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User: mark-t

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  1. Even if there was hacking.... on Top-Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Effort Days Before 2016 Election (theintercept.com) · · Score: -1, Troll

    ... is there any evidence that it changed the outcome?

    And if there were, what difference would that make, now?

    I'm betting zilch.

  2. Re:Two issues which people confuse on Supreme Court Agrees To Decide Major Privacy Case On Cellphone Data (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    I didn't say that medical records were the same as other records.... I only said that you could reasonably infer which party owns your records by looking at who owns records that you already can reasonably expect to be confidential.

  3. Re:Seems reasonable. on Harvard Pulls Student Offers Over Online Comments (go.com) · · Score: 1

    I doubt it.... "If it's not illegal, it's ethical" is probably among one of the most common rationalisations for unethical behavior that there is. I would be suprised if there were any statistical difference in the percentage of people on the autistic spectrum that feel that way and the views held by the general neurotypical population except to the extent that any correlation could ever be shown between being neurotypical and being ethical (which I personally doubt is very strong, if even such a correlation actually exists).

  4. Re:Two issues which people confuse on Supreme Court Agrees To Decide Major Privacy Case On Cellphone Data (reuters.com) · · Score: 2

    Does your doctor own your medical info, or do you? The answer to this question leads you to the answer to yours.

  5. Re:Wtf? No, it isn't.... on Bruce Perens Explains That 'GPL Is A Contract' Court Case (perens.com) · · Score: 1

    If the terms were not complied with, then they weren't agreed to, regardless of any claiim to the contrary, since the GPL grants permission to copy only to people that do not act in contravention of its terms.

  6. Re:Here's a crazy thought on What To Do If the Laptop Ban Goes Global (backchannel.com) · · Score: 1

    No.... just a respectable living wage. Although it's not a universal truth, it's still generally the case that people who already make enough to take care of their needs and still have enough left over to be able to afford to buy some nice things would be less likely to be tempted by the opportunity to steal such things. The minority that don't fall into this category can be kept honest by the fear of getting caught.

  7. Re:Stupid but effective on What To Do If the Laptop Ban Goes Global (backchannel.com) · · Score: 1

    If you're traveling on business none of your own personal stuff should be on there anyway and insurance would cover the loss of any laptop from damage during checking it in.

    Which is fine, unless you are the owner of said business... and do you seriously think that the insurance against theft or damage during flights is going to be cheap?

  8. Re:Wtf? No, it isn't.... on Bruce Perens Explains That 'GPL Is A Contract' Court Case (perens.com) · · Score: 1

    The GPL puts no obligations on the receiver that aren't already there because of copyright. If you receive a copyrighted work, the only obligation that is placed upon you by receiving it is that you need to get the copyright holder's permission in order to copy it (typically written permission).

    The GPL only grants such written permission to copy the work that it covers to certain people, indentifying the people that it is granting permission to copy the work as anyone who implicitly agrees to its terms by not doing anything which contradicts those terms. It does not require an arbitrary recipient to follow those terms *AT ALL*, as a contract would. If the recipient doesn't follow the terms, the GPL doesn't give them any permission to copy the work, and if they do abide by them, then it does. Simple. If someone distributes the work and does something that contradicts the terms of the GPL, then they aren't breaking any contract, because they never agreed to such a contract in the first place, the person is committing copyright infringement by copying a work that they have not been granted permission to copy. The only thing resembling a "contract" when it comes to the GPL is the "contract" that copyright law already covers, which is the agreement that you would not copy the work without permission.

    Done.

  9. Wtf? No, it isn't.... on Bruce Perens Explains That 'GPL Is A Contract' Court Case (perens.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Copyrighted works require permission to copy them... the GPL is simply a written permission to copy the work it covers to anyone that will agree to the terms. Nothing more, and nothing less. If you agree to the terms, implicitly, by not acting in contravention to those terms, then you have permission to copy the work, but if you act in contravention of the terms then the default status of copyrighted work applies and no such permission is granted by the GPL.

    Full stop.

  10. Re:I only have an A.S. degree in programming... on Java 9 Delayed Due To Modularity Controversy (infoworld.com) · · Score: 1

    What modularity in the case of Java 9 means is that it was intended to migrate away from a monolithic design, which could enable faster startup times for many programs as they would not need to wait for the entire JRE to be loaded and initialized before starting.

  11. Re: Are people still seriously using Java? on Java 9 Delayed Due To Modularity Controversy (infoworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Fucking autocorrect. I meant clion

  12. Re: Are people still seriously using Java? on Java 9 Delayed Due To Modularity Controversy (infoworld.com) · · Score: 1

    i gave up on colon because I couldn't import my existing projects with their own working makefiles. It insisted on using cmake

  13. Re:Need to ban gasoline powered cars on 'Instantly Rechargeable' Battery Could Change the Future of Electric Cars (sciencedaily.com) · · Score: 1

    Crap! I meant to hit "Preview", and I hit "Submit". I know full well that VHS was never banned.... I was using that as a comparison for how, over time, one would replace the other, not because I thought that VHS was ever outlawed.

  14. Re:Need to ban gasoline powered cars on 'Instantly Rechargeable' Battery Could Change the Future of Electric Cars (sciencedaily.com) · · Score: 1

    I would assume that any gasoline ban would apply only to manufacturers... not owners. It would likely take no more than a generation for electric to be utterly dominant. Used gasoline cars would continue to be available in used car lots, but as more charging infrastructure is continually added to enable the installation of rapid charging pump facilities throughout the country, the demand for gasoline cars would continually drop.

    I'm not saying I would advocate such a ban, only illustrating how, I think, such a ban could feasibly work. Kinda like how DVD's and then Blu Ray ultimately all but completely replaced VHS.

  15. IMO, home charging is the main reason to get an electric car.

    Yes, it is... indisputably so, in fact. Which is why if you live in an apartment or condo that was not built recently enough, or especially if you live in an older high-density neighborhood and the electric grid in your area just wouldn't be able to handle the load of a lot of people charging their cars at once, an electric car is just not going to be viable for you anytime in the foreseeable future unless you move.

    Stopping to fill up once or twice a week is a pain in the backside

    Not as painful as having to take 20 to 30 minutes out of every day just to go to a rapid charging station and fill up your car there... and that's further assuming that there's not a lineup at the charge pumps, even if the line is quite short you could be waiting an hour or more to get your car charged, while at a gas pump, it takes no more than a few minutes for each person so your wait time is going to be a whole lot shorter.

    But I'm totally on board with you on the subject of charging at home.... if I lived in a place where that was viable, I know that I'd be very strongly considering getting an EV.

  16. Most obvious implication.... on 'Our Streets Are Made For People': San Francisco Mulls Ban On Delivery Robots (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    ... is that it is illegal to drive a plain old RC car on the street.... even if there is no traffic at the time, such as what you may often find in some streets of a quiet suburban neighborhood.

  17. But YouTube still can??? Seems like they would have to disable even their own ads on hateful content or else they could be construed as endorsing it.

  18. Re:At this point, does it even matter? on Putin Hints At US Election Meddling By 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    As I'm not AC, suggesting you know who I am should not be any major accomplishment, although from your comment with regard to my political views, it is clear that you don't really know who I am at all

  19. Re:Gut unfortunately says Judicial ruling right. on Man Sentenced To 180 Days In Jail For Refusing To Give Police His iPhone Passcode (miamiherald.com) · · Score: 1

    If you refuse - the judge probably has the power to hold you in contempt of court if he found it unbelievable that you do not know that password. (different standard of proof - perjury would be higher).

    So what you do is make it believable that you cannot provide the means for them to unlock the devicee. Wetware could be your friend here.. granted, it may still be a few years away before we can feasibly do this, but you tie your password in part to what you are thinking as you enter it, and it may even be possible to tie it to your emotional state as well, or maybe even some of your subconscious states, so that if you are under any kind of duress to unlock the device, the password will not work, making it provably impossible to comply with their demands (obviously the device would still be usable for emergency purposes such as calling 911, even if under duress, since you would not ordinarily need a password to access such functionality anyways).

    At that point, because of the technology that is built into it, it's impossible for anyone to make any reasonable case that you are deliberately acting in contempt of court when you cannot open the device for them, and I'm not sure entirely how a court that would otherwise have made such a case would respond to this sort of mechanism.

  20. Re:At this point, does it even matter? on Putin Hints At US Election Meddling By 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Egad, your astounding and most witty dismissal of any intelligence I am alleged to possess has utterly demolished any points I might have been trying to make. How *dare* you find such an obvious loophole in my argument?

  21. At this point, does it even matter? on Putin Hints At US Election Meddling By 'Patriotically Minded' Russians (nytimes.com) · · Score: 2

    I mean, let's suppose that somehow, actual evidence that was somehow incontrovertible showed that there was meddling... and let's even further say that they managed to identify the people responsible, and were able to bring them to court, where they were appropriately and justly tried and sentenced for the crime.

    Would that really change anything, though? I'm betting it wouldn't.

  22. It doesn't matter anymore why she lost, really.... on Hillary Clinton Rips 'Bankrupt' DNC Data Operation (axios.com) · · Score: 1

    The election is over, its done... the new president is in office, and blaming the turn of events on anything, or whining about how its not her fault even if she were right is not going to change the reality in which we find ourselves living in today... She needs to stop dwelling on the past and focus her energies and thoughts on what she is going to do today, tomorrow, and so on.

  23. Re:And the USA is also one of the worst per capita on The US Is the Biggest Carbon Polluter in History (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    "one" of the worst??? I understood that per capita, it was *the* worst. There are worse countries overall, but they have a greater population than the USA.

  24. Re:the parents' rights expire when she does on Parents Have No Right To Dead Child's Facebook Account, German Court Rules (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    How do you move a facebook account to a deceased status?

  25. Re:The climate deal is just promises on Elon Musk Joins CEOs Calling For US To Stay in Paris Climate Deal (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    What's "worthless" about the deal is that it amounts to not much beyond saying "we will try", but actively deciding to not participate sends a clear message that the USA does not even *want* to try...

    Which of course they are legally allowed to do, but considering the issue at hand, and given that it affects everyone on the planet, I'm not entirely convinced that was the *right* thing to do, unless the US were to volunteer an initiative of its own that it will practice within its own borders which might achieve similar ends.