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User: amber_of_luxor

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  1. Re: Seems reasonable on Insurer Won't Pay Out For Security Breach Because of Lax Security · · Score: 1

    >If proper routers are too expensive, a PC with a bunch of NICs and PfSense can do the job for a smaller installation.

    I've come across several individuals recommending that one buy a cheap laptop, configure SmoothWall, or similar Linux distro on it, and use that as a firewall, router, DNS server. One end is connected to the pre-pwned junk from your ISP, and the other end is connected to your system.

  2. Re:Stupid on Microsoft To Teachers: Using Pens and Paper Not Fair To Students · · Score: 1

    >And the longer someone is in the field, the better they become at their craft.

    There was a reason why the school song included the line "and guard the school's bottle supply with pride."

    Every staff member that had been in education for more than fifteen years was an alcoholic. Most of them restricted their drinking to between classes, not during class.

    The only craft they got better at, was being able to hide their drunkenness from inspectors, and investigative journalists.

  3. Re:Stupid on Microsoft To Teachers: Using Pens and Paper Not Fair To Students · · Score: 1

    Whiteboards are made of a different material than blackboards, which, in turn, are made of a different material than greenboards, which, in turn, are made of a different material than chalk boards.

    If you are not the person that has to clean them, the differences are nominal. If you are the person that has to clean, them, and you're told it is a blackboard, and it turns out to be a chalk board, you just destroyed it.

  4. Re:Salespeople making salespitch on Microsoft To Teachers: Using Pens and Paper Not Fair To Students · · Score: 1

    > But cursive just seems like teaching Latin, maybe because of tradition or something.

    FWIW, teaching people to write in a cursive script has several known neurological and psychological benefits, over teaching non-cursive scripts.

  5. >up, had our undersea cable cut twice by drunk idiots dropping anchors in the wrong spot.

    Are you sure the cable wasn't stolen, for the value of the scrap metal.

  6. Re:Latency is caused by storing packets on Microwave Comms Betwen Population Centers Could Be Key To Easing Internet Bottlenecks · · Score: 1

    The days when investing in the stock market was a socially responsible activity, ended about a century ago.

    The days when the individual could make money by buying and holding stock ended more than 3 decades ago.

    The days when an individual could make money as a day trader ended about 2 decades ago.

    The days when an organization could make money on the stock market, without using HFT ended about a decade ago.

  7. Verizon either started as one of the Baby Bells, or bought out enough of the Baby Bells to be considered one of the original Baby Bells.

  8. Re:I dreamed of warp travel since childhood on Navy's New Laser Weapon: Hype Or Reality? · · Score: 1

    >OK, here's a challenge, a leisure society for all with minimum livelihood and medical care guaranteed for all? I mean since we'll *obviously* have these incredible levels of energy and resources and technology, right????

    With a couple of changes in government rules, regulations, statutes, and laws, that could be implemented today.
    (By today, I mean that if the laws were literally changed today, the transition could start on 1 June 2015, and the entire process be complete by 1 September 2015.)

    The major issue is whether or not the general population will accept the consequences of a shift of that nature.

    It is a given that business will, on general principle, oppose that shift. It is highly probable that the general population will side with business, and oppose the shift.

  9. Re:The goal hasn't changed. on Navy's New Laser Weapon: Hype Or Reality? · · Score: 1

    >Now give me that "phat venture capital check" is what they're (i.e. the Navy's contractors) advertising.

    Back around 2000, there were a couple of firms that claimed to outfit laser weapons on private yachts. Weapon systems that could destroy the boats that the pirates were using.

    These systems were not cheap, and once installed, did limit which countries one could visit.

  10. Re:drones on Navy's New Laser Weapon: Hype Or Reality? · · Score: 1

    Her Majesty's Royal Army.

    The Army that has no qualms about grabbing civilians,put them into camps, and has an official, formal policy of starving the inmates to death. Her Majesty's Royal Army has never rescinded the official order to starve civilians placed in concentration camps.

    The army that decided that the best way to help wounded, captured enemy, was to execute them on the spot. Another order that has never been rescinded.

  11. Re:Once again: on Silk Road's Leader Paid a Doctor To Help Keep Customers Safe · · Score: 1

    From that paragon of information known to be false, but is believed by the editors to be true, regardless of the actual facts:

    This is the list of Schedule I drugs as defined by the United States Controlled Substances Act.[1] The following findings are required for drugs to be placed in this schedule:[2]

    1) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
    2) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
    3) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

    I see the LSD is listed as Schedule 1. Guess somebody doesn't know that it is/was effective, when used to treat various psychological issues. The issue for the clinician is doing an accurate psycho-diagnostic exam. Something that takes roughly 3 hours of patient time, and another three or so hours, sifting the results.

    Mescaline can be legally used for religious purposes. Come to think of it, it also has been used for psychotherapeutic reasons.
    Again, it works as a psychotherapeutic agent, when used for the appropriate condition, which takes roughly 3 hours of patient time, and three or more hours sifting the results.

    IOW, the therapeutic treatments are known, but current medical practice in essence, prevents the diagnostic to be made. (Let's face it, when you have 180 seconds with a client, one can not do a differential diagnosis, much less an accurate one., And insurance companies are doing their utmost to reduce client face-time to 60 seconds, or less. )

  12. Re:Govt Doesn't Care About User Safety on Silk Road's Leader Paid a Doctor To Help Keep Customers Safe · · Score: 1

    Wasn't one of their defenses that after the "safe injection site" opened up, both legal and illegal sales of those specific drugs went down?

  13. Resources not generally on Cyberlock Lawyers Threaten Security Researcher Over Vulnerability Disclosure · · Score: 1

    >IOActive's reverse engineering process required the use of skilled technicians, sophisticated lab equipment, and other costly resources not generally available to the public.

    Since when have the bad guys limited themselves to what was available to the general public? Or even limited themselves to what one person could do?

    I take it that the Cyberlock is effective, only when the attack is carried out by somebody like my next door neighbor. He is a very nice person, but due to Alzheimer's, people in the neighborhood do have to occasionally walk him home.

  14. Re:Another click bait lure for Tom's Hardware on Google Can't Ignore the Android Update Problem Any Longer · · Score: 2

    >There is nothing to note beyond 'welcome to the low end of the phone business'.

    I'd love to know what the high end of the phone business is, since models that have an MSRP of US$1,000 are not getting updates in a timely manner, if they even get them.

  15. Re:Is this Google's fault? on Google Can't Ignore the Android Update Problem Any Longer · · Score: 1

    >They also abandoned my Apple //e

    I don't know when Apple officially dropped support for them, but they stopped manufacturing them in 1997, and selling them in 1998. However, as recently as 2008, one could still find "Apple // Authorized Service Centers". Places that one could take their Apple // to, and have both software and hardware issues fixed.

    Apparently, for some businesses, it is cheaper to use buy "broken" Apples, and have repaired, than to write/rewrite/port the software they use, to something that runs on more recent hardware.

  16. Re:Some good data... on Google Can't Ignore the Android Update Problem Any Longer · · Score: 2

    I bought a Google Experience device, within days of the official release of that device.

    It did not ship with the then most current version of Android.
    It was not updated to what was the most current version of Android when the device was released, until after Google had released two more versions of Android.
    IOW, there was no point in time when the current version of Android was available for the device. There was a period of perhaps as long as six months, when the version of Android it was running, was the second most recently released version of Android.

    Given Google's failure to support their own "Google Experience Devices", I have no illusions about the will, and desire, of other companies support of their hardware. In all instances, the only safe assumption is that there will be a point blank refusal by the vendor to update, fix, or do anything with either software or hardware.

  17. Re: I like this guy but... on Rand Paul Moves To Block New "Net Neutrality" Rules · · Score: 1

    Washington State treats "intellectual property" as part of the assets upon which an organization's Business and Occupational Tax is determined.

  18. Re: I like this guy but... on Rand Paul Moves To Block New "Net Neutrality" Rules · · Score: 1

    Assuming the Libertarian Party is true to its principles, fraud statutes would enable the little guy to fight Comcast, AT&T, etc, and win. If their advertising promises one thing, but their service delivers something else, fraud has occurred, and penalties would be paid.

  19. Re:This is news - how? on Fetch Robotics Unveils Warehouse Robots · · Score: 1

    > I'm not sure if the robots were pink or not - they were a light color, could have been beige, white, or some light shade of pink.

    In a fit of moronic stupidity, Mary Kay let its trademarked color lapse. Since then, the company has been scrambling to find a shade of pink that they can claim to be theirs, and theirs alone. Consequently, their livery has ranged from a pearly white-pink, to a very dark purple-pink, wandering through both orange-pink, and a greenish-pink.

  20. Re:And this is where it begins. on Fetch Robotics Unveils Warehouse Robots · · Score: 1

    >And if the cost for these robots go down enough in the next 5 to 10 years, he could be out of a job

    For the typical warehouse operation, either the cost of converting from human labor to bots will have to drop to a third of the current prices, or the cost of labor will have to rise about 30%, before it becomes cost-effective to retrofit the operation to mainly/exclusively bots.

    Any rational company, building a warehouse today, is going to design it for bots doing all of the grunt work. The only on-site humans will be the warehouse manager, and the person who takes care of the bots.

    The warehouse of the future will keep everything in the container it was shipped to the warehouse in, until the item has to be shipped to the customer. The containers will be stacked two or three high, with an overhead crane moving the containers between their destination in the warehouse, and the barge/truck/rail car/plane that they came on.

  21. Re:fetch on Fetch Robotics Unveils Warehouse Robots · · Score: 1

    The horror of all those dollar a blow working girls no longer having a job.

  22. Re:Well... on FCC Chairman: a Former Cable Lobbyist Who Helped Kill the Comcast Merger · · Score: 1

    Or maybe Comcast is his current cable tv vendor, and knows that improving its service by a googolplexian, will still result in it providing crappy service, whether it be the techs that install Internet service to business customers, that don't know what Linux is, or the sales reps that don't know whether or not the company can serve a specific address, or the equipment people that send out "new" equipment that looks like a Leopard 2A7+ rolled over it.

  23. Re:My next TV on Vizio, Destroyer of Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    Vizio honors their warrenty?

    Who knew.

    They aren't on my list of TVs to buy, having seen three fail within three months of purchase. (I bought the first one. An idiot with more money than brains bought me the next two.)

  24. Re:I will never understand on Vizio, Destroyer of Patent Trolls · · Score: 5, Informative

    >Yeah, yeah, yeah, McDonald's Coffee case. There was something there legally that wasn't reported in the media or if it was, it went over everyone's head.

    Things most people miss.

    The manager of that McDonald's refused to pick up 50% of the initial ER bill. ( Literally, all they had to do, was sign a piece of paper, and that would have been that. I've forgotten the dollar amount, but even doubling it, to allow for the cost of having a lawyer examine it, would have been far cheaper, than the resulting lawsuit.)

    McDonald's corporate had cited that specific McDonald's for violating their policy on how hot coffee should be served at, several times, before this specific incident occurred.

    Need I mention her third degree burns, in an area of the body that is extremely difficult to treat.

  25. Re:Is the math not towing the groupthink? on Social Science Journal 'Bans' Use of p-values · · Score: 1

    But their replacement is even more subject to bias that p-Values.

    At least with P-Values I don't have to delve into a dozen things that are not in the paper, to see the error. With their proposal, I have to investigate at least a dozen factors that are not mentioned dn the paper, to determine where, and why the errors that are made are present.

    IOW their proposed replacement makes lying using statistics so much more trivial, that you can now say that lies and statistics are synonyms.