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User: mabhatter654

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  1. Re:Damn straight on Turn Your iPad Into a Star Trek PADD · · Score: 1

    You COULD. Have got the Diagnostic PADD app that got C&D a month or so back. It was basically just a demo anyway, but come on guys...

  2. Re:When Can They Force Decryption? on DOJ: We Can Force You To Decrypt That Laptop · · Score: 1

    "contempt of court" is pretty much the definition of "compelling" ... Locking you in cuffs at gunpoint and sitting you in jail INDEFINATELY is about as compelling as it gets.

    Remember, there is no "term" for contempt of court. When Clinton was on trial they had somebody in jail almost 2 years... And when the information was found out converted that to an obstruction charge...

    So while they may not compell you for the password, although certain immunity agreements CAN remove you from I crimination yourself... They CAN legally let you sit in jail until the evidence is collected... 1024 bit could leave you there a LONG time.

    For a safe or safety deposit box, they just serve the warrant to the bank or to the manufacturer of the safe... While you sit in jail and wait do you can't tamper with the evidence.

    If you are in possession of a "locked box" that's the entire purpose of the court granting a warrant...to compel you to open it. What is in the box is PHYSICAL evidence (even if it is electronic) that you have "set" and "affixed" no different than if you write in a physical diary. At the point police have siezed a device, it's no more protected than a truck full of accounting documents.

  3. Re:Both sides are unreasonable on New IMF Head Says US Must Raise Debt Limit, or Face 'Nasty Consequences' · · Score: 1

    the GOP is just a pack of wild dogs lately... ever since Cheney "cleaned house" on "disloyalty" they've been nothing but "our team versus your team" for over a decade. Remember a DEMOCRAT President and a REPUBLICAN Congress under Clinton was able to do this... There's no political gain in saying Obama had an OK idea so they have done nothing but shit-can it for years coming up with more and more wild and extreme things. The same thing is happening faster at the state level.. it's open season on Unions, education, etc... anything vaguely "liberal" simply for the sake of "winning". The current crop of Republicans are Vile, Vile people it's time for the party to be disbanded. Historically this happens very quickly.. often in only 1-2 Presidential elections... we'll see how much longer the public eats their shit.

  4. Re:The right doesn't want to prevent default on New IMF Head Says US Must Raise Debt Limit, or Face 'Nasty Consequences' · · Score: 1

    That makes a lot of sense... There are plenty of alt-history games out there and uniformly the US breaks into about 5-6 regions based on what they think is important.

    It tends to break into North East, Midwest (Great Lakes states), South, Texas, California, and "flyover" (which sometimes breaks along the Northwest rockys/plains)

    1. California and Texas are as big as any two European countries put together, so they could be more effective without the Feds.

    2. The Northwest/Rocky states would just about break even, but they would rather be poor and free than do what the Feds want anyway. They'd be harsh but highly libertarian/liberal....

    3. The Plains would be very, very poor in every resource but rich in food the others need, they'd either be fought over for the food supply or able to barter some good deals for cartage and food with the other states, they'd probably gain a lot of Amish.

    4. The Midwest and South would probably be tough but OK. They get more tax money for roads and such then paid in but would settle without trying to keep up with competition from other States.

    5. The Northeast would probably have the biggest change because so much wealth is tied to Washington. They'd end up holding the bag as the last corner of the "USA" so it'd be a toss if the banking and financial centers would outweigh the crushing debt.

    Right now Washington DC politics plays these regions off each other much more than working FOR them. If you look at the lines for things like Gay Marriage, Right-to-die, legalized "vice-sins" as well as social structures and economic status, the country tends to fall into these regions already. When Yellowstone goes Boom this will be exactly what's left... minus the Rocky and Plains (breadbasket) states.

  5. Re:It's called CMM and CMMI on IT Crises vs. Vacation: Sometimes It Isn't Pretty · · Score: 1

    But management figures "IT Risk" is the IT manager's problem to fix in his budget and they don't have to worry about it. I was about ready to swear at the head accountant at my company for just that reason a few weeks ago. Our office location is in a place next to an Oil & Gas depot and in the last 10 year HAS had the situation where a leak causes the Sheriff to block the roads and turn off power to the block. This guy is supposed to be "in charge" of the company but has zero competency in this basic idea. The other extreme is a different manger that complains if they're going to "waste time" on the project why does it only cover IT? So they want to make the project so endlessly complex nobody will ever approve it.

    For the most part IT just wants this stuff written down... and the agreement that the 10 members of the IT Steering Committee (from non-IT departments) will take some responsibility to MANAGE and know where the plan is at. If you don't have time for EVERY possibility, at least have time to document them so that NEXT TIME (and there is ALWAYS a next time) recovery is that much quicker.

  6. Re:and that lead to the hit by bus problem what to on IT Crises vs. Vacation: Sometimes It Isn't Pretty · · Score: 1

    Look at it this way.. at least your fiance "got out" before all the shit hit the fan!!! Wait for the phone calls and bring the marshmallows!

    If a company is THAT utterly, and completely irresponsible that they would fire somebody from a department without cause while the boss is out for medical treatment they deserve what they'll get. Trouble is that somebody with a job will work 65+ hours a week to bail them out and things will limp along.. standards will just go down.. but you'll have your downsizing numbers for the quarter!

  7. Re:There can be only one... on IT Crises vs. Vacation: Sometimes It Isn't Pretty · · Score: 1

    not to mention nobody actually KNOWS what you do ... what the hell DO you do ... this is especially a problem when you keep systems running well with almost no user calls, etc.

  8. Re:I would fire you for that on IT Crises vs. Vacation: Sometimes It Isn't Pretty · · Score: 1

    exactly the right approach.

    It's not like there aren't going to be things you NEED to be there for. But the basics... like what systems and services should be running, daily issues, and of course your "working" documents should be available to everybody, even if they're not necessarily qualified for the work. At least your Boss would have a place to see what's going on and know what skills to hire a temp for or something.

      From a company point of view it's not just worrying about vacation. People that are that "important" tend to have sudden medical problems that lay them up for a week just as much as a vacation would. Vacation is a known, controllable "downtime"... a company should try like hell NOT to call you simply to see if they can do it... and take copious notes of the information they needed while you were gone.

  9. Re:I don't know if it's a good idea on Space Invaders: The Movie · · Score: 1

    I think it should be any of the "geek and gamer girls".

    I think use the Air Force and spoof on the old SAC and NORAD radar stations. It's the mechanics of how the aliens would work. Although if you went for more of a "Saturday SyFy Channel movie" you could never actually show the alien ships.. just the radar screens. We could get Amanda Tapping to spout techobabble!!!

    Makes me long for the Sims Movie... but only if we can get the College Humor folks to write it!

  10. Re:Plot! on Space Invaders: The Movie · · Score: 1

    tropes say the token black guy....

  11. Re:Commercial databases on Facebook Trapped In MySQL a 'Fate Worse Than Death' · · Score: 1

    Of course Oracle is moot anyway. Microsoft owns a good stake in them already and also in Yahoo. If anything, they'd go MSSQL.

    The REAL PROBLEM is that enterprise vendors think web apps are stupid and have no skill or want to LEARN skills needed to sell their products to those markets.

    After all, if Oracle or Microsoft has such great developers, they should have tools to convert "amateur" work quite easily. Given that web sites like Facebook use clusters of non-homogenous hardware, it should be a piece of cake for such LEGENDARY companies to build a new DB farm that could learn from the old one and migrate the data. Think how Google achieves redundancy by using 3 different servers in different networks for the data. They "migrate" by adding a server with new code and pulling the plug on one old server.. For Oracle or Microsoft with all those PhDs they have that should be easy.

    Fundamentally, when faced with problems like these in the past, companies like Oracle and Microsoft simply refuse to bid until an ISV figures out all the hard parts and tells them how to fix the problem.

    Frankly, if I was Facebook I would not use either system unless I was dealing directly with a VP of the main product with direct reports that physically write code and implement databases. No ISV, no consultants... Put up a VP with a direct phone to the project lead or go home. I would put in the contract immediate termination for any employee on the project that says "cannot do..."

    Oracle and Microsoft research are great.. But THOSE PEOPLE don't fulfill the contract... Some really stupid MCSE from India does... If I was Facebook refuse to allow ANY person on the project not a direct employee of the DB vendor.

  12. Re:Commercial databases on Facebook Trapped In MySQL a 'Fate Worse Than Death' · · Score: 1

    How many THOUSAND nodes did you have to convert with zero downtime?

    As powerful as Oracle is supposed to be, having access to all of MySQL as well converting should really be EASY for the end users.... Even at The scale of Facebook.

    A LOT of the problem is culture. Oracle is a company that builds "bridges". They expect to research what the optimum DB science is, then spend 5 years between versions building a bridge that is going to have the exact same lanes for wheeled vehicles for 20 years. That's fine for utilities or governments. MySQL is like making scooters... More people NEED scooters than need expensive bridges.

    Fundamentally, the PROBLEM is what Oracle's engineers cannot understand. That's how MySQL got to be a billion $ company in the first place. It's the classic Acadamia vs hackers. The Hacks get up every day and build something like their life depends on it. In the 6-12 months Oracle's skate people with papers take to mull the problem, the hacks have been DOUBLING your business.

  13. Re:Commercial databases on Facebook Trapped In MySQL a 'Fate Worse Than Death' · · Score: 1

    MySQL is designed to grow in a completely different manner than Oracle.

    There's NO database vendor with an off-the-shelf product that could do what Facebook does. The only comparable installs would be Social Security, IRS, or the VA, maybe something like Airline reservations.. Giant companies like GM or IBM aren't all run on one system like Facebook and other big web sites.

    Sure on paper you can line up a half dozen IBM POWER 7 mainframes and DB2 or Oracle to handle to handle the current transactions and the consultants would optimize the hell out of it. That's on terms of a 5-year hardware and software plan with 3-years to implement. That would be more power efficient and stable and secure.... And even if you could cut implementation in half (and even if you could delivery is measured in BUSINESS QUARTERS) the lack of real science in the enterprise industry would kill Facebook dead long before the hardware hit the power sockets.

    My company is doing one of those SAP roll-outs. Each business unit might have 100GB to 1TB of actual business data in their systems.... In various formats. In the world of Facebook, that's like a DAY of traffic and every 6 months they rework dataformats and add new features... So they are several times more flexible than just sucking in data from a 10 year-old ERP system.

    The ONLY way to manage something like Facebook is to use an army of drone machines that can be repurposed nearly constantly. Sure IBM or ORACLE can do much better in a lab with a static copy of Facebooks data... Web startups are a problem Enterprise companies have never tackled. It's not a database science problem, it's a logistics problem. Like changing tires on your car while driving down the highway. Enterprise systems get around the problem by offering only a very narrow window into the data and limited client options. Facebook offers many more connection options to developers that make products like SAP look old.

    The comparison in a nutshell: a massive credit card processor still only collects the tiny amount of data from the customer and retailer that has been basically the same for almost 20 years. Facebook changes the mix of it's traffic with new TYPES of data every 6 months... The comparison has nothing to do with bits and bytes... It has to do with managing change on a MASSIVE scale Enterprise vendors are incapable of wrapping their heads around.

  14. Re:Security FAIL on TSA Employee Stole $50k Worth of Electronics · · Score: 2

    They definitely shouldn't be able to enter or leave the secure area with anything other than an ID badge. That is the parent's point.. If they can walk away from their station and post a stolen item to eBay, what can they TAKE BACK?

    Remember, 9/11 used boxcutters that were not even illegal, left on food carts... This act completely invalidates the security zone. It IS a TERRORIST SYMPATHATIC act. Just like raising your voice because you can't boob milk!

  15. Re:Your government dollars at work. on TSA Employee Stole $50k Worth of Electronics · · Score: 1

    I think they should invite the victims of the thefts and put this guy naked in the glass screening box and let folks at him right in front of security.

    This whole security theater is very Machivellie... But to balance the scales for the public, the government has to show that screwups from the "watchers" are punished... Buitally, sportingly, publically.. The threat of the "legal system" is not enough... Agee all TSA is outside much of the old legal standards. It is time to skip due process for these guys that get caught and toss them straight to the mob.. I'd even have the President put it on TV for all to see.

    We gave up our personal security of our goods... We want bread and circus we want public corporal punishment!!!!

  16. Re:This is like a patent troll subsidy on EU Proposal: Shift Farming Subsidies To Science · · Score: 1

    That comes into the economics of food = power. The USA could easily ship enough food to keep them from starving, but that's really not the point. If a country doesn't devote ITSELF to managing it's agriculture then food becomes another WEAPON. That's exactly what our food subsidies are right now... they are weapons for the local dictator in power. They've slash and burned all the local farms to "prevent resistance" and they use the charity from first world countries so they can be the only ones with food.. do what they want or die... hell, they might just sell it to another country just for kicks!

  17. Re:This is like a patent troll subsidy on EU Proposal: Shift Farming Subsidies To Science · · Score: 1

    The real purpose for farm subsidies is that city folk don't like to starve! Only 5% of the US population is actually engaged in GROWING food for the other 95%. And with current food prices, that number is actually in danger of going down. One of the big lessons of the Great Depression era was the "dust bowl" problem. Poor farming techniques caused farmers to plant and grow only for what they could get to market... Which was fine until a mass drought hit, and then ruined places where food was still able to be grown.

    Look at it this way, you SHOULD be paying several times more for Milk or Bread than for Gasoline. Compare the prices over the last 20 years and food stuffs are really cheap adjusting for inflation. Unlike Wall Street if farms fail there's no amount of money that can GROW more food. So the government is in the business of trying to keep as much land productive.... or even paying farmers to rest their land so they don't have to sell it for another paved mall parking lot. Imagine if farmers could just let the "free market rule"... they could put each other out of business and then jack a gallon of milk to $5-8 per gallon! That's what's "fair" in the Capitalist sense. You don't have any right to have cheap food... just like Apple or OPEC farmers should be able to close up their farms and get whatever profit they can... right? Farm subsidies could be more efficient, but really they were a stroke of genius in long-term planning to make sure the country is secure from famine. Exports, and all the other stuff is secondary...

  18. Re:Do this in the US as well! on EU Proposal: Shift Farming Subsidies To Science · · Score: 1

    but Ethanol is more easily renewable... we grow the corn in the USA, directly from Sun and Water... using pure gasoline just makes fossil fuels run out faster.

    The whole "gas is more efficient" really misses the point. When cars were first being rolled out industry KNEW they were creating a ticking environmental bomb of emissions (hell they CHOSE to put LEAD in gas for 70 years!! when they knew it's effects well) But gas was more easy to grab, sell, and profit from quickly. Using Ethanol means you have to make a choice to use farmland for people or video games... Fossil just delays the decision... it really didn't FIX anything. Autos built to run on Ethanol can do just fine. Just get used to driving a smaller car more slowly.

    Again, living 90 miles from work and expecting to go 90 miles per hour on the highway misses the REAL problem.. that the allocation of YOUR time as a resource is being WASTED by the large corporations laughing all the way to the bank! Technologically, we should be averaging 35 hour work weeks... not 45 hour weeks. Add in transit time and that's easily 60+ hours per week just on the "rat race". Cheap fuel is a BIG part of the problem because it has let this get way out of hand.

  19. Re:Electric heat? on Bill Gates On Energy · · Score: 1

    to change power in the summer would require some massive changes in architecture from offices, to factories, to homes. Most structures in North America are build to be fairly sealed to withstand winters... rather than being well lit and open to create air flow during the summers. Of course many public buildings were built for the summer school break schedules making the problem even worse now that they have more usage.

  20. Re:Say waht you will about MS on Bill Gates On Energy · · Score: 1

    You'd think that the UK could benefit most from Tidal power as they're surrounded by fairly active sea... using the rising sea to generate energy. It's fairly eco-friendly, and could be easily built into some of the harbor protection projects going on.

  21. Re:We:"Put up or shut up." MS:"No. You'll see why. on Microsoft's Hottest New Profit Center: Android · · Score: 2

    Interesting. If these companies are licensing patents, isn't it law that those be disclosed on the "credits" screen or something??? I thought if an item sold had a patent on it it legally MUST have the number on it to be valid. As these companies are essentially paying for a license, there should be a page crediting these Microsoft patents.

  22. Re:And that is where it ends too . on Microsoft's Hottest New Profit Center: Android · · Score: 1

    We just need a 100% tax on LAWYERS then all the money drained into these cases will pay off the national debt... Between Apple, Gooogle, microsoft... There are $150 BILLION or so the government could use. It's not like those companies are using it in the economy...

  23. Re:Droid is not a monoculture... on Developer Calls Amazon Appstore a 'Disaster' · · Score: 1

    So you're a "geek" but you don't actually make your livelyhood at it? so your opinion matters HOW MOCH exactly?

    This is news because, unlike you, a fair portion of the /. Readership makes their living at some stage in the technology cycle. Either we are paid to support devices "users" like you buy. Or we manage departments and make decisions which products to buy. Or we write programs that our boss has to get money from even if we "just work there". So at some point our jobs are affected by this type of situation.

    Frankly, the article shows a lot of problems with the Amazon App Store. Apple had similar growing pains.... 3 years ago... If Amazon is going to play in the game they have to do better. First, they need a way for all their developers to manage their accounts. They're more than happy to take customers money from this dev's product, but not let the Dev properly service them. The Apple App Store has had similar complaints about their "free" apps not being so great for devs too.. The slow review process seems to be the same everywhere. The Amazon store not following the devs supported system guidelines is a pretty serious support problem. The package works correctly in the Google store, why is Amazon taking money from customers the Dev has indicated are not supported. The Dev may be out of the USA, but Amazon choose to SELL his product... Yet they do not have a means for him to SUPPORT his product. These are pretty big problems.

    Not being able to select your price is a pretty severe problem.. That's something I have NOT heard from the Apple camp about Apple choosing to lower prices without asking the Dev... That's a pretty serious accusation.

    On short, even from a customer view why would you buy there if the Dev cannot properly help you? Consider this a warning that you need to look closely at the details because not all issues are "the developer's" fault... You've been warned. In this case the Dev is removing his app, refunding out of his own pocket... Because Amazon is not properly servicing his customers.

  24. Re:Tax Distraction on Amazon Drops California Associates to Avoid Sales Tax · · Score: 1

    Well the Feds taking their 40% cut off the top doesn't really help CA's tax base?

  25. Re:What is AirPrint exactly? on Ubuntu 11.10 & 11.04 To Support Apple AirPrint · · Score: 1

    Right, because Windows smartphones have printing? Mine don't.