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User: dAzED1

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  1. Re:I'm an open society guy, but... on Quentin Tarantino Vs. Gawker: When Is Linking Illegal For Journalists? · · Score: 1

    are you serious? That's not even in dispute. They offered a bounty for it - like they have for many other things. Leaks about ipad pre-launch, private photos of celebrities, etc - their entire business model is doing exactly that. Convincing other people to do morally questionable, if not outright illegal, activities - then making profit from ad views from those who come to look at the story. That is the entirety of their business model.

  2. Re:i don't get it on New 3D Printer Can Print With Carbon Fiber · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First result from me when I google "useful things with a 3d printer" is an article which includes a garlic press, cherry pit remover, and door hook. All these things require more strength than what consumer-level 3d printers can actually muster. Getting more strength in the process is indeed an issue, so...permit me to disagree that there isn't someplace worthwhile between ABS and true carbon-fiber...

  3. Re:Every utopian prediction on Device Mines Precious Phosphorus From Sewage · · Score: 2

    "systems which fail will cease, and systems which work will succeed" - how, pray-tell, is that not an accurate view of natural systems?

  4. I'm an open society guy, but... on Quentin Tarantino Vs. Gawker: When Is Linking Illegal For Journalists? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " I'm just saying that there's a journalistic reason for Gawker to do what it did"

    Err...what "journalistic reason" could there possibly be for offering a ransom for an illegal activity, then publishing the results of that activity, for the sole purpose of generating adview/click revenue? Aside from gawker not even having any journalistic content, what in the world is the "journalistic reason" for that?

    Now that said, I think there's a moral/ethical reason for creators to willingly do it - and somewhat for the consumers to share it even if it is against the will of the one who created it - but that's because I'm a biased open society guy, and a complete nutjob. I can't though, in all my madness, envision a world/perspective/banana in which there is a "journalistic reason" for this. Someone help me here?

  5. Re:Every utopian prediction on Device Mines Precious Phosphorus From Sewage · · Score: 1

    but it's not some intelligent entity that's "better" at it than us

    are you so afraid of religion that even science scares you? Over the course of billions of years, systems which fail will cease, and systems which work will succeed. A working system is/was present; saying we could be "learning from nature" means little more than being observant and realizing that many of our problems have already been solved in the system (aka Nature). Where the system has a solution which is too slow, or has a few steps we don't like per se, maybe we tweak it a little...but when you learn from someone you don't simply mimic them - that's not learning. When you learn from someone, you take what they are showing you and adjust it to fit your experiences. Like we can, with Nature.

    "some intelligent entity..." - yeesh! Lighten up, Francis!

  6. Re:Guilty and impossible to prove innocent on F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen Cancels RSA Talk In Protest · · Score: 1

    wouldn't it be cool if there were any chance that a FOIA request could somehow get a line-item budget of all payments to outside companies, by the NSA, so that such a list could be parsed to find payouts such as the one to RSA?

  7. Re:As an American on F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen Cancels RSA Talk In Protest · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Why are you not rioting then?" - several riots were attempted to be formed, but the NSA learned about them through their surveillance programs, and blew up the areas in question with drones, declaring them terrorist attacks. They then used their control over the internet to squash all news about it.

  8. Re:NSA failed to halt subprime lending, though. on NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No. It is not possible they did this. Doing this would require fixing the vulnerability - did they hack into the bios programming tools at all the motherboard manufacturers and secretly fix this problem? Did they hack everyone's computer and install the firmware update? An OS patch is one thing, but a firmware patch? This particular problem can not have been fixed with just a handwaving. It's one thing to say they intercepted a phone call and foiled a terrorist plot. It's another thing to claim they updated all current and future disparate BIOS firmware to protect against an undisclosed vulnerability. That is impossible, and makes them even more ridiculous.

  9. stopping an attempt should not be the goal on NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware · · Score: 3, Insightful

    a better response than my previous...

    If such a virus was found that affected a large portion of the computers out there. If that is so, stopping a single virus deployment attempt is worthless; the virus still exists, and more importantly the vulnerability still exists. If they are being truthful in any way, then they have done absolutely nothing useful. As you say, where's the CVE? Where's the details? Without details this is useless.

    With a terrorist attack or something, "trust us, it happened!" can sortof work...I guess. For this though - it's useless without details. More, without details - we're forced to believe that the NSA is just making crap up. Did they think about getting a person with any sort of compsci background to help the marketing/PR at NSA person come up with a valid "threat" that was being stopped? In theory there should be one or two there....

  10. Re:NSA failed to halt subprime lending, though. on NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware · · Score: 4, Funny

    you don't understand - they secretly patched everyone's machines, so now we're all safe. It's all good!

  11. Re:NSA failed to halt subprime lending, though. on NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware · · Score: 1

    "People forget that the NSA has actually done a _lot_ over the past century..." - it's easy to forget such a thing, since they've only been around for a half century. Hopefully you'll forgive us for that.

  12. confused... on More Students Learn CS In 3 Days Than Past 100 Years · · Score: 2

    I went to high school between 1987-91, and somewhere in there (I think it was my softmore year?) there was a computer class. We learned BASIC on computers which had green characters on a black screen (no windows), and if I recall used 8.5" floppies. There were also some TRS-80s there, but I didn't use them there.

    Now personally, since my father owned a VAR that sold minis and mains by IBM, I had already had experience with PCs for many years by then. But that was literally over 20 years ago, in a mandatory high school class.

    Was that really that unusual? 20 years later has the rest of the US not caught up with where my high school - in a town of 40k (at the time) - was? If so, then I have a new appreciation for the place...

  13. Re:what's that going to accomplish? on FreeBSD Developers Will Not Trust Chip-Based Encryption · · Score: 1

    you just...answered why it wouldn't work. If that much garbage is actually coming into the conditioned power, it will kill the system in very little time.

  14. best to keep away from countries that spy and hack on Google Opens Asian Data Centers But Shuns China and India · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a good thing the US government hasn't done anything like that to Google, eh? Moral high ground, and all...

  15. Re:Well really.. on How China Will Get To the Moon Before a Google Lunar XPrize Winner · · Score: 1

    err...uhhh...well, ok, yeah - any gov with a "few billion on hand" (short list of govs these days) could, sure - except how does that make the clause dumb? The point was to encourage private enterprise to do it before that very thing happened. And yes, anyone could cut the time short by spending even more, but why would a gov do that? Also, sure - put the pirate bay servers up there. The servers themselves rarely if ever go down - the overwhelmingly vast blocking of traffic to/from piratebay is done via IP, not at layer1. So sure - put it on the moon - where there is only one single feed to/from, so that everyone has a much smaller IP space to block. See if that makes the problem better.

  16. Re:Microsoft is running out of milk cows on China Prefers Sticking With Dying Windows XP To Upgrading · · Score: 2

    Uh, there was never a time in the history of mankind that Microsoft was able to just sell whatever they want at whatever price...in China. That has never, ever, occurred. China is simply officially saying that this is still the case, as it has always been the case.

  17. Re:Why on China Prefers Sticking With Dying Windows XP To Upgrading · · Score: 2

    the SNI extension to TLS is one of the biggest differences... The argument from China seems odd though. Microsoft's options are a) no one buys anything (since they already own it, or already know how to generate keys) or B) they use pirated versions of Windows...in neither option, does Microsoft make any money.

  18. Re:Pacemaker safe, really? on RF Safe-Stop Shuts Down Car Engines With Radio Pulse · · Score: 1

    my mother had a pacemaker at age 18.

  19. Re:20% is OK I guess on RF Safe-Stop Shuts Down Car Engines With Radio Pulse · · Score: 1

    it's not just an engine outage - it's an engine outage coupled with distractions right before and during the outage. Your dash, lights, radio, cell phone, etc all suddenly start going nuts...and oh btw your engine died too. Or worse, your engine didn't die, but you still got all the distractions, and the guy driving a manual transmission in front of you /did/ get a dead engine, so he's slowing down rapidly. Or perhaps you were merely doing something other than cruising in a straight line - maybe you were in the middle of a sharp turn, or you were slowing down, or you needed to speed up rapidly to miss something... But as a motorcyclist, I say kudos to you that you cannot be distracted while driving, and that you can always react perfectly to every situation. I wish the prius being driven by a teenager whose mother was yelling at him had been a little less distracted when he suddenly crossed over the double yellow and into my path, from which I had no place to dodge and had to just eat his car with my face...I agree, he shouldn't have been driving. Most people probably shouldn't be. But they are, and making it worse is a horrible idea.

  20. Re:Pros vs Cons on RF Safe-Stop Shuts Down Car Engines With Radio Pulse · · Score: 1

    even despite whether one exists, steering has been assisted ("power" steering) for quite a long while now - some cars are nearly impossible to steer without it. As an example, when in highschool I worked rodeos and baled hay for my off-school activities, and I was a linebacker on my school team. I had, at the time, a truck and a car - the car was a 1979 mercedes 280sel. I had the good fortune of having a sudden engine failure while going about 60mpg on a very curvy road (2222 near Austin) and had a *really* hard time, despite being a pretty buff fellow, keeping the car on the road. I've been in other cars where the power steering made quite a lot of difference (but none quite as much as that mercedes...). That car also had an electro-mechanical fuel injection system, as well as electronic controlled braking system. And, it weighed almost 3 tons. So whether or not an actual mechanical failsafe exists for the steering wheel on a 2013/2014 vehicle, A) there are other vehicles on the road too, and B) non-assisted steering is very difficult on many cars, even new ones

  21. why the timing might not be terrible on Dell Is Now a Private Company Again · · Score: 1

    With so many people predicting the death of laptops, servers, and workstations, to tablets and smartphones...despite how stupid such a claim is...I'd imagine that over the medium term the stock is substantially undervalued. If he did steps to revive things, stocks might go up, then he'd have to pay more. Now he can take bigger risks, change things more dramatically/dynamically, etc. Being in corporate america I just cannot see how anyone who does real work would ever try to do something on a tablet. They're great for taking notes during a meeting, but beyond that...such devices are for content consumption, not content production. There will still be servers, workstations, and yes - even laptops, for years to come. Windows8 may have farked some stuff up, but all the better to maybe partner closely with Ubuntu and make a mac-like integration suite, or...?

  22. Re:Can't be done on Patriot Act Author Introduces Bill To Limit Use of Patriot Act · · Score: 1

    the problem with your sarcasm is that the entire law, as someone else said, is completely garbage (I'm just being a bit more verbose). There is nothing to salvage in the "patriot" act, nothing at all. The Affordable Care Act, on the other hand...well, the items which were serious process problems have already been worked through or that money has already been spent. If they didn't do something in the ideal way but the non-ideal way is already done, well, fark it - move forward ($635M for the portal and backend interfaces, I'm looking at you).

  23. Re:that's nice - just bought part of Seattle Aquar on Largest US Power Storing Solar Array Goes Live · · Score: 1
    "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." - Albert Einstein.

    Don't get caught up so much on thinking the people of one particular area are worth more than the people of another area. That's what wars are made of.

  24. Re:Thats a shitload of money on Largest US Power Storing Solar Array Goes Live · · Score: 1

    wait, really? So you consider coal mines and conventional power plants to be what, tourist attractions?

  25. apples to rocks on Cost of Healthcare.gov: $634 Million — So Far · · Score: 1

    I don't even want to say apples to oranges, because in such a case both are at least still fruit. Facebook is a site where if some little thing goes missing, is out of order, some text is wrong, etc - no worries. People sign away their privacy, and they had no real need to protect it - not now, and especially not during the first 5 years. Facebook tied in with ad places, but that was only for ads...nothing major. The obamacare site on the other hand has PHI/PII issues to deal with, HIPAA, and various other security concerns. It has to share, in a secure manner, this PHI/PII information with third parties - which means designing interfaces with those 3rd parties. It has to be able to connect with various data points to get info about you. It has to be able to make accurate recommendations about very important life decisions. Was it done poorly? Yes. Is comparing it to the operating costs of facebook fair? No, not at all. Is $634M way, way more than it should have cost for something at the quality level as what we got? ......yes, definitely.