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User: zippthorne

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  1. Re:Privacy is an antiquated notion. on Feds Can Locate Cell Phones Without Telcos · · Score: 1

    That is a more important right. A right to go about your business unmolested by the government, or capricious government employees. It is also a codified protection of your right your own property, the terms under which the government is authorised to violate are specified there and elsewhere in the document.

    The right to privacy, if it exists, is innate. Not really enumerated anywhere in the document, although it shouldn't have to be. Now the question of what happens when this right comes in conflict with others' rights, enumerated or not, is a matter for public debate, and possibly legislation.

    The 10th amendment might appear specific to you or I, but get five hundred thirty or so lawyers in a room, and suddenly things are a little more cloudy. Somehow everything ends up coming back to the interstate commerce clause...

  2. Re:Raw images? on Digital Photos Give Away a Camera's Make and Model · · Score: 1

    I don't really see that as an issue. This seems like more of a "additional confirmation" tool that you'd use in the courtroom, rather than as a primary tool that you'd use to discover the identity of a person of interest.

  3. Re:Young Star Trek on New Star Trek Trailer · · Score: 1

    spandex on pulped cellulose --> Black neoprene on polymerised cellulose.

  4. Re:Privacy is an antiquated notion. on Feds Can Locate Cell Phones Without Telcos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Privacy is not explicitly spelled out, though. I mean, there are the ninth and tenth amendments, but they're exactly the kind of thing you'd expect politicians to ignore due to their unambiguous, but unspecific language (and ironically, one of the more prominent "pro-privacy" rulings pretty much ignored the tenth amendment). Whittling at the weapons first, that's what's unexpected.

  5. Re:batteries ftw on Feds Can Locate Cell Phones Without Telcos · · Score: 4, Informative

    For your Faraday cage to be effective, it has to be very conductive. The higher the resistance, the worse it works.

    A thin layer of metallised Mylar is not going to attenuate the signal very much. Certainly not enough to prevent my receiving a call just now. I even tried sealing the end with aluminium tape (which, btw, is much better than duct tape for almost everything, especially ducts).

    If you want to make sure some piece of electronics isn't transmitting/in a position to be heard, there are only a few tools that are up to the task. If you're in a hurry: hammer. If you want to be sure: nuke from orbit.

  6. Re:PDEs now? on Good Physics Books For a Math PhD Student? · · Score: 1

    Unless there's some school offering a "undergrad through Ph.D" program. Then that would make sense.

  7. Re:NASA's shoddy (fraudulent?) work on Rubber Duckies For Global Warming Research · · Score: 1

    It sounds an awful lot like a case of bad interpolation of missing data. Copy previous month is a heck of a lot lower order than a simple linear function, even. But some interpolation would be necessary to start working with the results. You push out the corrections in the errata when the data comes in if you miss CD press time.

    Now there is definitely some question as to why the gaps would be represented by previous data instead of nulls or flag values, and clerical error is certainly a plausible reason.

    But.. it's an awfully convenient excuse, especially if there was some pressure to publish quickly or the cleverly nefarious scheme of announcing "warmest October ever" then quietly correcting the data in February, followed by yet another "warmest october ever" even if one of them wasn't.

    If one wanted, every year could be the warmest on record, in a big announcement, fostering the perception of ever increasing, record-setting temperatures despite a more volatile actual record. It doesn't even take a conspiracy, and it doesn't even need to be an ongoing operation. It just takes one researcher every few seasons to make a "clerical error" that happens to fit preconceived notions of article reviewers and an otherwise well-written piece.

  8. Re:college textbook analysis doesn't work on On the Economics of the Kindle · · Score: 1

    Dumb students sell them back. You'll get enough from your whole semester to buy like one book in the following semester. But four years down the line, you'll be wishing you'd kept them.

    College text requirements aren't just there to feed the bookstore. They're there to help you build your library. Over time, you'll add to it, too, but you can rely on your professors' experience to get you started.

  9. Re:Cost estimates off by factor of ten, inconvenie on On the Economics of the Kindle · · Score: 1

    That's true, but how much would it cost you to print out the Gutenberg archives on something suitable for dog-earing. eBook readers are the devices that finally realise the value of that project.

  10. Re:What's the point of this analysis? on On the Economics of the Kindle · · Score: 1

    Ahh, but you might be better read with the Kindle, though. The convenience factor is a *big* deal: with an eBook reader, you can go through the Gutenberg archive for free. You're telling me that that wouldn't entice you to read more of those classics you know you ought to read, but haven't gotten around to yet? ( because there's a check-out counter "bestseller" of the hour at the used book store for only a buck... )

    Now, personally, I'd prefer Sony's concept (with just a tiny bit more resolution), although I'm holding out for a Readius for the time being. The whole "big dumb keyboard that I'm going to bump with my rough handling" in every stupid supposedly portable ( qwerty?? dvorak would be a far better choice for a thumb keyboard. The one place dvorak could really shine. ) device.

  11. Re:Lawyers'jokes write themselves theese days. on Toyota Demands Removal of Fan Wallpapers · · Score: 1

    I don't want to be a grammar nazi, but I reserve the right to poke a little fun at unfortunate context-altering typos, even if the correct meaning is readily apparent.

    But correcting someone's grammar in the case that they're not native <$language> speakers isn't a bane, it's a boon. As long as you don't get all smug about it. It is hard to convey the proper tone, though.

  12. Re:Lawyers'jokes write themselves theese days. on Toyota Demands Removal of Fan Wallpapers · · Score: 0

    Heh, prime costumers.

    Although "D" would likely loose the case on these talented tailors, is it likely they'd win or lose?

  13. Re:Your Movie Rights Online. on Canadian Fined For Videoing Movie In Theatre · · Score: 2, Informative

    The ones with no camera are *cheaper*. You're just not looking hard enough. A cursory glance at my cell provider's offerings brought up the i335 by Motorola and S1 by Sanyo (i stopped looking after that) both free with 2 year agreement.

    Most of the pre-paid phones don't have cameras, either, and they're actually pretty small and sporty, and refreshingly no-frills.

    In fact, the one option you can't find is precisely the one you claimed you didn't want: a pricey up-scale wealth-announcer. You can't get a camera-free iPhone.

  14. Re:how about dropping the ac - dc - ac - dc to one on "Heat Wheel" Could Lower Data Center Power Bills · · Score: 2, Informative

    Laptop power supplies are separate from the laptops. All you need is access to the appropriate DC feed and a correctly sized adaptor. "appropriate DC feed" is often 12V, and usually one of only a few standard voltages.

  15. Re:Silence on AMD Launches First 45nm Shanghai CPUs · · Score: 1

    I think you missed the question.

    Why would you dump the perfectly good operating system which is already installed and specifically designed/configured around the hardware?

    For the price of even a low-end apple, you could get one mondo silent pc (some assembly required, maybe)

  16. Re:Convenience on AMD Launches First 45nm Shanghai CPUs · · Score: 1

    Wait.. why do you pay the apple premium if you're not going to use the apple OS?

  17. Re:What they might have been waiting for on AMD Banks On Flood of Stream Apps · · Score: 2, Funny

    Precisely. The Democrats would never tinker with computing hardware or software (like trying to force everyone to use the same, weak, encryption algorithm AND turn over their keys to the government) like the Republicans would.

  18. Re:Wow on Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's actually even worse than that. If the actions she *thought* she was taking were real, *she* would be committing a crime.

    It's really, really, really hard to feel bad for someone who loses a lot of their own money while attempting launder money, steal from foreigners and foreign governments, and commit usury.

    The real victim here is the husband.

  19. Re:Politics on Mind Control Delusions and the Web · · Score: 1

    point: At one time, those who thought the world was not flat were considered delusional.

    That's actually a terrible point, since there was no such time. It is however widely believed that it was widely believed, though...

  20. Re:Paranoia on Mind Control Delusions and the Web · · Score: 1

    One new friend at a time. He got mad at me at first, but he's starting to realize it's ok. His issue is he thinks everyone is talking/thinking about him

    Fortunately, he doesn't think they're posting things about him semi-anonymously in international web forums?

  21. Re:Why would Microsoft respond with a Windows 7 po on Ubuntu Ports To ARM · · Score: 1

    WRT office: are there advanced features of Office that only work in windows and not on their Mac version or through Codeweavers?

  22. Re:dynamic range on RED's New Digital Stills and Motion Camera Pushing the Limits · · Score: 1

    It's not possible. To read it out, you have to march the charges to the edge of the chip and then down the side (or onto a bank of A/D.)

    You might could march them back in on the other side but you're definitely going to lose some detail there. And you can't do it in the O(significantly less than 1/500s) that you'd need to for it to work.

    What you can do, though, is something astronomers have been doing for ages: take a series of pictures and combine them after-the-fact. Of course, in astronomy, the read-out time is significantly less than the exposure time, though.

  23. Re:The Upper Limits. on RED's New Digital Stills and Motion Camera Pushing the Limits · · Score: 1

    All film cameras must be converted to digital if you want digital. On account of.. you know.. the film: a plastic substrate (historically manufactured from plant tissue) impregnated with photosensitive chemical dyes. Which is inherently rather analog (grain-boundaries and such notwithstanding)

  24. Re:Future proofing? on AMD Launches First 45nm Shanghai CPUs · · Score: 1

    And what's so bad about replacing often? If, at the end of ten years, you end up having had more total cycles available AND having spent less money, AND have the additional reliability factor of not holding on to equipment for very long after it's no longer under warranty, what's so bad about that?

  25. Re:Ayn Rands Ray Gun? on The Best Fictional Doomsday Devices · · Score: 1

    Or the aesthetic sense from "Stranger in a Strange Land"