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Comment Re:Not so fast (Score 2) 228

I worked for a physician's office, and the doctor has to review the patients chart and sign-off on the record release.
You are paying primarily for the doctor's time to review the chart and the staff's time to prepare the document for the doctor.
There are certain liabilities involved for the physician if there is anything inaccurate in the chart.

Comment Re:they needed source. (Score 1) 82

BUT.. if you had a projector, why the fuck use the tv.

Simple, the pixel density and picture quality from the LCD display will be better than the projector.

If you had a nice projector screen and a projector with a crazy resolution then by all means ditch the LCD display, but it will cost you a good amount and is not really novel.
However this solution can combine a sub $500 projector and sub $500 LCD display and provide a novel new display that increases immersion without compromising the current image quality.

I agree it is not exactly mind blowing, this is today tech, if not yesterday tech.
It is simply a matter of software support, the hardware is sitting at your local electronics store waiting to be purchased and setup in your living room.
However, it is clever, no one else bothered to do it that I have seen. Furthermore, I would be interested in seeing it in person or setting up my own version.
That being said, I would love for them to take this a minor step forward.
I would love to see four cheap projectors combined and strapped to the ceiling with an LCD in front.
Now the entire virtual world is around me, I am immersed in it; and still a potentially affordable solution.
Heck, I am going to Amazon.com right now to buy me some cheap projectors to build this setup and trump Microsoft!

Comment Re:A phone running Ubuntu Mobile (Score 2) 102

We need carrier killing hardware and a carrier agnostic data radio tower setup.

The hardware would have an open boot loader ready to take on Android, Ubuntu, Jolla, and any other open sourced ROM available.
The hardware would include the five major HSPA+ bands (850, 900, AWS, 1900, 2100), and LTE bands (4, 17, 13, 7, 3, 25) to cover a majority of the spectrum used by carriers in the Americas, Europe, and the rest of the world.
The hardware would also support a USB dongle for additional carrier data support for carriers who do not provide SIM cards.

Beyond that the hardware will support a protocol for carrier agnostic mobile accounts.

Cell towers would run like WiFi access points, and the mobile device would handle the hand off between towers.
Each tower can even be run by an individual entity if desired, no national or regional carrier system would be needed.
Instead there would be entities that sell data credit to end users.

A mobile device would have an account with a data credit reseller.
The mobile device can scan for access in its area and connect to a tower based on how the user priorities (cost, speed, signal strength...)
The tower would then charge the data credit reseller for the user's usage.

This setup allows for each cell tower to compete for users in an area.
This would allow start-up wireless companies to compete immediately.
Once enough individual towers went up then it would compete with the big carriers and force them to change and join the carrier agnostic system further driving down the price for data for consumers.

Comment Re:After 42 yrs programming I say... (Score 1) 430

I'm not seeing the issue.

You are missing the point of the post by man_of_mr_e and the reply from casing.
man_of_mr_e wanted to dismiss formatting issues as not a big deal to diff in the version control, claiming diff is smart enough to handle it; an interesting assertion.
However, casing cleverly pointed out that man_of_mr_e was missing the issue of case formatting and how diff would probably choke on it.

If a dude is changing variable names, then I would want to know about it as that is less trivial than whitespace changes. This seems like another productivity issue. If I have a guy focusing on changing variable names from myVar to my_var, then he's either going to be talked to and told to wisen up or canned as he's not doing anything productive.

I agree that if productivity is in question then it would be nice to know. However I would disagree that productivity issues should clutter a version diff though.

Imagine the scenario where my IDE can quickly switch code from camel case to snake case and give me the white spacing I am most comfortable with. If with a key stroke Bill can alter Joe's code to be more readable for Bill and that in turn improves his efficiency, then why not? Correspondingly then Joe should be able to flip it write back when he has to work on Bill's code.

Now you are worried about the situation where Bill picks up Joe's code and spends his morning moving curly brackets to a new line and converting camels to snakes manually. Probably not the best use of Bill's time for you, and even if arguably the time spent converting Joe's code manually makes Bill more productive it was not a total time well spent. Now surely Bill is good enough to read Joe's formatting, but if it pisses him off, well then perhaps a few hours is worth keeping Bill happy? I mean Bill is a good guy, a great programmer, he is just set a bit in his ways and opinionated. Bill is still making his deadlines, no worries.

Comment Re:After 42 yrs programming I say... (Score 1) 430

Personally if you have a coder using myVar and my_var for two different variables in the same code, I think you have more to worry about that coding style.

I believe he was referring to Joe using camel case, myVar, and then Bill later fixing it to snake case, my_var. As a result the diff would mark this change as a difference since it was more than a white space change. This is as opposed to Joe placing his curly brackets on the same line as his if statements and Bill moving them to the line below white space changes.

White spacing changes are no longer a big deal with modern IDE's able to reformat to your desired white spacing, but I have not seen an IDE option to correct camel case to snake case.

Comment Re:Should have peed their pants (Score 1) 134

Nokia was big enough to bet multiple horses...

Agreed, if they truly believe in not selling out to something like Android they would have stuck with MeeGo which was just as far along as Windows Phone.

I really wonder what the thought process was behind dumping MeeGo and going with Windows Phone, if they truly saw it being a winner.
Unfortunately it seems there best bet now is to stay the course with Windows Phone.

I would kill for a 41MP PureView camera coupled with updated N950 hardware and running Android.
The smartphone market is so crowded, but a super phone is still waiting to be released.

I really hope the smart phone hardware market turns more toward a PC model of separating the hardware from the software.
Unfortunately Apple is trying to destroy that in both markets, and even more unfortunate it is a sound business plan.

Comment Re:Let it go (Score 1) 231

It could be said that the modern African American population has profited from slavery as well; they could have been born in some African nation under a dictator instead of America.

Comment Run a good ROM (Score 1) 100

Why is it we still can't control what permissions an app has on our phones? It's absurd and disturbing that an app for checking flights and baggage demands all of those permissions.

If you are not running CyanogenMOD then it is your own fault for installing 3rd party apps that cannot be trusted.

Comment Re:True Democracy would be a disaster (Score 1) 384

I am not so sure hyperdemocracy would fail.

I am a lot more skeptical than you are.
I assume our elected officials have a higher level of education than the average of the general voters.
I suspect that most elected officials are not even well informed on the issues they vote on despite their greater education and the fact that they get paid to legislate as a full time job.

I can only imagine how a voter base that is so easily swayed by advertising would vote on complex issues and legislation.
No matter their education level most will not have the time to research and read legislation properly.

On the other hand perhaps the elected officials are generally self serving and it would be much harder to buy off a million votes vs one man who represents a million voters.

My theory is for a hyperdemocracy with a representative government like we have.

How is this different from now? I guess there is no official way for the hyperdemocracy crowd to currently "vote" on every issue.

I assume having an election for every issue brought up would be impractical, at least to the same degree we do for our elections today.
Cost issues aside let say that a ballot of laws was presented for voting once a month.
Would voters, knowing it was simply an official opinion poll that did not directly dictate law, bother participating?

An official remote electronic hyperdemocratic voting process seems feasible though, but it seems it would be bias against those with access to computer and smartphones.
However, Grandma and Grandma seem to be adjusting to technology better than ever and smartphone access appears to be fairly high across all demographics.
But would people bother even if it was as easy as checking your email?

Or is the Death Star petition really the result of such a setup?
If 27,000 people came out to not online sign the electronic petition but put their first name and last initial to it, how many more would come out if it meant the Death Star could truly get funded?
Would more come out to stop it? Or would a flashy television commercial with Jedi Knights in metal bikinis convince more to come out for it?

Comment True Democracy would be a disaster (Score 2, Insightful) 384

Imagine if we had a true democracy where everyone had a vote on everything.

We would not have universal healthcare, we would have universal Lamborghini Aventadors.

Of course we would have no roads to drive them on since that funding would go towards universal ice cream.

Good thing corporations and rich people set our policies and not Occupy Wall Street dead beats.

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