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Comment Re:Shades of WinAmp 3 ? (Score 5, Insightful) 199

I really don't like when companies turn my app from a standalone product to one requiring a subscription to access new features. BranchFire did it with "PDF Annotate" and Abvio has done it with "Cyclemeter".

Part of the reason I purchased "PDF Annotate" and "Cyclemeter" ($25 and $5, respectively) is they didn't phone home or require a subscription that was looking for an excuse to go belly up.

My guess is once new user growth slows, the companies consider monetizing their current user base (aka "seeking rent"). So, in the next upgrade they introduce subscription services.

I'm sorry, but I'm not interested. At all.

Users should have the ability to roll back any upgrade, including OS upgrades.

Comment Re:Why? (Score 5, Informative) 390

This is why if you ever do anything in your life that people might want to know about, never EVER answer a request for an interview with anything that could even be used to find a bit of truth. "Off the record" means "this will get into the headline" and everything you say can and will be used against you to get pageviews. The two best responses to a request for an interview are to file a restraining order and if that doesn't work, spend a couple bitcoins on an assassin.

Your advice is a good one for subjects of a possible exposé or smear campaign, however, out of hand dismissing journalists as people without integrity is not in the best interests of an informed public and (probably) in many cases unwarranted.

When I was a university professor, the Chronicle of Higher Education asked for an interview about what it's like to be single and a new faculty (ha!). I agreed to an interview and, on several occasions, said that I wanted to say a few things "off the record" about the behavior of colleagues and the spouses of colleagues (ahem). Some of what I said off the record was juicy and I told my interviewer those things to contextualize my "on the record" remarks.

The article was published, my female colleague who was written up got a couple of marriage proposals, and everything attributed to me was on the up and up.

I know not all journalists adhere to a code of ethics, but I believe that many do. Clamming up when a story needs to get out may protect you, but one needn't be suspicious form the get go.

Comment Informative discussion thread (Score 5, Informative) 140

Over at MetaFilter, there's a pretty informative thread calling out these parts among others.
  • iOS 6 users with iOS 7-capable devices will be given the latest iOS 7.
  • iOS 6 users without iOS 7-capable devices will be given the latest iOS 6
  • Mac OS X users pre-Mavericks (10.9) are OK.
  • Mac OS X Mavericks users should avoid using Safari.
  • You can visit this link to see if your device/browser is affected.

Comment Re: Well for once I agree with religious crazies (Score 3, Interesting) 363

Again, how is this really different from any other colonization project? Look at the history of colonization in the Americas, and you'll see that many died out entirely as a result of being unprepared for the environment that they encountered. I suspect that you'll see similar results in the history of colonization into Australia, and if records existed, for pretty much any migration into areas where humans had not been before.

Can anyone in 2014, with a straight face, write that the Americas and Australia were places where "humans had not been before"?

Such statements don't withstand the scrutiny of someone with even gradeschool historical knowledge, yet here we are having to chew on a +4 comment that forgot humans were in these places well before Europeans got it into their minds to begin displacing indigenous peoples.

Imagine a colonization trip to Mars that discovered humans who had been living on Mars since before recorded history. These indigenous "Martian" humans then sheltered and fed those of us who traveled from Earth, receiving as thanks a colonist-driven campaign to kill them and appropriate their resources AND THEN two to three hundred years later the colonizers "recalled" how exceptionally difficult it was to colonize Mars, a place where no humans had been before.

While the likelihood of finding indigenous humans on other planets is unlikely, one day our descendants may encounter extraterrestrial indigenous life forms and, with thinking like the kind exhibited in your post, would destroy those life forms, appropriate the liberated resources, and write a history that enshrined themselves as resourceful adventurers struggling to survive in a harsh "unlivable" environment.

Comment Re:I look forward to the day they ignite (Score 1) 127

I just want to know how many first steps they can take, it seems I am always hearing about this first step or that first step

Actually you're misremembering what's alway been the first step. It's just that before taking a second step, one must go halfway and take the first step. But before taking that first step, one must go halfway and take half a step. But before taking that half a step, one must go halfway and take a quarter step. . .

tl;dr: it's halfsies all the way down.

Comment Re:Not much longer? (Score 2) 187

A lot of Youtube content is not available in HTML5 yet. Plus, all the famous Zynga games use Flash.

This is simply untrue. This is the experience if you have Flash unavailable on a desktop browser but plug that same URL into, for example, an iPhone and an iPad and the desired content ALWAYS loads.

The failure to deliver HTML5-compliant content on YouTube to desktop browsers is a strategy on Google's part and has nothing to do with the availability of HTML5 content.

Comment Re:For some, thinking is *impossible* (Score 1) 215

To be clear, when searching on the terms michelle obama princeton classmate the results are a bit more reputable and include links to articles debunking the false association between Michelle Obama's and Toni-Townes Whitley's concurrent matriculation and political corruption.

Princeton is where both matriculated (Michelle Obama also attended Harvard law school). "Yale" as a search term surfaces disreputable links in this context. "Princeton" and "Harvard" as search terms return links to more reliable articles.

Comment Re:For some, thinking is *impossible* (Score 3, Informative) 215

Like the original contract for this website which went to a college buddy of the POTUS' wife, without open bidding.

The executive whose company won the no-bid contract is Toni-Townes Whitley and the only association she and Michelle Obama have had is that they were classmates at Princeton.

The right-wing media attempted to twist this fact of attending the same school at the same time as proof of cronyism. Fortunately for those of us who would be informed rather than manipulated, the biggest evidence of this failed smear campaign is the blasted Google landscape around the search terms "michelle obama yale classmate".

The only people repeating this as proof of corruption are biased right-wing media organs and poorly informed /. readers.

Comment Re:Source data for this study? (Score 5, Funny) 382

From TFA:

The researchers surveyed 410 patients between the ages of 18 and 65, two thirds of them male, all of whom had a psychotic episode and were admitted to in-patient psychiatric units.

I'm not a statisticianololgist, but passing out surveys to psychotic people in a mental hospital doesn't seem to me to be the best way to gather accurate data for a study.

This study's major flaw is that the researchers needed 10 more patients to pass the threshold for statistical relevance.

Comment Re:Cause and effect may be backwards (Score 2) 382

Perhaps these folks were smoking that much pot as a coping means ("self medicating") because of their troubles, rather than pot causing the troubles

Already mentioned in TFA:

But the evidence has been unclear. For example, one recent study from the Netherlands found it's equally possible that people prone to psychosis may be more likely to smoke pot, possibly as a way of "self-medicating" (see Reuters Health article of December 25, 2012, here: http://reut.rs/1d7aIvU)

Comment Re:Updates vs Upgrades (Score 1, Troll) 380

It is unfortunate that Apple didn't think that one through a little further. If they are adopting the model of "the OS Upgrade IS a security update", then throw it in their normal update mechanism rather than having people seek it out. Since they didn't, [. . .]

It is unfortunate that you didn't think your post through a little further.

I'm running Mac OS 10.8.5 (Mountain Lion) on two machines, and I am notified once every few days by the "App Store" application (which is the update mechanism for OS X starting with Mac OS 10.7 Lion) that Mavericks is ready to install.*

In other words, Mavericks *is* included as part of Apple's "normal update mechanism" and "normal people" do not have to seek it out; Mavericks seeks out them.

*I've not upgraded these two machines because they are running production software that is not yet ready to upgrade. One of my other personal machines has gotten the Mavericks update.

Comment Re:It's a memorial, not an art exhibition. (Score 1) 132

And what about honoring agreements that are made? Are artists so special that they are allowed to ignore them? From Scott's perspective, he had an agreement with sculptor Van Hoeydonck to make the original and the copy as the only two to be made as they were memorials to fallen astronauts. Van Hoeydonck contends that they were for all of mankind and thus he can make and sell as many copies as he wanted.[. . .]

I know this depends on stereotyping to some degree but:

Have you ever worked with the engineering type whose rational demeanor and levelheadedness allows for the calm deliberate action one must take in the face of rapidly changing potentially deadly environmental conditions?

Being on /., I'm going to take a guess you have.

Now, have you ever worked with the artistic type whose sensibilities are attuned to impossible-to-quantify and difficult-to-articulate aesthetic contours and dimensions of plastic art, whose manner and behavior drive that artist to produce artwork that is often vilified and ridiculed to be later held up by succeeding generations as works of artistic genius?

Could these two types of people ever have a "meaningful" enduring contract sealed only with words and a handshake?

(I hear there is at least a third type of person whose canny judgement and profit-incentive leads them to forge documents tens of thousands of words long which specify the conditions and behavior of bonded parties, and these third types aren't always looked upon favorably by the engineering and artistic types.)

Comment Re:20 year old news? (Score 5, Funny) 521

These cars are usually handled in a genital manner. I remember a story where Prince Charles got angry at Di after she sat on the hood of his car at a polo game and left a bum imprint.

I respect your anatomical specificity and historical knowledge, but just to be clear Diana's bum is not technically part of her genitals.

Comment Re:Hard to believe (Score 1) 804

The service aspect is not all positive.. With a vendor built, a component failure means a 2 week minimum turnaround where you're out of a machine. If you've built it yourself it's an overnighted part and you're up and running again...and if you're crazy desperate, a drive to frys/microcenter.

[. . .]

You can't assure me jack shit. This is an appeal to emotion. Try getting help from apple when your machine is out of its expensive applecare warranty. Good luck. At least with a home built, it'll last as long as you want it to as parts are always readily available, and at no worse reliability than the crappy refurbs apple sticks into supposedly 'new' computers when they fail. They're usually cheaper too.

You're really missing it, aren't you?

People and companies who buy Apple gear for production don't address failure by ordering new PARTS and self-installing. Seriously? This is Apple.

They take their broken shit to the Genius Bar or drop a few thousand fully-refundable-inside-of-fourteen-days dollars (sometimes minus restocking fee, but not always) on an emergency replacement machine.

What you and many super-self-sufficient geeks don't understand is the value of a full-service vendor. Apple is not perfect, but for buying gear they're pretty damn close.

Comment Re:There is good bacteria too. (Score 3, Informative) 160

Triclosan is a fungal spore. It's prevents bacterial growth by out-competing them with fungus. Frankly I find it disgusting but it's damn near impossible to avoid.

Triclosan is not a fungal spore. According to Wikipedia:

This organic compound is a white powdered solid with a slight aromatic/phenolic odor. It is a chlorinated aromatic compound that has functional groups representative of both ethers and phenols.

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