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User: ToddN

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  1. Nah, I'd rather that the 2.5 billion future assholes in the pipeline just never get born.

  2. The question never asked on Huge Reduction in Meat-Eating 'Essential' To Avoid Climate Breakdown (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You see all kinds of articles bandying about the "9 billion people by 2050" figure.

    Not a single one ever asks "wait a minute, maybe there shouldn't BE 9 billion people by then?"

  3. This story has really saddened and angered me on 9th-Grader May Face Charges After Homemade Clock Mistaken For Bomb · · Score: 2

    That was me in 1975 onward through high school. I used to cut or etch my own circuit boards, and made everything from (yes) digital clocks to power supplies to radio receivers. The fact that 95 IQ cops and brain dead school administrators can ruin a bright child's life just infuriates me. Stick a fork in it, 'Murica, you're dead.

  4. Re:Why? on Europe Agrees To Send Airline Passenger Data To US · · Score: 1

    I give it ten years max before the whole thing collapses. I luckily found a job two years ago outside the US, and should be a permanent resident of my adopted country soon, and a citizen shortly afterward.

    The stubbornness of the US is like the old "keep doing what we're doing, just do more of it".

  5. Couldn't it be said . . . on DOJ: We Can Force You To Decrypt That Laptop · · Score: 2

    Strictly speaking, couldn't it be said that the data in an encrypted volume technically exists only in your mind?

    I possess a hard drive full of meaningless bits, that reasonably can never be brute forced. There are no documents there, no .jpg files, no audio, no video.

    The 30+ character key to reconstitute those bits into something readable resides only in my mind.

    Therefore the act of decrypting the volume technically involves the creation of those files anew.

  6. Re:Hmmmmm... on Tickets for Tracking Players in Casinos? · · Score: 1

    That plus all the other secret validation items. I helped install one of the first ticketing systems. It's pretty airtight security-wise.

  7. Re:Profound.... on Life in the Trenches: a Sysadmin Speaks · · Score: 1

    I have had to learn how to play dumb on more than one occasion. People ask me about how to do things in Office, for example. I tell them that I haven't the faintest idea about "all that spreadsheet stuff". And they buy it, thank God.

  8. Re:I don't like this... on Norway Bans Spam · · Score: 1
    it has to be implemented very carefully, so as not to tread on freedoms.

    I don't think anyone is advocating stifling freedom of speech or whatnot. If someone wants to send out a million spam emails, that's his business -- as long as he does it from his servers and/or accounts. I have a personal mail server running out of my basement. The default installation leaves relaying on (I know, my bad). I got quite a few angry emails from people reporting getting spam from me.

    I checked the logs, and some azzwipe in Toronto sent out hundreds of thousands of emails, USING MY BANDWIDTH, EQUIPMENT and NAME. My log files alone totalled 100 Meg after just two days.

    Those people should be hung up by their sack and disembowled with a rusty spoon. Spam, fine, just don't hide behind legitimate operators to deflect the heat and hate from you. Be decent enough to accept the repercussions from your acts... /sarcasm (I know, we're talking spammers here - they have no decency....)

  9. Don't forget, there are ten fingers on Are Fingerprints Unique? · · Score: 1

    If they can match a fragment of a fingerprint, that may be statistically provable to not be from your finger. However, doesn't each subsequent fingerprint or fragment thereof from another finger or fingers drastically reduce the chances of a false match?

  10. Re:Digital Voting? on Analysis: Reforming Political Technology · · Score: 1

    Is there anything that Jesse Jackson DOESN'T try to stifle???

  11. Dinosaurs Never Held Heads High? on Dinosaurs Never Held Heads High · · Score: 1
    Uhh, so dinosaurs had low self-esteem? Did this lead to their extinction?

  12. Re:Your people fail to comprehend that on The Politics Guillotine Descends · · Score: 1
    Vote for him, and you are effectively not voting at all.

    Vote for him and you are also sending a message that the Republicrat-Demopublican system is becoming more and more irrelevant and infuriating to a lot of voters.

  13. Re:Damage from a rocket booster??? on Space Object May Be Killer - In 2030 · · Score: 1
    Cause it's all encrusted with that fungus that is growing on MIR . . . 'cept this time it's had 30 years to grow instead of 15

  14. I just got a glossy mailer on MS To Virginia Beach: Prove You Own Your Software · · Score: 1
    that says:

    "There's no such thing as a free lunch: Here's a tip: Be sure you have the licenses you need today. (Or you may pick up the bill for big penalties tomorrow)

    FREE no-obligation consultation for Detroit high-tech businesses.

    It goes on to discuss the Business Software Alliance (BSA) licensing investigations taking place nationwide, but offers a 20% discount on licensing of Microsoft products if ordered with the free fishing expedition *cough* I mean consultation.

    the url is http://www.softchoice.com/compliance

    Sounds like a threat to me....

  15. Re:Faraday Cage on Cheap, Paper RF ID Tags To Replace Barcodes? · · Score: 1

    The mesh size of a Faraday cage depends on the frequency of the RF. Chicken wire size would be usable IIRC for VHF ranges (up to 200-300 MHz). That mesh on the door of your microwave oven, that's for MW freqs (1000-4000 MHz). As long as you had a fine enough mesh, blocking the frequencies used by the tags should work.

  16. Re:Governing on Last Day of Terrestrial Humans · · Score: 1
    The US will muscle in and force US law on space.

    Just look at the Earth now....

  17. Re:Paranoia on When The FBI Knocks, A First-Person Account · · Score: 2
    I love that device, as well as the thermite, but you know what would really happen if you used them?

    "Destruction of Evidence", and then my friend you are in a world of hurt even if the hard drives were blank

    This system is truly fucked now.... I want to leave the US soon at this rate.

  18. Our Enemy The State - Read It... on When The FBI Knocks, A First-Person Account · · Score: 1
    I have not found it in any libraries but it is available online.... Our Enemy The State, by A. J. Nock.

  19. I don't know.... on The Impact on Open Source of Stolen Microsoft Code · · Score: 2
    Warnings that even viewing MS source could damage the Open Source movement.

    Am I being paranoid^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconcerned that MSs "theft" could be their carefully orchestrated, poorly disguised effort to discredit/destroy Open Source through oppresive application of litigation?

  20. Re:Far too many .coms use the IPO business model. on NY's Silicon Alley Feels The Crunch · · Score: 2
    I for one am SICK of the acronym IPO. That seems to be the sole goal of a lot of owners of tech companies. I'm slowly developing a niche market site in my own time. It is a large niche however. I have no intention of taking it to an IPO.

    If it does well, as sole stockholder of the corporation, I will reap all the rewards. If not, oh well. I'm not doing it to make a quick buck and disappear; I'm doing it because I have worked in publishing for a long time, it is something I truly enjoy, and this is a lot cheaper to start than publishing on paper!

  21. Re:Can objects orbit at really low altitudes? cm? on NEAR skirts Eros surface · · Score: 1
    They most certainly can, and IIRC the final phase of this mission will be to allow the vehicle to graze the surface and dig a bit of a trench. Mind you the orbital speed at such a low gravity approximates walking speed.

    You could actually launch a rock into orbit around Eros by throwing it. If it were spherical that would be kind of fun, pitch it, then watch it slowly come around the horizon from behind you.

  22. In a related story on 'Hacking' To Be Declared Illegal · · Score: 1
    Clueless politician scum and their law enforcement fascist sidekicks have been declared irrelevant to the Internet.

    They do not have control of things, you guys do. Time to flex some muscle, and demonstrate that might.

    Or time to create a parallel net that is beyond their talons. Who is John Galt again?

  23. who says children need to be protected? on Mandated Mediocrity · · Score: 1
    Why the hysteria surrounding "THE CHILDREN!!!"?

    I'm 37 -- my old man told me "I don't care what you do, as long as I don't have to bail you out or identify your body at the morgue" and I try to be that respectful of my 13 year old son.

    Since when did children become these priceless "trinkets" that must be "protected" at all costs?

    Christonacross!

  24. Re:Meet George Jetson... on NASA Tests Flying Scooter For Commercial Take-Off · · Score: 2

    You know, I have thought this same thing ever since I got my PPL in 1983. All the talk of personal air-cars and such, with the level of driving skill on the roads, extrapolating said level to the airways would result in carnage on a unbelievable scale. Aviating requires at least a basic knowledge of physics and meteorology, as well as ability to think in three dimensions plus time. Not to sound elitist or anything, but not everyone has those skills. Would I trust some members of my immediate family to fly? No.

  25. Re:How many of you are PPL? on NASA Tests Flying Scooter For Commercial Take-Off · · Score: 1

    I am - 17 years now...