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  1. Re:Scale and proportion. on In France, Most Comments on Gaza Conflict Yanked From Mainstream News Sites · · Score: 1

    More like....lies repeated by those who are useful fools at best and racists at worst. The storyline put forth goes like so: this all started when Hamas kidnapped three teenagers and then killed them in June. Israel launched a search and rescue mission, and Hamas responded by firing rockets.

    The Israeli line is now "Everything is the fault of Hamas.", it used to be "Everything is the fault of the PLO."

    Despite being pretty damned sure they were all dead - you can hear gunshots over one of the teens cell phones and the car was soon found full of blood and bullet casings - they spent weeks arresting Palestinians and bulldozing homes in Gaza for a kidnapping in the West Bank even after the Palestinian Authority was helping search for the missing teens.

    Similarly you have israeli claims that Hamas was firing missiles from Lebanon. Something which is incredibly unlikely for several reasons.

    And even Israeli outlets admit that rockets were only fired in response to IDF attacks:

    The Israeli press often seems more likely to give an accurate account of what's actually going on. A similiar "oddity" is that the Israeli government often gets more united support from foreign government bodies, most notably the US Congress, than from the Kenesset.

  2. Re:Scale and proportion. on In France, Most Comments on Gaza Conflict Yanked From Mainstream News Sites · · Score: 1

    That "handful of pesky terrorists" happen to be the elected Palestinian government. This is what happens when people elect terror organizations as their representatives...

    Yet, interesting, that argument does not get applied to Likud. In another part of the world Sinn Féin is now treated as a regular politican party by London and Dublin.
    As with the term "terrorist" itself acceptance of political parties founded by terrorists is highly political.

  3. Re:Should Hate be left alone? on In France, Most Comments on Gaza Conflict Yanked From Mainstream News Sites · · Score: 1

    The problem is that the moment you don't blindly side with Israelis you are labeled as racist nazi sympathizer.

    Ignoring the irony of some of the things which IDF officers have come out with.
    Actually the usual retoric is along the lines that "Zionism" is the same thing as "Judeism". A non "Jew" is "anti-semitic" for saying anything against Israel. A "Jew" who does is "self hating".

  4. Re:Should Hate be left alone? on In France, Most Comments on Gaza Conflict Yanked From Mainstream News Sites · · Score: 1

    The problem with most of these comments is that they are vile and hate-filled toward not just a country, but an entire religion.

    There dosn't appear to be any way to independently verify what proportion of comments might be being "blocked", "removed", "moderated", etc from a blog attached to a French newspaper. Never mind what the content of such comments may or may not actually be.

  5. Re:Great... on Satellite Images Show Russians Shelling Ukraine · · Score: 2

    The civilian plane would have a radar transponder that said "Hi, I am Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17".

    That's if you send the plane a MODE-S interrogation. Otherwise all you will get is altitude, MODE-3A and a 12 bit number, MODE-3C.
    Since the rebels had no planes of their own and apparently assumed that the area was closed to civilian traffic they may have completly ignored SSR returns.
    Working out what is being targeted turns out to be the hardest part of operating such a SAM system. Especially if all you have is the TEL... Even with the additional radar and control room the system is likely to be far more less sophisticated than a Ticonderoga-class cruiser.

  6. Re:Status quo vs The Future on Lawrence Krauss: Congress Is Trying To Defund Scientists At Energy Department · · Score: 1

    Renewable energy and "sustainable transportation" were largely tried in the 19th century and abandoned because they were too limiting.

    Wind power is considerably older than that. It's actually considered to be the first form of non muscle based power used by himans.
    Also "renewable" and "sustainable" have reached the point of being politcial "weasel words" more often that sensible descriptions.

  7. Re:Mission creep. on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    Saving even a couple of hundred dollars per unit might be a drop in the bucket when compared with the peripheral costs. Yes, IT departments everywhere might be able to save a little money on the purchase of each computer by buying all of their parts from NewEgg and installing Linux on the computer that they cobble together from parts. Still, it ends up being cheaper, when you add up all the peripheral costs, to buy ready-made computers from Dell with Windows pre-installed.

    Except that OEM preinstalls tend to be of very little vaule in "enterprise" environments. Even those fairly free of "crapware".

  8. Re:It gets worse... on Russian Government Edits Wikipedia On Flight MH17 · · Score: 1

    Ok thanks for the clarification. Terrorists indeed claimed to have stolen a BUK system from local Donbass military base, on 29/06: https://twitter.com/kram_ua/st... Here's another claim - they're saying they fixed it: https://twitter.com/Dbnmjr/sta...
    UA army claimed all BUKs were crippled beyond repair, so it is also likely that specialists and materials needed for repair (if it indeed happened) came from Russia.


    Or what was stolen was rather less "crippled" than the Ukrainian Government would like to admit.
    It isn't as if politicians tend to be the most honest of people, even in peacetime.

  9. Re:Android on my pi? on MicroxWin Creates Linux Distribution That Runs Debian/Ubuntu & Android Apps · · Score: 1

    I wonder how much of that has to do with the tendency among Android app publishers to make their products exclusive to Google Play Store, which is (legally) available only on devices with preloaded Android OS. This makes AOSP distributions undesirable to end users.

    On the other hand any kind of "app store" in an "enterprise environment" where installing any kind of software is about the last thing "end users" should be doing.

  10. Re:Finally! on World Health Organization Calls For Decriminalization of Drug Use · · Score: 1

    I agree with your comments on this as well. What would we do with all the prison space currently housed by drug-related occupants? That would put a heavy dent in the income of the organizations that manage the prison systems (which are mostly cronies of the politicians).

    Could always put politicians (and their cronies) in there :)

  11. Re: Finally! on World Health Organization Calls For Decriminalization of Drug Use · · Score: 1

    As far as the US is concerned, I don't think use of substances like crystal meth or pcp would be an issue if more enjoyable/safe drugs were equally available. What makes meth so cheap and available is an artificial inflation of other substances caused by Federal drug policy.

    One side effect of prohibition is that of "legal hights". Which whilst not illegal often turn out to be considerably more toxic then what's been previously banned.

  12. Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2 on New Treatment Stops Type II Diabetes · · Score: 1

    One thing I can caution you about, as a med student, is to question where the guidelines for the "correct" cholesterol came from. Hint: it's probably an echo chamber, and not tied to scientific evidence.

    IIRC the numbers were the lowest the drug companies could get away with.

    Anyway, what I'm saying is not that statins are bad, but merely to question what your goal cholesterol really should be. Your brain has a lot of cholesterol (myelin is high in cholesterol) and cholesterol modulates your cell wall plasticity. Too low would be bad.

    One very intresting thing is pattern B LDL particles contain less cholesterol than pattern A LDL particles. Which rather means that breaking lipoproteins apart and looking at their lipid "cargo" is likely to be less useful than looking at the lipoproteins themselves.

  13. Re:meanwhile overnight... on Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet · · Score: 1

    and thus will avoid hitting Russian aircraft by default

    Or Ukrainian (military) aircraft should the system have been "acquired" from the Ukrainian military. In which case the operators would have been expected to either disable or override the IFF function. Anyway the transponder on a civilian plane is NEVER going to return the correct response to a military IFF. It probably isn't going to return anything at all, since as far as it's concerned it's not seeing a vaild signal.

  14. Re:meanwhile overnight... on Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet · · Score: 1

    "Although it has its own identification friend or foe system, this is only able to establish whether the target being tracked is a friendly aircraft. It is the electronic equivalent of a sentry calling out: "Who goes there?". If there is no reply, all you know is that it is not one of your own combat aircraft. It would not give you a warning that you were tracking an airliner."

    The rebels don't have any of their own aircraft so there'd be no reason to do this in the first place.
    A sentry who knows that an intruder cannot possibly be one of their own might well follow the "shoot first ask questions later" approach.
    Distinguishing between a military and civilian plane is not so easy and even trained radar operators can get this wrong. As was the case with Iran Air 655.

  15. Re:meanwhile overnight... on Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet · · Score: 1

    What sort of "rebels" would have the training an ability to set up and operate a crew served weapon? I severely doubt that such a system is "point and shoot" as it has 3 separate, independent mobile systems.

    So "rebels" cannot possibly be soldiers. Nor can they read manuals. There were reports last month of people quite literally taking weapons from museums. Also the Soviet army was made up mostly of conscripts. Even weapons systems intended for all volunteer armies are often designed to be easy to use.

  16. Re:meanwhile overnight... on Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet · · Score: 1

    The question is, was this really a launcher that the Russians gave the rebels? I looked up the Wikipedia page for the BUK missile system last night, and there was a link on that article to a report from Jane's that said Ukraine had some in their possession from their days as a Soviet satellite state. It makes me wonder if the BUK (being a Soviet-era weapons system dating back to 1979) wasn't just misplaced somewhere - if the National Institutes of Health can misplace 300 vials of deadly diseases and biological weapons, it's not a stretch to think that the Ukrainian military might've had a BUK somewhere and forgotten about it.

    Or the Ukrainian military/government dosn't want to admit that the rebels had stolen it from them. Even though such a thing would not be unheard of in a civil war.

  17. Re:meanwhile overnight... on Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet · · Score: 1

    The only way the Russian's can "win" this propaganda war is if they can somehow convince those Europeans who make decisions about sanctions that they had nothing to do with the downing of the passenger jet. People will want to know where that Buk missile launcher came from, who gave the order to shoot, and where that missile launcher is now. If there is any evidence that the Russians had any direct involvement with this, no amount of propaganda will help them outside of the regions where they have complete control of the media.

    About the only way the Russians could come out looking like the "good guys" would be to arrest those responsible as war criminals. Assuming they are from the pro-Russian "rebels". But where to try them would be tricky, given the large number of Dutch passengers on the plane.

  18. Re:Wait for it... on Malaysian Passenger Plane Reportedly Shot Down Over Ukraine · · Score: 2

    Translating from russian... "Near Torez (city) an An-26 airplane was just shot down, it crashed somewhere beyond "Progress" mine site. We warned beforehand - do not fly over "our zone". Here's another video proof of the next "birdfall". A birdie crashed down beyond terricon (mine excavation site), missed living areas. Population not harmed. We also allegedly have info on another SU-25 shot down"

    The AN-26 is a turboprop, vaguely similar to a DHC-8. The SU-25 is a twin engined fighter. The most obviously identifiable piece of wreckage is clearly part of a large gas turbine engine.

  19. Re:Seems like old times on Malaysian Passenger Plane Reportedly Shot Down Over Ukraine · · Score: 4, Informative

    And those even older may remember Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (both shot down by the Soviet Union). It seems they have done it again.

    Both KAL 007 and KAL 902 were off course. At the moment this looks more like Iran Air 655 with a civil aircraft on course exactly where they had every reason to be.

  20. Re:Anonymity makes sense for special cases. on Pseudonyms Now Allowed On Google+ · · Score: 1

    For every troll you discourage by using their "real name" (probably not their real name anyway, and they always make a new account or connect from a different IP), you'll lose many other people who would have given useful comments, but won't do so if they were going to be identifiable.

    Or who don't want their comments in one forum linked to a completly different and unrelated forum.

  21. Re:Youtube Comments on Pseudonyms Now Allowed On Google+ · · Score: 2

    Google+ is not about a popularity contest. It's about being social without being on facebook, or keeping track of special interest groups (including celebreties).

    The irony being that plenty of "celebrities" are only known by their "pseudonym(s)" in the first place.

  22. The i* device revolution has been extremely annoying for enterprise IT since Apple has had almost zero understanding or interest in supporting us.

    It isn't just Apple. Many Android and Windows tablets have smiliar issues.

    Things like requiring plugging in an iphone to a PC to turn off the find my iphone feature with iOS 7 as an example (No I can't contact all 300 field users and ask them to mail me their iphone for a few days).

    This featrue has at least some possible use in the enterprise. The whole "app store" idea makes very little sense here. There's also the inability to easily use your servers, including in place of Apples. It's unclear if this is something the article really addresses.

  23. No it wasn't, as soon as you install iOS 7 and enable find my iphone the device is locked to that users icloud account, there's a way to disable it but it requires attaching the phone to a physical machine. You can disable the feature through MDM now, but it has zero effect if the user has already set it up (horse meet barn door). We've lost a half dozen devices due to folks being let go and refusing to unlock our property, Apple's gotten better about unlocking the devices in the last couple months, but if they're not on our main account so we can easily show proof of ownership we're SOL.

    Since Apple can unlock the device it should be possible for an admin to also be able to do so. But the issue here is Apple's failure to understand that "user" and "admin" are distinct tasks, even in small businesses. Even, apparently, the concept of a "corporation" being the owner of such a device.

  24. This was fixed a year or so ago with iOS 7, maybe earlier? iOS devices can be remotely configured and updated. Coincidentally I just watched a WWDC video that mentioned this, I'm pretty sure it was from last year's WWDC not the recent one.

    You can configure some things this way, but not others.

  25. Re:Take a note from encryption on Australian Electoral Commission Refuses To Release Vote Counting Source Code · · Score: 1

    If your software isn't secure when your source is open, it isn't secure when it's closed. Either it's secure or it's not, but if part of maintaining that security is keeping the source under wraps, your not thinking about security properly.

    There's plenty of people who don't understand this.

    You wont find encryption software claiming that by keeping it souce closed it is increasing it's resilience. If your code can't stand up to scrutiny, then you probably shouldn't be using it,

    Plenty of people prefectly prepared to make use of proprietary software. Even though both crypto theory and actual practice indicate this makes no sense.