Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

  • View

  • Discuss

  • Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

×

Comment: No. (Score 4, Informative) 421

by mcspoo (#46297759) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Should I Get Google Glass?

Unless you're rich and $1500 is a piddling amount of moola...

I also got an invite to order Google Glass and politely declined. $1500 is too much for a product that isn't fully realized. Yet, Google Glass holds interest to me because it holds a possibility of improving the lives of deaf folks like me... REAL TIME CAPTIONING, right in front of our eyes. That would completely change LIVES. (Yes, I recognize that similar technology on Youtube produces lamentable results.) What disappoints me is that Google doesn't seem to recognize it, or deems it an inadequate market to follow. You really think it wouldn't be cool to more or less create a version of the Babelfish from Hitchhiker's Guide? Or recognize that if you erased communication difficulties, you'd be one step closer to a civilized world where we can exchange ideas WITHOUT throwing poo?

Glass uses bone conduction for sound (which wouldn't work for a person with truly profound nerve deafness, like myself), and has stated that they do not recommend the Glass for deaf users. While it's not the same as "get to the back of the bus", it's still disappointing to be marginalized in such a way. But I'll remain hopeful that one day, Google recognizes what they could do for folks like me, and enable us to communicate with "norms" without ya'all looking like fools :)

Comment: Pace Makers and Cochlear Implants (Score 1, Funny) 255

Ask yourself this... do you trust Apple with your pace maker? Your cochlear implant?

Would you trust MICROSOFT with your pace maker (holy hellzapoppin' no)

I can just see it... " Your cochlear implant has reached it's maximum amount of words amplified for the day. In order to hear more today, you need to upgrade to MICROSOFT COCHLEAR PROFESSIONAL 8.1" or even worse "Oh shit. I'm sorry, I can't do anything else today. I'm only using PaceMaker XP and if my heart beats more than 86,400 times today, my pace maker will throw a very literal blue screen of death."

With Apple, it's be a shiny pace maker, with a lot of features that may or may not be compatible with any other implants... like if you have an MS Cochlear, you can't have an Apple Pace Maker..

Comment: Ask... (Score 1, Interesting) 387

by mcspoo (#46230541) Attached to: Ohio Attempting To Stop Tesla From Selling Cars, Again
Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer: "Fuck Beta!"

Seriously, tho... of course it's an underhanded tactic. It's not even new. The big "3" did the same thing when Tucker tried to revolutionize the industry. Automakers don't like change at anyone's pace but their own glacial plodding.

Comment: Never will be found (Score 1) 465

by mcspoo (#45855623) Attached to: Searching the Internet For Evidence of Time Travelers

The issue with searching for evidence in time travel is that once it's happened, no one would know it except the time traveler themselves, assuming they avoiding any paradoxes which eliminated their very existence, or eliminated the circumstance whereas they invented or gained assess to time travel proper. Once time travel (into the past, presumably) has taken place, all evidence of the previous time line is erased from existence. Therefore, only the word of the time traveler(s) itself exists to confirm or deny the actuality.

Unless of course, you have an appropriate tachyon emitter than can track the rate at which all matter in the universe spins and locate matter that is out of sync... localized to a single person or location or item that may have been sent back....

Comment: Re:Books perhaps... (Score 1) 149

by mcspoo (#45146217) Attached to: Neil Gaiman On Why Libraries Are the Gates to the Future

Your mistake here is assuming that libraries do not evolve and are all about books.

Been to your local library lately? You'll find it filled with much much more than books. Meeting rooms for public events. Study rooms for single or group study. Free public wireless for your wireless enabled equipment. Computers for those who don't have them at home. DVD's and BluRays for entertainment. Art for the masses. Databases for in library or remote access, including utilities to learn a new language, or get help with your homework. Video Games in a variety of platforms. Movie nights and zombie lock ins. Classes on Informational Literacy in the Digital Age. Full of vibrant people, and fantastic energy for folks of ALL ages.

Libraries are much MUCH more than just books. They're a community gathering place staffed by exciting professionals who's sole goal is to ensure your access to information, literacy, entertainment, history, and so very much more.

Comment: Re:I really keep forgetting about ChromeOS (Score 1) 133

by mcspoo (#42820803) Attached to: Why Google Needs To Launch the Chromebook Pixel

Chromebooks are actually quite good for newbs. As long as they have "one of us" to set it up, connect to their wireless (home or public), they are absolutely perfect for people who use computers for nothing for than web browsing, facebooking and email. The price point works for lower income users, and there is a growing movement to bring them into public/community service like libraries and schools. That's probably where the majority of sales are coming from.

The touch enable is probably just a "MS did it, so did we." type thing. The Chromebook is probably more usable than a Surface anyhow...

Comment: Re:Why? (Score 1) 90

by mcspoo (#42607341) Attached to: Public Library Exclusively For Digital Media Proposed
In theory, if everything could be done electronically, it would significantly lower the cost of having a public Library...

Of course, the building on this article would be minimally staffed, probably not offer storytimes, or other public gathering events... but it would be cheaper, and still fulfill the "basic" tenets of what a Library "was".

Comment: Re:maybe their times have passed? (Score 1) 90

by mcspoo (#42607301) Attached to: Public Library Exclusively For Digital Media Proposed

Cool. you have digital literacy.

Many people do not. Many people do not possess your skill set for finding relevant information using Google. You'd be amazed the number of people who can't tell the difference between a real information, and Wikipedia spam.

Librarians are TRAINED to find this information. Your questions ARE the type of questions we deal with every day. We do this for the people who don't have your level of digital and informational literacy. And when you're stuck? (if that ever happens?) Come to the Library. We'll help you too ;)

Comment: Re:maybe their times have passed? (Score 4, Insightful) 90

by mcspoo (#42603265) Attached to: Public Library Exclusively For Digital Media Proposed

Haven't been to a public library lately, have you?

Libraries have moved FAR FAR beyond the staid old stereotype of "shh"ing school marms in reading glasses. I have worked in Libraries for over 20 years now, and I can tell you that we are busier now than we have EVER been. eBooks haven't been a negative to us, but the treatment of libraries by publishers has been a negative to ebook users. I'm really happy that someone is looking as far forward as this article, but I'd love to know more about how they expect it to work.

and negative viewpoints yours are normally the result of someone who hasn't used their public library in a long time. You can either ask Google and get a thousand answers, or you can ask a Librarian and get the right answer.

Comment: Fascinating Idea; BIG issues to overcome (Score 4, Informative) 90

by mcspoo (#42603195) Attached to: Public Library Exclusively For Digital Media Proposed

The big issues involve licensing for eBooks and the fact that publishers seem to engage in punitive pricing with Libraries. Example: One publisher declares that an ebook can only be checked out 27 times, then the license for that expires. Multiple publishers REFUSE to sell ebooks for Library use. Libraries are treated like pirates by many publishers.

Now, different companies are trying different models. Kansas libraries spearheaded a massive campaign to control their own ebooks licensing, and they succeeded with an unprecedented project of contacting hundreds of Publishers and finagling acceptable licenses for public usage. Will the San Antonio folks be doing this? Do they expect 3M, Sirsi, or Polaris to do this?

A tertiary issue is the license themselves. Typically in libraries, you cannot use a library owned computer to capture or transfer the license to an ereader device. This is because in the case of "USB required devices or items", the license exists on the COMPUTER itself. Downloading a license to a public computer currently violates all applicable copyright law for ebooks/eaudio materials because it makes the license available to all (or the license is lost when a computer reboots and doesn't save anything at all between sessions.)

Intriguing idea, but the article doesn't include any comprehension of the issues involved in this. Just because it sounds "cool", doesn't mean it's doable.

"I think Michael is like litmus paper - he's always trying to learn." -- Elizabeth Taylor, absurd non-sequitir about Michael Jackson

Working...
http://slashdot.org/~mcspoo/tags/funny
slashdot.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-14
97275
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:NERQQYQDX6EBXWSFCGGW4NDRJKCRRYAV
<urn:uuid:240fb76c-7612-40e8-848e-5e5ce2c3c82d>
2015-04-01T18:53:25Z
216.34.181.45
sha1:FUEJR2WNC7D6FRCO7MNM3NQJBUVHNGUR
<urn:uuid:f80f650d-8106-4780-b16c-65a8fb1a1b46>
http://slashdot.org/~mcspoo/tags/funny
response
<urn:uuid:0c7716d9-a908-465a-b658-3a5f01423064>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-168-14-71.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-14
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for March 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf