Get outside for a walk! on Ask Slashdot: What Are Your Tips For Working From Home? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (been working from home for 6 years...)

    You don't realize how much you walk during the day until your office is 20 feet from your bedroom. I find it helps immensely to take a quick walk in the morning, lunchtime, and after work to clear my head. Also... you don't realize how much "de briefing" you go through on your drive home. You still need to do that instead of jumping right into family/kid/dinner time. Maybe not as long, but something to detox...

    And lastly, if you've got wife/kids at home, it will be an adjustment for *everyone* and can take a long (6mo - 1yr) to get used to.

  5. Re:NO TYPING! on Researchers' Typosquatting Stole 20 GB of E-Mail · · Score: 1

    You have to type it in the first time -- unless they sent you an email. So.... type it in wrong. Send off an email. Oops. Now it's in your mail app's magical "previous recipients" list. Update your official contact list. Send them another email. But your mail app decides to use the previous recipient entry since it's "more recent" (or whatever) than your official contact entry. Unless you click on the person's name to verify the updated address you'll never know and another misdirected email is sent.

    In my experience a much bigger problem is folks who deal with a lot of third party contacts... John Smith at CompanyA and John Smyth at CompanyB. The user starts typing "John" and lets it auto complete. Maybe they even see the first "Sm" and assume it's good. And off the email goes to the wrong people. When I worked in IT I'd get frantic calls from people asking if I could stop an email from going out because they'd realize it just after sending it...

  6. Re:How many keys left in a few years? on Chrome Does Have a Caps-Lock Key After All · · Score: 1

    How do you delete right of the cursor instead of left?.... Already, Page Up/Down and Home/End are gone on many notebook keyboards, making simple stuff like select to the start/end of line (Shift-Home / Shift-End) too clumsy to be useful when you need to hold a third Fn key simultaneously. And selecting to the end of the document becomes almost impossible.

    x, ctrl-b, ctf-f, ^, $, and G :-)

  7. Re:If Microsoft wanted to be evil... on Windows 8 To Be Released In October 2012 · · Score: 1

    At least we know what step 3 is this time...

    > Microsoft could exploit by becoming the first vendor to make peace with everyone.
    1. Embrace.

    > they should work on extending whatever POSIX compatibility
    2. Extend.

    3. Extinguish

    4. Profit

  8. Re:I welcome our OS IX overlords on 'Back To the Mac' Media Event On October 20th · · Score: 1

    I predict that about the time OSX runs out of big cat names, Microsoft will jump on the big cat bandwagon and release Windows Garfield. Millions of dollars will be spent marketing it, Odie will replace Clippy, and after selling hundreds of copies, Microsoft will declare it a success[1]

    [1] in relation to the Kin.

  9. Re:Attention overload! on Texting On the Rise In the US · · Score: 1

    In my limited experience 7/hour is on the low side. The one teen I see regularly txt's so much that sometimes it can be impossible to have a conversation with him at all. I remember once asking to see his phone (it was new at the time) and I had to give it back 2-3 times a minute because it kept beeping.

    I also remember being in a room with him and three of his friends. They all had their phones out. Heads down. Txt'ing like crazy. I wasn't paying a lot of attention. Then they all laughed at once. And it dawned on me they were txt'ing each other. IN THE SAME ROOM.

    I don't know how they do it.

  10. Re:best practices: how to code for IE on IE Market Share Falls To Historic Low · · Score: 1

    Why punish your non-IE users by making them run that javascript? Use IE's conditional tags to sneak it in there but get it ignored by all but IE.

  11. There's also Liquid Rescale... on Photoshop CS5's Showpiece — Content-Aware Fill · · Score: 1

    I'm not into graphics much, but this seems similar to what Liquid Rescale can do.

    http://liquidrescale.wikidot.com/en:examples

    At the 3:45 mark in the first video they show removing elements.

  12. Re:It's the Polyphony Digital model! on EA To Charge For Game Demos · · Score: 3, Funny

    Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    Can I write you a check?

  13. Consider an HSA. And cost of business! on Health Insurance When Leaving the Corporate World? · · Score: 1

    Two years ago I quit my job and bought health insurance. Cost about $1200/mo for my family. When I was looking around what I saw most were people complaining about how expensive it was. Sure, it is, but the job I'd quit was paying about $2000/mo for me. And while it might be expensive, simply factor it into the cost of running your own business -- just like *ANYTHING* else. If it means you have to charge $10/hr more, then that's what it means.

    Also, consider an HSA/catastrophic plan. We switched recently to that, and even with two young kids, we end up spending less than we did for just our premiums before -- and when you get down to the nitty gritty horrible accident scenerio the coverage is pretty much the same -- well, don't get pregnant... that isn't covered.

  14. Re:I'm Interested in the Opposite View on What Knowledge Gaps Do Self-Taught Programmers Generally Have? · · Score: 1

    Not understanding the business reasons behind the decisions being made. The PHB's don't care what language you use or algorithm or any of that (usually). What they do care about is that it's on time, has the features they want, and gives them a high return on investment.

    I've sat in meetings were a programmer will go on about why a certain feature can't/shouldn't be done for a variety of technical reasons and gets no where. And right after that another programmer will mention that the feature can't be done as it would cost $$$ and delay the project and not provide any ROI. And the feature is canceled.

    And, no, I'm not suggesting programmers should pull the ROI trick out of the bag when they don't want to do something, but if you want to convince management, speak their language.

  15. For politicians absolutely! on Does a Lame E-Mail Address Really Matter? · · Score: 1

    It doesn't bother me so much for job applicants -- It's less important than proper attire, etc.

    But for politicians it is a definite black mark. Especially when they have a professional domain name, but a hotmail/yahoo/aol -- yes, even gmail email address. It tells me that they nor anyone on their staff is "with it" technically and to me that means they won't use technology appropriately during their term.

  16. Re:I am not surprised on Android Phone Demand Up 250%, iPhone Down · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't want to have to remember to bring a charger when I visit the in-laws for the weekend or travel for a meeting. Unless I'm going somewhere for >4 days I can leave the charger at home.

  17. Re:Ruby on Ruby In Practice · · Score: 1

    That would be Python, not Ruby... and since I have to wait for Slashdot, the book is good. So is the Well Grounded Rubyist (also by Manning).

  18. Copilot on Simple, Free Web Remote PC Control? · · Score: 1

    Try Copilot. It's not free, but they have a per-minute plan that's reasonable. It's VNC over SSH, but wrapped up nicely so easy to use.

  19. Re:Fascinating stuff... on Intel Says Brain Implants Could Control Computers By 2020 · · Score: 2, Funny

    This reminds me somewhat of the AI computer to look at sat photos and determine if there were tanks in the photo. They trained it. They tested it. It worked great. And then it failed horrifically. It turns out the training photos that had tanks were taking on sunny days, those that didn't were cloudy. The computer had learned to distinguish between sunny and cloudy days and wasn't looking for tanks at all.

  20. Re:Dodgy statesmen on Microsoft Tax Dodge At Issue In Washington State · · Score: 1

    I'm just curious...why are tax revenues so bad in the state where a company like MS is employing what I could guess is a good number of people and what I would guess were pretty good salaries/bill rates? What is the state income tax like there? What is the sales tax there? What is the property tax there?

    Well, when the people vote against building football/baseball stadiums *three* times and then they go ahead and build them anyway it gives you a good idea of where the money goes.

  21. Keep dating -- *after* you're married! on Navigating a Geek Marriage? · · Score: 1

    I really don't think the fact that both of you are geeks has anything to do with it. As many others have pointed out you are simply replacing one set of potential issues with another (ie. watching football all sunday vs playing games all sunday -- the underlying problem is the same).

    What I haven't seen anyone mention is that just because you are married doesn't mean you get to stop trying. You *MUST* continuously "date" your wife. Whatever it is that you did to get her to agree to marry you in the first place... keep on doing... if that means flowers and chocolate and nice dinners out, do it. If it means setting aside time to read books she likes, do it. If it means joint sessions of WoW, do it. Marriage doesn't give you a free pass to your relationship.

    The other thing I would say is that you two can make a choice right now. Are you going to work through your issues (you *WILL* have them) and be open with each other? Or are you going to keep the divorce card in your pocket just in case. My advice... toss the divorce card out the window and be willing to work through your issues no matter what. And before everyone jumps on me, I do realize that divorce is sometimes necessary -- but getting a divorce because he plays too much WoW isn't one of them. The bigger problem there is that you won't have learned anything. Why did I play WoW so much? Why did I let him play WoW so much? What is the underlying issues? Co-dependence, passive agressive, depression? You've got to solve those or you'll be back in the same boat the next time around.

    I read an article about a study that took unhappy couples. Some broke up. Some got counseling and worked through it. Five years later 75% of those that stayed together were "more happy". Only 25% that broke up were "more happy". (my numbers are off, but you get my point).

    I've been married 12 years..

  22. Re:What kind of superpowers does he have now? on 14-Year-Old Boy Smote By Meteorite · · Score: 1

    Probably a witch anyway.

    Does he float?

  23. Why not plant grass instead? on Painting The World's Roofs White Could Slow Climate Change · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wouldn't it be better to simply plant grass instead? Ignoring the problem of having to reinforce roofs that is...

  24. Re:How about a way to download but not display ads on Adblock Plus Maker Proposes Change To Help Sites · · Score: 1

    Ugh. No. Maybe it's just me, but my browsing experience slows way down waiting for all the various ad server domains to resolve. For the record, there are a handful of sites that I have turned off Adblock for because I appreciate what they are doing and because they don't do it in an annoying way.

  25. Talk to your school librarian. on Building a Searchable Literature Archive With Keywords? · · Score: 1

    Don't librarian's (particularly those in the library science realm) deal with this sort of thing all the time?