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User: John.Banister

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  1. Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile. on Ask Slashdot: SIM-Card Solutions In North America? · · Score: 1

    I tried to get just a sim card from AT&T. They told me that they sell them, but only to people who already have a monthly account. T-Mobile roams on AT&T towers.

  2. Re:What logic! on Norway Scraps Online Voting · · Score: 1

    Is their any evidence that countries with high voter turnout are better governed?

    You could compare countries with compulsory voting with their neighbors.

  3. Re:Laugh-worthy on Former NSA Chief Warned Against Selling NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    From where I sit, it looks like there's too much stuff classified as secret and too little compartmentalization of the stuff that really ought to be kept secret. But, when I was making the example request, partly it was a complaint about them failing to declassify, not because the actual information still needs to be secret, but because public scrutiny might affect the agency budget or the career of someone still employed there - or just from not wanting to make the effort to determine whether they're done with it. If they declassified information (ie deallocated cultural memories (ie cleaned up after themselves)) when they were done with it, then there would be plenty of examples out there. And, partly it was for the legal catch-22 of being unable to show how well you're keeping something secret without it (either the details of the information, or the details of the capability) not being secret anymore.

  4. Re:Laugh-worthy on Former NSA Chief Warned Against Selling NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they could provide an example of where they successfully secured some data ]~_^} But, more seriously, securing commercial data still isn't in competition with the NSA, as the NSA's data securing activities have zero presence in that market. I'm sure he couldn't use copies of software developed at his old job. But, making sure that security software developed at his new job is sufficiently robust, and knowing under what circumstances security should be stronger, and under what other circumstances the extra burden outweighs the extra benefit are some of the skills he could bring to a commercial job that don't compete with securing activities performed by the NSA.

  5. An oPhone module on Google Demos Modular Phone That (Almost) Actually Works · · Score: 1

    that prints odors, especially the one that triggers your anger management therapist's post-hypnotic suggestion to go to your happy place and postpone the anger response that would spike your blood pressure and trigger another cardiac episode.

  6. Deliver a Mission Impossible message on Google Demos Modular Phone That (Almost) Actually Works · · Score: 1

    and self destruct (after releasing some magic smoke & without harming other modules) in five seconds.

  7. Re:Laugh-worthy on Former NSA Chief Warned Against Selling NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    But the NSA (apparently) isn't in the data securing business. They're in the learning secrets business. A non-compete clause would prevent him from working for the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency or someone else in the learning secrets business. If a court says that securing the data of people engaged in lawful behavior is competing with the NSA, then they're saying that knowing everything about the doings of the people engaged in lawful behavior is properly within the NSA's purview. The NSA might like that idea, but I don't think a (non-secret) court would.

  8. The negative space isn't a national secret, on Former NSA Chief Warned Against Selling NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    only the exact demarcation of its extent. If I know the NSA has a secret underground mole robot tapping in to buried data lines, I'm not giving away a national secret if I tell my client, "Y'know, lets run our data lines on phone poles," so long as I don't tell them exactly why I like that idea.

  9. Re:I lost the password on Mass. Supreme Court Says Defendant Can Be Compelled To Decrypt Data · · Score: 1

    No, just pjh3000 gets to sit in jail. Those people have friends in the government.

  10. Re:They left a hole on Supreme Court Rules Cell Phones Can't Be Searched Without a Warrant · · Score: 1

    The imaginary wiping wouldn't necessarily have to be remote. You could have a local program that keeps sensitive information in volatile memory and wipes if it isn't periodically told not to. They'd never be able to ascertain the presence of such software unless they searched for it. Battery removal would cause a wipe, and a Faraday bag wouldn't prevent one.

  11. Re:What? on Linux Mint 17 KDE Released · · Score: 1

    You could be het & not be a breeder, like if you're a freemartin.

  12. Fix political corruption for $5 mil? on Steve Wozniak Endorses Lessig's Mayday Super PAC · · Score: 1

    In what municipality?

  13. Re:TAFTA on EU May Allow Members Home Rule On GMO Foods · · Score: 1

    I was thinking that they might keep their requirements, but TAFTA being with the EU as a whole, the bans in individual countries would be something separate.

  14. Re:TAFTA on EU May Allow Members Home Rule On GMO Foods · · Score: 1

    If TAFTA favors GMOs, but people can tell themselves that it doesn't matter because each country can still be anti-GMO at a more local level, that might help keep it from being voted down on account of GMOs alone.

  15. TAFTA on EU May Allow Members Home Rule On GMO Foods · · Score: 1

    I have to think that this is someone's idea for an end run around USA agribusiness lobbyists in TAFTA negotiations.

  16. Re:First Biomachines on 3D Bioprinters Could Make Enhanced, Electricity-Generating 'Superorgans' · · Score: 1

    A technological innovation that allows a person to actually piss beer. It'll change frat parties forever.

  17. Laws can change on The FCC Can't Help Cities Trapped By Predatory Internet Deals With Big Telecom · · Score: 1

    Washington state used to have a law that made it illegal to sell distilled liquor in grocery stores. People voted on a ballot initiative and the law changed. Even if bought politicians stay bought, people can change the politicians. A city might find that a contract is void because the former politicians who made it were not acting in good faith with regard to the public's interest.

  18. First Biomachines on 3D Bioprinters Could Make Enhanced, Electricity-Generating 'Superorgans' · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can see them having success with biological machines that replace more cumbersome mechanical machines. I can even see them producing special purpose machines, like something that processes blood alcohol and takes some of the stress from over consumption off of the liver. But replacing undamaged organs with "superorgans" will take a while as people learn what isn't now known about the complexity of the systems in which organs interact. By the time they get there they might end up with distributed organs made of groups of self replicating nano sized biomachines and we'll have to be scared of a whole new class of viruses.

  19. Re:Automatic software updates on Tesla Makes Improvements To Model S · · Score: 1

    If you pick "do not install now," can you go back and install it in a couple of days?

  20. Automatic software updates on Tesla Makes Improvements To Model S · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "automatically push software to the Model S fleet" So, either my car does a software update while I'm doing 50mph or the home office needs to know at any given moment whether I'm driving or not. For a car I own, I'd prefer the option to do manual updates.

  21. Re:Perhaps some consideration of the employment... on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    So then, it would be reasonable to expect that tenure would be granted to a small minority of the population of academia and that it would be inappropriate to consider tenure a likely outcome when pursuing study in the humanities. I notice that 8 years of $70k tuition plus the cost of a dwelling in the city eats up the direct financial value of a Nobel Prize pretty quickly these days, although I imagine that having won a Nobel Prize still makes it fairly easy to get a job.

  22. Re:Perhaps some consideration of the employment... on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    Now I'm attempting to imagine experimental work in the humanities. I read about progress in human knowledge in the physical sciences fairly frequently, but it seems that I read about fundamental advances in mathematics more frequently than I do any in the humanities (with the understanding that, although the branches of psychology study humans, they count themselves among the sciences). That article in Slate on the benign transgression theory of humor was fairly interesting. Perhaps if more of the progress being made in the humanities was brought to light, society would have more interest in funding it. I think a lot of the current objection to funding the humanities comes from the feeling that one is paying others so that they can spend their time doing mental masturbation rather than expanding the scope of human knowledge in a manner that anyone else will care about.

  23. Perhaps some consideration of the employment... on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    I notice the phrase "tenure-track" used a couple of times to describe the desirable jobs that might be obtained with these degrees. I've never heard the word "tenure" used to refer to a job outside an educational institution. If the only job for the degree holder is at the same sort of educational institution where the degree was obtained, perhaps that department could be merged with the other departments that teach people who will end up working within the education industry. Other subsets of the humanities that teach people who become lawyers or human relations consultants branch off into subdivisions or separate schools that specialize in teaching oriented towards those specific jobs. A university department that specializes in pursuit of knowledge for its own sake might best be aimed at teaching those who are independently wealthy. They could teach concurrent courses in patron flattery and high level begging, but I think the courses that teach revenue generating skills would quickly split off and be primarily attended by people without the interest in knowledge for its own sake.

  24. Re:180 satellites... on Google To Spend $1 Billion On Fleet of Satellites · · Score: 1

    The article says "Antennas developed by companies including Kymeta Corp. have no moving parts and are controlled by software, which reduces manufacturing and maintenance costs." Since the satellites are moving and the antennas have not moving parts, I'm not sure how highly directional they would be. I have a couple of Iridium antennas, and they're certainly omnidirectional.

  25. Re:Interesting... on Google To Spend $1 Billion On Fleet of Satellites · · Score: 1

    The article says "180 small, high-capacity satellites orbiting the earth at lower altitudes than traditional satellites." For lower altitude (LEO) satellites, the same satellite doesn't stay fixed over the same area. As far as end users are concerned, you could probably look at Google's fiber optic deployments to see how it is with middle men getting between end users and Google's network hardware.