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User: Earthquake+Retrofit

Earthquake+Retrofit's activity in the archive.

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Comments · 193

  1. Re:I'm afraid on Speaker of the House Boehner Announces Resignation · · Score: 1

    Perhaps it's my general optimism but this could end up being a good thing for the party. When Rep. McCarthy and the Teabaggers take over, they just may screw things up so badly between now and their primaries that their own party dumps them for Republicans willing to compromise and get things done. Then again, I have interviewed thousands of voters over the years so I'm not holding my breath.

  2. Re:burn a quart of oil on Volkswagen Ordered To Recall 500K Vehicles Over Its Own Malicious Programming · · Score: 0

    It really depends on the car. Only the cheapest just use a timer. Slightly less cheap will count the number of cold starts and how long the engine has ran, and use a simple formula. Some higher end cars actually do sense the oil condition.

    This is what my design professor called a high tech solution to a low tech problem. I use a dipstick.

  3. Business is business on DNA-Based Advertising Redefines Commercial "Ad-Targeting" · · Score: 4, Funny

    Identifying people genetically predisposed to be suckers is the bread and butter of business. Getting them to pay for the privilege of being taken to cleaners is icing on the cake.

  4. Re:How to sell inventory for the first time? on Will Ad Blockers Kill the Digital Media Industry? · · Score: 1

    ...how should a newly established web site go about finding advertisers?

    1. People who sell stuff, should have their own website.

    2. People who need money to run their website can be paid to publish a LINK to that seller.

    3. Profit!!!

  5. Re:A couple points on Google Is Restructuring Under a New Company Called Alphabet · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...it it will become just one of several companies under the Alphabet umbrella. It's a refactoring and a modularization.

    Not just refactoring and modularization. From a press release:

    In order to re-intermediate Google's methodologies and fungibly target an expanded array of elastic corporate deliverables, we are unable to synergistically engage in enabled convergence and be more assertive in seizing multi-functional content in collaborative, target-scalable alignments at this time.

    Now I get it.

  6. Re:A couple points on Google Is Restructuring Under a New Company Called Alphabet · · Score: 1

    It was a stupid name anyway. Even when I was a fan I didn't like it. I for one welcome our new Alphabet-as-a-verb overlord.

  7. Re:We should believe this when... on NBC Report: Russian Hackers Behind Attack On Pentagon Mail System · · Score: 1

    We still are waiting on the "evidence" that it was China behind the OPM hack. I doubt we'll get anything clearer here.

    Inspector general Patrick E. McFarland said that OPM’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, or OCIO, has “hindered and interfered with” his office’s oversight and “has created an environment of mistrust by providing my office with incorrect and/or misleading information.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

  8. systemd is my fault on Lennart Poettering Announces the First Systemd Conference · · Score: 4, Funny
    I may be somewhat more susceptible to guilt than most. Something happened to me a few years ago at the Z-80 Lounge in San Francisco. It was a day before my birthday. This guy I had never seen before sat down next to me and told me he needed my help. 'Okay' I said. If I had something else to do I wouldn't have been there in the first place.

    'I need you to prevent something horrible from happening in the future, Steve.' He then nodded at the TV. There was a game on and along the bottom of the screen was a stock ticker. After reading from his tablet for a moment he said, 'Jackson is gonna score on a third-down pass in a minute.'

    We watched three plays and sure enough, he was right. He proceeded to call the next series exactly. 'Nice trick.' I said, 'But this broadcast must be delayed.'

    'That stock ticker isn't though, is it? Check your timepiece. The market closes in ten minutes.' He then showed me the closing price for both exchanges and bought me another stout.

    It must have been a wild day on Wall Street because prices were feverishly swinging up and down. But he got the final numbers, right down to the penny. 'I'm from the future.' he said.

    Now you hear all sorts of crazy talk at the Z-80 Lounge. And San Francisco IS the golden cultural capital in the hearts of hippie hackers everywhere. So I figured he hacked my tablet. "You have to stop it. It's called system..." But just then, a big hand clamped over his mouth and two big guys in suits grabbed him and dragged him out so I never knew until now what he was talking about.

    Sorry.

  9. Re:No surprises there... on Two Years Later, White House Responds To 'Pardon Edward Snowden' Petition · · Score: 1

    I talked to a lot of the president's supporters before he was elected who believed he was a lot more liberal than he was. Actually he was just so much better than the alternative that people heard what they wanted to hear.

  10. Sure dude on An Interview With Hacking Team's CEO · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "...especially the ‘lone wolf’ terrorist, this requirement is even more important"

    They do an enormous amount of plotting with ... themselves?

  11. Re:Not that Useful on Firefox Will Soon Show You Which Tabs Are Making Noise, and Let You Mute Them · · Score: 0

    It's usually a problem when you open several tabs at once and one of them starts playing. And you have no idea which one.

    So this is more bloat in FF isn't it? It doesn't even solve what's a niche problem for those few people who insist on having so many tabs open they cannot read them. If you can't read them, you can't see which one to mute.

  12. Consumers Need Privacy Controls on FCC CIO: Consumers Need Privacy Controls In the Internet of Everything Era · · Score: 2

    In the age of the internet of things. And not a moment before.

  13. Question on California Legislation May Allow First Responders To Take Out Drones · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Are aircraft really so fragile that toy helicopters can cause them to crash or are these really big drones?

  14. Re:What can possibly.... on U. Michigan Opens a Test City For Driverless Cars · · Score: 1

    All it would take it 1 compromised vehicle to gain access and cause complete and utter chaos.

    This seems rather likely as my server is constantly being probed for exploitation by something at the University of Michigan.

  15. Re:The code... on NSA Releases Open Source Security Tool For Linux · · Score: 1

    The Github link in the summary isn't to the code.

    https://github.com/simp

    My apologies. When I submitted the story I didn't check that link because.... well I guess because I chickened out.

  16. Re:Cannot happen soon enough. on What Will Happen When Cascadia Subduction Zone Slips · · Score: 1

    Allow me to introduce you to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  17. Re:Swatting? on Interviews: Brian Krebs Answers Your Questions · · Score: 1

    ... what it is like to be a victim of swatting...

    I don't want to know.

  18. Re:Fear of the past on WikiLeaks: NSA Eavesdropped On the Last Three French Presidents · · Score: 4, Funny

    And it would be much better to worry about the real problems, - the global pollution, mass unemployment, the life extinction on the planet, etc. But not the ridiculous ghosts of the past.

    I beg to differ. We must prevent the French from transferring top secret guillotine technology to ISIS.

  19. Re:Misleading Summary on Political Polls Become Less Reliable As We Head Into 2016 Presidential Election · · Score: 1

    There's a machine in another state that dials numbers until someone answers then switches the call to me. It's not illegal. Landline or cellphone, it makes no difference. And landline calls are likely to lead to older people.

  20. Re:Ivan Jagonoff on Facebook's Absurd Pseudonym Purgatory · · Score: 1

    Where can I find a list of valid sounding names like Pat McGroin and Buster Hymen?

  21. Re:Plumbing. on Ask Slashdot: How to Avoid The Worst of a Tech Bubble? · · Score: 1

    I've had landlords who I wish were taking antipsychotic medication.

  22. Dice Company responds: (first draft) on Professional Internet Troll Sues Her Former Employer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dice is currently involved in transitioning SourceForge's magnetic niches. In order to synergize such a leading-edge platform while integrating web-enabled e-tailers and benchmarking frictionless vortals we had to postpone synthesizing out-of-the-box convergence.

    I hope this clears things up.

  23. Re:sourceforge significantly reduces crapware on Land Art Park Significantly Reduces Jet Engine Noise Near Airport · · Score: 1

    Dice (which owns both Sourceforge and Slashdot) is suppressing them.

    No, that was the readers of the firehose like me.

  24. Re:Yeah, no. on What AI Experts Think About the Existential Risk of AI · · Score: 1

    Wake me up when we have a computer that can actually refuse me from hitting the off switch.

    IF (command == "OFF") {return ("Eat Me.")};

  25. Complaints on FBI: Social Media, Virtual Currency Fraud Becoming a Huge Problem · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Complaints involving social media have quadrupled over the last five years.

    Perhaps usage of online social media has also quadrupled over the last five years.