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Comment Re:Evolve or die..... (Score 5, Interesting) 420

by omeomi (#29903247) Attached to: Decline In US Newspaper Readership Accelerates
I still enjoy reading the paper. I've been a daily subscriber to the Chicago Tribune for the past 8 years. However, in the past few months, their delivery service has taken a major turn for the worse. The paper is supposed to be on my driveway by 6:30AM, and it absolutely never is. I leave for the train at 7:00AM, and it took weeks of calling and threatening to cancel my subscription just to get them to start getting me the paper before 7:00. I still call most days to complain that it's not there by 6:30. I get a credit for the days that I call, so they're not making much money off of my subscription at this point. Overall, if anything is going to cause me to cancel my subscription, it's that the delivery service that used to be fantastic has become abysmal. Mostly I'm probably waiting for the larger, magazine-sized Kindle (or some competitor) to come out.

Comment Re:The one crucial point (Score 1) 430

by omeomi (#29782015) Attached to: On the Efficacy of Flu Vaccine
(The issue with H1N1 is not its lethality once it has infected a person, but how good a job it does of infecting those who are exposed)

From what I've heard, the issue with H1N1 is twofold. It spreads better than regular flu, because it's a novel strain, and most of us have absolutely no immunity to it. Also, mortality among groups of people who rarely die from seasonal flu (young people) is higher than with the seasonal flu. I've heard it theorized that this may be the case because older people may have been exposed to a similar strain of flu many years ago, but the rest of us have not.

Comment Re:Here's why (Score 2, Interesting) 814

by omeomi (#29660617) Attached to: Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Versa

I REALLY wanted a Mac Book Pro 17", but I couldn't justify the price tag at over $2k. I was able to purchase a fully-loaded Dell XPS 15" with a 3 year warranty for around $1,500 because Dell was running a nice $400-off special

So, without the the $400-off special, a 15" Dell cost only around $100 less than a 17" Mac? You don't think the extra 2" of screen real estate on a notebook is worth at least $100?

Comment Re:Here's why (Score 1, Informative) 814

by omeomi (#29659215) Attached to: Most Mac Owners Also Own a Windows PC, But Not Vice Versa
I'm reasonably certain it's been shown a number of times that if you build a PC with the exact same hardware as a Mac, you'll end up with a PC that costs about the same. The only difference is that PC makers offer systems with a wider range of hardware options (including lower-quality hardware on lower priced systems), and include more "Click here to try AOL" crap on the desktop, thus lowering the price... and creating a market for computer retailers to charge a fee to remove that crap from your new system...

Comment Re:stupidity (Score 1) 337

by omeomi (#29476605) Attached to: Burglar Logs Into Facebook On Victim's Computer

Haven't you learned anything from Slashdot? Physical access is total access. Cleaning crew could just pull out their hacker-ninja 1337 skillz and be back on the net in minutes.

And hacking into a computer is a good reason to fire somebody. Checking their email on an unlocked workstation, however, is a good reason to lock your screen.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 4, Informative) 97

by omeomi (#29471759) Attached to: Blueprint For a Quantum Electric Motor

How exactly is this quantum? Does it spin in both ways at once?

"In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is an indivisible entity of a quantity that has the same units as the Planck constant and is related to both energy and momentum of elementary particles of matter (called fermions) and of photons and other bosons." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum

What makes you think something has to spin both ways at once to be quantum?

Comment Re:stupidity (Score 3, Insightful) 337

by omeomi (#29470869) Attached to: Burglar Logs Into Facebook On Victim's Computer

At a previous job, we fired a cleaning crew because they logged into our computers to check their email while we were out.

We called to tell them why they weren't getting paid or allowed to come back, and the boss said, "they might have pressed some buttons when they were dusting."

We said, "the login we have here is 'john.smith123@hotmail.com'; the odds of that being pressed sequentially are 2.7^15 to 1 against."

Why didn't you just lock your screen when you left for the day?

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