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User: rainmaestro

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  1. Re:WTF? on Ask Slashdot: Why Can't Google Block Spam In Gmail? · · Score: 2

    Same here. I see maybe one legit piece of spam a week in my Gmail inbox. Now if they can just figure out how to predict if an email is unwanted marketing from and block that, I'd be even happier. Sick of having to manually unsub.

    I have email accounts with about 10 different domains. Some are related to work and use various filtering tools, some are with free services. Between all my accounts I see maybe half a dozen spams a week. From an end-user perspective, spam for me died out years ago. I'm always amazed to hear about people who are still inundated with it.

  2. Re:Free the bastards! on Killer Whales Caught On Tape Speaking Dolphin · · Score: 1

    Do we? I mean, food is just out there in the wilderness waiting for us to pick it. It's right there...what's the problem? Yet for all our intelligence, people consistently fail to survive when stranded alone in the wilderness, even though there's food all around them.

    Orcas are basically oceanic wolves: they live, move and hunt in packs, whether it is tail slapping to get seals or corralling fish. Orcas hardly ever survive alone, even those that are raised in a group. Luna is one of the few from recent memory. The reality is still that most of these captive orcas wouldn't be able to make it alone in the wild. A small number would, but most wouldn't.

  3. Re:Free the bastards! on Killer Whales Caught On Tape Speaking Dolphin · · Score: 1

    Depends on how long they have been captive. Orcas have complex group dynamics, both socially and for hunting, so an orca that was never taught those skills as a youngster would be incapable of joining a group and surviving. About 2/3 of orcas currently in parks weren't even born in the wild, which means they never learned how to hunt and survive in a group.

    Raise someone in a jail cell from birth, then at 30 drop them into the world all alone with nothing. What are the odds that they would survive? There's a big difference between innate intelligence and life skills.

    Sad as it is, most captive orcas wouldn't survive long in the wild.

  4. Re:it solves some unicode issues on Systemd Adding Its Own Console To Linux Systems · · Score: 1

    I can't help but believe that anything in systemd has involvement from Lennart in the same way that Linus controls the kernel. By virtue of being in his overarching project, his influence will corrupt the product, regardless of who actually writes the code.

    I hope I'm wrong, for the sake of everyone who will be stuck fixing the bugs a year from now, but I have a sinking feeling that's exactly how things will transpire.

  5. Re:it solves some unicode issues on Systemd Adding Its Own Console To Linux Systems · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't get me wrong, I disagree with a number of decisions Linus has made. But he tends to be more controlled than Lennart in that regard. His approach is to ignore POSIX when it makes sense to do so (eg, when the standard is too vague to be practical). Lennart seems to want to throw the whole standard away straight out.

    I support replacing VT, it is a mess. A mostly working mess, but it could be much better. I just don't trust anything Lennart writes at this point.

  6. Re:it solves some unicode issues on Systemd Adding Its Own Console To Linux Systems · · Score: 2

    People are mad because of who is doing the replacement. Lennart has a consistent track record of releasing code that breaks the world and then blaming the breakage on the users and distros not using his masterpieces correctly. This is someone who publicly advocates breaking POSIX compatibility.

    He's a very talented coder, but shouldn't be allowed anywhere near an OS that needs to remain usable. Unfortunately, his Red Hat ties mean we're stuck cleaning up his messes, and this VT replacement will be yet another mess for the first two years.

  7. Re:I quit using Belkin years ago, on Belkin Router Owners Suffering Massive Outages · · Score: 1

    I switched to an Asus wireless router at home a few months ago. Can't speak to the quality of the firmware as I loaded dd-wrt on it, but it has worked nicely so far. Picked it up in a local store, though I don't recall which.

  8. Re:This happened to me on Ask Slashdot: How To Avoid Becoming a Complacent Software Developer? · · Score: 1

    We've got an admin at work who installs xrdp on all our Linux servers so he can remote in graphically to launch an XTerm session to launch a GUI text editor as root to edit config files.

    I was speechless the first time I watched it.

  9. Re:Not my cup of tea on Slashdot Asks: What's In Your Home Datacenter? · · Score: 2

    I had the same realization a few years ago. Had a rack, plenty of older servers (mostly Sparcs I got free from work when we decommissioned them). All they did was heat up one room and doubled my electric bill. I've become very wary of overprovisioning now, something techies have a bad habit of doing.

    A decently-specced laptop for my day-to-day work and a beefier laptop running ESXi to replace the servers (for a home setup, most VMs don't need that much in the way of resources) takes care of most of my needs (ignoring a gaming rig and the requisite consoles). An Asus wireless router running dd-wrt handles all my networking kit needs. Consumes little space, uses far less power and generates no appreciable heat (important in Florida, my A/C bill is high enough as it is).

  10. Re:I have worked at a few ISPs on Comcast Training Materials Leaked · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Must be nice to have competitors. One ISP in my area that provides anything beyond DSL speeds. Bundled utilities that you can't split: water, sewer, stormwater, waste pickup and recycling all in one bill. Even if you go with WM privately, you still pay for county collection as part of your utility bill. Same for recycling.

  11. Re: Why did they pick such a bad buzzword? on Gartner: Internet of Things Has Reached Hype Peak · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't the simpler option be to educate people to not buy so much crap that they can't consume it in time? I'm always amazed to look in people's fridges and see how much stuff is just sitting there that hasn't been opened in a year. Making the fridge smarter is just masking the real issue.

  12. Re:...The hell? on Why My LG Optimus Cellphone Is Worse Than It's Supposed To Be · · Score: 1

    Like my "flagship" Galaxy phone? The one that I think I paid more for than the last three phones I owned. The one that reboots twice a day. The one that, at least once a week, gets itself into some fugue state where it is off but can't be turned back on until I pop the battery out. The one with the photo viewer that is too stupid to realize that landscape photos shouldn't be displayed in portrait orientation when I'm holding the phone in a landscape orientation. The one with a music player that randomly loses my playlists, occasionally in the middle of playing one.

    Seems like every Galaxy owner I've talked to has their own list of twenty things their phones does really shittily. I miss my old low end crappy phone sometimes. At least it was reliable, even if the GPS app never quite worked right.

  13. Re:It's already going on... on Here Comes the Panopticon: Insurance Companies · · Score: 1

    Auto insurance isn't that bad compared to the rest. My insurance dropped 10% in the last adjustment, and is within a couple percent of where it was five years ago.

    Homeowner's insurance, on the other hand, is truly predatory. My policy averages a 15% increase annually, with zero claims. And thanks to living in Florida, I have fuck all options for switching carriers. My insurance is about 20% of my total mortgage payment this year, and I'm not even in a flood zone.

    And homeowner's insurance has that wonderful package-only system, so I'm paying for shit I don't need because I can't choose to opt out at all (my personal property coverage is 2x what I need because it is computed from the property value, there's a 25K identity theft coverage that I don't need at all, I'm covered for volcanic eruptions, etc). At least the auto insurance carriers give you an option.

  14. Re:What about range on this smaller car? on Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E · · Score: 1

    Well, that's only partially correct. Drunk driving and speeding tickets will have no effect on your insurance because both of those issues apply to the policyholder and any additional named parties, not to the vehicle. Since your buddy isn't on your insurance, he gets the premium penalty for the DUI, not you.

    In the event of an accident, the driver's policy covers bodily injury while the owner's policy covers physical damage. Typically, your insurance company would also seek partial compensation from your friend's carrier as well, and you both will be affected.

    Also, where the hell do you live that parking tickets affect your insurance? Even if you don't pay them, the only consequence is that you can't renew your registration until you pay them off. Or if you live in a city that uses parking enforcement to generate cash, your car gets towed and you have to go pay it off immediately.

  15. Re:What we need... on Radar Changing the Face of Cycling · · Score: 4, Informative

    Such a simple concept that you managed to get it wrong, apparently.

    From my state's laws:
            s. 316.151 – Required Position and Method of Turning at Intersections
            (b) Left turn . A person riding a bicycle and intending to turn left in accordance with this section is entitled to the full use of the lane from which the turn may be legally made.

    If you are making a left turn at an intersection on a bicycle, you get in the turn lane just like a car. Laws could of course vary by state, but in every state I've biked in, this was the case.

  16. Re:What a crazy situation on Encryption Keys For Kim Dotcom's Data Can't Be Given To FBI, Court Rules · · Score: 2

    The fact that it is the #1 non-disease killer (even in the US) is pretty much meaningless in the overall picture when you consider that over 90% of deaths are caused by diseases. Traffic fatalities represent about 2% of the total deaths per annum. Now factor in that only about 30% of traffic fatalities have excess speed as a contributing factor (according to the NHTSA). And only about 35% of fatalities occur above 55 mph (again, NHTSA), so most people aren't even in the "lucky to survive" range when they are killed.

    So...2% overall death rate, times 30% if speed traps could magically eliminate every instance of excessive speeding causing a crash, AND each of those crashes ONLY had excessive speed as a cause, and we get a *best case* 0.6% reduction in overall deaths if we went balls-out on speed traps. Complete and utter waste of time.

    Your numbers, while theoretically valid, are ultimately pointless in practice. Putting that extra effort into reducing distracted driving or alcohol-impaired driving would both yield a better return. Or, even better, put it into reducing the staggering number of deaths caused by preventable diseases if you really want to cut down the death rate.

  17. Thank you. I was wondering how long it would be until someone made that joke. Less time that I had guessed.

  18. Why? on Don't Want Google In Your House? Here Are a Few Home-Tech Startups To Watch · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, I'm eagerly awaiting the day when attackers are able to exploit my smart fridge to remotely unlock the smart lock on my smart door. And the inevitable automatic firmware update that bricks my smart air conditioner.

    Why does everything need to be a web appliance? My crockpot should convert electricity into heat and produce delicious stews and roasts. It doesn't need to use my search history to suggest new recipes, I have a PC that can do that.

    On the bright side, I'm looking forward to the instructions on how to run Debian on my blender.

  19. Re:How much reduced sleep is tied to long commutes on Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy · · Score: 1

    I really miss my old commute. When I started, the office was a five minute bike ride away. I could ride home, have a nice lunch, and ride back. Six months later, they moved 15 miles north. That 15 miles represents over an hour of rush hour driving. Ended up moving to a spot that wouldn't require me to deal with the worst rush hour roads, but I'm still a good 20-minute drive away.

    The worst I've seen are devs at a client in DC. Between driving in from the surrounding area to a parking garage at the tail end of the Yellow line and then taking the metro into town, they spent an absurd amount of time in transit to their jobs (not to mention the $200/month or so they had to pay for parking).

  20. Re:What choice do we have? on Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy · · Score: 1

    Oh, there have been more than three times where I could have gone over, but since my boss has to pay me for that extra time, he doesn't want me going over 40 (outside of emergencies, like when a RAID-5 VM host lost two drives in under an hour on a Saturday morning and had to be rebuilt). If I end up staying late two hours because a meeting runs long, I leave two hours early on Friday. If I spend Saturday doing out-of-hours maintenance on a mail server, I take a day off the next week to balance out the hours.

    Funny thing happens when you negotiate for overtime pay: they stop asking you work late :)

  21. Re:Net not profit on Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy · · Score: 1

    It really depends on where you live and what your circumstances are. Do you have a car loan and student loans? That'll make it really tough, as those alone can easily be $5K/year or more. Do you not have a mortgage? That makes it easier. My parents live on about 25K a year, but this was after moving and buying a smaller house in cash from what they made off their old one. No mortgage means your household expenses could be dirt cheap depending on location ($200/month for property taxes and insurance for them). No mortage, no car loans and no credit card debt makes $1800/month much more survivable.

    Plain numbers are tricky. The possibility of surviving on a certain income really comes down to what specific expenses you have to contend with. I could do 35K/year (gross) pretty comfortably with my current costs, but not 25K.

    Most people who can't survive on the 35K number the OP tossed out are unable to do so because of existing debt that is dragging them down. If they had been able to avoid getting sucked into that position from the outset, 35K would be a much easier number to handle. Debt is a dangerous creature that we've become far too complacent about.

  22. Re:What choice do we have? on Workaholism In America Is Hurting the Economy · · Score: 2

    If you can take a pay cut, you can find better alternatives. Even though I'm exempt like most of IT, I never work over 40 hours outside of emergencies (only three times in five years with this company). On those rare times, I was paid for them. This was something I negotiated from the beginning: no overtime unless I'm paid.

    My pay is about 15% below market average, but this was the tradeoff I was willing to make in order to have a less stressful work life (and my lifestyle is such that I could afford the cut). If you've got a huge mortgage, three kids, five cars and a mountain of student debt and credit card debt, yeah, you're pretty well fucked.

    My parents quit their jobs when they moved about 10 years ago and became self-employed. They make half of what they did before, but only work about 30 hours a week. They've both said they will never go back to working for somebody else. The freedom was worth the reduced pay to them as well.

  23. Re:Kingston selling shit USB3 flash keys on Kingston and PNY Caught Bait-and-Switching Cheaper Components After Good Reviews · · Score: 4, Informative

    SanDisk does that same crap. There's a huge difference between the write speeds for Ultra and Extreme models even though they are both rated USB3. Learned that lesson the hard way.

  24. Re:Or maybe... on Google Engineer: We Need More Web Programming Languages · · Score: 1

    More languages? No way. What we really need are more frameworks for our existing languages. What's a self-respecting web developer to do if he/she doesn't have to learn three new bleeding-edge frameworks every month?

    I'm looking forward to the day when my resume is just a two-page, single-spaced paragraph of frameworks...

  25. Re:Well then the SOLUTION is obvious on Report: Watch Dogs Game May Have Influenced Highway Sign Hacking · · Score: 2

    You'd be surprised. Most work programs are run by corporations nowadays (I used to work in the IT dept for one). It isn't like the old days where inmates were making products that sold for pennies on the dollar, prices at the company I worked for were good but typically were not that far below the industry averages. And as far as prison control, the inmates who made it into our programs were the low-risk ones that didn't need that much control to begin with. Typically they were "light" criminals with 2 year sentences. The high-risk inmates weren't considered viable for the programs.