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User: kasparov

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  1. Re:Thanks socialized medicine. on Cancer Patient Receives 3D-Printed Titanium Sternum and Ribs · · Score: 4, Informative

    > On $180k income, Australian's pay 50% taxes whereas American's only pay 28%. No, they don't. This grossly overstates how much is paid. They pay almost 45% on every dollar *over* $180k + the tax from the various income brackets below. At $180k, they would have an effective overall tax rate of 30.3%. The amount of tax paid asymptotically approaches 45% as their income approaches infinity.

  2. Re:So.... on CNN and CBC Sued For Pirating YouTube Video · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...the display of all religious artifacts on public land...

    Wow - maybe we should remove all those Christian artifacts (specifically, crosses) from Arlington National Cemetery to satisfy your lust for de-Christianizing all government property, eh? ;)

    Have you been there? The monuments aren't crosses. They're just tombstones. The individual buried can have different logos be they crosses, stars of david, or symbols denoting atheism.

  3. Actually, it does. Many people do not exert themselves enough to produce a significant amount of sweat. Many people work indoors where the climate is controlled and there is very little dirt. Most of the moist bits are covered with undergarments that are washed regularly. Jeans can be worn many, many, many times without acquiring dirt or smell. My skin is much happier if I shower every other day. I tend to shower every morning anyway because it helps me wake up. But, my skin is always very dry when I do. I sit around and write code from home all day. I don't really tend to pick up a lot of dirt or odor unless I work out (which obviously requires a shower and clean clothes--but I don't wear my jeans to work out).

  4. Re:That long ago? on Greg Bear, Others Cry Foul on Project Gutenberg Copyright Call · · Score: 1

    Copyright is a completely artificial right to a temporary monopoly for an arbitrarily chosen amount of time. I'm a little less excited about such a right being abridged than if it were something like freedom of speech. Copyright merely protects a particular kind of business model.

  5. Re:What can a home user do with askerisk? on Asterisk 1.8 Released With Support For Google Voice · · Score: 2, Informative

    You get an inbound number with Google Voice. You can now have that routed to an Asterisk box. From there, you could do any kind of filtering of the call you want. You could have Asterisk check your calendar to see if you are currently in a meeting and handle the call differently from there. You could get a SIP client for your smartphone and register it to your Asterisk box at home and then make make free outbound calls with Google Voice w/o having to have any voice plan. Asterisk makes it possible to do just about anything you want with a call. If you want to set it up so you only receive calls from one group of numbers M-F 8-5, and want only certain contacts to be able to call you after midnight--no problem. If you are a control freak, you should love Asterisk.

  6. Re:Vs Freeswitch on Asterisk 1.8 Released With Support For Google Voice · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are wrong. Asterisk 1.8 supports SRTP. I know, because I merged it myself. :-p

  7. Re:Private Info? on 37 States Join Investigation of Google Street View · · Score: 1

    People need to realize that being in public is not private. There is no way to enforce that anything you do in public *isn't* recorded--regardless of what laws are passed. I think people need to realize this and modify their behavior appropriately. Having a mismatch between expected privacy and actual privacy causes people all kinds of problems. It would be much better to realize that when you are in public, you have no expectation of privacy.

  8. The pain!!! on US Deploys 'Heat-Ray' In Afghanistan · · Score: 1

    I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

  9. Re:Help me benefit from media hype on Toyota Acceleration and Embedded System Bugs · · Score: 1

    The computer may not let you do that with the car moving and the engine at high rpm. After all, the engine and/or transmission might be damaged (another design defect).

    This is just completely wrong. I drive a 2007 Toyota Prius and I tested it the other day by flooring it and then shifting into neutral. Worked like a champ. The Prius transmission doesn't have discrete gears. Shifting into neutral will not harm the transmission. Also keep in mind that the engine routinely shuts off and on and that cutting electric power to the drive is also quite simple. I did have to hold the shifter in the neutral position for about a second to get it to do the shift--I assume because they want to make sure the joystick-like shifter wasn't accidentally bumped into the wrong position.

  10. I think I've seen this before... on MIT Offers Picture-Centric Programming To the Masses With Sikuli · · Score: 1

    It is basically expect script for GUIs.

  11. Re:"Success Rate" not "Accuracy" on Nano-Scale Robot Arm Moves Atoms With 100% Accuracy · · Score: 1

    accuracy != precision :-) If they are wanting to put the item "right over there" and it is "right over there" 100% of the time, they have achieved 100% accuracy. They just might not have very precise goals.

  12. Re:Tell it to the plastic clown on Uniforms For the Help Desk? · · Score: 1

    Actually, my department did this. I liked it because I didn't have to pick out what to wear each day. But, then again, I'm lazy about such things. On one hand it is good from a "if someone isn't wearing that shirt and is screwing with your computer, something is definitely wrong" stand point. On the other hand, I suppose it might make people more apt to not question anyone who happened to be wearing the shirt whether or not they were really a member of the department.

  13. Re:[OT] Re:Complete crap on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 1

    Sorry to hear you had trouble. I suppose every project attracts some people who aren't the most patient with newcomers--and that is always a shame. I can certainly understand being irritated by that. I am glad that you found a project that works for you.

  14. Re:Complete crap on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 1

    Yeah, like I said in another post--there are lots of great people and developers (I *suppose* developers are people too) in both the FS and Asterisk communities (in fact there is a decent amount of overlap). His behavior is in no way typical of the FS people I've dealt with.

  15. [OT] Re:Complete crap on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, I was just annoyed at your impolite behavior at the time with all of the spamming. Then I noticed this story and saw that you are still at it. I'm glad you found a solution that works for you. Many people have also found other solutions that work great for them, including Asterisk.

    Part of having such a huge user community is that the Asterisk devs have 100s of feature requests or bug reports at any given time. If someone is having a problem that is only having an effect on a very small number of people, sometimes it takes longer to fix than other problems. Everyone has to prioritize.

    Also, the quality of the debugging information that is presented is also a major factor in how long it takes to get a problem fixed. This is a good example of 3 or 4 actual Asterisk developers trying work on one of your issues and you being rude to them and not giving them the debug information they requested.

    I understand that having an issue that is affecting you take a while to get closed is annoying, but something being open for a week with no real information provided to help track it down is certainly no reason to get react the way you did.

    And us Asterisk users aren't pissed about FreeSWITCH existing--that is just silly. The more choices out there, the better! We just don't like people coming over and shouting YOU SUCK and doing the equivalent of spray painting our walls with "FreeSWITCH RULEZ!" like you did with the bug tracker. That is just childish. There are many excellent and polite freeswitch users and developers--I just don't think that you are one of them.

  16. Re:Complete crap on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've used Asterisk in installations with 10s of thousands of users--and this was probably 4 years ago or so. It certainly wasn't initially designed for it--but it will most certainly do the job if you are willing to put in the work. And it is light years ahead of where it was when I was using it for carrier-grade operations.

    Don't get me wrong, there are certainly things that need improvement--especially in the area of being able to do live migrations and failover w/o dropping calls, but there are some truly massive Asterisk installations out there.

  17. Re:Complete crap on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember you...you were that guy that spammed the asterisk bug tracker saying that people should switch to FreeSWITCH on about 10 different bugs. Nice to see that some things never change.

  18. Re:Complete crap on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 1

    You don't have to compile asterisk any differently to run it as non-root, you just have to set up the permissions on files/directories appropriately and set runuser/grungroup in asterisk.conf.

  19. Re:Lock Down Your Phones, People! on Asterisk Vishing Attacks "Endemic" · · Score: 1

    Just using FreeSWITCH is not a security solution. It isn't like Asterisk is designed to route toll calls for all callers as a default or something. Software has bugs. Some bugs are security problems. Make sure you apply security updates ASAP. Asterisk even has a mailing list specifically for security updates which makes it super simple to know when you really need to apply a patch.

  20. Re:Put down chairman Mao's little red book on Car Glass Rules Could Impair Cell, GPS and Radio Signals In CA · · Score: 1

    That's not how we do things in the USA. People are free to buy the products they want - and it is their responsibility to select appropriately. If you live here and you don't like it, I suggest you leave and go somewhere where freedom is frowned upon, like the UK for example.

    It is most certainly how we do things in the USA. We have laws that benefit society at the cost of individual liberty. We can't kill each other without getting in trouble. Littering will get you a fine. Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is illegal. Smoking in public is banned in many places. One of the main purposes of forming societies is to protect the group from the selfishness of the individual. Deal with it. You may disagree with where to draw the line, but don't act like the line doesn't exist.

  21. Re:what to do, what to do on Initial Tests Fail To Find Gravitational Waves · · Score: 1

    I think there is a language barrier here. Saying "For most ID claims you can not craft an experiemtn [sic] to even proof [sic] it" is the exact same thing in English as saying "Most ID claims are not falsifiable."

    Also "proof" is a noun, and "prove" is the verb that you are looking for.

  22. Cool, but not as cool as ... on 'Lab On a Chip' Made From Paper and Tape · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... microfluidic Shrinky-dinks! All you need is a laser printer, shrinky dinks, and a toaster oven. :-)

  23. Re:Asterisk? on Using My PC For Plain Old Telephone Service? · · Score: 1

    I fail to see how audio would pick up "a significant delay going through the Digium card". The delay introduced would almost certainly be less than a standard call that was routed through Asterisk as a PSTN gateway to a SIP phone--something that is one of the most common uses of Asterisk.

    Also, Asterisk has the ability to use both hardware and software-based echo cancellation. I've used Asterisk for hotel phone systems, a nation-wide VoIP provider, and for handling my home phone--I have never experienced an issue like that which you describe.

  24. Re:Isn't price the key? on Avalanche Effect Demonstrated In Solar Cells · · Score: 1

    So your turbine is 25 meters tall--how wide is it? Assuming just one turbine and it is 25 meters wide as well (assuming your turbine is a circle!), then 1MW / (25m)^2 = 1600 W/m^2 compared to 1000 W/m^2. Doesn't seem like that big of a difference to me. And I'm guessing that your turbine uses a lot more materials than an equivalent surface area of (albeit mythical 100% efficient) solar panels...I'm just sayin' that the potential of the sun per area isn't too shabby in comparison. (and I hope that my math isn't just plain stupid)

  25. Oh... on Gaining System-Level Access To Vista · · Score: 4, Informative

    So having physical access to a machine can allow you to get system-level access? Weird. Here's a hint...boot into Linux. At the grub prompt, select edit and add "single" to the line of kernel options. Short of a completely encrypted drive, you are pretty much SOL if someone has physical access to your machine. Sorry.