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User: therealkevinkretz

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Comments · 438

  1. Straw man on Police Body Cam Privacy Exploitation · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen anyone suggest that police interaction anywhere there's an expectation of privacy (in a home, for example) should be made available to the public.

  2. Re:Simple fix on Apple's Luxembourg Tax Deals · · Score: 1

    Huh? And those customers would just keep buying the same amount of the low-margin widgets? Of course they wouldn't.

    Lower taxes do help companies prosper. But you're making a lot of generalizations about 'high margin' companies and their benefit to justify fucking over the low-margin ones.

  3. Re:Simple fix on Apple's Luxembourg Tax Deals · · Score: 1

    Yes. It's stupid, even more so when applied to an industry where innovation often means years of low profits and unsuccessful products before a 'hit' that makes them money.

  4. Re:Shame, shame! on Apple's Luxembourg Tax Deals · · Score: 1

    When there are legal means to, why wouldn't you (unless you think you're not paying enough)?

  5. Re:Simple fix on Apple's Luxembourg Tax Deals · · Score: 1

    That's nuts. You'd gut businesses with low margins and undertax the ones with high margins.

  6. Re:They had a one-time-use number program years ag on American Express Seeks To Swap Card Numbers For Secure Tokens · · Score: 1

    I didn't know BoA had a comparable feature. My past experiences with BoA haven't been good, and literally everything else (other than canceling Private Payments) I've experienced with AmEx has been good - including their removing without question charges I wasn't responsible for the handful of times it's happened.

  7. They had a one-time-use number program years ago a on American Express Seeks To Swap Card Numbers For Secure Tokens · · Score: 1

    I think it was called "Private Purchase"? You could log in to your AmEx account and generate a number that was good for one use. It was great, I don't know why they got rid of it.

  8. Re:What Does Systemd Mean to Me? on Ask Slashdot: Can You Say Something Nice About Systemd? · · Score: 1

    I understand that it has other features. But it fucks up the init system, which is pretty important.

  9. Why is this limited to "for-profit" schools? on Colleges Face New 'Gainful Employment' Regulations For Student Loans · · Score: 1

    It appears that "non-profit" schools as well have responded to the increased loan $ available over the past couple of decades by raising tuition to absorb all of it - which is a big part of why graduates are in so much debt.

    Any school accepting governent-tied money should have to pass this test.

  10. Re:travel restrictions != aid delivery restriction on Ebola Forecast: Scientists Release Updated Projections and Tracking Maps · · Score: 1

    Who said they (those particular "experts"). should be ignored? I will say that their words shouldn't be blindly accepted without question.

    Other experts don't agree. Our own military has a policy of 21-day quarantine for troops returning from Ebola-stricken regions. Other African countries have imposed travel restrictions that have helped stop its spread within their borders.

    And I did RTFA. Limiting travel doesn't have to mean their interpretation of it (forbidding flights from/to certain places). For starters, I'd restrict visas for non-US naionals from those places, regardless of where their particular flight originated. I'd restrict non-essential travel to those places (medical aid workers would count as essential).

    Finally, asking people who have been in close contact with Ebola patients to quarantine if at all symptomatic isn't unreasonable.

  11. Re:What Does Systemd Mean to Me? on Ask Slashdot: Can You Say Something Nice About Systemd? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We've had problems a few times with systemd (usually the next boot after an upgrade to a package). Without exception, the failed boot occured with next-to-no meaningful error on the console and was more difficult to debug than if it had been using sysvinit. I personally, as a sysadmin for ~16 years, don't see a problem with sysvinit that justifies tearing it out of Linux for a more complicated, more opaque replacement.

  12. Re:travel restrictions != aid delivery restriction on Ebola Forecast: Scientists Release Updated Projections and Tracking Maps · · Score: 1

    People begin to assume that the experts don't know everything when three of the Ebola patients here are medical professionals, two of whom had specific experience treating Ebola.

    So it's clear that they aren't omniscient, and the cost of keeping someone in their home, or of limiting non-critical travel, compared to risking more lives here, is trivial.

  13. travel restrictions != aid delivery restrictions on Ebola Forecast: Scientists Release Updated Projections and Tracking Maps · · Score: 2

    What an oversimplified analogy. Limiting certain people's travel from Western African countries doesn't mean limiting aid to those places.

  14. Re: Moo on Adobe Spies On Users' eBook Libraries · · Score: 1

    First, to be clear: It's illegal to distribute a tool primarily intended to circumvent DRM only if it "has limited commercially significant other uses or is marketed for the anti-circumvention purpose".

    And yeah, I agree that it's stupid.

  15. Re: Moo on Adobe Spies On Users' eBook Libraries · · Score: 1

    It is not illegal (in the US) to circumvent copy protection (DRM) if it's not for the primary purpose of violating copyright.

  16. Re: Moo on Adobe Spies On Users' eBook Libraries · · Score: 1

    Isn't converting legitimately owned content from one medium to another covered under fair use?

  17. the solution: on The $1,200 DIY Gunsmithing Machine · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ban "Assault Lathes"!

  18. Re:"stashes its cash" on Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway · · Score: 1

    There's a difference between actually generating revenue in a place (say, selling copies of Office) and using your "shuffling" and "loopholes" to make revenue end up somewhere else on paper. Whatever your preconceptions, it's clear that the US tax policy is different than nearly every other country. When $ can't be brought into the US without penalty, less will be spent/invested here.

    There is another bunch of idiots who think in terms of " 'not confiscating more lawfully earned/obtained money from people' is synonymous with 'putting more money into [their] hands' "

  19. "stashes its cash" on Microsoft On US Immigration: It's Our Way Or the Canadian Highway · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Only the US charges income tax on profits from foreign subsidiaries which have already been taxed abroad. Besides being unfair, such a disincentive to bring the money into the US obviously discourages the spending and employing here that could be done with it.

  20. Jeez. on Anita Sarkeesian, Creator of "Tropes vs. Women," Driven From Home By Trolls · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think this over-the-top PC trend is mostly shallow self-crongratulatory (or self-flagellating) mental masturbation - and the groups engaging in it are in their own feedback loop, in frenzied agreement with each other. It's like blaming domestic volence on old silent movies where the good guy saves the woman ties to the railroad tracks.

    BUT

    Threats and intimidation are wholly unacceptable responses to pretty much *any* idea or (non-violent) opinion or position. Such a response to something that might seem shallow and silly is not only unacceptable, but has the unintended consequence of giving credibility to the silliness.

  21. Multiple iPhones? on Uber Has a Playbook For Sabotaging Lyft, Says Report · · Score: 1

    Why not just give them multiple SIM cards?

  22. Not "Koch-backed" on Net Neutrality Is 'Marxist,' According To a Koch-Backed Astroturf Group · · Score: 2

    RTFA - there's no association with the Koch boogeymen other than that the president of the "astroturf group" used to work for a group which did have Koch ties.

    The author of the article expressly states that he doesn't know who funds the group. Its title is inaccurate and irresponsible.

  23. Re:Free market on When Customer Dissatisfaction Is a Tech Business Model · · Score: 1

    Perfect: Adam Smith supports a flat tax ("The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state"). Do you?

  24. Re:Free market on When Customer Dissatisfaction Is a Tech Business Model · · Score: 1

    I'm more against government having unaccountable powers (which this is a good example of) than I am ultra-pro-capitalism.

  25. Re:Free market on When Customer Dissatisfaction Is a Tech Business Model · · Score: 5, Insightful

    bought-and-paid-for politicians using the law to favor their friends isn't "the free market"