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User: torstenvl

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  1. Re:The "S" in "IoT" ... on Congress Introduces Bill To Improve 'Internet of Things' Security (cnet.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The default password should be randomly generated and included as a sticker in the packaging, like when you buy a combination lock. That way each device will have a random, unique password from the start. You'd have to go out of your way to make it admin/admin.

  2. Re:Provided you have infinite hardware resources.. on Why ESR Hates C++, Respects Java, and Thinks Go (But Not Rust) Will Replace C (ibiblio.org) · · Score: 2

    I think you meant: b = (a==1) ? 0 : ~b

  3. "Millennials"? on 'U Can't Talk to Ur Professor Like This' (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    A 22-year-old college senior was about six years old for 9/11 and the new millennium and about five years old for Y2K. The generation that came of age around the new millennium is no longer in college. There might be a problem with college students today, but very few of them are millennials in any real sense of the word.

  4. Re:There's plenty of good reasons No There's not on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Explain 'Don't Improve My Software Syndrome' Or DIMSS? · · Score: 1

    I wish I had mod points. My frustration with arbitrary, whimsical, and capricious software changes over the past 5 years is beyond my ability to articulate. Everything from an obsession with "flat" to hiding central features as Easter eggs - it all just makes me wish there were someone with the authority and sense to fire these people who seem so hellbent on destroying usability.

  5. Re:Nope, nothing to see here on Mike Pence Used His AOL Email For Indiana State Business -- and It Got Hacked (theverge.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You said the FBI's recommendation not to prosecute "flew in the face of the law . . . because . . . the very crime he specified has no intent requirement." You are wrong. A plain reading of the statute shows a clear mens rearequirement.

    This is the crime in question: "Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document [or other] information, relating to the national defense, . . . through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." 18 U.S.C. 793(f) (emphasis added). In turn, gross negligence is "[a] conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009) (emphasis added).

    If storing the classified material on her private server was not a "conscious, voluntary act," then the mens rea requirement here is not met, meaning the crime was not committed.

  6. Re: No. on DoD Award To Recognize Drone Operators (securityweek.com) · · Score: 2

    I think you misread the article. They are specifically NOT combat awards. They will have an R device, not a V device (for valor).

    By the way, I think your post was unnecessarily inflammatory. Drone operators are military members. They still deploy when and where they're told. They still show up on terrorist target lists for stateside attacks. Calling them "joystick jockeys" and comparing them to Call of Duty gamers is petulant. They've done more to risk their lives for the country than most.

  7. Security through obscurity on Building Deception Into Encryption Software · · Score: 1

    I guess it DOES have some benefit, huh?

  8. Re:Is it a "Vaccine" or a "Cure" on Finnish HIV Vaccine Testing To Begin · · Score: 1, Informative

    Words mean things. It is unfortunate that you do not understand them. It is true that a vaccine prevents infection. Your post makes me angry with its bullheadedness and ignorance. However, for the sake of your education and the edification of others who might read, let me remind you that HIV is not terminal upon primary infection. Few if any people die from primary HIV infection or "conversion sickness." In fact, for many people, viral levels drop to incredibly low rates after initial infection, even without medication. The problem arises when that infection rears its head again later, infecting and destroying your remaining T-cells and thereby eviscerating your immune system. Put simply: we are already pretty good at destroying infected cells, but we don't have a way of keeping it from infecting further cells. As you so astutely noted, a vaccine is useful for that exact purpose.

  9. Re:Borders is dead because of tax weasels like Ama on Amazon Folds In California Sales Tax Deal · · Score: 1

    I used to study at that Borders with my then-boyfriend. At Panera too. Sad day.

  10. Re:Campaign Promises on House Websites Jammed After Obama Debt Speech · · Score: 2

    If my mom promises to lose weight, she doesn't break that promise by buying jeans that fit her. She needs to reduce the imbalance between the calories she takes in and the calories she burns. She is already a given size and has already planned out a healthy calorie-reduction diet. She needs jeans that will be possible to wear on that plan. If my mom were to buy only a size 5, and threaten to kill herself if she bought a larger size, and also threaten to kill herself if she can't fit into the size 5, then yes, she would be monumentally insane.

    When Republicans promise to reduce spending and lower the debt, they don't break that promise by raising the debt ceiling. They need to reduce the imbalance between the revenue brought in and the revenue expended. They have already passed the 2011 budget. They need to raise revenue or debt to fund it. The Republicans are threatening to impeach Obama if he raises debt to fund the appropriations bill that THEY passed, and also threatening to impeach him if we default because they didn't raise the debt ceiling, so yes, they are monumentally insane.

  11. Re:Maybe include some details? on Apple Releases Mac OS X Lion, Updates Air · · Score: 1

    To me, it's inconsistent for them to be pushing auto-saving/backup/versioning but also have auto-locking.

    You clearly haven't thought this through very well. The lock feature goes hand-in-hand with autosave - it keeps you from wasting hard drive space on revisions that are essentially just unimportant changes in scratch work that you never save.

    Returning to the title bar pop-up menu, the "Revert to Last Saved Version" menu item returns the document to its last explicitly saved state (i.e., what it looked like the last time the user typed âOES or selected the "Save a Version" menu item). "Duplicate" will create a new document containing the same data as the current document. Finally, the "Lock" item will prevent any further changes to the document until it is explicitly unlocked by the user. Documents will also automatically be locked if they're not modified for a little while. The auto-lock time is configurable in the "Optionsâ¦" screen of the Time Machine preference pane (of all places), with values from one day to one year. The default is two weeks. [You can also turn auto-lock off.] [cite]

    Apple's push towards full-screen apps seems like a small step backwards... Apple machines now have too many kinds of applications (widgets, normal applications, maximized applications, these new full-screen applications, plus older 'full-screen apps' like front-row).

    You misunderstand. They permit putting an application into full-screen mode. There is not a "new [kind of] full-screen application[]" All this is is OS-level support for what you already do with Firefox. Implementing this in the API rather than having each app provide its own improves consistency. And having the option to full-screen, e.g., the Terminal makes the computer MORE open, flexible, and powerful, not less.

    But on a desktop or laptop, I'd rather see the scroll-bars. It gives you something to mouse towards and grab. More importantly, it gives you constant feedback about where you are within a document, as well as information about the size of the document.

    The default setting, "Automatically based on input type," will use overlay scroll bars as long as there's at least one touch-capable input device attached (though the trackpad on laptops doesn't count if any other external pointing devices are connected). If you don't like this kind of second-guessing, just choose one of the other options. The "When scrolling" option means always use overlay scroll bars, and the "Always" option means always show scroll bars [cite]

  12. Re:CFO's glad they didn't take the next step on Google Bid Pi Billion Dollars For Nortel Patents · · Score: 1

    Tau makes doing math much MUCH easier. Quick, what angle (in radians) corresponds to 1/128 of a circle?

    (Hint: It's (tau)/128)

  13. Re:CFO's glad they didn't take the next step on Google Bid Pi Billion Dollars For Nortel Patents · · Score: 2

    Calling people "halfwit" (or any other name) is the hallmark of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.

    You're confusing the idea that an expression has fewer terms with the idea that an expression is more elegant. That is simply not true. The core of elegance is conceptual clarity and simplicity.

    A circle is a curve. How do you find the area under a curve? Oh wait... and what do integrals look like for these kinds of expressions and relationships? Let's walk through this conceptually: the area proscribed by a circle is the area of every actual circle inside it of infinitesimal width. You start with the tiniest possible circular band, and expand the radius outward, adding the area covered by each subsequent band to your total, each such band having area A = C*r. And it's obvious that, as you expand outward, C remains proportional to r, and taking the integral here is going to be intimately related to the relationship of C and r. So the ABSOLUTELY KEY QUESTION, the ONE THING you need to know to take the integral and figure out the area, is this: by what factor is C proportional to r?

  14. Re:CFO's glad they didn't take the next step on Google Bid Pi Billion Dollars For Nortel Patents · · Score: 1

    You're clearly misinformed. Tau is a much more elegant number for every use case. Way to post AC, btw.

  15. Re:One word - alternatives? on Skype Forcing Mac Users To Upgrade Client · · Score: 2

    What use is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?

  16. Re:He's a marine, not a soldier. on Soldier Re-Grows Leg Muscle After Experimental Procedure · · Score: 1

    It is not customary for a member of the U.S. Marine Corps to use the title "soldier."

    Some people may argue that "soldier" is a generic term that can be applied to any servicemember. However, in actual use, "soldier" specifically means a member of the Army. U.S. servicemembers are referred to as soldiers (USA), sailors (USN), airmen (USAF), or Marines (USMC). Calling a Marine a "soldier" is akin to calling a Senator a "Congressman" - using the term may be technically correct in a very narrow sense, but that's not how native speakers with contextual knowledge use the term, and you are suggesting that the person in question has not earned the right to be counted among the members of a smaller, specialized body.

    (To counter the argument that this is somehow elitist: very few Marines, even Recon Marines, would look down their nose at Deltas, who are unambiguously "soldiers." But the Marine Corps has a distinctive culture and history. Would you tell a Hmong family "Thai is a generic term that refers to someone from Thailand. Hmong would be a subset of that. The only reason someone would object to conflating the terms would be if they were Hmong and were overly sensitive"?)

    http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40051
    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061108110349AAcUIiC
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22soldier+in+the+Marine+corps%22+OR+%22Marine+soldier%22+OR+%22Marine+Corps+soldier%22
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22soldiers%2C%20sailors%2C%20airmen%2C%20and%20Marines%22

  17. Re:We've been bitten on Is Canonical the Next Apple? · · Score: 1

    What is this, a flashback to 2004? iTunes music is DRM-free dude. There's very little about iTunes that locks you into a platform, and certainly not in order to sell more hardware. The biggest "lock-in" even remotely related to iTunes is the 2-year contract with AT&T or Verizon you have to sign if you get an iPhone.

  18. Re:Great. on Newspaper Plagiarizes Blog, Taunts Real Author · · Score: 1

    LULZY newb.

  19. Sears Tower on Chicago's Willis Tower To Become Vertical Solar Farm · · Score: 5, Informative

    The building is now and forever will be called the Sears Tower. No locals call it the Willis Tower. No non-locals should either. It's a landmark and a piece of architectural history. Like the headline says, it is "Chicago's." In this sense, it will always belong to the public, and the ability of some random foreign insurance firm to finagle some temporary naming rights will never change that.

  20. Re:Same time? on Driver Sued For Updating Facebook In Fatal Crash · · Score: 1

    This is incorrect. The tort of negligence requires that there be a duty, that the duty was breached, that the breach caused injury, and that damages are appropriate for the injury. geekoid was right above when he said "Except [if we presume that] you are not required to call 911. It wouldn't get to court." Unless the state where the accident occurred imposes a duty to call for an ambulance for injuries, then her failure to do so would not make a case for negligence, as a matter of law.

    Now, in most states there is a duty to report an accident. Whether that requirement has been interpreted as attaching as a right owed to the injured is a question of state law. I don't know what the answer is off the top of my head for Illinois.

    We also, as the article points out, know the exact timing of the Facebook update. Nor do we know who made the 911 call, and whether it was before or after the timing of the Facebook update.

    (IAA Illinois L)

  21. Holy crap on How Watchmen Killed 'R'-rated Fantasy Movies · · Score: 1

    This is by far the most incoherent OP I have ever read. Can someone translate this guy into English?

  22. Re:If you're Catholic on Confession: There's an iPhone App For That · · Score: 1

    What does that have to do with either my spending too much on luxury goods or pride? And in any case, you have presented no evidence to substantiate your claims.

  23. Re:If you're Catholic on Confession: There's an iPhone App For That · · Score: 2

    My iPhone cost me $25 after trading in a used hand-me-down during a sale at RadioShack. Hardly a "large ... expenditure of money," unnecessary or not. And I don't see how it's a status symbol at all.

  24. Re:Independent studies warranted on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1

    Orrin Hatch is a U.S. senator from Utah. I don't think he tried anything in Michigan. Not very "informative" if you ask me.

  25. Re:So... on Australia Air Travelers' Laptops To Be Searched For Porn · · Score: 1

    Australia is about as far East as it gets. And anime/manga porn is legal in the United States, regardless of whether it depicts children or adults. That's not to say that most Americans think it's a good thing. Most, including me, condemn its existence. But a government can't prohibit books and text and illustrations unless it has the authority to prohibit books and text and illustrations, and a government that has that authority is an inherently dangerous one.