Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Bigger, faster, better, more - no! (Score 1) 253

I'll argue the exact opposite. There's better television from the streaming services than at any time in the history of network television. If you're stuck watching CSI reruns and Fox and Friends for some reason, I do feel for you. There's so much good television on nowadays, a person doesn't have enough hours in a day to watch it all.

Comment Zestimate can be contested (Score 1) 231

There's a giant "I disagree with this Zestimate" right under the Zestimate. It allows you to offer a real appraisal (which generally costs money -- in Northern California it's around $400) through an agent.

And the Zestimate is going to go up and down, just like any other estimate. If the house next to yours sells for $100,000 less than you might have thought, your house will likely drop in value. Your house might sell for a lot more, but the value will drop regardless as neighborhoods count towards your appraisal.

But yes, the Zestimate is inaccurate at best. But then, most appraisals, even the $400 ones, are just best guesses -- they look at your house, comparable sales if any, the neighborhood trend. Our house was appraised at $30K more than we expected -- more than the realtor expected too (appraisals in NorCal are independent of realtors for obvious reasons). But this magically put us above water on the home and we were able to refinance -- just because of a best guess at the value of our house by a "professional".

Comment Re:Star Wars ? (Score 1) 542

I wonder how long we'll have to wait before a proper new and original franchise star up.

There was Firefly and Serenity. And I believe the Kingkiller Chronicles have been optioned. The Expanse is a TV show. Movies, in general, do the subject matter little justice -- either too little character development time or too little Sci Fi/Fantasy time.

Just so long as they don't remake the Princess Bride. I'll quit TV then.

Comment Anonymity and Culture (Score 1) 477

Slashdot has declined in this regard since I joined a decade or so ago. Maybe because most people here were here for the discussions and not...well...whatever the first half of the posts above are here for.

But I'll tell you that aggressive people on the internet isn't a new fad. Gaming forums from the 90s had it too. My guess:

1) without a way to call someone out, people will say anything. Anonymous cowards -- you can't point to an old post and say they've done a turnabout, etc.

2) more people, more anonymous people and the culture has changed. Politeness is rare on forums that everyday people inhabit -- and now there are a lot more people on the internet and they've grown up in a culture of saying whatever you want on the internet.

All I can say is good luck and ignore most things.

Comment Support Time? (Score 1) 187

If the IT team grabs the equipment after the game, they have a whole week (at least 4 days) to reconfigure and test. And I imagine, given how much the NFL spends on things, they have their "Field communications equipment IT Team" to deal with the Surfaces alone, never mind the headsets and such which fall under the "Field Audio Equipment Team". There's always a chance they've skimped on IT and spent it on extra gatorade bottle holders, but that would surprise me.

Comment Fine them (Score 4, Insightful) 97

It's pointless to try to remove someone's internet access and ridiculous to assume that an ISP is in any way liable. It's a lot like driving -- the DMV can revoke a license but it doesn't stop people from driving, and you can't call the Dept of Public Transportation and blame them.

Lawsuit should be against the single user.

Gosh, I thought this whole copyright infringement nonsense was settled with iTunes "pay 30 cents more, share it with whomever you like" policy from 5 years ago.

Comment I don't get it (Score 1) 165

Like many posters above, I'm a little dismayed this made news. The title of the article is clickbait. We share passwords all the time at work -- heck, we have a password sharing application to make it easy to do so. But we only share passwords with people authorized to use them. If someone who wasn't authorized to use them is given one to access services, and is caught, then both that person and the person who gave the password to an unauthorized user broke the rules.

Dumbest quote: The question that legal scholars, groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and dissenting judge Stephen Reinhardt ask is an important one: Authorization from who?"

The question is asked as if it's a mystery fit for Sherlock Holmes. To pretty much everyone involved in every scenario...ever...they know who authorizes access. My house? Me. My company's financial records? CFO. My company's file server at work? Probably a bunch of people for different pieces of it (depending on the groups who are accessing: HR, Finance, Accounting, etc) and not the IT guys. Sure, the IT guys HAVE access (usually to the whole thing), and you could even say they hand out the keys. But someone authorizes them to do so.

So this is dumb. Guy is not authorized to access his old company's servers. Some friend who IS authorized gives him his password. Both should be penalized. And both are technically hackers as they are allowing unauthorized access to data.

Comment I read it (Score 2) 309

"The court finds that Defendant possessed no reasonable expectation of privacy in his computer's IP address, so the Government's acquisition of the IP address did not represent a prohibited Forth Amendment search."

"The court cautioned, however, that its decision was limited to the fact that the researchers 'obtained the defendant's IP address while he was using the Tor network and [the researchers were] operating nodes on that network, and not by any access to his computer.'"

The defendant was claiming the warrant was invalid, which it was deemed not to be, but finding the IP address of the person's computer was not something that required a warrant.

Case...dismissed?

Comment Re:Hydogen is just a way to store energy (Score 4, Interesting) 630

That was...that was like the Onion or something. That's like saying Subway saying they're nervous about the pizza place because the pizza place doesn't use buns. Oil companies don't care how gas is distributed -- and they certainly don't care how hydrogen is distributed, as long as there is gas involved somewhere.

Fuel cell cars have been "on the verge" since the mid 90s -- I worked with a couple people who eventually were employed by Nissan and Honda. There are FCVs out there -- but they aren't efficient, there isn't a hydrogen infrastructure, etc. The idea of an FCV is nice: no giant battery, no pollution from the car...but like the Tesla employee said, there's a cost to getting hydrogen into the cars -- the whole cycle is a challenge to make efficient. Ideally, it may be cleaner than giant batteries from cradle to grave...but even after decades of work, it's still not there yet.

I think of the idea of roads that charge the cars as they drive...but that's not too far from just having cars get loaded onto a train for long distances. The US, at least in its populous areas, should think more about mass transit. Futuristic mass transit (think Asimov) Heck, even Uber and Lyft are making a dent in everyone using their car all the time.

Comment Revenue difference (Score 1) 112

Even though Netflix has twice as many subscribers, doesn't the average Comcast customer pay near $100/month? Compared to $10-$15 for Netflix.

I have Comcast now and actually have never really had an issue with them aside from how much they charge. And that when you drop a package from their Double or Triple play deals, you end up paying almost as much for one less...

Comment Re:Why stay? (Score 1) 729

I'm kind of on the side of the GP: "I think you need to distinguish between an idealized free market system and a free market system with some controls and moderation that actually works to reduce the kinds of societal tensions that can really be disruptive and destructive to people's lives."

This is kind of important and kind of what civilization is bringing us to. The combination of the free market and the laws that favor ownership is a bit barbaric for a country that is flush with money. It caters to the wealthy and actively keeps other down, so long as everyone plays by the rules that favor the rich. It's like a game where the more times you win, the stronger you get, and the weaker your opponent gets. Those are dumb rules, but it seems to be the rules we're currently playing by.

The idea of the 99% movement was to say you can't have it both ways. You can't be rich, however you got there, and then actively try to keep other people from getting rich too. That's only "competition" when the rules aren't skewed in the wealthy people's favor. Don't get me wrong...they've ALWAYS been skewed in that direction. I think it's time to change that. The wealthy live on the backs of the poor and middle class: it's a simple task to say: "Anyone making over $200,000 per year will pay 30% in federal taxes, which will go towards education, infrastructure, and pretty much anything but the military which has enough money. Sales of stock and funds included."

Executives will be more willing to spread the wealth to their employees. Minimum wages might rise on their own, but they'll also be capped on their own which should serve to keep the prices of goods at a reasonable level. SF is expensive because the salaries they pay are so high. Cap the salaries, prices should come down. /off soapbox //definitely voting for Bernie in the primary

Slashdot Top Deals

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. -- Edmund Burke

Working...