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Comment Re:Odds are favorable in a way (Score 2) 480

I have better odds finding a winning lotto ticket on the ground than if I buy one.

No, I don't think so. Any odds of finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground would be drastically worse because first you have to calculate the odds of finding that ticket in the first place. Given that the winning ticket would have to have been purchased locally (tickets are sold across the US and bought by Canadians on the border) or carried into your area somehow, it would have to end up in an area where you could find it, and you would have to find it at the precise time that it was in the same spot as you.

My thought is that your odds approach zero at this point. In other words, your odds of finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground are much closer to not buying a lottery ticket than if you actually bought a ticket and it being the winning one.

Comment What defines Watching TV (Score 1) 244

I'm thinking that the question should be more geared towards time watching media content given that there are now multiple methods of consumption. For example. many people who do not watch "TV" still end up using streaming services to watch "TV programs". Sure, they are time shifted and also can be device shifted (computer, tablet, cell phone, etc), but they are still video media content.

How exactly is it any different if someone spends time watching, for example, the complete series of The Wire on a tablet vs someone else watching their favorite programs on TV?

My personal preference is Movies over TV programs. I also rarely watch TV during the summer. During the fall I will watch NFL football and in the second half of the winter I watch hockey on NHL Gamecenter Live (streaming). There are very few series that I like but I DVR the ones that I do and skip over the commercials. Most TV shows are down to about 40 minutes each.

One of these days the NFL will get off of their asses and offer a live streaming service similar to the NHL, for regular season games. That's when I will probably go all digital.

Comment Re:NFL is just looking for an excuse (Score 1) 239

... to help determine if a drop in temperature — a slowing of the air molecules inside the football — can explain the low pressure ....

The National Felons League (an organization of Billionaire Team Owners that is considered non-profit so that it pays no taxes) is just looking for an excuse here. The patriots were laughed at when they tried to pull the temperature excuse out of their ass, so they want a University to back up the "pressure goes down with temperature" excuse. They need to do this because even die hard Patriot fans are not buying the "a locker room attendant did this all on his own" story. And lets completely ignore why this supposed temperature drop affected only one teams footballs and not those provided by the other team, or why the problem was only observed when the opposition intercepted a ball and not by any of the Patriot players as they handled the balls.

It turns out that it's not just a locker room attendant but... an elderly locker room attendant..... Those old guys, they are always up to something nefarious....
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/...

Comment Re:It's not the gas... (Score 2) 239

i solved this issue on day one. they injected hot gas into the football right before the pressure was measured. pressure was fine with the hot gas, but once the gas reached ambient temperature the pressure was lower. Using the ideal gas law I calculated the gas would need to be 30 C (about 55 F) hotter than ambient. Completely feasible.

science, bitches!

I'm willing to bet that you used 2 PSI in your calculations as that is what was initially leaked as the pressure difference for all of the footballs. There have been further leaks saying that only the intercepted ball, the one in possession of the Colts, was 2 PSI low. The rest were supposedly under 1 PSI low.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

Based on the information from Billichick, it's likely that at least one of the footballs, if not more, were roughed up (which is what they do the prepare the footballs) just before the testing. This also could account for the internal temperature of the air being higher than ambient.

For those asking the question about whether the league should understand what happens to footballs, the answer is that Yes they should. But No, they have never seen the need to delve this deeply into it before. The Refs don't even put the football pressure readings on paper when they test them, assuming that they are actually doing their job and using gauges. You would think that in this day and age that they would test each football, record the readings, and stamp it with a random bar-code.

They could probably use a temperature gun to measure the ball temperature prior to taking the pressure reading. Or, for that matter, the pressure gauge should have a temperature gauge built in. Enter this information into an app along with game time weather and they could use it to set the football pressure for game conditions.

There... an new App for the Microsoft Surface... Football Pressure Calibrator for Weather Conditions (FPCWC)....

PS: I would have typed that this would be a new app for the iPad, but the NFL has a marketing deal with Microsoft.

Comment Re: Different markets... (Score 1) 458

It's been shown over and over that a similarly configured PC costs as much or more than a comparable Mac. It's just that you can't buy a stripped-down Mac, like you can with PCs.

I agree that the Mac vs PC argument today from a cost perspective is silly. There are still reasons for getting a PC, such as gaming and doing finances. However, hardware and cost for the same specs is pretty much a wash.

Comment Re:From nothing... (Score 1) 458

Perhaps your problem is the definition of nothing, but to me that part is accurate since Apple did not sell any kind of phone or touchscreen device up until that point... and it really was a dramatically different device than any smartphone sold at the time.

From the standpoint of what Apple had done until then, it was from nothing. Resource wise, they had some money coming in from the iPod at that point, but they were tiny compared to all other companies making smartphones at the time. Lots of people dismissed the chances of Apple's making any kind of dent in the market based on that alone...

You are quite wrong about the resources that Apple had at their disposal. It's true that they didn't have a huge amount of revenue coming in, but you are forgetting the infusion of $150 million that Microsoft put into Apple. It also looks like there was a settlement that they had with Microsoft and Intel that was up to $500 million. Supposedly Microsoft and Intel had used some of the video compression routines from Quicktime in their own products. According to recent articles, it was settled quietly which is why very few know about it.

Comment Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score 1) 458

I save my hatred for the circle-jerking culture club that grew up around it. Mostly because rampant idiocy and fanaticism annoy the fuck out of me.

I see. Can you give your thoughts on the similar crowd regarding Windows products?

The majority of Microsoft products are focused on the business markets which tends not to breed fan bois. I'm not even sure if there is another tech that engenders the fanaticism that we see for Apple products. Sure, we have Xbox vs PS4, Canon vs Nikon, Windows vs Linux, etc. However, most of the discussions around these products tend to be technical in nature.

Apple fans tend to stick with the message that Apple is better than everything else, no matter what. A brief example of this is when Samsung released a larger screen phone. Apple fans decried that it was better than the current iPhone because it was too big, ate up too much battery power, etc. Then when Apple released a large screen phone, it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Just to be clear, by Apple "fans" here, I mean true fanatics... The vast majority of Apple users are just everyday regular people who only care whether their battery is charged or not.

Comment Re:Create a $140 billion business out of nothing? (Score 1) 458

They did it by striking when the iron was hot, as soon as there were well-performing touchscreens. Imagine there had been no Apple, or Apple had not seen the market. Do you really think the world would have missed the opportunity to make a similar phone? It might have been delayed one or two years at most.

But Apple's beating the competition in the market shows mainly one thing: they were working behind the scenes to realize a no-keys touchscreen smartphone before the parts were available. That shows real initiative.

So, they took the PC tablet concepts that were already in the market, despite them being clunky and having poor battery life, and imagined them as phones... I agree that it required innovation on Apple's part, but the concepts were already there. To Apple's credit, they were willing to take risks on cutting edge technology and took their design experience with the iMac and extended it to phones.

Comment Re: Government Intervention (Score 1) 495

Sweden is #190 on that list. We have cheap and excellent broadband options. Not a valid excuse.

Um, Sweden is only 170K square miles. The US is 3.8M square miles. So, while Sweden's population density is less than the US, the coverage area, and thus cost, is MUCH higher. Granted, a good portion of the US would not need full coverage as there is nothing in some places but wilderness and loggers... (grin)

Comment Re:I prefer a tablet for some things to a smart ph (Score 1) 307

Playing Angry Birds is much nicer on a larger screen, and DSLR remote shooting is also much easier with a large screen. With tablets being cheaper than smart phones, it is often a no brainer to just have one also.

I agree. Traveling with a tablet, unless you need to do work, is so much easier than taking a laptop. Granted, you can get ultra portable laptops and Microsoft Surface that would be close to the same form factor and weight, but they cost much more. I love that I can watch a 3 hour movie on a plane and still have battery life left over to play games, etc.

Comment Re:Boston Representing (Score 3) 397

I echo the comments by my fellow Slashdotters int he Boston area. I am in Lowell and we have about 2 feet of snow with windy weather and still more falling. So, it's quite possible that we will get the forecasted 3 feet.

That being said, I'm from Canada and 2 to 3 feet of snow wouldn't even shut down school when I was a kid. However, most cities, provinces/states have cut back drastically on their snow cleaning budgets. Back then they used to plow all the time to keep the roads open. These days they shut down the cities and then plow as the storm is ending.

Comment Re:Why would anyone buy something from those catal (Score 1) 65

there are people posting here about reading the catalog for entertainment because they couldn't figure out how to bring a book with them on the airplane.

No, my problem is that I can easily finish a book while I'm on the airplane. How many am I supposed to bring with me? I can bring an absolute crapload with me in my phone.

This...

Before portable devices people would buy a paperback, magazine, etc at the airport news stand (or bring them with them), start reading at the gate, and finish reading on the airplane before landing. People would just look through it because they were bored and had some time before landing.

Now, we can take a library of books, movies, TV programs, music, etc. with us on a Kindle, tablet, etc. Not to mention the in flight movies and satellite TV.

Comment Re:Just give the option to turn it off... (Score 1) 823

For some, having engine noise is fine. However, the '70s and '80s with the purring V8s are gone, and the vehicles that will be the norm will either be hybrids, diesels, or electric cars.

As someone who likes modern cars, we don't need any more noise added. In fact, there is something nice about a Tesla or Prius's silence at idle.

I agree. I would much rather have better sound acoustics for my music than having it messed with by artificial engine sounds.

Comment Re:Crusty Hardware (Score 1) 189

What the fuck are you talking about?

I've watched my parents throw away perfectly good printer/scanner combos that were only a few years old because there were no drivers beyond XP.

I have dozens of network and video adapters on a shelf in my garage that work great in Linux but have no Windows drivers beyond XP.

Until recently even a 386 could run Linux!

Linux vendor? I wouldn't know. I've never used one. I can install my own software thank you!

What are you talking about? You do realize that Microsoft has no control over vendor hardware or their creation of drivers? It's not Microsoft's fault if the vendor dropped support.

I agree that it's annoying when vendors dropped the ball on developing drivers for the new driver model in Vista/Win 7. That being said, there are tricks that allow you to install the Windows NT drivers for older hardware on Windows 7, 8, 8.1. Most older hardware, that had XP drivers, also had NT drivers.

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