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Comment 'The creative community' rubs me the wrong way (Score 2) 132

They've been pushing this, C. P. Snow Two Cultures-style, for some time now. Codifying the meaning of 'creative' to film, music...whatever. This coercion of language use is all a bit Eloi vs Morlocks for my liking.

It's not true. And I say that as someone who plays and writes music too. Toolmaking can be creative. Software design can be creative. I'm less well versed in physical industrial processes but I'd be more than willing to bet that there's creativity going on there too. On the other hand, acting is only sometimes creative as well, music often written to a formula...these 'creative industries' are often not very creative. And they often don't create, they use the output of some tools they were given.

I hate the language. I'm clearly not saying that all film making or music is bereft of creativity. I'm more saying that creativity as a word shouldn't be relegated and codified in this monstrously industrialised and high-handed manner so dismissive of everyone else.

Comment The Devil We Know (Score 1) 67

Windows is a pile of shit, but it's the devil we know, to be honest. I've learned hundreds of Windows work-around the long hard way over the years. Linux might be a cleaner OS, but still has a learning curve for certain "edge case" things.

Call me lazy, but I'm a creature of familiarity and habit these days. Go ahead and take away my Slashdot Card, but Satya can stay on my lawn for now.

Comment Re:registered-only list. (Score 1) 51

If they accidentally forget to put a tower in, they're gimping themselves

Who is "they"? The vendor would set up phones initially and test them. If by chance the phone can't find ANY usable towers, the phone can prompt the user for the option of having their phone ignore the registry (along with a stern warning).

Not a show-stopper, just need a decent Plan B.

not to mention some companies do cross-sharing agreements which would need to sync.

I don't see why that's a problem. Vendors can include all registered towers even if a user's plan won't permit usage of some. The authorization for such towers would simply fail and the phone would try the next one. (A priority ranking for towers can be included, and be based on the user's provider plan so it can make smarter guesses.)

Comment Re:registered-only list. (Score 1) 51

It's a reasonable idea on paper, but cellular networks weren't built with centralized tower authentication in mind -- especially not legacy protocols like 2G and 3G

Okay, but they should require it for new or overhauled towers to start heading in that direction. Maybe give the industry a window of 5 to 10 years to add it.

Comment Re:We need nuclear (Score 0) 48

Fission on a large scale is too risky. During a big war many of those nuke plants will get either bombed into radioactive dust/rivers or neglected, triggering a nuclear winter, killing off 95% of humanity.

It's not the full solution. I hope fusion pan's out. Stellerators have Yuuuuge potential on paper. (I expect computing power will eventually make Tokomaks obsolete compared to stellerators.)

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