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Comment Re:PHP Foundation Code of Conduct (Score 1) 31

You mean if they'd spent time harassing trans people rather than writing code they'd have caught bugs earlier?

Because the CoC isn't spending time on irrelevant stuff, it's about preventing spending time on irrelevant stuff. Like bringing up whatever you can to try to get talented programmers to leave.

Comment Re:And so the centralization continues (Score 1) 16

No, it's not a good thing. I don't know where you're getting it from that there's somehow less advertising on the corponet, but there not only is just as much, there's an added level of constant personalized manipulation now on a scale we've never seen before.

At least the open web had free, uncensored, content, much of which not funded by advertising.

Comment Re:Lockdown by the TV manufacturers (Score 1) 95

Burn in not a problem?

I've had a Samsung plasma TV (50"!) since 2012 and love it but it's gotten to the point there are permanent blotches of discoloured pixels on the screen. Not enough to be a major problem, it's normally only visible if what's being shown is supposed to be a large light colored area. But it's increasingly noticeable, and no amount of running supposed anti-burn-in stuff is getting rid of it at the moment.

Next TV will presumably be a smart TV. Other than "Not LG" I have no idea what it'll be, but I suspect the real "secure this device" thing will involve using it as a dumb TV - ie not connecting it to the Internet, no matter how much it begs, and just using HDMI inputs.

I have come across brand new still-manufactured dumb TVs in the wild, but they're typically low quality: Insignia was making them, at least two years ago, I was able to get one for my in-laws who are far too old to deal with "smart" TVs. (Something that really bothers me about current trends - after a certain age, modern "replacements" for tried and tested tech becomes unusable for people be it smartphones that require decent motor skills and good eyesight, or smart TVs that require a certain mind set and, well, good eyesight because you have to read a lot of shit on the TV. Welcome to late stage capitalism where everyone over 65 can just DIAF I suppose from the point of view of marketing companies.) Anyway, the Insignia was a classic dumb TV, just input selection and channel selection, as things have been since the 1990s, but the picture quality was f---ing awful. There were laptop LCDs in the late 1990s that had better contrast and refresh rates.

Comment Re:Deal with it? (Score 1) 95

> Comcast has received decades of subscription fees, and if they didn't allocate part of their budget to infrastructure, they have only themselves to blame.

It's a bogus argument but you're missing what they're saying and responding to something else. They're saying it's irrational for a competitor (competitors don't have the infrastructure yet) to sell for $30 a month when it costs $1,500 to install that infrastructure. They're not saying it would be irrational for them to charge it, indeed, they could probably do so.

The problem of course is that it's not irrational, it's Total cost of wiring up an area/# subscribers = $1,500. And some subscribers will pay $30, some $50, some $100, some way more because that same fiber is being used to provide legacy cable and telephone services to a particular class of customer, namely old farts, like half of Slashdot.

Yeah I said it. You're old farts.

Anyway, the point is it very much makes sense to use different price points to get as many customers as possible because that $1,500 isn't going to go away just because someone doesn't subscribe. If the only way to get the last few residents in that area is to charge them $10 a month, it makes sense to provide a tier for them too, as long as others aren't attracted to the same deal.

For the same reason, Verizon and T-Mobile are currently offering "back up" services for about $20-25 on their 5G fixed wireless network. Why? Because every penny that comes in justifies upgrading those towers.

Comcast - or rather their CEO, I'm sure their experienced employees were head desking at the comment - just doesn't get tiered pricing and somehow doesn't understand that a massive proportion of infrastructure costs are fixed and do not change based upon subscriber count.

Comment Re:A failure to act had bad results (Score 1) 322

A better question is what does it say to your thought process that you deny something is a problem because one or two people, but not the people who are actually qualified to talk on the issue and are saying it's a problem, are claiming the world is going to end in a year?

And why don't you apply that across the board. The same people who deny global warming seem also to be overly happy to denounce any attempt to have the government improve conditions for people on the basis that it's "socialism", despite most (usually all) European democracies having all the benefits that are being asked for, yet not a single one is a dictatorship. Clearly there are nutcases on that side, but nonetheless the "Oh AGW people are alarmists" people still somehow believe that the moment the US has a functional healthcare system available to all the government will turn into sOvIeT rUsSiA.

The scientists have, so far, made predictions that, if anything, have been too conservative and in reality GW has progressed far faster than the median prediction. Those are then facts. No other claims matter.

Comment Re: Democracy on a bad day (Score 1) 322

You don't live in America? I could have sworn you did.

FWIW, in the US, which is probably the country that uses gasoline highest per-capita, the circuit panel is usually right in the garage. Not merely "next to". And there's usually already a 220V outlet there because home owners typically have the washer-dryer in the garage - even if they don't and have a separate laundry room, the garage usually has a 220V outlet.

Comment Re: Democracy on a bad day (Score 1) 322

You are aware of this concept called charging stations right? You know how your car can't make a 3 hour journey without being refueled? So they have these things called "gas stations" where you can refill your fuel tank? Well, it's the same for EVs. You can drive for 150 miles (approx 2-3 hours), stop at an EV charging spot, and then continue.

The beauty of EVs is that you don't usually need to. Most people can just plug it in at home overnight for 99% of the journeys they make. They only need the charging spots for those once-in-a-blue-moon traveling 1,000 miles towing a snowmobile situations. Whereas gas users are having to use recharge points (that is, gas stations) literally every 100-200 miles of driving.

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