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User: rgriff59

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  1. Leave barn door open, blame cows for results on New Tech Industry Lobbying Group Argues 'Right to Repair' Laws Endanger Consumers (securityledger.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the very tech industry actors that created the stage for the Mirai botnet think letting consumer take any control of those same actors' faulty devices will create significant new dangers? I think allowing those manufacturers any more unsupervised commercial activity is far more dangerous.

  2. Re:Who?!?? on Dieter Moebius, Electronic Music Pioneer, Dead at 71 · · Score: 1

    Such a sad comment on both statistics and music history awareness.

    I am a person, and in the US, and this story means quite a lot to me.

    If Dieter Moebus' only accomplishment was to have influenced Eno, he still earned a place in modern music history. He did much more.

    I would encourage those who cannot appreciate this loss to use it as a cause to stop and explore what they have missed. First step would be following those links, but queue up some #DieterMoebius for ambience while you read.

  3. Re:why start after the fact? on LAPD Orders Body Cams That Will Start Recording When Police Use Tasers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think the point of drawing the weapon is early enough either.

    When I hear the testimony in many of the questionable cases, I get the impression that the officers have charged in and escalated the situation to the point that is becomes violent and dangerous. That is behavior that we should capture and use to uncover the needed improvements in public safety.

    There are disciplines, such as psychiatric care, that deal with agitated and violent people routinely, where lethal force is simply not an option. People in those positions usually have training in verbal deescalation and non-lethal containment techniques that reduce the chance of injury to both sides. There are a lot of things that can be resolved simply by dropping the "I'm a bad ass and you must obey" attitude. It isn't about abandoning the authority of the position, it is about exploiting normal human behavior to your advantage. And, it isn't a matter of years of professional training, either. Nurse's aids with GEDs are trained in the basics in a couple of hours.

    If you are trained to resolve a situation with an unarmed individual by using lethal force, there is a problem with the training. Until we fix that, people will continue to die needlessly, on and off camera.

  4. Re:No... on DuinoKit Helps Teach Students About Electronics (Video) · · Score: 2

    Of course it doesn't teach you electronics. An entire TV set as a bag of parts and a soldering iron won't teach you either. However, both can be beneficial resources to have while you learn electronics.

    The arduino boards don't do much of anything useful until you start connecting them to other things. Those other things are electronic components. I'm not convinced the duinokit is an improvement over a solderless breadboard and some loose components, but the whole arduino ecosystem is a very positive development.

    The age of discrete electronics is gone. Electronics has become little digital chips with magic inside, with only the bare minimum of connections to discrete parts outside to make it all work. Hmmmm, sounds a lot like an arduino, except you can control the magic inside the chip.

    The arduino kits are the best thinker's toy I've found in a Radio Shack in more than a decade.

  5. Re:Advice from SLP on Ask Slashdot: Communication With Locked-in Syndrome Patient? · · Score: 1

    It is good to see a professional response. My basic advice is that this is not a DIY task. There are professionals for this. Use their services. Listen to this guy.

    More immediately, patience is required. Even without considering the cerebral trauma, she has been through two major surgeries in a short time. That alone is exhausting. At this point the focus should be on rest and physical healing. Rehabilitation takes the back seat to healing the traumas.

    The hospital should have a care plan that includes connecting you to specialists, such as an SLP, when it is appropriate and will not interfere with more immediate concerns. If the hospital cannot provide this assistance, you should explore options for transfer to a facility that can. They also should be a good source of information about planning for long term care. No matter how well intentioned the family is, this can be a huge burden and takes its toll. Yes, professional help for the family in this area is a good idea. Remember that to take care of her, you will have to take care of yourselves. This isn't a race you can power your way through; it may well be a life long process. Patience is the first skill you need to develop.

    I wish you and yours the best, and hope the coming weeks bring you better news.

  6. Re: Dont do anyone any favors on Court Says Craigslist Sperm Donor Must Pay Child Support · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the base issue is that Kansas doesn't consider the lesbian relationship as legitimate and binding. If this same situation had played out with a female mother and an male, but infertile, father, there would have been no question that both bore financial responsibility for the child regardless of the method of conception. Because the relationship is not recognized, mother mother and mother father are not jointly responsible, and a third party is brought into the support equation.

    I don't care about the morals, traditions and threats of divine retribution; the state is doing a disservice to all citizens by not recognizing the non-traditional "marriages" under common law. In this case they seek to recoup $6000 from a third party, and will no doubt pick up far more than $6000 in legal expenses as this nonsense winds through the courts. Make the non-traditionals bear the same social responsibility as the more conventional family units. I am less concerned about any moral implications of such relationships than I am about the lack of responsibility that is afforded to participants in the non-traditional relationship because the state fails to recognize them. The state's perverted thinking on this matter brings real costs to the people whose moral values they are allegedly protecting.

    Marry them, tax them, and let them bear the cost of their choices like the rest of us. Share the pain.

  7. Here is a way to fix this on You Don't 'Own' Your Own Genes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Find a company which "owns" a gene that controls some specific disease, like a cancer. Now, everyone with that disease files a lawsuit against the patent holder. They own it, they should be liable for the damages it is causing by being released into the general population. By claiming a patent, this implies invention, therefore we can infer liability!

    After a few multi-million dollar lawsuit awards, no one would want to "own" a gene. Problem solved.

  8. Sounds Like a Nice Pair of Antiques on Nokia Officially Lists Patents Google's VP8 Allegedly Infringes · · Score: 1

    I'm more than happy to let Nokia claim a patent on tethering a cell phone with a cable to a PCMCIA card. Doesn't Nokia have any patents with vacuum tubes?

  9. Re:How can you trust google not to delete it on Google Keep Labelled "Delete" · · Score: 1

    There are obviously very polar opinions on this topic. The important thing to realize is that both of the poles are right, but only for the holders of the opinion.

    If you don't mind constantly swimming in Google's petri dish, dive in and enjoy. At the end of the experiment, there will likely be more petri dishes to explore. If on the other hand, you prefer your basic use technology to just work and remain invisible, you'll probably want to be a bit skeptical of some of their offerings.

    I find that Google's decision making, both on what to release and what to kill, borders on immature, especially given their resources and market position. Others seem to be happy with it, and I wish them all the best. If there was a universal best way, it probably would have been found already, and we wouldn't have much to discuss.

  10. Re:How can you trust google not to delete it on Google Keep Labelled "Delete" · · Score: 1

    Strange world where Keep qualifies as "innovation" or "pushing the envelope." I suspect you can find lots of Evernote users who disagree with both of those assertions. Pretty, maybe useful to some, but Keep doesn't sound very ground breaking.

    When they innovate, I pay attention. If they are playing catch up, I'd prefer to wait until the dust settles a bit. They do innovate, a few examples:

    Wave - very neat, should have been aimed at corporations not general public, it would have been very useful for non-geographically determined teams.

    Android - awesome. When I see a six year old playing with a Nabi tablet I realize how brilliantly their loosely controlled creation fosters innovation in the market in ways Apple's iMonopoly never will.

    Web Speech API - potentially very useful, especially if it was supported in their mobile Chrome version. Until then, just a cute toy. Being put forward as an open standard gives one hope that other implementations will appear so it won't just disappear if it is judged not cost effective.

    There are many others, but Keep just doesn't make the same list. There are lots of existing models to have studied before jumping into the market, so maybe this commodity item has a hope of lasting though a few springs. We'll see.

  11. Re:How can you trust google not to delete it on Google Keep Labelled "Delete" · · Score: 5, Informative

    I keep hearing phrases like, "Don't worry. They will give you a way to get your data." For some reason, that is supposed to be a determining factor. So what?

    Google says "Here is a fantastic new app to use. Please make part of your daily workflow." Some arbitrary amount of time later, Google says "Nevermind." If I have indeed made it a part of my workflow, I am required to change my workflow on their schedule on their notice. Maybe you are lucky enough to have never had life fall apart. Maybe you've never been so busy taking care of life changing issues, you could miss everything short of bombs exploding in your path. At such times, the last thing you need is for stupid little things, like a note taking app, to require attention.

    As Google has a proven record of discarding their "Wow, Cool, check this out!" technologies in a fairly short time, the risk of putting the newest into a position where it will exclusively control an important workflow is too high from my perspective. Sure, I can get my data. Then what do I do with it? I have this great XML dump that nothing else can make sense of. I need something to rely on, free or not.

    The fact that they announced this right on the heels of their spring cleaning product killing spree shows that as a company, they don't care. I, as an individual have the same sentiment about their new product. This has to be one of the worst marketing strategies ever attempted.

  12. Re:If this is true... on Declassified LBJ Tapes Accuse Richard Nixon of Treason · · Score: 2

    Reading the article shows there were two politically motivated individuals, both attempting to alter the result of the election using the war as the control. A recording shows that one of those parties openly discusses his view of the situation as fact, and those around him who depend on his approval for their power agree with him. Since both of the parties were known to be more than a bit paranoid and megalomaniacal, I don't see how this is "proof" of anything other than, perhaps, that both parties were scum. In the context of US presidential politics, that is hardly a revelation.

  13. Re:There Seems to Be a Disconnect Here on Ask Slashdot: Which Google Project Didn't Deserve To Die? · · Score: 1

    In the case of the translate API, I fully understand their reasons and can fully support their need, even responsibility to pull the plug on a cash drain. What I find disturbing is the shortsightedness in pushing such things into the wild without any plan for how to make it last. Loosing reader doesn't represent me loosing a substantial investment. Pulling the plug on the wildly popular translate wasted vast, uncounted investments. It broke things that then needed to be fixed. Because they waited until it was popular before they asked "How are we going to make money off of this," they cost others lots of time. Lots of time, which translates to lots of money. They shut it down not with the 3 year notice they had established in their own agreement, but invoked an emergency clause to accelerate it. One small meeting before releasing it would have cost them a few man hours, and prevented the whole situation. Instead, they suffered "substantial economic burden." They also thrust a substantial economic burden on the community by wasting huge numbers of man hours in development time. While, as previously stated, I understand the need, I maintain that the irresponsibility they displayed in this case is nothing short of evil. For the record, I don't block ads. I do stop visiting sites when the ads become too intrusive. I disable Flash as a rule, but not javascript. I don't mind ads too much, and once in a while, I actually follow up on one. I don't expect entitlement, but I do expect corporate responsibility. I pay for services all the time. Do the math, set a fair price up front, you might find me a valued customer. Act like Google did in this case, and I'll defend people's right to be pissed for a long time to come.

  14. Translate on Ask Slashdot: Which Google Project Didn't Deserve To Die? · · Score: 1

    The translate API was axed because it was too popular.

  15. Re:Cars produce more on State Rep. Says Biking Is Not Earth Friendly Because Breathing Produces CO2 · · Score: 1

    I understand how he got elected. People just check the box for whatever with little reasoning or research. What I can't figure out is how someone this stupid figured out how to run for office in the first place.

  16. Re:Crazybook on Facebook Asserts Trademark On "Book" In New User Agreement · · Score: 1

    Sportsbook also comes to mind.

  17. Re:What 'Special Protection'? on Drug Companies Lose Special Protection On Facebook · · Score: 1

    these things need to be told to your doctor, not a facebook page. your doctor will then report this to the company...

    Typically, a doctor's primary communication with any drug company is through a sales representative, and that sales rep earns a living by making information flow FROM the drug company TO the prescriber.

    While I will totally agree that disusing issues with your provider is important, the belief that the information will magically make its way back to the manufacturer is nonsense.

  18. Re:Good news, bad news on Ruling Upholds Gene Patent In Cancer Test · · Score: 1
    Oh, just twist that Idea around a little bit. I have no problem with a firm patenting a gene, as long as that also means they are 100% responsible for it if it causes harm when it gets loose in the wild.

    "The bad news is you have cancer. The good news, is that some fool patented the gene responsible. These lawyers over here will make sure you are compensated and get the best treatment possible at that fool's expense. That gene was after all his invention."

    Seems fair to me.

  19. Re:What crime? on Blogger Fined $60K For Telling the Truth · · Score: 2
    Tortious interference doesn't involve truth, just interference with intent to disrupt a business relationship without privilege in that relationship. When Hoff went directly to the employer, the University of Minnesota, the line was crossed, and it stopped being journalism and turned into tortious interference. I'm not attempting to justify this as right, morally or otherwise, but it does follow the logic of the law.

    If I were to be looking for a real villain, I'd pick Don Allen, who involved Hoff's blog in his personal shot at Moore, the mortgage fraudster, via the U of M, then as co-defendant, settled with Moore and turned witness against Hoff. There is no integrity to be found in those actions. It appears both Allen and Moore both deserve to burn in their own hells. But, good luck Johnny Northside; you're going to need it.

  20. Re:Syfy is to science fiction... on Does Syfy Really Love Sci-Fi? · · Score: 1

    Their commercials implore me to "Imagine Greater." Therein lies the problem; I do.

  21. Re:Operative words on Fifth of Android Apps Expose Private Data · · Score: 1

    Hmmm, "...prompted before it attempts to use a service, .. allow or deny access."

    I can just imagine just how useful that would be for the programs that protect you from private data exposure and unauthorized phone charges in the event of phone theft.

    "May I please read this incoming SMS to see if it contains authentication from the legitimate owner?"

    "May I please brick the phone now that the legitimate owner's request has been verified?"

    You grant permissions up front. It isn't wrong, it is different.

  22. Re:Win 3.1 on Old Operating Systems Never Die · · Score: 1

    The last time I used Win 3.1 it was using SoftPC on an iBook running Mac OS9.

    Seriously.

    I was trying to run an old install kit to grab a specific font. It wouldn't run on anything newer than Win 3.1. The SoftPC CD was there, the iBook was there, and it all worked. There was linux box in the mix to get the floppy contents to the Mac.

    Sure, I could have just used a different font, but where would be the challenge in that?

  23. Re:COBOL. on California Can't Perform Pay Cut Because of COBOL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    no - the problem is that no one wants to be paid minimum wage to program COBOL

    I think you've hit it exactly. I know quite a few very capable programmers that still do COBOL. It would cost at least 20 times minimum wage to talk to them. And for a short term contract with no future, the price would at least double again for the work. Here are a few other observations:

    • Tens of thousands of lines of COBOL is not even big. If it doesn't deserve at least a fractional millions of lines designation, it is small.
    • Any programmer that can't learn COBOL in a few weeks is not much of a programmer
    • COBOL is not an excuse for living in the dark ages, modern COBOLs even have OO and XML extensions.

    But, of course, is is fun laughing at COBOL, after all it is a language where this statement can be totally functional:

    PERFORM UNUSUAL-ACTS UNTIL IT-STOPS-FEELING-GOOD.

  24. Re:Advertisement Injection on Covert BT Phorm Trial Report Leaked · · Score: 1

    It only takes one trusted CA, and that can come from several directions. Here is a artilce describing Blue Coat's SSL proxy, sold specifically to do MITM, although they don't call it that:

    http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2006/07/think-your-ssl-traffic-is-secure-if.html

    In operation, there are a few clues that one might pick up on, but overall, lots of people will never notice that this is happening. Very slick, but in a very dark and scary sort of way...

  25. Re:Simple to beat.. on Prototype EU Airplane Spy Cams Watch For Facecrime · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Let me reframe this line of thought in a way which isn't quite so funny.

    One member of a dedicated and well trained team is tasked with being 'nervous.' He fidgets, he twitches, pulls out a holy book and begins chanting prayers for courage and wisdom. The plane's security complement arrives at his seat, while the other team members, having now identified, quantified, distracted and virtually cornered the opposition calmly make their move.

    Brilliant!