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Comment: Re:So untrue (Score 1) 467

by Marxist Hacker 42 (#43821933) Attached to: The Canadian Government's War On Science

I'm with you on that. No limitations. I'm a data guy, and I don't see why we shouldn't have a federal civil unions law, that allows registration of full households online without any other human intervention, with self defined term limits and no limits on number, gender, species, or genus of participants. What do I care if somebody wants to invent a religion where they can marry a building? Or if a commune of 47 people, 5 dogs, and 2 cats want to have a registered civil union household under tax law?

Comment: Limited applications are enough for the majority (Score 1) 60

by tepples (#43821061) Attached to: Scanner Identifies Malware Strains, Could Be Future of AV

I wish to point out that whitelisting may work for some users who use a limited number of applications

BasilBrush and other iOS advocates would point out that the commercially relevant majority of users do in fact "use a limited number of applications". Because nobody needs an app to do any of these tasks. "Ha ha ha, boom boom."

Comment: "Out of work" or "retrained"? (Score 1) 374

by tepples (#43819505) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: When Is the User Experience Too Good?

My boss at the time was a very wise man and suggested that as nice and clever those 22 lines of 4GL were, about 6 people would be out of work

Ideally they'd be retrained for other positions within the company. Some companies prefer to hire from within to save training costs because existing employees will already be more familiar with the company's practices.

Comment: Back up while formatting (Score 1) 374

by tepples (#43819487) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: When Is the User Experience Too Good?

And just how do you undo a hard drive format?

By backing up the entire contents of the disk before formatting. This could even be done in place by making a compressed image and storing it in a file on the freshly formatted volume. A "trim" or "shred" command that FF's out all unused blocks (assuming that the previous contents were in a known file system) would improve the performance of this compression.

Comment: Re:That's way too ambiguous. (Score 1) 374

by tepples (#43819447) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: When Is the User Experience Too Good?

In the software realm, this could be exactly the same, where they have to pass a test or buy a license or etc.

By "buy a license" do you refer to an arrangement like the iOS developer program? A paid license is required to install self-made software or wireless network troubleshooting software on an iDevice, and it self-destructs after 365 days. Do you find this desirable? If so, why?

OR, it could just be a checkbox on the users profile that enables the feature, which is turned off by default.

Malware social-engineers users into enabling the feature.

Comment: A day to undo closing an account (Score 1) 374

by tepples (#43819429) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: When Is the User Experience Too Good?

I would never create a one-click "delete my account" option. It would be a two-step, maybe even a three step process - just to discourage users from deleting on a whim (or accident)

I agree that unsubscribing from a service should take two steps:

  1. Close your account.
  2. Wait twenty-four hours.

Logging in between step 1 and 2 would show a button to keep the account open.

Comment: Unsecured elements (Score 1) 374

by tepples (#43819413) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: When Is the User Experience Too Good?

If UI designers had saved warning messages for things that were actually important ("You're about to delete a file") rather than stupid things ("You are loading a web page with unsecured elements") then people might actually pay attention to them.

In some environments, "You're about to disclose business-critical confidential information by allowing an unsecured element to modify the behavior of a secured element" is in fact more important than "You're about to delete something that you can restore from your backup repository".

Comment: Screen power usage (Score 1) 116

For workloads where the system is awake but mostly idle (think web browsing etc) you'll see enormous gains in energy efficiency; the less idle it is the less gain.

When I browse the web on my Nexus 7 tablet, "Screen" already takes at least 67 percent of the battery. And that's with ARM, which already sips less power in general than x86. What CPU upgrade will fix that?

Comment: Re:Can't afford what is being advertised (Score 1) 42

by tepples (#43819327) Attached to: Google Plans Wireless Networks In Emerging Markets

They already have more cellular subscribers in SSA than in the USA

With or without data plans?

Did it even occur to you that Google will be selling ads to businesses in the same region or same city?

Yes. I'm aware of geolocation. But after exchange rates, businesses in the same city still might not be able to afford high enough ad rates to sustain ad-supported services.

Comment: Cable is for sports and Internet (Score 1) 325

by tepples (#43819297) Attached to: AT&T Quietly Adds Charges To All Contract Cell Plans

And why does anyone pay for cable TV? Can't be for the absence of ads!

Cable television and satellite television form an oligopoly on live sports telecasts. Or they pay for cable TV because they get it for free or nearly free with the purchase of high-speed Internet access.

Why can't we have $5 per month phone service

There is magicJack for $2.50 per month provided you already have low-latency Internet access. But then customer service costs labor, and the wired last mile costs labor, and cell towers cost land, and the price of land and labor will only go up over time.

FORCE YOURSELF TO RELAX!

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