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User: whoever57

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Comments · 6,467

  1. Privacy implications? on LTE Upgrade Will Let Phones Connect To Nearby Devices Without Towers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's in this for the NSA, FBI and other LEO?

    Will the phone owner be able to turn it off?

  2. OMG!!!! Rapidswitch on Piracy Police Chief Calls For State Interference To Stop Internet "Anarchy" · · Score: 2

    I realized that I have a Virtual Private server that is hosted in the City of London. There must be countless others.

    Imagine the things that they could be used for. Perhaps even watching UK television "catch-up" services. Or, actually running a website in this idiot's own turf. OMG. What should I do?

  3. Re:Rent a Tesla for $1 on State of Iowa Tells Tesla To Cancel Its Scheduled Test Drives · · Score: 1

    If the dealer requirement is removed so direct sells are allowed, expect an influx of inexpensive vehicles from SE Asia with no means of warranty repair or service. Yes, buyer be ware, but really, is it a good idea for the masses to be purchasing vehicles from Amazon?

    Strangely, this anarchic sale of cars direct to the public by manufacturers that provide no after sales support has not happened in California. California would provide the best market for this activity, being on the west coast, with a large market.

  4. Re:The "old boys' club" on State of Iowa Tells Tesla To Cancel Its Scheduled Test Drives · · Score: 2

    As soon as Tesla set up shop in Iowa (the site they're doing the test drives from), it ceased to be interstate commerce.

    So that's why the drugs the people buy from their local pharmacy are regulated by state laws and not federal laws .... oh wait.

    The Supreme Court decided that just about anything can be interstate commerce. Growing weed in your own garden can be regulated as interstate commerce. Yeah, it's ridiculous, but that's the way things are.

  5. Re:Rent a Tesla for $1 on State of Iowa Tells Tesla To Cancel Its Scheduled Test Drives · · Score: 1

    If they would have thrown such a pitch at me, I would have happily told Dodge how much even their new cars suck hairy ass and balls compared to something Toyota made 15 years earlier.

    Dodge don't care what you think because you are (probably) never going to buy a new car. Buying used cars is a much better financial proposition in most (but not all) cases and it's only the cachet of having a new car that keeps people going into the showrooms.

  6. Re:huh? on 2015 Corvette Valet Mode Recorder Illegal In Some States · · Score: 2

    In some states, all parties must be explicitly aware of the recording and consent to it.

    California has sections of law that target recordings (audio and video) in vehicles specifically. So what you may know of laws about audio recording may not apply in vehicles.

  7. Re:So offer a cost effective replacement on Security Collapse In the HTTPS Market · · Score: 1

    Because you need credit for those.

    What about a pre-paid credit card? Get one of those and you can start building up some credit. Unless, of course you have some catastrophic credit event in your recent past.

  8. Re:So offer a cost effective replacement on Security Collapse In the HTTPS Market · · Score: 1
  9. Re:Hmmm ... on Ask Slashdot: Is Reporting Still Relevant? · · Score: 2

    Because a dashboard is a transient thing, which is a snapshot in time and which you can't look back for historical records.

    This is absolutely true, but there is another factor (as noted by other posters) -- the effort required to read them.

    It's the same as mailing lists vs. forums. The mailing list is fully integrated into my daily activities -- I am already reading my mail. I don't have to log into a forum, perhaps type a password, select the appropriate search (or use multiple dialogs to select the information that I want). The email (assuming it is properly formatted) presents all the information that I want with a minimum of effort on my part.

    Let's face it -- forums are popular because it gives the forum owner more control and better possibilities to monetize the traffic.

  10. Re:Follow the money on Now That It's Private, Dell Targets High-End PCs, Tablets · · Score: 1

    Hedge fund takes company that has too much debt across to many creditors private. Strikes a deal with the creditors that sees them take a huge haircut to get anything at all. Then they take a massive super sharp machete to the business carving every piece of non-today-essential flesh off. What you are left with is an extremely lean, profitable business which they then list again.

    While that may happen some times, there are plenty of examples where the loading up of debt has happened either as a part of going private or after going private, to provide the new owners with a huge dividend.

    Also, often that "non-essential flesh" is only non-essential in the short term -- what happens is a lack of investment means that the product pipeline eventually stalls.

  11. Re:Follow the money on Now That It's Private, Dell Targets High-End PCs, Tablets · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IPOs are where the money is.

    Stupid investors? I just don't understand why people invest in companies that have been taken private by a hedge fund, loaded up with debt and then IPOed. The story is all too common -- the company takes on massive debt, pays a huge dividend to its hedge-fund owners then sells itself on the stock markets. But why buy? It's not going to be a viable company with all that debt.

  12. Re:Mind boggling on Now That It's Private, Dell Targets High-End PCs, Tablets · · Score: 1

    Alternative explanation:

    Dell was driving down profits in order to make it easier (cheaper) to take the company private.

    Now it is private, the drive for profits (perhaps long-term profits, not short term) is in top gear.

  13. The problem with the current graduated system isn't that people in the middle or people in, say, the 60-80 percentile don't pay enough -- I'm fairly sure they do -- it's that it ceases to scale at the top.

    The simple fact is that the tax code provides ridiculous breaks for those people who don't actually earn their income. Look at Mitt Romney -- his overall tax rate is ridiculously low because he uses the carried interest exception.

  14. 4. Primary Residence - have to apply for refund, demonstrating it is primary residence, this one will get complicated

    Those things take care of the truly poor.

    The landlord who buys a property and rents is out to the truly poor will pay sales taxes on that property. Those sales taxes will be passed onto the renters in the form of increased rent. So, no. You didn't solve the problem.

    Fundamentally, sales taxes are regressive. The 0.01% will pay only a tiny proportion of their income in sales taxes, while the poor will pay a significant percentage -- greater than the income taxes they pay today (0%).

  15. Re:Thus the problem with the TEA party on To Fight $5.2B In Identity Theft, IRS May Need To Change the Way You File Taxes · · Score: 2

    Yes, rich people when they get money stick it under mattresses in order to deny the money from the economy,

    Or, they could invest that money abroad, China perhaps, where it is effectively denied from the US economy.

  16. Re:Maybe better dependency management. on Outlining Thin Linux · · Score: 1

    Although it could take the best part of a week to run a full emerge pass if certain really big packages were all updated at once.

    That's nothing. On one of my systems, it took 10 days to build one package: OpenOffice.

  17. Re:The WHO on Bioethicist At National Institutes of Health: "Why I Hope To Die At 75" · · Score: 1

    Now, with modern advances in medicine, maintenance drugs to control cholesterol, blood pressure, and attention to weight, the men in my family tend to live until about 85 years old. I expect nothing less from my generation in my family.

    The fact that 3 out 4 of my grandparents lived into their late nineties (one died in a flu epidemic), one of my great grandparents lived well into her late nineties and my father is still going at 99 fills me with terror. There is no way that I want to live that long.

  18. Re:This debate is about money. on Mark Zuckerberg Throws Pal Joe Green Under the Tech Immigration Bus · · Score: 2

    My neigbor is an H1-B1 alien. He has changed jobs two or three times since moving to the USA. It's clearly possble. In fact, I changed jobs myself while on an H1-B1 visa.

    The lock-in occurs when the H1-B alien wants to apply for a green card.

  19. Re:Pay These Geniuses What They're Worth! on Mark Zuckerberg Throws Pal Joe Green Under the Tech Immigration Bus · · Score: 1

    it's for a maximum of six years. If you haven't gotten a green card by then, you have to leave the US.

    That's not always true. Depending on where you are in the green card process, you may be able to continue to stay in the USA beyond the 6-year period while your green card is processed.

    Plus, leave the USA for 12 months and you have new 6-year H1 eligibility.

  20. Re:overthinking the problem on Star Wars Producers Want a 'DroneShield' To Prevent Leaks On Set · · Score: 1

    uh... Pinewood's in Buckinghamshire.

    Yes, but TFA refers to Greenham Common, which is in Berkshire.

  21. Not completely gone on Apple's "Warrant Canary" Has Died · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Apparently (I haven't read the source docs myself), there is some similar language -- suggesting that some type of order has been served on Apple, so the canary is perhaps not dead yet -- just pining for the fjords [yes, I know, not really the correct use of this phrase].

    To date, Apple has not received any orders for bulk data

    What's missing is a specific reference to Section 215, suggesting that a limited Section 215 order has been served on Apple.

  22. Re: I never thought I'd say this... on FCC Chairman: Americans Shouldn't Subsidize Internet Service Under 10Mbps · · Score: 2

    Recently, my co-worker was quoted $60,000 to get internet brought to his rural community... per home...

    A couple of years ago, I asked Comcast to quote for installing Internet service to my office in the middle of Silicon Valley. Their quote: $99/month and an installation fee of $200,000. Yes, that's right: $200,000 to install an Internet connection in the middle of Silicon Valley. We declined.

  23. Re:Natural immunity on Farmers Carry Multidrug-Resistant Staph For Weeks Into Local Communities · · Score: 4, Informative

    the courses prevent enough sickness that farmers that ONLY give antibiotics to sick animals, at much higher doses, actually use just as many antibiotics.

    You seem to be under the same misapprehnsion as much of the farming community -- that high doses of antibiotics are dangerous, whereas the reverse is true. Low doses are far more likely to cause resistance than high doses given for the proper lenght of time.

  24. Re:Virtual Desktops (Workspaces) on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 2

    Any time I try to explain it to someone who has never used them, they always ask me "Why would I use/want that?" and then they always jump on the multi-monitor mantra and say "Why not just get X number of screens?"

    You make it sound like multi-monitor and multi workspace are options of which only one can be chosen. Using two monitors and eight workspaces here!

  25. Re:International Copyright on Quickflix Wants Netflix To Drop Australian VPN Users · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I keep hearing "greed" but that is a copout. Greedy people do not refuse to license their products for decades.

    They do if they believe that the new channel will cannibalize their existing channels (DVDs) and produce lower net revenue.