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User: A.+Bosch

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  1. Re:Why not, it's just another work tool on Ask Slashdot: Companies That Force Employees To Join Social Networks? · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Exactly. I'm on facebook with a name so fake it's laughable and a comic book face for a photo.

  2. Re:I did on Fee Increase Attempt Inspires 'Dump Your Bank Day' · · Score: 1

    A friend (we're in the US) dumped BofA for USAA and is very happy. And on the rare occasion he gets a paper check, he can deposit it via a UPS store

  3. Re:Biggest tight wad of all time on A Look Back At the Career of Steve Jobs · · Score: 1

    "Do not tell me of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  4. Re:2 weeks? on Verizon Employees End Strike · · Score: 2

    Bzzzzzzzzzzt. Wrong, try again. I live in the world where I don't need to extort salary and benefits from an employer by threat of strikes/intimidation/sabotage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics "In 2010, the union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of a union--was 11.9 percent". The other 88% of the workforce is the "real" world. I'm not jealous in the least. Health care costs are rising faster than inflation. Big surprise that employers are trying to shift that cost. That said, I wish the Verizon employees well; this isn't a company that's struggling. They're doing quit well. They want to share the wealth with the holders of stock options instead of the workers.

  5. Re:wysiwyg Will Probably Always Have this Problem on Ask Slashdot: Web Site Editing Software For the Long Haul? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, sadly Smultron was abandoned by its developer (or developers, but I think there was just one.) I coughed up the money for TextMate, which has some cool features.

  6. Re:Please! We got you beat easily on 8 of China's Top 9 Govt. Officials Are Engineers · · Score: 2
    While I realize you were not serious; I was curious what the real numbers were among Congresspersons. I expected 99 Lawyers and a paralegal. ;-)

    There are a lot of lawyers to be sure, but fewer than I expected.

    For the record, there are 435 Representatives and 100 Senators in Congress.

    From Wikipedia:

    The Congressional Research Service notes that the vast majority of Members (95 percent) had an academic degree:

    168 Representatives and 57 Senators have a law degree. Of these, five (Representative and two Senators) also hold a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree.

    83 Representatives and 16 Senators earned a master's degree -- often a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) - as their highest educational degree

    27 Representatives and one Senator (Mark Begich) have no educational degree beyond a high school diploma.

    23 Representatives (but no Senators) have a Ph.D

    17 Representatives and three Senators have a medical degree (this number includes one Senator with a veterinary medicine degree and one Representative with a dental degree).

    Five Representatives (but no Senators) have an associate's degree as their highest degree. One House Member has a licensed practical nurse (L.P.N.) degree

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_States_Congress

  7. Re:Even more strange on Jesse Jackson, Jr. Pins US Job Losses On iPad · · Score: 1

    > But for some reason it's his job that would be classified as "blue collar" and "low-skill". I have to disagree with that. Blue-collar, yes. But tool and die makers are extremely skilled individuals. I worked in a machine shop back in the 1980s and the tool makers were well-respected and at the top of the pecking order in the shop (which was fairly large.) They were the blue-collar equivalent I guess of sys admins, bordering on BOFH status. They were catered to, and the other less-skilled machinists kowtowed to them. They were also the highest-paid in the shop.

  8. Re:Just use the hardware you have on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Choose a Windows Laptop? · · Score: 1

    I think this is good advice. If I can add on: I've found Lenovo laptops to be sturdy, no-nonsense machines. My experiences in dealing with Dell on more than one occasion has soured me on ever buying another Dell. Good luck!

  9. Re:Need a bigger knife on Jerry Brown Confiscates 48,000 Cell Phones · · Score: 1

    Heh, nice, you are of course correct; here's a reference by the way for the curious: http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/top-5-marie-antoinette-scandals1.htm

  10. Re:Make like a Tree and Leave on Trash-To-Gas Power Plant Gets Greenlight · · Score: 1

    My town composts them. My tax dollars at work, I'm happy to say.

  11. Re:The thing with ASCII on Mr. Pike, Tear Down This ASCII Wall! · · Score: 1

    Where's my mod points? Spot-on observations.

  12. Re:Reason #3 Your Nation Will Stay A Backwater on Pakistan To Scour Google, Yahoo For Blasphemy · · Score: 1

    I believe it also included a lot of intelligent design controversy. See here and here for example. From the NY Times article: "After facing months of protest, conservative members of the Texas Board of Education were expected Thursday night to vote to teach schoolchildren a version of American history that emphasizes the roles of capitalist enterprise, the military, Christianity and modern Republican political figures. "

  13. Re:Yet another example of why... on BlackBerry Predicted a Century Ago By Nikola Tesla · · Score: 1

    Amen, brother!

  14. Re:Free Software is up to the task on FSF Response To Steve Jobs's Letter · · Score: 1
    > But... I don't see that in the future with Mr. Jobs at the head of Apple.

    No, me neither. Wozniak, maybe. Jobs, no. But you make an excellent point, thank you.

  15. Re:A good criticism, but... on FSF Response To Steve Jobs's Letter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > Where would we be if you had to use a restricted format to read normal web pages? Oh, absolutely; I agree. I'm not a video expert; I was told the quality of the Ogg Theora video paled in comparison to H.264, which is why I mentioned that comparison. I feel like "Open/Free vs Proprietary" sometimes means "Pretty Good vs Very Good." And sometimes "Pretty Good" isn't good enough.

  16. A good criticism, but... on FSF Response To Steve Jobs's Letter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I RTFA, and I think it's the most well-thought-out criticism of Jobs' anti-Flash editorial I've seen so far The author maintains "the way out of the Adobe vs. Apple cage match is straightforward, and exists already: free software operating systems like GNU/Linux with free software Web browsers, supporting free media formats like Ogg Theora" and later concludes, "So, the correct decision in the dispute between Apple and Adobe is "none of the above." The past we need to leave behind is not just Flash, it's Apple's proprietary software as well." I agree with that in principle. I guess where I get stuck is, I do like OS/X. I like it a lot better than Linux. I'm not involved in cutting video but I work with someone who is, and they tell me they like H.264 a lot better than Ogg Theora. So...am I part of the problem? Is the Free Software movement not up to the task of competing with proprietary software? I feel like the trade-off I'm currently making with OS/X is acceptable -- for now. I don't see myself buying an iPhone (or iPad) anytime soon, but neither do I see myself getting rid of my iMac.

  17. Re:Copyright laws. on Anyone Can Play Big Brother With BitTorrent · · Score: 1

    While I also agree with the GP poster, I'm not sure that downloading decreases value. It might actually increase value from increased mind share of the downloaded item. I might be more likely to go to a concert of a group whose music I've downloaded, for example. At least, I'll be more inclined to discuss the group with my friends, or purchase a future album.

  18. Re:bundle fees have to end on ABC Pulls Channels From Cablevision · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Given the lack of competition in this space, by not un-bundling services, are cable companies guilty of unfair trade practices? Why should I have to buy, for example, a package of movie channels just to get IFC? IWIWAL (I wish I were a lawyer)

  19. Re:Right into the trap... on New Type of Dinosaur Unearthed · · Score: 1

    Agh, where's my mod points? I totally agree with you. For more fun reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_the_Banner_of_Heaven

  20. My boss gave me this... on After Learning Java Syntax, What Next? · · Score: 1

    201 principles of software development http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=203406 I found this useful. Cheers, and good luck!

  21. Re:Safety Critical on Toyota Pedal Issue Highlights Move To Electronics · · Score: 1

    EXACTLY. You are 100% correct based on my experience; I've owned over a dozen cars so far in my life, some manual transmission, some automatic. (You're correct about the wear on the transmission from 'power braking' too...).

  22. Re:Forget about the EU - This is Capitalism! on Slow Oracle Merger Leads To Outflow of Sun Projects, Coders · · Score: 1

    In a post with a lot of interesting comments, I agree with this one the most. Sadly, I have no mod points...

  23. Re:How you can use it now... on Wolfram Alpha Launches Tonight, On Camera · · Score: 1

    Still no go: "Sorry, Wolfram Alpha is temporarily unavailable. Please try again. Error: DataPacletFilter: Unable to get Connection Cannot create PoolableConnectionFactory (Too many connections) © 2009 Wolfram Alpha LLCâ"A Wolfram Research Company Terms of Use Privacy Policy Participate [ Infrastructure for this computation provided by Wolfram|Alpha launch partner Dell, Inc. ]" I blame Dell. And society.

  24. Re:why? on MySQL Founder Starts Open Database Alliance, Plans Refactoring · · Score: 1

    Not sure why this was modded "Troll" nor am I understanding why GP is "Informative". I have to agree; there's a lot of MySQL bashing by Postgres wonks. Move on.

  25. Re:This is familiar.. on A Mixed Review For Windows 7's XP Mode · · Score: 1

    Hah! Nice. My laugh of the morning To be fair though, I think the beta I have of Windows 7 is better (IMHO) than XP as it did "solve" some issues I was having with the built-in RAID on my ASUS motherboard. It solved it by not giving me a BSOD every 3rd boot and gracefully ignoring the error. The mb is >4 years old now so I guess it's time to upgrade anyway. But I'm more interested in Snow Leopard than 7 at any rate. 7 is a little pokey on my older hardware.