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User: St.Creed

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  1. Wasn't their a rule about selling exploits? on Hacking Team Breach Leaks Zero-Days, Renews Fight To Regulate Cyberweapons · · Score: 1

    They were basically selling zero day exploits in pre-packaged kits to anyone with money. So... is that legal? Because it sounds like a winner.

  2. Re:terrorism, bomb, nuclear, child porn on Senate Advances Plan To Make Email and Social Sites Report Terror Activity · · Score: 1

    That will be in the legislation planned for 2016. You're just a tad early.

  3. Re:And how are they going to do this? on Senate Advances Plan To Make Email and Social Sites Report Terror Activity · · Score: 1

    Reported!

  4. Re:Small Sample Size on More Supermassive Black Holes Than We Thought! · · Score: 2

    From the article: “Although we have only detected five of these hidden supermassive black holes, when we extrapolate our results across the whole Universe then the predicted numbers are huge and in agreement with what we would expect to see.”

    I think they expected to see them, and this extrapolates to, indeed, huge numbers. If they hadn't found any, it wouldn't have proven anything. If they'd find just one, extrapolation is difficult because it might be a lucky shot. But 2 or higher? I think that unless they had a specially selected sample set, it's safe to assume that would mean huge numbers.

  5. Re:Small Sample Size on More Supermassive Black Holes Than We Thought! · · Score: 3

    They looked at 9 galaxies and found 5 hidden SMBHs. I guess that's a pretty good case for extrapolation to higher numbers, assuming they picked random galaxies without visible SMBHs at the center and with a type that is not too different from other galaxies. I'm willing to assume they're not completely stupid :)

  6. Re:Glaciers melting in the dead of night on More Supermassive Black Holes Than We Thought! · · Score: 1

    Love that tune. I first heard in the version of 2cellos with Naya Rivera ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) but I admit the Muse original is better in the musical department :)

  7. Re:Indeed on AMAgeddon: Reddit Mods Are Locking Up the Site's Most Popular Pages In Protest · · Score: 5, Informative

    While Voltaire defended free speech, I doubt he defended a form that was as absolute as people who quote him make it out to be.

    The quote about "I will defend to the death etc." wasn't actually said BY Voltaire, but ABOUT him, by an early biographer.

    Here is a quote from the man himself, from his 1763 Treatise on Toleration: “The supposed right of intolerance is absurd and barbaric. It is the right of the tiger; nay, it is far worse, for tigers do but tear in order to have food, while we rend each other for paragraphs.”

    An example of intolerance is Goebels on the radio. Or radio presenters calling on the radio for extermination of the Hutu's in the neighbourhood, telling people where and when to gather for that, and giving out pointers on how and why you should kill the Hutu's - as Radio Milles Collines did in Rwanda. Which was absolutely crucial to the genocide taking place. I doubt Voltaire would approve of that and say "oh, it's free speech. We really should defend the right of those poor folk to criticize the Hutu's for being alive."

    There hasn't been a single great thinker or writer on free speech who also didn't recognize its limits. Or had a specific purpose in mind for free speech. Only when the debate is divorced from reality, and waged in abstract terms, do we get the pretty weird outcomes we can see today.

  8. Re:It has always been done. on AMAgeddon: Reddit Mods Are Locking Up the Site's Most Popular Pages In Protest · · Score: 2

    Undead territory.

  9. Re:Indeed on AMAgeddon: Reddit Mods Are Locking Up the Site's Most Popular Pages In Protest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We are the same free minded geeks who have been around since Internet day 1

    No, you're not. You weren't born on the Internet's "day one". I was there on the other hand, and the people I knew back then would have had pieces of Gamergaters/MRAs/KiAs/and /pol in their crap. You guys aren't fit to name the people who were there at the Internet's day one.

    To be honest, when we only had usenet I was nearly suspended from my CS study for a few weeks because a flame with what was probably the first notorious troll in the country got a bit out of hand and we descended into namecalling ("idiot" was used, I believe)... good times :)

    But you're right. The folks driving gamergate are a bunch of right wing teens that think that shouting "free speech! free speech!" is somehow a laissez-passer for racism and sexism, and then act like victims if someone responds to it and shoots back.

  10. You people are the rednecks of the internet, and YEEHAW I GOTS MY FREE SPEECH BUT DON'T KNOW WHERE TO POINT IT.

    Your opinion is not the one that is objectively right, as opinions cannot be objective. So stop trying to pretend you're a good guy to everyone else being "evil". Voltaire was not evil.

    You're not Voltaire. And neither is anyone on reddit.

  11. Re:Let me take this one on UK Government Illegally Spied On Amnesty International · · Score: 3

    That.

    And, it also helps if you know the sources that provide information to Amnesty International. You can then leak them 'totally by accident' to the friendly raving lunatic in the country you're doing business with, and *poof* no more complaints. Or complainers.

    It happened in the UK as well: human rights campaigners have been targetted by hit squads in the past, especially Irish campaigners, journalists, lawyers etc. in Northern Ireland were at serious risk, because the police would leak the addresses and names of those folks that were suspected of IRA sympathies to the extreme right wing deathsquads of the Orange order.

    So for everyone in the UK, hearing about this brings back a lot of old and unpleasant memories.

  12. Re:So much hate here.. on Ask Slashdot: User-Friendly, Version-Preserving File Sharing For Linux? · · Score: 1

    Just use Dropbox. It satisfies all of the requirements in the summary and it's easier to set up than a fileshare, for most users.

  13. Re:Boo hoo... on Google, Apple, and Others Remove Content Related To the Confederate Flag · · Score: 1

    The Dutch were under a lot of pressure from the British to abolish slavery, both for moral and economic reasons (unfair competition). They were also the last ones to abolish it in the colonies. And even then, they richly compensated the slave owners - not the slaves.

    Let's give credit were credit is due: the British were very ardent about ending slavery. And while the British Empire has not exactly been a shining beacon of human rights in all of its history, in this case they set an example that still shines through the ages. And I say this as a Dutch citizen.

  14. Re:Boo hoo... on Google, Apple, and Others Remove Content Related To the Confederate Flag · · Score: 1

    I must say, it was the first time I understood why he is portrayed with an axe sometimes. I mean, as a European citizen you don't always get all the cultural background that enrich these historical epics.

  15. Re:Those evil enemy oppressors on Google, Apple, and Others Remove Content Related To the Confederate Flag · · Score: 1

    My take on it: The North needed more labourers. The South had plenty that wanted to go North, but didn't allow them to leave because they were property. This directly messed up the ability of the manufacturing in the Northern states to expand.

    If we assume that the root of the problem is a conflict between different sets of capitalists over how best to exploit their labourers, everything that happened afterwards follows quite naturally from that assumption.

  16. Re:Who buys them? on Is the End of Government Acceptance of Homeopathy In Sight? · · Score: 1

    I suspect a sizable number of people go in to pharmacies desperate for anything that will relieve their 2 year old's stomach/congestion/whatever and ended up leaving with homoeopathic crap

    I think the same. And I suspect it saves a lot of lives otherwise lost due to overmedication, or giving potent medication with harmful side effects, where nothing was actually needed.

    Besides, sometimes babies just cry because their parents are nervous. If they can give the baby something that will "cure" the baby, they calm down, so does the baby, and everyone's happy. If there is something wrong for real, the baby will continue to be sick and smart parents will go to a real doctor. The rest just helps evolution do its work.

  17. Re:Does it matter? on Is the End of Government Acceptance of Homeopathy In Sight? · · Score: 0

    On the other hand, over here you need to have it prescribed by an actual doctor to get the treatment paid for by your insurance. And they don't do stupid stuff like giving homeopathic treatment for actual acute disorders.

    However, they do prescribe it where it might do some good: for hard to explain, vague issues that are possible more psychological than physiological in nature. And that's a good thing, because doctors won't prescribe a placebo nowadays, but *can* prescribe a homeopathic medicine that's pretty sure to be harmless.

    And I've seen some pretty weird results with eczema in little children. Even heavy eczema, treated by hormone salves, cured overnight. Including in my own son, because "what the hell, nothing else works so let's try it." - and it cured him of it in two weeks time, taking 6 little sugar pills, for two years, and only very minor symptoms for the past decade.

    So while I'm willing to accept that there is literally nothing in the placebo, the placebo by itself works miracles. And we also know that placebos work better if you believe in them more, and when they are more expensive.

    That is why I'm advocating for allowing homeopathic medication, because why give up a random chance of 1 in 3 to get cured, for almost no side effects?

  18. Re:WindowsME 2.0 on The Unintended Consequences of Free Windows 10 For Everyone · · Score: 0

    Thanks for the heads up, it more or less confirms the plan I already had:

    - Install Windows 10 as required, and activate it.
    - Install a clean Windows 7 again.
    - Wait until the bugs are fixed
    - Carefully try it at someone else's PC if everyone says it's okay
    - Install Windows 10 if it provides any benefit.

  19. Re:Star Trek solution, eh? on Plasma Resonance Could Overcome Radio Silence For Returning Spacecraft · · Score: 4, Insightful

    what can be done in that precise stage so the comunication channel becomes the difference between live and death?

    We can send telemetry, making a difference between life and death for the *next* crew to go up.

  20. Re:Time to recompile humanity on Editing DNA For Fame and Fortune · · Score: 1

    However, nature was optimizing for survival until somewhere around the age of 16. Any time after that was just an unintentional, beneficial side effect. I do agree with the GP that we can probably enhance ourselves quite a bit to optimize for survival to, say, 200 years of age.

    It probably wouldn't even take all that much. What about a second heart? Take up cancer resistance genes that give more heart issues, but offset that with a smaller backup heart tucked away somewhere. Most americans have got plenty of space for a full RAID-5 set of them :)

    Optimize the lay-out of our spine. It sucks. We can develop much stronger, lighter spines nowadays, without touching the original purpose.

    Optimize our air intake channels: our lungs were developed when the air intake was at the front instead of the top, and stuff that came in was pulled out by gravity eventually.

    Remove killer mutations before birth. A personal one - I've several acquaintances with dead babies due to genetic defects. Horrible, painful, lingering deaths in both cases. Both rare enough that the standard screening didn't get it. Once we can cure the carriers this won't happen as much as it does now.

    Etcetera.

    Nature doesn't optimize. The first working solution is the one that has the advantage and thus gets adopted. We can do better with a little thought and foresight, once we understand genetics - but we're not so near that point as some people like to believe, I fear.

  21. Re:You've made me curious on Amazon Pulls Kodi Media Player From App Store Over Piracy Claims · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think they mean plugins like Genesis (http://www.tvaddons.ag/). It's pre-loaded on mine and works great.

  22. Re:Pronoun Game Anyone? on Amazon Pulls Kodi Media Player From App Store Over Piracy Claims · · Score: 2

    I just bought one of those boxes for my wife. The Minix Neo X8. Lovely little thingy. It came pre-installed with all standard addons for normal TV and movies but I didn't have to pay extra. It was provided as a service, free of charge, by the vendor. So yes, people do expect those addons to be there apparently, because the vendors don't do it just because they can. Anyone not pre-installing them is liable to get the box returned as "not working".

    I love that little box btw. I actually started watching TV again, after discovering Agents of Shield - and I haven't watched *any* TV for years.

  23. Re:The mafia state on Journalist Burned Alive In India For Facebook Post Exposing Corruption · · Score: 2

    The minister who ordered the murder must have felt totally untouchable.

    I think he felt totally Brahmin, actually.

    But let's just say it's not a complete surprise that Uttar Pradesh has a very lively Maoist rebellion going on. I'd probably join them, if I was a peasant living there.

  24. Re:How is this devoid of meaning? on On Managing Developers · · Score: 1

    Yes, that was a painfully dumb remark in the summary.

  25. Re:same as maanaging any other productive group on On Managing Developers · · Score: 2

    Amen to that. I once had someone removed from a project I worked on, because even after a week of explaining WHAT I wanted, it wasn't getting anywhere. I later worked on another project where they brought in a new programmer - lo and behold, the person I managed to get fired walked in. As it turned out, when given explicit instructions and a template, we got passable code. It just took a bit of time to set things up at first.

    Personally, I'd not have hired that person in the first place, but when you lead a team that's been selected for you, you have to play the hand you're dealt.