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User: Captain+Linger

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  1. Re:what will they change tourists for roaming? on Mobile Internet Goes Free, National For a Day In Cuba (reuters.com) · · Score: 1
    Just got back a few weeks ago. There have been foreign networks in Cuba offering roaming for quite some time. And you're right, they're exceptionally expensive, around $2/meg.

    For what it's worth, the local Internet access is the same for tourists and locals (though the impact of that pricing is felt quite differently) at $1/hr. If anything this will certainly bring prices down across the board. Mobile phones have become incredibly popular, and $2/M is ludicrously prohibitive. If I had to guess, there'll be a low fee for an exceptionally capped personal plan.

  2. Re:Old news on FDA Designates MDMA As 'Breakthrough Therapy' For PTSD (futurism.com) · · Score: 1

    Shulgin was not the first to synthesize MDMA. He did, if I'm remembering my PIHKaL correctly, create a novel synthesis for it that made it considerably easier to produce in usable (bulk) quantities. But he and Anne were instrumental in using it for unauthorized therapy early on. It's pathetic that as always, the same people singing the praises of military members have 0 compassion for the plight of those who return with mental injuries from their service.

    Much like with marijuana...I don't feel the drug needs to be worth a felony. That's entirely secondary to actually accepting clearly valid medical uses for people in pain.

  3. Re:1999 is calling....coder schools are nothing ne on Early 'Coding School' Dev Bootcamp Is Shutting Down (axios.com) · · Score: 1

    full of security and scalability problems and ignores any advice I might give him because he knows all this new-fangled Angular stuff and since I don't, I must be obsolete anyway.

    It seems possible that you aren't taking your responsibility to mentor seriously. While you've been "meaning to get around to" learning modern technology, you could ask for assistance from that kid, impart some wisdom along the way, and actually build a good relationship and your import in the office.

    I'm not entirely certain what your skills vs. hypothetical new guy are supposed to mean, either...those are two very separate job descriptions. Your skill set as stated doesn't make you much of a fit for web development. His don't sound all that wonderful for lower-level applications.

  4. Re:IME, these "camps" are a scam. on Early 'Coding School' Dev Bootcamp Is Shutting Down (axios.com) · · Score: 1

    I think you might be happier somewhere that you can be hands-on in the hiring process instead of simply having people jammed into interviews with you. If you don't feel you can provide effective feedback to the manager responsible for funneling people who're going to learn from you...good luck in general.

    There was a series of copycat "bootcamps" with varying selectivity and success. A lot are trash. I had pretty good luck with DBC in particular...found 2 of the brightest Python developers I know there (both seniors at good shops 4-5 years in). Juniors take serious investment, and hiring them as cheap labor is another good sign you're just not in a terribly healthy company.

  5. A lot of what you're saying boils down to "why does the industry choose to use attractive and truth-stretching narratives to sell us stuff?", which I think should be evident. We've been buying "preowned" cars for 2-3 decades now. You ever give your new car to a buddy for the first 30,000 just so you can have it pre-owned for you?

    I eat meat, and eat it voraciously. Meat substitutes suck, hence my continued buying of meat; your black bean burger does not have a damned thing on the brisket sandwich I had for lunch. I have no problem with butchering animals, and have done so myself. Much like a lot of the free market, I do have a problem with how low animal husbandry standards have gotten. Equal parts of my concern are the cruel conditions (which offend farmers too, not just the outraged left), and my own health. My consumer options are to buy humanely produced meat (we do buy from a CSA that's very cost-competitive but there's no option at retail here unless you want to pay 4x), or buying antibiotic-stuffed, questionable-origin meat from the store. I definitely do more of the latter, but I'd be happy to pay a bit more for some of that lab meat. Or, as the article does suggest, roughly equal cost.

  6. Yeah, but they're a tiny bit labor and resource intensive. With lab grown meat, you might be able to grow yer own on the kitchen counter top.

    But then it turns out that the $300 meat machine you bought could've just been replaced by hand squeezing the meat packs you buy.

  7. Re:H1B Visa? on Investigation Finds Inmates Built Computers, Hid Them In Prison Ceiling (cbs6albany.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's not untrue, but it ain't true either. It basically depends on what era and what system you're asking about whiteness. 55% are indeed "white"...but that follows Census guidelines, not conventional race reporting statistics.

    The population of *non-Hispanic whites* is 32%, roughly half their comparative incidence in the general population at 62%
    Black men are 37% of the prison population, 12% of general population (a 3x skewing).
    Hispanic men are 22% of the prison population, 17% of the general population.

    In general minorities are incarcerated at twice the rate. Thankfully this conversation hasn't settled into the inevitable straw man idiocy insisting black people commit more crimes or not (they absolutely do, owing to economic circumstances). The situation is tremendously unfair and at a bare minimum profoundly impacts minorities more severely.

  8. Re:They are still allowed on FAA May Ban Galaxy Note 7 On Flights Due To Exploding Batteries (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 2

    Sales are below expectations for the past year or so, but that tracks an overall drop in widebody orders. It's also to an extent not all that relevant whether the 78 project makes money (and it likely will in the long run) given the amount of research done. There's a forthcoming 757 replacement, and the company's committed to replacing the 737 in the next decade with a full redesign. Expect a lot of recycling design factors from the Dreamliner that'll save money.

    The rollout really went incredibly smoothly, too. *All* new airframes have substantial issues going out the door, and Boeing substantially changed the character of a greater than normal set of systems than normal.

  9. Re:Startups are mostly garbage, news at 11 on WrkRiot Collapses Amongst Allegations of Fraud (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    This. I mean, I guess if you're brought in by the allure of "working at a startup" and aren't particularly focused on the viability and the leadership team? Fine, I bet you find a lot of trash. Don't care about getting paid a fair (if stingy) wage? You'll find a ton of trash.

    I started at a rather young startup and took a very slight pay cut (and 40% less than my top offer). Had an opportunity not only to work with the most talented tech team I've ever seen, but also to grow my own skills and leadership, quickly. As soon as we weren't working on 1M in seed funding, I was more than adequately compensated with a salary that itself was 50% *more* than that top offer.

    And yeah, 2 years was enough, but I now have a greater equity stake than a lot of the latecoming executives, and the company is a (though still private) 300-person operation. I hope and suspect that will be relevant one day, but it's worth it even if the company folds.

  10. Re:Free speech hundreds of miles out in the desert on FBI: Burning Man Testing Ground For Free Speech, Drugs ... and New Spy Gear · · Score: 2

    Which 4th of July celebrations are you aware of that blatantly advertise their acceptance of illicit drugs?

    My backyard barbecue?

  11. Did we just skip over why GSM/LTE are used? on Can Cuba Skip Cell Phone Connectivity? · · Score: 1

    "Phone" network? Modern phone networks are entirely data that yes, happens to carry voice. The reason they're used is some rather involved compensation for the Doppler effect and tower-to-tower handoff as travel happens. Could they use Wifi? Uh, I guess, but I hope you enjoy a severely crowded spectrum and expect to simply stand when making a call.

  12. Re:Sometimes even your hack gets outdated... on Ask Slashdot: Your Most Unusual Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    Not old enough to remember when a 286 laptop was completely worthless compared to a Pentium? Everything was rapidly pushing against computing power back then...and yes, it was around 10 years old.

  13. Re:Sometimes even your hack gets outdated... on Ask Slashdot: Your Most Unusual Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    Early 90s, not 1990...probably would've been around 1993-1996, with the laptop coming after a year or so of playing around. Guessing that AC doesn't remember, but a 10 year old laptop in 1990 was pretty much completely worthless. Would've been a 286 or so in the Pentium era.

  14. Re:File Server In A Cardboard Box on Ask Slashdot: Your Most Unusual Hardware Hack? · · Score: 1

    Funny, FDCServers actually had one that was legendarily running for some poor unaware bastard in production. A coworker took a bunch of shots a few years back. The "hacks" that in this case were less clever and more cheap (and exploitative of the customers who had no idea). Same company would routinely open up windows rather than run forced air cooling...a few folks I knew working there would show up to work to find rented servers covered in quickly melting snow.

  15. Sometimes even your hack gets outdated... on Ask Slashdot: Your Most Unusual Hardware Hack? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the early 90s my dad repurposed an old Tandy laptop to effectively act as a scheduled wall timer for a "VCR for tape decks". He used the parallel port to send current to a few signaling contacts on a cassette recorder in order to record Car Talk and a few other radio programs he liked. A patent was considered, but podcasts rapidly became a thing a year or two after he had it working nicely. Not a bit of that statement that fails to make me feel a bit old.

  16. Re:I don't understand.. on Microwave Comms Betwen Population Centers Could Be Key To Easing Internet Bottlenecks · · Score: 1

    Whoosh.

    There's no whoosh! We're in a vacuum!

  17. Oh crap, this can get worse than net neutrality on The Status of Routing Reform — How Fragile is the Internet? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Route filtering. Trust me, if the 12 occasionally scattered folk I work with every day can manage block leaks of inappropriate routes within 15-60 minutes, so can everyone else, and they typically do...generally they're properly filtered to begin with. The open nature of the internet and diversity amongst transit carriers is precisely what contains these leaks to segmented populations rather than causing a massive nationwide failure. The fact that largely Internet standards have been left to technocratic, Balkanized organizations rather than via Congress is what keeps everyone playing nice. The "next one" may be "a big one", but anyone running a truly important network should and will have diverse carriers...anyone critical to the US infrastructure should and does generally run over dark fiber that would not be affected. Not seeing the call to action here, but I have very little faith in the media to actually competently understand and relate this one. HangingChad, exactly: "I got a bad feeling about this"