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User: magarity

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  1. They are both directly comparable to communism because every nominally "communist" revolution ends up a brutal dictatorship. Communism works great when its about the size of a large farm and everyone there participate voluntarily. Larger than that and, well, More's Utopia pretty much nailed it hundreds of years before Marx was born.

  2. Re:Enterprise on US Navy Decommissions the First Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier (engadget.com) · · Score: 4, Funny

    Navy ships should have proper, bold, majestic, fighting names. Stop naming them after defunct politicians and overambitious military blowhards.

    The Royal Navy knows how to do it.

    Only after they learned the hard way with what happened to The Prince of Wales.

  3. Do they have broadband in these countries - Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, et al? They'd need that to run Skype. I support the ban - our safety comes ahead of their convenience, but they could have relocated them to Turkey or Dubai and continued from there

    Washington State's tax base is suffering because of a 120 day hold on issuing refugee visas to Somalis and Yemenis?

  4. Re: "...continue to be utilized by a small..." on IMDb Is Shutting Down Its Long-Running, Popular Message Boards After 16 Years (polygon.com) · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, "passionate community" is the key. Likely it has completely devolved into people mindlessly screaming at each other that either Trump sucks or Trump rocks. It may even be so over the edge that he does both at the same time.

  5. Re:It'll sell like hotcakes. on Snapchat Files For a $3 Billion IPO (theverge.com) · · Score: 2

    In all fairness you should note that sentence is really just legal CYA on their part. Obviously they intend to achieve and maintain profitability.

  6. Re:Prepare for deluge of stupid on Scientists Marvel At 'Increasingly Non-Natural' Arctic Warmth (msn.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not about the answers, it's about the process.

    And the most important part of the process is not assuming the answer ahead of time.

  7. Handle what? Knives? Swords? Throwing stars? Guns?

    A phased plasma rifle with a 40 watt range.

  8. ... regional offices outside of the USA? Will they have to import American workers, or are they still allowed to hire local talent?

    For these, there is an amazing thing that's even more horribly abused than H1-B, called an L visa. This lets a company send an employee from another country to the US and pay them their local hometown wage while slaving away in the US.

  9. He's anti LGBQT - said "states rights" which means

    Which means licensing marriages has been states' rights since there were states. States license all kinds of things differently; dentists, driving, hunting, accounting, and even marriages. The federal government has no business telling the states who they have to give marriage licenses to any more than those other things.

  10. Re:"A Big-Mouthed Sea Creature With No Anus" on Scientists Find 'Oldest Human Ancestor' -- A Big-Mouthed Sea Creature With No Anus (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    It's much more accurate to say this creature was clearly from the time before politics in general was invented.

  11. Re: Because they're constantly generating new keys on Ransomware Infects a Hotel's Key System (dailymail.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    The little server running the key card system back where I worked was connected to four things: three key makers with numeric pads and the wall power outlet. After the installer finished setting it up, he hauled off the keyboard and monitor. So there wasn't any hacking the database unless the hacker brought his own IO devices. Presumable the same applied to a repair tech but the thing just worked.

  12. Re:Because they're constantly generating new keys. on Ransomware Infects a Hotel's Key System (dailymail.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If, and yes, I mean "if", this were a key card only system then the lock doesn't need to communicate with the key making system at all. It just needs a token that increments with each next guest's card. When the token increments, the key cards from the prior guest stop working. When I worked at a hotel this is how the system worked. The key-making system was completely isolated. The desk person poked the room number on a key pad and the key programming box spit out a key. All it did was open that room's door.
     
    The system in the article is what happens when you want to use your key card for all the other stuff in a hotel, like the restaurant, gift shop, etc, to be charged using the key. All the comments about key card systems not needing to be connected miss this detail. The hotel in question was almost certainly using an integrated billing-via-key card system, not just a key card system. The integrated system needs to communicate outside to approve credit cards, email a copy of your receipt, etc, etc, and thus the security weakness.

  13. Re:There is no such thing as "Uber" on Uber Was the Most-Expensed Service, With 6% of all Business Receipts in 2016 (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 1

    I live in a small town. Uber does not exist.

    If you sign up to drive for them then you can monopolize the local market.

  14. Not at all. For audiophiles such as myself...

    Do you keep your cell phone on a vibration isolated sand table?

  15. Then it shouldn't take a lawsuit on Mark Zuckerberg 'Reconsidering' Lawsuits To Force Property Sales in Hawaii (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    It this is the situation, then why shouldn't the steps be
    1. Public records to find the owners
    2. Send certified letters letting them know they own it and you'd like to buy it
    3. Buy it, since "they'd be getting money for something they didn't know they had"
    4. Avoid assholeriness
    5. Enjoy!!!

  16. Shifting the costs is the point here: college students are the ones least able to pay for their own education. They don't have a job yet (that's why they go to college), and unlike high school, the workload from college is often high enough that getting a part-time job would make their education and performance suffer.

    First time entrepreneurs who want to start a new company are the ones least able to pay for the startup costs. They don't own the company yet. And loans for starting up often consume too much valuable cash flow that would otherwise let the startup succeed. So, no, just because you're least able to pay up is not a good argument for why your costs should be spread to someone else.

  17. have few followers, have strange usernames and little content in the messages

    So why bother setting it up? How does one monetize a twitterbot swarm of strange names with banal content?

  18. Re:That's great.. on China Is Splashing $168 Million To Make It Rain (fortune.com) · · Score: 2

    Pumping water from one place to another can result in a tremendous loss due to evaporation, especially on sunny days. Trying to make it artificially rain is probably not too efficient or accurate but overall is likely less wasteful as long as it rains enough.

  19. Re:That's great.. on China Is Splashing $168 Million To Make It Rain (fortune.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    The prevailing winds in mid to northern China blow in from the west and head out to sea. The places that will get less rainfall will be along their own east coast.

  20. Re:Not quite on AT&T Offering Day Pass For International Travelers (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    OK, yes, I forgot about the archaic regular phone call mode not being included. Get a VOIP app and you're all set though.

  21. "Subsidies" in these cases are usually "waive collecting taxes/fees" instead of "hand over cash".

  22. counterpoint: Land is a lot more expensive in the US than most Asian places

    Don't forget that in the US you can actually buy the land, though. Sure, there is some Eminent Domain risk, but in China you can't even buy the land in the first place. All you can do is lease it from the government. As soon as someone with deeper pockets and/or better connections wants your plot, you're out of luck.

  23. competition on AT&T Offering Day Pass For International Travelers (cnet.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ain't competition great - T-Mobile has been including this in for no extra per day cost for a while now.

  24. Wonder if this applies to TMobile on China Cracks Down On International VPN Usage (thestack.com) · · Score: 2

    A couple of years ago visiting China my TMobile phone's plan included unlimited data at 2G speeds. I got sites that were normally banned to Chinese users as if I were in the US, so I suspect it routed straight to TMobile somehow but never got the details. I wonder if this crackdown will stop that access?

  25. During tests, researchers were able to crack all but one of the patterns categorised as complex within the first attempt

    What was the uncrackable pattern? They should release this info so security-minded users can switch over to that one.