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Comment: I live in Montana. I'm looking forward to it. (Score 3, Interesting) 384

by vinn (#47417695) Attached to: Blueprints For Taming the Climate Crisis

I live in Montana and I'm rather looking forward to global warming. This place is gonna be even more amazing when it gets warmer. I might even have to buy a summer home in the Yukon.

On a slightly more serious note, as Winston Churchill once said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Comment: duh: arch (Score 4, Interesting) 176

by vinn (#47326577) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is It Feasible To Revive an Old Linux PC Setup?

Obviously architecture is the biggest hindrance to what you proposed.

You could get away with some modern hardware, as long as it's x86 based. Or, maybe what you really want to consider is virtualizing an old distro on other modern hardware along with a modern distro, assuming the other modern hardware supports it.

There is some novelty in running old stuff, and I suppose everyone goes through that phase (along with the "I'm going to build a massive home network with multiple servers and run my own email" phase). But, I suspect you'll tire of it so you're just better off keeping it at a small budget and use hardware you can repurpose when you get bored with that little experiment.

Comment: suecenter.org (Score 1) 552

by vinn (#47075617) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Communication With Locked-in Syndrome Patient?

First off, be sure to read that post higher up about the guy who had a similar condition due to a ski accident - heed his advice - get a brain stem specialist contacted ASAP.

Down the road, you may want to consider looking at some software that was put together and found at suecenter.org. The fella who developed it is very enthusiastic about it and willing to help out. It doesn't sound like she has enough motor movement yet for the tracker to work, but conceivably you could attach the tracker to her lip to let her control the mouse in the application.

Prayers to ya.

Comment: DIY? (Score 1) 408

by vinn (#47019303) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Anti-Theft Products For the Over-Equipped Household?

What about some kind of DIY thing? Get a Raspberry Pi, use the GPIO pins to run some wires from the cases of each device (something thing like telco cross-connect), drive it and if the circuit breaks then send out an email or something. Bonus points for integrating a camera and snapping photos at the same time the wires break. Similarly, if the device is an always on kind of thing, just use some kind of network monitoring.

Comment: Re:Stop dicking around on the network, sign payche (Score 1) 125

by vinn (#46870443) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Intelligently Moving From IT Into Management?





Comment: Dear Boneheads: Don't ever be happy on paper (Score 4, Interesting) 467

by vinn (#46772905) Attached to: Survey: 56 Percent of US Developers Expect To Become Millionaires







Comment: Itemizing? Pay someone. (Score 1) 386

by vinn (#46758555) Attached to: Slashdot Asks: How Do You Pay Your Taxes?

At the point where you can itemize your deductions, you're better off paying someone else to do you taxes. A good accountant will more than pay for themselves - you'll likely be able to recoup thousands of dollars. A normal human just can't stay on top of the US tax code enough from year to year to know how to file for every qualifying deduction.

Finding the right accountant/tax preparer is very important. I don't have a lot of tips there other than asking around - I recommend asking some small business owners who they use. I've gone through 4 different accountants over the past ten years. One got me audited, two were just so-so, and now I have one that's fantastic. You probably don't want to go to one of those tax mill places like HR Block, although there is some advantage to working with someone who sees A LOT of tax returns. You probably also don't want to go to a big CPA firm that doesn't a lot of business work.

Even more important, if you don't own your own business yet, you need to create one. Filing an LLC is fairly simple in most states. Your business should be fairly in line with one of your hobbies and the writeoffs will be well worth it.

Comment: Still prohibited from importing computers.. (Score 1) 46

by vinn (#46231831) Attached to: North Korean Business Park Getting Internet Access

Keep in mind, US sanctions against North Korea mean key technologies make it difficult to import computers. Although these days there's so many ways to get mobile devices that might be a moot point.

Last year we were in South Korea and we went on one of the popular "DMZ Tours". So, on the tour you go to Dorason Station, which is the jumping off point from South Korea onto the rail line into North Korea, and then after that you go up a hill and look into North Korea. From that overlook, you can see Kaesong, which I think is about 7 miles over the border or so.

My guess is that this is going to be a simple and highly restricted system. A lot of management is from South Korea, so they'll give them access. From there, the simplest way would be a straight wireless shot to South Korea, but maybe N. Korea can make a play to get their paws on the traffic.

Interesting factoid, North Korea's official GDP (not counting it's counterfeit currency, drug and arms trade) is about $12 billion. Of that, $2 billion comes from trade generated by Kaesong. So when North Korea cut off access to Kaesong, it effectively made the decision to shut down 17% of its economy overnight.

Comment: How about a poll? (Score 1) 2219

by vinn (#46191707) Attached to: Slashdot Tries Something New; Audience Responds!

Apparently NO ONE has listened since the beta period began. I realize Timothy and Soulskill are replying above, but clearly no one has done any work on the actual site. Is there anyone who likes anything about the new beta? Put me in the *it blows fucking donkeyballs* category; for all the reasons cited above - broken comments, terrible layout, terrible waste of space.

So why not do a poll on it?

* I like the new beta
* I don't like it, but it's fixable
* It's terrible
* It's so terrible I'll quit using the site if you keep the design
* Print out the new website on dead trees and shove it up CowboyNeal's ass

Comment: What works in SoCal should stay in SoCal (Score 1) 506

by vinn (#45612157) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Why So Hard Landing Interviews In Seattle Versus SoCal?

The Pacific Northwest has reached it's max quota of Californians. Sorry, but we really don't want any more. Please consider reapplying after you've mounted a roof rack on your vehicle, own a kayak, mountain bike and a pair of tele skis (road bikes and snowboards are for pussies and white rappers.) Also, you'll need to complete 6 months working as a barista in order to fully appreciate the nuances of coffee. Finally, if you decide to whine about anything and/or compare it to SoCal, you'll be deported.

Comment: Team up with a marketing contractor (Score 1) 629

by vinn (#45539453) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Are We Older Experts Being Retired Too Early?

Find a contractor who works in the marketing field - you know, someone who specializes in things like building websites, developing CRM programs for companies, etc. Often the smaller marketing contractors have a hell of a time finding a tech person who can help support their projects. They also don't understand the nuances of how a lot of pieces of technology fit together. However, and most importantly for you, marketing budgets are fantastic if you're on the contractor end.

Comment: I'm weird, I like it. (Score 1) 462

by vinn (#45328703) Attached to: Re: Daylight Saving Time, I would most like

I usually travel to third world, tropical countries for about 2 months of the year. Whenever I'm traveling, I try to cut myself off as much as I can from technology and just kind of roll with the schedule of the locals. Now, most tropical countries don't have much of a need for DST - the sun comes up about 6am and it goes down about 6pm. There's not a lot of variation to that through the year.

As a result, I get really used to waking up when the sun comes up (..and the roosters crow) and going to bed a few hours after the sun goes down.

When I come back, there's a bizarre change to my internal clock that really messes me up. DST seems to normalize this a bit for me, at least in the middle of winter the sun is on it's way while I'm on my way to work and in the summer at least it's not coming up before 5am. (Yes, I live in pretty high latitudes for the US.)

Comment: Re:The interface F*CKING SUCKS: no news here (Score 1) 435

by vinn (#45288197) Attached to: The Case Against Gmail

So here's more detail on the work flow I need.

First, I'm subscribed to multiple open source mailing lists. Ok, awesome, I filtered those into the "Forums" tab so I don't have look at those emails, like, pretty much ever. (I read them about twice a week these days since I'm not as active with those projects any more.) That works.

I get all the usual promo emails. There's a few, like Brad's List that I actually like as well as my Skymiles emails, ok, awesome, I filter those to the Promo tab so I never have to see them.

Then, I'm on my local city council. So I have a bunch of email that spills in related to that. Those just get dumped directly into my inbox because there's no easy way to filter them since I have no idea where they're coming from. Those are tough. And I have to keep them/archive them since it's official business.

My new work related emails I've attempted to apply filters to since I mostly know the domains they originate from. But the label that's applied is gray, and my normal inbox has a gray background. I don't know how to change that color and it makes it pretty useless to have a label. Now, I can click on the Label in the left nav, however it's normally hidden because Gmail insists on showing hangout information at the bottom and it clutters the labels list.

And we haven't gotten how to manage the rest of my personal email.

What sucks is all of that shows up all in one puked up blah of a Primary mailbox. Those are three radically different areas of my life and it looks like a trainwreck to my brain because when I'm thinking of work, the past thing I was to see is an email from my mother with the subject line of, "Did you get the cookies yet?" Then I'm completely distracted thinking about a) going to the post office and b) cookies.

I think the simple paradigm here is, I want my inbox to be "Everything Else" but instead it's "Everything".
