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User: blackest_k

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  1. Re:Hmm on UK Government May Switch from MS Office to Open Source · · Score: 1

    I honestly don't find much difficulty with office suites in general, I use what's available on the pc at the time, if it's linux then generally it's libre office if its windows tends to be office 2010.

    Office suites are pretty much the same as web browsers, I might prefer one over another but they all get the job done.

    I do see a potential problem that when you set people up in a mono culture there tends to be more difficulty in coping with change. Even if you restrict your self to microsoft office it's got so many flavours now that having only ever dealt with one version users will find it harder to adapt to a newer version.

    Isn't microsoft finding the new windows 8 a hard sell because it is different from what came before?
    It's easier to admin a mono culture , but is that a good thing for users? Personally I think no because it is all subject to change and if anything our past experience should tell us even 5 years is a long time in IT so it is probably a good thing to keep users flexible.

    There isn't just a choice between office google docs and open office there is a whole lot more open office/ libre office microsoft office has 97, 2000 2003 2007 2010 2013 then there are a bunch of other office type programs on mobile and tablets. Most of us on this forum will be able to work with any of them because of who we are and our own interests. For people less into IT its a nightmare for them. It would be better for them to learn on a range of different variants then they will quickly adapt to the next version. There was a time when people were demons with wordperfect5.1 but it was soon consigned to the scrap heap (about all i remember is F1 was help , i think) It was a useful skill at the time but a complete sea change when the switch came to office 97. But that probably was the last time things changed so radically.

    So it doesn't really matter a deal which office program you use most of the time. As its write once, read a few times. maybe 1000's If your writing a document to be printed or to be a pdf it is irrelevant what word processor it was written with.

         

  2. Re:Everyone creates arbitrary lines on 200 Dolphins Await Slaughter In Japan's Taiji Cove · · Score: 1

    Cows and pigs are pretty easy to contain within an area, dogs and cats not so much. Cows and pigs are pretty docile animals and both regard us as a source of food and not as a food source. Although pigs will eat anything so you could be a food source... Chickens and rabbits have personality too. Used to have a rooster which hated people and would attack generally when you were not looking. On the other hand there was another rooster who would attack that one if he saw it was about to attack you.

    I like animals , I also like meat. I prefer for animals to have a good life and a good death. Most people only really come in contact with pieces of meat or animals raised in nice conditions you don't really see factory farmed animals if people were aware of the life of a factory farmed animal they might be reluctant to eat it. However still tastes good however it was raised. We re really good as a species at being able to see even people as valueless outside of our own social group we only have empathy it seems when it suits us.

  3. Re:'may dissuade customers from buying items from on Amazon: We Can Ship Items Before Customers Order · · Score: 1

    what dissuades me from buying through Amazon is the inability to get them to deliver to ireland, it's not everything but since there is no amazon.ie web site you have to use amazon.co.uk trouble is it's not till you get to the checkout you get the message we can't deliver to your location.
    They won't filter out products that can't be delivered to your account address till you try to buy it.
    ok Ireland is a relatively small country but as an EU country it might make sense to have an amazon.eu site so sellers willing to sell within europe can sell their products win win you'd think but no thats not what Amazon want to do...

         

  4. Re:Yes. on Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Legalize Sale of Human Organs · · Score: 1

    The idea of there being a database of most citizen dna is not that unlikely, I don't know about the USA but in the UK taking dna samples of anyone arrested (and not necessarily convicted) is routine. Collecting dna is no harder than collecting finger prints and that seems to becoming increasingly something done in schools with little regard to the consequences.

    I think it used to be the case you couldn't be catalogued without breaking some law but that no longer seems to be relevant.

  5. Re:Look before I go on U.S. Teenagers Are Driving Much Less: 4 Theories About Why · · Score: 1

    yes mail order makes it a lot easier to avoid driving, I need a part for my car i could go to a scrap yard relatively near but still maybe â5 in petrol, get charged about the same as I would at an online discount motor spares place I found which has the part new for next to nothing the delivery charge is slightly higher. If I go to the city I will spend â10 in petrol and pay a premium for what I want even if I can find it. It's cheaper just to order online and wait for the postman to deliver. Heck sometimes I buy things effectively for free since even with postage it's cheaper than the cost of driving to get it.

  6. Re:Who let this guy on a computer? on Irish Politician Calls For Crackdown On Open Source Internet Browsers · · Score: 1

    Have you seen the state of Irelands roads?

  7. Re:Uh, that's a huge spread on Record Wind Power Levels Trigger Energy Price Fall Across Europe · · Score: 1

    well there is dual rate metering, commonly known as Economy 7 in the UK. You just get charged less for electricity during the night when demand is at its lowest.

    Unfortunately they charge you more for metering it, even thou its pretty much just a relay which switches metering clocks at set times.

    It's fairly easy to be power efficient these days. The annoying thing is its not the unit rate that makes much of a difference to my bills but the standing charge levys and other fee's. doubling my electricity use would probably would change my bill in the order of 10%. If I got dual rate metering my bills would increase.

    Another con is the prepayment meter which again brings in a standing charge and higher unit rates making the bills much higher than they would be without it. This tends to mean the poorest people in society are paying the highest energy costs. This is quite hard to escape once you are in this trap if you are living week by week it is very difficult to save enough money so you are able to pay the bill when it comes in.

    It's made even more difficult in that the meter rates tend not to be adjusted when the prices go up and so when you attempt to escape all of a sudden you find your prepayment meter which was supposed to help you budget has quietly been building up a debt. suppliers like this because it holds their customers captive as you can't switch suppliers while there is an outstanding debt.

  8. Re:The way they play the "copyright" card on Supreme Court To Hear Aereo Case · · Score: 1

    Actually with a satellite dish you can pick up thousands of channels even more if its movable. In Ireland we have the slightly strange situation of having a national broadcaster RTE and a couple of others, but their output is dwarfed by the number of British channels available via satellite. Strangely Irish channels are encrypted on satellite so if you can't get a terrestial signal you have to subscribe to Sky.

    The only thing is things like BBC iPlayer are regionally locked. Really not a problem to record from satellite if i'm that bothered but honestly i'm not.

  9. Re:How many don't use the chrome part? on Chromebooks Have a Lucrative Year; Should WinTel Be Worried? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for that information, thats $120 canadian cheaper than here. Just been looking at ebay listings there is around $30 -$60 worth of import duties it seems depending on the price. Still a price saving but not quite enough I think to make it worth while.

  10. Re:How many don't use the chrome part? on Chromebooks Have a Lucrative Year; Should WinTel Be Worried? · · Score: 1

    What do you actually pay for a chrome book in the USA? I see $199 list price but in the EU its 239 euro to buy not 144 euro which is equivalent to $199, local price is roughly $330. Just curious to know what the real price is. I think us prices exclude sales taxes

  11. Re:A bad remake is a foot! on Sherlock Holmes Finally In the Public Domain In the US · · Score: 1

    You do not have to watch it, there are plenty of bad movies made any way crud is crud.

  12. Re:Why the intentional misdirection? on Is the World Ready For Facial Recognition On Google Glass? · · Score: 1

    I see where you are coming from but there is a difference between being prepared to defend yourself, yes I am, and the gp's hypothetical situation.

    the GP wants to provoke a reaction.

    If you poke a dog with a stick it may well bite you and you may have to kill or injure it as a consequence.
    when the westboro baptists decide to picket a funeral they are goading for a reaction in order to drag someone into court.

    The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman took place on the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States. If George Zimmerman hadn't ignored the Police directions to leave Trayvon to them and goaded Trayvon into fighting with him George wouldn't have been forced into shooting and killing Trayvon. Legally George was in the right because Trayvon did the wrong thing by physically attacking him but George set the ball in motion with his reckless or premeditated actions. Was he stupid or calculating?

    I think you know really it's calling looking for a fight. Something the law doesn't seem to comprehend very well except perhaps Judge Judy, "but for this , that wouldn't happened" she often gets it spot on. She wouldn't condone punching him in the face, you don't take the law into your own hands, but he would get nothing if he sued the guy who got him kicked out.

    The gp knows the gut reaction is for someone to punch him in the face, which if anyone was to do so, would tend to see him winning in court even after pounding on his assailant or shooting him as suggested by another poster. Cooler minds wouldn't take the matter into their own hands but look for a third party to resolve the situation.

    I have in the past worked as a club doorman and been that third party. The job is not about breaking up fights and throwing people out but preventing these situations occurring. Once they occur well innocent bystanders can get hurt, you ruin the venues reputation as a safe place to have a good time ect.

    So what you do is have a word with the trouble maker explain to them that they are creating a problem, everyone's having a good time, I don't want to have to ask you to leave but if you persist... to which they generally agree to be more pleasant and then you keep an eye on them for the rest of the evening, generally their buddies will be quite persuasive and keep him from drawing my attention again. Rarely do you ever need to back that up with the use of physical force.

    The GP seems to be a bit of a socio-path, has trouble comprehending how others feel, that doesn't make him a bad person there are a lot of brilliant minds round here who relate better to computers than people. I mean just look at his reaction to my original post he now thinks he is the victim :). At a conference I expect most people would just complain to the organisers or ignore the "glasshole", thats a perfect term. After all who wouldn't expect to get fired or at least reprehended by their employer if they punched another companies rep.

    In a wider situation, a bar for example, reactions maybe physical. Most of us are too polite to actually do anything about the Glasshole, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear a cheer or a round of applause as he gets kicked out or punched.

    Really what I was trying to get through was that the advantage of having some ones details come up on google glass are out weighed by the negative perception of being a glasshole.

    A lot of conferences may have name badges you could always discreetly google the name , discreetly. Far better would be to do your homework first know who you want to meet and a bit about them, those you meet for the first time, write the name company and context down as soon as you get the opportunity. You really don't need to know about all 2000 or so delegates just the ones that you feel are going to be useful to know.

    People will be genuinely flattered if you remember who they are and a bit about them and have a genuine interest in what they do and who they are, however if its obvious that

  13. Re:Ready or not on Is the World Ready For Facial Recognition On Google Glass? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No one would opt in so it's not a good idea.

    Maybe that should be a social cue, that it is unacceptable behaviour on your part, your attention is unwanted.

    People are not computers most of them have feelings they like some people they don't like others and most people respond negatively to being catalogued and targeted for adverts, this would be similar behaviour.

    knowing my name will not be a positive thing for you, as you obviously do not give a monkeys about me just how you can use me to your advantage. At a minimum I will ignore you, if you persist I may do something negative this might be as passive as choosing your competitors to do business with instead of your company.

    Maybe meeting and greeting is just not your strong suit, perhaps somebody else should be doing it instead? I'm not saying this because I am good with names and faces, far from it. If you want to get people on side with you then you talk to them not stalk them.

    You do not want to be known as the creepy socio-path with Google glass.

    Being prepared to enter a situation with relative strangers prepared to assault them is rather worrying. If I had a problem with you and your creepy behaviour. I could complain to the event organisers who would probably ask you to remove your google glass or have you ejected from the building if you refused. There is no need to get involved with you in a physical confrontation. In fact if I really wanted all I need to do is mention to a female colleague that you are scanning her with google glass and you will be ejected and possibly police called.

  14. Re:It's not about places to put them. on Clear Solar Cells Could Help Windows Generate Power · · Score: 1

    The key difference between putting solar panels on a roof and fitting these windows is the electricity producing windows are fitted in place of ordinary glass windows.

    The cost of the units is offset by not having to buy ordinary window glass. That should make a difference in payback costs and break even point.

  15. Re:Not enough application success stories on FLOSS 2013: the Survey For Open Source Contributors, a Decade Later · · Score: 2

    Choice is good and not having to choose is also good.
    Thats the best aspect of KDE and Gnome. As a user you might choose one of these as a base desktop environment others are available but your still free to pick up the applications that you want to use.

    I'd bet most users (who have a choice) use a mixture of Kde and Gnome applications.

    Kde seems to be making some advances in supporting touch and making the view part of MVC more flexible and why shouldn't it be this way wimp and touch interfaces have differing requirements. Gnome seems to not be moving much in this direction if at all but thats fine by me only my tablet has a touch-screen so far.

    With Microsoft backing touch with windows 8 (love it or hate it) and the kinect bringing gestures into play its likely our hardware is going to be supporting touch and gestures in our not too distant futures. Voice too if we can overcome the embarrassment and the recognition becoming accurate enough to not wind the user up.

    With 2 or more teams with alternative view points quite different applications and desktops are developed. One teams idea's may work better than another which may inspire another team to steal, as in take that idea and turn it into their own.

    Imagine a world where the choice wasn't between kde and gnome but say unity was the one and only linux desktop whats your option then windows?

    Even with windows you have windows 7 and windows 8 even Microsoft gets the need to have choice. They might prefer everyone to move to windows 8 but they still have to support 7 for a good while yet.

         

  16. Re:Waiver of rights on Woman Fined For Bad Review Striking Back In Court · · Score: 1

    Some people do die each year from lions, but even some of those could be avoided. Lions seem to prefer cattle pigs and other animals in preference to humans. Hopefully the statistics show that getting killed by a Lion is a relatively rare occurance. If you read the reference extract I've quoted. It seems going out in the fields in the evening is a bad idea, as the lions are hunting. Thats the kind of thing i'm thinking of when I talk about respect and understanding. Now you could choose to ignore that you are likely to find lions in the fields in the evenings in which case it may well end up as a matter of kill or be killed but why blame the lions for that?

    http://www.lionaid.org/blog/2011/12/lion-population-number-declines-problem-animal-control-or-trophy-hunting.htm

    Human/lion mortality

    Much has been made by Packer and others about the estimated number of human deaths in Tanzania from lion attacks. In total, Packer recorded 563 human mortalities from 1990 to 2004, or about 37 per year, translating to about 8 people per 10 million in the Tanzanian population. The attacks were registered from numerous districts in the country. Without diminishing the tragedy of those deaths they have to be put into perspective as they have led to a demonization of lions and a strange justification for trophy hunting â" essentially the sport hunters are doing the rural communities a favour by keeping man-eaters under control. Not only is this complete nonsense, but human deaths caused by lions are actually miniscule when compared to other sources of annual human mortality in Tanzania.

    For a short list, in Tanzania 193 to 1499 people per year die of rabies-infected dog bites, 600 from snake bites, 1,900 from falls, 4,700 from drowning, 6,000 from asthma, 13,000 from road accidents, 14,000 from violence/homicide, 21,000 from malaria, 23,000 from diabetes, 35,000 from diarrhoea, and 122,000 from HIV/Aids/tuberculosis. Tanzania ranks 21st highest among 220 countries in terms of an infant mortality at a rate of 6.7 per 1000 live births as of 2010. The number of humans killed by lions in Tanzania per year (37) is equivalent to the number of people killed in the USA per 100,000 inhabitants by lightning strikes. Lion attacks might make the news much as shark attacks do (over the past 50 years, only one person has been killed by a shark each year in Australia compared to 87 people who drown at beaches annually), but in reality the number of people killed by lions in Tanzania is miniscule compared to the hyperbole that such attacks have generated.

    Most people killed by lions are out at night and unprotected. Packer and colleagues were able to assign specific times to such attacks â" after sunset and between 6pm and 10pm in the evening on moonless nights. People were out at such times protecting their crops from elephants and other herbivores, and were attacked either in the fields (lion were also hunting crop raiding animals like bush pigs at the time) or on their journeys back and forth from their villages. As with livestock depredation, there would seem to be practical solutions available to avoid such mortality. But as mentioned above, the long-term probability of a dangerous predator population continuing to live in close contact with humans must be considered insignificant .

  17. Re:England on EU Plastic Bag Debate Highlights a Wider Global Problem · · Score: 1

    You miss the point rotting food stinks and attracts insects.
    I don't use a dishwasher and in summer i tend to use solar for heating water anyway. It doesn't do any harm to feel a little smug in the summer when you get your hot water for free.

    In the winter hot water is pretty much a side effect of having to keep warm in winter.

  18. Re:England on EU Plastic Bag Debate Highlights a Wider Global Problem · · Score: 1

    you know when you wash the dishes and the waters not so great after doing the washing up, ideal for cans. But anyway if you rinse a can with cold water right after opening it, generally it will just rinse clean. Not every can but mostly.

  19. Re:Waiver of rights on Woman Fined For Bad Review Striking Back In Court · · Score: 1

    Almost right, if the human brain had been working in the first place, then pissing off the lion and having to kill it wouldn't be necessary.

    There are people who live around Lions on a daily basis and they don't feel that they have to kill the Lions. Of course they need to treat the Lions with a little respect and courtesy to co-exist peacefully.

         

  20. Re:England on EU Plastic Bag Debate Highlights a Wider Global Problem · · Score: 1

    Seems to low a charge to make a major difference in England but the levy is pretty effective here in Ireland. Reusable bags are widely available from around a euro upwards. There are paper bags available too in many shops. I generally use a rucksack. The plastic carriers supplied by tesco's are not very strong anyway with a high chance of breakage just going from the checkout to the Car Park.

    Irelands pretty good at recycling, you basically pay to get your rubbish collected so it pays to be more environmentally conscious. Tins and bottles are generally recyclable for free at can banks as are clothes and shoes. It's not uncommon for supermarkets to host recycling banks on site although they tend not to be emptied often enough. If you rinse a tin after opening it and not leave it sitting around then you do not leave rotting crud on them to attract insects and moulds and disgusting smells.

    you can even sell clothes by the kilo and even if there is no recycling bank available for steel cans, scrapyards will take them even thou the price is too low for them to be worth selling.

    I grow a lot of my own herbs and vegetables but even while that isn't an option for everybody. You can always prep the vegetables you buy and freeze the excess. Actual cooking isn't that hard and has very little difference in buying ready meals and saves cash too. if you make too much well freeze the excess. Pretty simple isn't it.

    I'm pretty sure i'm eating healthier by making my own food from ingredients rather than factory processed foods which have to be able to be stored on a shelf for weeks or months. I do buy good quality food too. I don't mind paying for coffee beans and actual butter, rather than instant coffee and emulsified dyed oils.

    It is a better way of doing things both for you and the environment.

  21. Re:I have an idea! on Samsung Ordered To Pay Apple $290M In Patent Case · · Score: 1

    I swear I thought turkeys could fly :)

  22. Could they redirect some of the load? on Project Rescue Expert Todd Williams Talks About Healthcare.gov (Video) · · Score: 1

    Would it be possible to divert some of the load from the servers. Kind of like a bouncer on a club door, so many gain admission they are able to be processed the rest get knocked back until there is a free spot on the actual servers processing the applications. At least that way some of the applications get processed instead of the servers being overwhelmed.

    For bonus points bring more servers online if the design can cope with it.

    I'm thinking of something like a load balancer but rooting some requests to dev/null, maybe setting a cookie with a counter so if you have been knocked back more times than most you get prioritised next time.

    ok its a bad design which doesn't scale and should be rewritten but as a bandaid to the existing design wouldn't it at least get some of the applications processed.

    what is a practical solution for dealing with the load ?

     

  23. Re:Mod This Up! on Ask Slashdot: Cheap Second Calculators For Tests? · · Score: 1

    neither its sugary water Burgerking better burgers not familiar with chevy but had a few fords and didn't miss them when they were gone.
    Calculator had my current one 20+ years so out of production for a long time.

  24. Re:Fitting rooms on How Blockbuster Could Have Owned Netflix · · Score: 1

    Mens clothes might stand the online treatment. Ever noticed the mens wear section is tiny compared to womens and childrens sections.

    As a woman said to me it is enough that a man is clean and smells nice.

  25. Re:Kind of the point on Sweden Is Closing Many Prisons Due to Lack of Prisoners · · Score: 1

    that's not that much of a claim :) most places you won't get killed as a matter of routine.

    pretty sure i would be safer in Dublin than London and I feel Washington and Moscow would be worse. Is crime worse in Washington or Moscow?