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Comment Thanks Taco! (Score 1) 1521

by PoiBoy (#37205576) Attached to: Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda Resigns From Slashdot
I first started reading slashdot in about 1999, and I've been reading it everyday since. I don't know cmdrtaco or any of the other editors here, but after a dozen years it feels like a fraternity or family. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Comment Too Early (Score 1) 462

by PoiBoy (#36453312) Attached to: Re: the U.S. 2012 election campaign, I am:
The election's not for 17 months, and some candidates have been going for several months already. Why can't we cut this down to a six-month cycle instead? Politicians spend too much time campaigning. Pundits are already saying we will see nothing out of Congress or the WH because it's an election year. Even for Representatives who serve two-year terms, it seems like a third of their time is spent in campaign mode. If the D's and R's are at a standstill, fine, go fishing or something. But constant campaign mode just elevates the divisiveness in Washington.
Software

Best Free Open Source Software For Windows 324

Posted by timothy from the where's-vlc? dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld surveys the FOSS-on-Windows landscape, detailing the 10 free open source solutions most likely to unseat proprietary offerings. 'Some, like TrueCrypt and VirtualBox, are real diamonds in the rough: enterprise-grade solutions that deliver many of the same bells and whistles of their commercial brethren, but for free. Others, like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, are already legendary, and their strong followings ensure their continued development and support at levels that rival the best proprietary solutions.'" Rather than click through 10 different pages, the slideshow presentation at least lets you hover over each page's link to preview the author's top picks.
Image

Lawyer Jailed For Contempt Is Freed After 14 Years Screenshot-sm 408

Posted by samzenpus from the all-we-need-is-a-little-patience dept.
H. Beatty Chadwick has been in a staring match with the judicial system for the past 14 years, and the system just blinked. Chadwick was ordered to pay his ex-wife $2.5 million after their divorce. He refused to pay saying that he couldn't because he lost the money in a series of "bad investments." The judge in the case didn't believe him and sent him to jail for contempt. That was 14 years ago. Last week another judge let Chadwick go saying that "continued imprisonment would be legal only if there was some likelihood that ultimately he would comply with the order; otherwise, the confinement would be merely punitive instead of coercive." Chadwick, now 73, is believed to have served the longest contempt sentence in US history.

Comment Re:When will it end? (Score 5, Insightful) 623

by PoiBoy (#26561317) Attached to: Layoffs at Microsoft, Intel, and IBM
I suggest you study advanced economics more critically. Having a PhD in economics from a top-tier program, yes I agree that armchair economists are much different from real academic economists. However, I also think there is a tendency for many economists to place too much reliance on ornate mathematical and statistical models and not enough time spent stepping away from the computer, looking out the window, and asking whether or not those models are realistic. Note that looking out the window and seeing what people are actually doing is NOT the same thing as running 10,000 regressions to try and prove your model is correct. Common sense has no substitute.

Comment I don't get it (Score 4, Insightful) 907

by PoiBoy (#26113201) Attached to: Vista To XP Upgrade Triples In Price, Now $150

Honestly, I don't know what all the resistance to Vista is all about. I've been using it everyday for the past 18 months plus, and I've never had a problem with it, and that's on what was a relatively low-end machine I bought three years ago. All my hardware works fine, it never crashes, and it's easy to use. It doesn't seem at all slow to me, either. And, yes, I also use Linux as my main computer at work. I just prefer Vista for its ease-of-use when I come home.
Google

Submission + - WSJ spreads FUD on open source and Google Phone (wsj.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ben Worthen at the Wall Street Journal shows a laughable grasp of what "open source" means: 'Here's the first thing that will happen when a phone with Google's operating system hits the market: Information-technology departments will ban employees from connecting phones that run Google's operating system to their computers or the corporate network. The reason is that Google's operating system is open, meaning anyone can write software for it. That includes bad guys, who will doubtlessly develop viruses and other malicious code for these phones, which unsuspecting Google phones owners will download. Employees could spread the malicious code to the rest of the company when they synch their phones to their computers or use it to check email. The way to combat this is to develop anti-virus and anti-malware software for phones and to develop security procedures similar to those that have evolved for PCs over the last several years. But that's going to take time and money — neither of which the average IT department has. So until then, expect Google phones to be persona non grata at companies.'

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