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User: Scott+Scott

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Comments · 66

  1. Re:That's why I work from the basement: silence is on Do Headphones Help Or Hurt Productivity? · · Score: 1

    The article does go on to list the benefits of music beyond scores on reading comprehension; it's far from damning. If you're normally that relaxed and only rarely feel the need to listen to music, more power to you.

    As an aside, that last line sounds terrible. (Unless you actually meant to imply that you're married to your mum, in which case I retract my statement.)

  2. Re:this is complete BS on NTSB Recommends Cell Phone Ban For Drivers · · Score: 1

    Surprisingly, I agree with this to an extent. Seat belts should absolutely be required, at least when you're talking multiple passengers. If you're not strapped in, you have a much higher likelihood of taking the person next to you out even if they're being responsible. The main revision I'd like to see to DUI legislation is the removal of the asinine rule that drivers under 21 are automatically incapable of driving when any alcohol is in their system (regardless of percentage or circumstance). I'm amazed by tickets for speeds in excess of unrealistic limits and what amount to technicalities on several points. If someone is actually driving dangerously, they should be taken off the road. Cops don't need to look for a cell phone to tell. And really, who cares if you're on the phone while you're at a dead stop on the freeway?

  3. Re:You are at work... on Big Brother In the Home Office · · Score: 1

    I don't see why anyone gives a flying fuck whether you look at lolcats 4 hours a day or work tirelessly from dawn to dusk...so long as you deliver. It's not about putting in X hours being a total robot, it's about whether you are sufficiently adding value or reducing cost.

  4. Re:How can an ISP sell my info on Verizon Wireless Changes Privacy Policy · · Score: 1

    Funny, I'm pretty sure I could figure out who you are (or at least your likely demographic) without even a truly invasive search based on simple information gleaned from monitoring your data usage (to say nothing of the fact that your ISP has plenty of personally identifying information on file with each contract).

    Your location, IP address, applications that frequently connect to the net, port usage, browser information, and so on can always be linked back to you. Even if you were wrongly identified, we're talking demographics here so no harm, no foul. No advertiser cares if it's the kid with the $50 electric guitar or the $80 electric guitar. Both kids play cheap electric guitars and would probably be interested in lessons... Or a new guitar...
    Or a guitar-heavy new album...

    And that's all information that can be stored, transmitted anywhere, sold, subpoenaed at any time. Just the fact that I could mail mortgage/real estate information based on the financial institutions you frequent and the addresses of your most frequent locations, credit offers based on your shopping and financial history, and bogus 3 day, 2 night getaway vouchers every time you look up Vegas should be enough to demonstrate just how easily that information can be mined and resold.

  5. Re:Darmok and Jalad at Seattle on Real Life Super Hero Arrested · · Score: 1

    His eyes wide open!

    Phoenix on the ocean!

  6. Re:Eh Wot? on Facebook's URL Scanner Vulnerable To Cloaking Attack · · Score: 1
  7. Re:But where on Pirate Party Wins Seat In Berlin · · Score: 1

    Just watch C-SPAN or find a live feed of the Congressional floor. They're all very hard at work, you just can't see any of them.

    Yeah, I know. They're REALLY good Ninjas.

    The ones I can see don't look hard at work either. Incompetence...or mad ninja skills?

  8. Re:[sigh] on Amazon Folds In California Sales Tax Deal · · Score: 1

    Texas, the state with still-horrendous unemployment rates that has Rick Perry strutting around because they added a slew of minimum wage jobs? That Texas?

    Texas and California are built on completely different economies. You're comparing apples and sharks with laser beams.

  9. Re:I still want to know if you have to buy the boo on Stanford AI Class 'Beta' For Commercial Launch? · · Score: 1

    Like 90% percent of college courses?

    Even if it weren't optional, a single $100 book is tame compared to most courses I've taken.

  10. Re:And what? on Wikileaks Reveals BitTorrent Lawsuit Background · · Score: 1

    Commercials which, due to the wonders of modern technology, I comfortably bypass. No advertiser actually gains anything from my viewership. I pay for the privilege of watching televised content without commercials; exactly what part of watching the same file on a different device should be considered anything but fair use?

    I for one think it insane that anyone would care how I view a show I pay for the privilege of watching.

  11. What, no bailout? on US Gov't Lobbied EU To Approve Oracle-Sun Merger · · Score: 1

    Dear U.S. Government,

    Why didn't you bail out Sun if you were so very concerned about its future? Lobbying for Oracle to take over Sun was like paying for the meanest, most ruthless fox to guard one of your most useful hens because she was sick. Meanwhile, you gave handouts to every big financial or automotive company that caused horrible problems and whined when they got burned by their own mess.

    Get fucked.

  12. Re:Privacy vs Transparency on Google Launches Identity Verification Badge Scheme · · Score: 1

    People forget that it's much harder to go "hey, I want to be monitored a little less now".

  13. Re:Tragic... on Former Wikileaks Spokesman Destroyed Documents · · Score: 1

    You do realize that the ever-helpful Democrats are the ones who won't take a stand for these supposed ideals even when they have the majority, and consistently vote for every harebrained Republican idea there is, right?

    The halfway decent ideas are the ones that get tied up in legislative hell, while the Democrats themselves have been tied up for years in a know-nothing, do-nothing hypocritical, backasswards loop. At least the Republicans are coming up with promoting ideas and standing behind them. I mean sure, they're bad ideas (stupidity), and they stand behind them even in the face of evidence proving them to be the worst possible course (stupidity/intellectual cowardice), but that's still better stones than a group that doesn't have it in them to either defend some very simple principles through action (cowardice) or admit to having no allegiance to those principles (stupidity/intellectual cowardice).

    In conclusion, Democrats are largely the color of yellow, Republicans are largely the color of stupid, and they largely add up to a bunch of stupid cowards. Why anyone takes their rhetoric at face value is beyond me.

  14. Re:Makes sense... on 13-Year-Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence For Solar Power Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    When God starts telling me how to build things, I'll start applying for patents under his name.

    On the other hand, there's always psychiatric help. Troll harder.

  15. Re:It's A Trade Off on BlackBerry Server Can Be Hacked With Image File · · Score: 1

    Actually, anyone who's read girlintraining's user page would know she's anything but homophobic.

    (Did someone say something about glass houses?)

  16. Re:Good thing I have a stash.... on 8 Grams of Thorium Could Replace Gasoline In Cars · · Score: 1

    You'll get by with a little help from your friends.

  17. Re:groan on Anonymous Vows To Destroy Facebook · · Score: 1

    Ur, no. The relevant information that link provides is what we already know:

    1. College students with self-esteem issues use Facebook a lot.
    2. Self-absorbed college students use Facebook a lot.
    3. Self-absorbed college students make a lot of self-aggrandizing posts on Facebook.
    4. Self-absorbed college students upload a lot of self-aggrandizing photos on Facebook.

    It's pretty obvious that other people use Facebook too.

  18. Re:Uhm... DUH. on Anonymous Vows To Destroy Facebook · · Score: 1

    Seems like a false dilemma here. If only one in a million users suffers because data is improperly harvested and used, that doesn't support the misuse unless it is essential to keeping the other 999,999 happy. I doubt it is.

    I concur with your remarks on authorities; if anything, their means of collecting, storing, and using data are even scarier than many of the worst corporate offenders. I do wonder why Anonymous isn't campaigning against some of the recent policies.

  19. Re:Uhm... DUH. on Anonymous Vows To Destroy Facebook · · Score: 1

    Act sensibly on the net and you'll be fine for the most part.

    That sounds suspiciously like the "only criminals have something to hide" defense, thinly veiled with a qualifier that defeats any merit your point might otherwise have.

    Yes, we get it, people who experience serious retribution likely did something to provoke it. Thank you, oh oracle of ancient triteness, er, wisdom.

    Yes, the prior poster could have expressed their position more effectively, but you haven't actually countered it. What exactly is your response, in the event that someone's information is dredged up and used to destroy them? It seems self-evident that even innocuous statements can be twisted into damaging weapons for the person with any reputation worth destroying.

    These 'what if' scenarios are so statistically insignificant, particularly if you follow the sensible part I mentioned, that it's basically a barrier to being able to use technically in a useful and fun manner.

    Please don't confuse hypothetical situations with statistics. If you're going to claim that they bear any relation, please cite studies or some very convincing proofs. As it stands, you're arguing that something that isn't a statistic has no statistical merit and is therefore moot, while insinuating that your wholly unqualified, unverified concept of sensible behavior - whatever that means - holds some degree of the same.

    Now then. In the entirely possible case that someone is badly affected by the use of such collected data, what protects them?

  20. Re:Anon on Building a Better 'Anonymous?' · · Score: 1

    Isn't Anonymous kind of synonymous with progressive anarchy?

    More like a creeping mold.

    1. Develop a manner where a person could support themselves legitimately anywhere in the world. (ie: generate legit income from fair labour)

    Wut

    2. Develop a manner where a person could know what organizations to support and which to avoid.

    Read Wikileaks?

    3. Help inform people about what they do that is positive.

    Project Chanology, anyone?

    4. Cultivate talent.

    Ha. Good one.

    6. Maintain their own security.

    Not an issue for an all-inclusive anonymous group that by nature keeps its borders open.

    7. Shun asshats.

    You miss the point of Anonymous.

    9. Create some technologies and give them away to the planet.

    Already happened. I don't know why people don't appreciate free DDOS scripts.

    10. Develop a future for Anonymous. What is Anonymous in 20yrs? Is it still an underground group of loosely affiliated people? Is it every human being on the planet? What are the goals of this group? What should the goals be? What shouldn't the goals be?

    You're overanalyzing Anon here.

  21. Re:Why is anyone surprised by this? on Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens · · Score: 1

    NSA is restricted by law to deal with foreign communcations only.

    Too bad the NSA acts outside the law.

  22. Re:Well yeah on Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens · · Score: 2

    By extension, I shouldn't use a phone ever, because the person on the other end will almost certainly be vulnerable to tracking and eavesdropping.

    We shouldn't have to spend our days attempting to cloak ourselves from our own government agencies. The ability of certain agencies to use GPS tracking has saved plenty of lives through helping to locate victims during rescue efforts, and that's just one worthwhile use. We shouldn't have to sacrifice that just to keep gratuitous government eavesdropping at bay. This smacks of the "she had it coming by the way she was dressed" rape defense. Yes, she looked good. No, it's not her fault he caught a flash of skin and assaulted her.

    The above notwithstanding, this is well beyond simply forgoing cell phones. Seven proxies or not, we're all exposed when an agency with the power of the NSA decides to pay attention.

  23. Re:Espionage 101 on Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens · · Score: 1

    Because nobody would ever monitor those.

  24. Re:Stupid monkey on Get Your Own Action Figure (In Japan) · · Score: 1

    But how will they map Caligula's face?

  25. Re:What about Firefox 6? on Firefox 8 20% Faster Than Firefox 5 · · Score: 1

    Paper 1.0

    20% better than Rock 1.0.