Slashdot Mirror


User: rmdingler

rmdingler's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
4,492
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 4,492

  1. Re:Assassination drones on Bird-Shaped Drone Symbolizes New Forms Of Covert Surveillance To Come (mirror.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    Their stealth and untraceability makes them ideal to murder a state's own citizens.

  2. Clearly on Bird-Shaped Drone Symbolizes New Forms Of Covert Surveillance To Come (mirror.co.uk) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These machinations will get better and better, until a roach or mouse sighting will cause alarm on the order of a new level of revulsion.

  3. Re:Not really on Study Shows Thumb-Sucking and Nail-Biting Can Be Good For Kids · · Score: 1
    Thiss. Fresh air and outdoor exposure early in life, an environment with a dog or cat during infancy, and even eating a little dirt... all great immune system boosters.

    YMMV, but we raised a child with allergies so severe he would wind up in the hospital every spring from 0-3 years of age. With a family history of asthma, we chose to let him strengthen his immune system playing in the dirt with the other children, rather than keeping him inside in the bubble. He is (mostly) grown now with few breathing issues, other than a worse than average aversion to the flu & colds.

  4. Game on Congress Is Trying To Expand The Patriot Act (rare.us) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I just fracking love how they offer us "share information with financial institutions on money laundering and terrorism" as if the two are of equal value in the good and evil matrix.

  5. EFFin' copyrights on EFF Delivers 210,000 Signatures Opposing Trans-Pacific Partnership (eff.org) · · Score: 1, Informative
    There are not a great number of causes worth getting behind any more, but the free and open internet is decidedly one of them.

    This is not only a Democratic pillar, as your conservative candidate may also oppose this rendition of the treaty.

  6. Re:Damnit NSA on US Terrorist Conviction Appealed Over Use of NSA Data (independent.co.uk) · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Maybe,

    there wouldn't be so many terrorists if our governors behaved in a decent manner, and applied a rule of law to all actions, domestic and international.

  7. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is

    the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.

    I suppose it is still better that a simple majority of folks make a bad decision we all have to live with, rather than a single evil fellow.

  8. Re:Thousands of blahblahblah on UW, Microsoft Successfully Encoded 200MB of Data Onto Synthetic DNA Molecules (seattletimes.com) · · Score: 2

    The Long Now Foundation uses Nickle-alloy disks because they are more durable than gold, and probably a lot less desirable to melt down into coins or jewelry

    A modern day Socratic Conundrum...

    Well, the wedding is on there and most of the early photographs of the kids are on there, but shite, we need the money for groceries. Damn the luck.

  9. Re:Hillary concerned about legitimacy ? on DOJ Will Not File Charges Against Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (politico.com) · · Score: 2

    If you'd told that joke in the morning, I'd have just now only wasted a mouthful of coffee.

  10. The word for today is 'Draconian" on UK Bill Introduces 10 Year Prison Sentence for Online Pirates (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Two years in the pokey is not near enough incentive to keep the pirates honest... 10 years, though, that'll do it.

    Look at capital punishment versus life imprisonment as a deterrent to murder, if you will... hardly any homicide in Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi.

  11. Re:No offence intended on UK Police Accessed Civilian Data For Fun and Profit, Says Report (vice.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful
    FD: I wouldn't dare speculate on the EQ.

    If the average IQ of everyone is 100, it stands to reason that once you factor out the number of freakishly intelligent folks who don't choose to get shot at for less than $40,000 per year, you're at about 80-85, with a few outliers that are saddled with heroic ambition.

  12. Hooray for the time in which we live! on What Air Conditioning Can Teach Us About Innovation and Laziness (vice.com) · · Score: 2
    Internet & air conditioning... If I have those two things, by inference, a power source is also available to me. If I have all that, I can live in a cave, better off than a medieval king.

    But. One of the greatest lies ever told is that people need to be comfortable to be happy. It's what you're used to. We could, have, and do learn to live without the comforts of modern privilege.

    It's not at all surprising these comforts come with some sort of downside.

  13. Re:No additional funds authorized? on America Expands Its Freedom of Information Act (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1
    A rider to the bill demanding a speedy retrieval of requested information would've doomed it to a quick death by bureaucratic groan.

    Even despite the limitations, a law that demands government answer its citizens is a good one, and another useful tool to keep the beast reined in.

    It is not only useful at a federal level. Even Civically, our local paper has successfully retrieved entrenched information from (often reluctant) Municipal employees.

  14. The nine exceptions: on America Expands Its Freedom of Information Act (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    Exemption 1: Information that is classified to protect national security. Exemption 2: Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency. Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law. Exemption 4: Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged. Exemption 5: Privileged communications within or between agencies, including: Deliberative Process Privilege Attorney-Work Product Privilege Attorney-Client Privilege Exemption 6: Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual's personal privacy. Exemption 7: Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that: 7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings 7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication 7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy 7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source 7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions 7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual Exemption 8: Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions. Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.

  15. Re:What is a "city" on New York Falls and Seattle Rises on 'America's Top Tech Cities' List (geekwire.com) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Clearly, the inordinately distinct sections of the Bay are comprised of barely hirsute primates of vastly differing lineages, and at maximum, the number of second cousins is but a simple majority.

  16. Re:no sacred ground on Interview With An 'NSA Hacker' Published By The Intercept (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    What everyone forgets about that era, is that by using gene pool culls like the Jarts game, we were still weeding the garden.

  17. Re:Yes. on Amazon Gobbles Downtown Seattle, Builds Biospheres (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    More like collections.

  18. ...host more than 300 plant species from around the world.

    Though it smacks of medieval royalty's penchant for importing the rarest of beasts from farthest flung points in the realm.

  19. Conceptually, there's another way.

  20. Apple CEO Tim Cook, along with executives from Google and Facebook, have argued that if Washington starts ordering them to build universal key features into their encryption software, it will create vulnerabilities that both the “good guys” (western governments, in this case) and “bad guys” (other governments and hackers) can exploit.

    Sadly, the lines are a little more blurry than this.

  21. What's Chrysler's motivation? on Star Trek Actor's Death Inspires Class Action Against Car Manufacturer (cnn.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've been reading about this electronic shifter issue for some time before Anton's unfortunate death and I could not understand the insistence of Chrysler to keep at it for years when there were over 100 documented crashes and so many complaints.

    The redesign itself would be an admission of design flaw, thus instigating momentum for an official recall.

  22. To be fair, it was a quarter ounce of bud and no one liked that puppy anyway.

  23. Nice! on Internet Trolls Hack Popular YouTube Channel WatchMojo (csoonline.com) · · Score: 4, Funny
  24. I got $11.64 on Apple Starts To Shell Out $400 Million To Customers In eBook Settlement (cnet.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    On an individual basis, each plaintiff in the suit will receive $1.57 in credit for most e-books they bought and a $6.93 credit for every e-book purchased that was on the New York Times bestseller list.

    So clearly, one best seller and three less well received e-books.

    It's like when the cell carrier gives settlements for unethical 3rd party billing; except for the attorneys' cuts, it's pretty much all feed for chickens.

  25. Re:FBI interviewed suspect twice on Invoking Orlando, Senate Republicans Set Up Vote To Expand FBI Spying (reuters.com) · · Score: 1
    McVeigh is more of a 90's anti-establishment, anti-Trilateral Commission/anti-Bilderberg/Turner Diaries terrorist...

    although the term terrorist is often only on the lips of the beholder, and can even be aptly applied to some of the tactics deployed by the American Revolutionaries.