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User: N1AK

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  1. Re:that's funny... on Taylor Swift: Apple's Disdain For Royalties Is 'Shocking, Disappointing' · · Score: 2

    That's exactly what it is; it's an idiotic position but a combination of Apple fanboyism and wannabe hipster disdain for Swift seems to be enough for some people to believe it.

  2. Re:that's funny... on Taylor Swift: Apple's Disdain For Royalties Is 'Shocking, Disappointing' · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Keeping her album out while allowing the three month test to move forward makes the project less likely to be successful and more likely for new and upcoming artists to lose their investment from allowing their works to be included.

    Well you sure got proven wrong pretty damn quickly.

    Apple wanted to give away someone else's product for 3 months in order to drive demand for its own product. It really doesn't take a genius to work out why the people Apple was trying to exploit didn't like the idea; to Apple's credit they caught on and changed policy pretty damn quickly.

  3. Re:Not for me... on Apple Will Pay More To Streaming Music Producers Than Spotify -- But Not Yet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think you're giving yourself too much credit. Who sells CDs second hand: People who buy CDs, including people who buy them new; and what do they do with the money raised by selling music... at least partly use it to purchase new music.

    You're the music industries worse nightmare in the same way the guy who buys 2nd hand cars, and indirectly keeps the new car and trade-in markets going, is Ford's worst nightmare: In. No. Way. At. All.

  4. Re:Hash and Salt on LastPass Reporting a Security Breach, Including Authentication Hashes and Salts · · Score: 1

    I always assumed the per user salt was purely to make using a hash table much harder (effectively impossible), in which case it would still be effective.

  5. Re:Who the fuck would use something like that? on LastPass Reporting a Security Breach, Including Authentication Hashes and Salts · · Score: 1

    What happens if you lose the device? If it backs them up where does it back them up to, how does it get them to the backup and how secure is it? Without knowing a lot more I'd be equally, or more dubious, of claims that password managers on devices like phones are any more secure overall.

  6. Re:Who the fuck would use something like that? on LastPass Reporting a Security Breach, Including Authentication Hashes and Salts · · Score: 1

    Use a local password manager.

    Because a local machine is inherently unhackable...

    There are plenty of tech-savvy people who use services like LastPass. Of course putting all your passwords in one place, on one server, comes with risks. It also has a few advantages, including: > They notify you of hacks to sites you have passwords stored for > You don't have to type passwords, protecting you from keyloggers If it turns out that the people who've attacked LastPass have information that genuinely puts my passwords at risk then I can change my passwords. I'd assume they are going to generate and apply new per user salts, and everything else declared doesn't overly concern me. If it turns out that someone has the encrypted file containing passwords, and the salt, then I'll change my passwords even though it's almost inconceivable that anyone would take the effort to decrypt the files.

  7. Re:Ridiculous on So Long Voicemail, Give My Regards To the Fax Machine · · Score: 1

    Exactly. The one that really makes me laugh is the people who say they never answer the phone because they focus on priorities all the time. Great, but I do answer my phone except to people who consistently ignore my calls. Now, every time you need to get hold of me urgently you're shit out of luck. You can mail or message me, and you'll likely be waiting a while for a response because I don't monitor those in real time.

  8. Re:One thing I hate on So Long Voicemail, Give My Regards To the Fax Machine · · Score: 2

    I like voicemail but I'll happily admit the standard process for accessing it is shit. I use Hullomail that effectively provides an inbox for voicemail. I can play, delete, forward messages as I wish immediately. I genuinely think half or more of the voicemail hate comes from the arduous process of accessing it, rather than its existence.

  9. Re:Makes sense on So Long Voicemail, Give My Regards To the Fax Machine · · Score: 2
    Not everyone has IM, not everyone who has IM is always at a PC, not everyone who has IM and is at a PC wants IM notifications popping up on their screen distracting them.

    Removing voicemail, rather than addressing its misuse seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There seem to be multiple situations in which voicemail provides value, especially when people are regularly away from a desk. I use Hullomail on my personal phone and it makes voicemail something I'm happy to use. If someone phones me, they can leave a voicemail and I can play it immediately at the touch of a button.

    My usual response when someone IMs me asking if I'm free is to give them an estimate (usually 5-15 minutes) of how long I need to complete what I'm working on so that I'm free to talk. A phone ringing unexpectedly is an annoying interruption and listening to a voice mail is a nuisance.

    My usual response to an IM when I'm busy is not to see it (notifications will be turned off). If I don't want my phone to ring I put it on silent, or a restricted ring group, checking voicemail when I'm then free isn't exactly a great hardship.

  10. Re:So we have a lack of people with wha skills? on Disney Making Laid-Off US Tech Workers Train Foreign H1-B Replacements · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that there is so many taxes, both direct and indirect, that it just makes more sense to assign a function, assuming it can be assigned, to the worker residing in India.

    You cant credibly just claim that taxes are the cause of every issue and expect it to be taken at face value. Do you really think that taxes are the only reason why Disney can save huge amounts by outsourcing from the US to India? Sure a combination of taxes, worker rights etc, combined with much lower living costs in India may justify it, but do you really want to slash the services provided by government and allow American firms to disregard worker safety and rights to the same extent as India, in the likely false hope that it will stop firms moving labour abroad where they can.

  11. Re:Turn over, Benjamin Franklin on The Bizarre Process Used For Approving Exemptions To the DMCA · · Score: 1

    There's one (appeal to authority), and even that is dubious as he doesn't state it as fact that Franklin would react in the way he supposes; it's also equally present in the post he was responding to. Your own post definitely includes one. However it wouldn't take a student of philosophy to know any of this.

  12. Re:good principle! on The Bizarre Process Used For Approving Exemptions To the DMCA · · Score: 1

    I tried being polite but you are not only a fucking idiot but one that wants to throw away what George Washington gave you.

    I tend to lose a lot of sympathy for people when, like in this case, someone responds to a reference they don't have personal experience of, by doing a two minute Google/Wikipedia search and then respond like they have actually studied it.

  13. Re: Hey, it's the only Blu-Ray I own on Tron 3 Is Cancelled · · Score: 1

    And moreover the global audience is more diverse, and therefore is more open to unusual films than the north-americans.

    So. Fucking. What. I don't care if Sub-Saharan Africans are more willing to accept novel supercar designs if they can't afford to buy them. There's a pretty huge open and diverse audience within the US as well, from the Americans I know, but if that isn't where the studio thinks the big money is then they don't focus most of their effort on it.

  14. Re:Jesus on Scientists Discover Sawfish Escape Extinction Through "Virgin Births" · · Score: 2

    You must be the soul of the party wherever you go....

    Says the person who went off on one because of a single sentence comment on an online forum.

  15. Re: Hey, it's the only Blu-Ray I own on Tron 3 Is Cancelled · · Score: 1

    And finnaly world wide public = paying public too, so they are as important (or more) as north-american public. And note that the global audience is much more numerous and diverse than the north-american public.

    No they aren't. Film studios care more about markets that make them money (or may in future make them more money), not about markets which have larger populations and which are more diverse.

    If a studio can keep 90% of ticket sales of a new release in the US but only gets to keep 50% of the much smaller number of ticket sales for a new release in Hungary then they clearly are going to give less of a toss about the Hungarian market.

  16. Re:free... on California Is Giving Away Free Solar Panels To Its Poorest Residents · · Score: 1

    Air is free. I've never had to pay anyone to produce it for my respiration.

    No it isn't, think of all the legislation that goes into limiting emissions and protecting vegetation in order to improve/maintain air quality. That firewood wouldn't be on public land if their weren't laws protecting the public forest from which the wood came. None of the examples you give are truly 'free' by the definition you seem to want to use: free of cost or consequence to all.

  17. Re:That poor man on California Is Giving Away Free Solar Panels To Its Poorest Residents · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well no one is forcing him to live in one of the most expensive areas in the world (assuming it actually is). I make less than 15k per year after taxes and I don't really consider myself poor. In the country I'm living in now the average income is about $250 per month or about $3000 USD per year.

    You're earning 500% the average income for the country in which you live, no shit you don't consider yourself poor. Your entire point is nonsense, of course you have to consider location when defining what 'poor' is. I don't care that someone earning $5k in another country can live like a king or not, someone earning $5k in the UK is poor.

    Your inability to consider what is worth paying people decent money for says a lot more about your ignorance than anything else.

  18. Re:Summary only missed one sentence... on A Ph.D Thesis Defense Delayed By Injustice 77 Years · · Score: 2

    And they were pretty good at it to. Why do you think dogs made it into space four years before humans did!?

  19. Re:Vehicle Weight on Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax · · Score: 1

    Automobiles have a very limited impact on roads compared to heavy, loaded, tractor trailers.

    To give an anecdotal example, the firm I work for probably has ~400 lorries enter and leave site each day. The road outside directly outside, the first T junction, and the roundabout onto the main road all need repair a few times a year. What really highlights the difference is that on the roundabout, the lane used to turn into our site is wrecked but the other lane which our vehicles don't use can go years without needing repair, just because of a couple of hundred ~25T+ vehicles breaking from 60mph to 0-10mph every day.

  20. Re:Tolls? on Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax · · Score: 1

    Why would you want a system that financially encourages people to keep the oldest death trap toxic belching rust buckets on the road?

  21. Re:Tolls? on Oregon Testing Pay-Per-Mile Driving Fee To Replace Gas Tax · · Score: 1

    I.e., the poor who drive older, used cars would be taxed more than the rich who can afford a new car every year.

    I'm inclined towards the view that taxing new cars at point of sale based on emissions, instead of part of the road/fuel tax currently levied might be a more effective way to get emissions down without being too harmful to people at the bottom of society using older more inefficient cars because they can't afford to upgrade.

    Tracking every mile a car does seems like surrendering a lot of information to the state in return for a very limited benefit.

  22. Re:Parent is, sadly, correct on Australian Law Could Criminalize the Teaching of Encryption · · Score: 2

    Sadly true, so feel free to entice them over to Australia and you'll have my thanks.

  23. Re:Impressive... on World's Rudest Robot Set To Simulate the Fury of Call Center Customers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As crap as call centre customer service so often is, it doesn't make this a waste of money. Even if the company was perfect and never did anything wrong, they would from time to time receive calls from customers who are angry/touchy/rude, and giving staff good training in how to keep those interactions relatively positive is useful.

  24. Re:It not very hard on How Spotify Can Become Profitable · · Score: 1

    $5 per month would be perfect, IMHO. Worth getting rid of the ads...

    Free without ads would be 'perfect' but it doesn't mean it is a viable business model.

    If they roughly half the cost, then they would need to more than double the number of paying customers just to stay where they are. I'm sure if they thought they could make more money by lowering the price they would.

  25. Re: Not forced... on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 1

    And you got a couple of clear answers, which you somehow failed to understand, and then went to to claim that the people responding were confused. Perhaps if you're country would do as poor a job of public healthcare as it seems to do of public education it's for the best that your healthcare is private.