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User: torkus

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  1. Re:I hope they're not trying to disrupt the market on Conflict Between Occupy Wall Street Protestors and NYPD Escalating · · Score: 1

    On the bright side, the posters and tent cities might improve the neighborhood.

    Seriously though, they're not even ON Wall St. but it doesn't matter. You can debate how violent the protests are but they most certainly have NOT tried to 'storm the gates' of any exchange, bank, or financial institution. Oddly if the cops had just left them alone instead of attempting to occupy wall st. *themselves* I'd guess this would have petered out once the couple topless women protesting got bored and went home.

    That or zucotti park would turn into a tent city :)

  2. Re:shitty, but... on TSA Groper Files Suit Against Blogger · · Score: 1

    Try reading the lawyers' letters. One's a joke (note his website) and the other reads like a bad rally speech.

  3. TSA + legal system == world's biggest joke on TSA Groper Files Suit Against Blogger · · Score: 1

    So if your job is, ostensibly, securing airports from travelers bringing in threats (be it knives, bombs, toxins, drinking water, or nuclear material) it's OK to repeatedly touch someone in an intimate area, much less to the point of penetration? (note, penetration is ill defined here since i did RTFA and this was *through* clothing) This exceeds what an ACTUAL cop can do when *arresting* you for a crime.

    Assuming the chain of events flows as claimed, logic fails in this case. First, body scanners will NOT penetrate your body. Hiding something *inside* your vagina, anus, stomach, or any other bodily cavity you care to name will defeat the scanner. Heck, you can bring in metal which would otherwise NOT make it through a metal detector. Therefore poking around in and about her vagina is pointless unless you're going *inside* which exceeds the capability of the 'accepted' and preferred detection method.

    Now, it's possible the gropee made this up or greatly exaggerated. However given the number of videos of the TSA groping children (and the recent prohibition of filming security procedures in the sake of 'security') that are out there I'm much more likely to disbelieve the groper.

    I read both letters and this looks more like lawyers arguing for fame than anything else (and heck, a blogger looking for her 15 minutes? nooooo). The first letter is from a lawyer who owns the "rest my case" domain. Seriously. The second reads more like a second rate politically rally speech. It devolves from 'my client' to 'i bet you".

  4. Re:Why.... on Do You Want Best Buy Opening Your New Laptop? · · Score: 1

    Not true. This is from someone who works with Apple's Enterprise reps on a regular basis.

    They want the business segment, but not badly enough to change their formula that makes them a win on the consumer side. And honestly what makes them so good for their market on the consumer side is exactly what kills them on the enterprise side. Despite that, they still try to make it work with some duct tape and special help.

  5. Re:industry? on Music Execs Stressed Over Free Streaming · · Score: 1

    Hell, for what it used to (or "does") cost to record an album you can not only build the studio but go to a vocational school for 18 months and learn HOW to record it.

    When you consider what popular music is today, the majority if it is catchy more than anything else. It has very little to do with actual talent, skill of the sound engineers, or the quality of the recording.

  6. Re:Huh? on Music Execs Stressed Over Free Streaming · · Score: 1

    Ignorance is an amazing thing. You're suggesting Van Gogh to a blind man who can't understand what Red is.

    Willful ignorance, as is the case with the RIAA (and MPAA), is a step even further.

  7. Re:Make better music and provide better service th on Music Execs Stressed Over Free Streaming · · Score: 1

    Ahh...but you walk a dangerous road. I'm playing devil's advocate here, not trolling.

    What's 'significant' distribution? In theory anyone offering a song on P2P is offering it to millions. How many connect to them? What's the cut-off? Does it apply if you only upload a chunk, not a full song?

    The whole cost model is broken, the whole distribution methodology has already been superseded by an effectively FREE one, and the rent-a-lawmaker politicians aren't going give up their under-the-table perks so we continue with the insanity.

    The record companies are dead. This is nothing more than their death throes propped up by a bunch of laws that the majority of people either reject, disagree with, or outright flaunt their violations.

  8. Re:Make better music and provide better service th on Music Execs Stressed Over Free Streaming · · Score: 1

    Drop it to $1. You trade value for volume. When you drop the cost so low, you don't need fancy distribution methods or the ability to 'reclaim' your music you lost. Charge $1 for the album DOWNLOAD...your hard drive goes belly-up without back-up and you need to re-buy. Puts the responsibility on the user...but they could offer a service to list everything you've paid to DL before for a quick 'fill-me-back-up' megadownload...for a price.

    Companies love selling you the same thing over and over...this would let them. WHen it becomes cheap enough consumers don't mind either. For 5-10c/song I'd download separately on my blackberry just to avoid having to find a wire and transfer songs. For $1/song I'm certainly not going to.

    But no, they're too busy complaining that $1 song sales have killed their industry. What it's really done is wasted the golden opportunity to make piracy more trouble than it's worth to the generation that IS their primary customer.

  9. Re:The "problem" won't go away on Music Execs Stressed Over Free Streaming · · Score: 1

    This is what happens when your business caters to the hip, trendy, and fickle younger crowd...and doesn't understand them at all. Sure, "old" people buy music too but no one scoops up albums - from vinyl to MP3 - like the teens and 20-somethings.

    The music industry is used to selling 'valuable' things. Pressing a record and distributing it used to cost a respectable amount of money. Them CDs and mass duplication came along pushing that cost to a fraction of what it was...only to be followed by digital distribution which, depending on your distribution model, is effectively free (P2P). The music industry is still trying to attach the same value to a 'free' item as it did an out-dated, expensive one. They can cry over production costs just like hollywood all they want but when a couple band geeks can do a full production album on their computers, over the internet, *having never met* you're not going to get much sympathy from me.

    Instead, start treating digital music like the opportunity it is. Trade value for volume. They already push one-hit-wonders through the meat grinder on an all-too-frequent basis...why not USE that? Either make whole albums cheap enough it doesn't matter if you buy a bad one or just sell a subscription. No DRM, not streaming-only, no stupid restrictions. The goal is to get people who aren't spending money today to spend SOME. Take a streaming service and allow 20 or 30 one-click MP3 downloads per month for $10. You just made $120 from someone who would have gone to bit torrent otherwise. Heck,you could use P2P for distribution. For the few bucks it's not worth the trouble to hack it.

  10. What you're saying... on Sex Drugs and Texting · · Score: 1

    ...is that the popular kids who have someone to txt with are more likely to have sex? Shocker.

    I bet in the 90's kids who used the phone more often were more likely to copulate as well.

  11. Re:not protects on HDCP Master Key Is Legitimate; Blu-ray Is Cracked · · Score: 1

    Actually that's not entirely true.

    Click-through license agreements are most certainly not automatically (or even at all in some cases) accepted by the courts. Even less so for 'agreement assumed' licenses on music/dvd.

    The RIAA, MPAA and SBA make some rather insane claims - especially around software - that directly contradict fair use and first sale doctrine. They attempt to get around it with the 'license' claims and that's a big portion of why people are so unhappy with copyright law.

  12. Re:oh darn on Craigslist Removes Its Controversial Adult Section · · Score: 1

    More open or safe compared to what? Standing on a street corner? I might disagree.

  13. Re:oh darn on Craigslist Removes Its Controversial Adult Section · · Score: 1

    You've never been to a strip club but consider it degrading...but you've never been to one!. You're part of the problem - judging people and actions you have zero familiarity with and then suggesting laws or rules to govern it.

    Creating more laws to outlaw pimping is just as useless. The whole industry is already underground, you just force it further in that direction. If prostitution was legal there generally wouldn't be a need for pimps.

    I agree that legalizing prostitution is a good idea - and ultimately the only workable solution. 'Regulating the fuck out of it' makes for a hilarious play on works though :)

  14. Re:oh darn on Craigslist Removes Its Controversial Adult Section · · Score: 1

    Your post assumes people generally enjoy their work, something I rather doubt. Given the choice just about everyone i know would now work.

    Fast food work (and other menial jobs) certainly CAN be dangerous and it's quite insulting if you've ever worked it. Furthermore you can liken that to a prostitute/pimp arrangement. The cashier will bring in $1,000s per shift depending on the store yet is paid a few dollars an hour. The difference is, if the manager beats a cashier that cashier can call the police. Why? Because being a cashier hasn't been made illegal. Cashiers haven't been told their job is the bane of our existence. They can go to the police for protection. A prostitute can't. A prostitute is FORCED to live in the shady world not because of her profession but because of the laws that "righteous" and "moral" people enforce.

    And finally...fast food workers are usually kids, immigrants, or uneducated people being taken advantage of by big corporations because they don't know any better. Imagine if McDonalds had to pay their workers a livable wage?

    Now look from a different perspective. Excluding drug-addicted streetwalkers (who are often enough the product of the system that bans then) prostitutes make a few hundred dollars an hour, some thousands. Laywers and doctors can do that too - after 20 years of school and training. A girl getting 200 an hour to lie on her back and moan a bit seems a pretty good deal for her.

    Are some girls victimized? Of course. And it happens more in underground professions because of the lack of accountability. Are people victimized in other jobs? Surely. Why is it somehow illegal because it involves sex? Oh, that's right, because YOU (and/or people like you) want to impose YOUR morals on OTHER PEOPLE. I hate rap music - I really loathe it. I'm not trying to make it so you can't listen to it tho.

  15. Re:Meh on Seagate Releases 3TB External Drive for $250 · · Score: 1

    And not only that, but $250 is the announced retail.

    Comparing a good sale price to MSRP is rather misleading, donchathink?

    Unlike Apple hardware and gaming consoles, the rest of the industry doesn't get away with price fixing. Expect $250 MSRP to translate into ~$225 retail pricing to start...if not lower. I can definitely see this drive pushing under $200 pretty quickly.

    Someone should let Intel know that their top of the line CPUs are too expensive compared to the next tier lower :)

  16. Re:Simple really... on Verizon Charged Marine's Widow an Early Termination Fee · · Score: 1

    Not to mention that it's 100% tax free. Any month you're deployed overseas for even a single day the entire month is tax free.

  17. Re:Sounds like a feature on iPhone's PIN-Based Security Transparent To Ubuntu · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry but no. The encryption is enabled on all 3GS phones (and only 3GS, not 3G or prior) full time and can not be disabled.

    The 3GS *has* functional security except for the number of holes that have been poked in it.

    I don't know what rep you're talking to but he's misinformed and would otherwise be totally in violation of Apple's disclosure policy which reads something like 'if you tell anyone before Jobs does you're fired on the spot'.

    We too are doing testing @ work but all the holes that hackers keep poking into the iPhone keep putting the launch off 'until the next (secure) release'

  18. Re:Sounds like a feature on iPhone's PIN-Based Security Transparent To Ubuntu · · Score: 1

    Take it a step further and you expose the underlying problem with many 'encryption' systems. If the 'secure' key is stored on the device...well...it's STORED! It might not be easy to get, but if you read out the entire contents and ran them in a controlled environment (VM for example) that key has to exist in plaintext somewhere at some point.

    Utimaco's FDE is a perfect example of that yet some companies use it with the mistaken belief that their data is safe.

  19. Re:The main danger is on Scientists Question Safety of New Airport Scanners · · Score: 1

    I don't have a nudity taboo. However I still have an issue with being forced* to expose myself against my will.

    Do you think this will actually lessen the searches? It's not the metal detector that takes forever, it's x-raying every bit of luggage, cell phone, SHOES, etc. Want to bet shoes still go on the conveyor belt?

    *granted you can just not fly

    p.s. best related verification word ever - outcries! :)

  20. Re:That's too bad then on Inventor Demonstrates Infinitely Variable Transmission · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So the large number of people in the US with a new car fetish who trade them in ever 2-4 years...or those leasing cars who get a new one every 3 years...will be forced to...what?

    Cars are already far more reliable than they were 15 years ago and manufacturers strive for increasing reliability because it's a key selling point...even though people often don't keep the car long enough for it to matter. If you made the a car nearly service free for 5 years then you can sell include "free service" for 5 years with every car like some manufacturers already do.

    Conspiracy theory doesn't hold water on this one. I'm much more interested in how it actually works and the mechanical stresses involved. Is it reasonably practical to scale up to 100HP? 200HP? 300+HP? If it's mechanically simple, cheap to make, has low losses it could quite handily replace an automatic transmission. Nissan has gone CVT on most/all of it's cars already.

    And for CVT in general, it may be better in industrial uses but it has definite applications in consumers applications. It can definitely give better performance for a given engine.

  21. Re:But... on Estimating Game Piracy More Accurately · · Score: 1

    Actually every new trick just provides additional training for those who crack the games...aka programmers.

    I've yet to see a game that hasn't been cracked, pirated and distributed that's even slightly popular. Even Wow which is online only and virtually impossible to pirate has rogue servers that you can play on.

    Does anyone really think any game that runs on an uncontrolled platform will ever be secure? Even secure platforms are almost always broken (iphone, ipad, xb, xb360, ps3, etc.) and this is all done with personal resources. Imagine if even a moderate size company took a direct interest?

  22. Re:But... on Estimating Game Piracy More Accurately · · Score: 1

    Really? Because I refuse to purchase anything on Steam.

    Any service that takes away all my control of something I've "purchased" isn't something I will use. It brings the underlying problem of software "sales" to light very clearly. Somehow all these companies seem to ignore first sale doctrine and property rights by the practice of granting "licenses" on whatever unreadable terms their lawyers manage to stuff into the EULA.

  23. Re:Food? on Cows On Treadmills Produce Clean Power For Farms · · Score: 1

    I was with you until you went for corn-based ethanol.

    It's horribly inefficient and was only championed as a 'gimmie' to corn farmers. The same group who actually used to get paid by the gov't NOT to grow anything in order to keep from flooding the market with grain.

    We feed grain to moo-moo's because some of us like the tasty meat or milk. It's not an efficient process, but there's not enough wild animals (nor would catching them be efficient) to meet the meat demands in our country/world.

    A better question is to look at increased food intake vs. power output. The cost of the grain (in theory if not in practice) includes the fuel cost to grow/transport it. If power output is worth more than the grain costs it's (in theory) a net win.

    Meh. Still overall a silly idea in the end if you ask me.

  24. Re:Keep in mind... on DoD Report On 32 "Nuclear Accidents" · · Score: 1

    Firstly because the more modern designs require MUCH less fissile material than the primitive ones, terrorists would not actually get enough of it to build a primitive weapon from dismantling a single modern warhead. They would have to disassemble several ones, and then design a completely new weapon suitable for the isotopic composition of the aged plutonium.

    Fat Man was only 39% of a critical mass. I know modern weapons use even less, but fat man was designed and built on much older technology and with a tiny fraction of the computing power available today in a $500 desktop. I'm fairly confident a grad student could improve on the design.

    An implosion weapon isn't *simple* but honestly explosive lensing isn't new technology by any stretch and it's in fairly regular commercial user in the US. Yes, you need a neutron generator to kick off a detonation but again, not rocket science. If I had to guess where they'd hit a wall it would be fusion boosting.

    This all assumes access to adequate enriched Pu of course. Age I don't believe is a factor. The US hasn't made any new enriched Pu in quite a few years (look up NASA's cries about running out). What's on the floor of the ocean is probably the same as what's in current weapons. With a half life of 24,000 years I don't think 50 will matter and even Pu-240's half life over 6500 years is plenty long.

    In the end it's not going to be a full up perfect detonation like modern US weapons (if we ever tested them these days) but I'd give them a better than even chance of doing better than a fizzle.

  25. Re:Keep in mind... on DoD Report On 32 "Nuclear Accidents" · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Agreed on the first. I wasn't sure what type of fissile material was missing.

    However on the second I'm not so sure it's cost prohibitive at this point. Even 100,000's of thousands of man-hours of calculations are childs-play for computers. In particular, the physics and modeling of an implosion device seems a natural fit for the engines of 3D graphics cards...some of which even have a programming language to do almost exactly that.

    Going further, shaped-charge explosives are not exceptionally expensive or difficult to design individually. Shaping large pieces of metal is done with explosives regularly. More involved than a simple gun-assemble, sure, but still something within the ability of a decent college or commercial company.