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Comment Re:Keyboards (Score 1) 225

...except consumer tablets aren't proper digitizers. This is especially true for platforms where a stylus is a banned option because it doesn't seem fashionable enough.

Proper tablet inputs typically are PC peripherals, not the limited functionality that comes with consumer tablets.

Even a mundane mouse is better at the "direct manipulation" stuff than what's provided on your average consumer tablet. The "direct manipulation" on a consumer tablet is crude and clumsy.

Comment Re:Keyboards (Score 1) 225

> No porn and no torrenting, and no hacker tools are not a disadvantage for schools use.

Lack of "hacker" tools is a disadvantage for any educational environment. Students might actually be expected to create something rather than just being mindless consumers.

There have already been educational programs mired by patent attacks that have been pre-emptively banned from the iPad. The corporate IT mentality filters out more than just "the bad stuff".

This much should be obvious to ANYONE that has had to deal with the corporate IT mentality.

With Apple, you get an extra layer of that for free. Your own internal IT busybodies don't even get their chance to kick you in the balls. Apple beats them to it.

Comment Re:Good (Score 2) 225

> If only tablets had on-screen keyboards or supported Bluetooth keyboards or keyboard docks!

In other words, spend extra money to turn your tablet into some kind of laptop wannabe. You're trying to make the tablet something it's not in order to make up for it's inherent flaws when the simple and obvious thing is to buy the thing that already meets your requirements.

Comment Re:This is how business should be done (Score 1) 168

There is no such law. They are only required to make a best effort at a profitable company. Since nothing dictates the timeframe, they are free to play a long game so long as they can credibly claim that they genuinely BELIEVE that their actions will lead to long term profits.

Investors that were looking for a fast turnaround are free to look elsewhere. Investors that don't believe their plan will succeed are likewise welcome to move on.

Submission + - Experian breach exposed 200 million Americans' personal data over a year ago

BUL2294 writes: CNN Money is reporting that, prior to the Target breach that exposed information on 110 million customers, and prior to Experian gaining Target's "identity theft protection" business from that breach, Experian was involved a serious breach, to which nobody admits the scope of. Their subsidiary, Court Ventures, unwittingly sold access to a database to a Vietnamese fraudster named Hieu Minh Ngo. This database contained information on some 200 million Americans, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, birthdays, work history, driver's license numbers, email addresses, and banking information. "Criminals tapped that database 3.1 million times, investigators said. Surprised you haven't heard this? It's because Experian is staying quiet about it. It's been more than a year since Experian was notified of the leak. Yet the company still won't say how many Americans were affected. CNNMoney asked Experian to detail the scope of the breach. The company refused. "As we've said consistently, it is an unfortunate and isolated issue," Experian spokesman Gerry Tschopp said."

Comment Re:FUD filled.... (Score 5, Interesting) 212

"You need Air, Fuel and Spark"

You must not work on many engines then....

Diesel does not need spark.

"but more importantly, neatly all the valves in those plants are controlled by electricity. " And they have geared handwheels on them for emergency backup.. Have you ever been in a Water filtration plant? I worked in one for over 7 years, during that time I had to operate the whole place by myself during two extended power outages, one actually blew up the main transformers on the premise and melted the 7200 volt power lines coming in to run our 350hp electric motors. I had a very hectic 30 minutes to run the 1/2 mile to the other end of the facility during a major thunderstorm to start the generators manually as we did not have auto start back then. Then run all the way back and manually close 4 60" gate valves by hand to shut down half of the water plant as water consumption dropped way down as most of the town was out of power. By the time the emergency response guys showed up and I opened the gates I had the 500,000 Gallon per day pumps running and the water towers in the city above a 75% full point.

What is fun is when you are in a pumphouse and the check valve fails and a 350hp motor is running backwards at full speed and someone does not answer the radio up at the control house and hits START on that motor. the smell of vaporized copper and ozone in the air when the breaker arms exploded and vaporized because 7200 volts at insane amps met a motor running backwards and acting like a direct short. My ears were ringing for a week.

Comment Re: Who cares? (Score 1) 225

> everyone having their own PC turned into an admin nightmare.

This is entirely the fault of Microsoft. Apple itself used to even acknowledge this fact before it gave up on being a computer company. Remember those old commercials you never see anymore.

This was never a "PC problem". It was always a Microsoft problem. They poisoned the well.

A Chromebook is little more than a very locked down PC running Unix. Even an iPad is ultimately the same thing.

Submission + - Google's Baseline Study for defining Healthy Human.

rtoz writes: Google’s research division "Google X" has started another moonshot project named as "Baselne Study".

The baseline study project will collect anonymous genetic and molecular information from 175 people and later thousands more to create the complete picture of what a healthy human being should be.

The baseline study will help researchers detect killers such as heart disease and cancer far earlier, pushing medicine more toward prevention rather than the treatment of illness.

According to Google, the information from Baseline will be anonymous and its use will be limited to medical and health purposes. Data won't be shared with insurance companies.

Comment Re:FUD filled.... (Score 4, Insightful) 212

Not hard at all. EMP does not blow up starter motors and does not blow up lead acid batteries. Hell all I have to do is connect jumper cables from the battery to the starter lugs to start the generator.

Granted that's far more difficult for the typical person that cant get past the "I pushed the button, it most be broke" thought process, but that is why most places actually hire competent employees to manage that stuff.

Comment Re:Is there an SWA Twitter police? (Score 1) 928

Whoa there. This was no mere bad judgement call. Having him thrown off the plane was over-the-top malicious, totally beyond what I ever expect from anyone who is "having a bad day." I sincerely believe such a person really shouldn't be in any sort of position where they might have that amount of power over other people.

Put a hundred random people in the same sort of bad-day position, and I don't expect one of them to behave like this one did. This one is truly exceptional, and does not merely "have bad days." This is the kind of person whose news stories are usually headlined something like "gunman kills five then self."

I might be willing to excuse them, if say, their psychiatrist were to explain how this was anomalous for their character and that their medication was defective, or something like that. OTOH that can be handled in their lawsuit against the medication manufacturer, and then this psycho will never need a job where they exercise power over other people again.

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