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User: imuffin

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Comments · 139

  1. Re: I've heard this one... on Google Offers a Million Bucks For a Better Inverter · · Score: 1

    TFA is talking about an inverter. You're talking about a battery. They're very different things.

  2. Re: One disturbing bit: on Supreme Court Rules Against Aereo Streaming Service · · Score: 1

    "Descriptions of the game ... may not be broadcast"

    I've heard this before. Do I misunderstand or are they claiming a legal prohibition on me transmitting a description of the game? Is there actually a law that prevents me from describing what I see?

  3. Re: so much unsaid for uber. on Melbourne Uber Drivers Slapped With $1700 Fines; Service Shuts Down · · Score: 1

    Damn, dude. That's quite a diatribe. You're right, of course. Uber COULD be any of those terrible things.

    But have you ever used the service? Every time I have, they have been efficient, friendly, and professional.

  4. Incubation Periods on There Is a Fly In My Tweet: Tracking Food-Borne Illness the Crowd-Sourced Way · · Score: 1

    How will they account for the widely varying incubation periods of different foodborne illnesses?

    Two of the most common infections, E Coli and Salmonella, can take several days to show symptoms.

  5. Re: Law didn't change behavior. on Talking On the Phone While Driving Not So Dangerous After All · · Score: 1

    It sounds like you really want texting and talking while driving to be dangerous. But can you point to a statistic that shows that accident rates have risen in the last 10 years?

    Texting and driving pretty much started around then.

  6. Re: Bravo EFF on EFF Sues NSA, Justice Department, FBI · · Score: 1

    Wikileaks didn't leak top secret docs. Bradley Manning did.

    Wikileaks just published them. The 1st amendment guarantees the right to do that.

    Keep in mind, the NY times, for example, reported a lot of this info, too. No one is accusing them of having committed a crime.

  7. Re:Bravo EFF on EFF Sues NSA, Justice Department, FBI · · Score: 1

    And exactly what law has Wikileaks broken?

  8. I sued T-Mobile over this on AT&T Quietly Adds Charges To All Contract Cell Plans · · Score: 1

    When T-Mobile did this last year, I had to sue them in small claims court to get my ETF waived.

  9. Drug testing on Rapiscan's Backscatter Machines May End Up In US Federal Buildings · · Score: 1

    I was thinking I'd buy up all the old machines at bargain basement prices and then sell them to companies that do ore-employment drug testing.

    A common way to beat a drug test is to smuggle in clean urine, say, in a condom taped to your thigh. If people had to be naked-imaged first, this would be quite difficult.

    If these machines can't be used to fight terrorism, my company could facilitate their use fighting the war on drugs. And make a tidy profit too.

  10. Does the DMCA apply overseas? on Unlocking New Mobile Phones Becomes Illegal In the US Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    So if I want to travel to, say Europe, and buy a local SIM card, can I just wait until I'm in Europe, and then unlock my phone?

    Does doing so still violate US law? Does possessing the still unlocked phone when I return to the US violate the DMCA?

    I once thought I should open a DVD-ripping shop in Mexico. You ship your DVDs to me, I decrypt them and send them back to you along with the decrypted backups. Has any law been broken?

  11. Battery Charger on Three Low-Tech Hacks for Phones and Tablets · · Score: 1

    I carry around a spare battery for my Android phone. Often, I'm traveling or otherwise away from home for long periods of time and I find it to be a lifesaver.

    I got this cheap universal charger and it works great. I plug the charger into the wall and then plug in the dead battery. The charger also has a USB port, so I don't need a second charger for my phone. Overnight, just plug the phone and the second battery into the charger. When I wake up, both are charged.

    It's only 650 mA, so it takes all night to fully charge both batteries. But that's fine with me.

    As a bonus, it really is a universal charger. I've charged mine and others' camera batteries too. If it's a lithium ion battery and it physically fits, it charges.

  12. Re:putting on my tin foil hat for a moment... on Facebook Lets You Harvest Account Phone Numbers · · Score: 1

    Facebook has my phone numer. Occasionally, friends who need to call me but don't have my number get it from Facebook. And it auto populated my phone with my friends' numbers, and they auto update when my friends change them. When I get a call from someone whose number I otherwise wouldn't have had, now their name and profile pic show up on my phone before I answer. Potential privacy issues? Sure. But it is not without utility.

  13. Re:The math doesn't work on Ask Slashdot: What Stands In the Way of a Truly Solar-Powered Airliner? · · Score: 1

    What about my car? 30 MPG times five passengers = 150 MPG/passenger. Or a bus? A train? My bicycle?

  14. Re:Live free or DIE on A Day in Your Life, Fifteen Years From Now · · Score: 1

    Can someone explain to me how taking a shower affects how much water is available?

    I mean, I get that increased irrigation of agriculture uses water. Water is pumped from a river onto a field, where it evaporates.

    But when It take a shower, water streams over my body, and then is captured by the drain, treated, and returned to the river. Very little evaporates. It's almost a closed system. Why does it matter how much water I use in the shower, or to wash dishes, or drink and then piss back into the system?

  15. Re:NBC fixed the name on Astronaut Neil Armstrong Has Died · · Score: 1

    What an absurd mistake! I just read the article there and it still has another glaring error. They misquoted him. The article quotes him saying "... one small step for a man," when in fact he said "...one small step for man." His original words were grammatically slightly confusing, but MSNBC didn't need to correct them.

  16. Re:Terminate Contract? on DirecTV Drops Viacom Channels · · Score: 1

    If they give you any runaround, take'm to small claims court. I did that with T-Mobile after going through round after round of their customer service agents telling me I had no right to cancel despite the fact that the contract clearly says I can.

    A few days after I filed the small claims suit, they called me and settled.

  17. The USA is too socialist! I'm moving to Canada. on Supreme Court: Affordable Care Act Is Constitutional · · Score: 4, Funny

    My favorite is the conservatives who, upset that the SCOTUS upheld the individual mandate, say they're moving to Canada because America is just too socialist.

  18. Re:Can't change contract without compensation on User Successfully Sues AT&T For Throttling iPhone Data · · Score: 1

    That said, AT&T can almost certainly cancel this guy's service, and should do so. You don't want customers who are going to sue you.

    If AT&T cancels the service of a customer who is under contract, does AT&T owe that customer an early termination fee?

  19. No piracy here on MediaFire CEO: We Don't Depend On Piracy · · Score: 1

    Mediafire surely doesn't host any pirated software, movies, or music.

    Oh, and these were just the first ones I came across, by googling terms like "MS Office site:mediafire.com"

  20. Mail order on Bipartisan Internet Sales Tax Bill Introduced · · Score: 1

    A sales tax on items ordered via the Internet? Fine, then. Time to go back to good ol' fashioned mail-order by catalog.

  21. Re:One of 'us' on Drone Kills Top Al Qaeda Figure · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Right. The 5th amendment doesn't specify that due process is guaranteed only for citizens; it applies to all persons. That's the point of the bill of rights: it outlines inalienable human rights that belong to all humans, citizens or not.

  22. 30 Year old stereos that are still around on Why Your Dad's 30-Year-Old Stereo Sounds Better Than Yours · · Score: 1

    30-year old stereos that are still around are still around because they were expensive and high quality when they were purchased. The cheap crap bought 30 years ago broken down or was upgraded 5 years later and is no longer around, just like cheap crap bought these days is tossed out in a few years.

    So 30-year old stereos that are still around to be listened to sound better because they weren't cheap crap to begin with.

  23. It used to be a good app on NYT Update Breaks iPad App, Annoys Subscribers · · Score: 1

    When I started using the NY Times app about a year ago, I really enjoyed it. I travel internationally a lot and often don't have a data connection. What the app will do is download all the stories so I can read them even when the phone is offline. A few months ago, the NY Times changed the app to only allow free users to access "Top Stories" and "Most Emailed." That was frustrating, but I continued using the app because I still got some good content, and I could still read it when offline. But a few weeks after that, it started getting buggy. Even stories that were in "Top News" would tell me I had to subscribe to read them. I didn't investigate thoroughly because it's just not worth it. There are plenty of other free news apps out there that do the same thing. I'd rather read the NY Times, but not for $20/month. The other services have content that's almost as good.

  24. Re:Rules 1 through 7 of using a Cell Phone on The Cell Phone Has Changed — New Etiquette Needed · · Score: 1

    If this is true, then why have traffic fatalities trended downward for the last several years while cell phones have shot up dramatically during the same time period?

  25. Confused about correlation on Federal Summit Eyes Crackdown On Texting While Driving · · Score: 1

    I'm confused about the purported correlation of texting to accidents. We know that traffic fatalities are at an all-time low. And we know that the rate of texting is increasing dramatically.

    So shouldn't we assume that texting makes driving safer?