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User: dltaylor

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  1. never use self-checkout on Robots Could Wipe Out Another 6 Million Retail Jobs (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    If there are no entry-level jobs, how do we teach people work?

  2. How much does a Utah legislator cost? on Utah Supreme Court Ruling Bars Direct Sales of Teslas Through a Subsidiary (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If we know that maybe we could crowd-fund the purchase of enough to get any law we want passed.

  3. sounds totally backwards on Theory Challenging Einstein's View On Speed of Light Could Soon Be Tested (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the speed of light is dependent on the strength of the gravity field, as we seem to measure today, then the early universe, with all of the matter/energy (yes. that is redundant) should have had such a deep gravity well that the speed of light should have been about 0 for the first few milliseconds of the universe' existence, if not longer.

  4. not that complicated on Wordpress Founder Accuses Wix Of Stealing Code (ma.tt) · · Score: 4, Informative

    People who READ the GPL can figure it out. Those who INTERPRET it to suit their own agenda get it wrong (like SCSI specs, for example).

    If you publish a program that incorporates GPL (not LGPL) source, you have to make that source, plus any of your changes, plus instructions/tools to build the program to those to whom you have distributed the program (no distribution -> no requirement), and you can not use a more-restrictive license on the program source. Putting the bundle on a web site is acceptable, but NOT a requirement, as long as you provide the bundle at nominal charge to the recipients of the program. You do NOT have to give it to anyone else.

  5. bet the "marketing requirements" were the original on Ford's Buggy Infotainment System Referred To By Engineers As 'Polished Turd' and 'Unsaleable' (computerworld.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It will be interesting if there's public disclosure of the marketing requirements doc, not to mention the purchasing input. The former are likely to be a mass of mutually-exclusive bullet items, with no input beyond magic to resolve the contradictions, and the latter will have no allowance in the cost of goods for hardware (and WHY THE HELL MICROSOFT?) for the inevitable feature creep, so there's no way it could ever have worked.

  6. there were eight before that on Microsoft Could Turn Every PC Into an Xbox (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    There are people living now who didn't have 9, and, for a while Ceres was called a planet. You can either have 8, barring the specific discovery of IX, or dozens, when you throw in the rest of the TNOs and the KBOs.

  7. near where? on Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the US Next? (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    You posted as AC, so that only narrows the search to Earth and near-Earth orbit. Probably not too many in orbit, since they're incredibly heavy, and Antarctica doesn't have much infrastructure, but that still leaves at least 20% of the planet.

  8. no showers on Electric Bikes Won Over China. Is the US Next? (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    I have experimented with cycling to work (usually use a motorcycle). At no place I have ever worked have there been showers usable for the transition from cyclist to acceptable office occupant, and I really must have those facilities.

  9. Total BS; I've done the right thing. on Op-ed: Oracle Attorney Says Google's Court Victory Might Kill the GPL (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    It is the INTERFACES that are open, not the implementation.

    Many years ago, I had to implement a set of printer drivers but, as usual, the printer codes were proprietary. Using the man pages only, which described the interfaces and data format, I wrote a new subset of the pnm functions for a pnmto program (since I could not locate any LGPL implementation of pnm). I did, in fact, type in all of the characters for the new headers myself, and the text did not match the original headers, except for the function names and parameters.

  10. "birthright"? on Nevada Startup Stores Energy With Trains (fortune.com) · · Score: 1

    Only a few of the people living within the geographical boundaries of Nevada have any claim of "birthright" to the land. For the rest of you, there's this: the United States government stole that land from the birthright holders, so you're lucky to allowed any sort of title to any part of it. The government stole it, the government gets to keep it, just like the casinos.

  11. Re:depends on the power balance on Code Quality Predicted Using Biometrics (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    The difference is that nude females are assumed to be "asking for it", while nude males are assumed to be just weird (outside of "proper" contexts).

  12. depends on the power balance on Code Quality Predicted Using Biometrics (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    As a male, if I'm naked, I'm empowered, because I'm OK with being seen, and the viewers may not be (and, no, not because my body is gross; in fact, it is OK). Were I female, except for a limited subset, then the power is in the viewers hands, rather than mine.

  13. Cherryh didm't already have one? on 2015 Nebula Award Winners Announced (sfwa.org) · · Score: 2

    She's been due for the Grand Master award for decades.

  14. quickest way off a jury on Oracle V. Google Being Decided By Clueless Judge and Jury (vice.com) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From what I've seen during jury selection, demonstrate either knowledge or the ability to think for yourself and you will be dismissed post-haste. The lawyers for both sides (criminal or civil) want more-or-less house plants that will follow their version of "logic".

    Anyone who has followed the United States political scene since, essentially, forever (about 1796, or thereabouts) knows that our system is fully intended to maximize the power of the dimmest bulbs in the shed.

  15. dirty app source; block it on The House of Representatives Is Blocking All Apps Using Google's Appspot.com (fastcompany.com) · · Score: 1

    Seems reasonable.

    If the app server cannot be relied upon to provide clean (no spyware, trojans, ...) apps, then it is entirely reasonable to block it, and any communications with it.

    'Course, since many of the Apple apps have those same "features", spyware, in particular, they should be blocked, also.

    GPS tracking, for example, can be used to follow aides from one office to another, or from the floor to an office, making it more difficult to have some of the delicate negotiations often required to make a government work. Same thing with tracking the to/from of texts.

  16. Re:How is this a problem? on Facebook's Newest Privacy Problem: 'Faceprint' Data (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Because they also tag ind identify NON-USERS, like me.

    Nuke 'em from orbit, please.

  17. translation: management whine on US Steel Says China Is Using Cyber Stealth To Steal Its Secrets (npr.org) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We don't want to spend the resources to properly secure our data and infrastructure, so we're going to whine about it, instead, and hope we can get someone else (like the US taxpayers) to solve the problem we've created for ourselves.

  18. never was complicated on The 'Impossible' EM Drive Being Tested By NASA May Finally Be Explained (technologyreview.com) · · Score: 1, Informative

    If you have multiple emitters into the chamber, angled toward a reflector, each emitter has a vector of momentum parallel to the axis of the motor, and another perpendicular to it. If the emitters are spaced properly, the perpendicular vectors will cancel, and the parallel components, summed, will be less than the momentum of the photons leaving the chamber through the "nozzle", giving a net forward thrust.

  19. I don't have a mobile data plan (just text and voice), and use the WiFi VERY rarely, so they're not getting much, if anything, from mine.

  20. never ask on Online Voters Name British Vessel 'Boaty McBoatface' (telegraph.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    A very long time ago (the Internet was new, so this was a paper poll), UCLA polled for a replacement name for a bookstore/cafeteria/recreation area on the north end of the campus. The responses nearly all varied from snide to obscene. The name selection ended with retaining the working name "North Campus Facility".

  21. use Windows' boot process on Optional Windows Update Aims To Halt Wireless Mouse Hijacking · · Score: 1

    If you're going to leave Windows on the box, use ITS boot menu to dual boot.

    I have a test laptop with 4 boot targets for the Windows boot process: Recovery, Windows 7, OpenBSD, and GRUB (which can, of course, also boot Windows). OpenBSD put its boot loader at the start of its partition, as did GRUB. With Cygwin installed on Windows (or booting from a "Live" of some sort, copy those boot blocks to files in Windows' C:\, and reference them in the Boot Configuration Data. OpenBSD's FAQ has a very nice tutorial section 4.15. GRUB is used to boot between several flavors of Linux for testing (yes, I could use VMs, but OpenBSD, at least, likes bare metal best, and it's no harder to copy back a specific partition than VM image).

    http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#Multibooting

  22. I remember those on cable TV on Microsoft's BSOD Is Getting More Descriptive With QR Codes (cio.com) · · Score: 1

    For a very long time, the Amiga+(at least)Genlock, if not Amiga+Video Toaster was the only inexpensive computer that could handle NTSC/PAL overlays in real time, so cable startups used them for program guides.

    I rarely saw a GURU Meditation, generally when debugging a driver I was writing, but I love that the BSOD screen saver includes them.

    At least there was real useful data in them.

  23. BSOD screen saver update? on Microsoft's BSOD Is Getting More Descriptive With QR Codes (cio.com) · · Score: 1

    I run the BSOD screen saver on Linux boxes, particularly at work, where any of the MS ones provoke "interest". I'm hoping that there will be an update soon, to add one that has these QR codes. The QR code should point to the OpenBSD home page, I think, since that's what the home computers mostly run.

  24. Re:many were sold retail; no provider access requi on Over 135 Million Routers Vulnerable To Denial-of-service Flaw (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but "no". I have already updated it once, back when an earlier vulnerability was found. As long as it's a manufacturer-supplied update, TWC doesn't care.

  25. many were sold retail; no provider access required on Over 135 Million Routers Vulnerable To Denial-of-service Flaw (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Target and Best Buy, at least (CompUSA, IIRC), sold them retail. I got mine at Target. There's no need for an ISP "fix", if Arris just doesn't use that as an excuse not to provide an update.