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Comment Another vote for Thunderbird (Score 1) 181

I use T-bird's RSS client for the few sites that I want to keep up on that haven't dropped RSS support.

Years ago I tried it for Slashdot, but found that I much prefer just keeping the front page open with messages selected by date; when I finish one day, I change the URL to the next day, usually staying a day or two behind (so nobody reads replies like this one because everyone else has moved on!)

Comment Add my vote for Brother laser (Score 1) 92

I switched from primarily ordering Okidata LEDs to Brother LASERs something over 25 years ago (sold my last used Oki in 2000) and have been pretty happy with them ever since. I've found them to be a good value in print volumes ranging from 5-5000 pages/month.

Unlike ink, toner ages well; you don't have to throw it out because you didn't print enough and it dried out. Supplies for Brother printers are cheap, esp. now that there's a ton of generics. I've been buying toner at 4/$35 or kits with a drum+3 toners for $50.

In my own office, I've been using my current DCP-L2540DW PSC as my main printer since Nov 2014, have printed 34k pages, and my consumables cost/pg has stayed around $.002-.004 while my TCO is now below $.007 (I only paid $85 for it.)

Linux support for Brother is above-average. I've never found a laser printer that didn't work w/ generic drivers I had available, with at least close to full functionality with Brother-provided drivers. Let's not talk about their ink jet & thermal printers, though. :-(

I've used two of their color lasers, and while I don't like them as much as their mainstream B&Ws, they still compare similarly to other brands as the B&Ws (i.e. lower cost, easy to get supplies for, better Linux support).

Comment Re:Is the uniform assumption valid? (Score 1) 62

It doesn't matter if Google's distribution is random or not if the sampling's random and is being taken from the entire space; this is true no matter how ordered or random Google's distribution is. If 1% of the space is filled, then a random sample of the space will uncover that, whatever the videos are. Likewise, once you hit a video that was randomly picked from the entire space, its characteristics compared to other videos are still that of a random pick, no matter how Google may have arranged them.

Comment Returning to the root issue... (Score 1) 85

Ignoring the poll question, but addressing the topic that prompted the question...

Car manufacturers dropped AM because it was clearly interfered with by the vehicle electronics and they didn't want customers complaining about it.

Do note that though FM is more resistant to it, FM reception *is* degraded by the noise (just not as much) but it's not as *obvious* to the listener; they just chalk it up to weak reception. Same thing happened w/ the DTV transition; w/ analog, it was clear when a neighbor was interfering with you; with DTV people know their reception is flaky, but they have no idea why, and just chalk it up to weak signal.

As a ham radio operator, one part of me would like to see broadcast AM mandated, because holding vehicle manufacturers to a higher standard of interference suppression would be good for the RF ecosystem overall -- just just on my sensitive ham bands, but for cell phones and everything else.

However, I'm against useless legislation, and my fear is that saying "You must put an AM broadcast receiver in your car" isn't going to achieve anything useful. Now that they're only putting it in because the law demands it -- not because most of their customers are listening to it -- if the law doesn't say they have to put a *good*, *useful* receiver in there, then if reception is trash due to the local RFI they just shrug and say "Well, that's why we didn't want to put it in!" and nothing was accomplished.

Comment Warehouse != Steel plant (Score 1) 81

They compare retail warehouses to steel plants as if one replaced the other. The only similarity I see is that they both use big buildings! The equivalent to an Amazon warehouse worker isn't a steelworker; it's another retail worker (a store employee or a distribution warehouse worker). How many retail workers are/were unionized?

Comment Re:Do I understand this correctly? (Score 1) 110

1. Disney, not the plaintiff, is the arbiter's paying customer
2. Who says they're not? If Disney asked to "opt opt" of arbitration and the plaintiff changed their mind and wanted to deny them that privilege and force them back to Disney-hired arbitration, they surely wouldn't get any argument!

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