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User: taustin

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  1. Re:Taser International is the wrong group to do th on Watching the Police: Will Two-Way Surveillance Reduce Crime? · · Score: 1

    Any group surveiling the cops shouldn't be selling those cops stuff. "Hey, the XYZ PD just ordered another $500k of merch from us, I think we can 'lose' that embarrassing video."

    That would be no diferent from destroying any other evidence, which is already a crime (and a farily serious one, for agents of the government). Enforcement is spotty now, and will be equally spotty then, but when the public knows the video exists, its absence will be increasingly damning in and of itself. This is the same reason more and more police departments record all interrogations, from start to finish (though there are more complicated reasons they don't want those videos seen by juries).

    If using the recording device is mandatory, losing the recording is the same as not making it. It should be (and will be) a crime. The trick is to make sure that anyone who can delete is resopnsible for making sure that doesn't happen.

  2. Re:Cops will not like this on House Bill Would Mandate Smart Gun Tech By U.S. Manufacturers · · Score: 1

    If anyone ever comes up with a smart gun system that's 99.8% accurate, that will, no doubt, be good enough. Pity no one has yet, and no one is likely to any time soon. Biometrics just aren't there yet, despite improvement in recent years.

    As to the rest, if you expect otherwise, you're a naive fool. Especially if you think that somebody is going to replace a critical piece of equipment with a - as you note - 99.8% success rate with one that is, at best, an order of magnitude lower (which 99% is, and last I heard, nobody could manage that with smart guns, either, in the real world.) It's rare to see any biometric ID system exceed 80% in real world conditions.

  3. Cops will not like this on House Bill Would Mandate Smart Gun Tech By U.S. Manufacturers · · Score: 2

    Police chiefs, who are politicians, will be in favor of this, because they think it's good politics. Police unions, representing working cops on the streets will be unalterably opposed to it, because even 99% isn't good enough when your life is on the line.

  4. Why is this an issue? on Working Handgun Printed On a Sub-$2,000 3D Printer · · Score: 1

    $ 1725 for the pringer, $25 for the materials, and 48 hours to print it.

    Versus my local hardware store, where I could build a zip gun that will fire as many rounds as I want, without any worry about it exploding in my hand, ever, for about $5, in about half an hour (including drive time), and have no record kept of me buying politically sensitive tools.

    A Google search for "zip gun plans" produces about 2 million hits. 3D printed guns are nothing more than crappy zip guns, more dangerous to the user than to the target. And to be crappy compared to the average zip gun is saying something.

  5. Why should a fully capable PC and a tablet be two different experiences?

    Because after using a touch screen on a desktop all day, my arms will be too tired to beat the designer with a baseball bat like he deserves.

  6. Amateurs on WWDC Sells Out In 2 Minutes; Ticket On eBay 45 Minutes Later · · Score: 1

    I'll be impressed when they can match ComicCon San Diego, who have a hard time finding a ticket sales service that can stand up to more than a few seconds before it collapses under the load. The only reason it took 93 minutes to sell out completely was the slow server response times. Not many wet sites can handle 140,000+ people trying to log in at the same time.

  7. Re:Google Glass records, too on Not Even Investors Know What Google Glass Is For · · Score: 1

    Many police departments, in the US and outside it, already require their officers to wear recording devices while on duty. It's turning out to be a major deterrent to abuse of police power. Either you get nailed for abuse, or you get nailed for not having a working camera.

  8. Re:I know what it's for. on Not Even Investors Know What Google Glass Is For · · Score: 1

    Google is working to get other companies to develop uses for it. Three of the first five such uses will sell advertising. The other two will consist of nothing but advertising.

  9. Re:Is this not your local net police? on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Unwanted But Official Security Probes? · · Score: 1

    I'll bet the hospital can produce a binding contract in which the doctors ageed to allow this.

  10. Re:Ill add $10,000 on Creationist Bets $10k In Proposed Literal Interpretation of Genesis Debate · · Score: 3, Funny

    In order to orate, the teapot would have to make noise. If there were a patch of gas between the Earth and Mars big enough for that, we'd have detected it by now.

    I'll take cash or gold.

  11. Audiophiles are, for the most part, gullible on Can You Really Hear the Difference Between Lossless, Lossy Audio? · · Score: 1, Interesting

    After all, we're talking about people who buy $1,000 Monster cables, even though in a blind test, they can't tell the difference between those and wire coat hangers.

  12. Does Google Glass record audio? on Should We Be Afraid of Google Glass? · · Score: 1

    If so, it's not the same as the surveillance cameras that are everywhere already. And in some states (including California, Google's home state), recording audio without permission from all parties is illegal (and in California, a felony) under many circumstances.

    I think I'll set up a Cafe Press shop selling t-shirts that say "I refuse you permission to record audio in my presence."

  13. Re:File a police complaint for littering on Don't Want a Phonebook? Give Up Your Privacy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The city did take notice. And lose the resulting lawsuit.

    It's one thing to not read TFA, but dude, you didn't even read the summary.

  14. Is this really rocket science? on Ask Slashdot: Name Conflicts In Automatically Generated Email Addresses? · · Score: 1

    We use username@, but the username is generally FirstInitialLastName, unless it's already taken, in which case it's "what do you think you'll be able to remember?"

    But we don't have 30k users.

  15. Re:Sucks to be him on Bug Sends Lost-Phone Seekers To Same Wrong Address · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That simply isn't true. Only the debtor can send a C&D under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. But anybody can send a C&D for any reason to any one at any time. Anti-harassment laws have nothing to do ith FDCPA.

    The difficulty is that debt collectors who call on the phone will always be out of state, and you have to sue them in their location, which means small claims it out. You'll have to hire a lawyer, pay thousands of bucks in legal fees you have no hope of recovering, and probably not be able to collect the actual judgement because most debt collectors have nothing to sieze anyway.

    Better to just convince them they're wasting their time. Make it clear that a) you're not afraid of them, because you know how powerless they are, b) you're going to waste as much of their time as you possibly can, thus costing them money, and c) you're going to be the biggest abusive prick you can possibly be over the phone, because they can't do anything about it.

    You might also start screening your calls with an answering machine that says "All calls will be recorded. By staying on the line to talk to a live person, you consent to being recorded." They hate court-admissible evidence.

  16. Re:Sucks to be him on Bug Sends Lost-Phone Seekers To Same Wrong Address · · Score: 2

    The laws that protect the debtor don't protect the debt collector, either. To quote Major League, "This is the outlet you've been looking for." You say say literally anything to them, and they can't do a damned thing about it without providing court-admissable evidence of their own crimes to the cops. So take your frustrations out on them. Call them names, question their intelligence, their parentage, question their species and what their mother mated with. Hell, tell them you're masturabting while you're talking to them. Take out all your frustrations on them. They'll make a note in your file that calling you is a losing game.

    Free bonus hint: A debt collector who is calling you on the phone is a joke, no matter how much the debt, no matter what they threaten to do, even if you are the one that owes them money. If they were serious, you'd get a letter. The ones that call on the phone are trying to get a couple hundred bucks before they sell the debt off to another scam artist. They literally won't let you pay it off, more often than not. They are con artists. And they know it. So don't feel bad about abusing them. They, personally and individually, deserve whatever abuse you heap on them.

  17. You have misdiagnosed the problem. on Ask Slashdot: How To React To Coworker Who Says My Code Is Bad? · · Score: 1

    The problem isn't the intern who doesn't understand your code. The problem is the intern who doesn't undestand how to interact with grownups.

    Explain to him that if he ever wants to be an employee - there or anywhere else - instead of an intern, that he needs to learn to be more diplimatic.

  18. Re:sigh on Man Charged With HIPAA Violations For Video Taping Police · · Score: 1

    I have to agree. This kind of BS won't stop until a cop gets prosecuted for civil rights violations. Be interesting if people started making citizen's arrests for same, but I'm not holding my breath.

  19. I can see the headlines now on Smart Guns To Stop Mass Killings · · Score: 1

    "Midget goes on killing spree with sword. Police unable to stop him as their guns would not fire without another gun being present."

    This ass hat should be given the opporunity to write whatever law he wants, with the undestanding that if anyone dies because of it, he'll be prosecuted for capital murder. See if he still wants to then.

  20. What I would expect a psychopath to do . . . on Could Testing Block Psychopaths From Senior Management? · · Score: 1

    under such circumstances is to point out that a) most successful CEOs of large companies exhibit behavior often associated with psychotic conditions, so it rather obviously isn't interfering with the job, and b) it's a recognized medical condition, and the company itself has acted on the assumption that the diagnosis is correct.

    He would point all this out to his attorney, who would then file a massive Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit, and he'd be given the CEO's job to make it go away.

  21. Re:Some kids are bully magents on Young Students Hiding Academic Talent To Avoid Bullying · · Score: 0

    "Promiscuous dress and behavior attract rapists. "

    In fact, not really, now. Rape isn't really a sex crime, it's a crime of violence. Castrating rapists only redirects their violent impulses in a different (and usually more deadly) direction.

  22. Re:All the 'anti bullying' efforts are bullshit on Young Students Hiding Academic Talent To Avoid Bullying · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Someone bullies you, break their arm. If they and their thug friends come back at you break their heads. If their mommies and daddies complain tell them everyone can live in a new house after their burns to the ground."

    You left out the quote attribution. Is that from Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold?

  23. The problem with survey data is . . . on Young Students Hiding Academic Talent To Avoid Bullying · · Score: 1

    It's hard to tell the difference between those who deliberately underachieve to avoid being bullied, and those who need an excuse for bad grades so they won't lose their television privileges.

    So, to put back in the implied words, we have:

    "Almost half of children and young people (49.5%) have claimed to have played down a talent for fear of being bullied,"

  24. Who gets to define what is an ad? on AdTrap Aims To Block All Internet Advertising In Hardware · · Score: 1

    Or is this going to be like the parental control software that blocks porn, with the definition of "porn" including "any web site that expresses a political opinion we disagree with"?

    It's always a matter of trust. And has has been pointed out, in this case, you're trusting a company that has built it's business model on denying other companies income they rely on to say in business.

  25. Re:Yet another misleading headline. on In Mississippi: 15-Year Jail Sentence For Selling Pirated Movies and Music · · Score: 3, Informative

    Indeed. And I notice the /. summary, while it mentiones the 10,500 pirated disks they caught him with, doesn't mention the copying equipment. He was clearly in the business of piracy.

    Yeah, it's a long sentence for a white collar crime, but so was Bernie Madoff's 150 years, and many of the same people complaining this is too long complained that Madoff got off too easy.

    It's only a long sentence if you approve of the crime of commercial copyright infringement.