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User: justthinkit

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  1. You lost me on When Customer Dissatisfaction Is a Tech Business Model · · Score: 1

    You lost me. What is free in this case? Customers are paying massive fees for lousy service -- please explain where the free is.

    Note: this is not about the Comcast-advertisers relationship. But if it was, it is safe to say advertisers are not happy with Comcast.

    To sum up, no one is getting anything for free in this case, and no one is happy (except Comcast, because they are a monopoly provider in the markets they dbi). So this is a monopoly issue, not a "sucker, you're the product" issue.

  2. How much, and other questions on A Movie of Triton Made From Voyager 2's Fly-by 25 Years Ago · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    How much did this movie cost?

    Might it be one of the most expensive movies ever?

    How is it worth what it cost?

    How do we determine how much to spend on stuff with little or no payback?

  3. Re:Source is HVAC Contractors on Scientists Baffled By Unknown Source of Ozone-Depleting Chemical · · Score: 1

    Article says ozone-depleting, and tries to blame a single thing. Wiki thinks otherwise -- Chlorofluorocarbons "deplete the ozone" (first paragraph).

  4. Re:Who pays the ticket? on Google's Driverless Cars Capable of Exceeding Speed Limit · · Score: 1

    so that all cars are driving at roughly the same speed

    How does one pass when, on an n lane road, the cars in all n lanes are going exactly the same speed and are holding level with each other?

  5. Re:To each his own on Adam Carolla Settles With Podcasting Patent Troll · · Score: 1

    I wasn't sure if your "seriously?" was a question, or a critique. Anyway, "no" to the second question.

  6. To each his own on Adam Carolla Settles With Podcasting Patent Troll · · Score: 1

    The notion that podcasting is dead is quite humorous. Brings to mind the "email is dead" articles.

    My favorite Bill Burr webcasts are when it is just him. Yes, he jams in two big bunches of ads, but a few clicks is all it takes to skip them.

    I think the point is that things change. TV channels change (usually getting worse). Podcasts change, usually by adding disruptive ads. The solution is always the same -- branch out, trying something new.

    My podcast, has no ads & no guests, runs about 75 minutes. I work on adding potential content all week. Editing takes three times as long because why should my listener suffer my hums and haws.

  7. Re:It's impossible on Ask Slashdot: Would You Pay For Websites Without Trolls? · · Score: 2

    No one wants to talk seriously online to total strangers.

    You're kidding, right? I rarely talk to people I know...because I know them. I learn from and share with people I don't know.

  8. Re:Extraordinary misspelling? on Historians Rediscover Einstein's Forgotten Model of the Universe · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Every time I adjust my gunpowder recipe, I have to go to Google to look up how Mr. Noble's name is spelled.

  9. Universities teach dead stuff on The Man Who Invented the 26th Dimension · · Score: 1

    Universities teach dead stuff. For example, Latin.

  10. Speaking of Yelp on Hotel Charges Guests $500 For Bad Online Reviews · · Score: 2

    Yelp automagically pulls (hides behind the curtain) reviews it deems are not representative. Supposedly the extremes like "5 star" and "1 star" reviews. But not for the cases I've looked at.

    And Yelp doesn't allow you to down-mod reviews. Just 3 versions of "I got high reading that review".

    Odds that Yelp goes under in 2014? 2015?

  11. Re:WTF? on Psychology's Replication Battle · · Score: 2

    there *are* experiments that are non-replicable, but still valuable.

    I missed your examples. Could you repeat them?

  12. The new F1 regs are about a lot more than "slowing things down". They have gone from a 750 hp engine to a 600 hp one PLUS "Energy Recovery System". This is exactly the kind of innovation that makes sense.

    The latest high-end sports cars use exactly this sort of hybrid setup, so it is completely logical that the traditional racetrack-consumer synergy be continued with this change.

    In this sense, F1 is adapting and remaining meaningful (to high end cars), where the electric plywood-on-wheels cars are increasingly meaningless.

  13. Then change the design yearly on University of Michigan Solar Car Wins Fifth Straight National Title · · Score: 2

    Then change the design yearly. Each year have a useful new goal -- motors can only weigh so much, vehicle must be able to seat 4 upright, bonus points for gizmos.

    These solar cars have been "a piece of wood with 4 tiny wheels" for a decade or more.

    Have them tow a trailer one year, or hill climb, or drive through mud (run the race through the south). Speaking of hill climb -- have a Pike's Peak race.

  14. How about... on University of Michigan Solar Car Wins Fifth Straight National Title · · Score: 1

    As cool as these cars are, they are starting to all look alike.

    How about this? Add a rule that they have to have, say, 50 cubic feet of storage inside the car (in addition to the driver).

  15. Re:There have been attempts before on How Bird Flocks Resemble Liquid Helium · · Score: 1

    a simple "Try and keep a constant distance from my neighbors" algorithm

    Probably the same algorithm birds use when they fly into a tree -- "try to keep away from branches". They just do it ten or one hundred times faster than we can, so it be black magic to us. A tight loop, run with highly priority, and featuring a few key bits of inline code.

  16. Soccer superstars are sick on Soccer Superstar Plays With Very Low Brain Activity · · Score: 1
  17. It's broke, Jim on Black Holes Not Black After All, Theorize Physicists · · Score: 1

    (1) the math doesn't break down, the theory does. If the math broke down as well, we wouldn't know the theory had broken down.

    (2) an analogous discontinuity of the Earth would be "falling off the edge of the Earth", as some used to believe. That broken theory got changed centuries ago.

    (3) I know of no one that thinks of subatomic particles as points but I do know of theories whose flaw comes from them being based on point particles.

    Disclaimer: Mr. Thornley and I have a history

  18. I knew it on Earth In the Midst of Sixth Mass Extinction: the 'Anthropocene Defaunation' · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sooner or later my mom was going to get on slashdot.

  19. Re:Cost on Laser Eye Surgery, Revisited 10 Years Later · · Score: 1

    I could. But then safety goggles don't work well on top of glasses -- fog up, push glasses into face, etc.

    I feel old when it comes to worrying about wearing safety glasses vs regular glasses -- as in, I'm not worried about it. Just as I rode my bike(s) for years before I had to wear a helmet.

    Today we are super worried about, for example, bike helmets, safety goggles & hard hats. But then we buy ourselves seasons tickets to NFL football and lose our hearing instead. Has anyone ever seen anyone wearing ear protection at a sporting event?

    By the way, still no helmet required when one goes to a public ice skating session. That ice is like concrete and, last I checked, falling is an every minute thing for some people.

    Then there's tennis. I ruined my knees playing tennis. Chasing after every ball stretched everything in my knees. Decades later I met others who had the same experience. But how many people wear knee supports playing tennis? Only those injured already.

    Safety regulations cause us to become fanatical...about some things. While remaining blissfully ignorant of other potential threats.

  20. I'm curious on "Magic Helmet" For F-35 Ready For Delivery · · Score: 1

    What was wrong with the F-22 that the F-35 was going to fix?

  21. Re:wat on Black Holes Not Black After All, Theorize Physicists · · Score: 1

    I'd describe that as a theory that breaks at an endpoint.

  22. Re:Cost on Laser Eye Surgery, Revisited 10 Years Later · · Score: 1

    I agree with your points, with the exception that I especially like wearing my glasses outside. Walking down an overgrown trail, I have less concern that a bush will whip into my eye.

    Also, whenever I am using a hammer or skill saw, I have more eye protection that someone not wearing glasses. No, they are not a full replacement, but then again I am only referring to "around the home" situations.

  23. Re:More hosts than that... on A New Form of Online Tracking: Canvas Fingerprinting · · Score: 1

    I'm using hpHosts:
    # Download: http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

  24. Re:More hosts than that... on A New Form of Online Tracking: Canvas Fingerprinting · · Score: 1

    Thanks. Shaves 2 bytes per site in my hosts file as well. Adds up to almost an MB in a 16MB file.

  25. More hosts than that... on A New Form of Online Tracking: Canvas Fingerprinting · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are a number of other sites that are hosting the code. Check the summary link to see what they are.

    Since the sites using this exploit are sorted by Alexa rank, I gave up looking after a while, but here are "the biggies":
    127.0.0.1 addthis.com
    127.0.0.1 ligatus.com
    127.0.0.1 cloudfront.net
    127.0.0.1 vcmedia.vn
    127.0.0.1 cloudflare.com
    127.0.0.1 kitcode.net
    127.0.0.1 pof.com
    127.0.0.1 shorte.st
    127.0.0.1 ringier.cz
    127.0.0.1 insnw.net
    127.0.0.1 domainsigma.com

    Not sure how serious this would break things, but some are hosting the exploit on Amazon's cloud: 127.0.0.1 amazonaws.com