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Comment Re:Excuse me? (Score 1) 344

Yes there are fires and tragedies do result from these fires. I was responding to the statement "Compare this to the infernal fireball that you get seconds after you puncture a gas tank." I did not mean that fires do not occur, as i alluded to in my statement "Only if a stream of gas comes out of a tank, and pools will it burn". I have never lost some one close to me due to car fires, but have lost 17 friends in car accidents from not wearing seat belts over my 45 years since high school. That experience as well as reports of 284 car fires each year compared to the 154 MILLION cars has led the applied mathematician in me to discount car fires as a lowly 0.01% of accident consequences. But when they( car fires) happen near to you they are of overwhelming importance. My apologies for not being more specific , and not being more"Human" and considerate.

Submission + - Law Firm Fights AT&T Merger Needs Subscribers (fightthemerger.com)

wizzerking writes: "This law firm I found through digg.com is using the AT&T arbitration System to fight the AT&T takeover of T-Mobile. If you are an AT&T subscriber, then you can sign up, and the law firm will do 90%+ of the work AND NEVER CHARGE YOU. From their "Our Retainer" headline
"
We ("Bursor & Fisher, P.A.") will agree to represent you on a fully contingent basis. Regardless of the result, we will never ask you to directly pay any of the costs of the case. We agree to advance all costs and expenses. We will seek reimbursement of these expenses from AT&T.

We will never ask you to directly pay any fee. If we are successful in obtaining a recovery, we will retain from the proceeds of any award or settlement (1) any costs or expenses that we have advanced and (2) a contingent fee of the lesser of 50% of the total award or settlement (calculated before the deduction of any costs or expenses we have advanced), or the maximum contingent fee allowed by law. If you are entitled to the recovery of attorneys fees from an adverse party, we shall have the option of receiving either (a) the percentage of the lump sum including segregated amounts for attorneys' fees as set out above, or (b) the total amount of the segregated award of attorneys' fees, plus any interest or premium allocable to that award, whichever is larger. ""

Comment First Talk to the Doctor (Score 1) 581

I have a dentist, and a doctor who have pissed me off for one reason or another, and in each case after thinking about the situation I called and explained my problem, feelings etc about that situation. Whether it was about treatment, or the cost of a procedure. In the case of a dentist I was made to feel understood, and appreciated. In the case of the doctor who was not born in this country, and did not share my feelings and basically told me i was wrong, I posted my feelings, evidence and named names, and found another doctor. That doctor has since left this area, for a more metropolitan environment where he does not have to deal with us local yokels. In each case I had signed such an agreement without realizing what I was signing, and in each case I did not care. I posted my feelings evidence according the rules of the internet posting service, and gave my real name etc so people who came across the reviews would have more confidence that the review was genuine and not some paid for result.

Comment Remeber the Unisys GIF Patent ? (Score 1) 663

How come no one is talking about the Unisys GIF Compression patent? Have we not learned from history, that having a single standard always ends with some company controlling what we do ? I may not love Google, or Apple or Microsoft, but I absolutely hate patents on "standards", they always raise the price I pay as a developer, I am always afraid my company will end up being sued. So just on that basis I laud Google for being the bad guy in the short run, and creating an environment where Open source standards provide an alternative. REMEMBER UNISYS, FIGHT FOR NONPATENTED STANDARDS
Google

Ars Thinks Google Takes a Step Backwards For Openness 663

An anonymous reader writes "Over at Ars Technica, Peter (not so) Bright gives a long-winded four pages of FUD about how Chrome dropping support for H.264 is a slight against openness. 'The promise of HTML5's video tag was a simple one: to allow web pages to contain embedded video without the need for plugins. With the decision to remove support for the widespread H.264 codec from future versions of Chrome, Google has undermined this widely-anticipated feature. The company is claiming that it wants to support "open codecs" instead, and so from now on will support only two formats: its own WebM codec, and Theora. ... The reason Google has given for this change is that WebM (which pairs VP8 video with Vorbis audio) and Theora are "open codecs" and H.264 apparently isn't. ... H.264 is unambiguously open.'"

Comment I live near Sacramento, CA and have no choices (Score 1) 702

I live 1 hour drive from Sacramento, CAlifornia and have DSL after fighting with AT&T for 3 years. I get no cell phone reception in or around my house, and there are at least 5 - 10 K people who live in the immediate area that have no choice other than DIALUP POTS. So you city folk may have everything dialed in with multiple choices, but us country hicks that live 1 hour drive from a major city HAVE NO CHOICES.
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Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project 687

garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"

Comment There is a way to make travel secure (Score 1) 582

We have two options 1: everybody travels naked, with no carry on or checked luggage, all luggage will be shipped by UPS, FedEx or the Like. 2: Nobody Travels except in their own car, or in cars with people they are familiar with. In this case we will have the situation of travel board websites and people will just organize themselves any way. Examples are commuter stops in San Francisco, or the old fashioned boards in college about who is traveling where, and who would like to pay for gas, or food. As far as I am concerned we should all be using the internet for conferences, etc. My company literally forbids traveling in the USA unless teh client absolutely will pay for my time, and travel expenses. In the case of Europe, well I had hoped to visit some locations, but not by plane, i think I will travel by old fashioned boat.

Comment From a Windows Programmer who uses Visual (Score 1) 799

You did not say what OS you are using, so I will try from a Windows Perspective. First I really love GAMBAS http://gambas.sourceforge.net/en/main.html which is open source and free. There are also the Visual Studio Express downloads from Microsoft. If the child's interest is in creating games then there are specialized open source Games engine like moodle, and a bunch of other really weird sounding names. Until you are more specific it is really hard to go down a whole list of everything that is available, even if we restrict the list to Windows.

Comment Don't have to physically Leave the USA to be Charg (Score 0, Offtopic) 305

I live an hour outside of Sacramento, and was charged by AT & T 1,100 because some on managed to use my wireless phones in my house, and call a Canadian Number !!! This Happened twice before i got rid of the wireless phones in my house, and only because i had affidavits from bowling partners for 3 of the phone session, and my son and I were on a trip, was I able to successfully dispute those charges. AT & T was NO HELP, and I had to LEARN EVERYTHING MY SELF. In the end I have no choice about AT & T, since teh Vonage will not work with the Crapphy internet we have out here 1 Hour drive from Sacramento, California, and NO CELL PHONE RECEPTION IN OUR HOUSE EVEN TRYING, and there are over 5,000 people up here in teh foothills you are in the exact same position, STUCK IN LANDLINE HELL, with NO DSL, and our only options is ISDN, or Satellite Internet. Be glad you live in the big city, I have to love trees a lot to put up with this 3 rd world backwater called the USA. I am thankful when I travel to Korea, and India, because there I have complete internet and phone mobility !!!! When is the Government going to insist that this situation is causing the USA to be a 3rd world nation as far as telecommunications is concerned !!!

Comment Re:why is it so expensive anyway? (Score 1) 305

This is the Great and Glorius Unites States where our Government allowed Limited Area monopolies and thus limited competition, so we pay Top dollar for SHIT service. i live 1 hour dri9ve from Sacramento, California and I AM STILL WAITING FOR CELL PHONE SERVICE !!! I have only had DSL se5rvice for the last 5 years because, because I circulated a Peitition in the State government, and personally an assistant to one of the state senators. I get better Internet service in the farmlands in INDIA THAN IN THE USA. AT & T is nothing but a money Grubbing no customer service, that my Grandfather who worked for Ma Bell for 55 years is ASHAMED OF.

Comment Valid REason for HAving KeyLogger (Score 2, Informative) 51

I am a software developer for some companies, and we have included as part of the test installation keylogger software, as well as mouse clicking software, because with out this log of information we found that humans have no clue as to the path that was used to create a problem in the software. So this a very very legitimate use of the keylogger software, and mouse clicking software when the tester, is running our program. Other times I have used keylogger, and mouse clicking software on a customer's computer just to diagnose an issue the customer was having, and found that some one on the cleaning crew was using the computers as a gaming network, the company was unaware of this activity until I installed this invisible software on their computers with their permission. When everything settled down, then I was paid to remove the keylogger, and mousing logging software.

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