Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Can we donate? (Score 1) 97

In addition to what the others stated, you left this out: " and because it imposes disproportionate, intrusive, and punitive measures against households and businesses with no due process." So there's self interest AND disagreement on a more fundamental level, mixed together. Nothing wrong with that in my book.

Comment Re:Honest suggestions from new'ish parent (Score 1) 170

Amen. My first wife wanted to get right back to work. I disagreed, but respected her decision. Fast forward 10 years: second marriage, second son - wife back in university (on line courses) and is at home with our boy, of whom we both get to see more of this way because there's no lost commute time for HIM. I earn more than I did before, but not so much that this isn't a sacrifice in some ways. But the way that it's not? My family. The time with them is worth so much more, and even the older two (she had a daughter from a previous marriage who is an amazing addition to our family as well) don't care a bit about "stuff" that they might otherwise have. Those things will come eventually, but this time will only last for a short while, and they actually get that.

Comment Re:Impossible to disarm? (Score 1) 361

According to TFA, the bomb itself was simple, but the builder's mechanical design was pretty darn ingenious. As the parent to your reply pointed out, he made it explosive-proof (dynamite did indeed defeat their attempt to destroy it with controlled C4 detonation - it exploded ). He also made it as pry-, drill-, disassembly-, and cut/slice-proof. Further, it wasn't movable without knowing the right switch combination to shut off the tilt trigger. The bomb unit couldn't cut any wires because everything was inside the steel box.

They'd hoped to get the switch configuration from the bomb builder, but that didn't happen; the thing had a timer in addition to all the other goodies, and there was no way to know when it would go off, so the final call was, again, to hope that a (relatively) small C4 charge would disable the whole thing. Pesky dynamite, undetected, blew up though, which in turn blew up the TNT. The building didn't fare too well in the aftermath, but at least no one was hurt/killed.

Comment Re: in-vehicle concierge (Score 1) 417

I laughed. Sorry I'm without points.

I've got a 2003 (first model year) Honda Pilot that I bought new in late 02. Other than a backup camera, which would have been useful in preventing a couple of small bumps, I'm happy I didn't buy any of the optional items that I could have - they'd be so old now that I'm not sure they'd be compatible with anything I now own, and for the self-contained portions, well they'd probably have broken long ago (door locks sure didn't last very long, what makes me think anything more sophisticated would).

Comment Re:Free Microsoft advertisement... (Score 4, Insightful) 193

I'm curious, genuinely, as to why all the "@#$!% Windows!" posts are being so happily upvoted, while the ones that are rationally pointing out the upside to MS's new direction are seemingly being ignored. You would think, with all the bitching that is normally done here concerning closed versus open, overly expensive software versus free or low-cost alternatives, that people might actually stop with the automatic MS-hate and consider their stance anew.

No software is EVER bug-free (own an Android phone? Enjoying all that perfection?); OSes are complex environments, and sometimes you just can not get every feature in place in a reasonable amount of time. At some point, you have to declare that you've reached a close of a phase of development. Despite our glee at the old "nah, that's a feature" joke, I don't think anyone honestly believes a company with as much money at stake as MS has really has a "screw it" attitude. They're a HUGE company, and for anyone who's ever worked in that sort of environment, you know that you actually have to marvel that any product at all EVER ships.

In part, it is because no OS is ever perfect (you Mac users take a look back, and you'll remember how bad the OS really was years ago, and admit that it too has its own unique problems even today despite being dramatically improved) that MS has moved to this model - fixes to issues can hopefully happen more quickly, new features added sooner.

Along with this new model of publishing Windows comes something else (relatively) new for MS - a new monetization method. For all the grousing about how old and lame the Redmond folks are, now that they are embracing the "freemium" model used by many mobile apps (ads for the free version, or pay to remove them) there's all the complaints for moving to the "new school" way of business. The second - and a little more understandable but I think still defensible in today's environment - complaint is privacy (mainly, the sale of your habits to merchants). First, while not easy for the newbie to do, 10 can be locked down fairly well (PC Mag has a decent article, and it's not the only one); second, if you use Facebook, Twitter, or other social platform, or any search engine, you began giving up privacy the moment your fingers touched a keyboard. If your activities are highly illegal (not just minor film/music torrenting) and you haven't been caught, you're already not worried about this issue; for the average person, yes we don't like the idea of targeted ads and trending our preferences, but to say that there's a person sitting around looking at that data and saying, "Aha! Bob Smith, I *knew* you were into midget clown rodeos!" - well, that's just silly. The only privacy I really, honestly care about is banking, taxes, and when I watch porn - my wife is cool with that last part, but I don't want my kids to type something in only to have YouPorn instead of YouTube pop up. Local browsing, then, is still hidden from other "common" users on my machine, and if I choose to do things like bank on line, I simply have to hope and trust that the certs on the HTTPS connection the bank provides haven't been compromised. That's going to be true for any platform I use to do these things.

I applaud MS for attempting to move in a new direction - it shows, finally, a willingness to change, even if there are missteps along the way. They will have issues with Windows, just as all other OSes do. They will piss people off from time to time. But to complain because they don't do something, then complain because they do? That's not proper criticism, it's just bias.

Comment My parents and software. (Score 2) 254

My Pops just three evenings ago asked me which version of office to get with the new machine he is going to build. I responded "LibreOffice" and showed him why. He and Mom are trying it out now (she's a teacher, so her choice will decide), and so far seems they are happy with it.

Comment Re:Privacy (Score 1) 279

Difference is that I don't have a Facebook account, and there are very, very few sites that I can't use (with some sort of site-specific account as opposed to logging in with FB creds) as a result. YouTube, sadly, hasn't allowed that (to the best of my knowledge) in the last few years.

Comment Re:Getting charged negative dollars for cable (Score 2) 105

To be fair, I should have been clearer. I have Cox Cable in the southeastern US, and the cost for cable Internet access is about $62/month; add TV (with DVR rental) and you're looking at another $150~$200. No thanks. Between free content on Youtube, Hulu, and "broadcast" networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC), and only $8 for Netflix, I'm happy with what I get for the price point. If you like live sports that's really the only big down side.

Ultimately, it's a total of $70 for all the goodies I can consume on the Internet each month, no data limits, etc. Also, Cox has been surprisingly good as an ISP in general; our bandwidth (DL speeds) were just doubled for zero cost, and in this case it actually WAS noticeable. If the chart that was widely publicized about how ComCast dicked over its subscribers until Netflix ponied up is accurate, Cox's internet division is one of the rare almost-good guys in the USA's ISP world.

Slashdot Top Deals

You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all alike.

Working...