Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re: Nintendo is here to stay! (Score 2, Insightful) 277

The Wii only achieved an odd form of success though. While lots of people bought it and Nintendo profited on the sales of the consoles, nowadays they're just sitting on people's shelves unused. Even with that kind of market saturation is it successful if the average Wii owner has, what, less than 5 games? Less than 2? I don't know the answer but if something is purchased but then rarely used it's only a partial success. They have to sell games too.

Comment Court Order (Score 1) 105

How does one protect oneself from a court order? I guarantee that if Snapchat gets an order to log information that they will do so. The best you can hope for is that another party couldn't get information that predates the order, but if you never know if and when an order is in place, you can never be sure who has seen your data.

Comment Re:Just a moment! (Score 3, Interesting) 478

I am glad this got modded "insightful", but the more likely outcome is that the most marketable folks already have their job opportunities lined up and only those without marketable skills (aka dead weight) are the ones who will stay with the company. Even if IT is outsourced, they will keep some folks, and the least competent ones are the ones that will fill those spots. And if they don't outsource, they've lost their top players.

Comment Re:Storage. (Score 1) 232

The 4MB ram upgrade I put in my 386 in 1992 only cost $200 at the time... so ram prices were discontinuously high in 1995 if thats the case. My ~$1300 Compaq Presario 7180 came with 8MB ram in November 1995, and that included a 1.2GB hard drive and a P100 processor. I doubt the ram was the majority of the price of that system.

Do I think you're making it up? No. Do I think you might have been looking at some weirdly expensive memory? Probably.

Oh yeah, also, my 16MB upgrade cost about $150 the year after, in 1996... so if it was to a dollar a megabyte, I certainly got ripped off.

My own personal recollection of jumpy ram prices was that I paid about $20 for 256MB ram in October 2001 and $100 for 256MB ram a mere few months later. The prices definitely shot up after a shortage. However, I remember keeping my eyes on the advertised ram prices back in '95/'96 and $100 a megabyte sounds like way too much and $1 a megabyte sounds like way too little. It had to fluctuate around $10-$50 a megabyte, but I doubt it was ever as high as $100 or as low as $1 in the time span you said.

Comment Some thoughts (Score 4, Interesting) 458

Obviously, its a problem when "Season Pass" doesn't actually get you the whole season. If I hadn't RTFA'd I might have presumed that the guy was complaining that he didn't get access to either all 16 episodes including the ones that weren't even played yet (that would be absurd) or that he didn't get access to the first 8 + the ones that have been played already (not absurd but I wouldn't be on his side)

If Apple's intention was that buying a season pass to season 5 of breaking bad would get you the first 8 episodes now, and the last 8 episodes when they were released to dvd/bluray/download, it would just be a matter of patience and I'd still be on Apple's side on this one.

Except from the sounds of it, Apple was selling a season pass to "Season 5" and not listing it as "The first 8 episodes of season 5." They had no intention of ever giving him access to the last 8 episodes of Season 5 for that price, making it "Not really a season pass." Clearly this is a problem and the guy just wants his money back for misleading advertising. If I were him, I'd be ok with a gift card in the amount of the price of the first 8 episodes, since the second 8 will presumably be priced the same anyway, effectively getting me what was advertised. The whole season for one price.

Comment Re:Mind over Matter (Score 4, Interesting) 212

It isn't quite as easy as you might indicate.

I'm 40 and eat a better balanced diet than when I was 20. I exercise, but weight has gradually increased over time. I was at the bottom end of normal for what BMI charts say I should have been @ age 20. I am now about 15 lbs into the "overweight". My doc says I am fine because I have more muscle, but he wants me to hold the line.

I made some changes to exercise, working out 5 times a week in the morning and cutting out all soft drinks and after dinner snacking. I dropped 5 lbs in two weeks. i was hydrating a lot so it wasn't water that caused the drop.

After two weeks, same diet same exercise I dropped 5 more pounds in two weeks. I was feeling great. I was hoping for another 10. But guess what? Two months later, same diet same exercise I didn't drop a single pound. I am not sure how to explain it. It is like my body reached a certain point and compensated for the caloric drop by going into a lower metabolism rate.

When I was 20 I couldn't gain weight no matter what. Now, I know that 160# is a place that my body just doesn't want to drop below. I understand that I could increase exercise more or cut out even more food... but is it worth it?

I am convinced that BMI might be a guideline, but it isn't gospel. I can still run a mile at a good clip and keep up with the kids. What am I gaining by dropping into a somewhat arbitrary scale if I am healthy already?

Comment Dubious Credit Criteria (Score 5, Insightful) 362

Dubious credit criteria and validation got us into a huge subprime mortgage mess and contributed to an economic downturn. Fortunately, this method doesn't appear to be widespread, but the same principle applies. Folks haven't learned the lessons of the last 100+ years and seem doomed to repeat the outcomes.

Comment Re:PDF is problematic by design (Score 1) 193

The best solution I found to read PDF (in my PRS-950) is to crop their margin with BRISS and read them full-screen on the ebook-reader. When the font is still too small, I can do landscape reading... unfortunately, due to the PRS-900 form, a page is broken in 3 (the PRS-650 breaks it in two, which IMO is better). Or with BRISS it is also possible to split pages in two segments, but I don't like that as much.

Slashdot Top Deals

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken

Working...