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User: gcnaddict

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  1. You guys understand why they're doing this, right? on Microsoft Taps PBS To Advance Its National Talent Strategy With 'Code Trip' · · Score: 1

    The prices for engineers are quite high, and the PR cost in importing them is also quite high, so they're pouring money into education as a long-term investment in driving down the cost of developers in the future.

    Heh, might as well.

  2. Re:Interesting argument on ISPs Claim Title II Regulations Don't Apply To the Internet Because "Computers" · · Score: 2

    and deaths, when they happen. First hacking death, e.g. by someone messing with a defib remotely? (This possibility was discussed in a defcon talk last year) Well if they're not protected as common carriers, things could get interesting.

  3. Interesting argument on ISPs Claim Title II Regulations Don't Apply To the Internet Because "Computers" · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...except it all falls on its face because ultimately, the networks of computers are being used to communicate data between humans and other computers. hence telecommunication.

  4. Re:... and the hype for Windows 10 begins.... on Experiment: Installing Windows 10 On a 7-Year-Old Acer Aspire One · · Score: 1

    The update issue doesn't exist for enterprise systems. Just the consumer and SB-oriented Home and Pro versions.

  5. Re:Transparency on Elon Musk: Faulty Strut May Have Led To Falcon 9 Launch Failure · · Score: 1

    That said, it is pretty stupid that Space X has not been testing random parts

    So uh... "Further testing of struts in stock found one that failed at 2,000 pounds of force"

    Sounds to me like they likely were testing them at random and then decided to start testing a vastly significant number of them to troubleshoot.

  6. Re:Earth not a globe, where are they going?? on Company Aims To Launch Spacecraft On Beams of Microwaves · · Score: 1
  7. Re:Of course on 'Pluto Truthers' Are Pretty Sure That the NASA New Horizons Mission Was Faked · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nope. See, the way it was done was by employing ~19,000 to go forward with the mission, but at some point, a small team running maintenance on the mission mid-transit realized the mission failed when the probe was popped 2/3rds of the way through its flight. A plan was hatched with the NSA to use existing test code from the development effort to emulate signals from the probes at all the telescopes capable of listening to it. The NSA's role would simply be to install the interception equipment at the telescopes to man-in-the-middle the responses from the telescopes to the relevant computers in such a way that the expected test data would be injected. Therefore, you only had a small team of maybe ~50 which was involved in covering up the failure of the operation, including a few graphic designers who could create astounding mockups of Pluto and Charon extrapolated from a combination of the Hubble 2010 image with artistic direction guided by existing photos of Triton, a body very similar to Pluto. Introduce a scary software glitch mid-flight because nothing ever goes 100% right. As far as the ~19,000 knew, the mission succeeded.

    OR, the glitch a weekish before the rendezvous was the point where the graphic design and emulation teams would have to be brought in. THAT's what happened! It's just that the probe was unrecoverable from a software glitch!

    Or, you know, it actually went as fucking planned.

  8. Well, she was an interim. on Ellen Pao Leaves Reddit; Site Founder Steve Huffman Makes a Triumphant Return · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ellen made all the hard changes, like clamping down on offensive speech. She was then canned as a scapegoat, the desired person was brought in for the long term role, and all of Ellen's changes stick.

    All the while, Reddit looks like it acquiesced to the masses. Brilliantly played.

  9. Re:Oh hell no! on The Uber Economy Needs a New Category of Worker · · Score: 4, Informative

    A contractor is free to decide when and where the work is done. So Uber does not fit the contractor model.

    And before anyone disagrees with this, I should note in duckintheface's favor that Uber penalizes drivers who decline too many fares, especially drivers of upscale services such as UberBlack who turn down too many UberX fares. Ergo, drivers cannot reasonably decide which work to take, reinforcing duckintheface's point.

    A cab doesn't have this problem.

  10. Re:If... on SF86 Data Captured In OPM Hack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The only times we've ever heard of the US actually doing anything were with Stux and its variants, and that was always after they had done their damage. There really wasn't much of anything else, so there's no real way to know who's better because of the clandestine nature of these operations anyway.

    At the very least, we know the Chinese are prolific, but we have no idea if the Chinese are better, the Russians, the United States, the Israelis... heck, maybe the Brits upstaged everyone. It's impossible to know.

  11. Re:bundle on Ask Toolbar Now Considered Malware By Microsoft · · Score: 4, Informative

    Getting there. Microsoft released a no-install version of Java bundled with Minecraft recently, so you can still play Minecraft without actually needing to hook Java into everything.

  12. Her campaign page is up. on Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina Announces Bid For White House · · Score: 3, Funny

    carlyfiorina.org makes for insightful reading. I understood a lot about her conservative economic position after visiting.

  13. Re:I hope it's a publicity stunt on Surgeon Swears Human Head Transplant Isn't a 'Metal Gear Solid' Publicity Stunt · · Score: 1

    Brain death qualifies a donor to donate a body.

  14. Guys. The worst part. I found it. on Popular Android Package Uses Just XOR -- and That's Not the Worst Part · · Score: 1

    Google them. They're a publicly traded company. NQ Mobile

  15. Opinions on the Koenigsseg Regera? on Ask GM's Exec. Chief Engineer For Electric Vehicles Pam Fletcher a Question · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Marketing Literature - Top Gear writeup

    Asking because it seems they've used electric motors in a more direct capacity to allow them to ditch a traditional gearbox altogether, and since electric vehicles and supercars are both points of experience for you, you're in a unique position to share insight on where this kind of technology might end up.

  16. Re:Experience on Data Research Reveals When Taking a Yellow Cab Is Cheaper Than an Uber · · Score: 0

    In Uber... you get a new, higher end black car or SUV

    Reading comprehension issues, much? The study compared UberX, not Uber Black or any of the other higher tier Uber offerings.

  17. Re:Don't be so sure of that! on Linux Kernel Adopts 'Code of Conflict' · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With GNOME and Firefox, it was said early on that bad UI changes were just experimental, and could be ignored. If they were bad, they'd be reverted. Well, they did turn out to be bad. They were very bad, in fact. Yet they were not reverted. Once they were in place, they were pretty much considered as being locked in. Any critics were ridiculed and silenced. There was no going back at that point. What is the end result? GNOME is basically a dead project, and Firefox is near death.

    Sounds like the sunk cost fallacy in play. Lots of investment in a bad decision makes people feel obligated to stay the course because of the unrecoverable development time.

  18. Re:Stop deleting the NSA hard drive backdoor news on Superfish Security Certificate Password Cracked, Creating New Attack Vector · · Score: 2

    Um, already discussed. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

  19. Acronym usage on US Health Insurer Anthem Suffers Massive Data Breach · · Score: 3, Insightful
    If you're only using an acronym once, expand it in-line. For instance:

    Personally identifiable information (PII) should be classified based on sensitivity. At a certain level, that PII must be encrypted during transit. At the highest level, it must be encrypted during transit and at rest. Social security number falls in the highest sensitivity level. Standard operating procedure for years. This doesn't guarantee you won't get hacked, but it reduces / minimizes the impact if you are hacked.

    Not saying this to be a dick. Saying it because the way you come across right now is as someone who takes pride in stuffing jargon in the faces of others.

  20. Censorship? on Blogger Who Revealed GOP Leader's KKK Ties Had Home Internet Lines Cut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gee, they fight for their second amendment rights but stop someone else from using their rights under the first.

    "My rights are for me and me alone."

  21. Re:One has to wonder on IRS Warns of Downtime Risk As Congress Makes Cuts · · Score: 4, Informative
  22. Re:not a serious proposal on NASA Study Proposes Airships, Cloud Cities For Venus Exploration · · Score: 1

    Other than, you know, zero-delay research of atmospheric conditions on Venus.

    You know, the first steps to determining if there's even a distant shot in hell of terraforming the place in a century or three.

  23. Re:Knowledge is the solution on Time To Remove 'Philosophical' Exemption From Vaccine Requirements? · · Score: 1

    than making sure a few children^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hwhole bunch of innocent people who can't get vaccinated as well as a few of those who have received their vaccines don't get sick.

    fixed.

  24. Re:Clearance on Ask Slashdot: Can a Felon Work In IT? · · Score: 2

    Clearances are about trust and risk. Can a candidate be trusted? Can a candidate sufficiently avoid blackmail? If both are true, the candidate has a good likelihood of getting cleared.

    Everything that's evaluated is done so against these two questions. With this in mind, the list of crimes which can sufficiently bar a person from cleared work is very, very low.

  25. Clearance on Ask Slashdot: Can a Felon Work In IT? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seek federal jobs which offer a clearance. If you admit to everything thoroughly and give the investigators the truth, and if they're not worried about you after all of that (they think the risk of recidivism is low), you'll get the job and you can say on your resume you were cleared for federal work.

    Whenever you decide to leave, the fact that you had a clearance might actually help counteract your priors.