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Comment: Re:Anchor effect is well known (Score 2) 298

by oblio_one (#43192143) Attached to: Why Trolls Win With Toxic Comments
But the idea is the fare market value of the TV could easily be $80. Having heard "Not 300...150" those are your anchors/comparisons, but do they have anything to do with the true value of the item? A study shows even considering unrelated numbers (last 2 digits of your own social security #) before making an evaluation will impact what value people assign to goods: http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Chapters/CA.pdf

Comment: Re:One should be proud *not* to have a CS degree (Score 1) 363

by oblio_one (#39895175) Attached to: Yahoo CEO Wrongly Claimed To Have Degree In Computer Science

LOL, I was getting paid that straight out of high school on a level 1 support job.

Few years later, performing third level support sitting on just under 90k no Uni degree.

Let's suppose (based on my anec-data ) that one could be making 120K after a few years out of school with a Uni degree.

At 133% your wage it will take roughly 12 years to make up the lost income one could have earned by going straight into level 1 support. If planning to retire at age 34 you're "LOL" is definitely warranted, as school was a bad decision. If planning to work even one year past that, ignoring all future promotions (which is where the degree really starts to come in handy) then you made the sub-optimal choice. "LOL"

Comment: Re:Unfortunately Nothing About Computer Science (Score 1) 123

by oblio_one (#37558510) Attached to: Science Manual For US Judges
XML has nothing to do with Computer Science, think of that Djikstra (I think?) quote “Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.” Implementation isn't computer science, XML is just some file format specification. If they included software industry common practices (I can't say best for xml) then maybe xml has a shot at getting in, but still it's more specific then they need.

Comment: CS undergrad word grab aside... (Score 2) 150

by oblio_one (#37195802) Attached to: When Algorithms Control the World
"Algorithms" (the word the author uses to mean machine controlled decision making) are just an available tool, like all tools there are examples of positive influence and examples of negative influence (the 3 incidents the author's highlight.) Like all tools people with free will choose to use it if they see the benefit. They don't come out and state "we should stop technological advancement b/c there is some risk," but that would be the natural conclusion of this line of thinking, which frankly is ridiculous. not seeing the point of the whole article.

Comment: Re:Books (Score 1) 725

by oblio_one (#34590380) Attached to: Retailers Dread Phone-Wielding Shoppers
One component of this is that those big purchases are usually financed. You don't pay £550 out of pocket and the amount it adds to your monthly payment is essentially nominal. Yes I know ti adds up over time to the same effect, but it helps people rationalize when they consider it 30 pence more a month or whatever.

Comment: Re:In completely unrelated news (Score 1) 725

by oblio_one (#34590342) Attached to: Retailers Dread Phone-Wielding Shoppers
They don't even need to block cell signal necessarily. Was recently shopping in an Apple retail store, which sells 3rd party accessories (cases, stylus, etc.) When I tried to use an app to price check the items, I found every bar code is covered with a sticker that has a different, Apple unique bar code on it. I couldn't access the actual UPC to price check online. When I started removing the sticker a sales clerk approached and asked what i was doing; shocked at the audacity of using ShopSavvy on Android to price check the 100 dollar case. So at least one retailer is blocking this physically.

Comment: Re:Where.. (Score 1) 1140

by oblio_one (#33818364) Attached to: Why Are We Losing Vertical Pixels?
This suggests that the "bottleneck" in reading is how quickly you can move your eyes across text, but that assumption is wrong. The bottleneck is your brain processing the data, in wide format your brain gets overloaded and eyes have to wait while the buffer unloads. Better to have eyes quickly deliver short bursts (newspaper width columns) then take time to move to the next line while brain is processing the initial burst. This is more comfortable and likely faster too(but I have no reference on it being faster.)

Comment: Re:I don't know what the complaint is about? (Score 1) 773

by oblio_one (#32614358) Attached to: Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names

Besides, your customer will be a lot more understanding of not getting an e-mail because he mistyped his address than being refused service because your software disapproves of it.

We must have very different customers. If there's any difference between the two levels of understanding in mine, it's in the noise.\ Sales manager says the customer is always right; please fix the website and email back Joe SixPack at trueeBeleiver@aol.com when it's working properly, if he doesn't get it I'll be calling you to ask why again.

Comment: Re:What about Google? (Score 1) 487

by oblio_one (#32537544) Attached to: Why No Billion-Dollar Open Source Companies?
You seem to be confusing communism with Socialism. Think Sweden or Canada, not 1980's Russia. Furthermore; even taking your point. Consider how wealth distribution tends to work in modern capitalist countries, very focused on the top. If the "serf" class in communism had a better quality of life (access to more resources, more leisure time, however you define that) then 90% of the free capitalist society members, would that really be such a bad deal ?
