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User: Bysshe

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  1. Re:Phil Zimmerman is ok in my book on Zimmermann's Silent Circle Now Live · · Score: 1

    Nope, not mellowed. Just as focused and evangelical on privcay. Just the public eye has moved on a bit.

  2. Re:Now, with centralized user tracking! on Zimmermann's Silent Circle Now Live · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Zimmermann's one of those hyper-idealists who will defend his position to his own detriment and the detriment of anyone close to him. If you have to trust someone for privacy, its him.

  3. Re:Now, with centralized user tracking! on Zimmermann's Silent Circle Now Live · · Score: 5, Informative

    Considering Zimmermann's track record of not including backdoors and that he was investigated for several years much to his personal detriment for several years in the 90s for his release of PGP I think this particular protocol is pretty safe. Lastly and business case is based 100% on total security. If ever it leaked that there's any kind of backdoor it would all be for naught. I highly doubt the core team (there are 4 of them, including Zimmermann, 2 ex seals, and Callas) would risk their reputations on including a backdoor. In addition any real backdoors would flag an interference.

  4. Re:Fraud. on Medicare Bills Rise As Records Turn Electronic · · Score: 1

    Just located this article, starts sounds more and more like fraud to me

    Upcoding

  5. Fraud. on Medicare Bills Rise As Records Turn Electronic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't sound like electronic records is the problem. Fraud seems to be the problem.

  6. Re:No smiles in Ohio on No Smiles At NJ Motor Vehicle Commission · · Score: 1

    Oh I'm not so sure. I was smiling when I saw that nutcase lost most of his seats.

  7. Re:Probably on Can a Court Order You To Delete a Facebook Account? · · Score: 1

    No... busdrivers are the busculture.

  8. Re:Fawning Rubbish on Meet iRobot Founder Rodney Brooks's New Industrial Bot, Baxter · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure that means what you think it means.

  9. Living in Holland on Dutch Police Ask 8000+ Citizens To Provide Their DNA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is not great public support for this. Outside of that podunk village there's plenty of people, me included, who would go tell the authorities to go fuck themselves. Slippery slope this is. Destroy data? yeah right. They've also said, only after the case has been solved. What if its not solved? And is data ever really destroyed?

    On the radio and in the media they're just not playing the sound bites of people who refuse, they're only playing clips of people who say "what's the big deal if you have nothing to hide". The old line secret police everywhere like to use.

    I for one will tell the justice department to shove it if they ask me for this.

  10. Re:If you have to ask... on Are 12-16 Hour Workdays Productive? · · Score: 1

    Were you using vendors wholly staffed by construction workers?!

  11. Re:Power in developing countries... on Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens · · Score: 1

    Not different problems since they all contribute to the same effect that we're trying to prevent. The problem being externalized costs not being accounted for as mentioned earlier in the thread. Where they differ is in the engineering, or more specifical in the end use of the resulting energy (being conversion into motion, or into electricity [let's ignore electric engines for a moment]. Also, they can both be addressed by regulating the fuel input, whether that's coal or gasoline, heavy fuel oil, or jet fuel.

  12. Re:Power in developing countries... on Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens · · Score: 1

    *regulating and taxing

  13. Re:Power in developing countries... on Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens · · Score: 1

    That's right. Its the same problem that we're all facing in the airline industry: China, Russia and US oppose European airline CO2 tax.

    I'd say tackle the problems in power generation, airlines, passenger cars, land and sea-freight and you've tackled pretty much the whole problem. This can be accomplished by regulating and the input (fuel). Of course the income made from these taxes should go to actually solving the problem then instead of random pet projects from politicians. Regardless, none of this solves India's current problem.

  14. Power in developing countries... on Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This argument also counts for developed countries in a lot of cases as well:

    Power is a commodity. This makes the cheapest provider of it the winner. Current technologies are such that coal is still (often by far) the cheapest source of power. In addition it is one of the few base-load options out there (others being biofuel, nuclear, hydoelectric). With these two features of coal, wind is often times too expensive an option for a country such as India and with an aging grid, the power fluctuations from other sources like wind and solar will often overwhelm the infrastructure.

    Technology adoption is rarely the only barrier to a solution. Cost plays a major role and when you're subsistence-living you don't give a shit about whether coal will pollute your environment because you're more worried about where your next meal will come from.

    Some will also argue that local power like wind requires less infrastructure. This isn't entirely true. You still need to run the wires from the local power station to the residences. You can save on long-distance transmission lines but considering you need those anyways for the base-load... that's a bit of a non argument.

    In general, solar, wind etc are first world solutions where we have the option of paying a bit more to make up for the difference in costs involved in producing the cleaner and more local power and even then... these projects have a pretty high fail rate (Solar fields in Spain, Wind farms in Hawai'i).

  15. Counterpoint on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 2
  16. Let's really have a look at spending on Economists: US Poverty On Track To Hit Highest Level Since 1960s · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Check this out: Government spending by president. This shows that while Obama may have been spending a lot during a recession, something that many economists encourage to balance out the "good years", the real culprits of out of control government spending are Reagan, Bush and Bush.

    Reagan can also be somewhat forgiven due to the economic problems in the 80s and encouraging government spending to make up for the loss in business generated GDP, however he was there for 8 years... and that recession did not last 8 years.

    Just looking at the fiscal realities, Clinton was by far the best president if it weren't for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act which set the stage for "too big to fail" banks. Still from a spending standpoint he's by far the best.

    Obama is overspending driven by rampant bankster cronyism stemming originally from the Bush era and into the Obama years. This started with TARP (Bush) and continued into QEII, III, and further. There's a good argument to be made that much of the current spending is momentum spending from the second Bush term.

    Ultimately we have to look beyond the last 3.5 years and really examine longer term track records before we conclude that the Dems overspend or the Repubs drive up debt.

  17. Re:Lovely on Washington State To Allow Voter Registration Over Facebook · · Score: 1

    It does depend on your perspective. It still gives me the willies. But you take the bad with the good.

  18. Knowing is not controlling on Asimov's Psychohistory Becoming a Reality? · · Score: 1

    I'm not too worried about this. Statistics can always be used to extrapolate changes of things happening. Knowing what will happen doesn't mean you can control it and then knowing that someone can predict it will alter the outcomes anyways (think minority report). So overall as long as the predictions are made public and doesn't get classified we'll be fine.

    Hopefully these techniques get spread around the world so that the classifying the information won't work.

  19. Re:Lovely on Washington State To Allow Voter Registration Over Facebook · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is different in different countries. Here in Holland when you live/move to a city you are required by law to register with that city (else not be able to get health insurance, vote, or get social assistance). When you're registered they also automatically send you your voter card before elections. Then its up to you if you go to vote or not. Next elections here are September 12th.

  20. Re:Lovely on Washington State To Allow Voter Registration Over Facebook · · Score: 1

    That would be "Hauptgrammatikführer". Führer alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available.

    Sincerely,
    Oberhauptgrammatikführer

  21. Re:Lovely on Washington State To Allow Voter Registration Over Facebook · · Score: 2

    Better yet, make it required with penalty of fine if you don't. If you have no opinion you vote blank. That way you get a more moderate and rational reflection of actual citizen opinion instead of just the extreme ends who are emotionally vested in the issues

  22. Re:They are the good guys on How the Inventors of Dragon Speech Recognition Technology Lost Everything · · Score: 1

    That's what you get for being a US citizen.

  23. Re:Surprised? on Former Pentagon Analyst: China Has Backdoors To 80% of Telecoms · · Score: 1

    If you refused to business with the bad guys, you would never do business.

  24. Not really how the business landscape works on Why Amazon Wants To Pay Sales Tax · · Score: 1

    The problem with being a low-price player is you have to always have the lowest price. Yes, most more expensive shops will go out of business. Yes you'll end up with a monopoly or duopoly situation, however when those retailers abuse their power and raise prices, a small shop will pop up to fill the price gap again. The playing field will remain level if you have enforcement and legislation to prevent the larger party from abusing its supply chain position. This is how apple retains its dominance over new technologies like the retina display - they buy up all manufacturing capacity for a year or two so nobody else can have it. Walmart consistently does this and nearly bankrupts its suppliers too - read about Vlassic Pickle's near bankruptcy. Prevent the supply chain abuses and retailers will need to remain sharp and low-priced offering the consumers the best value for money. Then you'll have the service-survivors. The players in the market who do not try to differentiate on price. Think of the small boutique electronics shop who will come to you home and get you the right system for the acoustics of your room. Or the small coffee shop where the owner knows your name and your order when you walk in. There you pay more for the additional service. Everyone in the middle... offering sorta good prices and half-assed service will rightfully be pushed out of the market. Differentiate or die... just because someone's been there for 50 years doesn't mean they have a right to be there for 51.

  25. Re:Incoming... on Georgia Apple Store Refuses To Sell iPad To Iranian-American Teen · · Score: 2

    Persian?