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Comment Re:Even the base execution is garbage (Score 4, Informative) 259

When was the last time someone actually opened the Amazon Prime app? It's unusable. Cluttered beyond belief, with ads and basically more subtle versions of ads. I have a hard time understanding the driving factors behind making the landing page (and all aspects of the UI) so terrible, considering I'm already paying for the service! What's with the clutter? Trying to further improve engagement? On top of that, I may know someone who pirates all their Amazon Prime content despite paying for it, because the Prime Video app (both on Android and on Roku) is really that terrible, and not just in terms of navigation, but playback as well. Don't even bother trying to open it on a Fire TV of all things - it's somehow even worse.

This, this, 100% this.

I'm paying for Amazon Prime. And yet, it's less useable and more ad-ridden than any dubious para-legal file-sharing site. What a pile of horse manure!

Comment Enterprise-wide mandate (Score 1) 43

by opkool (#60659112) Attached to: Microsoft Teams Passes 115 Million Daily Active Users

Our company (huge multinational) was using a series of tools that required payment. Someone convinced the higher ups that Teams can do the same as Skype for Business, TeamViewer, Slack, all in one package, all free with Office 365.

Well, according to Microsoft Marketing is awesome and can replace them all for free.

In reality, it’s a poor replacement for Skype for Business, a horrible kind-of-replacement for TeamViewer, and a barely passable replacement for Slack. So people now is doing meetings using FaceTime, installing personal copies of TeamViewer and Telegram groups.

And let’s not get into the horrible (HORRIBLE!!!) user interface! Whoever designed Teams UI needs to be shot (twice), hung, eviscerated, burned and passed through the guillotine (not necessarily in this order).

Comment Re:Facial recognition (Score 1) 352

by opkool (#60230592) Attached to: Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm

The difference is that in the UK, if you’re innocent, the coppers stop you and then let you go.

Meanwhile, across the pond, if you’re innocent, US cops arrest you, put you in jail, your record remains forever, and only after much time and money you might be let go. Or be injured. Or shot. Or killed while in jail. Or killed by the cops. Specially if you’re not White.

Comment Re:how much ? (Score 1) 198

I certainly want to watch this, but as all Apple equipment and service are strictly banned in my house - due to the vendor lock-in - this will probably be obtained over torrent.

You know, AppleTV+ service is available at Roku, FireStick, some smart TV brands... at $4.99

And if you stop paying, no more service. So none of that “vendor lock-in” you talk about.

Comment RIP RobLimo :,( (Score 2) 344

He was funny, brilliant, and smart.

Heâ(TM)s going to be missed, and it hurts, even though if you knew him youâ(TM)ve surely had heard about his failing health. I thought Mr. RobLimo had found the right place to slowly retire while being in good care. But then, this.

Wherever you go, hope you become /bin/smartassd, the best daemon there could be.

Comment Re:make the punishment fit the crime (Score 1) 124

by opkool (#52376129) Attached to: Volkswagen To Pay $10.2 Billion In Emissions Lawsuit

So a few months ago, because I could not find the information anywhere on the entire internet, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate how much more polluted the air in the U.S. is as a result of the VW emissions cheat. The answer is that the air is about zero percent more polluted because of that cheat.

The reason for that is that baseline emissions of diesel exhaust pollutants in the U.S. is so enormous. Commercial diesel tractor trailers emit pollutants at a much higher rate than do VW cars because the engines are so much larger and consume fuel at higher rates. The trucks run many more miles per years than the cars. There are many more diesel trucks than diesel cars. (There a lot of trucks and VW diesel cars are not huge sellers in the U.S.) So the net percentage increase in pollution because of that cheat calculates out to about zero.

VW is worth a lot of money and has not much political clout in the U.S. so this turned into feeding frenzy for lawyers. Penalties of this size are entirely unjustified by the degree of harm.

There should be a price for polluting, based strictly on the types and volumes of pollutants, and it should be applied to all, regardless of the type of vehicle or its nation of origin, or its owner. The right solution here is to tax vehicle exhaust emissions at a single universal rate and let manufacturers and buyers decide what to make and what to buy.

What we have instead is sanctioned pillaging.

Hear! Hear!

I'm not letting go my diesel car.

I have a great range on a pretty good size car: less trips to refuel, which is nice when you drive a lot. I have plenty of torque to pass slow vehicles.

And any redneck pickup rollin' coal (rollin' coal https://youtu.be/JGYc0wCP7oQ ) or any plain 16-wheeler outputs way more pollution per mile/gallon/vehicle/year than any "bad bad bad dirty VW Diesel".

Comment Numbers (Score 1) 32

by opkool (#50736697) Attached to: UCF Researchers Perform World's First Automated Mass-Crowd Count

Writting "around 500,000" is quite controversial: the BBC article you link points to authorities' provided numbers.

"Local police said 1.4 million people turned out but the Spanish government put the figure at no more than 550,000".

So either you don't say anything or provided the number provided by the article.

Comment Re:300-400 dollars buys a lot of paper books (Score 2) 415

Like 75-100 books. Do you really need an e-reader just to read? Plus many e-books are overpriced, where used books only cost 1 penny plus shipping.

If it were me I'd buy the cheaper e-book available which is the Kindle for $79. I wouldn't go spending hundreds of dollars on a device.

The problem with $300-$400 in books is: where are you going to put them?

The poster is already an avid reader, thus (s)he surely has a sizable amount of books. As you cannot buy (yet) 400sqf on Amazon to expand your home, space becomes a premium.

My 2 cents.

Comment My experience with Nook Color (Score 3, Interesting) 415

I had this same problem. I *love* to read, but I was hardly reading anything.

Then my wife got me a Nook Color. And it's awesome

- Decent price
- B&N reader (very good!)
- on-line dictionary (English is my 3rd language)
- I can read ePubs and PDFs fine
- New Nook Color has Netflix
- Rooteable and good Nook Rooter community
- B&N has free ebooks every week
- If you root it, you can install Kindle Android App
- MicroSD slot
- Decent battery life
- Not awful reading outside
- I can read at night
- (...)

So in those last 2 years I've read a lot, a little bit during lunch and some week-end marathons when wife is at work.

All in all, I love it and give it my OpKool Seal of Approval.

--- Peace!

Comment On TwiT.tv (Score 4, Informative) 97

by opkool (#40867083) Attached to: Where To View the Mars Curiosity Landing

I'll watch it at TwiT.tv -> http://twit.tv/2012/07/30/mars-landing-special-aug-5th-10pm-pdt

The presenters/guests to this event will be:

Jonathan Strickland (How Stuff Works) -> http://www.howstuffworks.com/jonathan-strickland-author1.htm
Dr Kiki (Dr Kiki Science Hour) -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_Sanford
Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) -> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/20/mars-attacks-of-the-show/
Steve Sell (JPL, Sky Crane) -> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/30jul_skycrane/

Hope they do a good job!

Peace!

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