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User: nanoflower

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  1. Re:Let me fix that for you... on Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comments that, according to what I heard, may not have happened because it wasn't exactly clear what he said. Also they never went on air with the comments. Lastly the racist remark was in completing a certain nursery rhyme in a way that I'm everyone reading this has done at least once in your mind if not verbally. It's something that can't be avoided when the N word is being mentioned all the time either as something not to be said or as something that comes up all the time in rap and common conversations involving black people (yes, I know it's not supposed to be the same word but it sure sounds the same.)

    I'm not suggesting that racist comments are something that anyone should indulge in whether in public or private, but given the context and Clarkson's tendency to try and be funny on camera I can see him saying it as part of the rhyme knowing that it won't make it on air. At worst someone should have said don't do that, but that he got a warning from the BBC seems overkill to me. It would be entirely different if he did that in front of an audience and not just while recording some set piece that they were probably working on all day long. From what I read they had already filmed the same segment three times so he was probably a bit bored.

  2. Re:is this good? on Many Password Strength Meters Are Downright Weak, Researchers Say · · Score: 1

    I remember working at one place where the phone system had a password on each account that was forced to change every three months. The problem was that the system remembered every password you used and wouldn't let you repeat one. That seems a bit overkill for simple voice mail.

  3. Re:I don't buy it. on Internet of Things Endangered By Inaccurate Network Time, Says NIST · · Score: 1

    Why would it need to be that much. The devices should be able to maintain their own vision of time accurately enough that syncing to the outside world once a day would be more than enough. If you have a master time server inside the house the traffic won't even hit the world outside of your home.

  4. Re:This is pretty common. on Microsoft Says Free Windows 10 Upgrades For Pirates Will Be Unsupported · · Score: 1

    I don't see how I can resell my digital copy of Windows 8.1 that I'm running now even though it's legal. I suppose I do get the benefit of being able to call Msft but doesn't cost money? Only time I ever called them was when this copy decided it wasn't legitimate one day so I had to call up and get that fixed.

  5. Re:Not to do the Maths for you, but on Feds Fine Verizon $3.4 Million Over 911 Service Outage Issues · · Score: 1

    If it's caused by someone else then why isn't Intrado being fined. I'm guessing it's because Intrado is a contractor for Verizon which still leaves Verizon on the hook.

  6. Re:Not to do the Maths for you, but on Feds Fine Verizon $3.4 Million Over 911 Service Outage Issues · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm sure you could but the telephone companies are held to a higher standard for 911 service. That being said the outage would not have resulted in the fines if only Verizon had notified the local fire/police offices. Sure that might take some effort but it is the least they could do while 911 service is out (one which people's lives can depend on.)

    Hell, it might have been as simple as the head offices sending out an email to the local offices telling them to call their local police/fire departments which might have entailed a little discussion and a few minutes at the computer, followed by a few minutes on the phone at the local offices. Not a lot of work to save a few million and possibly save some lives.

  7. Won't this make it easier to track the money? That would seem to be one reason that the US govt. would want to back this idea.

  8. Re: who cares ? on Google Taking Over New TLDs · · Score: 1

    It would be valuable. I don't think anyone doubts that, but I can't see why Google should get it as they certainly don't have the market cornered in development.

    In fact, I'm not sure who should get a domain name like .dev. At least not if we are going to try and keep the domain names as a useful identifier. Maybe it should be owned by someone like the ACM and every developer can have their own sub-domain underneath it.

  9. Re:Add noise on Georgia Institute of Technology Researchers Bridge the Airgap · · Score: 1

    Do you really need something so powerful? Why not have an emitter that acts like a keyboard/cpu combo and emits signals that look like real data but are randomized. That would help block the 'bad guys' from anything useful because they would have to sort out the trash from the useful data.

  10. Re:grandmother reference on Ubisoft Revokes Digital Keys For Games Purchased Via Unauthorised Retailers · · Score: 1

    How do you know that. Ubisoft has given no information as to exactly why the keys were revoked. It could be that they were bought with stolen credit card numbers or it could be that the keys were just sold from non-official resellers but are still perfectly valid keys.

    Even if the keys are sold by random people through various markets like G2A's marketplace that still doesn't mean the keys were stolen. As others have said they could be keys that weren't being used by people that bought new video cards that game with free games, or they could be keys bought in regions with cheaper prices. None of that is illegal though it is certainly frowned upon. The region issue can cause problems if a game is region locked but clearly if the people were playing for up to a year that couldn't be the case.

    Until Ubisoft comes out with an official statement we can't know if the keys were 'stolen' or just bought from an un-official marketplace.

  11. Re:Who eats doughnuts with the doughnut men? on Police Organization Wants Cop-Spotting Dropped From Waze App · · Score: 1

    Yes, but if someone really wants to kill cops then it should be obvious that you head to where they congregate. So the nearest place to get a meal near the precinct or the nearest precinct will get a large number in one place. Of course it will also lead to your death if you go in guns blazing but that seems to be the purpose behind many of the shootings.

  12. Re: Regulation? on Davos 2015: Less Innovation, More Regulation, More Unrest. Run Away! · · Score: 1

    Probably because he isn't working now but did work and save and put money into those things. It's the same way someone can retire and live off much less income if they just keep doing the same sort of things because their overall living expenses are less (baring some medical emergency.)

  13. Re:The Pirate Bay on The Pirate Bay Responds To Raid · · Score: 1

    I tried doing that once with that Flockhart movie, A Midsummer Night's Dream but the presentation had so many problems that I just walked out. Once I've finished watching one movie I tend to want a nice break before watching another.

  14. Re: Redefined Retrofit to make that work... on LA Mayor Proposes Earthquake Retrofits On Thousands of Buildings · · Score: 1

    That's never going to happen so it isn't worth discussing. People will always want to live near their workplace so the question how can those living spaces be made safe (or safe enough vs the cost and likelihood of a major incident occurring.)

  15. Re:pirate bay un|blocked on Australia Pushes Ahead With Website Blocking In Piracy Fight · · Score: 1

    Except that isn't the case. As reported on TorrentFreak those mirrror servers do let people access some of the older content but they aren't updated with new content. So they will become ever more useless if the main system isn't brought back online.

  16. Re:This is clearly futile... on Google Told To Expand Right To Be Forgotten · · Score: 1

    Isn't the page really the issue? If the information is wrong or out of date then should it be forced to be taken down/edited instead of removing it from Google. After all I imagine many of the pages being linked do contain mostly correct information so the pages are still relevant. It's just some bit of information that the individual is taking objection to and wanting to be made unavailable.

    (Of course I realize that this gets into another issue which is that many of the pages may exist outside of the EU and hence outside their control.) Though the same could be said for search engines unless the EU is going to hit up all of them across the world and not just Google.

  17. Re:In Finland on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places? · · Score: 1

    Do you live in California? That seems to be an area that regularly gets brown outs. It seems like they don't have the proper infrastructure in place to support the population when ever the need for electricity goes outside the norms.

    So since Los Angeles stays comfortable most of the year the grid doesn't seem to handle the load well when temperatures head higher than 90F. I don't know if that's a problem with the grid itself or the amount of power available. Either way it looks like the normal choice has been made to design a system for normal usage which may fail under unusual conditions.

  18. Re:Various hacking tools? on Top Counter-Strike Players Embroiled In Hacking Scandal · · Score: 2

    It was an aim bot but one that only kicked in when you were already close to your target. So much so that even when viewing recorded footage it wouldn't be spotted. That's how they managed to get away with it at LAN events. Someone either has to see it installed or catch it running to detect that hack and apparently that is what happened.

  19. Re:Who is going to get the pink slip on Sony Pictures Computer Sytems Shut Down After Ransomware Hack · · Score: 1

    No, they will get a corner office.

  20. Re:Business as usual for US justice on US Gov't Seeks To Keep Megaupload Assets Because Kim Dotcom Is a Fugitive · · Score: 1

    You probably didn't need to go into the details since that stuff tends to bore most people. It's enough to say that "If the government THINKS you broke the law the government can take your assets." That's the real key in civil forfeiture since they never have to prove a crime was committed. Only that they they think that the assets might have been associated with a crime (either in the past or the future (as in going to purchase drugs.))

  21. Re:There's not a lot to say, this is scummy on Uber Threatens To Do 'Opposition Research' On Journalists · · Score: 2

    When journalists start to attack the company because the guy at the top is happy that he's getting laid that begins to sound like journalists engaging in personal attacks. At that point I can see some people deciding to return the favor.

    Now when they describe things the company is actually doing that are anti-consumer then I think they are doing their job. If drivers are actually attacking passengers then of course it should be reported and the company should take action to investigate and discipline the drivers if they are guilty.

  22. Re:Makes you wonder... on Denuvo DRM Challenges Game Crackers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The way I've heard it told is that companies don't care about having uncrackable DRM. What they want is DRM that won't be cracked during that initial sales rush that comes upon release of a new game. If the game's DRM is cracked a month or more after release that won't impact the sales in the way that having the DRM cracked in the first week would. That's why some companies have even removed DRM from games that have been out for some time. (Admittedly the games were out for years but still.)

  23. Re:Mostly a desperation tactic on Boo! The House Majority PAC Is Watching You · · Score: 2, Funny

    So it's time for us to take over some new territories? Canada? Mexico? The Bahamas? After all that is traditional for the USA

  24. Re:US Citizenship on Labor Department To Destroy H-1B Records · · Score: 0

    Couldn't that be handled by moving the data into offline storage? That way the information is available if needed but it isn't something a hacker can easily get access to.

  25. Re:freedoms f----d on Trans-Pacific Partnership May Endanger World Health, Newly Leaked Chapter Shows · · Score: 1

    You may be completely right but your example doesn't provide enough detail to know if you are right. The problem is that once the patent expires anyone can produce the drug and all they have to worry about is production and marketing costs. The development/testing costs are only the responsibility of the original company that did the work and presumably brought the drug to market. Maybe they entirely covered those costs in the first year the drug was on the market or they could still be paying off that cost even though they have other companies now producing the same drug and selling it for $4.

    We can't know the truth without that inside information on the costs of developing and testing any drug.