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User: PTBarnum

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  1. Re:Simple question on Seagate Reveals 'World's Largest' 60TB SSD (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    You're thinking of individuals, but the very first sentence of the summary says "for the enterprise". Lots of companies have tons of data that they could store on something like this. Since many nerds work for such companies, this seems relevant to their interests.

  2. Re:A feature, not a bug? on Virginia State Police Cars Hacked · · Score: 2

    It should only take a few seconds of access to plug something into the CAN bus. I'm going to guess that whatever security protocols the police follow, there are times when someone forgets or doesn't have time to lock thier car.

  3. Re:All these new fangled measures are confusing on Switch To Build Largest Data Center In the World In Reno · · Score: 1

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=6.49+mill...

    I'm not clear on how knowing it in square furlongs will help you. I'm not even sure if anyone has ever used square furlongs as a unit of measure. But people who post messages like this don't actually want to know the answer, they just want to be snarky.

    TL;DR 14.9 square furlongs, 0.6 km^2

  4. Re:82,000 tons of coolth on Switch To Build Largest Data Center In the World In Reno · · Score: 1

    1 ton = 3.5 KW
    82000 tons = 290 MW

    A refrigeration ton is the power required to melt one ton of ice in one day.

    We need metric conversion bots for slashdot.

  5. Re:but...but... the cloud on Private Medical Data of Over 1.5 Million People Exposed Through Amazon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shockingly, AWS allows you to configure your servers in an insecure manner. Clearly, the cloud must be insecure.

  6. Re:E-mail client? on Attackers Use Email Spam To Infect Point-of-Sale Terminals · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In a small business, the owner/manager may well be sitting at the POS terminal to help customers, but also doing other business tasks in between. It would be great if they had different computers for this, but there may not be space/budget for that.

    In a larger system, there might be general purpose computers sitting on the same network as the POS system without proper firewalls between them. So the malware hits a general purpose system first, then uses that platform to attack the POS.

  7. Re:Largest known? on Largest Eruption In the Known Universe Is ~100 Times the Size of Milky Way · · Score: 1

    The light from the most distant objects we see has travelled about 13 billion light years to reach us. During the intervening 13 billion years, the expansion of the universe means that those objects would now be 46 billion light years away. So which number you use depends on how you want to define the size. I like the 13 billion number because it doesn't depend on any definition of simultaneity.

    Source: http://www.space.com/24073-how...

  8. Re:This video is not available due to geographical on Ridley Scott Adapts Philip K. Dick's 'Man in the High Castle' For Amazon · · Score: 2

    I hate geographic restrictions also, but you are taking a very narrow definition of "unavailable" that defies common usage. If there is no legal way to acquire something, it is not available. The fact that this is a choice Amazon is making and could make differently does not change the fact that it is not currently available to you.

  9. Re:Try to make me forget. on How Google Handles 'Right To Be Forgotten' Requests · · Score: 1

    So you behaved like an asshole and got fired for it. But fortunately you can force your employer to officially forget all the ways you subverted their interests and only remember the good things. This is supposed to make people feel better about the right to be forgotten?

  10. Re:About 4x beyond current production. on Google Offers a Million Bucks For a Better Inverter · · Score: 2

    I looked at http://www.amsc.com/pdf/PM3000...

    The spec sheet claims "power density of up to 130 W/in. (7.9 W/cm)"

    But I also see:
    Dimensions 38.2in*19.8in*18.7in = 14100 in^3
    AC Power 690V * 750A = 520000 VA
    Density: 37 VA/in^3 (also an upper bound on W/in^3)

    What is the justification for the 130 W/in^3 claim?

  11. Re:The only pre-order bonus on Gamestop's Ludicrous Idea: Require Preorders To Unlock Custom Game Content · · Score: 1

    But Dishonored also had several different sets of in-game bonuses depending on which store you bought the game from.

  12. Re:Economy Class Only on How Amazon Keeps Cutting AWS Prices: Cheapskate Culture · · Score: 1

    Right, because they fly enough that they can get free uprades on almost every flight, or worst case they can afford to pay for the upgrade out of pocket.

  13. Re:Tracking Needs to be Illegal on Carmakers Keep Data On Drivers' Locations From Navigation Systems · · Score: 2

    Getting a signature on a piece of paper is a bit impractical in the internet age, don't you think?

    Would this prevent sites from counting how many visiters their site received? How about the number of visiters using Comcast? How about the number of visiters using Comcast in Dallas? The number of visiters with IP 142.14.8.63?

    Would this mean that Amazon's fraud team would have to shut down, because they look for suspicious pattens of activity? For that matter, would credit card companies be able to do fraud analysis on your purchase history? Would they even be able to send you a bill?

    The right to be forgotten is a good goal, but there are a lot of messy details to be worked out.

  14. Re:Obligatory note: the USPS is intentionally brok on US Postal Service To Make Sunday Deliveries For Amazon · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, for regulated services USPS is not allowed to offer any negotiated prices to any company. Sunday delivery is presumably an unregulated add-on, but for normal weekday package delivery Amazon has to pay the same prices as any other shipper. One way Amazon gets around that is by using their own trucks to move packages as close to the consumer as possible, then mailing the package only a short distance. The post office can also unofficially rebate money by doing joint advertising.

  15. Re:Sunrise on A Plan To Fix Daylight Savings Time By Creating Two National Time Zones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Of course if we start schools later, parents will want their work schedules later too. And if we do that, stores will need to adjust their hours to accomodate both employees and customers, and evening entertainment will probably want to start later. Coordinating all of that sounds tricky, so what if we just get together and chose an arbitrary date on which we will all start things an hour later?

  16. Re:For the record on Why Amazon Fights State Sales Tax, But Supports It Nationally · · Score: 1

    You have to collect the correct taxes for every jurisdiction, but you submit them to the states, not to local jurisdictions. The state then distributes the funds according to the data in your filing.

  17. NSA doing its job on NSA Hacked Email Account of Mexican President · · Score: 1

    Spying on foreign governments is pretty much the job description of the NSA. Spying on domestic communications is something they get away with, spying on foreign communications is what they were created to do.

    I imagine the Mexican government will be publicly shocked to learn these details, but their counterintelligence teams have likely privately detected and thwarted other US hacking attempts.

  18. Re:So what is this about? on NSA Hacked Email Account of Mexican President · · Score: 1

    Could I get a citation on Snowden claiming to know all about China's and Russia's intelligence?

  19. Re:Do the CCs work? on Instagram "Likes" Worth More Than Stolen Credit Cards · · Score: 3, Informative

    I used to do that. However, there are some cashiers (even rarer than the ones who ask for ID), who know and care that credit cards aren't valid unless signed and will not accept a card with "Ask for ID" on it.

  20. Re:Covering butt on Amazon Forbids Crossing State Lines With Rented Textbooks · · Score: 2

    Oddly enough, computers are not typically good at making complex judgement calls, like determining whether or not a given product is "food" under the arcane definitions in various cities, counties, and states. That requires a person to research the product, research the law, and apply the latter to the former.

    Years ago, before Amazon changed to supporting sales taxes, there was an effort by several online retailers to negotiate with states to create a uniform set of taxable categories, so products could be classified once, and only the tax rate would be variable from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Regrettably, this effort did not succeed.

  21. Sensationalist headline on Is New York City Ready For Digital Voting? · · Score: 1

    Aside from the headline, I don't see a single mention of electronic voting in the summary, the article, or the candidate's website. Somebody at Motherboard just thought "digital voting" sounded more exciting then "digital campaigning".

  22. Re:why? on Firefox 23 Makes JavaScript Obligatory · · Score: 1

    Are you confusing Firefox with NoScript? I haven't looked recently, but the whole reason I installed NoScript was that Firefox only allowed enabling or disabling JavaScript globally, and disabling it globally broke too many sites. So I partially agree with the GP that turning off Javascript entirely removes some of the motivation to upgrade the browser.

    On the other hand, the concept of trust circles is also somewhat flawed, because there are sites that I've trusted and that have used JavaScript for good reasons, that have been hacked and had malicious Javascript inserted. Maybe that's just my poor choice of who to trust, but judging somebody's security from the outside is hard.

  23. Re:Why wouldn't they work? on ATMs Compromised, $45M Taken · · Score: 1

    Actually, there are several varieties of magstrips that require different writers. They are all read compatible, though, which is what is important for this purpose.

  24. Re:National Sales Tax on US Senate Passes Internet Tax Bill 69 To 27 · · Score: 1

    Your own land? What makes this particular plot of land yours? Oh that's right, a government decree.

  25. Re:bollocks on US Senate Passes Internet Tax Bill 69 To 27 · · Score: 1

    That sounds fine to me, since you are clearly the kind of person who has never relied on anyone else for help. God created you as a fully formed human being in the middle of the wilderness, and everything you have you made for yourself, never seeing or talking to other humans. Therefore, you can proudly claim to owe nothing to human society.