Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:what gets me... (Score 1) 262

I'm sure no one who has a good memory and was paying attention was surprised. The big change is that the 9/11 fear and wars are over in the minds of the people. We still have people over there but in the heads of the average American they are all home safe and sound. When the fear was high no price was to large for safety. Now every emailed cat picture from grandma must be sealed from prying eyes.

Comment Meeting circumstances don't matter (Score 1) 313

Ask anyone who has dated around enough and they'll tell you that the circumstances under which you first meet don't matter for much. Sure, for a few weeks she'll be "my new OkCupid girl" or "my new Barnes and Noble girl" to you, but that fades. At that point I typically don't think too much about how we met and think more about what's going on in the present moment.

Comment Re:Ads Kill Bandwidth (Score 1) 716

If this is the world you want, it sounds nice from a user perspective. The problem is that stripping ads destroys the revenue model for the free services. How do you expect businesses to monetize it?

If they can't monetize it, they won't play the game. Who then is going to provide these services at the scale we enjoy today? How do you expect them to remain free if you reject the only viable revenue model?

We've accepted this model because it's the best one available for free. Are you willing to pay for services like YouTube instead? Do you have a better suggestion for encouraging businesses to give us free stuff?

Comment Re:So? (Score 1) 146

Oh look over there, something new and shiny! And 1 billion people jump ship in a heartbeat.

Windows Phone is both new and shiny, but the adoption has been slow. There's more to it than that.

Comment Re:OSX is better anyway (Score 1) 786

The problem with the "LOW MARKET SHARE!!1!!" comments is that you're talking about a company having a 10% of a market worth billions of dollars. I will take 10% of a billion dollars any day of the week.

but to roll out the "low market share" argument is absurd here when Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.

As a consumer buying computer equipment, why on earth would you care how much money Apple has? Once you're past the low-bar threshold of "this company isn't going out of business and has enough cash to do R&D", how do their cash reserves really affect your experience in any tangible way?

I like OS X and have used it for years, but I've never experienced any personal benefit from Apple's pile of cash. It simply doesn't matter, and I've never read any convincing argument that it does. Got one for me?

Nintendo

Nintendo To Cancel Weather, News, and Other Built-In Wii Apps In June 175

damn_registrars writes "Nintendo has announced that at the end of June it will be canceling the services of several of the channels that are built in to the original Wii, including the Weather, News, Everybody Votes, and Mii Contest. This will also affect the WiiConnect24 services, though should not affect the Wii shopping channel. They added: 'Exchange of Wii messages on the Wii Message Board, exchange of Mii characters on the Mii Channel and message/data exchange within some games will be disabled.'"

Comment Re:I propose... (Score 1) 526

I'm going to assume you're not trolling, and you truly believe your compassion based argument against double-blind trials. I'll start out by saying that I'm sorry that my offer of a differing viewpoint seems to have been taken by you as an attack on your values and beliefs. It is not meant to be an attack, and I'm sorry to have provoked an emotional reaction in you.

I don't know how or why you came to have a strong belief against double-blind trials, but I suggest that it does not hurt to consider an alternate viewpoint, even if you are not convinced by it. This is why I suggested you look at Goldacre's book.

Anyway, it's my view that double-blind trials make the world a better and more humane place. My reasoning is that they provide us with more reliable information about the effectiveness of treatment. They fight against data distortions from the placebo effect by "blinding" the patient. They also fight against confirmation bias, sample population manipulation, cherry-picking, and other distortions by blinding the researcher to which treatment each patient is receiving. It's a two-fold data protection system.

The result is that we have more effective medical treatments through better medical data. Although perhaps a few hundred people receive the placebo treatment, millions more will benefit because we would have a better idea of which treatments are more effective. This gives doctors a more accurate view of the world, which undoubtedly helps when treating patients. This is why I see double-blind trials as having a greater benefit to the world than any negative effect that placebo treatment may have.

The patients receiving placebo knew that they may or may not receive a placebo treatment. They also knew that the actual non-placebo medicine may or may not be effective, and could even be harmful. They freely decided to be a part of the study anyway, and sometimes get paid to do so. Besides, even if they do unknowingly receive placebo, their health tends to improve anyway because they believe the placebo treatment will work.

Okay, your turn. I look forward to your response.

Comment Re:Port? (Score 1) 193

Mac OS X is arguably much more open than Windows. I base this argument on Mac OS X's open Mach kernel, BSD components, and GNU command line utilities included in the system. Although it also has lots of proprietary code, much like Windows, the difference is that Windows doesn't have as many open components as Mac OS X.

Also, both systems are equivalent with respect to the ability to install programs downloaded from the web, and I hope this never changes. If it does, I will throw a fit and deliver a pie to the face of the relevant executive officers. That restriction would be enough to make me go back to a Linux desktop. YMMV.

It goes without saying that most forms of Linux are way more open than either system.

Comment Re:EVIL-TOS: Not allowed to host any type of serve (Score 1) 263

Why does google express the desire that I "should not" be hosting "any kind of server"? I mean, what reason, that lines up credibly in any way with there prior sentiments about net neutrality, internet entrepeneurship, or anything, could possibly justify that they feel that every user "should not host a server of any kind?" What kind of vision is that for the current and future internet they hope to deliver?

You know what would suck? If people started hosting web sites from their home that were down half of the time. That would be worse for the internet then if an ISP just said "Please go else where to host a server".

This is a new service. Google has no idea what problems they are going to run in to and are taking it slow. How stupid would they have sounded if they came out and said "Hey guys we are starting a new ISP division. Who wants to sign up their mission critical servers to be hosted by us?". It's fine for the internet if a home goes down but not if a business's servers go down. That is why that phrase is perfectly reasonable. You CAN host servers out of your home but you SHOULD not since Google can't guarantee any reasonable QOS yet.

Can you really call yourself an ISP if you disallow such basic functionality as a generic tcp/ip service provided on a port on your computer?

Here is something in my Optimum Online terms of service

Users may not run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums

So yes they can. At lest Google did not say I can't they only said I should not. If you want server support you need to get a business class internet connection, Google is not selling that yet.

Slashdot Top Deals

Don't panic.

Working...