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User: Skapare

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  1. Re:Congress on Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees · · Score: 1

    ... only when they are enforced. But that's why Republicans are trying to downsize government, so it costs too much to enforce white collar crimes, corporate fraud, etc.

  2. Re:article missed some points on Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees · · Score: 1

    Some other states have similar requirements. In some cases (I think Pennsylvania) the requirement only applies to the first $1500. So if there is a percentage fee to cash a check, it applies only to the amount above $1500. And the check has to be imprinted that it is a payroll check. Whether the bank eats that fee loss, or passes it back to the employer, is probably up to the bank.

    As for the pre-paid cards, if they make a law that requires the cards to have NO FEES AT ALL for up to 1 withdrawal per day for the duration of the next pay cycle (do it again for the next pay cycle if the same card is re-used), then it might be OK. But it needs to be a law that is enforced, with penalties like a day in jail for the bank CEO per violation count for every affected person per pay period (if it is the fault of the bank ... the employER CEO if the employer is at fault).

  3. Re:I thought on Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees · · Score: 2

    In some cases even direct deposit (no fee for the deposit ... the account holder's fees are the same whether pay is direct deposited or not and in some cases banks reduce fees if you sign up for direct deposit) is not an available option. It costs the employER to do direct deposit, while the banks are making these card scams cheaper or free to employERs. But I bet the bank CEOs don't get their pay on these cards.

  4. Re:Will make them angry? on You Will Get DirectX 11.2 Only With Windows 8.1 · · Score: 2

    They could have put it in Windows 7.1.

  5. Re:Is there anyone running Windows 8... on You Will Get DirectX 11.2 Only With Windows 8.1 · · Score: 1

    If I was on Windows 8, and needed to stay with Windows, I'd prefer to upgrade to Windows 7. Fortunately I'm already there for the corporate laptop, so nothing to do.

  6. Re:To quote Einstein on Dr. Dobb's Calls BS On Obsession With Simple Code · · Score: 1

    Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

    Everything should be as complicated as it needs to be, and no more complex.

    You are being redundant.

  7. Re:Threat from r/c planes on RC Plane Attack 'Foiled,' Say German Authorities · · Score: 1

    A Cessna packed with the best explosives won't level a city. But don't forget, this isn't about the total damage being done. Terrorists only need to do enough to make people fear. Crashing it into the side of a skyscraper and exploding probably won't take it down, but it will kill people and have financial impacts. There are worse scenarios I'm thinking of, but won't say so as not to give them any ideas.

  8. Re:Technicians and engineers, really? on Foxconn's Robot Workforce Now 20,000 Strong · · Score: 2

    Eventually, this world will be one with 100% robotic automation, owned by the financial elite, and billions of people with no hope for work and ... not part of that ever shrinking consumer market. What if everything can be made for a penny, but nobody has any pennies to buy the stuff?

  9. Just look normal on Ask Slashdot: Can I Cross US Borders With Legally Ripped Media? · · Score: 1

    First, encrypt your stuff with a key that is encrypted with a pass phrase you can remember. Then upload your encrypted stuff to some cloud storage in Europe. Then transfer your encrypted stuff to some cloud storage in USA. Then move to USA carrying normal things loaded with common stuff not encrypted. Once settled in and acquired high speed internet, download your stuff from the cloud storage in USA.

    You have to be careful in any English speaking country (and a few others).

  10. Re:Treating free speech as terrorism IS terrorism on Tennessee Official: Water Complaints Could be "Act of Terrorism" · · Score: 1

    Seems to me he nailed it.

  11. The proper damage control ... on Tennessee Official: Water Complaints Could be "Act of Terrorism" · · Score: 1

    ... would be to fire Sherwin Smith immediately. There is no context for this kind of outrageous behavior. Then hire someone who will be more positive about making the water better.

  12. Re:Scare tactics on Tennessee Official: Water Complaints Could be "Act of Terrorism" · · Score: 2

    I thought the reason to not live as a lamb was that you had no hope to live a thousand years.

  13. Wrong goal on Introducing the NSA-Proof Crypto-Font · · Score: 1

    The idea should be to get ideas out on a larger scale, not hide them.

  14. Start with on Firefox Advances Do-Not-Track Technology · · Score: 2

    Every domain name needs to be fully isolated from each other. This includes blocking link referrers (that misspelled Referer header), as well as cookies, that provide any info to one domain about another. So if you click on a link that takes you to another site, it should NOT include the Referer header at all, unless you opt in to that (which should allow opt-ing per domain).

  15. Re:Go see an expert, you dope on Ask Slashdot: Does LED Backlight PWM Drive You Crazy? · · Score: 1

    I got a different diagnosis. That means the cause for you is not the same as the cause for me. I don't know about so many others, but I do know a few others.

    I can see the flicker up to about 150 Hz ... BUT ... it doesn't bother me. I do get eye stress, but it's NOT from the flicker. It's actually from the spectrum and how that spectrum diverges through lenses due to the diffraction effect that varies by color. The end result is a focus problem. CRTs varied by how much of a difference there was between the red wavelength and the green wavelength. The greater difference, the greater that contrast boundaries in that wavelength split from other wavelengths. A white dot ends up looking like a triad of red, green and blue dots (blue, though, usually is not participating in the stress effect, at least for ME). LCD can have this problem as a factor of the spectrum of the fluorescent backlight. Since I'm not affected so much by flicker, fluorescent tends to be OK for me. It also has broader spectrum, though there are some peaks. LED backlighting, however, is more of a problem. That's because one option is to form the white color from red, green, and blue primary colors. In LED that means extremely narrow color bands so I'm back to the dot triad problem of CRTs.

    The best monitor I used for some time a long time ago was a true monochrome one. It was crisp and sharp. Too bad today's monitor's don't do this for anything less than many thousands of dollars for medical ones, where the sharpness is essential (so they know it is better, but not enough consumers would buy them). I get around the issues by using selected color pairs for text such that the difference between foreground and background is present ONLY in red (the sharpest) or green. So I have a text display with orange on dark green.

    Just don't assume that because your vision difficulties are caused by one thing, that everyone else has the same cause.

  16. Re:Eye strain from LED backlit displays? on Ask Slashdot: Does LED Backlight PWM Drive You Crazy? · · Score: 1

    Or more accurately, the highest frequency that someone can see flicker varies widely among the population. The effect is not in the retina, but in the brain. It seems to be a function of the speed of the brain.

  17. Re:PWM Taillights on Ask Slashdot: Does LED Backlight PWM Drive You Crazy? · · Score: 1

    It makes dashed lines, rather than solid lines, in the afterimage. For ME the dashed lines don't bother me, but the original flickering does.

    This is just a solid state ballast. But they need to run them at something like 30kHz instead of 50-60 Hz (WTF in a car).

  18. What I want to confirm is ... on Are You Sure This Is the Source Code? · · Score: 2

    ... not only is this the source code for the binary I am running, but also that the build system actually works. This is because not only might I want to make changes to the source to improve it, but I might want to do so in a hurry to fix a security hole. Since I might need to rebuild and run the built binary, I might as well test and make sure what the build system built really runs. So I just install the binary I built. Then I know for sure. Who needs the distributed binary (it might have a root kit in it).

  19. So if you refuse to incriminate yourself ... on Supreme Court Decides Your Silence May Be Used Against You · · Score: 1

    ... then you must be guilty. Now they have it all figured out.

  20. Scary feeling on FAA Wants All Aircraft Flying On Unleaded Fuel By 2018 · · Score: 1

    I got that scary feeling because I had only read the first four words. It was slightly less scary when I managed to read the fifth word. I hate it when can't see the title due to other windows blocking my view.

  21. Re:Quid Pro Quo? on Man Who Sold $100 Million Worth of Pirated Software Gets 12 Years In Prison · · Score: 2

    THIS is the danger! Maybe it is less so because technically this theft is illegal in China, too, and he did step onto US soil. But the danger is that things we in the US think of as perfectly legal, like putting up web sites about Tibet's political struggles, or insult the royal family in Thailand, or trade in historical Nazi artifacts, we run the risk of being arrested in one or more countries. And to the extent that the US government demands extradition for things that are illegal here, for acts done in the other countries, those countries might demand similar extradition the other way.

  22. Re:never heard of PCIe Flash on Will PCIe Flash Become Common In Laptops, Desktops? · · Score: 1

    It has been around for a while, but only at premium pricing. Top end PCIe Flash has been about $10,000.00 for a while. But things are starting to go down with many models. But demand is going up, too. Certain cloud service providers are building massive databases that live on redundant multi TB SSD.

  23. One thing that will be useful ... on Will PCIe Flash Become Common In Laptops, Desktops? · · Score: 1

    ... is honest benchmark/speed ratings conducted by an independent 3rd party testing. And this testing should include a number of methods of testing to simulate best case, worst case, random case, and typical case scenarios. That testing should include single devices as well as several common RAID configurations. The selected test configurations should be the same for all products. That should include all-read, all-write, and mixed read/write scenarios.

    Then all retails who don't list these exact ratings should be boycotted.

  24. Re:The scary part is... on UK ISPs Secretly Start Blocking Torrent Site Proxies · · Score: 2

    We revolted from British rule. Maybe they can, too.

  25. VPNs on UK ISPs Secretly Start Blocking Torrent Site Proxies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    “The court orders obtained in relation to The Pirate Bay cover not only the site itself, but also sites which have the sole or predominant purpose of providing access to The Pirate Bay. It would not be right to allow proxy sites flagrantly to circumvent blocks ordered by the High Court. We do not publish the names of proxies and it would not be appropriate for us to do so,” a BPI spokesperson said.

    Well, if they expect VPN providers to block the pirate sites, they will have to provide them with a list. If they fail to provide them with a list, then it is crystal clear that they have no intention to have them block pirate sites.