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User: smooth+wombat

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  1. Re:Less choice? on Major ISPs Threaten To Throttle Innovation and Slow Network Upgrades · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I meant four total providers. For the entire country. Your experience is exactly what I have, and what most people have.

    In my case the two ISPs offer the same slow speeds at the exact same high price.

    Coincidence?

  2. Less choice? on Major ISPs Threaten To Throttle Innovation and Slow Network Upgrades · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Consumers would face less choice,

    How would that even be possible? We only have 4 main providers in the U.S. Are these folks saying that if they were reclassified they would start merging with one another?

    One can only hope they go through with this threat because the government would be able to step in and regulate them as a monopoly, forcing them apart like they did with AT&T and for a few years we'd once again have multiple ISPs to choose from.

  3. Re:Nobody ever got fired for buying $big_corp on How To Approve the Use of Open Source On the Job · · Score: 1

    Unless you can find a written policy forbidding it, just do it.

    This is why you never give people admin rights. They'll randomly install shit and when something breaks, go to someone else and let them spend (potentially) hours of their time trying to figure out what went wrong.

    If you think randomly installing shit is fine, I think it's fine to just reimage your machine without bothering to see if your stuff is backed up.

    When you're at work, it's not your equipment. It's the company's and yes, almost every company out there has a policy explicitly stating the installation, or attempted installation, of unapproved software can get you fired.

  4. Tell them how the users screwed things up on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Tell a Compelling Story About IT Infrastructure? · · Score: 4, Funny

    Try this one:

    Jane felt there were too many cables under her desk so she took her scissors to several of them and cut them back to the floor opening.

    Our team successfully ran new cables and got the network up and running in the space of half an hour as well proactively took steps to prevent such an occurrence in the future by tossing Jane out the window.

  5. Old age brings a decline? on Single Gene Can Boost IQ By Six Points · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I work with people across the entire working-age spectrum who are blithering idiots so I don't think it's just age which reduces ones mental acuity.

    Maybe this process can help them as well. Let's start with programmers followed by the executive staff for starters.

  6. Re:Don't see a problem on McAfee Grabbed Data Without Paying, Says Open Source Vulnerability Database · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Regardless of the legality, it was ethically wrong.

    But it's ethically okay for you (not necessarily you personally, but the big You) to take what you want from TPB, not paying the person who created the work for their efforts, right?

  7. Don't see a problem on McAfee Grabbed Data Without Paying, Says Open Source Vulnerability Database · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's not real like a car, it's digital. Everyone should have access to it for free.

    McAfee did nothing different than what millions of people do every day via TPB.

  8. Coincidentally. . . on Job Postings For Python, NoSQL, Apache Hadoop Way Up This Year · · Score: 1

    work performed by people relying on these folks to do their jobs falls dramatically. IT support staff frazzled at having to constantly find solutions to problems created by people who are supposedly wizards at what they do.

    IT management oblivious to problems so long as products get shoved at door and they can make their bonuses.

  9. Re:well on Actual Results of Crimean Secession Vote Leaked · · Score: 3, Informative

    You do realize stopping the flow of gas to Europe would hurt Europe more than it would Russia, don't you? That is why there are only economic sanctions going on and not the stopping of gas purchases because Europe needs that gas. And Russia knows this.

    The supply lines run from Russia to the west, not vice versa.

  10. Re:well on Actual Results of Crimean Secession Vote Leaked · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They have a vested interest in keeping Ukraine stable.

    So why are Russian troops and Russian-trained operatives fomenting the unrest we're seeing? Don't you think Russia would want Ukraine to avoid what's going on? Why lie about ethnic Russians supposedly being targeted when they could provide not a single shred of evidence to show this was happening?

    Russia started this because the people of Ukraine got fed up being used as a pawn by Russia and all the corruption their former leader was doing. That is why they opened up his former residence to show where the Ukrainian people's money was really going instead of for roads, electricity, etc.

    Russia is the one who is causing the problem and the lies of the Crimean vote show the reality of the situation. Putin has become a modern day Stalin, though without the gulags. From dictatorial control of the media, the false imprisonment of political rivals and those who oppose his authoritarian rule, manipulating vote counts and election qualifications, goon squads to rough up and kill opponents, he has taken Stalin's playbook and updated it for the modern era.

  11. Re:Pretty soon we'll all have exactly two choices on WSJ Reports AT&T May Be Eying a $40B DirecTV Acquisition · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is there no comparable funding in the US, and if not, what is the political obstacle?

    Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the U.S. government gave out billions of dollars to companies to lay fiber all over the country for the expected increase in internet usage. They were trying to give a boost to the thousands of ISPs we had at that time by taking over some of the cost of the upgrade.

    Tens of thousands of miles of fiber were laid and then nothing. It was at this same time The Great Consolidation started to take place and over the next decade we went from thousands of providers to a literal handful. All that taxpayer money that was given to companies to lay fiber went wasted because after it was laid, the money that was left over was used by companies to buy up competitors rather than upgrading backend services to provide higher speeds.

    The result is what you see today. 3 or 4 providers covering the country with the vast majority of people having only 1 or 2 providers to choose from, both offering the same high prices for the same slow speeds.

    The difference between your country and ours is that private industry is supposed to react to consumer demand by providing better products/services at lower prices than their competitor. In reality, millions of dollars each year are spent bribing elected officials and those involved with decision-making of rules and regulations to prevent real free market principles from taking hold.

    To be perfectly blunt, the way things are now in this country, with businesses holding sway and able to get elected officials to do their bidding, is not too far off from the way things were done in your country, and most of Eastern Europe under Soviet rule, in the past. What the people want is becoming less and less relevant with those who have the power and influence dictating how things will be.

  12. Re:Time to move into the Century of the fruit bat. on Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs · · Score: 1

    The interpretation comes from the ancient Hebrew writings which (supposedly) outline what the big guy said. As there have been a few years since the writings were created, and not many people still understand that form of language, they've misinterpreted what those writings said.

    This was compounded by the Christians not understanding what the original words were and changing the meaning.

    I'm not making this up. Go read the history of how this particular commandment has been misinterpreted for ages.

    Here is a good explanation of why people get it wrong and this onecomes from the Jewish perspective (ignore the vegetarianism portion).

  13. Re:Time to move into the Century of the fruit bat. on Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs · · Score: 1

    and God actually said 'Thou shalt not kill'.

    The correct interpretation is 'Thou shalt not murder'. A very significant difference. Besides, the Bible is full of tales of God telling people to kill someone, wipe out entire villages, towns and cities so obviously killing someone who has wronged society is not against Biblical doctrine (for whatever that is worth).

  14. Re:Time to move into the Century of the fruit bat. on Oklahoma Botched an Execution With Untested Lethal Injection Drugs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because of people like this. Or the person (or people) who thought it would be fun to put cats in a bag and beat them to death, or the guy who raped and killed an 11-month old.

    For these reasons, and a whole host of others, these people have decided the basic rules of society do not apply to them. As a result they need to be removed. Keeping them alive does nothing except waste taxpayer money on people who will never be productive members of society.

    That is why we have the death penalty.

  15. Re:As long as the US doesn't reign in on monopolie on Netflix Confirms Deal For Access To Verizon's Network · · Score: 1

    15/5 is shit. The speed should have been doubled years ago and the price should be substantially lower. For 15/5 Verizon wants to charge me $75/month and I'm hardly in the boondocks. For that speed the price should be $45.

    My points still stand. We have slow speeds and high prices in this country as a direct result of no competition.

  16. Re:Penis jokes aside... on US Nuclear Missile Silos Use Safe, Secure 8" Floppy Disks · · Score: 3, Interesting

    anyone remember in the pilot of the Battlestar Galactica remake . . . designed it that way on purpose to prevent hacking?

    I do and I grinned when I heard those lines. Like so many of us on here, I work in the IT field (mainly solving problems created by others), and want to continually smack people upside the head when I hear them talking about wanting to add devices at random to the network or all the things they do on their smart phones.

    The amount of people, in IT especially, who think networking everything is the be all and end all is staggering simply because these people, do not think the process through to realize the HUGE security issues they are opening themselves up to. These are the same people who think pushing the envelope of technology is a good thing until it bites them in the ass and they come running to my area to fix what it is they broke.

    In a way, I get a sense of schadenfreude when I hear about people who have their phones lost/stolen with all their information on it, or who install the latest and greatest piece of software and find themselves wide open to attack.

    Like most things, there is a reason not being at the forefront of technology is a good thing. You let others make the mistake and get exploited so you know how to be safe. In the case of Galactica, not being networked and not having the latest and greatest was its strongest defense.

  17. Re:As long as the US doesn't reign in on monopolie on Netflix Confirms Deal For Access To Verizon's Network · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Note that one key element of cost of any service is population density, not population.

    So what's the excuse for high prices and slow speeds in places such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, etc? Those would certainly qualify as population dense.

    The fact of the matter is the FCC, just like Congress and local governments, has been bribed to allow near monopolies to exist rather than enforcing existing laws regarding competition. As a result the U.S. continues to fall further and further behind the rest of the industrialized world in broadband penetration, speed and obviously, price.

    Currently we are ranked lower than places in the former Soviet Union for both speed and price, and well behind places such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. You can keep using the excuse of population density and large land area, but the reality of the situation is we have only 3 (maybe 4) providers in this country who have tacitly agreed not to compete with each other, the end result being what we have now: low speeds for high prices.

    Link one for reference

    Link two for reference

    Link three for reference

    Note that all of the above links are from November-December of 2013, less than six months ago so the information is up to date.

  18. Re:Good move on China Censors "The Big Bang Theory" and Other Streaming Shows · · Score: 2

    I've no idea what sort of creds the writers have

    Considering Mayim Bialik is an actual neuroscientist and several of the consultants for the show are physicists, the creds of the writers are very well established.

    Don't forget Danica McKellar who showed up for an episode, with her degree in mathematics (sum cum laude). Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and Neil Degrasse Tyson have also appeared with Hawking lending his electronic voice to a handful of episodes as well.

    The fact of the matter is the show is written to both poke fun at the foibles of the nerd/geek crowd as well as provide a light-hearted commentary of some of the people, similar to yourself no doubt, and how they perceive things. Yes, much of it is formulaic but the zingers are worth ignoring the obvious plot holes (the most common of which is how Penny can survive on a waitress salary).

    It's a show. Stop being a nerd and trying to dissect everything as if it's supposed to have some grand, overarching meaning to anything.

  19. Re:That is why social Hacking is Bad MmmKaa. on Anonymous's Latest Target: Boston Children's Hospital · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So then you're agreeing if I leave my door unlocked at night and someone comes in and steals something, it's my fault because the asshat thought it was okay to steal?

    Shall we take that twisted logic to the next phase and say if you get shot it's partly your fault because you weren't wearing a bullet-resistant vest? After all, you knowingly wore something which wasn't secure (your shirt/jacket) so obviously it's partly your fault for getting shot.

  20. Re:That is why social Hacking is Bad MmmKaa. on Anonymous's Latest Target: Boston Children's Hospital · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    If some crackers screw you over, that may be on them, but it's still partly your fault.

    So like when a woman is drunk and she gets raped, it's her fault. Gotcha.

    Essentially what you're saying is asshats like Anonymous don't have to take personal responsibility for their actions because their victims were asking for it.

  21. The Big Bang Theory quote time on Consumers Not Impressed With 3D Printing · · Score: 5, Funny

    Raj and Howard in front of a 3d printer:

    Raj: Ooh. I, I think it's done.

    (Opens door to printer)

    Raj: It worked! We printed a whistle.

    Howard: Amazing. You realize these things go for 25 cents a pop at a party store.

    Raj: And we made it in only three hours!

  22. Re:Animal cruelty? on NYC's 19th-Century Horse Carriages Spawn Weird, Truck-Size Electric Car · · Score: 2

    The difference is we have a choice when the weather gets too hot and humid or too cold as to whether we want to be out or not. The horses don't. They are at the whim of their owners.

    While there is a group of NYC officers whose job it is to check on the horses when the weather gets hot, and have the power to order the owners to take the horses to the stables, that is still different than humans being able to walk into an air conditioned building whenever they fell like it.

  23. Re:No answer will be given on Administration Ordered To Divulge Legal Basis For Killing Americans With Drones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My guy? Who said Obama is my guy? I am only pointing out that people who are up in arms about what he is doing were, for the most part, completely silent when Bush did it.

    Pick anything you like: executive privilege, spying on U.S. citizens, signing statements, the list goes on. Everything that he is doing, and the right is complaining about, are the exact same things Bush was doing and the right kept gloating about how well he was doing.

    We cannot have it both ways. If you're going to complain about how one person is doing something, you have to do it about the other. If you're not going to complain when your guy does it, you can't complain when someone else's guy does it.

  24. Re:No answer will be given on Administration Ordered To Divulge Legal Basis For Killing Americans With Drones · · Score: 0

    History dictates that Obama will declare "executive privilege" or some other nonsense

    So he'll be like George Bush? After all, the previous administration used every trick in the book to prevent the public from knowing what the White House was doing such as claiming he needed "unbiased" information which is why he refused to turn over the visitor logs when meeting with oil executives on U.S. energy policy, or claimed that by not opening emails they weren't "read" and so the contents didn't have to be turned over to investigators, the public or even backed up for historical purposes.

    And let's not forget Bush (and Vice-President Cheney) avoided every single Congressional request to testify on the failings of his administration to prevent the 9/11 attacks, including refusing to hand over every document requested by the 9/11 Commission except for one page, heavily redacted, which had the title, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack the U.S.".

    So if you're saying Obama will declare "executive privilege" or some other nonsense, we can safely assume he is following the example of his predecessor

  25. These drones aren't big enough or armed on Drones On Demand · · Score: 1

    I want a drone that I can call in when the person at the head of the line sits through an entire red light without making a right turn when it is safe to do so, thus holding everyone up and costing us money by idling. The drone has to be able to lift the heaviest, non-commercial vehicles.

    Conversely, I want a drone armed with Hellfire missiles to take out the asshats who drive during inclement weather without their headlights on, weave in and out of traffic just to get one car ahead and the ones who blatantly run red lights when the opposing traffic has the green light.

    Oh, and the same goes for bicyclists who believe the rules of the road don't apply to them (i.e. running red lights, driving against traffic and cutting in front of people).