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Comment Re: Let's Compare Blender and Firefox (Score 1) 99

Large companies fund Blender because Blender, being free, gives everyone with a bit of gumption the ability to create and animate with even a fairly modest computer - it levels the 2D/3D creation playing field globally, even to the edges in developing nations with recycled computers and no internet.

Who are the top Blender patrons? Unity, Epic, AMD, nVidia, all companies that game creators need to get their product out, and all of whom stand to gain from both the creators and their customers, the players. And now those creators can come from anywhere. It's good market building for the hardware, tool, and distribution companies.

Comment Re:What "code integrity problem"? (Score 1) 89

Mmmm, yes, basically. Yes, I did RTFS. I have to live with Microsoft code every day at work. It's pretty stable, and yet for reasons apparently chosen by marketing departments, I'm constantly having to second-guess what Windows 10 will do next. Then I come home to peace and calm. I like peace and calm, and I don't want Microsoft stomping around in my playground. They have grand ambitions to maintain a permanent hold on their market share, and they will totally sweep Linux along in their floodwaters to get there.

Comment Trump should be grateful (Score 1) 1024

A full year before his election I was reading a fresh new screed against Trump on boingboing every day and realized... "He's going to win isn't he?" Because he's captured mindshare. His name is out there like a drumbeat, every day. The media are utterly obsessed with him, and he is unavoidable and unforgettable. And why is that? Because he's great entertainment for the masses.

Comment Re:Clippy Lives (Score 1) 23

That is precisely the point. This is for HR to be able to click boxes for what they want and have a list of people with the desired skills and traits fall out the bottom. It will work as simply as making a query against the census.

Just like statistics, it will never tell the whole story. The fact that real-life human experience has very little to do with the resume is irrelevant. This is one step in the silent march toward the goal of having every aspect of every citizen quantified or modeled in some way. Every economic aspect, that is; the ways they are most likely to generate financial benefit or most likely to be persuaded to consume goods.

Efficient. Soulless. Dehumanizing.

Comment A fair complaint to be sure... (Score 1) 2219

We're all free to ignore the gibbering angry rages which are out of proportion to the injury caused by excessive line spacing, bloated text boxes, trendy Metro-esque lead article presentation, and a dozen other changes, none of which I like either.

I'll still throw my lot in with the mob and say that if I can't comfortably read the site including comments on any device, with or without Javascript enabled, then it may be thrown off my multiple-visits-daily list (5-10x). I'm a longtime and loyal reader who values what Slashdot is and what it isn't. It's management's decision whether they want the existing crowd, the bread-and-butter, the daily eyeballs of a generation, or if they want to spiff the place up and go after a new market. I hope they try to make it palatable for both.

BTW, Dice, even those of us who rarely post hate being called an "audience." These folks, even the rabble, are my crowd.

Comment Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score 1) 81

Your watchers want to know whether you are watching them, to twist a phrase.

"Microsoft believes the key differentiator between Xbox as a TV platform and the sea of failed competitors will be its voice and motion search tool. Utilizing the Kinect attachment, users will be able to be identified by number and state of activity, providing valuable feedback to the content providers and their customers, the advertisers." Fixed that for you.

Bonus if they build profiles of individuals and estimate ages by correlating with easily available databases and public records. Extra bonus if Microsoft listens to all other programming being played in the room and identifies it audibly.

NASA

Lacking Buyers, NASA Cuts Prices On Shuttles and Old Engines 131

Hugh Pickens writes "Russia's Space Shuttle, Buran, ended its days at a theme park in Moscow and was once offered for sale on the Internet for 3 million dollars. Now the NY Times reports that when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration put out the call in December 2008 seeking buyers for US shuttles from museums, schools and elsewhere, the agency didn't get as much interest as expected, so now NASA has slashed the price of the 1970s-era spaceships, available for sale this fall once their flying days are over, from $42 million to just $28.8 million apiece. 'We're confident that we'll get other takers,' says agency spokesman Mike Curie. The Discovery is already promised to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum but the Atlantis and the Endeavour are still up for grabs and it is possible that the Enterprise, a shuttle prototype that never made it to space, will also be available. The lower price is based on NASA's estimate of the cost for transporting a shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to a major airport, and for displaying it indoors in a climate-controlled building. As for the space shuttle main engines, those are now free. NASA advertised them in December 2008 for $400,000 to $800,000 each, but no one expressed interest. So now the engines are available, along with other shuttle artifacts, for the cost of transportation and handling."

Comment Re:Getting off the train to crazytown (Score 1) 235

Spot on.

Last year I visited a large corporation to see a demo of their latest web-enabled product. Their field engineers had to have Windows and IE6 on their laptops to tap into the company servers, but to demo their standards-compliant web app they all had to have Firefox as well. Open Source gets the work done, it's future-proof, and hopefully this is only the first shocking example of this bureaucracy-laden company's shift away from proprietary to open. (Wouldn't count on it... their market-capturing strategies are a lot like Microsoft's in some respects. You never know, though...)

Education

How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement 888

Zarf writes "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York Times reports on a recent study that shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a culture.'"There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that prevents achievement on the academic front from being perceived as valuable. Could anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"
The Internet

Your Online Profile Actually Tells a Lot About You 272

An anonymous reader writes "Despite all the media reports that your Facebook profile is giving the wrong impression, a psychological study shows people really can understand your personality from your online profile. Turns out you're not giving the wrong impression with your profile; you're giving the right impression to the wrong people. You can actually learn more about someone's Agreeableness from their online profile than from a first date."

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