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Comment Re:I thought it was a toy store (Score 1) 330

Agree. Their music section just duplicated what I could get at WalMart or Target for a lot less; I'm not interested in pop music. Classical content was laughable. Although some of the toys were fun, we don't have children to buy for any more. So that was just more space taken away from their primary mission of selling books. Borders offered a wider selection of books (in its prime). When we had both stores available to us, I'd go to the local B&N for browsing, and Borders (further away) when trying to find something obscure.

Amazon scratches the 'obscure' itch much better than Borders, but doesn't offer the same browsing experience.

Comment Barnes & Noble closed the profitable store her (Score 4, Interesting) 330

(Reston VA), In part due to contract dispute with the mall owner. But they could have moved into a nice Borders store location about 5 miles away in Sterling VA. Instead, they pointed me to their store in Tyson's Corner, which costs me $5 in tolls and puts me in the middle of a traffic mess. I felt sorry for the Reston store employees and the managers who did a good job with our local store, handing one my B&N Readers Card. I said, "Send this to Corporate. Tell them to look up how much I've spent -in this store- over the last 15 years. Tell them that 95% of that business is going to Amazon, because I will not drive to Tysons and B&N offers me no alternative."

I really miss browsing in a paper bookstore, Amazon does not offer the same experience (their suggestions aren't as useful for me as they think they are...) The loss of B&N will be significant for consumers, I think. But I'm mostly through the 5 stages of mourning for them.

Comment Safari doesn't cache at all (Score 4, Informative) 118

From the securityevaluators.com document (2nd reference in the base article): Safari. Apple Safari does not cache HTTPS-delivered content to disk, regardless of any headers sent by the server. ISE tested the mobile version of Safari on an iPad 2, and the HTTPS caching behavior was identical to the desktop version.

Comment Windows 8 is doomed, but Windows will survive (Score 1) 737

Win 8 provides no real reason to upgrade computers (as distinct from tablets). The compromises Microsoft did to make a single OS for both tablets and PCs result in products, particularly PCs, with serious problems. I think we'll see "Son of Win7", which may include a Win 8 skin/option.

Microsoft's big mistake this year was not continuing to sell both Win7 and Win8, pushing the latter but supporting the former for those who don't want/need the investment in hardware, in new Win8 applications or who don't care about converged laptop & tablet. Most people I know running Win7 are quite happy with it.

It's worth noting, too, that in my experience the number of "works only on Windows" applications from my company/our government customer is approaching zero. They're getting much smarter about ensuring apps run on Windows, MacOS X, iOS and Android, or more commonly provisioning applications as web apps particularly using HTML5. Flash isn't dead yet, but is rapidly being replaced as a delivery platform for anything other than video.

(Of course, I continue to be perfectly happy with my Mac -an outliner in my company-, running Windows XP under virtualization. I'll be looking for a Win7 OEM license in case my company deploys more Windows-only applications.)

Comment I know what I'd like to pan... (Score 1) 26

Deltek time and expense tracking software...

But it takes time and effort to write reviews, with more time required to write an unfavorable review (same holds true for peer review of articles, which is one reason why I declined the opportunity to review a journal article today...) A really good system would have some means to evaluate and weight well written reviews. (That's a characteristic that's probably missing from Slashdot's scoring criteria.)

Comment Re:Hindsight is 20-20... (Score 1) 456

And you visited these weapon sites in Iraq? You personally reviewed the evidence, including classified data and the associated assessments, not just from the US but also from the UK, France, etc? And your qualifications for evaluating WMD evidence are? Can you demonstrate your -contemporaneous- evaluation of this as "bullshit"?

At the time, there were clearly documented disagreements about the credibility of competing pieces of evidence; I remember the debates. I remember saying at the time that I thought we might be guilty of seeing what we wanted/expected to see. That's an error of analysis, it's not in any sense evidence of "fake information".

The idea that -Twitter- in particular could have provided a meaningful alternative is laughable. Establishing evidentiary arguments, evaluating competing sources, and providing meaningful analysis, all in 140 characters?

Comment Hindsight is 20-20... (Score 1) 456

And the assertions about "an absent media" don't match my recollections from that time (and I was paying very close attention to the run-up.) There certainly should have been more discussion of what happens after Saddam falls, but the current trope of a delinquent media is as much about current political posturing as it is about an evaluation of what was known -at that time-.

Public Radio ran a piece today pointing out that apparently part of Saddam's focus was not on preventing/reacting to a US invasion, but rather deceiving the Iranians to prevent their continued attacks. Even from a long distance during the invasion, I remember hearing reports that any credible intelligence analyst/knowledgeable news reporter would have evaluated as potential signs of chemical warfare preparations (specifically, finding open bags for chem suites. They're sealed, once you open them the activated charcoal, etc, degrades.) Turns out the Iraqi forces were wearing chem suits for warmth, but we had no way of knowing that until after enough POW interrogations had occurred to establish the pattern.

Comment He has substantial Vatican experience. (Score 1) 915

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Bergoglio
"As cardinal, Bergoglio was appointed to several administrative positions in the Roman Curia. He served on the Congregation of Clergy, Congregation of Divine Worship and Sacraments, Congregation of Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Congregation of Societies of Apostolic Life. Bergoglio became a member of the Commission on Latin American and the Family Council."

Comment Re:Un-forgeable (Score 1) 235

There are legit reasons to "spoof" the caller number. For example, companies that call out from multiple sources but have one main-office line.
In my case, I have a VOIP line with no incoming #. I previously used my cellphone # for call-display so that people know that it's me calling.

In that case, there should be a single (authoritative) registered phone number. This is something the Telcos need to work out, my sense is it needs to be implemented at the switch level.

Comment Effectiveness of "Do Not Call"? (Score 4, Interesting) 235

I sent my Senator (Mark Warner (D) Virginia), who sits on the relevant committee, a constituent request asking if anything ever happened as a result of filing "Do Not Call" violations. They sent me a Privacy Act form (so they could query the registry using my personal data.)

And that was the end of it. I never heard back.

On a related note, I think the FCC should make Caller ID both required and un-forgeable. (An individual could still choose to not have his Caller ID revealed, and that would be indicated on your Caller ID display.)

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