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User: Tony+Isaac

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  1. Never mind microbes on Should We Seed Life On Alien Worlds? (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 2

    Why not fully-developed plant and/or animal life, if the world can support them!

    Long term, we will have to find a way to survive in other places. Eventually, something will happen to Earth. We've already been hit by monster meteors that killed 90% of life on earth. There's surely another one out there that could go farther. Eventually, we'll need to find other places to live, if we want to survive.

  2. Re:Putting it into Perspective. on Who Is Getting Left Behind In the Internet Revolution? (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Feeling blessed is an attitude, not a circumstance. It is a way of saying that I'm grateful to God for life, and for living in a country that rewards hard work.

    If you believe you can't do better, you certainly won't. Many people who are poor are indeed poor because they are lazy or quitters. I recognize that there are people who have true disabilities or major problems that cause them to be poor, through no fault of their own, but this is the exception, not the rule.

    I work with young people in an inner city neighborhood of Houston. I'm there to show them that they CAN achieve more, if they just want it and work for it. Some of them are showing signs of promise, but others continue to make the same bad choices that will lead to repeating their parents' lives of poverty. These behaviors are clearly visible, even in school age children.

    I had many obstacles on my own way to a "successful" life. My parents lived well below the poverty line. Nobody came to my neighborhood with HUD vouchers or food stamps. Nobody gave me job training classes. I had to go after it, to want it, to work for it.

    Everybody has things that "stop" them from achieving. Whining about obstacles doesn't help. Instead, start finding ways to achieve your goals despite those obstacles!

  3. Re:Putting it into Perspective. on Who Is Getting Left Behind In the Internet Revolution? (sciencemag.org) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you live in the US, poverty is not unavoidable. It is usually a consequence of your own actions. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but I'm pretty sure you can find a way to make more than $11,800 per year.

    I know this because I started out poor. I moved to Houston with all of my possessions in an old Pontiac Sunbird. I found roommates to help with rent. I worked hard, and didn't buy things I couldn't afford.

    Nowadays, I have more money than I need, but I still live by the same principles of working hard, not over-spending, and setting money aside for a rainy day. In 30 years as an adult, I have yet to buy a brand new car or an $800 cell phone. But I'm very blessed.

    Now, my sons are starting down the same path. They don't make much money yet, but they are learning life's lessons, that things don't get handed to you, you have to work for them. My 21-year-old son moved out of our house this year after finding "real" work, even though he doesn't have a college education. He makes enough to pay his own rent, and all his own living expenses. He isn't looking for a HUD voucher or any other kind of handout.

    By the way, there is free Internet in every public library. And you can find perfectly capable Android smartphones for $100 or less. You can use those to look for your first real job, so you can afford your own internet, and a brand-name smartphone, if that's what you want.

  4. Testing security is a crime on Researcher Gets 20 Days In Prison For Hacking State Websites As Political Stunt (softpedia.com) · · Score: 2

    ...unless you have permission from the owner.

    If I test the security of your house by trying to break in, you have every right to call the police and have me arrested. Now, if you pay me, or invite me, to test your home security by trying to break in, that's a completely different story.

    Computer systems are no different.

  5. Re:We program our ideology into our story titles on We Risk Programming Inequality into Our DNA (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    You read the article? You must be new around here. :-)

  6. Space is at a premium? on Apple Cites 'Courage' As Reason To Remove 3.5mm Headphone Jack (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Have you ever taken a phone apart? Most of it is battery. Will removing the headphone jack really make a significant difference in the battery life?

  7. Re:"Fell out of his pocket" on Fugitive Arrested After Using 'Wanted' Poster As His Facebook Profile Pic (ibtimes.co.uk) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's a very strange conclusion to come to. Who is more likely to have drugs in his possession: a felon who was stupid enough to use his wanted poster on his facebook page, or a police officer doing his job? Of course, there are some crooked police officers in this country. But the vast majority are out there laying their life on the line every day to keep us all safe.

  8. This article was written in April. Since then, the TSA did a lot of hiring, and the long lines are gone. Yes, they messed up, and their role is a bit dubious, but if we're going to trash the TSA, let's at least take into account the improvements they HAVE made!

  9. In other words, 0.3% of Walmart employees on Walmart Is Cutting 7,000 Jobs Due To Automation (yahoo.com) · · Score: 2

    Walmart, and every other major company everywhere, has been replacing employees with technology at this rate--or more--for years.

  10. A startup of 1400? on How G.E. Is Transforming Into An IoT Start-Up (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Who ever heard of a startup with that many people! You'd need a bureaucracy just to manage that many people. But then, GE is very comfortable with bureaucracies.

  11. Re:Odd, this "free range" environment... on How G.E. Is Transforming Into An IoT Start-Up (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    This part of GE's plan shows that they are trying to copy faddish ideas, thinking it sounds cool. Do programmers actually like this kind of setup? Really? I wonder if it's more of a marketing ploy by office furniture companies, to sell more of their trendy products.

  12. Re:In before... on IPv6 Achieves 50% Reach On Major US Carriers (worldipv6launch.org) · · Score: 1

    And I can't remember all those hex digits LOL

    And THIS is the best thing about IPv6: it might finally stop enterprise IT teams and programmers from using IP addresses to access everything, rather than using their names. Because IPv4 numbers are easy to remember, it's tempting to use them in config files, command lines, and code. But this is a dangerous practice, considering that many IP addresses change assignments regularly, even if they are "fixed" addresses. I've seen entire VM clusters inadvertently wiped out by IT staff because they mis-typed an IP address.

  13. What defines "hair on fire"? on One In Five Vehicle Software Vulnerabilities Are 'Hair On Fire' Critical (securityledger.com) · · Score: 1

    Every software team has to prioritize bug fixes, including security vulnerabilities. When deciding which ones to fix first, every team considers factors such as:
    - severity - how costly is the damage that occurs from the problem?
    - frequency - how often does it happen, or how often is it likely to happen?
    - cost - how much does it cost to fix?

    If a bug is really severe (bricks your device) but it happens only once for each 100 million installations, it might not be worth the effort to fix it.

    I think the author is considering only severity when he refers to these issues being "hair on fire." But how often are these vulnerabilities exploited in real life? How does this frequency compare to, say, ordinary car theft? In the US, about 2,000 cars are stolen every day, mostly through low-tech methods. I doubt these security "flaws" are exploited anywhere close to that often.

    I don't think anybody's hair is actually on fire yet.

  14. Re:RTFA this time on Can We Avoid Government Surveillance By Leaving The Grid? (counterpunch.org) · · Score: 1

    The author should take his own advice and get off the grid, then we wouldn't have to read his silly articles!

  15. We already use automated coding every day on Has The NSF Automated Coding with ExCAPE? (adtmag.com) · · Score: 1

    IDEs like Visual Studio generate code using a GUI. Report builders like SSRS generate code using a GUI. There are lots of examples, and they all have one thing in common: they work within very limited boundaries. Visual Studio generates code to produce data entry forms; SSRS generates code to produce reports. This project might generate some specific class of applications. That's nothing new, but it will certainly never replace general purpose languages.

  16. Re:Not to diminish the usefulness of the feature on Man Says Tesla Autopilot Saved His Life By Driving Him To the Hospital (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    I doubt the car "knew" that he was having a medical emergency. He probably just told it to exit at the hospital exit. For it to call an ambulance, he would have had to tell it to do so.

  17. Somebody sold India a LOT of hardware on Can Iris-Scanning ID Systems Tell the Difference Between a Live and Dead Eye? (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    India is going to find out that iris scanning suffers from all of the same issues as any other biometric scanning device. ALL of them have to turn the scan into a digital representation, which is then used to authenticate or verify identity. The weak point int he process is between the device and the computer. Since that digital representation can be copied and replicated, it is no more secure than any other identification system. It's actually less secure, because it's considered the user name AND password. Any biometric system really needs a second factor, a password, to go with it.

  18. DNA reading techniques require massive redundancy on Encrypted DNA Storage Investigated by DOE Researchers (darkreading.com) · · Score: 1

    Today's DNA reading techniques begin with PCR, a process that multiplies small amounts of DNA so that millions of copies are made. These copies are needed to be accurately read by the equipment, in order to distinguish between "good" copies and noise. Getting the results amounts to statistical analysis of the number of A, T, C, or G results read at a certain location; a "call" can be made only if a high enough percentage of the results agree.

    The bit density claims are massively overstated, and reading the data would not be trivial!

  19. DNA degrades after just a few years on Encrypted DNA Storage Investigated by DOE Researchers (darkreading.com) · · Score: 2

    I work for a DNA lab. After about 10 years, DNA samples that have been sent to us are basically unusable because they degrade over time. Sure, it might be possible to still read some strands of the remaining DNA, but significant percentages are lost. DNA archaeologists don't mind, because they are looking for whatever fragments they can still read. But if they required most of the DNA to be readable after long periods of time, they would be out of luck.

  20. Oh how well I know! I'm old enough to have used punch cards. In a sense, it's like the Y2K problem. It's a legacy technique that had a purpose in the beginning, and was never corrected when it became obvious that there was a real cost. The biggest difference is that the "smart key" problem is still in wide use in NEW applications today, while the Y2K problem has largely been obliterated.

  21. The greater sin here was that they were using a live system for testing

    I don't know about that. There are many situations where it is impossible, or infeasible, to reproduce an entire production environment with test equipment. For example, if you are writing software to use a credit card processor, you have no choice but to connect with the "real" credit card processor to do your testing, since you don't have access to the processor's system. Sure the processor might have a test environment for you to use, but there are bugs that don't show up in a test environment, only in production.

    Still, you're right about not needing "testing" IDs, a separate field that indicates a test transaction is always better.

  22. Why "smart" IDs are a bad idea on Programming Bug Costs Citigroup $7M After Legit Transactions Mistaken For Test Data For 15 Years (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is a perfect illustration of why "smart" IDs are a bad idea. Any time you encode attributes (like "this is a test transaction") into an ID (like a range of bank branch IDs) you are asking for trouble. Everybody does it, but it's usually just plain lazy and careless. DON'T! Add an attribute that marks the transaction as a test transaction! Then anybody who sees it will instantly know the difference.

  23. Opera part of Big Four??? on Microsoft: Only Microsoft Edge Will Play Netflix Content At 1080p On Your PC (pcworld.com) · · Score: 1

    How is Opera part of the "big four" with it's 2% market share? Edge, for that matter, isn't far ahead.

  24. Re:The article, and the headline, are bullshit. on Tech Job Postings Are Down 40% On Popular Job Boards (medium.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Really??? Maybe it's where you live that's the problem. I live in Houston (not exactly a tech Mecca), and have found NO shortage of tech jobs, even though I'm 50.

  25. Re:first drone, not first police bomb on Using a Bomb Robot to Kill a Suspect Is an Unprecedented Shift in Policing (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Here's a link to a story written from a more neutral point of view:
    http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05...

    It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I think the police deserve the benefit of the doubt, both in Philadelphia and in Dallas. Not carte blanche, but benefit of the doubt.