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User: fafalone

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  1. Re:Being negligent (not careful) with it is a crim on In Massive Breach, Ex-NSA Contractor Pleads Guilty to Hoarding Highly Classified Secrets (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    Well you can't blame people for being confused when 'negligent' and 'extremely careless' mean different things. Of course then again Comey did basically say anyone else would be prosecuted for the same thing.

  2. Re: Charging Shane Gaskill Seems Wrong on California Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Deadly Kansas 'Swatting' (fox4kc.com) · · Score: 1

    Dude you don't get to use lethal force against someone just because you're scared but not actually in danger. What is your obsession with allowing police to execute unarmed people who've done absolutely nothing threatening when the cop is far away and behind cover? That's unjustified murder, get a grip. You have to wait until there's an actual threat to kill someone.

  3. Re:Charging Shane Gaskill Seems Wrong on California Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Deadly Kansas 'Swatting' (fox4kc.com) · · Score: 1

    But if the fire fighter walks in, doesn't see any fire yet but gets so scared of the potential fire he splits your head with his axe to get you out of the way while trying to run back out the door, he'd also share in the responsibility no? That's the better equivalent to what happened here. No actual danger to the officer, and no action taken that would justify murder.

  4. Re:OK, how about the actual shooter? on California Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Deadly Kansas 'Swatting' (fox4kc.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you're that fucking panicked from across the street behind your car door that you can't even wait to open fire until the dude at least reaches for something, you have absolutely zero business signing up for a job where you're fucking supposed to be putting your life on the line to protect innocent people, and should absolutely be held accountable for your completely over the top reaction. Police responding to a hostage situation don't get to just open fire on anyone they see for no reason, the hell is the point of even calling them if they're just going to shoot the hostages themselves? Sending a hostage to open the door is what is normally done.
    Even if the info they had was 100% correct this would have still been a straight up murder. Shooting from across the street behind cover the second someone walks out, without him doing absolutely anything to indicate he might be reaching for a weapon even, is completely unacceptable.

  5. Re:Ars Technica link... on California Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Deadly Kansas 'Swatting' (fox4kc.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you unaware of the details? The police, in large numbers, had the front of the house surrounded, from a tactical position behind their vehicles. An unarmed individual came out, was not identified, was not given a chance to comply with orders, and fired upon within seconds simply because an officer thought his hands passed too close to his waist. Could have just as easily been a hostage, especially since having hostages answer the door is the typical scenario.
    This was an egregiously terrible shoot. There is zero excuse here, and if you're defending executing someone in these circumstances, you're a disgusting person condoning having absolutely no reasonable restriction on allowing police to execute anyone they encounter. They didn't know if it was a hostage, they didn't know if he was armed, they didn't give him a chance to surrender, he didn't do anything at all-- his hands just passed near his waist he didn't reach for something, and they did it all from a distance behind cover.

    Barriss absolutely deserves the 20 years, but the officer who opened fire deserves life. And fuck whoever would defend one of the worst shoots ever, you're not defending a tough call, you're defending a wholly unjustified murder.

  6. Here they banned plastic bags, except "reusable" ones that cost 10 cents each. But since this is a wealthy area, only about 1 in 10 bother with the inconvenience of bringing your own bags (and those who do invariably use their own cloth bags, not the reusable plastic ones*), so now the garbage and streets contain almost the same number of bags, and the bags are 3-5x thicker. Doesn't seem to be much benefit, especially since the people already inclined to go out of their way to recycle could already return most of them to the dedicated plastic bag collection bin at both our big supermarkets, since recycling is practical when you have an uncontaminated stream of all the same type of plastic bag.

    * - Our big supermarket here is Shoprite, who used to offer a small discount if you brought your own bags. Then they eliminated the discount, and that virtually eliminated the practice. Now that you can avoid the same amount in extra charges, it's mostly back to its previous level, but for the 90% that don't bring their own, the bags are 3-5x thicker, and like I was saying, those don't actually get reused. Just reinstating the discount would have been better for the environment, to the extent this matters anyway.

  7. Have you looked into *why* people are calling them racist for their Voter ID laws? I agreed with Voter ID before I did. They actively make it harder for poor areas to obtain a suitable ID, and disallow legitimate ID types that are still government-issued that are more likely to be possessed by the poor while allowing ID types like college IDs more likely to be possessed by the more wealthy. There's burdens in time and money required to get a DMV ID that are significant obstacles for the very poor, and Republicans are unwilling to address them, and actively exacerbate them with their placement of DMV facilities, their operation hours, and their staffing levels-- they attack all of those points to favor wealthy white areas and hurt poor, minority-populated areas.
    If you take a look at my post history you'll see I'm extremely hostile to the identity politics bullshit, so if I'm calling out a seemingly neutral policy as racist, you can bet it's for cause. Look into it yourself. If Republicans supported addressing the problems I described above, I'd be right there with you arguing it's not a racial issue, but they're not only not addressing them, they're making them worse, and in a specifically targeted manner.

    Then there's also the point that Republicans have lied over and over about wide-scale voter fraud that ID checks would prevent; it simply doesn't exist, so the fact they're lying about their motive is just one more item in the list of why in this case, it is indeed either a race issue, or targeted in a way that so closely correlates without fact-based justification (e.g. there is a reason to more heavily police certain areas, but not to relocate DMV offices away from them) to it that there's no meaningful difference.

  8. So because Hillary was somewhat corrupt, an assessment I certainly do not disagree with (nor do I disagree that her actions regarding her e-mails were criminal), the response was to elect a man that was not only obviously ignorant and intensely dishonest, but was also extraordinarily corrupt in his private business dealings, in the expectation that he would somehow be *less* corrupt in office? I also suspect you're going to deny that he's been more corrupt in 2 years in office than Clinton was in her whole career, despite the overwhelming evidence that is indeed the case, even setting aside anything Russia-related.
    See this is why people think Trump voters are dumb. It's not that you're wrong about Hillary being terrible, it's the farcical argument that Trump was *less* terrible, especially on points like corruption-- that one doesn't even pass the laugh test dude.

  9. Did you forget where you're posting? Don't come here with your bald faced lie that the FCC NN regs prohibited QoS. Your contention that Republicans aren't "really" opposed is also severely undermined by the support of Republicans for faux NN laws that allow paid prioritization, missing the whole point, an anticompetitive tactic by an oligarchy. That support also undermines your ridiculous claim the Trump FTC would pursue it in absence of a law.
    You are disingenous, posting an outright lie followed by extraordinarily misleading arguments. And shame on the upmodders who also don't recognize that bullshit for what it is.

  10. Re:The Irony on Europe Passes Controversial Online Copyright Reforms (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 1

    And the inventor of the WWW certainly did his part to help destroy his own creation, by backing DRM binary blobs in browsers. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if he supported this law too given how far up the copyright mafias ass he is.

  11. Re:No the system actually worked here on Airline Passenger Walked Past Security With a Loaded Gun Magazine (apnews.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well as it turns out, (1) is also a low probability event, as their own internal tests show that it's quite easy to walk right on through with dangerous items. They fail 80-95% of the time. Locking the cockpit doors and changing passenger attitudes is what stopped more terror attacks, not sexually assaulting little kids and old women in wheel chairs, making everyone take off their shoes, conducting virtual strip searches, or any other of ridiculous security theater they've got going.

  12. Re:Bribing programmers on Many People Think AI Could Make Better Policy Decisions Than Politicians (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    Yes I'm familiar with the history of poll tests but that's just not the same thing as asking relevant civics questions and basic logic for people making the law, and asking the same knowledge of everyone, where everyone is literate and the information is taught in high school.

  13. Re:Bribing programmers on Many People Think AI Could Make Better Policy Decisions Than Politicians (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    Oh yes I forgot in SJW land requiring any sort of competence is racist, because those black folks just can't possibly be expected to have a high school level of understanding of our government. This is the soft bigotry of low expectations. Unlike your racist ass, I think everyone is capable of understanding civics and history at a high School level if certain underlying issues are dealt with. But no, that's also unacceptable, because only some but not all of the blame and burden can be placed on white men, and people like you would rather see black people remain trapped in a cycle of crime and poverty than even suggest that in addition to problems like systemic racism there's also a serious cultural issue with the value of education and others.
    Like all SJWs, you're so stuffed full of your own self righteousness you can't see your own racism and how the policies you advocate actually harm minorities. And now you argue everyone should be denied competent government just because the pool might not precisely match your quota for melanin content? For shame.

  14. Re:Bribing programmers on Many People Think AI Could Make Better Policy Decisions Than Politicians (qz.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Should be like jury duty beyond just random selection too... there should be qualifications.
    When I read stories about how shockingly high percentages of natural born Americans couldn't pass the civics test we make immigrants pass for citizenship, at first I thought well ok, maybe they're just doing things like 'name the year the 12th Amendment was ratified' or other such specific trivia. So I looked up what questions were actually on it, and no, that wasn't the case at all, it was all basic information about how government is structured and functions. It should be an embarassment for any natural born American to miss a single question anywhere on the full set, nevermind miss so many they fail.
    So to be in the pool, you should have to have passed a civics exam, and even more importantly, pass an exam in basic US history and Supreme Court cases, and most importantly, a test on logic.
    Sure, all that would eliminate 99% of the population, but if you took the 1% that could pass, and they served like jurors randomly selected for a limited period, maybe we could actually get some competent leadership for once.
    Of course none of that would ever happen, people would get up in arms over the idea of being so biased towards facts and reason.

  15. Low bar on Many People Think AI Could Make Better Policy Decisions Than Politicians (qz.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    A drunk toddler could make better policy decisions than most politicians.

  16. Re:Did this in Canada and made things worse... on Why Robo-Calls Can't Be Stopped (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    If you want white listing there's already apps that can do that. Any calls not in my contacts go straight to voicemail, and there's a 'likely spam' flag which I use to drop the call entirely (from user reports). Since my number is from an old area, I can even add an exception for numbers on my real local exchange. I never pick up to spam with this system, and only maybe 1 in 10 leave a voicemail to deal with, so it's entirely manageable.

  17. Re:So don't over use it on Bacteria Discovered In Irish Soil Kills Four Drug-Resistant Superbugs (msn.com) · · Score: 1

    But I have a runny nose and need a prescription for the strongest antibiotic there is, NOW!

  18. Re:Why blame Google? on Google's Bad Data Wiped Another Neighborhood Off the Map (medium.com) · · Score: 2

    What's more, Google was always good about corrections to their maps. I don't know if that's changed since it's been about 5 years since I lasted contacted them, but where I used to live was way outside any major city and mostly a poor and older population. So not a high priority or highly reviewed location on the maps. I found a few errors over the years; streets labeled as the wrong name outright, or named the same as the next street over. Each time I filled out the 'Report a problem', got the autoconfirm they received it, then within a week someone following up telling me that I was right and the map had been updated.
    Especially for Google, it was a smooth, responsive procedure to fix bad mapping data. Good luck ever getting something like that on their other major free products.

  19. Re:Slashdot promoting SJW agendas on Is Believing In Meritocracy Bad For You? (fastcompany.com) · · Score: 2

    Reminds me of what's going on at Reed college. They're training their RA's to recognize 'covert white supremacy'... aside from the political inclusion of using the phrase MAGA, one of the other items is actually 'color blindness'. SJWs honestly believe that judging someone based on their merit and not their skin color makes you a white supremecist. Yet they're baffled to find that the majority of people for some reason don't agree, and thus are obviously racist.

    https://reason.com/blog/2019/03/12/reed-college-white-supremacy-covert

  20. Re:Only if you can still ride it. on You Will Soon Be Able To Pay Your Subway Fare With Your Face in China (scmp.com) · · Score: 1

    The right wants to punish a few people for whatever they think some agents did for Clinton or against Trump; not a one of them is seeking to reduce the scope of mass surveillance, limit FISA authority in general, or reduce the power of any agency. The right is far worse than the left when it comes to rallying around "national security" to enable mass surveillance and warrantless search and you damn well know it.

  21. Re:Only if you can still ride it. on You Will Soon Be Able To Pay Your Subway Fare With Your Face in China (scmp.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm not brushing anything aside; if you look at my post history I'm always railing against the left too. But making the argument that the right is the worse of the two authoritarian parties is exactly what I'm doing; in voting for the left over the right, it's really choosing the lesser evil, not choosing a 'good' party. The left's attacks on speech are theoretical and unlikely to get very far in court; meanwhile, the right's establishment of a police state and allowing routine civil rights violations by police and other government agents, from murder to petty theft where they seize any cash they find you with, without even arresting you, is already our reality, is getting worse, and is enabled by the courts. That is the worse threat, and is by far more the domain of the right.

  22. Re:Only if you can still ride it. on You Will Soon Be Able To Pay Your Subway Fare With Your Face in China (scmp.com) · · Score: 1

    And that bullshit by leftists pales in comparison to the far greater threat from the right; which is far more in favor of FISA court back intelligence agency mass surveillance having unchecked power, far more in favor of civil asset forfeiture, and completely against any consequence for police violating our constitutional rights. The last two are by far the worst, as they actually impact peoples day to day lives in much more severe way. I hate the left's position on gun rights and free speech (and sex crime due process, but the right is worse on due process for all other crime), but as a civil libertarian whose first voting priority is individual rights (but not corporate rights), I'd never vote for a Republican. If you want to avoid surveillance state prison, vote for the party with a few problematic positions over the party barreling full steam towards a police state.

  23. Re:Spreading division is profitable I guess on 'Captain Marvel' Smashes Box Office Record, Laughs Off Review-Bombing Trolls (hollywoodreporter.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's plenty of legitimate arguments against what people were actually upset about, reducing it to the strawman "omg they're sexists mad because it's a female lead!" is inaccurate and demonstrates you're every bit as intellectually dishonest as the people you're criticizing. Brie Larson has made statements objecting to white men reviewing her movies and making up too much of the press pool, such as saying about A Wrinkle In Time "I don't need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn't work about A Wrinkle in Time. It wasn't made for him!".
    If you want to argue about whether that's actually anti-white male instead of pro-diversity, that's a valid debate, so instead you set up the ol' strawman and claim people were mad that a woman was given the lead in a superhero movie, which was never the issue and the same group of people love movies like Aliens, Terminator, and Wonder Woman- all movies with tough female leads. Typical sjw tactic to avoid the actual argument by painting all critics as sexists/racists. More and more people are getting sick of nonsense like that; take the statement I quoted above, if you changed 'white' to any other race, you'd be screaming about the blatant racism. A lot of people have a real problem with this idea that bigotry isn't wrong in principle, but only wrong if it's against non-whites. Then there's the fact that even milder statements are decried as 'dog-whistles' for racism, then you'll try to argue even blatant anti-white-male statements aren't.
    People who resent sexism and racism as wrong in principle instead of perfectly fine if the identity groups are right are sick of the harm sjws are doing to social justice and the regressive stance on civil rights progressives favor.

  24. Re:I was around when the USA did this, it was hell on DST-Hating Reps in Washington State Vote To 'Ditch the Switch' (komonews.com) · · Score: 1

    Those children also had an hour of extra daylight for activities at the end of the day; you know, when they were doing things instead of just getting ready for school; that's a lot more useful. And 9-5 means coming home in the dark in the winter; that sucks. I find it hard to believe anyone gets upset about having to go to work in the dark vs. still having daylight left after work.
    I can't image who wouldn't want this. Kids and adults alike, that extra hour of daylight after school or work is way better than simply having it be light in the morning where you're not doing anything other than getting ready and traveling to school/work.

  25. Well the solution in other devices has been "you don't". You have to wait for the battery to die. At least the frequency you need to has declined dramatically.