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Submission + - Slashdot the victim of peering problems on Comcast? (slashdot.org) 3

jddj writes: Not sure how to tell you guys, but Slashdot won't load on my Comcast internet. Everything else appears fine. This has been going on all day (Tuesday).

Happening on multiple machines and mobiles on my home LAN. If I switch the same machine over to my VPN with a same-city exit point, Slashdot loads near-instantly in the same browser, same connection — just tunnelled over VPN.

Not a DNS problem, already checked. Loads fairly quickly on 4G LTE-connected mobile phone on VZW.

Ought to look into it...

Comment Re:GoPro makes dubious claim... (Score 2) 320

DIsagree.

I haven't seen the project in TFA, but I HAVE seen an interaction design project where GoPro cameras were put on the heads of first-graders in a lunchroom.

I have to say, the experience of seeing a first-person view through the eyes of someone 5 years old was amazing and eye-opening. Certainly, I don't have direct access to the first-graders' thoughts, but I DO have a certain access to their experience through these recordings, which I wouldn't have but for this unique instrumentation.

Try it out before you knock it. I'd say that Glass could potentially do the same thing with the homeless, if people didn't look like such rich, entitled dorks wearing Glass. There are other lower-profile life-logging cameras which could do a good job of this (I've seen one in use. The owner said people never ask her about it). Nothing about the GoPro is so special to the task.

FYI, I work in User Experience and Interaction Design, don't own a GoPro, nor do I work for them or own stock in their firm.

Comment Re:Twitter killing off... itself (Score 1) 96

I _wish_ this would work, but App.net tried so very hard, and put together a nice service - everything you could want, and it's made very little headway.

The real issue is this: Twitter has your friends. You can walk away from a service, but switching services means you're walking away from your friends, and most won't do that.

Twitter is sucking more and more, and will probably lose me at some point. But realistically, not yet.

Comment Hope this gets hacked for usability studies (Score 1) 102

Eye tracking in the usability world has been in the 4- and 5-figure range for a while. At least one cheap ($1200) option required that you wear heavyish headgear.

Tobii makes some of this usability eyetracking equipment, and it's my hope that this device will be adapted to work with the popular Morae usability recording software.

Eyetracking will be part of nearly everyone's usability toolkit, vs. an expensive luxury, if so.

It might hold possibilities for eyetracking studies on mobile software as well.

Comment Re:Here's a brief list (Score 3, Informative) 796

Sorry, I think Catcher in the Rye is worth the read. Not life-changing, but yeah, read it - worthwhile.

++On The Road - awesome book - might supplement it with some third-party history of the beats.

Recommend Dune in the Science Fiction realm. Take the series as far as you wanna - but at least Dune.

Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug is essential for the web developer, and I think "Simple and Beautiful" by Giles Colburne a close second. Maybe top it with "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman - you'll never look at a door handle the same way again.

Recommend for ANY coder Kernigan and Ritchie "The C Programming Language" - such a brief tome, and a comprehensive document on how to write in the language that rocked the world. Would be a good read for any tech writer, as well.

Whatever they say about Steven Ambrose (and they say a WHOLE lot...accusations of plagarism, f.e.), "Undaunted Courage" presents the Lewis and Clark expedition in Technicolor - if only they could teach with books of this quality.

If you're gonna read any Stephen King, gotta read The Stand, for the sweep of it.

Comment Re: What is the best way to buy some in bulk? (Score 5, Informative) 944

"LED bulbs are out of this world at Home Depot" Those prices are for 4- and 6-packs. Read your own search result. At between $10 and $12 for a Cree LED bulb at Home Depot, the price is right, and I'm VERY happy with equivalent light output, color temperature and performance with my Z-wave dimmers. No CFL or LED bulb so far has matched them. I've had to return one Cree bulb so far because it shipped with the glass envelope loose. Been perfect otherwise (4 bulbs installed for trial, roughly 6 months in). Full disclosure: I hold 100 shares of CREE. And this is my actual experience using the bulbs in my house.

Comment Re:Blast Radius? (Score 1) 285

I wasn't thinking of burglary as a problem in need of the backup, but instead, your data getting into the hands of a stranger. You're basically doubling your risk of that happening, assuming your link is secure, and your neighbor is solidly honest and has a secure PC.

Instead, you could drop your encrypted disk in a safety deposit box and have physical security, encrypted data-at-rest and no network exposure during the backup process, no need to wonder how secure your neighbor's network/PC is.

Here in Atlanta, we had a 500-year flood at the same time California was experiencing massive wildfires.

Mudslides, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, neighborhood-flattening gas leaks, the SWAT team trying to take out James DiMaggio/MOVE/David Koresh, or even the dipshit down the street burning leaves in a drought could take out both your houses.

The likelihood is small, but the consequences of failure are large. These are black swans. They don't usually happen...but they don't never happen either.

Y'know what's another huge risk, probably way more likely? Your backup failing. I remember being part of an IT project where an ancient SCA data drive went down on a database server. They had to get a replacement for the legacy hardware from the manufacturer's parts inventory, and spent 36 hours rebuilding the drive from backup tapes before figuring out that the database data itself had never been part of the server backup, because you'd have to disconnect the database to do that.

Fun.

Comment Blast Radius? (Score 0) 285

Aren't you and your neighbor both sitting in the crater of just about anything bigger than a firecracker? I don't think of "next door" as off-site backup. Especially when you're talking burglary as a possible risk - you and neighbor probably have about the same odds of being hit.

Drop an encrypted disk in a safe deposit box at the bank.

Comment Re:No media server support upsets me (Score 1) 312

Couldn't possibly buy one of these. My 3 and 5 year old get their TV from our carefully curated media server full of kids' TV. There's a month's worth of episodes of a number of their favorite shows (not just the 90-second clips the kids apps on the iPad want to show).

The PS3 is about the best frontend you can get for MythTV - navigates easier, more reliable, plays smoother, integrates into the home theater easier and builds the TV recordings into the rest of their entertainment.

Sony is doing all it can to get me to take my money and walk away.

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