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Comment As a parent.... (Score 1) 95

Google's new changes for YouTube are barely lip-service to the problem. It's a PR move, on what is a disturbing & scary problem.

While I won't let my sons (2, 4 & 6) anywhere near YouTube... I have many parent friends who let their children browse YouTube Kids basically unattended. While this is clearly not a good idea, the fact remains that overworked, exhausted parents are going to do this. That videos of Peppa Pig eating her father & drinking bleach, and other horrid 'cartoons' are slipping past automated filters, the service needs to remove the 'kids' label and only re-open when human reviewed videos replace them. A-la Netflix Kids, etc.

That Google won't even prevent the 'related videos' bar from sending kids down the rabbit hole, is also infuriating.

I have friends who, upon reading this news, scanned their child's history only to find videos of cartoon favourites sexually assaulting eachother. Wth Google - shut it down!

And to say parents should be previewing each & every video - I agree... but they don't. Parents in today's dual-income, cash-strapped economy are at an exhausted extreme.

Comment Re:Agree (Score 1) 653

I work for an Ontario software company. We have very talented people here. The Toronto area will cost you, but companies outside the big metropolitian cities won't cost a ton. Minimum wage here is $10/h. $15/h is decent. Experienced devs are happy to make about $20hr in some towns.

Comment Why Linux Isn't Winning (Score 1, Insightful) 685

I've been dual booting Ubuntu on a laptop alongside Windows for quite a few years now. I'm using an LTS version and haven't been exposed to Unity yet. I just checked out the online tour on the Ubuntu website and I'm just.... well, depressed.

Linux won't expand drastically into the home PC market unless it can accomplish the following:

- Make navigating my files and applications easy and intuitive. Finding installed applications should not be difficult.
- Make installing any new application easy.
- Let me configure the OS, my preferences and my hardware and drivers easily.
- NO COMMAND LINE REQUIRED.
- Extensive help within the application.
- Extensive hardware and driver support. The current state is not good enough.

Sadly even though Ubuntu has been the nicest one I've used, it seems to be dumbing down some things while others are still difficult. If a normal user who is not doing anything unusual has to open the command line, this is a fail.

I know this will cause a big flame war to say this, but as a long time Windows and Linux user... I have to say.... just make it work like Windows! Windows may be popular due to a monopoly on the industry, but they are now the standard and despite the MS hatred, they have over time developed a clear and non-complicated way of doing most things you need to do on your computer. I haven't opened the command line on Windows for years... not even sure if it still exists. I can find all my settings under Control Panel, and my applications are nicely organized and I can add shortcuts and organize files however I like. For all it's flaws, Windows is the standard in the industry. If Linux deviates too far away from this, it will forever remain a fringe option for technical or very determined users.

I say all this as someone who has no love for Microsoft and very, very much wants to see Linux grow in popularity. I've been dual booting Ubuntu to see if I could ditch Windows and use it exclusively. So far my answer is no way, and will be sadly getting Windows 7 on my next machine, and probably dual booting some distro of Linux. I might try Mint next.

Comment Re:Others can list your hometown for you (Score 2) 338

You can't I've looked. What's also bad is when FB tells you someone told them your hometown/highschool/relationship/etc is ABC you don't have an option to deny or delete that factoid. The best you can do is not show it on your profile. But FB still assumes it's true and saves it.

I got in a long drawn out debate with friends about this recently. I politely asked people not to tell FB info about me. I was shocked how many friends argued with me... even after I gave links to articles about what FB does with the info. Like hello... I don't care what you tell FB about yourself... but you're upset that I want you to refrain from telling it about ME? Geez.

Comment Re:US health care system (Score 1) 138

I'm a Canadian and had to go to a clinic in Florida when on vacation. I saw the doctor for about 10mins to explain my sore throat. Came out of there with a $235 bill for the visit and a written prescription note, and $50 for the strep-throat test. The antibiotics were a deal at $25 at the drug store across the street. Luckily my travel insurance back home reimbursed me for all of it.

So yeah, $45 is a bargain...

Us Canadians need to take out travel insurance mainly to cover us in case we have to use the US healthcare system.

Comment Already have mail-in (Score 1) 405

In my area (southern Ontario) we were able to vote federally by mail-in ballot. Not sure if this is available across the country. Many people did it just for the convenience. I think that is a better idea than online. I'm a web developer and even I have doubts to how this could be done online properly.

Comment As a female gamer... (Score 1) 432

As a female gamer who plays the so called 'hard core' games.... I don't see a huge gap in how games appeal to men and women. Other than the turd of the new Duke Nukem game there is a really great selection out there (and I was a fan of DN3d. Used to create levels for it). A few companies are really getting it right like BioWare. Mass Effect and Dragon Age both let you play a female character with a fleshed out story and applicable love interests. I wish more games were like that. For example, Rockstar could do more to let me play a female character like in Red Dead Redemption and the game I'm currently playing - LA Noire.

Secondly, I want to be able to save any time I freaking want. And don't make me re-play a big section just because I had to exit to do something more important. Having to reach a 'save point' is nonsense and kills my fun really quickly.

Also, don't know if this is a girl thing or not... but I like more social interaction with NPCs in the game. Like in Dragon Age for example it's very good. In Oblivion however... I get kind of lonely pretty quickly. The lone wolf adventurer gets old after 40+ hours.

That reminds me, I want to finish Oblivion before Skyrim comes out. But I have yet another repetitive oblivion gate to close. Gaaah. There's such a thing as a game being too long.

Comment Shorteners Could Be a Trap (Score 2) 99

I always wondered what if a not so scrupulous person set up a url shortening service that operated legitimately for a while getting itself spread all over the web. Then one day they change it so that all the urls now point to a frame with the target site surrounded by ads. It would be mostly too late to stop it, and the terms could be along the lines of "we reserve the right to do anything we want with shortened urls".

It drives me mad when I see URL shorteners used in places that do not have a space limitation. Like on a regular website. I get the point of using it on twitter or txt messages, but on a blog or website? Ug. It's killing the web.

Comment My Friends as Ads (Score 1) 78

I can see this coming. Pictures of my Friends will appear on websites pushing products or even the services of that website. Welcome to Best Buy Sherri, your Friend Jane was just here and bought Harry Potter on BluRay! [like].

Ug.

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