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User: AvitarX

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  1. Re: And in other news... on Quebec Language Police Target Store Owner's Facebook Page · · Score: 1

    If you force cultural blending too quickly you limit the foreign culture influence on society, which i think is a benefit (perhaps I am wrong, but I think that there is not just a correlation, but also a causation to the fact that the best, and especially best lower price, ethnic food is in areas where English speakers can be hard to find).

    At least locally (to me), the cultural push of being surrounded by English speakers appears to be working too, as it's been well over a decade since I've needed to order by number in a restaurant (even if they're still on the menu), and probably close to 5 years since a server didn't have native quality of English at a Mexican restaurant (though the Asian ones it is sometimes clear English is a second language). I personally believe that a slow cultural integration benefits everyone, which is not to say I support some more extreme measures such as enforced bilingualism.

  2. Re: And in other news... on Quebec Language Police Target Store Owner's Facebook Page · · Score: 1

    If the bank does it, I would assume it's just good business (or they wouldn't do it).

    Are you really offended by that? As for government I agree with you in general (though sometimes pragmatism should win out, I don't think government should be inefficient to enforce the 'rightness').

    The youngins always learn the local language in schools, it's the older generations that traditionally would move into an ethnic neighborhood, and not learn the local language (unless you count the local language as the one of said ethnicity).

    If the local Mexican grocer was required to learn and do business in English, my neighborhood would be diminished while he learned to do such, similar for both the east-asian and south-asian grocers. I'm glad that these people are allowed to open up businesses, rather than apparently being forced to close down as they are in Quebec.

  3. Re: And in other news... on Quebec Language Police Target Store Owner's Facebook Page · · Score: 1

    I agree that learning new languages is great (especially for people that have a talent for it), but I think that language nationalism is bad (including in the US, where it really seems to be picking up). The amount of people that say things like "my family learned English when they came" but are obviously just ignorant (or have English ancestors) is upsetting to me. Having slight isolation between cultures is a good thing I think (and I don't mean strong, simply areas where ideas are developed in close proximity but differently), as it allows for exchange between divergent groups and when things reconnect (as the inevitably do) the whole is better than if everything was just one homogeneous culture.

    I've found a lot less English speakers in Europe than people seem to claim, especially as far as "everybody speaks English". The people that spoke English seemed to be tourist facing types, and those that went to University, second languages tended to be the closest bordering country in Europe for the most people.

    Trying to use broken Spanish to talk to people that had broken Italian as a second language is fun.

  4. Re:What I get from this on The Phone Dragnet That Caught the World's Top Drug Lord · · Score: 1

    I would be paranoid about it too, but since these were not US citizens and they primarily weren't in the US, I would think this would be a big win for the indiscriminate collection program, and it would actually be touted as why we need these programs.

    If they used the more ambiguously legal methods of collection, I think they'd use it as a PR win.

  5. Re:What I get from this on The Phone Dragnet That Caught the World's Top Drug Lord · · Score: 2

    Yes, targeted collection of meta-data (and I assume actual phone conversations) appears to work.

    It details finding a phone, following up on the contacts of that specific phone, and then finding more phones, repeat. They didn't find the first phone and dismantle the entire network from the office, as it appears is the justification for the indiscriminate collection of meta-data and the ability to pull up past records without a warrant.

    Each step was an investigation into a phone as they worked their way up old school.

  6. Re: And in other news... on Quebec Language Police Target Store Owner's Facebook Page · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Why wouldn't I think I have that right?

    In the US at least it's a pretty common tradition for immigrants not to learn the local language. My Great Grandparents never really learned English, as it wasn't so useful in Little Italy, the Polish neighborhoods were similar too.

    The attempts to mandate language use in the US are gross, and countries/provinces that do it already are being ridiculous. If your official language doesn't have value to the people that live there, perhaps the problem is not with the transplants.

  7. What I get from this on The Phone Dragnet That Caught the World's Top Drug Lord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is that traditional investigative work functions to capture people, and not indiscriminate collection of meta data.

  8. Re:Bled Alive? on Horseshoe Crabs Are Bled Alive To Create an Unparalleled Biomedical Technology · · Score: 1

    There is (or at least was recently) a significant problem with poaching though.

    It's relevant because their eggs are an important sustenance to a migratory bird that loads up for a flight from their habitat (central east coast of US) to south america. I do believe efforts have been made to reduce the poaching, as not just the birds, but obviously humans too, need these creatures.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/s... puts the issue more with climate change than poaching though, so maybe reports of poaching/not bleeding and releasing as is supposed to be done were grossly exaggerated.

  9. Re: resolv.conf on ICANN Considers Using '127.0.53.53' To Tackle DNS Namespace Collisions · · Score: 1

    Yay, now there's an entire TLD you can't access.
    I worked at a small business where the previous admin had read about 1/3 of every sentence about networking I think (the internal networks were 192.1.1.0, 196.1.1.0 and 196.0.0.0 (all /24), eventually it was a problem.
    To be fair, it was in '98, and he was self taught.

  10. Re:Steam Linux on Portal 2 Beta Released For Linux · · Score: 2

    I've found that a lot of my Humble Bundle game that support Linux (Binding of Isaac being the example off the top of my head), don't support Linux in Steam.

  11. Re:Sure on Supreme Court Ruling Relaxes Warrant Requirements For Home Searches · · Score: 1

    Can a minor consent

    maybe

    Can someone other than the owner consent

    Almost certainly, in fact, I would bet that an owner cannot consent unless they live there (that's what I've assuming occupant means without RTFA)

    Can a visit consent

    My guess would be that visitors would not count as occupants in general

    I think this ruling pretty much maintains status quo, before this ruling only one person needed to consent, now that remains the case, even if someone else gave an explicit no. I'd go as far as to say this is reasonable, for example, we'll use an instance of abuse, and the police looking for a weapon, it would make sense that the potential victim can give consent.

  12. Re: Ain't no body got time for that on 'Google Buses' Are Bad For Cities, Says New York MTA Official · · Score: 2

    I assume near suburbs means things like west, and north Philadelphia. No solid business core, and fairly terrifying at times. Rittenhouse would be an example of center Philadelphia that's nice.
    In NYC you have similar, but I don't know it well enough to name neighborhoods.

    Even Detroit has a pretty nice six block radius in the center ( then pretty rough until ferndale).

    These are all terrible places to have children unless you can afford private school though.

  13. Re: Dutta == Idiot on 'Google Buses' Are Bad For Cities, Says New York MTA Official · · Score: 1

    But then the space will cost too much.

  14. Re: Vive le Galt! on Mt. Gox Gone? Apparent Theft Shakes Bitcoin World · · Score: 1

    How do you handle cases where somebody founds a company, and it becomes worth $100 billion? Do you require that they give it away? Who do they give it away to? If that company then collapses, and becomes worth $1 billion dollars, do we give them money back (perhaps it collapsed because the owner/founder was no longer the owner due to previous law).

    I agree with you in principal, but haven't been able to thought experiment a valid way to enforce it that Doesnt seem cruel.

  15. Re:Request for Feedback from actual Indians on Indian Hustle: How Fraudsters Prey On Would-be US Tech Workers · · Score: 1

    The thing that surprises me, is the difficulty of getting permanant status after completing graduate school.

    My friend has been a productive member of the US working class, and depending on how things with applications, has a 1 in 3 chance of staying here. It makes no sense to me, because it seems like the opposite effect of a brain drain, people come here, get educated, then are sent home.

  16. Re:Forstering habitat. on Seafloor Carpet Mimics Muddy Seabed To Harness Wave Power · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would think carpeting the bottom of the ocean would be a disaster for marine life.

  17. Re:This is what you get with 'net neutrality' on ISP Fights Causing Netflix Packet Drops · · Score: 1

    It's not a price control, nothing about net neutrality says they can't charge their consumers for accessing extra data, and that is who they should charge, and it shouldn't matter the source.

  18. Re:This is why I take the train now on TSA: Confiscating Aluminum Foil and Watching Out For Solar Powered Bombs · · Score: 1

    A 23 hour drive is a chore to even find train tickets for in Europe, at least as an English speaker using the internet, so it's hard to make an apples to apples comparison. Though in the 12 hour drive range, the trains look about equivalent in price to US flights. A little more, but close (Paris to Vienna, vs Philly to Detroit).

    My experience with trains in Europe is that they were more frequent, and there was GREAT regional rail, but for long haul trips they were not really that much better or cheaper than the US (as an adult). The hop on hop off ability was nice (Munich to Vienna, with a day in Salzberg was nice), but Vienna to Zurich wasn't appreciably faster or cheaper than say Boston to DC (and it was a direct shot).

  19. Re: Quit mucking with the UI on Ubuntu 14.04 Brings Back Menus In Application Windows · · Score: 1

    I hate how they moved the window buttons (for windicators, where are they? I actually liked the idea), then went to unity, where the start an application was adjacent to the close maximized window button. I closed windows by accident so many times, I feel like in some version(s) of unity the start button was in the launcher, just below close window, and the corner was close window, so a slight overshoot, and bam!.

  20. Re:dd-wrt?? on Routers Pose Biggest Security Threat To Home Networks · · Score: 1

    I'm sure your system is fairly secure, with probably minimum open ports (ssh maybe, lighthttp maybe, and the firewall itself I'd assume), if a problem were to be discovered, you may not be aware of it, and you would have trouble upgrading.

    Note, I have an Oleg firmware on an old Asus with a similar problem, I wasn't trying to be aggressive, but it is a problem, at least I perceive it as one for me.

  21. Re:"tired app icon grid" on Two Ubuntu Phones Coming In 2014, Aiming For Top 50 iOS/Android Apps · · Score: 1

    I would assume it's because of battery life, if it is indeed time based, but another post says it is resource.

  22. Re:dd-wrt?? on Routers Pose Biggest Security Threat To Home Networks · · Score: 1

    I've not updated any of my WRT's in a long time.

    which brings us back to the OT.

  23. Re:Fuck you, Shuttleworth! on Two Ubuntu Phones Coming In 2014, Aiming For Top 50 iOS/Android Apps · · Score: 1

    You don't need a gmail account to use play store, you need a google account, which can be linked to a different email address (at least it used to be possible).

  24. Re:What cowboy movies mention this? on 1870s Horse Flu Epidemic Brought US Economy To Its Knees · · Score: 1

    Both deadwood, and the far cheesier Hell on Wheels featured small pox.

    I'd go as far to say that small pox in western themed serials is cliche, you know it's going to be the running story as soon as someone coughs.

    Not as much in movies, I assume because unless it's the main point of a movie there's not much space for it.

  25. Re: riiiight on Killing Net Neutrality Could Be Good For You · · Score: 2

    How can somebody right that it's the content owners we should fear, and not mention that the largest ISP is one of the largest content owners? It seems a little disingenuous. If NBC, Comcast cable, and Comcast ISP were separate companies, net neutrality would be a lot less important.