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User: StikyPad

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  1. Re:This on Are Girl-Focused Engineering Toys Reinforcing Gender Stereotypes? · · Score: 1

    we think both genders get the same opportunities only they don't, not really

    Yes, but any "things are not as they appear" argument requires more evidence than just speculation. At least, it should. That's what differentiates a legitimate concern from a conspiracy theory. If there is an orange and an apple in front of me, and I eat the orange, you can speculate that it's because society has conditioned me to choose oranges over apples, whether through marketing, or peer pressure, or depictions of oranges in popular culture, or you can simply accept the obvious truth that I would usually rather eat oranges.

    Yes, there are lower numbers of women in tech than men. But we know, through experience and observation, that there is no doorman turning away women from such endeavors. And when there are no obstacles, then the simplest explanation is choice. People may suspect there are other factors at play, but it's not worth trying to solve a problem if that problem does not, in fact, exist. At best, this issue requires a root-cause research and analysis, not a full-court press to get women into tech by any means necessary. And believe me, I would love to have more female co-workers. The ones I do have love their jobs, though, and they're good at it, and they're not harassed at all. If anything, they're subjected to more white-knighting than in any other industry I've seen.

  2. Damnit, AdBlock on Adblock Plus Can Now Be Rolled Out To Every Single Employee In a Company · · Score: 1

    The only reason you work is because most people don't use you. Success is the shortest path to failure, because websites *will* find another way to serve ads, whether it's through an EULA or randomizing/obfuscating the references to ads, or even serving the pages as images. Please stop trying to become more popular.

  3. Re:maybe robots can fly the drones on USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators · · Score: 1

    I'm a fellow veteran. My point is more that it's not really a war unless there are risks, not that anyone should lust after battle. Of course you try to manage those risks, but you recognize that it exists as well. No risk, no reward, as they say.

  4. Re:maybe robots can fly the drones on USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators · · Score: 1

    but the idea is to force the OTHER side into submission

    Glad you mentioned that. Airstrikes in general, and drones in particular, are notably ineffective at forcing the other side into submission. As I mentioned, they're fine as part of a larger strategy with boots on the ground, but nobody ever surrendered to a drone, which means they're not a viable alternative. Drones are the poster children for recruiting.

    If there's a conflict where we don't want boots on the ground, then it's a conflict where we shouldn't have drones in the air. There might be exceptions, where it's one person or a small group of people that can be dealt with in one or a handful of strikes, but you can't beat an army with air strikes. Or at least, no one's demonstrated how that might be accomplished yet.

    Also, we'll have to agree to disagree vis a vis the absurdity of risking our own lives. Do you think the military is training its soldiers and Marines that it's "absurd" to risk their lives? They're not. The tree of liberty is refreshed with the blood of patriots, not the oil of unmanned aircraft. If it's not worth risking our own lives, then, on principle, we shouldn't be involved. Drone strikes, like patriot missiles before them, and carpet bombing before them, have shown themselves to be a political expediency to "do something" without any cost in human life, which is trying to have your cake and eat it too. And worse, it's not a viable method of winning a war.

  5. Re:How does "drone time" look like on your logbook on USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators · · Score: 1

    The aviation industry is kind of a Ponzi scheme.

    Yeah, I took an introductory flight lesson last week, and sort of figured that out when they started explaining how I could easily be an instructor and make my money back! It reminded me of when I got PADI certified.

    Personally, I just wanted to do it as a hobby, and be able to buy or rent a small plane and make short trips, because I go out of town almost every weekend, but it turned out that small planes are too slow, and the ranges are too small. And of course I would still have to drive to the nearest airfield, which is an hour away. I might still get my private pilot's license just because it's fun, and for bragging rights, but now that I realize that I won't get any utility out of it whatsoever, I'm less motivated.

  6. Re:maybe robots can fly the drones on USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators · · Score: 1

    In my experience, most people actually talk to their SO's about what they do or did. It's not something they *never* do, but discretion is required. That said, the paranoid ones are untrustworthy anyway, so you were right to keep your mouth shut, and you are better off without them.

  7. Re:maybe robots can fly the drones on USAF Cuts Drone Flights As Stress Drives Off Operators · · Score: 1

    Not really daily, these days, but I'm sort of glad they're burning out. Battles should be fought by people, not avatars. When we remove the cost of war in human terms, then we've removed the fundamental disincentive against war, and that's a terrible thing for nation that claims to be peaceful. At least, that's what we used claim before 9/11. Since then it's been all war, all the time.

    To be fair, I don't necessarily have a problem with drones as part of a larger strategy, but in the past few years, they've supplanted a larger strategy instead of augmenting it. It's like filling a battlefield full of snipers and nothing else. It's not a recipe for success.

  8. Re:Key exchange on Should Edward Snowden Trust Apple To Do the Right Thing? · · Score: 1

    The difference is that the HTTPS certs are auditable -- they are truly public, in the common understanding of the word. To my knowledge, there is no way to audit Apple's repository.

    My line of thinking when it comes to security is that "good enough" has been repeatedly shown not to be. We know the best practices, so why not follow them? Every time someone compromises, whether it's in the RNG, or allowing infinite login attempts, or allowing degraded connections, or inventing their own untested encryption (which may be the case for iMessage), it gets exploited. As my old man used to say, the shortcut is to do it the right way the first time.

  9. Re:Transfat Banned? on FDA Bans Trans Fat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cigarettes are already free of trans fat.

  10. Re:Key exchange on Should Edward Snowden Trust Apple To Do the Right Thing? · · Score: 1

    1) They hold the public keys. But the risk isn't them decrypting with your private key, it's them adding their own public key (or one they generate) to your list of keys without your knowledge. Apple could send your public iPhone key, your public Ipad key, and their own generated snopping public key to the sending device, and no one would be the wiser. You can read about it here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/...

    2) There's a setting to turn off "Send as SMS," but under some circumstance, it might not honor that setting. For example, if you're texting someone who's not using an iPhone. Ideally, a user should have more strict control.

    As I said, default iMessage encryption is good, in that it guards against mass surveillance in most cases, but there's certainly room for improvement.

  11. Re:Nothing about Facbook is private on Facebook Has a New Private Mobile Photo-Sharing App, and They Built It In C++ · · Score: 1

    This is a case of selection bias. We see people posting ridiculous things, so we think everyone does, but believe me, there are plenty of people who don't post stupid shit to Facebook, and are -- not surprisingly -- very competent and responsible people, or who are at least competent enough to appear to responsible. There's no shortage of competition for jobs in sensitive industries, whether it's finance, government, or law, and yes, they pass on people who post stupid shit on Facebook.

  12. Key exchange on Should Edward Snowden Trust Apple To Do the Right Thing? · · Score: 1

    Apple technically has end-to-end encryption, but the problem is the key exchange. Apple retains the keys for all of your devices, which is how one iMessage can be sent to multiple devices. The way it works is that the sender communicates with Apple's servers to obtain a list of public keys for devices registered to the recipient. The sender then encrypts the message once per key, and sends the encrypted messages to Apple, who then distributes them to each device. In theory, and likely in practice, Apple cannot see the contents of the messages transiting its servers, since it doesn't have the private keys.

    But, as the custodian, Apple could add keys to this list at any time, including their own, or one at the behest of a TLA. This may or may not happen, so it's really a question of what risk you're willing to take. Their current method, if implemented properly, would prevent your plaintext messages from being swept up in mass collection, but without knowing the encryption method and the security details surrounding the keystore, you could still be targeted. Add to that that iMessage silently falls back to SMS, so if someone had the ability to block your tcp/ip traffic, the iDevice would transmit in the clear. It's an improvement over pure plaintext, but it's still fraught with risk and insecurities that will likely be exploited at some point, if the past experience is any indication.

  13. They already know on Santander To Track Customer Location Via Mobiles and Tablets · · Score: 1

    Your bank can already track your location. They have your home address, and they know everywhere you go based on where you swipe your card. If the police are tracking you, it's one of the first resources they will use.

    That said, no, my bank app doesn't use location services. At least, not yet.

  14. Re: Privatize all water, immediately. on As Drought Worsens, California Orders Record Water Cuts · · Score: 1

    Most water has shit in it before it's purified. Most natural water sources also have bacteria and parasites. The stuff you get out of the tap generally has less of both, no matter how much people like to pooh-pooh it. (See what I did there?)

  15. Re:Or hey, maybe we need on As Drought Worsens, California Orders Record Water Cuts · · Score: 1

    Yes, but if you move to NY, you can do this: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/vid...

    And I think it's obvious that's worth more than family.

  16. Re:Water for people on As Drought Worsens, California Orders Record Water Cuts · · Score: 1

    rejecting all fixes because they don't fix everything at once is stupid.

    Exactly! Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to finish rearranging these deck chairs. They keep sliding afore.

  17. Re:Laugh on US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About Bitcoin Via Twitter · · Score: 1

    Exactly. The only point of contention is the one that seems to have been overlooked by many people, which is that he's 17. Presumably, he was as young as 16 when he started this. That's old enough to know that what he was doing was wrong, but not old enough to fully appreciate the consequences. Hell, some people never learn, but 16/17 isn't old enough to expect well-adjusted adult behavior either. There's a reason ISIS targets young people for recruitment, and it's not for their life skills.

  18. Re:Knowledge on US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About Bitcoin Via Twitter · · Score: 1

    "Is imparting (academic, general) knowledge really "aid", though?"

    Yes. We provide training to foreign militaries all the time as part of assistance packages.

  19. Re:Mixture on US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About Bitcoin Via Twitter · · Score: 1

    "Liberty is something we must ALWAYS guard diligently."

    Of course, but this wasn't just a case of someone posting a hypothetical; he also aided someone in joining IS, so his actions were in line with his words. I get the slippery slope argument, and if lesser behavior is prosecuted, that's something to be wary of, but this seems pretty clear cut.

  20. Link to the drones on Drone Racing Poised To Go Mainstream · · Score: 1

    Are these built from kits, from scratch, or are they factory models with upgrades? Where can we get them? Anyone have a link or more information?

  21. Re:The NSA fallout here is astonishing on US Tech Companies Expected To Lose More Than $35 Billion Over NSA Spying · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But can you really put a price on safety? All of this spying has made us incredibly safe, as evidenced by steep decline in terrorism-related deaths in the US since 2001, zero of which have been from hijacked airplanes. I mean, sure, more people in the US died from malnutrition in 2001 (and every year since) than from 9/11 attacks, but starvation in America is hardly a problem we can solve by just throwing hundreds of billions of fucking dollars at the way we can with terrorism.

    And yes, many, many other countries have been affected by terrorism without getting sucked into a perpetual war in a variety of countries that may or may not have had anything to do with the attacks or creating a power vacuum for ISIS to fill, but those aren't the best, most exceptional countries in the world, are they? Probably French or European countries. Light on a hill, American exceptionalism, Stikypad for President 2016, y'all!

  22. Re:Disagree with stupid wording on US Tech Companies Expected To Lose More Than $35 Billion Over NSA Spying · · Score: 1

    You see, before we knew about the spying, the activity was in a superposition. We were both spying, and we weren't. Once Snowden leaked that information, the possible states collapsed to one -- spying -- and therefore Snowden is in fact directly responsible for both the spying and all of the fallout.

  23. Re:Piss-poor situation on Rare 9-way Kidney Swap a Success · · Score: 1

    I was skeptical that that would increase supply enough, but surprisingly, it would*. Only 40% of people are registered as donors, which covers more than half of the necessary transplants. Supply exists to meet demand, but people just don't register. That's disappointing.

    Honestly, though, this is one case where technology has the potential to solve a problem, and it happens to be more palatable. And if organs could be grown from a person's own tissue, rejection would be a non-issue as well, which would be a greater victory. Increasing the donor pool is certainly essential as a stopgap, but hopefully one day soon it's a non-issue.

  24. Re: Harvard is the right place on Everyone Hates Harvard · · Score: 1

    KSM was the mind behind 9/11. Without him, it probably wouldn't have happened. Without bin Laden, it probably still would have.... KSM probably would have just gone to a different group besides al Qaeda, or formed his own.

    Likewise with finding and killing bin Laden. Without the CIA, we wouldn't have found him. Without Obama, we probably still would have, and John McCain would be taking credit.

  25. Re: Why? on Everyone Hates Harvard · · Score: 2

    Assuming a person is not manifestly mentally defective, anyone can achieve great wealth and power. Good people can achieve wealth through continuous dedication to the goal of creating value and insisting on being paid for it.

    Well, they can have a chance at it, granted, but there are lots of dedicated people who aren't wealthy.