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User: apenzott

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  1. If the FAA can survive a major outage... on Multiple US Airlines Hit By Flight Check-in and Booking Systems Outage (nbcbayarea.com) · · Score: 1

    If the FAA can survive a system-wide computer outage and land every plane that was launched safely, what is the fail-safe system that can allow airlines to check-in passengers in the event of such an outage.

    Answer:
    Paper tickets, pre-printed manifests with the expected (confirmed) passengers expecting to board the flights, with space to write-in any pop-up standby passengers.

    That racket you hear at the check-in gate is an impact printer (usually dot matrix) printing multiple carbon copies of the final manifests before departure. This is a carry-over from earlier FAA rules requiring such a paper trail (with signatures) in duplicates.

  2. What about self-censorship? on Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    I know that Facebook doesn't censor my political views, as I already do that for my own postings. Twitter, censoring nothing is easy as I don't use that service.

  3. When I read that initially, I thought the article was saying that Symantec was also breached.

  4. Thanks to the NHTSA, that shouldn't be problem on Elon Musk Sides With Trump On Trade With China, Citing 25 Percent Import Duty On American Cars (cnbc.com) · · Score: 2

    The United States already has a De-facto import duty against importing Chinese cars in that none so far are able to get https://www.nhtsa.gov/ approval for importing them into the United States.

  5. Re:Impossible due to widespread use of ASICs in ne on China Tells Carriers To Block Access to Personal VPNs By February (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1
    Two words:

    Zone Transfer.

    This is how one DNS server shares its list of DNS entries with another. The transfer could also include a bunch of TXT records with cleverly included "certificates" as part of its payload.

    I am thinking all that Facebook has to do to make WhatsApp global would be to sponsor one of the root servers that can use UDP 53 with cleverly encoded TXT records for the transaction. It would also work for DNS delegation where direct connections are not possible.

  6. Randomize the judges on US Top Court Considers Changing Where Patent Cases May Be Filed (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    I would take all of the judges, as they finish their case loads, and completely disperse them randomly to all the federal court districts.

    The idea is a patent troll wouldn't be able to venue shop as their favorite judge may be in the heart of Silicon Valley, right alongside other judges that frown upon this revenue seeking business model.

    To the patent troll, this puts the randomness back into Russian Roulette, by having at least one chamber loaded.

  7. Make censorship dashboard visible (read only) on Facebook Said To Create Censorship Tool To Get Back Into China (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    If I were Facebook. I would implement the censorship tools, but I would make the censorship filters, settings, and collected stat world readable.

  8. Update: Judge threw out charge on Journalists Face Jail Time After Reporting on North Dakota Pipeline Protest (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    N. Dakota charges reporter with 'riot' for covering protest--but gets slapped down by judge
    http://www.latimes.com/busines...

  9. Re:This is not going to work well. on U.S. Funds Challenges To North Korea's 'Information Shield' (freekorea.us) · · Score: 1

    I would "salt" the DVD drop with AOL CDs/DVDs to multiply their propaganda disposal efforts.

  10. Re:40% profit, not 400% on Apple Is Making Life Terrible In Its Factories (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 1
    Apple still has an ongoing operating cost on each of these iDevices after they are made and sold.

    This is for the back-end Big Data needed to make these devices perform their magic throughout the service life of the device and Apple has invested substantially in several large data centers to make that happen.

    (I am going to stop here as there are additional R&D efforts that are not yet public knowledge.)

  11. Is there any way to load a pre-paid card with a huge negative balance? Such that when somebody moves the negative quantity to their account, it actually cleans them out?

    I like your thinking. Let the State Troopers go gold digging in a financial minefield.

  12. Defcon 1 Gift Cards (lockout codes) on Oklahoma State Troopers Use New Device To Seize Bank Accounts During Traffic Stops (news9.com) · · Score: 1

    From the financial powers that be, perhaps the folks within the Secret Service/Office of the Inspector General should issue some "Defcon 1" gift cards (not to be used except under financial duress) that will immediately lock-out the merchant accounts used in this regard. The merchant accounts would then be impounded by the treasury for further examination into money laundering.

  13. Magnuson Moss Warranty Act? on Have Your iPhone 6 Repaired, Only To Get It Bricked By Apple (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I would like to see how this squares with the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act.

    The provisions for the FTC and the resultant class action provisions could get expensive.

  14. If you can't beat them... on L.A. Police: All Cars In L.A. Are Under Investigation · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...Join them.

    I believe another strategy on this would be to setup a crowdsource movement to create Android based ALPR devices and scatter them all over LA County and have these devices harvest data for uploading to the web for EVERYONE to view, especially with the ability to get real-time tracking on any California (E) plated (governmental) vehicle.

    By doing this, it would encourage the lawmakers to make it a requirement to have a specific warrant before this data collected by anyone. This assumes that the new law would be designed to raise barriers to "amateurs" entering the ALPR business and use them indiscriminately.

    Best results if that can also be done in the District of Columbia and Sacramento, CA so we can keep tabs on our lawmakers actions.

  15. Let NBC compete with the international peers on US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online · · Score: 1

    I would pay to have BBC coverage of the Olympics in the States.
    NBC couldn't pay me to watch their coverage.

    (Cord cutter since 1995).

  16. Re:Open Source on iPhone will be fun ... on FCC App Lets Android Users Measure Mobile Broadband Speed · · Score: 1

    The fun begins when the iDevice app is rejected, and Apple has to explain itself to the FCC their decision.

    Remember that the FCC came down on AT&T, Apple, and Verizon on the absence of tethering apps and tethering functionality that was carrier crippled and ORDERED them to explain themselves.

  17. Why not give EVERY resident a PO Box on Door-To-Door Mail Delivery To End Under New Plan · · Score: 2

    In some small towns, there is no mail delivery.

    I would prefer that the USPS grant everyone a PO Box, with automatic translation of Street Address to assigned PO Box. This would reduce the amount of letter carriers needed for a given zip code immensely. With that savings, parcel lockers and extended front desk hours would be within reach.

  18. Lode Data on Ask Slashdot: Best Software For Tracking Fiber Optic Networks? · · Score: 1

    Although this product is part of a larger selection of CATV design software, it is well written for the lifecycle installed metro fiber with the ability to pre-allocate either fiber or individual lambdas based upon anticipated needs and stakeholders. In addition, it incorporates storage of OTDR results and allows some extrapolation for expected signal strength should future cuts and splices be needed in the future. Their traditional copper plant design tools are nice to have should this be part of a campus network design with a traditional (institution owned) CATV plant.

    Results are linked through AutoCAD files for both the metro fiber map out in the field as well as documenting terminations inside the (head-end and distro) facilities as well.

    Disclaimer: I have taken their Lode Data training as part of college campus CATV upgrade and have been please with what I saw on their fiber plant software.

  19. What are they shutting down exactly? on Senate Panel Approves Website Shut-Down Bill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I doubt that these senators have considered the possibly that being able to shut down an offending site (say Bing, Google, Hotmail, Yahoo, Youtube, ) wouldn't have significant collateral damage.

    This is equivalent to shutting down an entire mall (which happens to include an office for the County Tax Assessor, small FBI field office, post office and police substation) on the account of one bad employee grossly (mis)representing the interests of the merchant renting space in said mall.

    Bottom line:
    Merely having such a kill switch is not a license use it indiscriminately and not face the consequences of its misuse.
    (Notice that engineers are required to retain errors and omissions insurance for bad engineering decisions, but no legislator is required to retain insurance for passing of bad laws.)

  20. Counter-suit stratagy on Music Festival Producer Pre-Sues Bootleggers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would like to see a John/Jane Doe counter-sue the promoter and request an injunction to prevent the event from happening. Using the **AA logic against them, canceling the event and refunding all the sold tickets and paying the resultant venue cancellation fees would be far less costly than dealing with the resultant piracy with very little hope of cost recovery from said lawsuit.

  21. Why can't they use this data fix their coverage? on Telcos Waking Up To the Value of Your Location · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems odd that now that the carriers have GPS coordinates of where their subscribers are using their services, that they seem unwilling to use this data (GPS coordinates and dropped calls) to improve their coverage and services where the customer needs it.

    Oh, that entails spending money rather than making money. (Fail.)

  22. Let them discuss this in secret.. (90 day penalty) on Ambassador Claims ACTA Secrecy Necessary · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We will lobby Congress to keep this law in the penalty box for 90 days (one senator on a filibuster) once it is revealed so that the layperson can review it.

  23. Re:Old school on How To Enter Equations Quickly In Class? · · Score: 1

    I quit using pencil when I had a calculus instructor that sped through examples faster than any pencil (mechanical, #6, other) could keep up with. I switched to pen as it was the only writing implement that could keep up without fail.

    Errors were corrected in-line as a mark-up.

  24. Re:Let me get the straight... on US Fed Gov. Says All Music Downloads Are Theft · · Score: 1

    I deliberately posed this as a trick question and you took the bait.

    According to the copyright law as written in Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 the Federal Government is prohibited from holding any copyright (with rare exceptions that probably don't apply here.)

    Besides, the original song was written during the War of 1812 so the music copyright is out the window, that leaves the performance right.

  25. Let me get the straight... on US Fed Gov. Says All Music Downloads Are Theft · · Score: 1

    If I were to stream and copy the American National Anthem as performed by the US Marines from the most recent Presidential Inauguration, who am I stealing from?

    Who owns the copyright and who will make the claim that I have "stolen" (infringed on their copyright?)
    What is the criteria of disallowing fair-use for such an official and publicly performed work?

    Zero Tolerance = Zero Sensibility = Zero Critical Thinking