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  1. Calls It "Shift Plan" on Alcatel-Lucent To Cut 10,000 Workers, Calls It "Shift Plan" · · Score: 1

    Laid off employee shows up on Wheel of Fortune. "Thanks, Jack, I'd like to sell an 'R'..."

  2. if you don't like it on Activists Angry After Apple Axes Anti-Firewall App · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the only reason China allows the iPhone in at all is that Apple has agreed to pull apps from that market that the government doesn't like. Bypassing The Great Firewall of China lands dead-center in that description. When doing business in China, you don't negotiate terms with Beijing. You take note of their terms, and you follow them, or you GTFO.

    If you don't like that, consider the alternatives. No, let me correct that, the alternative. "NO IPHONE IN CHINA."

    either way, you're not getting that app. At least this way you can still get the iPhone. (and Apple can still sell it there) It's a win-win. (Apple and the users in China) Some want it to be a win-win-win, but there's simply no way for those users to "win" in that way. Suggesting that Apple should fight this and get the iPhone pulled out of China is a cross between short-sighted and selfish. Apple is understandably going to say "no" when you try to take their ball and go home.

  3. Re:vs gasoline cars on Tesla Model S Catches Fire: Is This Tesla's 'Toyota' Moment? · · Score: 1

    pretty sure you can only get anywhere near that if it's well-mixed and under pressure, like happens in an engine cylinder. Put the same volume of (liquid) gasoline into a container with correct amount of oxygen, and you'll get a flash and then a plain ol fire.

    (diesel is also notorious for being able to put out a match thrown into a pool of it)

  4. "little effect" on Tesla Model S Catches Fire: Is This Tesla's 'Toyota' Moment? · · Score: 2

    went into detail on the battery pack fire saying the car's lithium-ion battery was on fire when firefighters arrived, and spraying water on it had little effect.

    Well, I'd call that a very good thing. I would have expected "spraying water on a lithium fire" to have had a spectacular effect. Kudos to Tesla for managing to protect the firefighters from blowing themselves up!

  5. Re:Another example of overbearing government on Justice Department Slaps IBM Over H-1B Hiring Practices · · Score: 1

    IBM agreed to pay $44,400 in civil penalties

    And IBM execs high-fived each other and shouted "TOTALLY worth it!!" as they took their millions to the bank.

  6. eat THEIR dog food? on Did NIST Cripple SHA-3? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    so why don't we just look at what organizations like the US military use to secure and sign their data, and use that? (the methods of course, not their keys) That sounds to me like the only way to make sure they're not suggesting or influencing us to use something they (or their opponents) could easily break?

  7. Re:jerk on Georgia Cop Issues 800 Tickets To Drivers Texting At Red Lights · · Score: 1

    Hes doing his job, whether you like it or not. Dont blame the police for laws you dont like.

    This just falls under the classification of "bad laws". Odds are good that this scenario got a passing mention when the law was being drafted, and one of the idiots said "oh well we'll just trust the officers to use common sense in determining when it's appropriate to cite for this". Good Laws don't require the application of common sense to execute, and officers have no business deciding whether or not a law is appropriate to enforce.

    That's how so many Bad Laws get on the books. Too lazy to write the law concisely, so they just cast a broad net and somehow expect it to only haul in the fish they're interested in. Bad laws almost always get abused to some extent. THIS cop is just making it his mission. (or possibly it's his supervisor etc) And that just makes him an asshat with immunity.

    So now the county will be weighing the odds... "We're getting all this nice revenue, but starting to get negative P.R..... should we continue? Is it still worth it?" That's a decision that your law enforcement should never be faced with. It clearly indicates that "To protect and serve" is taking a back seat to something else.

  8. Re:encourage attrition?? on Utility Sets IT Department On Path To Self-destruction · · Score: 1

    "encouraging attrition"? Am I interpreting this correctly as "create a hostile work environment, hoping to drive employees to quit at a rate, that works well with the pace of outsourcing transition"?

    That sounds about as evil as it gets? "OK Bill, your department needs to pick up the pace, we need you to get in there and bump up your micromanagement, switch around some goals on all nearly completed projects, and start requiring employees to clock out for bathroom breaks, and see if that helps"

  9. Re:The continuing saga. . . on SimCity Mac Launch Facing More Problems · · Score: 1

    it's a sub-pixel kerning. If you look reeeealy close at fine text on an apple display (internal on imac or macbook, or external apple display only) you will see it. Otherwise you may notice a blue tinge on the left and red tinge on the right for fine text at larger font sizes. (the effect is no bigger on a large font, it's just spread over a larger area, making it slightly easier to notice, don't change out of native screen res) Under a magnifying glass you'll see the left edges tend to only have their blue pixel lit, while many right edges only have their red pixel lit.

    This produces a slightly sharper looking black and white render, and especially crisper looking fonts, but you will start to notice the color artifacting. (sorry if I've just ruined you... you won't be able to ignore it now)

    I discovered this while trying to make super-realistic mac windows on a win7 build. It's a very surreal experience seeing a mac-themed interface displaying on a windows machine. But the sub pixel kerning wasn't practical to try to reproduce.

    You can also use Pixie from dev tools to see it. It's weird, if you have an external non-apple display hooked up, the text gets jaggier when you drag the window to the other display. Pixie clearly shows the kerning difference, apple's (quartz?) render engine recognizes the display is non apple (and therefore it can't know the physical arrangement of the sub pixels for certain) and disables sub-pixel kerning for the part of the image that's on that display.

    Part of it too might be that they simply would prefer actual apple displays to look better, even if the actual difference is due to software. wouldn't surprise me.

  10. Re:The continuing saga. . . on SimCity Mac Launch Facing More Problems · · Score: 1

    you can't really get away from scaling on a fixed-dot display. gotta go back to a CRT for that

  11. Re:nice Dell advertisement... on All-in-Ones Finally Grow Up, With Fast Graphics, SSDs, and CPUs · · Score: 1

    more of a "their marketers are living as far in the past as their engineers". Not exactly a good place to find inspiration.

  12. Re:nice Dell advertisement... on All-in-Ones Finally Grow Up, With Fast Graphics, SSDs, and CPUs · · Score: 1

    "I can't afford" != "isn't available"

    Maybe the article should be change to more of a "finally the last of the PC market catches up with Apple for AIO desktop specs".

    (if this was a Dell advertisement, it would appear that their marketing department is taking inspiration from their engineering department)

  13. set a precedent on Newest YouTube User To Fight a Takedown: Lawrence Lessig · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I do hope they manage to set a precedent with this case and pry open the door to a flood of such awards. even if they're small amounts, it'll at least fool me into believing that maybe the system sometimes works?

  14. Re:They got voted in, so deal with it on Egyptian Security Forces Storm Pro-Morsi Camps Leaving Nearly 100 Dead · · Score: 1

    The Muslim Brotherhood got voted in, so they must be deal with. If the people are unhappy with them, vote them out.

    When's the last time you saw a muslim brotherhood run government hold a multi-party election? That's not how islam works. Going by the book, (and they do go, quite literally, by the book) there is no give-and-take, there are no options, there is only islam, until they've conquered the entire world. It's going to stay that way until they lay off the literal interpretation of their koran. Israel is driving them absolutely crazy. Do you really see any tolerance for other options there? And that's in a different country. They can't stand other countries near them to use an alternate form of government.

    Expecting a muslim brotherhood to hold multi-party elections is completely beyond the realm of reason. Once they're in, the entire country will dial back 400 years and you'll pay hell to get rid of them.

  15. Re:Devil's advocate here... on Obama's Privacy Reform Panel Will Report To ... the NSA · · Score: 0

    I'm going to go out on a limb here, but because the NSA has a lot of experience with security/privacy, they might be the best guys for the job, since they know what threats are out there. Yes, they are SIGINT, and maybe their HUMINT needs some shoring up, but expertise is expertise. You may not want the fox guarding the henhouse, but the fox will at least know which chickens are the most tender.

    That sounds like asking us to "give up some privacy, liberty, and rights in exchange for a little additional safety" tradeoff. (an issue that B Franklin was known to have commented on) My personal take on it is we've already gone way too far down that road, by taking a very large number of small steps.

    This isn't about the fox guarding the henhouse. This is more about the prison that's already guarded by ex-criminals, staffed by ex-criminals, managed by ex-criminals, and now we're going to replace the warden with an ex-criminal. Haven't we already gone well beyond reason?

  16. Re:sounds simple enough? on Ask Slashdot: How Do I Request Someone To Send Me a Public Key? · · Score: 1

    on os x anyway, once you get the .ps7 (iirc) file on your desktop, double clicky and it's insta imported into your keychain. mail will use it automatically if the email address matches one in your account list.

    It would be nice if they added something inside the mail app itself to request a keypair - make the whole obtain/install process very easy, just click a button to obtain and install. I bet a lot more people would use it.

    That process really belongs inside the email program anyway. Having to go outside the mail app to get and install an email keypair is awkward, not where it belongs.

  17. sounds simple enough? on Ask Slashdot: How Do I Request Someone To Send Me a Public Key? · · Score: 1

    I have a keypair I got free from comodo, and any email I send is signed by default, which includes my public key. (which isn't visible to most users, using default email viewing settings)

    Thus, anyone that gets an email to me can reply back and all they have to do to encrypt the content is to click the padlock.

    Owell I suppose it's not as common as it should be. You could tell them to go to comodo and sign up for a key, but it's not as straightforward of a process as it probably needs to be for a non computer tech person to feel comfortable doing.

    I suppose the best route would be to direct them to comodo's sign-up form and ask them to get a key and then send you a signed email. If they have problems, or think they've got it set up and you still don't receive a signed email, you might want to fedex a package to them instead. If they prefer an electronic copy, send a pair of usb flash drives with two copies of your data on it, in case one of the drives goes bad. If the person you're talking with isn't a tech, you don't really want to try their patience or make things difficult for them if they aren't able to figure it out immediately.

    Here's the link: https://secure.comodo.com/products/frontpage?area=SecureEmailCertificate

  18. so if they can do it on NSA Firing 90% of Its Sysadmins · · Score: 1

    so if the NSA is firing people they don't trust... and fewer than 30% of americans trust the NSA... can we fire them? (and the TSA? please?)

  19. Re:Why proprietary chargers? on Apple Announces a Trade-in Program For Third-Party Chargers · · Score: 3, Informative

    How could they cell you a $20 cable to plug your phone into your computer if you could just buy a microUSB cable for 65 cents from monoprice?

    I think you've missed the point. The sort of chargers you are suggesting people buy are the very ones that have been injuring people.

    Apple's just turning the spin positive by deeply discounting replacement chargers. It also gets people into their store, and gives them lots of positive PR. They're still making a little bit of money off the chargers, too, it's not a giveaway.

    I also found this nugget on Apple's info page especially interesting:

    Due to the complexity of testing required to detect an unsafe or counterfeit adapter, Apple Retail and Apple Authorized Service Providers cannot advise you on the authenticity or safety of your adapter.

    It would likely require physically smashing them open to identify a good counterfeit. So they'll even take back an authentic Apple charger. And it looks like in any condition, so you could for example, take in your dead adapter or drowned / clothswasher'd adapter and get a replacement on the cheap too. That's handy.

    Knockoffs are cheap, but they're made cheaply. I recently got a cheap 3pk of usb to dock adapters for spares, and ended up needing one to replace an original that had been in use in my truck for the last two years, the cable at the dock finally started to fray. The first replacement... well it lasted a whole five days before the cable pulled out of the dock connector. It's confirmed, ya gets what ya pays for.

  20. Re:oh man, what a mess on Xerox Photocopiers Randomly Alter Numbers, Says German Researcher · · Score: 2

    I think the problem isn't so much the problem recognition, but the reproduction. It may be looking at two numbers that both look about the same, and using the same compressed data to draw both of them back out. Making them look identical. So if you started with two numbers, say one that was 70% like a 6 and 30% like a 8, and another that was 40% like a 6 and 60% like an 8, it's deciding they're "close enough" and is drawing the 70/30 image in both places. A human could figure out the second one was supposed to be an 8 before, but now both of them look like 6's with the same 70/30 confidence.

    If they're going to use such generous "similar consolidation" they've got to be doing a better job of figuring out if that part of the image needs to maintain its high resolution. I think that's what's going on here... it's probably got an algo that's looking for fine text and sharp images, and going with higher quality algorithms in that region of the page, and going with less accurate but more efficient ones in other places where it doesn't think it needs to waste the storage on low res. But that method is failing to find fine text when placed around rough shapes. (and I suspect it's affected by the rest of the content of the page) The article didn't show entire pages well, just small excerpts.

  21. Re:Companies don't exist to be nice on Google Argues Against Net Neutrality · · Score: 2

    If an individual commits evil to get rich, I would not excuse his behaviour if his excuse was that his sole aim in life was to get rich. We should also not accept the same excuse for companies. Do evil, be judged evil, no excuses.

    Evil doesn't matter. Excuses don't matter. Judgement doesn't matter. The world is, on the average, greedy, and always will be. Evil, done properly, will always be more profitable in the short AND long term than doing good. "Doing good" is a P.R. stunt. A cover. An attempt to reap some of the rewards of doing good whilst raking in the greater rewards of doing evil.

    Mom and Pop stores are doing good. Walmart is doing evil. Who's winning? Who is always going to win in the end?

    Good only benefits everyone if everyone is doing good. If even one person does evil, they will benefit many-fold over the do-gooders. And then it becomes apparent to many of the do-gooders that they ought to be doing evil too. That's why greed matters. Evil will be the more profitable way to go unless you can get rid of all greed. Which you can't. And then even a small handful of greedy will ruin it for everyone.

  22. Re:Don't be evil (some of the time) on Google Argues Against Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    The static/dynamic IP thing is a difference to the service on a technical level - they have to specifically change the way the service operates in order to offer a static IP - in particular, the routing is probably more complex because they now need to dynamically change the routing for your IP address depending on which equipment your connection appears on when you "dial in" (and yes, ADSL still "dials in" and will appear on an arbitrary trunk at the ISP end); also IPv4 addresses are running pretty short, so there is a real, but non-monetary, cost associated with giving everyone their own IPv4 address instead of handing them out dynamically. So at a technical level, it may well be more costly for the ISP to offer a static IP, so charging more doesn't seem unreasonable here.

    speaking as someone who's been static for over a decade, and worked with some dozen others in getting set up static, I can assure you that is not the case. ISPs that offer static addresses can offer them in several ways, the easiest of which is simply to add your modem's hardware ID to their dhcp server, and tell it to always assign a specific address to your device. This function is also available on many consumer-grade routers. Google "DHCP reservation". This has several advantages. First, no routing changes have to be made on the network since your static IP will be cut out from within in the assigned dhcp pool in your area. Second, no configuration is required at all on the customer side. Third, the change follows the customer transparently if they move. (there are many more smaller advantages) You call the ISP, they set the reservation and add the a'la'carte to your bill, (typically $15/mo) and you power cycle your modem. (or they do it for you remotely) And it's done.

    Of course if you want a block of say 8(5), then you have to do manual configuration on your end. But most people don't need more than one. They used to allocate blocks wasefully, like carving out a /30 when you needed one. (giving you 4, with 1 "usable") but nowadays they just vlan you from their end and give you just the one so you're sharing a subnet invisibly with other customers, they use /20's for that around here. (who obviously aren't all static) Which is clearly more efficient use of IPv4 space. (my oldest system here is actually a /29)

    Most of this is really moot nowadays though. Smaller businesses are having their web sites hosted somewhere that will be static for them. Only a small handful of businesses I've worked with in the area have had an actual need for a static address. One needed access to his caldev server when out of the office, another recently linked his offices together. A couple need to vpn in from home or on the road. Use of domain names simplifies things too, if it changes, just update your record. Set your TTL low and run a script to auto update it if it changes. (I set my TTL on one to 5 minutes... they were a little grumpy with me but they did it) Can give you basically all the benefit of static without paying for it. I still can remember the fight getting users to replace the ip address with the domain name. "Are we down? Why can't I connect?" "because you have ignored my last three emails."

  23. Re:Don't be evil (some of the time) on Google Argues Against Net Neutrality · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think it was a bait-and-switch. It was simply a change in priorities.

    Google used to be merely a content provider, with things like youtube. They wanted unrestricted flow of their content on other companies' networks.

    But now, they are also a network provider themselves. Naturally the shoe's on the other foot now.

    People seem to forget... Google isn't your best friend, or your nice neighbor lady, or your pal at the bar. Google is a company. Companies don't exist to be nice, they exist to make money for their owners and shareholders. Now, tomorrow, and well into the future. Either they prioritize this goal, or they are driven out of business by other companies that do pursue that goal. Being "nice" doesn't pay off as well as being "ruthless". There are precious few examples to the contrary.

  24. Re:Like source code on Copyright Drama Reaches 3D Printing World · · Score: 1

    I believe these two things need to be treated separately. The instructions could be either patentable or copyrightable depending on your point of view.

    Written "works" (that are not simply facts, like a phonebook) are copyrightable. A lot of patents start by describing "a method or process that..." to patent a process. So I think we have that end of the stick covered.

    Objects are patentable, you just provide a sufficiently detailed description, and it's up to the courts to decide if something "similar" is too similar. (or determine the patent was too broad) So we have that established too.

    A process that produces an object. There we have two very different issues. I don't see how we can legally connect one to the other. I may patent a process for manufacturing a chemical, but that doesn't mean I have a patent on the chemical. There are a nearly infinite number of ways to make that chemical. Rights on a process should not imply rights on the results of the process, no matter if they are tangible goods or anything else for that matter. Trying to patent a different process that produces an already patented chemical could be a more sensitive topic though.

    I don't even really see why this is being such a big issue. If I make a 3d print template for an object, I can try to (A) copyright the template, and (B) patent the object the template produces. It's probably not possible to patent the process of using the template to produce the object, since a significant part of that involves the printer and they probably have their printer patented or it is at least by itself considered prior art. Beyond the common-sense separation, I think this provides a fair legal/technical barrier as well.

    So if you want to give away the template, but want a cut when anyone prints the object, I suppose you could be a dick and freelicense the template but patent the object, and try to do some riaa-style trolling on people that print it. But I think the act of giving away the template greatly undermines your good faith in effort to take reasonable steps to protect your work. It wouldn't be much different than how prenda uploaded copyrighted works into a bittorrent swarm and then tried to sue the people that downloaded them. I believe giving away the template could be easily compared in court to the established "making available" argument for copyright infringement. Basically put, if you clearly "encourage" infringement, you have voluntarily surrendered your right of exclusivity.

    So why is this even an issue?

  25. Re:Gigabit? on Small Town Builds Its Own Gigabyte Network; Cost To Citizens $57/month · · Score: 1

    Gigabyte divided by 8. Not the same thing.

    Though for practical purposes, I find dividing by 9 tends to give more realistic numbers.