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User: hedwards

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Comments · 12,373

  1. Re:Existing non-electronic variant on Parcel Sensor Knows When Your Delivery Has Been Dropped · · Score: 1

    Because the delivery people don't typically have time to wait around for you to unbox the item you've bought and verify that it wasn't broken in transit. Often times they don't even wait around to see if anybody responds to the knock at the door.

  2. Re:Existing non-electronic variant on Parcel Sensor Knows When Your Delivery Has Been Dropped · · Score: 1

    The only problem there is that unless you're individually tagging packages by handler, it's of limited use int he warehouse. Still, it's not completely worthless, it would help the shipping company know which shifts to pay closer attention to and that they can ignore shifts that aren't damaging boxes. Or at least stop worrying about damage to the boxes.

  3. Re:Existing non-electronic variant on Parcel Sensor Knows When Your Delivery Has Been Dropped · · Score: 1

    Or, maybe the shipping companies need to be held liable for damage that happens during shipping. Nobody expects that a package will make it all the way without possibility of being dropped, but being thrown around and such isn't something which the shippers ought to expect.

  4. Re:blanket statement: evidence please on Researchers Opt To Limit Uses of Open-access Publications · · Score: 1

    It's not wrong, when I was getting my teaching certificate, I didn't have access to any of that stuff because the school wasn't big enough to be able to afford it. I think there were only like 30 or 40 students in the program tops, and it would have been unaffordable for them to provide.

    So, no, it's not wrong, you'd be surprised how many schools there are of that size that can't afford to pay for things which might only be used for one article over the course of a year.

    And BTW, the education I received there was a lot better than what I've seen from larger schools.

  5. Re:MS Office mewlers and shills, queue here! on LibreOffice 4 Released · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Libreoffice uses very little Java at this point. That's one of the things that's changed since they forked from OO.org.

  6. Re:Windows XP on Rich Countries Suffer Less Malware, Says Microsoft Study · · Score: 1

    I'm not so sure about that. It's not exactly hard to get a pirate copy of Windows 7 in China. Not sure about Vista or 8 though, but I'd be surprised if they were at all hard to get.

  7. Re:I really keep forgetting about ChromeOS on Why Google Needs To Launch the Chromebook Pixel · · Score: 1

    If they're selling well, you would expect for at least some of them to be taken outside. If you just want something to check email and stuff like that, you're better off buying something that's used.

    And yes, the fact that I'm not seeing them is a problem for them. Windows laptop manufacturers can get away with that because Windows is a commonly used OS and they're just competing with other Windows laptop manufacturers. Apple can't as much because they need people to know that they're product is being used. ChromeOS OTOH, isn't getting any attention and adding the Pixel isn't going to change that if it isn't clear that people are using it.

    And yes, when tablets first came out they didn't fill any particular needs. Many years later, Apple figured out how to make them useful and convince people to pay for them. At which point many more uses came into existence. In large part because there was money to justify creating applications just for it. ChromeOS doesn't look to be going that way because nobody knows where these machines are or what they're doing.

  8. Re:blanket statement: evidence please on Researchers Opt To Limit Uses of Open-access Publications · · Score: 2

    Only if you go to a larger or more expensive college do you get access to major journals. And it doesn't permit folks that are out of college to gain access to them either if they see a particularly controversial claim being made.

    I'm not sure why creating derivatives would be considered OK for these studies. The stuff you need to do with them are generally already covered under the rules for citation and plagiarism anyways. The big issue is gaining access in the first place.

    If it's a study that's created with private funds closing it off is merely anti-social, but if they're using government funds, then it really ought to be free for anybody to look at and examine.

  9. Re:I really keep forgetting about ChromeOS on Why Google Needs To Launch the Chromebook Pixel · · Score: 2

    No, but who is buying these things? Which is sort of the point. They don't fill any particular needs, they don't get any press either here or on regular web sites. I've never actually seen one anywhere. So, the GP is making a point that wherever they're being sold, it probably isn't in the general market. Or the owners aren't taking them outside for use.

    I'm wondering if the hardware isn't just being repurposed for other things.

  10. Re:don't reject based solely on SPF on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Handle SPF For Spam Filtering? · · Score: 1

    You're supposed to combine SPF with DKIM so that you know who is sending messages from where. The point isn't to kill spam completely, just to make it as inefficient as possible. If you make it inefficient enough that they're all losing money, they'll move onto another scam.

  11. Re:Hang them. Problem solved. on Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware · · Score: 1

    I dunno, I hear that sunshine is the best disinfectant and they haven't gotten around to charging for that yet.

  12. Re:Are we in China or some place like it? on Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware · · Score: 1

    Indeed, I spent the last year living in China. And it was really disturbing how quickly I got used to having no say at all in anything. It's no wonder that most Americans are so complacent. I only hope that the Canadians are smart enough to avoid that. I wouldn't mind moving to BC and taking my trade craft with me.

  13. Re:Anti-DMCA activism? on Site Copies Content and Uses the DMCA to Take Down the Original Articles · · Score: 1

    If you knowingly send a fake takedown notice you're already committing perjury.

  14. Re:If this can happen ... on Site Copies Content and Uses the DMCA to Take Down the Original Articles · · Score: 2

    Yeah well, at least it's not idiots with automatics, that could get serious...

  15. Re:Time for our elected officials to "man up." on Blimps To Help Protect Washington DC From Air Attack · · Score: 1

    For better or for worse most of the US government is concentrated in that part of the US. But that's not going to change until somebody does something about the ego problem running up and down the East Coast. Seriously, the East Coast bias is very real. The thing is that we on the West Coast don't really want our news over there, we just want to stop being bombarded with nothing stories that happened to happen on the East Coast.

  16. Re:You're joking, right? on Blimps To Help Protect Washington DC From Air Attack · · Score: 1

    A hole that size would take a long time to bring down a blimp. And I'm pretty sure that people shoot at the Goodyear Blimp from time to time. Presumably people hit it. It's just that a hole that size makes little or no difference when dealing with a volume of gas that large.

  17. Re:Why not use hydrogen? on Blimps To Help Protect Washington DC From Air Attack · · Score: 1

    Sort of, but most of the elements are heavy enough that they don't float away.

  18. Re:Been saying that... on Economists Argue Patent System Should Be Abolished · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because it's never existed, never will exist and even Adam Smith saw that the government was going to have to be involved to keep the actors honest. And it should be obvious to anybody who's actually dealt with corporate enterprises that they're more interested in the immediate profits than what they can profit from a few years down the road. Assuming that they're not planning to dismantle the outfit and sell it off chunk by chunk.

  19. Re:Well done AMD on AMD Publishes Open-Source Radeon HD 8000 Series Driver · · Score: 1

    If the comments here are any indication, no the FOSS community doesn't put their money where there mouths is until after it's a moot point. Right now your choices are AMD and Intel, but nVidia is getting a lot of support here as well. nVidia has no open option of any sort and I see a lot of people kicking AMD to the curb for nVidia rather than Intel.

    Also, even before I opened the page, I knew there was going to be a ton of comments by ungrateful FOSS advocates because it isn't quite what they wanted. I was really, really hoping that I'd be disproven.

  20. Re:Bridge for Sale on OnLive's Epic Plan For a New Type of Video Game · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but that's BS, what you're talking about is completely different from what he's talking about, and you're being deliberately obtuse. What takes the most time is designing the things to be rendered. And yes, if you throw enough computational power behind it, I'm pretty sure you can get it to essentially real time. Whether or not that's cost effective is a completely different matter.

    Also, you're a douche for taking it out of context.

  21. Re:Evolutionary Niche on What Will The Expanding World of ChromeOS Mean For Windows? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, 6 hours is all day for school. When I was in school that's how much time I spent in school and doing homework. I'm not sure what's so confusing to you about that. When you figure the computer is turned off during lunch and breaks that's about what you get. Even an 8 hour a day job is really only 7 hours or so when you factor in breaktime.

  22. Re:Kid's artwork? on School Board Considers Copyright Ownership of Student and Teacher Works · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not true. I'm a teacher and the schools only demand that I give them the plans for classes I give. And even then I'm being paid for the time I spend creating the plans. They're not getting things out of me that I worked on in my spare time. Those things belong to me.

  23. Re:Kid's artwork? on School Board Considers Copyright Ownership of Student and Teacher Works · · Score: 1

    As opposed to when they sue you because what you're trying to sell is very similar to what you were paid to do and you end up losing a few extra hundred thousand in legal fees because the line wasn't clear.

    Yeah, that's much better for you.

  24. Re:Why? on DNA Confirms Parking Lot Remains Belong To King Richard III · · Score: 1

    Well, that wouldn't be surprising. Shakespeare was writing after that had happened when the Tudors were running things. So, making Richard III worse than he was probably was a good career move. But, until now, we didn't really know for sure as anybody writing during Richard III time would probably omit that for the same reasons that people afterwards would be more inclined to concoct something like that.

    But, now that the body has been located, the truth is revealed.

  25. Re:Classic MBA Crap on School Board Considers Copyright Ownership of Student and Teacher Works · · Score: 1

    They wouldn't have ownership of the video of the drunk teachers. Unless that happened during class, it would be a leap too far to take that anything the students do during the time they are still in school belongs to the school. At best they could claim ownership for materials created in or for school, and that's likely a stretch.