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User: burris

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  1. Re:Real use on RubyGems' Module Count Soon To Surpass CPAN's · · Score: 1

    Ruby people make some cool tools that you can use even if your code isn't written in Ruby. Check out Chef and Vagrant. Both are configured with Ruby, which is amenable to making DSLs.

  2. real info on NASA Confirms Discovery of Organism With Phosphorus-Free DNA · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to this NYT article this is a normal earthly bacterium that, when placed in an environment full of arsenic, started swapping arsenic for phosphorus. It's not a totally new form of life unrelated to what we know.

  3. yawn on The Pirate Bay Co-Founder Starting P2P-DNS · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Before embarking in this project, shouldn't he finish his replacement for BitTorrent he announced a few years back?

    I'm sure the DNS project will be as successful as that one.

  4. Re:Decentralized naming is hard on Peter Sunde Wants To Create Alternative To ICANN · · Score: 2, Interesting

    after Zooko: names can be secure, memorable, or global - pick two. DNS is memorable and global but not secure. Public keys are secure and global but not memorable.

  5. Re:The Question I'd Put to Him on George W. Bush Live From Facebook · · Score: 1

    I guess the fact that Iraq floats on a sea of oil and deposing the existing government also have the ancillary benefit of being a huge windfall for White-House and Congress "defense" industry cronies never entered your foolish mind.

  6. Has to be on Facebook on George W. Bush Live From Facebook · · Score: 1

    Bush's public appearances will have to be on Facebook because if he leaves the country he'll be arrested for ordering the invasion of a sovereign nation and the torture of people.

  7. Re:New Technology? on How Apple Had a Spectacular Year · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Apple is a software company that sells most of their software inside custom hardware. The hardware isn't special, its pretty much the same as anything else, but what makes it better than everything else is the software inside. In fact, the main reason they sell hardware is to ensure the software works perfectly.

  8. Re:How someone becomes radicalized... on Next Step For US Body Scanners Could Be Trains, Metro Systems · · Score: 1

    That's strange, I don't think anyone in the White House or Congress has suffered economic deprivation, social rejection, and or government tyranny.

  9. Re:More reasearch on Next Step For US Body Scanners Could Be Trains, Metro Systems · · Score: 1

    Terrorists care very deeply about their children who were killed by US bombs, about US troops occupying their homeland and what they consider sacred ground, about their family being political prisoners to repressive governments propped up by the US, about the torture their brothers have endured at the hands and whims of US officials, and about the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine which only continues due to diplomatic and financial support of the US.

    You've been fed a line about them being unfeeling, irrational crazies by the very people who want to continue the activities that create terrorists.

  10. Re:I bought some lighter fluid... on Georgia College's New Policy — Reporting All P2P Users To the Police · · Score: 1

    It's OK to give someone a newspaper or book you have, because of the First Sale doctrine. Making a new copy is the exclusive right of the copyright holder, though.

  11. Re:Any forms of file-sharing? on Georgia College's New Policy — Reporting All P2P Users To the Police · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't have to make money. The No Electronic Theft Act of 1998 changed the definition of "financial gain." 17 USC 101 now reads:

    The term "financial gain" includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.

    In other words, now they can go after people trading. I don't doubt that a prosecutor could convince a jury that the ratio system on a Torrent site, for instance, shows that the defendant expected to receive other copyrighted works in exchange for continuing to seed whatever it is they downloaded.

  12. Re:Flying != basic human right. on National Opt-Out Day Against Virtual Strip Searches · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Flying isn't a right but being secure in our persons from unwarranted and intrusive searches is.

    Personally, I would rather fly on an aircraft where I know that everybody, myself included, had been scanned. What about my rights?

    All of the people who have ever died on a plane, from mechanical problems and pilot error as well as terrorism, doesn't even add up to a single years worth of drunk driving fatalities. I would bet that you still willingly get in a private car so you're only fooling yourself. Airline security is already good enough that further encroachments to our actual, enumerated, rights are not necessary.

  13. Re:Not like cowardly Westerners on Facebook Postings Lead To Arrest for Heresy In the West Bank · · Score: 1

    Hamas exists because people got fed up with 40 years of Israeli occupation and ethnic cleansing. That was over 20 years ago.

  14. Re:Not like cowardly Westerners on Facebook Postings Lead To Arrest for Heresy In the West Bank · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Gaza is oppressed because Israel has been trying unsuccessfully for over 40 years to annex as much of it as possible with as few non-Jews as possible. Since the people of Gaza have steadfastly refused and made it impossible for Israel to achieve her goals, Israel is now deliberately starving the population.

    Hamas was only created after about 20 years of such oppression.

  15. Re:Congrats! on EPIC Files Lawsuit To Suspend Airport Body Scanner Use · · Score: 1

    In order to get an exception to the 4th amendment the government has to show that there is an overriding state interest and that the method they have chosen is the least intrusive available. If the purpose is to keep explosives off the plane then there are less intrusive means available and currently in use, such as the "puff and sniff" machine.

    In any event, the machines simply aren't necessary. Virtually all citizens currently are more than willing accept far, far greater risk when they travel in a private car on a public street. The risk of the plane suffering a mechanical failure leading to a fatal crash is already very low relative to any other method of transportation yet it is still far greater than a terrorist attack. There is no need to trade even more essential liberty for incalculably less risk, if any, or to simply satisfy some peoples irrational fear.

  16. How many types are secretly banned? on Apple Accepts, Then Rejects BitTorrent iPhone App · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From Apple via the TFA:

    We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store.

    In addition to the published list of restrictions there is a second, secret, list of types of application that Apple has chosen not to publish. There is no way to know if your type of application is on that list without submitting a fully working application.

  17. Re:DHT Tracker on Bittorrent To Replace Standard Downloads? · · Score: 1

    BT clients bootstrap their DHT routing table whenever they connect to another peer. A bootstrap node is only needed for a client that has never downloaded any other torrents before and there are no nodes included in the torrent. In that event there are multiple bootstrap nodes run by client authors plus you can put the address of any reliable node in the torrent file itself.

  18. Re:Floppy drives anyone? on The Surprising Statistics Behind Flash and Apple · · Score: 1

    Jobs tried killing the floppy back in 1989 but he was unsuccessful. Now, two decades or so later, floppies have finally gone the way of the dinosaur.

  19. Re:Same for coax vs. optical ... on Calling Shenanigans On Super SATA's Claimed Audio Qualities · · Score: 1

    It can make a difference if there are separate receivers for electrical vs. optical and one has better jitter rejection than the other.

  20. leakage on Firefox 4 Will Be One Generation Ahead · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see Firefox move up to at least a generation behind the other browsers with respect to memory leakage.

  21. Re:Should have got planning permission on Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools · · Score: 1

    thanks for the great response!

  22. Re:Should have got planning permission on Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools · · Score: 1

    Would it have been legal or acceptable for the planning commission to drive around with a stepladder and peek over fences to find unlicensed pools?

  23. Re:Wrong law to try and apply on Court Rules That Bypassing Dongle Is Not a DMCA Violation · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry but you do not need a license to use a computer program any more than you need a license to read a book or look at a painting. Loading a copy into RAM as an essential step in the utilization of the program is not infringement (see above.) I challenge you to find anything in the law that says otherwise.

    EULAs work because the terms are presented to you and you take some affirmative step that signifies that you agree to them, just like any other contract.

  24. Re:Wrong law to try and apply on Court Rules That Bypassing Dongle Is Not a DMCA Violation · · Score: 1

    A copy is authorized if it's made under the authority of the copyright holder. When you obtain a copy of software that was manufactured by the copyright holder or someone authorized by them to manufacture copies, or download it from the copyright holder or someone authorized to distribute their software, then that copy is authorized.

    EULAs exist because software companies want more than copyright gives them. A EULA is just an ordinary contract and has nothing to do with copyright.

  25. Re:Wrong law to try and apply on Court Rules That Bypassing Dongle Is Not a DMCA Violation · · Score: 1

    If you read the opinion you will see that the Court found that they did not circumvent anything. Someone else did the circumvention and GE/PMI simply used a cracked copy.

    Moreover, the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision does not apply to the use of copyrighted works after the technological measure has been circumvented, targeting instead the circumvention itself. Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273 F.3d 429, 443 (2d Cir. 2001). MGE cites no evidence that a GE/PMI employee or representative was responsible for altering the Pacret and Muguet software such that a dongle was not required to use the software. Without proving GE/PMI actually circumvented the technology (as opposed to using technology already circumvented), MGE does not present a valid DMCA claim. See id. (“[T]he DMCA targets the circumvention of digital walls guarding copyrighted material (and trafficking in circumvention tools), but does not concern itself with the use of those materials after circumvention has occurred.”).
    Because the DMCA does not apply to mere use of a copyrighted work, and because MGE has not shown that GE/PMI circumvented MGE’s software protections in violation of the DMCA, the district court did not err in granting GE/PMI’s Rule 50(a) motion dismissing MGE’s DMCA claim.