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User: rollingcalf

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  1. Re:This is chilling on Google Spots Explicit Images of a Child In Man's Email, Tips Off Police · · Score: 1

    "The Courts have said that an un-read, e-mail stored on a server, is like an envelope containing a letter. A warrant is required to do anything other than examine the header (i.e. the face) of the letter.

    Once read, it is no longer like a letter, it is business correspondence, and a warrant is no longer required."

    That hasn't reached the Supreme Court, has it?

    In light of their recent rulings in support of protections from electronic surveillance, I expect the Supreme Court will overturn the lower courts which have been giving the OK for warrantless email access.

  2. Re:This is chilling on Google Spots Explicit Images of a Child In Man's Email, Tips Off Police · · Score: 2

    No, your email account password is the envelope. Nobody should be accessing your email account without either a warrant or you giving them the password.

    Of course, emails can be read without your password by employees of the email provider who have access to the relevant servers. But your letters can also be easily opened by postal service employees who get their hands on your letters ... that doesn't mean you need to seal your letters in a titanium case welded shut (ie. the equivalent of strong encryption) to have a reasonable expectation of privacy and protection by the 4th amendment.

  3. Re:Privacy Risks on Rome Police Use Twitter To Battle Illegal Parking · · Score: 4, Informative

    A picture is often more useful than a verbal complaint when the police are evaluating whether a given parking situation actually is a violation, and the exact location where it occurred.

    And for citizens armed with a cellphone camera and Twitter, it's faster for them to post a pic than to sit on the non-emergency line for several minutes, first on hold for 5 minutes, then some more minutes to describe the vehicle and the location.

  4. They should pay people to move OUT of Detroit on Detroit Wants Its Own High-Tech Visa · · Score: 1

    Help people get a new start in another city with more job opportunities, don't bring in more people when unemployment there is so high.

  5. Re:Diff? on Decision, EA: Judge Reverses Multimillion Dollar Award To Madden Dev · · Score: 1

    Suppose they don't have the 1988 source code?

    If they rewrote the next version from scratch as they claimed, it's not surprising that they didn't put much of an effort into preserving the 1988 version for the next 25 years.

  6. Re:Why not look? on Decision, EA: Judge Reverses Multimillion Dollar Award To Madden Dev · · Score: 1

    Maybe they don't have the source code from the 1988 version any more. They claim they weren't using that source code for subsequent versions of the game, and they couldn't release a patch on the Internet if they found bugs after it was released, so there wasn't much perceived value in preserving the source code. And they certainly didn't expect to have to preserve it for 25 years.

  7. Re:Big deal. on 23-Year-Old Chess Grandmaster Whips Bill Gates In 71 Seconds · · Score: 1

    Of course Gates would be expected to lose, and it would be a shocker if he didn't lose.

    But he lost in only 9 moves. He should have been able to last longer than that.

  8. In South Korea on South Korean Court Rules That Phone Bloatware Must Be Deletable · · Score: 1

    ... phone bloatware is only for old people.

  9. Re:Parts of the brain on Experiment Shows Caffeine Boosts Long Term Memory · · Score: 2

    >Then why don't they call it the seahorsecampus? These guys make everything so difficult.

    Hippocampus is derived from the Greek words hippos (horse) and kampos (sea monster).

  10. Re:Is this news for anyone? on Not All Bugs Are Random · · Score: 1

    If you know the input will always be less than X characters, you have TWO boundary conditions, not one:
    1. No characters
    2. X-1 characters

  11. Different response due to difference in losses on Website Checkout Glitches: Two Very Different Corporate Responses · · Score: 1

    When Delta sold seats at large discounts, some of those seats would have gone empty if the discount glitch didn't happen, and without the discount Delta would have eaten the costs of flying with those empty seats anyway. For some flights, selling the heavily discounted seats may even have been a net gain financially for Delta.

    But with the furniture retailer, they had bigger real losses from the discount glitch because without the huge discounts, the items would have remained available for somebody else to purchase at full price.

    So Delta is willing to bear the losses because their losses from this were less severe or perhaps nonexistent, whereas for the furniture retailer the losses are too large for them to accept without trying to recoup what they can.

  12. Re:Why are they storing this data anyway? on Encrypted PIN Data Taken In Target Breach · · Score: 1

    In the US they generally don't use chip & PIN. The stolen PINs involved are for bank ATM cards without chips, not PINs for credit cards with chips.

  13. Re:Probably a good thing on Lawmakers Out To Kill the Corn-Based Ethanol Mandate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But the land used for that corn is often suitable for growing other crops for human consumption.

  14. Re:But do they have a working model? on Motorola Patent Uses Neck Tattoo As Microphone · · Score: 1

    No. If there is prior art, don't grant the patent, with or without a working model.

  15. Re:But do they have a working model? on Motorola Patent Uses Neck Tattoo As Microphone · · Score: 1

    Under the rule I proposed, the patent holder can't sue before the working model is demonstrated. While the patent is provisional, its 20-year expiration clock is ticking, the information is public, and others can't be sued for infringing it. So there would be advantages to the public and disadvantages to the patent holder for acquiring a patent before the working model is ready.

  16. But do they have a working model? on Motorola Patent Uses Neck Tattoo As Microphone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Without a working model, all they have is words and diagrams on paper that might not work in practice. But that piece of paper gives them the right to sue somebody else who implements the concept and makes it work.

    They need to bring back the working model requirement. If there is no working model, grant the patent provisionally. Don't let the patent holder sue before they have a working model, and if they don't build a working model by a specific deadline (say 5 years) the patent goes up for auction, with proceeds going to the patent owner. Or they can sell the patent before the 5 years are up. The new owner must have a working model before they can sue.

    That way inventors can still get paid for a useful invention even if they don't have the resources to build the working model themselves.

  17. Re:What a stupid system on Don't Call It Stack Rank: Yahoo's QPR System For Culling Non-Performers · · Score: 1

    Heisenberg wouldn't be in danger of getting fired. He is the danger.

  18. Re:A breath of sanity... on Inmates Program Logistics App For Prison · · Score: 1

    "Also, I frankly think there is nothing wrong with ex-cons having to work their way up from the bottom when they reintegrate into society."

    In theory that sounds fine, but in practice it is a problem because the less they earn from law-abiding jobs is the more they'll be inclined to return to crime. If they have the skills for a $30/hour job, the rest of us are better off if they can get that $30/job, as they'll be more likely to stay out of trouble than if they had a minimum wage job.

    " On the other hand, why are you whining about Photoshop. Plenty of FOSS and offline commercial packages will teach you the same skills. For someone who has spent a good amount of time behind bars, you're awfully entitled (I wonder how much that attitude figured into your original incarceration)."

    Employers want experience using Photoshop, not the FOSS equivalents which aren't similar enough to convince employers that the skills are readily transferable.

  19. Re:oh look on HP Sues Seven Optical Drive Makers Over Price-Fixing · · Score: 1

    Their complaint is about price-fixing from January 2004 to January 2010. You couldn't get a DVD-R drive for under $20 back in 2009.

  20. Re:As good a time as any on US Executions Threaten Supply of Anaesthetic Used For Surgical Procedures · · Score: 1

    "Maybe it's time for the US to take the hint and stop this barbaric and medieval practice?"

    Maybe it's time for the US to take the hint and start manufacturing their own propofol and other drugs of major importance.

  21. Re:Bad data on Tech's Highest-Paid Engineers Are At Juniper · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The schools are bad because they can't attract good teachers to the area due to the high cost of living, and they're not willing to double or triple the salaries to bring in the good teachers.

  22. Re:It's unfortunate. on UK Court Orders Two Sisters Must Receive MMR Vaccine · · Score: 1

    In this case, the father wanted them to get the vaccine but the mother didn't. The parents disagreed, the court broke the tie, it didn't impose its will against both parents.

  23. Re:Until 1880 this was not a problem. on Ask Slashdot: When Is Patent License Trading Not Trolling? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They need to bring back the working model requirement. If you can't produce a working model, maybe your idea won't work exactly as written, but if your patent would block others from making a variation which works.

    For cases where the working model is too expensive or time-consuming for the inventor to build, grant the patent provisionally with the requirement that a working model must be produced within 7 years. If no working model is produced by then, the patent automatically goes up for auction (alternatively the inventor can sell it or put it up for auction before that), with auction proceeds going to the inventor. Whoever buys that patent has to produce a working model before they can sue anybody for infringement.

    With that system, the inventor can still get paid for what they invent even if building a working model is beyond their capabilities.

  24. Re:15 minutes triggers the BS detector on How Outdated Data Distorts Doctors' Pay · · Score: 1

    So what if it's not really 15 minutes for a colonoscopy? The 15 minutes was just an example to demonstrate a point, which is that for various procedures the payment is based on an assumed X minutes for a particular procedure although it actually takes X/5 minutes.

    Yes, the writer could have done a better job on choosing numbers more consistent with reality, but the point they're making still stands.

  25. Re:Is my experience abnormal? on Study Questions H-1B Policies · · Score: 1

    You apparently work for somewhere like Microsoft, Intel, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, or HP, where most of their employees in the US are US citizens, and they pay H1B workers the same as US citizens.

    But most H1B visas are used by big outsourcers like Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro and Tata. Making $100,000/year while working for them is way out of the ordinary for anybody who isn't in management.