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User: OldeTimeGeek

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Comments · 706

  1. Re:Its silly on Paris Bans Half of All Cars On the Road · · Score: 2

    Even if true, which I doubt, it's irrelevant. Paris can only control their environment, not the industrial policies of another country. Like it or not, they're doing what they can do.

  2. Re:Bigger crime here on Florida Arrests High-Dollar Bitcoin Exchangers For Money Laundering · · Score: 0

    Oh, no they haven't - they're still here but have been modded down to -1. What level are you browsing at?

  3. Re:They have done this for years on US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online · · Score: 1

    So Comcast should give you a cable box (or card) - which subscribers don't get for free - send an installer to hook it up, even if you aren't wired for cable, do the internal paperwork to turn on the box and then when the Olympics is over, back it all out. All for a one-time fee. Sure. Gonna happen.

  4. Re:Kill Beta! on A New Use For Drones: Traffic Scouting · · Score: 1

    They certainly are! Sorry, someone had to complete the joke...

  5. Re:Why? on Virtual Boss Keeps Workers On a Short Leash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What problem are they trying to solve? They want to recover the cost of managers. They can't get rid of the technical staff - they actually need them - but they can get rid of that expensive middle tier by automating the tracking part of management. Which all they think there is to management.

    Before you all say "Woohoo", think of this: The CIO is now your boss. You are no longer a person, you're a resource. The only way he knows you or of you is a set of numbers on a report. You either make whatever metric they use to gauge your performance or you don't. They don't care if you're sick, or if you're taking care of a child, or if you've got a personal problem - you don't make the numbers and you're gone.

  6. No horns? on When Cars Go Driverless, What Happens To the Honking? · · Score: 1
    Ok, let's assume in this wondrous future, you are being driven (can't exactly call it driving if you're not in control) on some country roads and you encounter a very large bull standing in the middle of the road. Your car recognizes that there is an obstruction, stops and waits patiently for the road to clear. The bull waits patiently for the car to go away. Unless they've come up with automated cattle in the future you've got a problem. Since the car has no horn, you (the passenger) have to figure out a way to get the bull to clear the road. You try waving your arms. The bull ignores you. You yell at it, fueled by you annoyance. It calmly looks at the source of the noise and goes nowhere. The car finally figures out the obstruction is permanent, executes a perfect u-turn and runs out of gas because it didn't include having to backtrack when it calculated your course.

    Anybody who thinks this is unlikely has never driven on back roads. Will they get rid of horns? I hope not.

  7. Re:Instagram didn't replace Kodak on The Internet's Network Efficiencies Are Destroying the Middle Class · · Score: 3, Informative
    Yay! Someone with a good memory. For a long time, the highest quality, highest resolution digital cameras were Kodak. But they were for professionals only. Kodak's big mistake was not wanting to cannibalize their film market and for that they paid dearly.

    As the GP said, they still exist. Those of us who still use film (I have two medium format cameras) can still buy Kodak color or black and white film and motion picture film is still available.

  8. Re:Stupid. All of them. on Australia's National Broadband Network Downgraded · · Score: 1

    Oh, yeah. That'll work ever so well. Everybody will do things in a way that is completely inoperable with every other company and it will be left up to yet another party to integrate it. I mean, it worked great for the American telcos, didn't it?

  9. Re:iPad on Ask Slashdot: Easy Wi-Fi-Enabled Tablet For My Dad? · · Score: 1

    Didn't imply that that they did, just that I've been working with computers for a while. Could have said Teletypes, card punches or DECwriters rather than CRTs...

  10. Re:iPad on Ask Slashdot: Easy Wi-Fi-Enabled Tablet For My Dad? · · Score: 4, Informative

    As someone who is suffering from declining eyesight because of too many years looking at CRTs, I have to disagree. I recently switched from a first generation iPad to a higher version and have to say that the increased resolution means, to me at least, that the screen is a lot easier to reed. The extra resolution makes the characters on a web page or email a lot less fuzzy and I don't have to concentrate to as much to make out what it says.

  11. Re: Why on China Prefers Sticking With Dying Windows XP To Upgrading · · Score: 1

    Degrading in the sun doesn't do much good when most of the bags are buried in landfills.

  12. Re:When you have a bad driver ... on Is the Porsche Carrera GT Too Dangerous? · · Score: 4, Insightful
    They're sold for street use because they have to be. The FIA requires manufacturers in the GT classes to produce 25 cars for the car to be homolagated (allowed to race).

    Not to mention that they make very nice rich boy toys, just like all of the other super cars.

  13. Re:I Guess on Failed Software Upgrade Halts Transit Service · · Score: 1
    Never been to San Francisco, have you?

    Let's say all of the BART riders start driving in. They will find themselves adding more traffic to an already congested highway system that will never, ever, get any larger. There simply isn't the space. And once they get to work, good luck finding some place to park...

  14. Re:And You Are Some Magic Insect Sorting Entity? on UN Says: Why Not Eat More Insects? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, but would most people eat a handful of aphids all at once? There's a huge difference between eating the odd insect part or two because they were accidentally introduced in the process and choosing to eat them.

  15. Re:and they wonder why they dont make money... on USPS To Launch Line of Smart Clothing · · Score: 1

    They may, possibly, delver to an outlying area but next day or even second day service is nonexistent. Not to say that it won't keep them from still accepting packages and charging you a premium price for two-day service that they don't intend to honor.

  16. Re:very very stealthy on Iran Unveils Its Own Stealth Fighter Jet, the Qaher F-313 · · Score: 3, Funny

    So their pilots can Rock the Casbah?

  17. Re:How America has withered ... on What You Can Do About the Phone Unlocking Fiasco · · Score: 1

    If you really, honestly, truly think that the unwashed masses had better access to their representatives in an any era, you aren't quite as old as you state.

    Congress has NEVER been afraid of its constituents - largely because voters had no real idea of how laws were made. They had the idealized Civics class version which made it sound like everybody was in agreement all of the time - just one big happy family there on Capitol Hill. Disagreements? Never discussed. How money was spread about between states to ease passage of controversial bills? Not a word. People were completely isolated from it and happy to be so. Honestly, do you really think that there would have been a Moon program if the discussion was available outside of Congress? Would the Civil Rights Act have been passed if the details of how Lyndon Johnson made each Congressmen an "offer they couldn't refuse" was on the daily news? If you want to look even earlier, the graft behind the creation of Transcontinental Railroad makes Enron look like rolling a kid for their lunch money. Did the public know about that? Even if they did, do you think that they would have cared?

    Between blogs, traditional media and social media, people today have an unprecedented level of information about what goes on in Congress and what their Congresspeople do. America hasn't withered - life is more complex than any time in our history and rather than discussing it, we've chosen to hide from it. People have always chosen what they do with their franchise - we now choose to sit back and whine.

  18. Re:iPhone IS MADE in China on New Hampshire Cops Use Taser On Woman Buying Too Many iPhones · · Score: 2

    The iPhone 5 received the necessary network access licenses from the regulatory groups in China at the end of November and have only recently gone on sale there. The sales restriction didn't come from Apple.

  19. Re:Extreme racing on FIA Adds Rome To Formula E 2014 Inaugural Season · · Score: 1

    Weight is still directly related to winning, but refueling was ended in 2010 - regular pit stops are only for tire change now.

  20. Re:Obviously they are trying to build hype on What "Earth-Shaking" Discovery Has Curiosity Made on Mars? · · Score: 1

    We already know. It's three.

  21. Re:We the People killed free speech. on You Can't Say That On the Internet · · Score: 2

    No, the original idea behind the First Amendment was to constrain government from restricting speech. It says nothing nor has anything to say about an individual right to do so.

  22. Re:Electric cars... yawn on Elon Musk Will Usher In the Era of Electric Cars · · Score: 2

    The one that's faster and corner's better.

  23. Re:Really? on U.S. Election Day In Progress: What's Been Your Experience? · · Score: 1

    It'd be more effective to call the Registrar of Voters (or whatever the agency that handles voting is called) to report it. They can actually do something - the police can't.

  24. Re:Good reason for it to be illegal on Pull Lever, Don't Snap Shutter: It May Be Illegal To Post Your Ballot · · Score: 1

    A photo of a ballot is in no way "proof" of how you voted - at least in any way that could be used if there was a question about the vote. Aside from ease of manipulating the picture to show anything that you wanted it to show after the fact, the chain of custody would be nonexistent.

  25. Re:Good that he reported it on Man Finds Roman Gold Coin Hoard Worth £100,000 With Metal Detector · · Score: 1

    People aren't stupid, nor are they insensitive to what they are doing. The reality is that the banks that fund new developments don't really care why there's a delay in a job - just that there is one. Contractors, for good or ill, are very aware that this job and possibly the next one depends upon getting the project done on time. It's just the way things work in construction.