Peter Simpson - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Slashdot comments indicative of the problem (Score 1) 1262

by Peter Simpson on Thursday August 28, 2014 @12:16PM (#47775105) Attached to: Anita Sarkeesian, Creator of "Tropes vs. Women," Driven From Home By Trolls

*My* first instinct is to call out the person making the threats. Folks, it's a stupid video game! If the gaming scene is so important to you that you feel the need to threaten violence to someone who is raising the issue of anti-female attitudes, maybe you need to put the keyboard down, climb out of your basement and smell the fresh air. That, and spend more time relating to real people, because you seem to be part of the problem she's talking about.

Comment Coincidence? I think NOT! (Score 1) 133

by Peter Simpson on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @09:42AM (#47764523) Attached to: Time Warner Cable Experiences Nationwide Internet Outage

Thanks, Comcast!

Comment Got one of these once (Score 5, Funny) 251

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday August 26, 2014 @12:41PM (#47757739) Attached to: TechCentral Scams Call Center Scammers

I kept the guy online, playing dumb, for about 15 minutes, until he finally gave up and told me to call Microsoft.

At which point, I asked him if I should tell them I was running Linux.

His reaction was priceless...and unprintable!

Comment I remember when the Internet had no ads (Score 1) 611

by Peter Simpson on Thursday August 21, 2014 @11:10AM (#47720743) Attached to: Study: Ad-Free Internet Would Cost Everyone $230-a-Year

Well, minimal ads, anyway. So...what are the benefits of having ads, again? I use AdBlock, so I don't see them, but when I use another machine, I see loads of ads for Progressive Insurance (don't need it, have a deal through my wife's union), Ancestry.com ($20/mo...forget it), and a bunch of other stuff I'm never going to buy. Likewise, the stuff that shows up to the right of my Google searches is hilariously inappropriate. I've clicked on a few of them and they're just link aggregator sites, for the most part. There seems to be an economy in ads, but as to actual useful links that are of interest to me, there's a real shortage there.

Comment Re:Why such paranoia ? (Score 1) 299

by Peter Simpson on Thursday August 21, 2014 @07:07AM (#47719065) Attached to: Smartphone Kill Switch, Consumer Boon Or Way For Government To Brick Your Phone?

Victim goes to nearest Target, picks up burner PAYG phone and continues leaking.

The Man has a whole team dedicated to subverting your phone. Why would he need a "brick" feature, when he can reload the OS with his own hacked version?

Someone's tinfoil hat is on too tight today.

Comment Only drones and police helicopters? (Score 2) 200

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @02:37PM (#47705377) Attached to: Phoenix Introduces Draft Ordinance To Criminalize Certain Drone Uses

The good council members need to find a more important topic to occupy their time. Flying a drone over someone's yard is bad, but flying a news helicopter over it is just fine? How about kites with cameras on them? Balloons? African swallows?

Comment Re:Time for medicare for all in the usa (Score 1) 171

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @11:01AM (#47703403) Attached to: Why Chinese Hackers Would Want US Hospital Patient Data

the million-dollar heart transplant is loaded with markup where you can likely go out side of the usa and pay way less for it.

Yeah. With heart transplants, as with anything else, you get (more or less) what you pay for. Sure, that discount heart transplant you paid $30 for in Mumbai *might* be just fine...but I'd bet my life against it.

Comment Easier option (Score 1) 158

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday August 12, 2014 @01:13PM (#47656145) Attached to: Sniffing Out Billions In US Currency Smuggled Across the Border To Mexico

There are many published references to the fact that most US $20 bills have traces of cocaine on them... http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH... So why don't they just use cocaine sniffing dogs (of which, I am sure, they have plenty)?

Comment Re:Look at why people are pirating (Score 2) 143

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @11:00AM (#47507835) Attached to: For Now, UK Online Pirates Will Get 4 Warnings -- And That's It

Exactly. I offer Netflix only as a legitimate source of "all you can watch for $20/mo". The fact that they carry only a very limited selection of movies (not even the old B&W ones from the 40s) leads me to consider using other, less legitimate means, to obtain the films I want to watch. I'd be happy to watch them on Netflix (considering that I'm paying for it), but, for whatever reason, they choose not to offer them. And we're not talking about current films, either. There's really only one alternative: $60/yr for a Hide-My-Ass VPN and torrents.

Comment Look at why people are pirating (Score 3, Insightful) 143

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday July 22, 2014 @10:12AM (#47507527) Attached to: For Now, UK Online Pirates Will Get 4 Warnings -- And That's It

It's because there's no convenient way (other than pirating) to get the media you want to watch/listen to, when you want to watch/listen to it. If the media companies would make *everything* available under a subscription model (like Netflix), there would be no need to go to Pirate Bay to get it. I suspect much of what is pirated is watched once. Figure $60/yr for a VPN, or $20/mo for Netflix (which, sadly, doesn't have a tenth what's available by torrent), and the media companies could do pretty well...if they would only do it.

Comment Re:That's how I clean my cat's litter box. (Score 2) 58

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday July 15, 2014 @11:07AM (#47457261) Attached to: Brazil Nut Effect Explains Mystery of the Boulder-Strewn Surfaces of Asteroids

I shake 'er up. The big pieces float to the top. I scoop them out. Brazil nut effect. Asteroid problem solved. It took an international team to sort this out? Come on! :D

It's the same in an organization -- shake it up -- the management rises to the top.

Any similarity to a litter box is purely coincidental

Comment Re:Not me... (Score 1) 753

by Peter Simpson on Monday July 14, 2014 @09:32AM (#47447985) Attached to: Predicting a Future Free of Dollar Bills

As someone who has had a recent issue with a certain major bank(they closed the account and sent cashiers checks to me for the balance. Waiting 2-3 days without money wasn't pleasant)...I will never go cashless. Relying on these financial institutions for every transaction is something I will not trust. I won't get into the whole NSA/FBI/etc. potential tracking of all my purchases.

Nor me.

Cash is anonymous.
No fees to use cash (yet, I guess)

Comment Having solved all other earthly problems... (Score 1, Insightful) 181

by Peter Simpson on Friday July 11, 2014 @09:39AM (#47430689) Attached to: Asteroid Mining Bill Introduced In Congress To Protect Private Property Rights

Words fail me. Almost. I realize that Congress needs to do appear to be doing something, while avoiding all possible controversy, but this seems like a press release that should never have gone out. Perhaps if they concerned themselves less with asteroid mining and more with the immigration issue, pollution, healthcare, and any number of more important issues, Americans might have a smidgin more respect for their elected officials. This seems like an issue that could wait...or maybe they could let the interns handle it.

Comment Drone position log? (Score 2) 310

by Peter Simpson on Friday July 11, 2014 @07:14AM (#47430095) Attached to: Police Recording Confirms NYPD Flew At a Drone and Never Feared Crashing

Do these drones keep a log or recording of their flight path? That would be interesting to present at the trial.

Comment Re:A win for freedom (Score 1) 1330

by Peter Simpson on Tuesday July 01, 2014 @07:42AM (#47358695) Attached to: U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception

Further, Hobby Lobby still provides coverage for more than a dozen kinds of birth control. Just not the ones that can induce abortion of an already fertilized fetus.

Do they alow gay people to work for them? Just as religion should have no place in government (hah!), it has no place in the commercial world, either.

Slashdot Top Deals