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Comment Jonathan Coulton Tweeted about getting one. (Score 4, Informative) 468

Which you can read about here. And his letter didn't come from a PAC, it came from the Democratic Party.

I've never gotten anything remotely like this letter from the Republican Party or a conservative PAC (and I probably get well over 200 begging direct-mail solicitations a year).

I don't see such intimidation tactics as paying off for them...

Comment Stopped reading after two big errors (Score 3, Informative) 296

1. "In 1991, Andrew Rapport declared Microsoft the winner in the PC contest because Microsoft and Intel had harnessed the Asian supply chain and dramatically undercut the cost of the eccentric Steve Jobs’s Apple Mac." No, by 1991, it was John Scully's Mac, as Jobs was ousted in 1985.
2. "When Apple’s first notebook, the Macintosh 100, wasn’t embraced by consumers because it was two big, too heavy, and too expensive" No, that would have been the original Mac Portable (1989), which was all of those things. The Powerbook (not Macintosh) 100 was actually a very light ultra-portable.

Since author Steven Max Patterson and his editors couldn't be bothered to perform basic fact-checking, I stopped reading at that point...

The Internet

Will Fiber-To-the-Home Create a New Digital Divide? 291

First time accepted submitter dkatana writes Having some type of fiber or high-speed cable connectivity is normal for many of us, but in most developing countries of the world and many areas of Europe, the US, and other developed countries, access to "super-fast" broadband networks is still a dream. This is creating another "digital divide." Not having the virtually unlimited bandwidth of all-fiber networks means that, for these populations, many activities are simply not possible. For example, broadband provided over all-fiber networks brings education, healthcare, and other social goods into the home through immersive, innovative applications and services that are impossible without it. Alternatives to fiber, such as cable (DOCSYS 3.0), are not enough, and they could be more expensive in the long run. The maximum speed a DOCSYS modem can achieve is 171/122 Mbit/s (using four channels), just a fraction the 273 Gbit/s (per channel) already reached on fiber.
Advertising

NPR: '80s Ads Are Responsible For the Lack of Women Coders 786

gollum123 writes: Back in the day, computer science was as legitimate a career path for women as medicine, law, or science. But in 1984, the number of women majoring in computing-related subjects began to fall, and the percentage of women is now significantly lower in CS than in those other fields. NPR's Planet Money sought to answer a simple question: Why? According to the show's experts, computers were advertised as a "boy's toy." This, combined with early '80s geek culture staples like the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, as well as movies like War Games and Weird Science, conspired to instill the perception that computers were primarily for men.

Comment Another Advantage for State Level Control (Score 1) 279

Without a top-down bureaucracy calling the shops, states can try 50 different methods to control the pandemic, and compare results to see who has the best one. They're not stuck mindlessly doing what Washington has dictated, even if it's wrong.

The CDC is swearing up and down Ebola can be transmitted by airborne infection, but what if they're wrong about this strain?

The federal government is much more likely than the states to continue a wrong course of action long after it's been proven a bad idea than the states. See also: Welfare, agribusiness subsidies, the food pyramid...

Comment WOW my experience has been the opposite (Score 1) 342

I worked in an R&D email implementation unit for a very large financial institution, staff was about 20 employees, 9 of which were female. We did a large amount of project driven interaction with many other groups and the women seemed to do better than men in that area. The only area that I never saw a woman working in was M$ contractors, and they were all but one low caste East Indians, their mouth piece was the stereo type Oxford English sounding East Indian who spoke for them most of the time.

Comment US trade deficit (Score 1) 191

People will flock to buy stuff and invest in this company which markets and sells goods manufactured almost exclusively in China and then have the nerve to complain about the US foreign trade deficit. We the stupid, blind and thoughtless Americans, brought it upon ourselves, and continue to do so, all the while blaming it on Obama, Congress or whatever other fool is in office. We get what we deserve I guess...

Comment Re:Offsite. (Score 1) 268

STK at the enterprise level agrees to pay the fines levied by the feds if data written to their tapes inside their silos, while under their high end service contract fail within 12 months of writing, provided they are stored by a certified off-site storage company, such as Iron Mountain. While that is not a data guarantee it comes as close as you can get. That is why critical application data gets a full backup, as well as incrementals every day come hell or high water. The cost is enormous but is part of doing business...

Comment Re:Offsite. (Score 1) 268

Actually yes I have but, perhaps I phrased it poorly, many types media are guaranteed for up to 7 years, but none that I've ever dealt with will guarantee the data stored for more than 12 months without a rewrite.

FTA you referenced...
Disks used in the test are REQUIRED to less than 12 month old and obtained directly from the manufacturer or thru known distribution channels.

The tests spanned less than 30 days, far short of the 12 months I spoke of and much less than the 7 YEARS federal requirements for bank data storage require. Not to mention the very small, relatively speaking size of the disk compared to the VAST amount of data required to be stored.

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