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User: dadioflex

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Comments · 378

  1. Re:No, it would not work on Could Crowd-Sourced Direct Democracy Work? · · Score: 1

    I for one, welcome our new intellectual aristocratic overlords!

    Too soon?

  2. Re:Excuses on No Charges For Child-Whipping Judge Caught On YouTube · · Score: 1

    You should read up on gulags, ghettos and concentration camps to see what people do and did when other people controlled them. When one horrible person makes another horrible person, must it damn the victim?

  3. I got beat as a kid. on No Charges For Child-Whipping Judge Caught On YouTube · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ho ho. I got beat left and right for stuff I did as a kid. This video is so much BS, bunch of wormy liberals complaining about a real person taking control of their family, after their daughter has stolen stuff off the internet. Yup. That's what I thought until I watched about a third of it before I couldn't stomach any more.

    I'm for discipline, and I'm for corporal punishment, but that was a sick individual getting his kicks punishing his child. You lose the moral battle when you curse as much as he did, when you seem to enjoy it as much as he did, when you won't stop even when your child is a weeping wreck in front of you.

    What sort of parent looks back on that I thinks they've helped mould their child into a good citizen?

    There's a lot of talk about how she only showed this after he took away her toys. Because you expected adult, rational behaviour from her? Yeah, that's how she was raised. Wasn't it?

    I don't normally get angry at Random Q. Internetguy, but that wasn't an Internet meme, that thing you just saw, that was the repeated, planned, brutalization of a child by her parent, and it was appalling.

  4. Re:Amazon abandoning what was good about their pla on B&N Nook Tablet vs. Amazon Kindle Fire · · Score: 1

    Needs Zork.

  5. Re:Amazon abandoning what was good about their pla on B&N Nook Tablet vs. Amazon Kindle Fire · · Score: 1

    E-ink is fine in sunlight or bright indoor lighting, but a backlit screen has many valid advantages as an e-book reader screen. A crappy analogy is that some shoes are designed for indoor use and some for outdoor use. You can use either wherever you like, because they all cover your feet, but you'll be making compromises.

    I do about three quarters of my reading on Kindle and a quarter on a Palm TX - yeah, I'm in need of an upgrade but it's an ideal adjunct to my cross trainer. And don't tell me backlit screens are bad for your eyes - it's like claiming music is bad for your ears when you have the volume turned up to eleven. Read gray text off a dark background with brightness at minimum and you have a display with similar contrast to e-ink that you can read in bed with the lights out. I swear so many people who claim to hate reading off a backlit screen have used some pretty program that attempts to emulate a bright white page and slapped it across their face like Geordi's visor.

  6. Re:Haught isn't in favor of creationism on Censored Religious Debate Video Released After Public Outrage · · Score: 1

    Watching the video and reading the letter do give a fairly reasonable opposite view from the last article, that has nothing to do with the merits of science or religion. But, ya know, you would have thought a Christian would have turned the other cheek, forgiven his enemy and just released the damn video to get his message across. Christians never seem to remember the forgiveness thing.

  7. Re:Union Featherbedding, Meh on Teacher Union Tries To Block Online Courses · · Score: 2

    But universities have discovered that PhD students are cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour.

    I find the subject of higher education in the US perplexing. We can all agree that more and more people are being encouraged into higher education, but as more students have entered college the costs, rather than coming down as you would expect, have risen dramatically, far out-pacing inflation or increases in income(remember when that was a thing?). In these sort of anomalous situations I usually figure the explanation can be found by following the money, so can anybody point me at an article that does this? My theory would be that corporations must ultimately benefit from the research being done by the professors who would otherwise have to teach - that job having been taken over for the most part by their PhD students.

  8. Re:While we're on the subject of missing genres... on First Person Dungeon Crawlers Making a Return · · Score: 1

    Dammit, I hate when people do this. I forgot Miner Wars.

  9. Re:While we're on the subject of missing genres... on First Person Dungeon Crawlers Making a Return · · Score: 1
  10. Re:Etrian Odyssey on First Person Dungeon Crawlers Making a Return · · Score: 1

    Or Frayed Knights on PC or Undercroft on IOS.

  11. Re:Yes, or No, or Use a Mixed Model on Should Book Authors Pursue a Patronage Model? · · Score: 1

    Arguably very few novels turn a profit. Writers write them when they get home from their real job, pouring their heart and soul, but more importantly their time into writing. Working a second job at McDs would generate a greater overall profit than writing. They do it because they enjoy it.

    The barrier to entry for writing a novel is stunningly low. Anyone can do it. Look at NaNoWriMo next month to see what I mean. Anyone who funds a writer through kickstarter is an idiot. The average, old school publisher selected novel makes the author around 10 grand over the space of five years, with most sales in the first few months of publication and maybe a year's worth of sales to pay back the advance - pulled out of my ass numbers but broadly speaking in the ball park. That's equivalent to around three or four months paid work to most people, yet so many writers think they'll be able to write the next great American novel if only they took a year off work. Doesn't add up.

    J A Konrath defends the 99c price point, but long term it's unlikely we'll see more people reading novels because prices are low. You go from a $20 (or more) hardback/$10 paperback model to a 99c e-book model and 80% of the money leaves the industry. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but even if you cut out the publishers, writers will still be paying for editing and promotion. Overall writers will make even less money and the majority of rewards will still go to a select few making their real money from tie-ins, movie deals and assorted side projects.

  12. Re:Might take a look at this on Bethesda's 'Scrolls' Lawsuit Going Ahead · · Score: 1

    Then don't give your money to the douchebags trying to trademark a common word, ie Mojang. Scrolls is also a pay to play, card trading game, so good luck with your choice!

  13. Re:What. on Bethesda's 'Scrolls' Lawsuit Going Ahead · · Score: 1

    But you're happy for Mojang to own the word "scrolls"? Remember when Origin and Bullfrog were cool game studios?

  14. Re:Copyright infringement on Bethesda's 'Scrolls' Lawsuit Going Ahead · · Score: 1

    Everyone seems to be missing the point that in this instance Bethesda are the good guys. Mojang wanted to trademark the WORD "Scrolls" when related to video games, and if they succeed they, Mojang, will be obliged to vigorously defend that trademark against any game that infringes their trademark by using that word in a video game title. And while Mojang could be as lax as they want to be about that while Notch is running the studio, if he sells out, like many other successful devs have eg Molyneux or Garriott, then whatever corporation buys Mojang may not be so hippy-dippy. There are CLEAR parallels to the Tim Landell, "edge", case.

  15. Re:Glad I never bought from them. on Borders Bust Means B&N May Get Your Shopping History · · Score: 2

    Right at the bottom of every marketing message from Amazon is a link to take you to your account page. Don't click on it. Instead open your browser and manually enter the link and enter your account. You can adjust exactly what email they send you from there.

  16. Ready Player One. on Neal Stephenson Says Video Games Are the Metaverse · · Score: 1
  17. Re:Proxy wars on HTC Sues Apple Using Google Patents · · Score: 2
  18. Re:Why.... on Do You Want Best Buy Opening Your New Laptop? · · Score: 1

    I am wondering if anyone has bought the HP Envy laptops yet and what their impression of the build quality is. By all appearances it was HP's attempt to capture the audience of people who like the Apple hardware, but hate Mac OS. If they are well constructed, I may consider buying one as my next laptop.

    I never have mod points when I need them. That was pretty funny on at LEAST two levels. Nicely done, but apparently too subtle for most.

  19. Re:But this is normal on Entrepreneur Makes Millions Selling Virtual Land · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To be fair 99.999% of people will pass and be largely forgotten within 3-4 generations. Probably 99% of potters, blacksmiths and even architects toil in complete anonymity and their work will be effectively unattributed within their own lifetimes. Don't sweat it. I used to get angry at all this virtual malarkey, then the economy tanked and I realised it was all virtual.

    I find your testicle-shocking vision to be intriguing, please tell me how to sign up for your newsletter.

  20. Re:I guess doom and gloom sells more ads on When Algorithms Control the World · · Score: 1

    I think the website shows ads outside of the UK, but yeah, unlikely to be the motivation. Sensationalism for the sake of it, rather than for commercial reasons.

  21. Re:Developers still 2nd class citizens on Why Software Is Eating the World · · Score: 1

    And yet, and yet... he's a software developer over-egging software development. Software development is like farming. Automation will render human input, not only irrelevant, but undesirable.

  22. Re:It's never too late on Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To Learn New Programming Languages? · · Score: 1

    If it's any consolation those off-shored jobs are probably temporary.

    People used to make things by hand, then they used power tools to help them and eventually many of those things were made by machines from start to finish. Think code will be any different?

  23. Re:Mozilla may not want Google on Why Google Needs Firefox · · Score: 1

    What exactly do Mozilla do with 100 million dollars of tax-free revenue? I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm just curious about the numbers How many people do they employ? Are they building a war chest? That'd be 500 full time employees at 100k per year with 50 million left over in case of emergencies. Again, I'm not knocking them - I'm a very happy Firefox/Thunderbird/Lightning user.

  24. Re:Hmmm on 8 Grams of Thorium Could Replace Gasoline In Cars · · Score: 1

    I'm fairly sure there's no shortage of energy locked in 1g of just about anything. Getting at it is the problem.

  25. Re:About time. on Drought-Stricken Texas Town Taps Urine For Water · · Score: 1

    Is your town in Romania?