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Comment: Re:the new flickr interface (Score 1) 171

by istartedi (#43789723) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Can Yahoo Actually Stage a Comeback?

You could get a very similar look years ago on Flickriver, Flickrhivemind, and probably a few other places. People have been using the APIs to create that look. The latter has infinite scrolling, and they both put your pictures on a black background and hide your comments.

Yes folks, Flickr's big innovation essentially takes something that 3rd parties have been doing, and forces it on users.

Hey here's an idea--maybe somebody can use the APIs to recreate Flickr's old interface, and save it from itself... at least until they take the APIs away. You know that's coming. As for me, I'm done.

It'll take a while to verify that I've extracted my 876 pictures and metadata properly. I feel sorry for the real professionals who have thousands of pictures up there.

As for making money, yeah sure. Budweiser sells a lot of beer; but they don't barge into your favorite brewpub, stick a funnel down your throat and start pouring.

Comment: Re:rather have money (Score 1) 429

by istartedi (#43787287) Attached to: Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive?

Point taken; but I've been in places where we went out (driving or walking) because we wanted to, not because we had to. Eating out, BTW, was a perk in some cases. It was the best of both worlds. As for the guy who prefers tea, that was available too. Done right, the person in charge of making purchases it attentive to what people want (can we get tea? This brand? Yeah sure, just ask Kathy she does the purchases).

Comment: Re:rather have money (Score 3, Insightful) 429

by istartedi (#43785497) Attached to: Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive?

Most perks wouldn't make a huge impact on your pay. Take the coffee, soda and snack budget. Spread it out over all the employees and you get... what? Not very much. Now without the coffe, etc. right there in the office, what do you do? Go to the same boring shop on the first floor of the building every day? Get in your car and drive or (if you're lucky) walk someplace and buy snacks at retail prices. You're right back to square one. You saved nothing. The company lost. You lost. Everybody lost. Penny-wise and pound foolish.

Comment: If NHTSA can change DUI limits... (Score 1) 506

If NHTSA can change DUI limits, maybe they can mandate yellow times and end this nonsense. Blah, blah, blah states rights whatever. This is one case where I'd be happy to see them use the denial of Federal funding club to smack these douche bags upside the head.

Comment: Re:Progressive and Liberal were both redefined (Score 1) 668

by istartedi (#43742571) Attached to: How Colleges Are Pushing Out the Poor To Court the Rich

I won't argue specific points. I'll just say that I believe your view is out of consensus on some points, and that I'll concede that I've omitted some things and aren't perfect either.

This is a difficult problem because labels are never perfect. They're blunt tools. I've reviewed the Wiki articles on the Progressive Era and Neoconservatism. You might want to do that too.

Comment: Tabs suck, except for the alternative (Score 1) 300

by istartedi (#43732527) Attached to: Browser tabs I have open right now ...

I hate tabbed browsing. My operating system has a perfectly good way of opening multiple windows. I don't need the Web browser pretending to be my operating system. The trouble is, only IE feels good without tabs, and I abandoned it due to security and performance issues a while ago. So. I'm stuck with Chrome and tabs for now. It took a few months to get used to tabs rather than separate windows. I'm finally over the habit of clicking the X in the upper right because I think I'm closing a window. Instead of one intuitive move to get rid of what I'm looking at, it's one of several possible moves to get rid of what I'm looking at. That sounds like laziness; but it's not. It's muscle memory, and once it's wired into your neurons it's tough to change. I try to tell myself that it helps keep my brain pliable and prevents dementia; but it's still annoying.

Comment: A revolutionary idea that would never work (Score 1) 984

Base your license on actual performance metrics that matter. In Virginia, I had to take a peripheral vision test to get my license when I was younger.

I never had to take that test anyplace else. What if we took that concept and extended it to the wide variety of skills that directly translate to driving ability: actual perception of events in mirrors, reaction to those events, etc. We could do it with simulators or something.

Now here's the revolutionary part. We've all known people that claim they can drive with a bottle of JD in one hand and a joint in the other while texting with the phone between their knees. Let 'em try it in the simulator. If they pass the test, give 'em a permit to drive with a higher limit.

The problem with this is that we'd also see a lot of seniors who are worse sober behind the wheel than young people with a few beers in 'em. We'd see 20-somethings that could never get a license because they are truly stupid drivers. We'd see a class of people that were allowed to do things that are currently not permitted; but the real outrage would come from all the intrinsically dangerous people we'd have to take off the road.

That's why it's an interesting idea; but it won't happen.

Comment: Re:Windows Store (Score 1) 491

by istartedi (#43724457) Attached to: Windows Blue Is Officially Windows 8.1, Free For Existing Users

Amen. I hope they have the common sense to wipe every last trace of their mis-guided Apple envy from Windows. The Windows Store should be fully voluntary, and when the inevitable tumble weeds start rolling through it, they can shut it down and there will be a little 3-line blurb on some tech blogs.

Comment: Progressive and Liberal were both redefined (Score 1) 668

by istartedi (#43711375) Attached to: How Colleges Are Pushing Out the Poor To Court the Rich

Everybody knows that Liberal was redefined, and that formerly it was what we now call Libertarian.

People are less familiar with the fact that Progressive was redefined. People who call themselves progressives these days are more accurately described as socialists or leftists in most cases.

Those who bear the true standard of the original Progressive movement today don't carry a particular name.

The hallmarks of the original Progressive movement were a "muckraking" press exposing corruption and proposing solutions. This occured around the turn of the 20th century. At the time, industrialists dominated the country and factored in most of the corruption.

Today, it's a mixed bag. There are corrupt leftists as well as corrupt right-wingers in government and society.

The acid test for me is the public employee unions. If you're a real progressive, you want to disentangle both unions and corporations from government. When you say that, the reaction you get really separates the wheat from the chaff. There isn't a whole lot of wheat out there, but it exists. The true progressive, Neoprog, if you will, recognizes that there is just as much muck to rake from one side of the aisle as the other.

Comment: Anecdotal under-achievement (Score 1) 668

by istartedi (#43711261) Attached to: How Colleges Are Pushing Out the Poor To Court the Rich

Anecdotes of underachievement by those with far more advanced degrees and impressive scores are plentiful. To evaluate college you have to look at statistics, which pull in a large sample.

The general consensus is that a BS is the new HS diploma. Sad, but true. You need that ticket punched to get ahead. That said, go for the cheapest school that isn't a diploma mill or otherwise disreputable. Getting your ticket punched at State U is smart. Putting yourself deep in hock for an unmarketable degree from Big Ivy is where there's real potential for disaster.

FWIW, my BSEE was sold to me as the ticket to a steady career (50 thou a year will buy a lot of beer). Instead, it's been an up and down ride, with some stellar years but a lot of mediocre or bad ones. I don't blame school for that--it has a lot to do with personal circumstances that aren't measured by grades and SAT scores.

Comment: This is what performance reviews are for (Score 5, Insightful) 507

You know, the manager takes everybody aside quaterly, or perhaps semi-annually and privately discusses strengths and weaknesses. If it's urgent there's a "see-me" meeting; but this is a slow leak, so it should be coming up in the guy's PRs. If it isn't, or there is no PR at all, management shares the blame. After having this mentioned in 2 or 3 PRs, and getting no bonuses or raises, it's shape up or ship out. Duh! That seems like management 101 to me.

There is always one thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out. -- Joan Didion, "Slouching Towards Bethlehem"

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