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User: grassy_knoll

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  1. Re:Transparency on Where Whistleblowers End Up Working · · Score: 1

    from the perspective of the grassy knoll

    You have to admit, the view is great from here.

  2. Re:Fourth Amendment on Fifth Circuit Upholds Warrantless Cellphone Location Tracking · · Score: 1

    Sadly true.

    If only the interstate commerce clause applied only to interstate commerce.

  3. Re:Thed saying holds true... on WikiLeaks Sues the Guardian Over Leak · · Score: 0

    nevermind... reply to remove offtopic mod...

  4. One month? on Citi Bank Reveals Attack... One Month Late · · Score: 1

    Did it take them that long to figure out there was a breech? Infrequently reviewing logs instead of real time monitoring, perhaps?

  5. Re:If you're firewalled the vuln is not a worry. on Most Vulns Exploited By Stuxnet Worm Remain Unpatched · · Score: 2

    Firewall won't help you against a infected laptop connecting directly to a PLC.

    See this article or, even better, Ralph Langner's TED talk.

  6. Re:Power plants on Most Vulns Exploited By Stuxnet Worm Remain Unpatched · · Score: 1

    According to this article original versions of stuxnet attempted to spread via USB and while it did apparently spread it didn't spread far enough to hit the targeted system. Seems like the "spread via infected laptop" is the most likely.

  7. Already hit peak oil... Mad-Max didn't happen on White House Explains Transport-Energy Future · · Score: 1

    Saw this recently:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/02/environmental-fixes-all-greens-lost

    Last week something astonishing happened: Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, revealed that peak oil has already happened. "We think that the crude oil production has already peaked, in 2006." If this is true, we should be extremely angry with the IEA. In 2005 its executive director mocked those who predicted peak oil as "doomsayers". Until 2008 (two years after the IEA now says it happened) the agency continued to dismiss the possibility that peak oil would occur.

    But this also raises an awkward question for us greens: why hasn't the global economy collapsed as we predicted? Yes, it wobbled, though largely for other reasons. Now global growth is back with a vengeance: it reached 4.6% last year, and the IMF predicts roughly the same for 2011 and 2012. The reason, as Birol went on to explain, is that natural gas liquids and tar sands are already filling the gap. Not only does the economy appear to be more resistant to resource shocks than we assumed, but the result of those shocks is an increase, not a decline, in environmental destruction.

    The problem we face is not that we have too little fossil fuel, but too much. As oil declines, economies will switch to tar sands, shale gas and coal; as accessible coal declines, they'll switch to ultra-deep reserves (using underground gasification to exploit them) and methane clathrates. The same probably applies to almost all minerals: we will find them, but exploiting them will mean trashing an ever greater proportion of the world's surface. We have enough non-renewable resources of all kinds to complete our wreckage of renewable resources: forests, soil, fish, freshwater, benign weather. Collapse will come one day, but not before we have pulled everything down with us.

    Article goes on a bit, but the point seems to be expectations of a mad-max style scenario may be misplaced.

  8. Re:Philosophycal question here on The 'Three Ton' Hard Drive Destroyer · · Score: 1

    As if it can't be both...

  9. Re:Dangerous book w/ incomplete instructions on FBI Releases File On the Anarchist Cookbook · · Score: 1

    Just on a personal note, yes, I've killed a number of things larger than a fly. Next time you're finishing off a bird, wear gloves, hold it against a cutting board, plank, or similar and use a decent knife to decapitate. If the bird is larger, insert blade into it's neck from right to left, then cut away from the body. Easy peasy.

    On crime: here in the US we've seen dramatic declines in crime even as more and more states legalize carrying concealed firearms. If guns caused crime, then why did the crime rate decline?

  10. Re:Dangerous book w/ incomplete instructions on FBI Releases File On the Anarchist Cookbook · · Score: 1

    I don't presume he would have killed any more, or less, people. Too many variables to make a simple correlation.
    That you do presumes an inherent bias in your thinking.

    Might as well say that if he'd been institutionalized no one would have been killed.

    Really though, neither of us will convince the other.

  11. Re:Dangerous book w/ incomplete instructions on FBI Releases File On the Anarchist Cookbook · · Score: 1

    We'll have to disagree. There's no practical way to eliminate guns from the US and, even if there were, it would not stop deranged individuals.

    Here's another spree killer without a gun:
    http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/12/new-york-city-cops-arrest-maksim-gelman-in-deadly-rampage/

  12. Re:Dangerous book w/ incomplete instructions on FBI Releases File On the Anarchist Cookbook · · Score: 2

    Why do you make a distinction between "crime" and "gun crime"? Someone gets killed, I don't think it's OK so long as they weren't killed with a gun.

    In spree killings, having a gun doesn't mean there will be a higher body count. The link I cited previously had 7 dead, 10 injured from knife wounds. In one memorable shooting, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Gale#Shootings_at_the_Alrosa_Villa_club , there were 4 dead, 2 injured.

    Doesn't seem like controlling the tools controls the behavior, but instead the behavior adapts to different tools.

  13. Re:Dangerous book w/ incomplete instructions on FBI Releases File On the Anarchist Cookbook · · Score: 1

    Doesn't seem like gun control is crime control. For the nutjob who wants to kill people, not having a gun isn't a problem.

    Example:
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25026870/

  14. Disaster response on Alcatel-Lucent Shrinks Mobile Cell Tower To Small Cube · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perhaps a goofy question, but could the Alcatel-Lucent device in TFA be used to establish cellular coverage in an disaster area?

    Seems like small cube + antenna + battery bank + solar panels || generators would be portable enough for, say, a red cross disaster response team...

  15. Re:"Bio-engineered 'cultured' meat" on Scientists Work To Grow Meat In a Lab · · Score: 1

    Along those lines, I'd like an aquarium sized tank for growing my own. Culture up some filet mignon, perhaps.

  16. Re:Other than the symbolic part on Social Media As a Weapon In Egypt · · Score: 2

    What's a major difference, domestically, between those two conflicts?

    Conscription.

    Seems likely that the chance of being forced to serve in the military in a combat zone influenced anti-war sentiment during the Vietnam era. Since then, the US has effectively eliminated conscription, shifting to an all volunteer force.

  17. Godzilla vs. Bambi on Disney Buys Marvel For $4B · · Score: 1

    If Disney buys toho we can see an update of this classic...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAVwUb9hg4Y

  18. Thermite on Ten Ways To Destroy a Hard Disk · · Score: 1
  19. Re:Stupid conclusions on 20 Years of MS Word and Why It Should Die a Swift Death · · Score: 1

    Go easy on him... given the key combinations in his OS ( emacs... wish it had a decent text editor ) typing "emacs" when he means "vi" counts as a typo.

    Emacs: When carpal tunnel met tourette's... a love story.

  20. Re:Where's the Outlet? on Nissan Unveils All-Electric LEAF · · Score: 1

    Perhaps a bit of a random thought, but for apartment / condo car ports if they were roofed with something similar to what BP gas stations use it might help with recharging.

  21. Re:From TFA on Company Claims Potential Magnification In Bio Fuel Production · · Score: 1

    Saw that myself.

    My inner cynic reminds me that:

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
    -Andy Finkel.

  22. Re:Are we guppies on Are Women Getting More Beautiful? · · Score: 1

    How does one measure "guppy beauty"?

    There stacks of tiny little playfish magazines laying around the bottom of fish tanks that researchers found, or something?

  23. Re:What's all the fuss about? on Huge Unidentified Organic Blob Floating Around Alaska · · Score: 2, Funny

    e. Kill it with fire.

  24. Obesity = Bad general health? on Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionately · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Perhaps it's not so much that H1N1 affects obese people more than others, but that obesity is a sign of bad health generally?

    If so, then the correlation would be "unhealthy people more likely to develop respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal".

    Doesn't roll off the tongue like "swine flu kills fatties" though.

  25. Re:Waiting for it... on Man Attacked In Ohio For Providing Iran Proxies · · Score: 1

    Well, true... but throwing rocks? Still seems like "freelance nationalists".

    If more "dedicated" people wanted this guy to be an example, a simple solution would be a public execution in a dramatic way. Say, a shotgun to the back of the head. More creative types might take a Alexander Litvinenko style approach.