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User: jerpyro

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  1. Re:Weapons Race on Here Comes the Panopticon: Insurance Companies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except that then they'd get you for Insurance Fraud or whatever.

  2. Re:I live in Canada on Eric Schmidt and Entourage Pay a Call On Cuba · · Score: 1

    Oh yeah, he's Canadian as fuck.

  3. Re:Samsung UD590 is nice... on 4K Displays Ready For Prime Time · · Score: 1

    I bought one of these for my office:
    http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-SE...

    The pixel density is perfect for the opposite side of my desk, and since it's the office, being restricted to 30Hz doesn't hurt anything. At $400 it's a great place to get started with 4k computing. I agree that programming in 4k changes your entire way of working.

  4. D2X-XL on It's Time For the Descent Games Return · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those of us who still have the binaries around, the D2X-XL project (http://www.descent2.de/d2x.html) has ported the game engine to OpenGL and has added a number of great things to the project. It supports more players, TCP/IP, and tons of additional features. As with any community project (or commercial project recently) there are bugs, but some of the builds have been quite good. I encourage fans to check out and contribute to the project :)

    I would absolutely play it more if there were a community of descent players ready to go online against (a matchmaking system, for example).

  5. Re:Where's Waldo? on Skepticism Grows Over Claims That MH370 Lies In the Bay of Bengal · · Score: 2

    I disagree that it's newsworthy. It has nothing to do with being a sheep -- turn your energy to the education, disease (due to anti-vaxxers) or net neutrality issues we're having domestically. We have such larger problems to fix that a missing airplane halfway across the world shouldn't even register on the scale. But it's a convenient distraction from our own problems so it's good 'infotainment'.

    If you think I'm a sheep because I don't give a shit about an electrical fire in an airplane, you're amazingly misguided.

  6. Re:Where's Waldo? on Skepticism Grows Over Claims That MH370 Lies In the Bay of Bengal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah I don't really understand what the big deal is. I realize that there are a lot of families that may be suffering but because they were on an airplane it is somehow more newsworthy than a cruise ship with 10 times as many people, or genocide in Malaysia or doctors being killed giving polio vaccines in Afghanistan? Oh it's an airplane, let's tap into the 9/11 terrorist fear mongering so that we can get ratings!

    *sigh*

  7. Feynman's Lectures on Computation on Ask Slashdot: Books for a Comp Sci Graduate Student? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I suggest Richard Feynman's Lectures on Computation. People in the physics world will know the name, but the topics covered are great for CS/CE topics, and probably not things that were considered and/or covered in regular classes.

    http://www.amazon.com/Feynman-...

  8. Re:Easy... on What Would You Do With the World's Most Powerful Laser? · · Score: 2

    You can't point it anywhere, it's in a sphere and the lasers face inward. :P

    But to your point (being some organization), if I had the world's most powerful laser, I would take the politics out of it so that the scientists could make progress. So, technically, you're not too far off.

  9. Freakin' Riders. on Incandescent Bulbs Get a Reprieve · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not sure whether to be happy about this or not. We need energy efficiency, but I still hate CFLs :)

  10. Re:The Seiki 39" 4K under 500 on 4K Is For Programmers · · Score: 1

    I bought one too, and I love it. The trick with the ghosting is to set the sharpness to '1' instead of '0' -- there's some weird divide by zero bug that makes it MUCH smoother at 1. I highly recommend the panel. Not good for colors but great for text.

  11. Re:I call Bullshit on 4K Is For Programmers · · Score: 1

    Sorry, you're wrong. I have it hooked up to my Y500 via HDMI and it works flawlessly (well, except for the 30Hz input lag)

  12. Re:Too big on 4K Is For Programmers · · Score: 1

    Nah you get a tilt mount (or one of the ball mounts) and it isn't that bad.
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GTT0VO/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A17W6NLJ3OBMCK

    You do have to turn your head a bit to see the windows on opposing sides of the screen.

  13. Re:Character size? on 4K Is For Programmers · · Score: 1

    Plus, as I said in another post, arranging windows is easier on multiple monitors.

    No it isn't. http://www.displayfusion.com/

    I have one of the Seiki displays in question. I basically Minority Report my windows all over the place like a big game of Mahjong. It's awesome.

  14. Re:Government Involvement on How 3 Young Coders Built a Better Portal To HealthCare.gov · · Score: 1

    Yeah that'll just be a huge pile of joy :-/ I'm crossing my fingers that my health plan doesn't go up -- I get it through my company, and I have a feeling that insurance companies are going to "equalize" the rates for everyone, which means even the corporate renewal prices are going to go up.

    Honesly I don't believe the ACA is the end goal. I think it's just priming the pump for what their real agenda is -- a single payer system. At that point you may as well just call it a "tax" and a "social service" and be done with it, no matter what the labels are. I just hope we don't get to that point, because who is going to make the decisions on what reasonable care is then? How are we going to cover second opinions? How do we not force treatment on people in the name of being "preventative"? There are a lot of questions that lead me to very uncomfortable conclusions. I already hate my oligopoly power company and cable provider -- what makes me think healthcare would be handled any better? It's a slippery slope, and it starts with creating a tax for people who don't shell out for the "acceptable plan" in the first place.

  15. Re:Government Involvement on How 3 Young Coders Built a Better Portal To HealthCare.gov · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying it should be a social service -- reread my previous post. Canadians have health care as a social service included in their taxes, and their system is broken for entirely different reasons. I'm not here to debate whether healthcare should or shouldn't be a service -- but one thing that we agree on is that the current system is wasteful and needs to be fixed.

    All I'm saying is that the law mandated a certain level of coverage to qualify as an insurance plan. Anything below that line doesn't qualify, and the law specifically mentioned a few types of coverage that need to be included, so that's why some plans are getting cancelled (because they didn't meet the spec).

  16. Re:Government Involvement on How 3 Young Coders Built a Better Portal To HealthCare.gov · · Score: 1

    No, that's not what I'm saying at all. What people seem to think I'm arguing (and I'm not) is that medical care needs to be a social service rather than insurance. I love how people are jumping to conclusions :P

    I was simply trying to point out the reasons that the line-item-veto for pediatric care and birth control won't work -- because if you get to line-item-veto those, I should get to line-item-veto cancer care, dialysis, and diabetes treatment -- and then it becomes individualized coverage where you may as well just pay for what you use. If everyone line-item-vetoed the things they didn't need to buy, then the collective insurance model would break down. That's exactly WHY the ACA mandated certain things be covered.

  17. Re:You have needless conversations. on Ask Slashdot: Communication Skills For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    Like you I am mildly autistic and introverted, and my comments and thoughts are based on my experiences in the environments which created them. Perhaps the message that I was trying to convey was that it's worth it to be socially active, but it came out looking like it was all about the dollars. I don't think it can be overstated that you need personal marketing (as smooth as it may be) or you need politics when it comes to advancement at larger organizations though.

    Obviously that's not the ideal, but it is the way that I've seen things go -- those who are more socially forward and better at highlighting their achievements tend to do better in large companies than those of us that struggle with it.

  18. Re:Government Involvement on How 3 Young Coders Built a Better Portal To HealthCare.gov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's cool that me explaining how insurance works means that you can jump to conclusions about "People like you" and my political views (which were not mentioned AT ALL).

    Whether you want to call bullshit or not, you're incorrect. When is the last time car insurance made you pay for the damages in your own auto accident? It didn't. When is the last time someone had to pay replacement value put of pocket on their home because of a fire? They don't. When is the last time you paid the entire hospital bill yourself because you had a baby? You didn't. So whether you like to admit it or not, you belong to a pool of insured people who all collectively pay for 'things that happen'. That means, by definition, that an individual's problem is everyone's problem. If you can't see that, you should talk to an actuary.

    So, here's an idea: let's start a health plan where we kick out the fatties, the smokers, the reckless people, and people who engage in sex without birth control, and anyone who has a mental health issue? Medically, all of that stuff means higher costs for our insurance members. But that's the heart of the issue -- now it's illegal to not offer coverage for that stuff, so that type of plan would be NOT CALLED HEALTH INSURANCE. Which is why the plans are getting cancelled. Whether you personally like it or not (and I don't) all of that stuff is EVERYONE's problem now.

  19. You have needless conversations. on Ask Slashdot: Communication Skills For Programmers? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I hate to say it but the retention rate for programmers is higher than everyone else. So, when you go to advertise what you've been working on (and yes, it's advertising) sometimes you'll have to re-hash the conversation four or five times. The trick is to re-hash the ideas and talk about things in a different way each time so that the topic doesn't get stale to the audience.

    I wish (as do many programmers) that advancement was about nothing but pure ROI to the company (including future ROI) but it doesn't work that way. It's hard to measure, is labor intensive to figure out, and is a waste of time in a small company. So, failing that, you rely on marketing. How you get along with people, small talk, casual banter, idea roundtables at lunch breaks, those all contribute to your "brand image" and you need to take advantage of that image to paint a perception of intellectual value at your company. Make sure you're good enough to provide deliverables to back up your image. You also need to pick one or two things to be REALLY good at so that other people can ask you for help. Helping people helps you.

  20. Re:Government Involvement on How 3 Young Coders Built a Better Portal To HealthCare.gov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, as an adult male in his thirties, I don't need to pay for dialysis, cancer care, endocrine problems, prescriptions, birth control, asthma treatments, vision care, women's wellness visits, or any other thing that's not catastrophic care. But, if you only paid for what you use, then why would you cover insurance at all? Just to get the 50% "I have insurance" negotiated rate?

    I think you're missing the point of insurance -- that is, an individual's problem is everyone's problem. Stop treating insurance like it was capitalism. That's what got us into this mess in the first place.

  21. Re:Seiki 4K on 4K Ultra HD Likely To Repeat the Failure of 3D Television · · Score: 1

    Thank you for answering my post -- I'd give mod points if I could. My laptop supports HDMI 1.4 (not Thunderbolt or Displayport) so it's probably as good a fit as I can get for that. I would have many more options if I had a desktop, but unfortunately a lot of companies don't think of how many people use a multimedia laptop as a desktop replacement.

  22. Re:I would love 4K!!! on 4K Ultra HD Likely To Repeat the Failure of 3D Television · · Score: 1

    If you read my post before you replied, you'd know that yes, in fact, I do plan on sitting 3 feet away from my 39" display ;)

    Do you plan on sitting 3 feet away from your 60" display?

  23. Re:I would love 4K!!! on 4K Ultra HD Likely To Repeat the Failure of 3D Television · · Score: 1

    Exactly. My 15.6" laptop is 1080p, so 4k@39" would actually be lower pixel density than my laptop screen.

    @Barlo_Mung_42: Yes, I'm under 40, but not by much ;)

  24. Re:I would love 4K!!! on 4K Ultra HD Likely To Repeat the Failure of 3D Television · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would love 4k too but I don't want to use it for a TV, I want to use it for a computer monitor (How many IDEs can you fit in 4k?). I keep looking at this particular TV and thinking about how much space I'd have to clear off on my desk to use it with my laptop:
    http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra/dp/B00DOPGO2G

    Much cheaper than a lot of the 4k monitors out there, but is the image quality good enough to not make your eyes bleed?

  25. Re:How do we get Congress to sign up? on Buried In the Healthcare.gov Source: "No Expectation of Privacy" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sadly, I think a lot of people want a lot of things from Congress right now.