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User: John.Banister

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  1. Re:And as an employer... on Millennial Tech Workers Losing Ground In US · · Score: 1

    I was thinking to fix the offshoring problem, provide the benefits of OSHA, the EPA and minimum wage laws to anyone who wants to import products to USA. Non-compliance results in an import duty that makes the product cost 5% more than it might have cost if the company had complied, or they can skip the duty and pay fines directly. The money from the duty and fines pays for the monitoring.

  2. Re:Easy Solution on Broadband ISP Betrayal Forces Homeowner To Sell New House · · Score: 1

    Litigate? Just have the state use civil forfeiture to seize their recompense from among the offending ISPs possessions. I'm sure that'll be enough to get all the ISPs to delete the state from their coverage maps and say "We don't claim coverage in Washington State."

  3. Uniformity might be nice, too on Ford's New Car Tech Prevents You From Accidentally Speeding · · Score: 1

    It's hard to credit safety as the determining factor for the speed limits when the same sort of road in the same condition will have a different speed limit in one state than it does in another. Adaptive speed limits would have to adapt to the vehicle also. A heavy car from the 1950's will have a much larger stopping distance for a given speed than the new NSX.

  4. Or an improper distance on Ford's New Car Tech Prevents You From Accidentally Speeding · · Score: 1

    How about adaptive tailgate control, that automatically closes the distance with the car ahead of you (just enough so that no other car will squeeze in) when someone enters your blind spot from the rear.

  5. Re:Meanwhile, a million people ... on Amazon Wins US Regulators' Approval To Test-fly Drone · · Score: 1

    How about sense-and-avoid in combination with ADS-B? This article suggests that people are working in that direction.

  6. Re:No Support? on Microsoft Says Free Windows 10 Upgrades For Pirates Will Be Unsupported · · Score: 1

    In the past, people who write software that runs under Windows have told me that buying another copy to use the support is the cheapest way to get someone to answer questions about "black box" aspects of the operating system that are making it difficult for their software to run properly.

  7. Re:More important to me on Microsoft Says Free Windows 10 Upgrades For Pirates Will Be Unsupported · · Score: 1

    Isn't the product key for those generally embedded in BIOS?

  8. So long as he's campaigning to amend the on Obama: Maybe It's Time For Mandatory Voting In US · · Score: 1

    Constitution
    Mandatory proportional representation in the electoral college would also be nice. It would help people feel more like their vote makes a difference.

  9. Re:There's a much more sensible first step on Obama: Maybe It's Time For Mandatory Voting In US · · Score: 1

    I agree with "make it easy" and with this plan for doing so, but Australians with whom I have spoken have told me that "make it easy" is the first thing that people there voted for after it became mandatory. So, making it mandatory might be the best way to end up with making it easy.

    When I recently dropped my mail-in vote off in the free ballot-only box in Washington state, I learned the hard way that this box is only available during the last week before election day. Employees at the school on whose property the temporary box was located looked at me funny on Monday after I had walked all around the building on the previous Friday afternoon trying to find the box that wasn't there.

  10. Re:It is time to get up one way or the other on Obama: Maybe It's Time For Mandatory Voting In US · · Score: 4, Informative

    While lots of other parties are allowed, it's difficult for them to succeed. Here's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_party_(United_States)#Barriers_to_third_party_success

  11. Self driving taxis will be a harder sell on Lyft CEO: Self-Driving Cars Aren't the Future · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Self driving cars operated by the owner are a different situation from that of self driving taxis. The owner and rider interests diverge when those are different people. A self driving taxi has to protect itself from theft & abuse and protect its owner from lawsuits. That mean the person riding in the taxi won't be allowed to arbitrarily stop it, assume manual control, or exit in locations considered by the taxi owner to be unsafe. Putting my car in self driving mode with my average speed 10 mph in gridlock sounds attractive. Getting into a little vehicle capable of traveling to arbitrary locations and trusting it like I would a train takes the early adopter impulse right out of me. Maybe self driving buses would make the transition better.

  12. What is this, 1740? on Not Quite Dead: SCO Linux Suit Against IBM Stirs In Utah · · Score: 1

    Use nylon.

  13. Re:so, the key to amnesty... on Microsoft Offers Pirates Amnesty and Free Windows 10 Upgrades · · Score: 1

    App store?
    Or, because smartphones running Windows 10 will interact more conveniently with desktops and laptops running Windows 10 than will other phones?

  14. This NDA sounds like they've published conspiracy on How Police Fight To Keep Use of Stingrays Secret · · Score: 1

    Since police departments have cited at trial that the NDA prohibits them from revealing information that would be beneficial to the defendants, and the device that the NDA covers is specifically designed to put the defendants in that position where they need the information it prevents, then clearly this NDA is evidence that it itself is a contract whose engagement explicitly leads directly to perverting the course of justice. It should be possible to sue Harris for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and use their NDA as evidence that this is what they're conspiring to do.

  15. Re:WTF? on Judicial Committee Approves FBI Plan To Expand Hacking Powers · · Score: 1

    I think you're correct, but I also think that any such rule needs to specifically lay out restrictions and narrowly define what is permitted. It needs to say that if the description of the location is only logical, then the warrant does not permit physical search. It also needs to say that the logical description of the place to be searched is as logically specific as the description of a physical place to be searched would have to be physically specific. However, I reckon that the wording of the rule change will not include specific restrictions and will be written in such a manner as to permit a broad range of interpretation because the odds that the FBI has taken their request to a panel having concerns about FBI overreach are pretty slim.

  16. Re:Still American so NSL on Yahoo Debuts End-To-End Encryption Email Plugin, Password-Free Logins · · Score: 1

    I don't think the suggestion was relating to what the US government can compel from users of Yahoo's service, but rather that they could compel Yahoo to provide the government access to that user's emails while simultaneously compelling Yahoo to deceive the user about having done so. The notion is that Yahoo could show the world source code and intend to use it, but when it came time to actually put it into use, the government could come and force Yahoo to use different code, written by the government, while also forcing Yahoo to lie to the world, claiming that it's using the code it had originally intended to use. Five years ago this might sound like a bizarre conspiracy theory, but now it seems much less like a question of whether the government would try than a question of how successful the government might be at forcing all the Yahoo employees who would have to know about the lie to keep it secret.

  17. Kyocera should stop this infringing behavior now on Microsoft Asks US Court To Ban Kyocera's Android Phones · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see a Sailfish OS Brigadier. Perhaps they could also work with the Blackphone people and make a phone that's resistant to both an adverse digital and physical environment.

  18. Re:Shouldn't they be after Google? on Microsoft Asks US Court To Ban Kyocera's Android Phones · · Score: 2

    I think it's doubly sad that any court allows a patent infringement suit to be filed where the party claiming infringement doesn't have to show exactly what patents are infringed upon and specifically how as part of the filing. Any court that permits such a thing has to be seen as irredeemably corrupt forever after and should be replaced with someone honest.

  19. Re:"Good News" is Relative on Game of Drones: As US Dithers, Rivals Get a Head Start · · Score: 1

    ?
    Mightn't you rather say "Just because I'm able to take pictures of my hot neighbor in the shower doesn't mean I should be taking pictures of my hot neighbor in the shower." Or, are you suggesting that your camera should recognize the zoom, camera location and direction and make it so you're not able to take those photos? Or, were you trying to say "doesn't mean I should be permitted to take pictures of my hot neighbor in the shower."

  20. Re:How is this different than encrypted online bac on Under US Pressure, PayPal Stops Working With Mega · · Score: 1

    I think Mega was singled out as dangerous because they tried to put Kim Dotcom in jail, and so far, he isn't in jail.

  21. Re:Actually on Stephen Hawking: Biggest Human Failing Is Aggression · · Score: 1

    If you want to engineer people at that level, it's probably better to make sex distasteful but have a desire for the continuation of the species. Think how much better the circumstances for children would be if people had to overcome their dislike of sex in order to get the children they want.

  22. Re:someone explain for the ignorant on Credit Card Fraud Could Peak In 2015 As the US Moves To EMV · · Score: 1

    Walmart is also now supporting swipe with no pin or signature for transactions under $50 w/o cash back. I was frightened the first time this happened to me. http://www.reddit.com/r/walmar...

  23. In Kansas City on AT&T To Match Google Fiber In Kansas City, Charge More If You Want Privacy · · Score: 1

    At the evil ISP monopoly conspiracy meetings, I have to imagine that ATT will get as big a head slap as Verizon might have for suing the FCC into its Title II declaration. Now when companies say "our merger will be fine for those customers," two sets of gigabit providers in Kansas City will be the perfect counterexample.

  24. Re:A right to trial by your peers on Trans-Pacific Partnership Enables Harsh Penalties For Filesharing · · Score: 1

    And, if you really want that trial, you can wait in prison for a few years until they get around to having it.

  25. I read these stories on Peak Google: The Company's Time At the Top May Be Nearing Its End · · Score: 1

    About how Google doesn't try to do better than break even with Gmail and Android and Google fiber, etc., because these things put more eyes into Google's advertising. Now I read about how Google has seen "little return on its investments" but is maintaining 20% growth in advertising.