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User: Spazmania

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  1. Re:A sudden outbreak of Common Sense. on YouTube 'Dancing Baby' Copyright Ruling Sets Pre-Trial Fair Use Guideline · · Score: 1

    You read me backwards. Or forwards. When I said, "you shouldn't have put yourself in that position," I meant both the folks claiming fair use and the folks claiming infringement. If it's not obviously fair use and it's not obviously infringing, you're best bet is: stay away.

    This particular case looks rather obviously like fair use to me. No reasonable person would see it as anything worse than gray-zone. The copyright owner shouldn't be doing any research, he should be staying away.

  2. Re:A sudden outbreak of Common Sense. on YouTube 'Dancing Baby' Copyright Ruling Sets Pre-Trial Fair Use Guideline · · Score: 1

    Most fair use is blatantly obvious. If you have to "do research" to figure out whether something is fair use then it is close enough to the line that you shouldn't have put yourself in that position.

  3. Consumer Reports on Intel Establishes Automotive Security Review Board · · Score: 2

    Just need consumer reports to start ranking reviewed cars on their information security.

    Entertainment system has a network connection with the life-safety network without a one-way transfer? D. And a connection to Bluetooth or the Internet? F.

    Note that this means Tesla would get an F.

  4. Re:I always assumed they were on TSA Luggage Lock Master Keys Are Compromised · · Score: 4, Informative

    For anyone who knows how master keys are made, this article is full of "duh." Basically, the tumblers in your lock have two stops: the one that fits your key and the one that fits the master key.

    So cut one key for each position, leaving one position not cut. Try the key. Cut the position by one unit. Try the key again. Continue until you find the unlock for that position which doesn't correspond to your key. That's the master key for that position.

    Anyone with unfettered access to a lock and blank keys can quickly identify all keys capable of opening it.

  5. Re:Bugs? on Bugs In Belkin Routers Allow DNS Spoofing, Credential Theft · · Score: 1

    That's because whites get a job working for the store and -then- they steal from it.

  6. Re:Over 20 million employees? on Government Still Hasn't Notified Individuals Whose Personal Data Was Hacked · · Score: 1

    That was 4.2 miliion, not 4.2 thousand.

    The 22 million is folks listed on forms by individuals who applied for a government security clearance. That's employees, contractors and all of their immediate family.

    That having been said, nearly 40 million people in the US either work for the government as employees or work for them indirectly under one contract or another.

    https://markstoval.wordpress.c...

  7. Re:They hired a low bid contractor! on Government Still Hasn't Notified Individuals Whose Personal Data Was Hacked · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You've never filled out an SF86, have you? No one else has that much information about you all in one file. Not even your relatives. A private investigator could get most of it, but it would be expensive to track down.

    No one else except the Chinese apparently. :(

  8. Bugs? on Bugs In Belkin Routers Allow DNS Spoofing, Credential Theft · · Score: 1

    Bugs? In a Belkin product? Say it ain't so!

  9. Re:What sort of a question is this? on Ask Slashdot: Should I Publish My Collection of Email Spamming IP Addresses? · · Score: 2

    Exactly, he's about 20 years too late to the IP address blacklisting game.

  10. Re:It's already happened; we're at $250/kWh now. on Plunging Battery Prices Expected To Spur Renewable Energy Adoption · · Score: 1

    I stand corrected; you found an off-brand wet cell deep cycle battery instead of a wet cell car battery.

  11. Re:Money's happiness lasts only a few years on Ask Slashdot: What Would You Do If You Were Suddenly Wealthy? · · Score: 1

    then they get used to the new level and need another double fix.

    I've been happy with my income at every income level I've every had from south of $50k to north of $100k. I figure at $2mil I could retire and live off the investment return indefinitely. In Hawaii. Where I bought 3 acres at the bottom of the real estate market a few years ago.

  12. Re:It's already happened; we're at $250/kWh now. on Plunging Battery Prices Expected To Spur Renewable Energy Adoption · · Score: 2

    The only lead acids you're getting at that price are wet cell car batteries that are only good for starting a car. SLAs and gel cells suitable for deep cycle applications cost more than twice as much as you say.

  13. Re:Welcome to the Group! on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Enterprise Architect Position · · Score: 1

    Man, I'd love to work in your shop. Not.

  14. Re:Welcome to the Group! on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Enterprise Architect Position · · Score: 1

    You don't need to log on to 60,000 VMs, but if you haven't logged on to any of them then there's no way you know the business well enough to suggest credible structural changes. The IT folks would then be right to ignore everything you say.

  15. Re:Welcome to the Group! on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Enterprise Architect Position · · Score: 1

    Indeed, but to do that they have to *look*. They have to log in to systems and see what's there. How the nuts and bolts fit together. How the computers interact with each other across what networks.

    That allows the architect to ask the right questions. Why was this set up this way. Which in turn leads to achievable architectural improvements.

    Without access, the architect can only paint with broad brushes, essentially providing you the same insights any consultant could deliver in a week. That is not useful.

  16. Re:Welcome to the Group! on Ask Slashdot: Advice On Enterprise Architect Position · · Score: 2

    In an IT position without administrative rights, you don't have authority. Responsibility without authority = run away screaming.

  17. Re:Start open from the beginning on Italian City To Dump OpenOffice For Microsoft After Four Years · · Score: 1

    What alternate reality do you live in and how can I open a time/space-warp to get there?

  18. Re:Start open from the beginning on Italian City To Dump OpenOffice For Microsoft After Four Years · · Score: 1

    Yesterday I opened a Powerpoint document in Libre Office. The 8 point legend in the footer warning that this was a proprietary document turned in to a 24 point line of text. That's egregious.

  19. Re:Start open from the beginning on Italian City To Dump OpenOffice For Microsoft After Four Years · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Day 1 is long past. You have to deal with files from other folks outside the organization. Conversion back and forth between Microsoft and Open Office is glitchy and unfortunately everybody you deal with has a word, excel or powerpoint file to give you.

  20. Re:Meet the new guy on Virginia Ditches 'America's Worst Voting Machines' · · Score: 1

    So one guy can go into the polling place for a dozen people and nobody cares, unless one of those people shows up. Then the problem is fixed by, umm, how do you figure out which votes to pull back out of the box, mate?

    The problem is fixed by finding the guy who voted falsely and throwing him in jail. It's a felony after all. In the extremely unlikely event that enough false votes were cast to throw the election in to doubt (there are no verified cases of this happening in the U.S., ever), you decertify the results and hold a new poll.

  21. Re:Meet the new guy on Virginia Ditches 'America's Worst Voting Machines' · · Score: 1

    If you want to make the investigation and prosecution easier simply take a photo of everyone as they get their name marked off the voter list for having voted that day.

    Exactly. Show up with photo ID -or- get your picture taken before you can vote. But you still get to vote either way.

  22. ECC on Revisiting How Much RAM Is Enough Today For Desktop Computing · · Score: 2

    I just wish I could buy desktops that supported ECC memory. A decade ago I could and I did.

    My most recent desktop has 32 gigs of ram. With firefox alone routinely climbing to 2.5 gigs, I don't see how anybody could survive on only 4. Well, use fewer tabs I guess. But that's just how I roll -- the tabs stay open until I no longer care about their contents.

  23. Re:Meet the new guy on Virginia Ditches 'America's Worst Voting Machines' · · Score: 1

    Make voting compulsory and make having an ID compulsory. This solves your racist problem and improves the otherwise shocking turnout at US elections.

    Welcome to the USSR. Papers please!

  24. Re:Meet the new guy on Virginia Ditches 'America's Worst Voting Machines' · · Score: 1

    Your Chicago claim doesn't hold water. If there was any funny business surrounding the elections of mayor Daley (not Dailey) it's unlikely the books were cooked that particular way. And the voting dead claim doesn't even come from Daley's campains, it comes from JFK's 1960 election where the only people convicted of tampering were election workers, not ordinary citizens.

    You then go on to associate minorities with non-citizens, which is despicable.

  25. Re:Classic FUD on Ask Slashdot: Buying a Car That's Safe From Hackers? · · Score: 2

    I can control the risk from all those other events with a little technique known as "defensive driving."

    If there's a hardware network path from the Internet to my steering system that's advanced enough to permit the construction of software which passes arbitrary commands, my only real defense is to sever that path.