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Comment Re: I hope more people will do this (Score 2) 251

> Worst case, the person dies.

Worst case, you introduce a change that gets into the gene pool that makes us more vulnerable to a common disease, shortens lifespan, increases infant mortality, etc. With genetics, the results could be terribly subtle or take decades to reveal themselves.

Comment I noticed the prices dropping back in late Feb. (Score 1) 51

I noticed late February that prices on a couple different brands of NVMe SSDs had dropped around the same time, and have stayed a little lower since.

Prices are finally starting to move. I'll snag one of those 960s or Samsung 961s if they go a little lower. My SATA SSD is tolerable at current prices.

Comment Re:FoxPro (Score 1) 483

To open source something you

1) need to get it to a state where it compiles with modern, available toolsets
2) have to unlink it from any third party libraries you had to license (what stops most things)
3) remove any third party assets you had to license, like sounds, graphics
4) open your old customers to exploits people can glean from reading the source, which is bad PR

All of which requires a budget with no business case and not even a tax-deductible dollar amount associated with it.

Comment Re:Lesson learned for him (Score 1) 295

Something similar happened to me in college 20 years ago. I reported that they had an insecure network mount, and they gave me a written warning that went on my record, and almost banned me from the computer services entirely -- which would have made writing papers and doing research impossible since I didn't have them at home.

This is why people aren't nice to each other.

Comment RSS is the best way to keep up. (Score 1) 438

Yes, I still use RSS every day. I initially started using RSS as a way to manage my favorite webcomics. For this purpose, it is still a killer application.

Do you find yourself checking your favorite comic sites every day, or even multiple times a day? With RSS, I don't have to. I add the site feed to FeedDemon in my Comics folder, and I can easily see when a new comic is posted. The only problem is when the site changes their software around, the RSS URL can change and you just stop receiving updates until you fix it.

This works for a lot of things. I use it for low-traffic Reddit subs that I want to see 100% of the posts for without having to visit them individually. Obviously, I use it to monitor news posts for people, games, and projects I follow. I know when updates and patches to games roll out without having to visit the site every day. I have even subscribed to certain Twitter personalities that don't post very frequently.

Another killer application of RSS is deal feeds. I subscribe to a handful of sites like Hot Deals Club, BensBargains, Dealcatcher, etc. I don't read them directly -- I use a feature of FeedDemon called Watches. I can set up keyword triggers and be notified when I receive a feed update with that keyword(s).

Let's say I'm shopping for a new SSD. I create a new watch called "SSD" and I put "SSD" as the keyword. Every time I get a hit, it shows up in my watches under that heading. I basically get informed of any sales on SSDs anywhere. I can even limit the folder so I only get hits from my deal feeds. Otherwise, I just ignore the deal feeds folder and just mark them read every time I refresh my feeds.

FeedDemon literally saves me hours a day I used to spend just going through my bookmarks folder. It also saves me money when I'm shopping for something that I don't need right away.

There's too much going on these days to personally keep up with it all without wasting a significant amount of time browsing and skimming every day. I think Agents are going to be big once they really get going. Alexa and Siri and Cortana are the "rock on a stick" version of real Agents. Once they mature, we'll be better able to monitor the things we're interested in and get summaries of new topics instead of the same shit repeated over and over at every site.

Comment I was never encouraged to take up programming. (Score 1) 370

I was born in the 70s. I was never encouraged to get into computers as a hobby or as a career path. It was an unusual choice of hobbies and set me apart from my peers. I am a man.

When I was younger, it was fun. When I was older, I was able to read job listings and salary ranges. There was no gender angle, pro or con.

Comment Re:Taxes = theft (Score 4, Insightful) 579

You don't use gas, water, electric, telephone, or internet connections? Those were all built and regulated with taxes.

Work for a company, ever? That company was built from a civilization that benefited from government and the taxes it uses for those purposes.

Live in a house you didn't build from lumber you cut yourself with an axe you made yourself from a rock and a stick? You benefited from government and taxes other people paid into it in numerous ways.

Ever walk on a road you didn't clear yourself? Taxes. Government.

You're a trolling idiot, or gloriously naive. Governments are hugely wasteful and corrupt, but it's better than anarchy.

Comment Stupidest rant ever. (Score 1) 729

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of PC resellers who assemble, test, and ship the completed PC to you. You choose what kind of PC you want with the parts you want (usually from a few templates, like Office PC, Gaming PC, etc., with a few choices for upgrades) and you pay a relatively small uptick in price for this service, like 20%. For someone who doesn't want to (or can't because of sausage fingers) assemble their own PC, it's a legitimate choice that many companies and consumers make.

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