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User: Lawrence_Bird

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  1. Perhaps better to start with on Is Europe's Recession Really Over? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    is the GDP report even valid? Given the multi-decade manipulation of the way the deflator (inflation) is calculated it is quite possilbe that not only Europe, but the US as well, has been in recession since the early 2000's. Shadowstats is an outfit that provides US figures using the most recent prior methodology - I think it is circa 1992. And remember, the government(s) have a very vested interest in keeping the "official" inflation figure low - it lowers any payment tied that rate (social security, procurment contracts) while also making the GDP figure look better.

  2. Just another stop on the elevator on Bill Gates Seeking Patent To Make Shakespeare Less Boring · · Score: 1

    to the bottom which is US education system - led by the "we must fix it!" crowd. I suspect most adults, let alone high school students, could not pass an exam given to 8th graders a century ago. This notion that everything must be easy to learn and nothing ever boring is the most evil kind of fantasy.

  3. Re:Runbox.com on Ask Slashdot: Recommendations For Non-US Based Email Providers? · · Score: 1

    Often the domestic protections only apply to citizens of that country. In addition, Norway is a NATO member and as such subject to pressure from NSA to allow copying of all data in and out of the country by NSA similar to what is being done in the UK

  4. pay by the minute plans on Crunching the Numbers On Shared Cellphone Contracts · · Score: 2

    will be cheaper for many people who are not heavy cell users. T-Mo has a plan 1000 minutes for $100+sales tax good for a year. Even if you use 400 mins a month it still ends up cheaper as you dont have all the fcc crapola charges tacked on. Not good if you text a ton as those are 10c each way.

  5. Re:Hope and Change on Obama on Surveillance: "We Can and Must Be More Transparent" · · Score: 1

    I recall that band (and Simpsons episode). Interestingly, Kodos was also in Star Trek (Conscience of the King).

  6. Hope and Change on Obama on Surveillance: "We Can and Must Be More Transparent" · · Score: 4, Insightful

    was replaced by Fear and Lies on January 20, 2009. Anyone who thinks anything Obama says (or does) will result in your privacy being respected and warrantless surveillance ended is delusional.

  7. Re:Will we finally get a replacement for hard disk on Forget Flash: Resistive RAM Crams 1TB Onto Tiny Chip · · Score: 1

    Have you had a SSD fail? Not so great

  8. Mass resident? on Google Pressure Cookers and Backpacks: Get a Visit From the Feds · · Score: 1

    Massachusetts resident Michele Catalano....

    If she is a Mass. resident why is she getting visited at home by county coppers from New York?

  9. editors should not edit latex on Fidus Writer: Open Source Collaborative Editor For Non-Geek Academics · · Score: 1

    I mean, really talk about lazy. You want your editors manually correcting your document files? Editors should be reading final hard copy and you making the corrections.

  10. Hows that Hope and Change Working Out? on Feds Allegedly Demanding User Passwords From Services · · Score: 0

    These are Obama's DOJ, NSA and (insert three letter agency here) doing these evil things. Not Bush's. Not Clinton's. Obama's. Mr. Transparancy and civil liberties. The man who has had five years to correct all the wrongs (legal or not) of his predecessor.

      I know why the Republicans are not out in the street protesting (or at least a lot of them) but why are the Democrats not protesting? Why do progressives like Kos state publicly that they don't give a shit about the NSA?

    I am disgusted to be an American and I am disgusted with my fellow Americans.

  11. Time to move to Scala on Love and Hate For Java 8 · · Score: 1

    or Haskell. Scala has the advantage(?) of using the JVM. Of course, my personal preference is back to Fortran. For those still stuck in the Fortran IV/77 time warp, you might want to look at the 2003 specification (and the minor rev in 2008).

  12. Dems are a disgrace on NSA Still Funded To Spy On US Phone Records · · Score: 1

    How many of those Dems who voted the amendment down also voted down Patriot act renewals while Bush was president? This proves, once and for all, that the Democrats are just as bad, if not worse, than the Republicans on matters related to privacy and civil liberties.

  13. Countries to avoid at all costs on British Prime Minister Promises Default On Porn Blocking · · Score: 1

    UK and AUS. Even with the NSA shit the US can't hold a candle to those two.

  14. Re:Executive Power on DNI Office Asks Why People Trust Facebook More Than the Government · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And in the age of the "privacy" policy, users have at least a basic idea of what comes of their data shared with a company.

    Further, information like call "meta" data is something I may agree to because there is no other way to use the product, ie, the phone company needs that info to bill me accurately. Were there any other way around this I would of course not allow them to collect that information. So to call it sharing is really a reach.

  15. Re:Up 19.6% on the year on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    Dude you really need to re-examine your theory. You are conflating restricted shares to officers/employees, ESOs and open market "treasury" purchase of shares by a company.

    GE has outstanding about 480M shares of options and related equity based pay. About 1/6 of that amout is out of the money. Most are options with a life of at most 10 years. In 2011 and 2012, GE bought back over $7B of stock (360M shares). They can buy up to $35B more under the current plan through 2015. They have 10.3B shares outstanding. making the total compensation pool at most 4.6% of the float and on any given day GE trades 40M shares. Simply put, trades in that compensation pool will have no meaningful effect on the stock price over the long term. The share buy backs of 2011-12 are also tiny, amounting to less than 2% of the daily trading volume.

    And further, companies do not do stock buy backs in order to later sell the stock back to the public "to push the price back down". While it should be done when it offers the best return on capital, it is generally used now to help boost reported earnings per share.

  16. Re:Up 19.6% on the year on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    Buy at 20. Sell at 30. Profit 50%. Repeat.

  17. Up 19.6% on the year on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    even after Friday. Ben Berspankme will give you 0.25%. Hmmmm which was better.

  18. TSA said it was not them on TSA Orders Searches of Valet Parked Car At Airport · · Score: 4, Informative
  19. Panda Cloud on Ask Slashdot: Light-Footprint Antivirus For Windows XP? · · Score: 1, Informative

    I think it will still work under XP. After the initial scan it should be pretty light on local resources.

  20. Re: No PFS at DDG on DuckDuckGo: Illusion of Privacy · · Score: 1

    actually, I found it in a forum post and have verified, they do now use ECDHE, clearly as a result of the netcraft article.

  21. Re:No PFS at DDG on DuckDuckGo: Illusion of Privacy · · Score: 1

    Use this it details towards the bottom the ordering of ciphers.

  22. No PFS at DDG on DuckDuckGo: Illusion of Privacy · · Score: 2

    DuckDuckGo, a search engine, has been prominent in the media since the start of the Snowden revelations due to its privacy policy which promotes anonymity. If the private key used by DuckDuckGo were ever compromised — for example if one of their servers were seized — all previous searches would be revealed where logged traffic is available. DuckDuckGo may be a particularly interesting target for the NSA due to its audience and the small volume of traffic (as compared to Google).

    This is because DDG does not use crypto algorithms which support perfect forward secrecy.

    When PFS is used, the compromise of an SSL site's private key does not necessarily reveal the secrets of past private communication; connections to SSL sites which use PFS have a per-session key which is not revealed if the long-term private key is compromised. The security of PFS depends on both parties discarding the shared secret after the transaction is complete (or after a reasonable period to allow for session resumption).

    So it would require significantly more work for NSA to deal with a site using PFS. Source: netcraft

  23. show us the data on Energy Production Causes Big US Earthquakes · · Score: 1

    Sorry, not going to pay for the original nature submissions. The article quotes one year as being "almost 10 fold" increase... .so what was the range of prior observations? Are there observations prior to 1965? Are there any other periods of increased activity?

    The second study mentioned says there is some correspondance between wells and quake locations. Again, show us the seismological history at those locations for at least the past 100 years. If these are geologically active zones then why should it be at all surprising that some earthquakes occur near drilling work?

  24. Printed Morse Code on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Store Data In Hard Copy? · · Score: 1

    You can use a very small font and still be able to distinguish the three "characters" of dot, dash or space. Likewise, even faded the difference in size between a dot and dash should be discernable. As to encryption, it may suffice to just use a code book and keep that in a different location. But I think picking up page after page filled with morse code would deter most wannabe thieves.

  25. Re:Text, but why? on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Store Data In Hard Copy? · · Score: 1

    I have hard copies of programs printed in the early 80s on DEC la-120s as well as genuine line printers. All are prefectly legible today and not really faded at all, at least not the ink. The paper has yellowed a bit.