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User: n5yat

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  1. Agree - thanks to Streisand Effect! on Facebook May Dislike the Social Fixer Extension, but Many Users Love It (Video) · · Score: 2

    Agree - thanks to Streisand Effect coupled with the mere fact that FB is against it, I'm installing it!

  2. I leave honest negative comments. on Why You Shouldn't Trust Internet Comments · · Score: 1

    I can assure you that if I go somewhere based on positive reviews on Yelp or Urban Spoon, and the food sucks, I leave a very detailed, accurate review of exactly why the food sucked. Don't want some other poor soul to get stuck find out the same thing.

  3. Re:One major problem. . . on Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan · · Score: 1

    Actually, where I live, our city did pass an ordinance banning parking within 10 feet either side of cluster boxes from 8 AM to 6 PM. Vehicle can be towed if it's blocking the delivery person's access to the cluster box.

  4. New? Or just a shock for 'old' neighborhoods? on Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan · · Score: 1

    Wow! Really? At my parents house they had 'curbside' delivery to a mail box and had to walk all the way from their front door to the mail box at the street (gasp!) since 1959 until present. Where I live, we have had the neighbor mailbox cluster since 1984. So, this is new? I guess maybe in urban areas they still have door to door, but it's not been that way in the suburbs I've lived in for a very long time.

  5. The rest of the story. on FCC Considering Proposal For Encrypted Ham Radio · · Score: 1

    Bruce Perens said "that would allow the use of Amateur frequencies in the U.S. for private, digitally-encrypted messages" but then he FAILED to include the rest of the story, which is that this request only covers the case where ham radio is being used in support of emergency communications. That is an important restriction to be aware of, as another poster mentioned.

  6. Look what speaking out did to the Dixie Chicks on Orson Scott Card's Superman Story Shelved After Homophobia Controversy · · Score: 1

    One remark by Natalie Maines and "one of the most popular acts in the country became its most hated. Its music was banned from radio, CDs were trashed by bulldozers, and one band member's home was vandalized."

    If you are in the entertainment industry (write, sing, dance, act, etc) and you make controversial remarks, be prepared to have your career negatively impacted.

  7. Tutor High School Students. on Ask Slashdot: Making Side-Money As a Programmer? · · Score: 2

    Tutor High School Students. Probably can make $40 to $80 per hour, depending on the prosperity of the school district, and the desperation of the students and/or their parents.

  8. Missing the point on Promoting Arithmetic and Algebra By Example · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Andrew Hacker and nearly everyone else is missing the point.

    Taking an algebra class for many students is not about the algebra, it's about learning to think. Even if you never use algebra again, the process of learning algebra is mental exercise that improves the mind. Taking a foreign language, studying biology, learning economics, studying history - it doesn't matter what the subject is, merely the more you learn the better a learner you are, and the better thinker you are.

    In sports we see athletes perform all kinds of exercises that help develop skills used in their sport, but are never used directly. Ever see footage of a football player stepping through tires? Ever see one do that during the game? Ever see footage of a quarterback or pitcher throwing the ball through a hanging tire? Ever see them do that in a game? Athletics is filled with examples of training exercises done to hone one's skills for a game, yet we have difficulty accepting that mental exercises hone skills we need for life.

  9. Re:The tweet on Twitter Jokes: Free Speech On Trial · · Score: 1

    "Then there is no free speech". Exactly. There is not now, nor has there ever been, such a thing as free speech. Sorta like the old line, "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" The only place where 'free speech' exists is a place where no one can hear me speak. If I am in a room with a man and say "You are an f'ing a-hole" and as a consequence, he pulls out a gun and kills me, then I'd say I wasn't able to speak freely. As long as my words can have an adverse consequences to me or others, while I may, by LAW be free to speak them, by REALITY I am not. That is the real crux of these 'free speech' debates - some people, when saying 'free speech', mean "legally protected right to speak" while others mean "free to say anything you want". The two are not the same thing.

  10. Re:Communications failure? on Soyuz Capsule Return Marred By Mystery Communications Blackout · · Score: 3, Funny

    Tweet about life without facebook?

  11. Re:Maybe, maybe not. on Music Copyright War Looming · · Score: 1

    Not likely... every election folks are very disappointed with the job CONGRESS is doing, but they think their own district's representative is just fine. So they re-elected their guy, and that happens across all districts, with the results that the success rate for incumbents is pretty high. http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php

  12. Really? on Hillary Clinton Takes Data.gov Overseas · · Score: 1

    You choose to work here, you get to pay taxes like the rest of us, including SS taxes.

  13. Nothing new under the sun... on Internet Use Found To Affect Memory · · Score: 1

    Decades before the internet existed, I had a physics professor who proclaimed "It's not what you know that matters, it's knowing where to find what you need when you need it." He emphasized understanding concepts and procedures, not memorizing every little detail.

  14. I saw that episode... on Law Enforcement Wants To Try 'Predictive Policing' · · Score: 1

    That was on "Numb3rs", I think I remember the episode where the mathematician used an algorithm to analyze tons of data and predict where the next crime was going to take place... Oh, I remember now... that was pretty much every episode ...

  15. Not just movie theaters on Austin's Alamo Drafthouse Theater Gives Texters the Boot · · Score: 1

    Last night I was a volunteer at a 3 hour long dance recital held at a theater (you know, a building with a stage down front, seats, and darkness...) Parents were told in writing, at rehearsals, and at the beginning of the performance - no electronics. No phones, iPads, Nooks, Nintendo, MP3 players, DVD players, etc, etc, etc. In fact, they were told that if a small child needed electronics to be entertained, they child should be left at home with, gasp, a baby sitter. And, of course, there were countless people who ignored the rules, including parents trying to keep small children quiet by using small DVD players. And, when I politely asked them to turn off their devices, they gave me crap.

    The problem more universally is that people no longer know how to behave, and no matter how well the rules are promulgated, they believe the rules surely apply to everyone else, but not to them.

  16. FourSquare inaccuracy... on How Companies Are Using Data From Foursquare · · Score: 1

    Given how inaccurate I've found FourSquare to be (I can be standing 6 feet from a store, and it can't find it... and when I search by name, I find oodles of variations of the name because people can't spell. Maybe it's Tonys, maybe it's Tony's, maybe it's Tony's Pizza, maybe it's Tony's Pizzeria, maybe it's Tonys Pizza Place, etc...) I don't see how the data collected could ever be very useful...

  17. More bothered by the action than the consequences. on Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor? · · Score: 1

    I'm more bothered by the fact that they came and took anything from the developer's desk. Yes, sure, the monitor belongs to the company. But once you've allocated a resource to a person, you don't just come take it. If the accountant really, really needed the monitor, you contact the developer first and ask him - "Hey, Joe, we have a crisis - Bob over in accounting doesn't have a monitor, and several reports are due by tomorrow for the SEC filing. Can he borrow your second monitor?" And if Joe says "No, I have a deadline to meet also." then you go out and buy Bob a monitor and be done with it.

  18. Re:It's dying? on Tech Experts Look To Help Save the Postal Service · · Score: 1

    Me too... not because I want to... because someone sent me a package that I had to go pick up. The reason for 15 people being in line was because there was only one person working behind the counter (built to have 4 clerks), and he was competing with a snail to see who could be the slowest living creature on earth.

    I think the only reason some people still use the Post Office is they don't want to pay FedEX or UPS. Meantime, USPS is losing money charging the lower fees it charges.

    I think UPS/FedEX plus email will kill it.

  19. Re:Bad. on Draft Proposal Would Create Agency To Tax Cars By the Mile · · Score: 1

    Or, maybe the administration thinks it needs more money for infrastructure because it is unwilling to dump all the unnecessary entitlement programs. And because the administration is spending a lot of money in military operations around the world. Dump a bunch of those entitlements, and stop solving the world's problems, and suddenly we can afford to deal with our own problems.

  20. Really? on Face-Mounted Nose Stylus Created For Phones · · Score: 1

    Really?

  21. What's the easiest and safest way to do it? Don't! on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Leave My Router Open? · · Score: 1

    Don't!

  22. Dumbest Idea I've seen in a long time. on EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open · · Score: 1

    I pay for the water I use... I wouldn't let my neighbor fill their pool or water their lawn from my faucet.
    I pay for the phone I use... I wouldn't run a line across the yard for my neighbor to share my phone.
    I pay for the electricity I use... I wouldn't run a line across the yard for my neighbor to share my electric service.
    I pay for the internet service I use... why on earth would I just give that away for free to anyone who just wandered by!?!?!?!

  23. Re:This is... on Research Suggests E-Readers Are "Too Easy" To Read · · Score: 1

    Totally agree!

  24. Install "Kidoz" on What To Load On a 4-Year-Old's Netbook? · · Score: 1

    Install "Kidoz" - a kid friendly front end to the internet. http://kidoz.net/plus/index.html

  25. cell phone does not imply distracted driving. on US May Disable All Car Phones, Says Trans. Secretary · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Some people can drive AND use a cell phone safely. Some people cannot. In fact, some people cannot drive without being distracted by a story on the news radio station, or because they are fiddling with the radio controls, or turning around to yell at their kids in the back seat. I know a person who drove into a telephone pole while doing so. I once saw a guy driving a car (with a famous insurance company's name prominent on the side) who had a laptop in the passenger seat, and kept turning to type on the computer while driving!!! This kind of legislation will never fix the problem. Some people will always find something to fiddle with, become distracted, and kill themselves and/or someone else. Unless we ban cars and go 100% mass transportation :-)