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User: bill_mcgonigle

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  1. Google Keep Death Pool Thread on Google Launches 'Keep' To Rival Evernote · · Score: 1

    Place your bets. We'll come back here when it's canceled and see who got closest. Winner gets a fractional bitcoin.

    I'll start: 2016-02-29

  2. Re:Don't even try on Ask Slashdot: What Is a Reasonable Way To Deter Piracy? · · Score: 1

    If you did not purchase a license, please visit ****.com (link) and purchase a copy.

    It's been a while since I did the commercial software thing, but back in the 90's there were 3rd party widgets you could license into your app that handled the entire purchase/registration process in-app that took care of all the difficult (validation/security) work for you. With tokenized credit card purchases and PayPal these days I'd think they'd be even more valuable. Maybe somebody has some links to whomever the market leaders are now. Use them, don't try to roll your own, don't ask people to cut-n-paste and manage codes, tell them which file has their key/certificate to back up. Maybe these components even let them print a QR code of the license key to file in their actual files.

  3. Re:Ownership of recovered artifacts on Bezos Expeditions Recovers Pieces of Apollo 11 Rockets · · Score: 1

    Was Apollo 11 a military ship?

    No, NASA is explicitly a civilian agency. Sometimes it runs military flights, but only those are military flights.

  4. Re:Obligatory car analogy on Schneier: Security Awareness Training 'a Waste of Time' · · Score: 1

    And Schneier isn't asking for companies to stop teaching their drivers to drive safely before the seatbelts, airbags, and automatic cars are ready - he's just outlining that as the better goal than only relying on safe driving.

  5. Re:Progress, but not totally there yet on Activity of Whole Fish Brains Mapped Second To Second · · Score: 1

    IMO, TFA is completely. fucking. amazing. This comment is like people telling Watson, Crick, and Franklin, "yeah, but you don't have a complete working model of human genetics."

  6. Re:We - who? on The Nielsen Family Is Dead · · Score: 1

    And don't socialize with your friends or co-workers who might talk about The Walking Dead or Dexter at lunch

    Wow, talk about a LCD anti-social approach. How about you guys talk about the house you're rehabbing on Saturday with Habitat for Humanity? You know, if people spent 1/10th the time swinging hammers for the poor as watching TV, nobody would be homeless.

  7. Re:Information age has made the concept obsolete on The Nielsen Family Is Dead · · Score: 1

    The quantity and quality of the data is better than ever. As more people switch from broadcast and cable to online streaming, why would you need a random sample like the "Nielsen family"?

    The digital cable set-top boxes and/or cable-cards must be able to report the same data, no?

    I love streaming, and, Jesus, do my friends on Facebook bitch and moan about "their shows" (it's useless during a Superbowl or Academy Awards), but how can the sheer volume of digital cable(/FIOS) boxes not already offer supremely better data?

  8. Re:Obligatory car analogy on Schneier: Security Awareness Training 'a Waste of Time' · · Score: 1

    Actually it's closer to a taxi. Which most people have cause to use from time to time. They're particularly useful in cities.

    Yes, good point - but extending the benefits of taxis beyond the cities. Every wealthy man has a driver, or hires one on demand, but the non-wealthy people don't get that.

    Heck, when I have a self-driving car, I'll see my extended family more often. They're "only" 8 hours away, but that's two full days of driving with a stack of children in the back seat. When I can tuck the kids into their car seats and nod off while the car brings me to my destination, I'll do it more often. Alright, they'll probably be banned by the politicians as soon as there is a single accident and my kids will be adults before the luddism subsides, but "in theory" this is true.

  9. Re:Finally on Possible Chemical Weapons Use In Syria · · Score: 1

    Shell can already gassify natural gas into petroleum for $25/barrel in on of its Persian Gulf plants - the price of crude is only one input into the price of gasoline at the pump, and unfortunately, it hasn't been primary since the USG invaded the Middle East.

  10. Re:Post informational era on Possible Cyber Attack Against South Korean Banks and TV Stations · · Score: 1

    we continue to attack each other

    Most people are born into societies where violence is the controlling mechanism of regulation and such mechanisms are even venerated (loyalty pledges in schools, songs to its honor, mass media that glorifies the violence). It takes a certain level of intellectual rigor and honesty to understand this and move past it.

    BTW, great link outlining the aspects of satyagraha that people need to accept to move past the old ways of primitive humans. I find that the lust for retribution is so strong in some people, even among members of religions that claim to extol forgiveness, that new mechanisms are probably required to manage a society before they will let go of it.

  11. Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? on West Virginia Won't Release Broadband Report Because It Is 'Embarrassing' · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In some States, it's illegal but there are no penalties for refusing. The "sunshine laws" have "no teeth" a the parlance goes. In other States there are fines or convictions associated, and, surprise, the government complies more often.

  12. Re:DNSSEC is inferior to custom HOSTS file on Google Implements DNSSEC Validation For Public DNS · · Score: 0

    Oh, maaan - you went and fed the troll. At least it wasn't after midnight, but c'mon, Internet 201.

  13. Re:The text of the judgment. . . on Supreme Court Upholds First Sale Doctrine · · Score: 1

    Actually, no, these are very measurable.

    Liberty can be summed up as:
    1) can a man do as he wishes, so long as he doesn't infringe on another man's ability to do the same? If so, there is liberty (c.f. Fredrick Douglass).
    2) can one class of man do things that other classes of man are forbidden from doing? If so, there is oppression. (c.f. Frederic Bastiat).

  14. Re:The text of the judgment. . . on Supreme Court Upholds First Sale Doctrine · · Score: 1

    Surprisingly, Scalia was the only justice from the conservative wing to dissent.

    Don't think left <---> right. Think liberty <---> oppression.

  15. Re:Nothing to do with OpenGL on AirBNB Opensources Chronos, a Cron Replacement · · Score: 1

    I wonder what the Khronos Group would have to say about the name of this project.

    They might snicker at the latinization of the name of the Greek god?

  16. Moon-brick machine on A Moon Base Made From Lunar Dust · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A while back one of the universities (I want to say in the Southwest US, AZ maybe) had a project to build a machine to make bricks out of moon dust; their process also liberated oxygen and hydrogen from the dust, which could be bottled for human use. As I understood it they had a fully-working prototype.

    Anybody know what happened to this?

  17. Re:LAZARUS?! Really?! on "Lazarus Project" Clones Extinct Frog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, I'm still protesting the names of the week - I mean, Tyr, Odin, Thor, Frida - stop forcing your Paganism on me - every. single. week.

  18. Re:Disappeared? on Did Large Eyes Lead To Neanderthals' Demise? · · Score: 1

    An interesting question is could you breed a Neanderthal and a modern person, and would the offspring be fertile, I wounded if we are different species under the older firmer definition.

    Most African people don't have Neanderthal DNA, so they would be the true 'modern person' if by that one means 'a continuous non-Neanderthal genetic line from the 400,000-year split'. The Neanderthals and descendants of the African people interbred, so non-African people are either a new breed or Neanderthals that took on some additional DNA - I think that's just a matter of semantics at this point. But TV writers use 'Neanderthal' to mean 'stupid caveman' so people seem to really resist that.

  19. Re:Can't believe people still complain about track on Schneier: The Internet Is a Surveillance State · · Score: 1

    You can ignore all the scholarly anarchocapitalists and call them "not economists" but that doesn't mean they're not real.

    Yes, the current methods of dispute resolution require a government, but that's begging the question.

  20. Re:In other news on Windfarm Sickness Spreads By Word of Mouth · · Score: 1

    Yes but unlike almost all other sources of major media outlets, Fox News actively mis-informs it viewers/readers.

    Wow, you have a higher level of respect for the big-6 corporate news outlets than most. Hint: the most common form of misinformation is omission.

  21. Re:Dumbest story title, ever? on Smartest Light Bulbs Ever, Dumbest Idea Ever? · · Score: 1

    They've got a 40-watt equivalent for $10 at Home Depot and a 60-watt for $14.

    To be fair, these may or may not even be available at HD today - Cree itself says they were back-ordered until Mid-March. The OP was right until yesterday or next week, depending on when the truck arrives.

  22. Any Ethernet Versions? on 3G and 4G USB Modems Are Security Threat, Black Hat Presenter Says · · Score: 1

    I don't really care if they spy on my modem, but I don't want their paws inside my hardware. Are there any ethernet-connected devices? I've seen some WiFi-based ones, which should be fine, but it overly complicates the matter and adds additional power requirements which wouldn't be useful.

  23. Re:Oh, come on ... heh. on Cryptographers Break Commonly Used RC4 Cipher · · Score: 1

    You are limited to 3DES or AES in FIPS environments.

    Yes, and in CBC mode if you want browser and openssl support, which leads back to the BEAST attack without TLS 1.2. Which is fine if the client is properly configured to avoid the attack - the server side can only help, not prevent. But the PCI Scanner vendors will redflag you for running any CBC ciphers.

  24. Re:30 years for a non violent crime. on Reuters' Matthew Keys Accused of Anonymous Conspiracy · · Score: 1

    Hey, man, they defaced a website. It's not like they just raped and murdered some girl.

  25. Re:30 years for a non violent crime. on Reuters' Matthew Keys Accused of Anonymous Conspiracy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Madoff had a serious impact on rich peoples' lives.

    Here's my flowchart on how this works.