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Comment Re:It's simple.. (Score 1) 463

To pull two comments together, when Bloomberg was first mayor of NYC he was known to ride the subway at times. I don't know why though I can speculate two things:
  1. Nobody is anybody in NYC; famous people can be just like everyone else as long as they avoid the tourist hotspots (e.g. Times Square).
  2. During rush hours, the subway tends to be the fastest means of getting around town.

Comment Re:Why/how though? (Score 1) 237

allowAccess = false;

if (passwdMatched() == false)
. . niftyUiShakeAndDeny();
else
. . niftyUiApprovedAnimation();
. . allowAccess = true;

if (allowAccess == true)
. . setSessionCredentials();

...because it is such a waste of time to use braces and parenthesis to clearly state what your code is trying to do ;-)

(of course, could also be due to too much time in a language like Python where indentation specifies blocks of code)

Comment Re:Apple needs this not the $700 more intel cpu! (Score 1) 186

"Pretty small market" ... which are you referring to? Perhaps in the personal consumer space it is a small market (I mean, if you bought the Mac to do email/browser/photos, why would you need Windows?), but in the professional workplace I would say easily 30-40% of the people I know with Macs have run a Windows VM at some point. I'm not claiming to be a defining voice here or perhaps even a strong representative sample, but there are people who wouldn't have bought a Mac if it weren't for the fact that they can run Windows when necessary.

Comment Re:The iPod is dead - LONG LIVE THE IPOD (Score 3, Informative) 214

This is amazing. Are there instructions anywhere for how you did this?? I've been holding onto my last-gen iPod Classic forever for the same reasons, (why should I be limited to only cloud-based music when I'm within cell service?). I even went out and found a used one a couple years ago when someone broke into my car and stole my original one.

I did something similar to my 1G iPod Mini (4GB). It is rather easy actually, since the iPods use standard compact IDE interfaces to their hard drives. Sure, you need to get an adapter that fits, but they're available. Look on MacSales for the Tarkan iFlash Dual.

For my iPod Mini, the process is simply getting a CF-to-SD adapter and then sticking in an appropriate sized SD card. Personally, I went with a 64GB SD card and it has worked really well. Total cost was around $25-30. The only thing I will point out is that I suspect that sometimes the Mini's firmware might struggle with so many songs on the device, but it hasn't been a real problem ... I suspect an iPod Classic would have less of an issue since its firmware is a few years newer.

The only other note I would make is that if you're going to go through the effort of opening the device up to do this, you might as well swap the battery out at the same time if you can. While I've opened my Mini 4 or 5 times, it does seem to me that I might start having some problems after another 5 ... they're not really made to be disassembled a dozen times :-)

Comment Re:devil's in the details (Score 1) 38

The reality however, is much less so --- most people simply opt not to call now, because the service is so horrible and decidedly unhelpful. ...But the call volume metrics say "job well done!".

In banking, however, it isn't the same thing as a typical help desk when it come to compliance. It isn't optional like how someone might call to get a computer or physical product help and after being on hold for a bit decide to give up and just power cycle or otherwise "live with" or lose something (e.g. doing a reset would lose some pictures you just took), it is more having to log situations for legal compliance.

I imagine in this case it is a platform where someone in the organization can log a situation for audit trail and/or legal compliance checks and it results in gathering the right details and submits it to a queue of compliance officers to process. Probably many of these situations can be handled by intelligent menu systems and voice recognition much like how you call your bank and tell them you want to discuss a charge on your credit card and get to the right person to help you. In this case, it is probably filling in fields and if it is a certain type of situation, it can do 100% of the work without involving someone on the phone.

Comment Re:Nomorobo? (Score 1) 113

It does seem to significantly help, but the catch is that not only does it still let one ring go through, but perhaps people aren't super comfortable with having all their incoming calls hit a 3rd party as well.

For those who don't know how the service works, it relies on your phone provider supporting "simultaneous ring" which is having your incoming calls ring not only your phone but also another phone that you specify. The service detects where the call is coming from and if it believes it is spam, it will "pick up the phone" and ringing stops on your side. Great in theory, works well in practice, but they now know who calls your phone number.

I don't know much more about it or if they are doing this to build any data on people, but the potential is there I suppose. Probably nothing to worry about. Then again, Verizon/ATT/Comcast/etc. already have this information and probably are using it :-)

Comment Re:You can misinterpret statistical data here (Score 1) 189

You make these statements like everyone is going to use cellular data exclusively at home. Sure, my landline at home is nothing but a means for telemarketers and scammers to harass me, but if I disconnect it? There is still going to be a wire to my house for internet at a minimum. Yes, you can make the same "wire cutting" statement for TV, but you still come back to the internet argument.

Unless cellular 5G can replace wired internet and be effectively "unlimited", there is still a place for a wired infrastructure.

Comment Design of Calendar, Address Book, Reminders, etc. (Score 1) 462

I think the biggest casualty of the new design language is that the Calendar, Address Book and Reminders applications (on OSX and iOS) has gone into the toilet.

Tasks that were once obvious how to do such as adding a new reminder are now almost hidden. On older OSX / iOS versions, adding a new reminder had a prominent button on the top right of the screen; press it, enter your details, save it, done. Now? Scroll to the bottom (heaven forbid you have a hundred items) and tap in the blank gap below the last entry and THEN you get the ability to enter something. Gee, that was obvious? Fortunately, we've been at least granted a '+' in that blank gap now, but it is still ridiculous that we have to scroll down to add a task. Yes, you could probably do it faster with Siri but it isn't always appropriate to talk out loud when you're just trying to create a reminder to buy milk when you leave the office.

Take a look at the other personal management applications and you'll find similar oddities. Why one needs to battle with the Calendar to add or edit an item with some fields in there makes no sense unless you're of the school of "use as little real estate on the screen as possible" on our 4K displays >cough< .. it's OK, you can make the dialogs bigger; if we're typing in it, it is obviously the focus of our attention.. 'K?

I don't think this is a case of "you're holding it wrong", it seems to be more that some designer wanted to make an impact; a statement. Instead, you're making peoples' lives just a little bit harder for the sake of your "art". I'm not saying you need to design option monstrosities like you find on Windows and Linux platforms, but instead of finding the balance between design and usability it seems to be leaning far more heavily on unchallenged design.

Of course, we don't know what we're talking about because Apple knows what we want better than us, right? ;-)

Comment Re:Current version is just .... so..... slow.... (Score 1) 119

FWIW, I see absolutely zero performance issues on my Windows laptop. Diagnose the performance bottleneck on your machine before you blame the software.

I used to have a laptop that would take a 3x-5x performance hit when I enabled a high color display mode. The processor was still fast, but if you enabled 32-bit color performance of everything went to crap. If you downgraded your display to 16-bit color, fast as a rocket.

Sometimes your hardware may say that it supports some feature or another. Doesn't necessarily mean that it is the best thing to turn on...

Comment Re:Screw capitalism (Score 1) 371

People won't go working for recycling centers for free to make them more profitable.

Probably around 20 years ago, someone from Ohio mentioned to me that if you had to do "community service" (a.k.a. not quite jail, but not quite getting away with something illegal) then most likely they'd send you to a recycling center to sort the trash.

It would sound to me that we've got a work force that could do the job for free already? Or maybe the problem is that a good portion of the population isn't allowed to be anywhere near sharp glass and/or metal objects that might be coming down a conveyor belt...

Comment Re:Move more, eat less (Score 1) 496

Eat slower?

Since pizza seems to be a common "geek food", here's something I've been doing for years that helps a lot with pizza: use a knife and fork.

Though people in NY give you strange looks, you'll probably eat 1 less slice this way since your stomach will indicate it is full before you've shoveled that 4th folded slice into your mouth.

Comment Re:C=128 (Score 1) 167

Do provide links. Please. I failed to find them, and my black 2.04 books are buried in some box from my latest moving day (if I had not thrown them out).

If you want a 1.3 ROM Kernel Manual, you'll have to pull it out from under my kid's car seat. Just the right size and thickness to correct the seat angle :-)

Always wonder if someone will ever catch a glimpse of that and know what the heck it is...

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