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User: hawkingradiation

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  1. Lawsuit filed by.. on VA Supreme Court: Michael Mann Needn't Turn Over All His Email · · Score: 0

    People Against Hockey Stick Graphs...seriously, in whose best interest is this lawsuit being filed? If his research was false, then other researchers will come forth to put another more valid model. That is how science works. The hockey stick graph was a model. Are models now illegal?

  2. Zero Day emacs flaw... on Microsoft Word Zero-Day Used In Targeted Attacks · · Score: 1

    Did you know that there is a zero-day emacs flaw which allows an attacker to run arbitrary Lisp code??? Scary, I know, much less vim. If Emacs is to overtake Windows, this type of careless programming has to stop.

  3. Re:Liable *of not acting upon obvious infringement on German Domain Registrar Liable For Copyright Infringement · · Score: 1

    Respectfully sir, I don't have to. The fact that the name of the file given is infringing is not enough and the fact that the site is a torrent site. Even if there was a hash "identifying" the file, that is not 100% accurate, although it may be given a very strong indication of. I said "a site", not "the site", which is what the court will be determining, whether "a" site should be suspended due to a copyright holder's evaluation of "a" site and/or file. Like other commenters have mentioned, the burden placed on "a" site to manually check whether a file follows a certain copyright or not is expensive for "all" sites and is overy onerous. The solution is to go after the site itself, not the "linker" to the site. Perhaps there is an automated way to identifying a song, or perhaps. not "A" file on a site could be arbitrarily long and you could change just a few bits of a file and it would be different. You cannot decide with reasonable certainty right now without some algorithm or machine learning that uses incredible amounts of computing power to identify a file. BTW the industry is working tirelessly on this problem, and Google just received a patent on identifying objects in a file, so we are a step away from actually impersonating a person to see if a file resembles another file and that is the only way.

  4. Re:Liable *of not acting upon obvious infringement on German Domain Registrar Liable For Copyright Infringement · · Score: 1

    So just by looking at a site, you can tell if it is hosting infringing copies or not? How is it obvious? The bar is set way to low for prosecution. What about a site like GoDaddy who has probably hundreds of thousands of sites? Was the process automated? If so then it would be far too easy for someone to claim infringement when there is not, or even when there is clearly not infringement to try and take down someone's site because that person or organization does "not like" the site. Again just like the DMCA and we know that that process has not been abused. The problem lies with the owner and maintainer of the site. If we are going to prosecute everybody along the way for an infringement then bless our technological souls.

  5. Re:My Computer, One Drive? on OneDrive Is Microsoft's Rebranded Name For SkyDrive · · Score: 2

    If you would notice a pattern where Microsoft names their products with simple, yet all encompassing names. For example:

    Word,
    Office,
    SQL Server,
    System Center,
    and many others...including the name "Windows"

    It is amazing as if Bill Gates had a dog and named him "Microsoft Woof".

  6. Re:The Akamai question is actually pretty good on Blowing Up a Pointless Job Interview · · Score: 1

    Actually, I believe I have found the answer to this question, and have done so by googling: Read the Request for Comments from the Internet Engineering Task Force, then get back to me in a couple of years. Have a nice read and hope to see you in the new job!

  7. Re:Unprofessional all around on Blowing Up a Pointless Job Interview · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the ones defending a balanced response to a rather open ended and not specific question like are the ones who want respect and are doing the hiring and the ones who would like to start a new career, maybe for the first time, are the ones who want to be given a chance to answer a question that can show their skills, not just pull something out of a hat. Both want respect. You are hiring them to work in supposedly a new role. How do you know that their "reputation" actually puts them in a position of "not being able to do the job"? Why do HR managers (not saying that you are one) always trying to run ends-around trying to find ways in which a candidate can not be good for a job by not being direct and pretending there are x amount of ways one can find out whether a person can do the job rather than by doing it? To me it seems normal that a person's job skills can be tested best by, well, testing them at their job. If I were a younger employee, that's what I would ask for, and be more genuinely motivated to do if the job starts right here, right now, instead of having to go through all that rigamarole.
    In general, in WWII there was a shortage of men, people kept on dying, and choices and trust had to be made in the men doing their jobs, because there was no one else to fill them. Now, managers have enough time, money and leisure on their hands, that they can afford to "pretend" that all this extra bs hiring stuff makes a difference. Perhaps everybody needs to step back and figure out a way where most everybody can contribute. It would be good for everybody. [/rant]

  8. How about COMMIE OS: China Offering Multi Man Independent Effort Operating System. This is the development model: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Ha just joshing ya, that was then and this is now: Corporate Oligarchy Man in the Middle "I" on Everybody OS. "I" being a loose Chinese translation that means "eye", must have been somebody new to English.

  9. Arrested criminal suspects.... on SCOTUS To Weigh Smartphone Searches By Police · · Score: 1

    Here we go again....we have to protect ourselves from the "criminals" even before they are deemed so by a court of law. We have to "get the criminals", well in my country now, Canada, it is now criminal to rip a dvd to your computer without the content owners permission. And going off topic a bit, how long before almost everyone can be arrested for carrying on normal-day activities?

  10. Re:Units sold or already out? on Apple Devices To Reach Parity With Windows PCs In 2014 · · Score: 1

    According to this article intrinsic support for XP will end this year. (And by intrinsic I mean OS updates that keep the OS secure from 0-day flaws-not just MSE). Even if they were being run for 2014-2001 = 13 years, the end is nigh. I agree with other commenters that a PC has a shorter life span than you imagine, with 3-4 years tending to be the norm and with 1:1 in sales for "Mac":"PC" they will eventually reach parity within that time. BTW my home has been Windows free since 2004 and Google requires a business case for any Windows PC.

  11. Re:Accenture? on White House Reportedly Dismissing Key Healthcare.gov Contractor · · Score: 1

    Accenture is another Microsoft front, and if I am right, a lot of web-hosting providers are moving away from IIS for various reasons the least of which has to do with security. The conspiracy theorist in my is thinking that the reason that they would be moving to IIS is to seal healthcare.gov 's doom. Noooooo I actually want Obamacare to succeed.

  12. Re:Charity? Or PR? on Microsoft Donates Windows 8.1 To Nonprofit Organizations · · Score: 3, Insightful

    More likely an attempt to prevent more organizations switching to Linux as the first poster suggested (and in his sarcasm was modded down). Are they going to donate the computers that run them too? Looks like a lot of slashdotters have caught on to this wayward attempt to build users and acceptance.

  13. If they are dumb enough to not know that the government was spying on them and looking for them. *government staggering - Must....catch...paedophiles...at...all costs (gasp)*

  14. How far will they go... on UK Prime Minister Threatens To Block Further Snowden Revelations · · Score: 2

    so as to feel so defensive about what they have done to dismantle the liberties and freedoms that we all hold dear? Listening to these bureaucrats quip is more than just a nuisance, these guys have power to summon the government to imprison or send a drone to your home. Maybe we should all wait patiently until the whole government collapses. *chill* if that is the only hope we have then that is a scary thought.

  15. To make its influence known... on Google Leads Among Consumer Tech Companies Lobbying Congress · · Score: 1

    "Google is still the tech company that spends most lavishly to make its influence known in Washington, D.C." - you mean like laying fibre optic cables, introducing a new type of laptop, spending money "lavishly" on a new search algorithm...Yes Google sure is "making its influence known." Not arguing that Google has increased its lobbying, but maybe they came to a stark realization or sorts.

  16. Re:Not just Toyota on Automakers Struggle With Pairing Smartphones To Car Infotainment Systems · · Score: 1

    Comment...I would much rather buy a Toyota when it had Linux in it and was incompatible with Apple. I think instead if inking a deal with Microsoft which provides the "entertainment" system, they would have been much better off it they stayed with Linux. Now I think getting a car might just have to wait until they do something about this....I can already see update problems and freezing and the like, not to mention incompatibility with anything but a Windows phone. Ford does it too and were one of the early Microsoft adopters. Oh well, Jaguar Land Rover or high-end luxury car for me. This was a bad move on the part of Toyota. (I own a slightly older one, and I'm not sure "something" was better than nothing.

  17. Re:Sam Harris on Physicist Unveils a 'Turing Test' For Free Will · · Score: 1

    To be simpler: what if somebody kills and then uses as his defence "I read it in a book that we didn't have free will." which can be construed as "In this book it says that he doesn't have free will." That opens up many interesting questions. In my opinion, the goal is to heal not to punish, but in trying to heal, would we be punishing someone else. That may only take a shift in mental states as opposed to physical ones which might lead to a change in a physical state for someone else. My gosh, you could even consider a shift in a mental state to be a physical one.

  18. Re:Sam Harris on Physicist Unveils a 'Turing Test' For Free Will · · Score: 1

    "You scientist, are a heretic!". This is going to face a lot of opposition, but I completely agree. To put it in layman's terms, the more we know, the more we understand. Removing harm doesn't have to mean locking someone up, but doesn't preclude it. "We are all discovering, moment to moment, what is is to be ourselves". Great quote, leaves the future open, and that bit of information once embedded, even in a non-free will sense, can cause others to increase the adoption of a better society. ("can" means that not all others who get the information, will follow it - Not having the predisposition of free will will not stop us from behaving as though we have it and when it is used as an excuse "I killed the guy because I didn't have free will.", that doesn't stop us from saying to society "Don't kill". Now let's say that he read in a book somewhere that "we don't have free will" and uses that as his defence. The fact is that with or without without that information he may or may not have killed. There are four possibilities there. That is why this is an interesting topic that warrants further study. On the other hand, a person my use the excuse that "I read it in a book that we don't have free will" and use that to be kind to a person.)

  19. The goal on NSA Director Wants Threat Data Sharing With Private Sector · · Score: 1

    How to make spying and finding terrorists profitable, so the government can hand it over to the private sector. Like almost everything the US government does these days, i.e. NASA, health care, jails, someone has to earn more money than the effort they put into it: profit.

  20. Now imagine.... on The Man Who Created the Pencil Eraser and How Patents Have Changed · · Score: 1

    ...if he had invented a pencil eraser over the Internet

  21. As I read this story on For Overstated Claims, Gore, Tesla Upbraided By NWS, NHTSA Respectively · · Score: 1

    I am asking: what is the point?

  22. People have to have an ROI - at least an I. on The College-Loan Scandal · · Score: 1

    Just like a business, people to have to start with some sort of initial investment before society can get a result as a part of their effort. Sure we can grow a kid, feed him/her and keep them alive, but sorry to say, what good does it do to creating flying cars, spaceships, whatever comes next if we just drop them from a parachute in the middle of New York and expect them to make it and be productive to society. Jobs needed $90,000, Bill Gates was already rich, and if you don't have a lot of money, you will have to borrow from your future to pay for the present. Also it is not like people are telling students that the only way to get a job is to go to college, it is the only way for all but a few who already have an investment. High School diplomas do not impart enough value. Steve Jobs took calligraphy and audited courses to get the knowledge he needed. Bill Gates did not get the programming knowledge he needed by a corporation interested in charity. Where would we be if we were all Jobs and there not enough Wozniaks? Hint: where did Wozniak get his education? Ans: University of California, Berkeley. It would be great one day if one could self-teach all this information, but this is where we are at, we need an investment.

  23. Employee initiated projects on The Decline of '20% Time' at Google · · Score: 1

    It would be totally cool, and I am not sure the 20% consisted of this, but let the employees get together and use the 20% to fund projects that are bigger in scale. I wonder if Google has a process where an employee can submit a plan at a low level, then have it work its way up management, who then decides if a team will be created to work on that project. I would hate to see Google just giving its employees "goals" once a project is assigned and not based on the fear of being a slacker. Maybe an employee's performance needs to assessed not in numbers, but actually reviewed as to how effective they are in growing google. Or was this the old way?

  24. Re:NSA or Chinese great firewall on Silent Circle Follows Lavabit By Closing Encrypted E-mail Service · · Score: 1

    Maybe, but there were two searches, you only mentioned one computer, the other one was his wife's. Seems to me the story implied that he was searching at home. Also, how does somebody suddenly "find a search on his work computer" after he had supposedly logged out or let his screensaver take over. If anything the guy's employer was monitoring the searches through software, the employer's or something else. Was he searching for searches?

  25. DriveSky? on Microsoft Will Have To Rename SkyDrive · · Score: 1

    To remain consistent Microsoft will have to reverse all names to keep it's brand strategy. CEO MerBall, who has taken charge of the One Xbox he is trying to sell, will still try not to be your typical DRM laden, Soft Micro computer dealer. He is hard as nails in charting his org and it is a surprise with the mainstay of his operations, Swodniw and all of the 365 Office subscriptions customers want to buy, instead of own, he is still on top. No real reason as to why he would rename Windows so close to the arch villan Snowden, maybe to show that he is still hip with the younger generation? Remember Soft Micro has changed. :/