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  1. Re:Funny how you never hear ... on Glitches in Massive Government Databases? · · Score: 1

    This is the most damning evidence against most conspiracy theories involving the government. A friend of mine is convinced that the government is involved in a massive conspiracy (google up 'chemtrails') involving spraying toxic chemicals over major metropolitan areas.

    Dick Nixon couldn't burglarize an office and keep it a secret, how do you expect to marshall hundreds if not thousands of tanker planes, pilots, chemicals, not to mention command and control and the hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for it all and keep *that* a secret?

    I don't know if its his personal paranoia causes him to refuse to acknlowedge this or what; he also refuses to provide a rational speculation on *why* the government would be interested in spraying toxins over a large portion of the population.

    I love conspiracists and conspiracies, but unfortunately they often presume perfect information and perfect competence.

  2. Solve all voting machine problems on Inside Electronic Voting Machines · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...just require a literacy test prior to voting. I fail to see how anyone who can't read can responsibly vote.

    I mean it. We require licenses to do all kinds of things, why not at least require a literacy standard for voting?

  3. Re:Preaching to the quire on Linux vs. SCO: The Decision Matrix · · Score: 1

    At first I thought it was some Olde Englishe expression or something and I was wrong all along for thinking it was "Preaching to the choir".

    M-W says a "quire" is a 1/4 of a ream of paper.

  4. Issue is too complex for voters on The New Yorker on Business Process Patents · · Score: 1

    This issue is too complex for voters to get excited about -- it doesn't have the sex appeal that killing Muslims, cutting taxes or health care have.

    Furthermore, the current legislative processes are too dominated by corporate interests with a stake in maintaining the status quo on intellectual property. Even if people were generally excited about it, it's far too easy for corporate lobbyists and their lackeys in congress to kill any meaningful patent reform.

    The best hope it might have would be to align it with a sexy issue (prescription drugs?) that had broad support, and convince people that patent reform would result in the sexy issue getting fixed as well. It's important, though, that the issues remain closely coupled so that you can't derail the reform by "fixing" the more well-understood popular side of the issue. Even then, you still face the gauntlet of lobbyists and special interests bent on keeping things as they are.

  5. Patents need implementation sunsets on The New Yorker on Business Process Patents · · Score: 1

    Patents should have an implementation sunset built into them that requires the idea to show substantial implementation within, say, 5 years, or the patent becomes invalid and the idea part of the public domain. With substantial implementation, the sunset period would be the normal period of expiration.

    It would allow inventors and businesses time to sell or implement their big ideas, but more importantly it would prevent "defensive" patents (those ideas patented but never implemented or licensed) as well as substantially hindering if not eliminating "sneak attack" patents where people come back years later and demand royalties from coincidental ideas.

    Some people I've discussed this thinks it overly hinders the small inventor, since they're much less likely to be able to implement complex ideas, but I think that drawback is outweighed by the need to keep the patent system focused on productive ideas brought to market rather than hindrances to competition.

  6. Most card systems have loads of weaknesses on Grad Student's Work Reveals National Infrastructure · · Score: 1

    I was working last night fixing a blown disk system in my phone switch, and as I was returning from another cancer stick, I swiped my card to get in the exit door (which requires a swipe to exit as well). The first time I got the ACK to open the door, but I didn't and walked to look at something a few feet away. I swiped again and went back to work.

    What surprised me is, why should it accept me swiping twice to get in? Shouldn't I be required to swipe "out" to get in? And what about the elevators? We have a bunch of floors and when I swipe in the elevator, I can hit multiple floors on the same swipe, enabling me to effectively "get lost" as far as where I went on the elevator.

    I think that most card systems have multiple vulnerabilities as far as tracking, entry, and so forth that would allow someone to fake entries, have multiple entries on a single card code and so on, obscure their destinations, and so on, although I'm not sure how you fix them short of having a security guard monitor and mandate individual swipes per pass-through and check all double entrance/exits and so on, which would be a real pain.

  7. Is it .NET or the economy? on .Net:... 3 Years Later · · Score: 1

    I'm considering the idea that the economy, not the technology, may be at play here. Sure, .NET was overhyped, but if you look at the economy we've had for the past three years its hardly surprising .NET isn't everywhere.

    The economy has been dog-slow, IT spending has been dramatically curtailed; people aren't spending money on IT unless they have to, and it seems to have had an effect on IT generally -- unlike the 90s, we're not seeing revision life cycles every 6-9 months and wholesale introductions of new technologies.

    Although even if IT weren't slow these days, .NET may be something that just got drowned out in the noise of other new technology intros.

    It's probably also been slowed by the lack of an across-the-board OS introduction that includes it "built-in". Loads of people are loathe to add this kind of functionality to a stable environment; maybe if they had released 03 server and workstation at the same time with these as built-in dependent technologies there may have been broader uptake.

  8. Re:Can this be effective? on Michigan's Proposed Spam Law Called Toughest In U.S. · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wouldn't it be more effective to after the companies that the SPAMers are advertising for?

    I've been asking them same question, but taking it a step further and wondering why we're not bothering to enforce many of the existing laws against fraud, bad advertising and so forth as a means to reign in the spam problem instead of the less palatable email regulation laws we've been seeing proposed (and endorsed by many people who otherwise won't run software that isn't GPL'd).

    All the recent articles I've read about spammers basically indicate that spamming is a contract business seperate from the people selling products. As you say, eventually most of this involves a highly tracable financial transaction between buyer and seller, which should enable easy nabbing of people conducting these transactions.

    Get enough serious convinctions for fraud and should be able to put a significant dent in the spam business; do that, and you should curtail a lot of spam.

  9. Self-employment on Distributed Computing Economics · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What if it became a self-employment option?

    In other words, my home office, instead of being a revenue-sucking hole filled with computers was instead a source of distributed computing power I could sell on an ad-hoc basis? I eat the tab for the upkeep and get paid cash per work unit I'm able to get done.

  10. Re:More like... on Adobe Drops Mac Support For Premiere · · Score: 1

    I kind of get the feeling that they're re-creating the (SGI) workstation business all over again -- high priced, high margin machines designed for niche applications.

  11. Mac to become single-vendor platform? on Adobe Drops Mac Support For Premiere · · Score: 1

    Anyone think that the Mac will become effectively a single-vendor platform, with Apple providing the dominant software packages for the dominant uses and users?

    In other words, buy a Mac, get most of the software you need. Spend another $3k with Apple and you get "pro" tools for most applications -- video editing, photo editing, email/web, development, and page layout?

    Not trolling, just wondering.

  12. Typical anti-US tirade on VoIP Booming in Africa · · Score: 1

    Once again, typical anti-US tirade. When the US *does* intervene, we're the bad guys because our motivations are more complicated than some simple black-and-white morality.

    When we *don't* intervene, we're the bad guys. I heard a tirade on CBC (Canadian) this weekend about the failure of the US in Rwanda. I'm sorry, but there was a *Canadian* in charge of the peacekeeping force and it was the fucking Francophones in Europe responsible for getting that political situation set up that way.

    I've got news for everyone -- foreign policy *period* is a nasty game of complex motivations that's played for keeps by *everyone*. It never was and never will be a matter of simple nursery-school morality or politics. The US wasn't even a *player* in global foreign policy until 1898 and had no hegemonic power until after WW II. Why blame the US for all the shitty political and ethnic strife that was mostly established by the map-makers in London, Paris, Brussles and Berlin?

  13. Re:Can a store really refuse cash? on eBay Provides No Privacy For Sellers · · Score: 1

    I think you might be misreading that.

    A sale, even a retail one, is a contract between buyer and seller. I can sell you a bushel of apples for a bushel of corn, and if that's the contract, then you will be within your rights in refusing cash and demanding the apples.

    However, your demand for apples may be hard to satisfy; you can sue me in court, but you must demonstrate a loss which will ultimately need to be denominated in dollars. The court could order me to buy apples, but only to the extent that it covers your dollar-denominated loss. If you denominated your loss at $100 and the price of Apples has gone to $200, you may only get 1/2 of a bushel of Apples, since that was the value of your loss.

    I'm not sure there's any debt that's not ultimately settlable in cash, since it is conveniently equivilent to its financial value. $100 bill is actually worth $100, and that's how we denominate value.

  14. Re:Cat5 + Coax + RJ-12 on Building A (Serious) Home Network From Scratch · · Score: 1

    It's also expesnive and it presumes you want those things run to every location. We're getting close to ending a 2 month remodel and I put a pair of cat5 in many more places than I put coax, and I think I pulled almost as much speaker wire as I did cat5.

    What does make sense is to have a multiple spools of whatever it is you're pulling so that you can minimize the time it takes to pull multiple runs.

    I don't know if they make it, but I wish I could have found double-jacketed speaker wire -- ie, two jacketed pairs in a single jacket that could be stripped back near the end of a run for seperate speakers. I found pulling speaker wire ALWAYS as a pair, especially when pulling N runs of it was a pain.

    It also helps to have the right tools. One thing I found handy, especially for working in finished rooms/walls was this Greenlee wire-pulling drill bit. It consists of a ~5' rod with a cone-shaped boring bit and a right-angle bracket that can be used to orient the bit down into the bottom plate of a wall through a wallplate cutout. There's a wire pulling hanger that gets attached to the bit once it's into the space below and you can then pull the wire back up into the opening, slowly reversing the drill as you go. It also works well for other situations where a 5' flexible drill bit would be handy.

    I've also found that bailing wire is excellent for difficult fishing situations as well -- it's highly bendable but has excellent pulling strength -- I can fish it simpler than fishtape in short, tight angle situations.

  15. Compare the outcome with RIAA "piracy" cases on Verizon Sues Nextel For Espionage · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It'll be interesting to compare the outcome of this with RIAA/MPAA inspired "piracy" cases.

    In the entertainment media world, ordinary people who engage in "piracy" have perhaps a hundred thousands dollars (at MSRP) worth of music which, even if widely distributed might account for maybe a couple of million dollars in lost gross retail revenue.

    In this situation we have executives of a major corporation who are potentially doing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to their competitors; the scale of business damage exceeds the RIAA-type cases by at least a single order of magnitude and many more if like me you don't buy the inflated damage estimates of the media companies.

    So how many Nextel executives will face $500/month penalties for life? How many will face jail time or massive civil penalties of millions of dollars?

    My guess is zero, but I can't explain why -- if theft of IP eq damage, why won't the same rules that the recording industries want to apply to you and apply to corporate executives that engage in piracy (and perhaps other more nefarious crimes like breaking and entering, theft, purchase of stolen property)?

    Or is this just another double standard where the harsh end of the law applies to you and I, but if you're a corporate guy it doesn't?

  16. Why do you hate tampon commercials? on TiVo Data Collection Ramifications · · Score: 1

    It's not like menstruation is a degenerate behavior that some obscure minority of the population is involved in.

    Maybe when you grow up and have a relationship with a real adult woman other than your mother you'll understand this.

  17. Rewind to watch = fast-forwarded too far on TiVo Data Collection Ramifications · · Score: 1

    I have never rewound to watch a commercial. Usually what happens is I FF too far (too fast) and have to back up again to get back to the program re-entry point.

    Sometimes Tivo's automatic rewind-on-fastforward does it right, but sometimes it doesn't and I end up getting about the last half of the last commercial.

    Sounds like a bunch of erroneous data to me.

    Further made erroneous by me watching something on Tivo and reading a catalog or magazine at the same time. I get into the magazine, forget about the show, and after about three spots I realize there's a commercial playing, and then I FF to the show again.

  18. Re:Full Tivo or the newly announced Tivo Lite? on Pioneer To Release TiVo/DVD Burner Combo · · Score: 1

    IMHO (as a Series2-60 owner), Tivo is really awesome, but it's also really expensive. Presuming a 4 year device life with lifetime subscription, it cost me nearly $550, which is about $12/month ABOVE AND BEYOND my other entertainment obligations. Add HMO functionality and you're looking at something closer to $30 per month.

    It also integrates poorly, albeit functionally, with digital cable.

    Which is why I suspect that once the bugs are mostly worked out, the SA8000 DVR (dual tuner) box will seriously erode Tivo's growth options. It's $5/month here in Minneapolis from Crime-Warner.

    I hope Tivo-lite catches on or Tivo comes up with a way to lower the average monthly cost of the service. I'd also like to see a revenue model based on providing better features and loyalty -- like tranfering lifetimes to new hardware for $50, up to 2 additional Tivos no additional fees, and selling new features as individual modules, as well as new features that IMPROVE the TV in Tivo and not just do BS like JPEG shows and MP3 playing.

  19. Mod up parent on Transparent Web Caching Patented · · Score: 1

    If this is true (it does have a low UID with a username that actually matches the guy's name), this should be +5 Informative.

  20. Full Tivo or the newly announced Tivo Lite? on Pioneer To Release TiVo/DVD Burner Combo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There have been some stories about Tivo licensing their software in a 'lite' version which lops off some of the functionality (wishlists, season passes and only 3 days of guide data) to electronics manufacturers but doesn't cost anything.

    I wonder if the Pioneer device is using FULL Tivo software or if its just the lite version. I would think that Tivo would find life a little hot under the collar if they started offering more automated archival options for programming under the full Tivo banner.

    Or have Tivo decided to do something to counteract this by using nonstandard disk formats, ultra-low bitrates, no a/b editing, or even CSS encryption or other gimmicks to make the DVD copies less than desirable?

  21. Re:prosecution laches will hopefully kick in on Chip Firm Hit By 45-Year-Old Patent · · Score: 1

    Some people claimed that it would be advantageous to prohibit a person filing a patent, if they never would or could implement the invention of their own accord.

    The compromise I would favor would be patents would only be good initially for 3 years. Once implemented, they would then become good for whatever the standard patent length is, but you would have to substantially implement them in this time frame or the patent would expire and enter the public domain.

    This would allow individuals and small companies to do R&D and protect or license them, but would hinder people who decide to mass patent or patent obvious ideas and then litigate, refuse to license or other gimmicks that are essentially private taxation of productive enterprise.

    I see the value of patenting worthwhile ideas and rewarding their inventors, but these are only truly socially valuable if they're put into use. An idea "captured" but not made available is not a social good and should not be protected by law. The law on IP should be structured to provide the greatest SOCIAL benefit, not the greatest opportunity for PRIVATE benefit.

    This is probably disadvantageous to small inventors, but I think the flip side of not allowing people to ransom obvious ideas or 'tax' people that implement them through post-hoc litigation would be far more valuable. Innovate and implement, not innovate and litigate.

  22. Re:Kids section on US Supreme Court Upholds CIPA · · Score: 1

    The downtown library in Minneapolis had a "problem" with pervs openly and wantonly surfing super hard core sites. Bad enough that some librarians sued claiming the porn made for a hostile work environment.

    They didn't want to do private booths, because they were afraid they WOULD become jackoff booths.

  23. This is a good sysadmin's bane on The Next Step in Fighting Spam: Greylisting · · Score: 1

    When we do our jobs well and our systems work well, email is nearly as instantaneous as IM. Unfortunately it creates this illusion that e-mail *is* IM.

    I get a call from the lusers at least once a week panicking because someone in another part of the world clicked [SEND] 30 seconds ago and they didn't have the mail message.

    "Was there an attachment?"

    "Yeah, a pretty big powerpoint file."

    "Give it a few minutes."

    I check the logs later and it's a like 120 Meg file and the sending system is listed with an A record of like "joe-blow-DSL-1-2-3-4".

  24. I doubt it on The Future of Digital Cinema · · Score: 1

    I'd imagine it may allow for some greater discretion on the part of filmmakers, but I'd imagine most of it will be seen as profitability.

    Another poster said it would help indie films, which might be more accurate, but I think what you might end up with is just better looking indie films.

  25. Re:The likely outcome... on EFF Supporting Home DVD Editing · · Score: 1

    Gee, you'd think that the freedom-loving Republicans would hurry up and overturn this Democratic-sponsored travesty.

    Or Not.