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User: pi_rules

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  1. Re:Why do I want this... on Microsoft Launches First Chromium Edge Builds (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 1

    To have another user or cookie session.

    That's why i have a number of more or less obscure browser installed next to my favorite which is firefox.

    You could just open up a Firefox incognito session. That's what I do with Chrome when I need a clean slate not tied to any cookies or prior auth credentials.

  2. I'd be more inclined to buy a phone branded Etch-A-Sketch than Oracle.

  3. Re:Uh.... "billions"? on FTC Fines Four Operations Responsible For Billions of Illegal Robocalls (cnet.com) · · Score: 2

    How can anyone read that and not think it is hyperbole?

    Uhh... with math?

    There's 300 million cell phones in the US (roughly) plus a bunch of land lines but let's forget about the land lines entirely.

    You only need 3.3 calls per line to hit 1 billion. Given that I've gotten 3 robo calls just TODAY on my line it's not hard to see how you'd get to "billions" really quick. Hell let's say 200 million of those phones aren't on robocall lists. Now you only need 10 calls per lines to round up to 1 billion.

    So, yeah, very easy to see how we'd be hitting 1 billion robo calls in the US every week or maybe 50-55 billion a year.

  4. Stopping an insect from feeding to reduce damage to crops isn't unheard of in agriculture. IRAC groups 9 and 29 are chemicals that stop feeding of target insects. Generally this results in mortality after a while but they tend to stop feeding/damaging the crop shortly after application.

    Not trying to rain on their parade or anything. The general idea isn't new but this specific mode of action on this target appears to be totally new. Kinda cool.

  5. Re:Map-based phone apps? on As Magnetic North Pole Zooms Toward Siberia, Scientists Update World Magnetic Model (npr.org) · · Score: 2

    Have you ever noticed your phone can show your orientation on a map if you stand perfectly still and turn in a circle? That's not GPS. That's just a magnetic compass at work.

  6. SOMETHING HAPPENED! on Windows Setup Error Messages Will Soon Actually Help Fix Problems (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    I think that was my favorite Win10 setup error. I got a nice big purple box that said "Something happened" up top and in the details section in all its glory:

    "Something happened."

    Nice.

    try { // stuff
    } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("d'oh!"); }

  7. Am I missing something? on A Tiny Screw Shows Why iPhones Won't Be 'Assembled in USA' (nytimes.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A 20 man shop producing 1,000 screws a day?

    Figure an average hourly wage of $20/hr that's $400 in labor per hour over an 8 hour shift that's $3200 cost in labor per day. At least. I'm skipping land leases, building lease/rent, material cost, etc.

    If you're kicking out 1000 screws and it takes you $3200 in labor that's $3.20 cents per screw.

    I"m either missing something, the article is full of crap, or this place was kicking out 8" long bolts made out of some really hardened steel with excellent QA looking for defects... and then Apple tried getting them to make tiny tiny screws?

    Nope, nothing makes sense.

  8. Phew! on Microsoft Says Bing is Restored in China (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 2

    I'm sure that's a huge relief for both users.

  9. You might very well be right. IIRC the first releases of Chrome didn't have any way for and adblocker to stop network traffic. They had to let everything load and then selectively hide elements from the display.

    Google opened up the framework a bit to make adblocking's job easier. It seems unlikely that they'd do a complete about face here.

    Granted, Google does change directions faster than a confused crack head.

  10. Re:Misleading Summary & Article on Verizon Charges New 'Spam' Fee For Texts Sent From Teachers To Students (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Thanks! Signalwire's published prices are 1/8th that of Twilio.

  11. Re:Misleading Summary & Article on Verizon Charges New 'Spam' Fee For Texts Sent From Teachers To Students (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    So, this seems like a good place to ask...

    Is there a competitor or similar service to Twilio out there? I just started using it a couple of weeks ago prototyping some internal stuff for our business. I don't have any high volume needs. If I send 100 texts in a single day that'd probably be really high.

    It's easy enough to use but if I've been wondering if there's a better or cheaper alternative out there.

  12. Re:Enough with this partisian crap on Government Shutdown: TLS Certificates Not Renewed, Many Websites Are Down (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    If they don't get it we have zero credibility in any claim of equal representation.

    That's a feature, not a bug. The US Constitution was designed very intentionally to keep us from having a direct democracy with equal representation.

  13. Re:How much money has been "saved" so far? on Government Shutdown: TLS Certificates Not Renewed, Many Websites Are Down (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    It doesn't save any money. Furloughed employees get back pay, sometimes interest has to be paid, and revenue coming in from various sources also stops coming in.

    Shutdowns cost more money than actually keeping the government open.

  14. Re:Border fencing is infrastructure on National Parks Face Years of Damage From Government Shutdown (nationalgeographic.com) · · Score: 2

    the wall will slow down the massive amount of of these people flooding in daily.

    Massive? I'm not sure that's the word I would pick myself.

    Total number of illegal border crossings in the us is about 500,000 per year. With roughly 365 days in a year that's about 1400 people per day. Only about half of the illegal border crossings are at the southern border though so we're looking at 700 entries per day.

  15. Miscanthus Gigantus is another C4 photosynthesizer which, last I knew*, was being used for fuel biomass. It can grow where corn might not do well and it's a perennial so no need to til and seed a field every year.

    *: It's been a few years since I looked at it.

  16. Re:Call it hacking on Scientists Have 'Hacked Photosynthesis' To Boost Crop Growth By 40 Percent (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    My only problem with companies like Monsanto is when they're given a monopoly by government.

    Monopoly on what? The only thing that Monsanto makes that most people know about are RoundUp and RoundUp Ready crops. They don't have a monopoly on glyphosate (RoundUp) and their RoundUp Ready crops compete with other herbicide resistant crops.

    Sure, they get patent protection on their genetic technology but that expires. The first RoundUp Ready crops will go generic in a year or so.

  17. Moving to ARM on Lubuntu, a Popular Ubuntu Flavor, To Stop Providing 32-Bit Releases (betanews.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've got about 24 32 bit Atom boxes running a 32 bit Ubuntu (xubuntu) in a point of sale situation. The various distros dropping 32 bit support sort of gives me a reason to get off them, as if I needed a better one than they're 7 years old. I'm just moving them all to pi systems. That little ARM with 1 gig of RAM pulls just about as well as the Atom boxes did. I can't see much of a reason to keep anything on Atom with ARM SoCs being so low power. By now they all have to be getting up near 6-7 years old like mine.

  18. Does any first-world country ever cut their military spending? No.

    Uh, yes they do. Even the US, probably the wort example in the lot, has been on a steady downtrend of spending since 1954.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    France is the 3rd largest nuclear power, so 2nd largest 1st world nation on that front and their military spending as percent of GDP has been heading down since 1960 too.

    https://data.worldbank.org/ind...

    So, yeah, you're wrong on the first point. What follows is reasoning from incorrect data.

  19. Re:Oracle cloud? on Oracle's CTO: No Way a 'Normal' Person Would Move To AWS (zdnet.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oooo... sprung for the two CPU license, eh?

  20. Re:python is the new basic on How Microsoft Embraced Python (medium.com) · · Score: 1

    basic was invented by microsoft.

    No, it was not. BASIC Wikipedia entry

  21. People look at me funny when I keep pushing against museum walls and going "uh! uh! uh!"

    If you left your pants on it would be less weird.

  22. Re:Isn't there such a thing as a "corporate veil?" on Canada Arrests Top Huawei Executive For Allegedly Violating Iran Sanctions (theglobeandmail.com) · · Score: 1

    Russia is Europe's neighbor and natural ally.

    I've got a phone call for you. It's Finland. They'd like to talk.

  23. Re:Privilege escalation unlikely on Trivial Bug In X.Org Server Gives Root Permissions On Linux, BSD Systems (bleepingcomputer.com) · · Score: 1

    You might want to check that again. True, /usr/bin/Xorg isn't a setuid file but it's just a shell script (so it can't be setuid anyway) which calls /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg.wrap (if it exists) which is setuid root. That then calls /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg which isn't setuid root.... or at least I'm assuming it does because Xorg.wrap is only 11k in size so it can't be the full server.

  24. Answer to question on Yahoo: "Organophosphates KILL everything. Good bugs as well as bad. Most growers of any crops are now using something called. I.P.M., integrated pest management."

    The part you quoted doesn't really make any sense. Like most Yahoo Answers! responses I question the intelligence of the person who posted it.

    OPs have their place in IPM. IPM just means you rotate chemical classes to keep things from building up immunity to something. True, OPs basically kill everything, so do OCs (not that anybody uses them) and pyretheroids, and avermectins, and... well you get the idea. Most pesticide classes are pretty broad spectrum. You find a few that are really super targeted but just because you're using them doesn't mean you're doing IPM. If you all do is slather Kontos on a crop that's not IPM.

  25. Re:Did he just say "MD5"? on Hack On 8 Adult Websites Exposes Oodles of Intimate User Data (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Did he just say "MD5"? I thought we're only at 36 years...

    I believe it's 56 bit DES.