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User: Obfuscant

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  1. Re:Liability on Comcast Converting 50,000 Houston Home Routers Into Public WiFi Hotspots · · Score: 1

    Because someone might attach to your Wi-fi and share something in a manner that infringes copyright. Then, the MPAA/RIAA will come after you.

    That's only if the router is configured to use the same addresses for the Wi-Fi that it issues to your internal network. It is possible that the Wi-Fi side will be different and traceable to someone else, especially if you need to have Comcast credentials to use it. And I have no doubt that the IP will be different just so that the free users won't be accessing your internal network by default. If Comcast really does open private internal networks up to outside access through this, then yes, they are dumb and stupid and evil.

    I was ready to see people here lauding a move to make wi-fi more available using existing infrastructure, and I'm a little surprised to see Comcast being blasted as evil for doing this. Many people choose to do this voluntarily, so I'm guessing the main objection is the decision to make this opt-out. However, by making it opt-out many more people who might have chosen to do it by themselves if they knew how will participate.

    Of course, I have no dog in this fight since Comcast doesn't have the admin access to my wireless to make it theirs.

  2. Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer on America 'Has Become a War Zone' · · Score: 1

    No. No. And again, No. It's cheaper if we just electrocute to death everybody ever found guilty of a crime.

    It is this useless hyperbole that makes discussions on /. so pleasant and productive.

    I would rather not have police plowing through mine or my neighbor's door with an MRAP.

    Because you'd rather they plow through your door with what? More senseless hyperbole. I doubt the Sheriff of Pulaski County is getting one of these just to run down your whole house at once.

    the police aren't the military

    Which controls what they DO with what they have, not what kinds of equipment they can have. Are you one of those people who thinks "assault rifle" is some kind of really bad thing that nobody should be allowed to own because it has the word "assault" in the name? Well, "military surplus" doesn't mean that regular people shouldn't be able to own it just because it has "military" in the name.

    There is no good reason why a civilian agency shouldn't save taxpayer dollars using military surplus, and doing so does not create martial law or trample on your rights. I suppose your new reasons are a bit better than the "it's painted the wrong color" I was predicting would be the next reason to send the surplus to the smelter instead of using it for something productive, but not by much.

  3. Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer on America 'Has Become a War Zone' · · Score: 1

    DHS does not give this gear to local police departments, so your claim of "cheap" is absolutely false.

    If you don't call $5000 for a vehicle of this type "cheap" then I fear that you aren't speaking the same language that most of the people in the US speak. And you know who's language is relevant to this? The people in Pulaski County. It is their Sheriff who is getting one of these. My claim that it is cheap is absolutely true.

    ... they are not getting "New" gear.

    So what if it isn't new? You think everything a police department gets has to be new to be usable? What will the next objection to this be? It's painted the wrong color? It's made out of METAL, for God's sake! It's too SMALL! It's too BIG! It's just right, so it must be wrong!

    You've said nothing that supports the claim that a civilian agency should not use military surplus.

  4. Re:SHeriff Michael Gayer on America 'Has Become a War Zone' · · Score: 0

    AND it's going to be more expensive to maintain, and the police should never use military anything, ever. They are NOT the military.

    Why SHOULDN'T civilian organizations make use of military surplus when it is available? It saves them money and makes use of existing stuff instead of having to build new. So what if they aren't the military? I've got a couple of old field jackets, should I not use them because I'm not the military, even though they are good, rugged, serviceable pieces of clothing.

    Perhaps you aren't aware that GPS was created and is operated by the military? The last time I looked, the US Air Force is "military". Should police not be allowed to use GPS technology for anything? Should YOU not be allowed to use GPS for anything because YOU aren't military, either?

    It's not the source of the stuff that an organization uses that carries posse comitatis limitations, it's who it is used by. And tools are tools, whether the military first bought them or someone else did. Especially vehicles.

    Too many people are loosing touch with what the difference is.

    I'd say so.

    So what if a Sheriff in a backwoods county says something you think is stupid to his constituency? They voted for him, you didn't. Unless you go do something stupid in his county, you'll never run across him, and by exercising his freedom of speech you know you shouldn't go there. Better you know than you find out by surprise, huh?

  5. Re: In the US they'd have been charged on Kids With Operators Manual Alert Bank Officials: "We Hacked Your ATM" · · Score: 1

    They weren't caught in the act... they voluntarily came forward to state what they had done... if they had not done this, nobody would have been the wiser,

    I think the bank would have noticed the reduced surcharge income from that machine, and I'm positive they'd have noticed the "this machine has been hacked" welcome message on the display.

  6. Re:The real crime is... on Kids With Operators Manual Alert Bank Officials: "We Hacked Your ATM" · · Score: 1

    Their first random guess at the six-digit password worked. They used a common default password.

    When does incompetence become criminal neglect?

    The Sun article was written by a moron. If they're using a common default password then it wasn't a random guess.

    I'd be more impressed if they played the tune "Take Me Down to the Basement..." (sounds like 'Take me out to the ballgame") on the keypad and it gave them $400.

    I think it becomes criminal neglect once a law is passed saying that forgetting to set a password on a device is a crime. You'd have a hard time getting from "human mistake" to "it's a crime!" otherwise.

    Where the kids need a bit of education is in what they did to the machine after they "hacked" it. Setting the surcharge to 1 cent and changing the welcome message to tell people to go away was irresponsible. It didn't fix the problem, it didn't educate the bank, it just cost them money.

  7. Re:Human nature on The Sci-Fi Myth of Killer Machines · · Score: 1

    Or design the AI to optimize for the maximum happiness of mankind, and make sure it knows my happiness is a billion times more potent than anyone else's.

    Same problem. Unless you're doing the designing, you may, no -- WILL, wind up with altruistic robot masters that optimize away your "happiness", but they're good and benevolent because they are altruistic. Yes, I know you were being sarcastic, but some people here actually do feel that way.

  8. Re:Human nature on The Sci-Fi Myth of Killer Machines · · Score: 0

    If AI could be programmed for truly altruistic purposes it would be beneficial for finding the nefarious characters and rooting out corruption.

    This view of "altruism" will fade very fast once you realize that someone, somewhere, would probably class you as "nefarious" and your altruistic servants would become your altruistic executioners.

    Imagine what would happen, for example, if AI looked at wealth disparity

    So you'd need the definition of altruism limited to your specific brand somehow. A vision of "altruism" the defines "wealth" to mean "nefarious" and "corruption".

  9. Boring on Lego To Produce Three Box Sets Featuring Female Scientists · · Score: 2

    This is the one I really want them to make.

  10. If you can't understand that somebody has to get caught in order for a plan to split the reward with the guy you're paying to commit a crime to work, then who's the one who doesn't understand? I thought it was pretty clear: "not getting caught" means nobody gets the reward. That's a failed plan.

  11. Identifying yourself to the police as someone who committed a crime is different than identifying yourself to the police as someone who witnessed a crime and wants to collect a reward.

    I know that, so that's maybe why I said that part of the plan was "identifying yourself to the police as someone who knows about a crime and turning someone else in" and not "identifying oneself as the criminal". Someone has to get caught, and YOU are the one who is making sure they do. "Not getting caught" is not part of the plan, since nobody gets paid if nobody gets caught.

    The point is that you are making sure that someone gets caught, AND the person who is getting caught is the one you conspired with to commit the crime, who knows you conspired with him and can easily turn you in for a lighter sentence, keep the money, and probably wind up with less jail time than you get.

    The person collecting the reward not supposed to get caught for fraud.

    No, he's trying not to get caught for conspiracy to commit the same crime as the guy he's turning in, and turning in your co-conspirator is a really bad way of trying not to get caught.

  12. Re:huh on $10k Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At Planes Goes Nationwide · · Score: 2, Insightful

    14yrs in prison.

    Good. You picked a perfect example of your "young and stupid" "pre-pubescent" teenager here. A 26 year old deliberately trying to down a police helicopter, and his twenty-something girlfriend, who were probably the same source of the laser used to attack a hospital transport helicopter that the police were looking for.

    Most people in prison for HOMICIDE serve half that.

    Citation required, and so what? He was trying to kill a cop. Deliberately. After trying to kill people who fly in a hospital helicopter.

    This is the definition of unfair sentencing .

    I think it is quite fair. It will send a message that doing this kind of thing isn't a game to people like you who think that all it takes is "polarizing filters" installed on every aircraft so "pre-pubescent teens" can have their fun interfering with the pilots of aircraft, who have no real complaint because there aren't rampant stories about blind pilots and aircraft "falling out of the sky". (Free clue: if a pilot is blinded by a laser and his aircraft "falls out of the sky" and he dies in the subsequent crash, who is going to tell the NTSB the crash took place because of the laser? How many passengers have to go down with him before protecting pilots from temporary blindness from idiots is a good idea in your mind?)

    The story here is about expanding the use of $10,000 REWARDS (not fines) to help catch people who endanger innocent people. I guess, since you didn't answer the question, you really don't understand the difference between "reward" and "fine", or how polarizing filters work, and that the idea of temporary blindness for a pilot in command of an aircraft isn't a problem for you.

  13. A crucial part of the plan was not getting caught.

    A crucial part of the plan is identifying yourself to the police as someone who knows about a crime and turning someone else in. That pretty much rules out "not getting caught" as any significant concern, since if nobody gets caught you don't get the reward.

  14. Re:huh on $10k Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At Planes Goes Nationwide · · Score: 2, Informative

    no it doesn't and i say that being someone that's shined lasers through glass many times.

    Many cockpit windows are not glass, they are plexiglass. Glass is very heavy. Plexiglass tends to pick up lots of micro-scratches from improper, and even proper, cleaning, and it crazes over time from stress and sunlight. Even properly cleaned plexiglass cockpit windows suffer from glare and light splatter, and after a short bit of time during a flight they can have a lot of insect dirt on them, too.

    and i can guarantee a plane's cockpit window is much cleaner than the windows i'm talking about.

    I don't know how you can guarantee any such thing unless you are personally cleaning every one of them prior to each flight, and I can guarantee that you aren't doing that.

  15. Re:huh on $10k Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At Planes Goes Nationwide · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ok, and how many people do you know that have been permanently blinded by a laser? Any?

    Yes. And your implication that it is ok to temporarily blind someone who relies on "see and avoid" to keep from running into other traffic is just pathetic.

    How about this? It took all of five seconds to find using Google.

    I can't even find anything on a lab experiment gone wrong or military laser accident. Nothing.

    Why yes, of course, every lab accident makes the 11 o'clock news so you can find out about it.

    The only thing I can find are articles from pilots complaining, and they have an understandable axe to grind.

    Yeah, I supposed it's a surprise that people who are the targets of attempts to blind them, even temporarily, might have "an axe to grind" with those people.

    But what's the practical chance of that happening?

    It's documented fact. The chance of a documented fact happening is not "damn near 0".

    You're worried about people going to prison for trying to blind a pilot of an aircraft carrying upwards of 200 passengers? Here's the simple way to avoid it: DON'T SHINE A LASER POINTER AT AN AIRPLANE. Problem solved.

    OT: what the hell is wrong with /. today? It keeps telling me I'm not logged in and it ignores the "ads disabled" flag completely? Five different views of the same discussion in five tries at reading it.

  16. Re:huh on $10k Reward For Info On Anyone Who Points a Laser At Planes Goes Nationwide · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ok, wheres your studies to prove this?

    You need a study to know that laser pointers are non-polarized and that shining a bright, non-polarized light through a polarizing filter doesn't stop the light from passing through? And even if the filter is 100% efficient, which none of them are, you only cut 1/2 the light that passes, and none of the light that lights up the crazing or other imperfections in the windows.

    Remember, we're talking about sending stupid per-pubesent teenagers to prison.

    No, we're talking about a $10,000 reward for information about people committing a crime.

    I'm not saying they shouldn't get in trouble. I'm saying $10,000 rewards are insanely excessive.

    Do you not know the difference between a fine, which is punishment for the criminal, and a reward, which isn't?

    Trying to pass laws that make being young and stupid illegal haven't worked very well in the past.

    Too late. It is already against the law to point a laser pointer at an aircraft. The law says nothing about "young and stupid people who point laser pointers", it covers old and smart people too. And if you think that pointing a laser pointer at an airplane will make it "fall out of the sky", you're wrong.

  17. Re:What??? on Interviews: Jennifer Granick Answers Your Questions · · Score: 1

    Sanctity here means

    I know what "sanctity" means, thank you. I'm pointing out that the word doesn't apply at all. You are using someone else's computer system (for free) who has used someone else's computer systems (for free) to gather and index someone else's data (for free), and you think there is some "sanctity" to your ability to search for it? Sorry. If Google indexes something I didn't want them to and I tell them to remove the index, that's my right, and your "sanctity" is irrelevant.

    Examples of intrusion would be paid ranking,

    You've lost that battle a long time ago. I just did a Google search for something, and the first three hits on the left column are ads, as are all eight of the links on the right column.

    and the hiding of the results you seek because someone does not want you to see them.

    If some idiot posts some student's personally identifiable information to the website I run at a school, then you can bet your life I'm going to tell Google to "hide" that result, and you can complain about how I'm interfering with your "sanctity of search" all you want, I don't care. Common sense and the law say I have to do it. And even if the reason is just "I don't want that indexed", your "sanctity" is moot. I've already had that discussion with the web crawlers and the short story is that I index my data for the visitors better than they do (because it is an in-context index and not just "these words appear here" thing) and they don't get to do it anymore.

    If you don't believe the latter, then I'd love to tell you the story about the web indexing service that was indexing an Xtide server I run. It was making hits every five seconds (nicely throttled, hm?) to pages that took 30 seconds to generate. It was getting very nicely formatted tide predictions for today, tomorrow, the next day ... yesterday, the day before, the day before that ... ad infinitum. The server was shut down for real users because it simply couldn't keep up with the indexer requests.

  18. Re:Chicken or Egg on Science Moneyball: The Secret to a Successful Academic Career · · Score: 4, Informative

    Really publishing quality results is what will get you that and being the guy behind the projects will more often than not get you the lead author spot.

    No, the exact opposite is what these folks used. They didn't look at the status of the last author as the summary claims, they used the last author position as a proxy for identifying who the PI was -- which is not really a measure of academic success. They didn't bother looking anyone's status up directly.

    Maybe bio-whatever is different, but where I work "last author" isn't always the highest status, and there may be three or four co-PIs on a project, even multiple Universities.

  19. Re:Other funding sources? on Robots and Irradiated Parasites Enlisted In the Fight Against Malaria · · Score: 1

    You'd think Bill would take notice and write the check himself.

    If Bill were involved, he'd buy the company, kill whatever technology competed with MS, and incorporate what he wanted to copy into the next release of Windows with a press release trumpeting MS cutting-edge research into seamless solutions. And the vaccine would only be available through the Microsoft Certified Solution Provider program.

  20. Right, I'm not sure why the Slashdot "Editors" think its OK to completely alter your submission and then post it as if it were a quote directly from you.

    Well, when you realize that almost every /. "somebody writes" is "quoting" something actually written by someone else, your outrage may be quenched. In this case, the "First time accepted submitter einar.petersen (1178307) writes" claim actually quotes almost verbatim from the original article which has a byline of Cameron Scott. In fact, I say "almost" because I don't see an exact duplicate of the first sentence, but the rest is there.

    I'm not sure what they think they're doing but they're opening themselves up to a lawsuit should they post the wrong thing and claim it was from the wrong person.

    Imagine Cameron Scott applying for a new job and he gives his potential employer a copy of this (the original) article in his vitae. They google it, and find out that it was written by einar.petersen. Or "cordgrass".

  21. Re:What??? on Interviews: Jennifer Granick Answers Your Questions · · Score: 1

    "It interferes with the sanctity of search,

    When I read that, I almost fell off my chair. Sanctity?

    And then I read the part where she says she doesn't want Facebook tracking what she reads so she uses a cookie blocker. What about "so I don't use Facebook"?

    The Emperor has no clothes.

  22. Re:Somewhat off-topic: why not uncut LED panels? on How LEDs Are Made · · Score: 2
    I'm guessing for the same reason that the hundred of op amps on a wafer aren't all wired up on the wafer: the manufacturing process isn't perfect and you'd have a lot of nonworking or low output LEDs in the middle of your traffic lights, with modern pick and place machines it is automated to put them back into one device, and if you ever need to fix a failed LED it is cheaper to replace one than a whole wafer of them.

    Probably also for heat dissipation.

    And that traffic lights are a niche market so you'd be limiting yourself to that market by making LEDs that way. And stage lighting needs at least three colors of LED in one package.

  23. Re:TFA is wrong no matter what, which was my point on I Want a Kindle Killer · · Score: 1

    so you agree that TFA is wrong,

    No, I agree to nothing that you put in my mouth. The OP didn't talk about hardware, he said what he wanted to do.

    that was my point from the beginning...copyright was a parenthetical point

    The first sentence out of your fingers was "it's a **copyright problem**". That's not a parenthetical comment, it's the topic sentence of your one-sentence paragraph, and you highlighted the fact that you think it is a copyright problem And despite repeated questioning about that point, you have failed to show where it has anything to do with copyright.

    go back and read my post again

    I did. I just quoted it to you.

    TFA is wrong...it's a software question...a **designer** question...

    It has nothing to do with copyright or "artificial scarcity", which is what you claimed. The OP said NOTHING about anything being a hardware problem, he just pointed out things that he wanted his "Kindle killer" to be able to do. Well, guess what? You are wrong -- it's not a copyright problem. Not at all. There are, as you have now been informed, lots of readers that have no connection to major publishers (you are welcome for the list, by the way, even though you didn't thank me for educating you on this).

    The only thing keeping you from doing what the OP wants is your own ignorance. That's your problem, not ours.

  24. Re:show me on I Want a Kindle Killer · · Score: 1

    you have three (3) apps on your smartphone that sell 'e-books' from major publishers,

    I don't sell ebooks, you dimwit. I never said I had any apps that sell anything. I said I have at least three applications that READ books that have nothing to do with any of Google, Amazon, etc.

    Since you are too slow to look them up for yourself, here are some names: Aldiko. FBreader. Moon+ Reader. They all deal with the common standard formats for e-books.

    I also have some of the apps from the dealers, like Nook, but since most of what I buy has no DRM I'm not tied to using those apps to read it. Yeah, if you think that the only way you can get voice recognition or note taking or integration with your laptop/desktop is if one of the big book dealers puts it into their app, then you would whine about the big book dealers and their awful "artificial scarcity", but you're doing so out of a complete ignorance of what is available. You're ignoring all the existing apps that are out there doing what you whine can't be done.

    By the way, one of the best integrated e-reader systems I ever saw was the combination of Calibre on the host and the two Sony ereaders I have, and the Sony PC software was not extremely horrible, either. (In fact, when Calibre was young it had some bugs that made it not as good with Sonys as the Sony stuff.) Yeah, big bad Sony creating artificial scarcity by providing a well-integrated ability to buy and read books from them. How awful. The only reason I don't still carry one of the Sony readers around everywhere is because my Tab does more faster.

    So now remind us all how there is some "copyright problem" that keeps apps that do cool things off of devices because you've tied yourself to Amazon or Google or whatever and can't see outside the paperbag you've put yourself in.

  25. Re:What the f*$# is wrong with us? on Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds · · Score: 1

    Maybe not you, but go and read any of the stories

    I am sure there are plenty of stories, but please read what I replied to very carefully and realize that what I replied to is what I replied to, nothing else. Keeping them in our ranks....

    They exist, but I was replying specifically to the comments about what we do about them. The assumption is that we can somehow "kick them out of our ranks", when the truth is if they talk like a duck, walk like a duck, and dress like a duck, it doesn't matter if we say "those guys aren't true ducks because...", the public will associate them with the rest of the ducks. And we have no real power to change that. And more importantly, we accomplish nothing even were we successful. No skinhead or Islamic radical cares when their claimed membership in a mainstream group is denied by that group. William Jeffs didn't care that the mainstream LDS kept saying he wasn't a part of their party anymore, he just pointed to that as a failure of the mainstream LDS and persecution from them.

    As for "in the ranks" meaning "where we congregate", no, I'm sorry, but that's not true. People don't care where nerds "hang out" to define them, they look at the behavior and appearance and what the person claims to be.

    The only way of "kicking them out" is equivalent to the No True Scotsman argument, and we all have experience seeing how useless that argument is.

    "No True Christian would ..." falls on deaf ears here whenever anyone tries to dissociate their beliefs from Timothy McVeigh or Wildemon. Why should any of us expect "No True Nerd ..." would fair any better out in the real world?