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User: hedwards

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Comments · 12,373

  1. Re:FBI Too Focused On Child Porn on Department of Justice: FBI Too Focused On Child Porn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And your point is? By trading it your encouraging it. From what I gather there are definitely places where one would go that operate like the old ratio servers for MP3s.

    Even if it is true that no further harm is being done at that point, the person that's been sexually abused is still being used for such purposes, I wouldn't personally want footage or pics of something like that happening to me or a close relation being distributed. There should be consequences of some sort, and I'm not sure that this is really an appropriate area to make civil rather than criminal.

    The main issue is why they're spending that much time on that rather than other serious crimes and why we still don't have any mens rea requirements for conviction. Convicting the innocent is hardly something that's going to help the survivors of such abuse.

  2. Re:FBI Too Focused On Child Porn on Department of Justice: FBI Too Focused On Child Porn · · Score: 1

    I think the point there is that they can't be sure who is producing and who is trading until they investigate, at which point they've typically got the goods to send people to prison for just trading in the stuff.

    I've got several other issues with it, they don't seem to care much about getting it correct, there isn't a mens rea requirement covering possession and 41% is unlikely to be justifiable given the other things which FBI is supposed to be dealing with.

  3. Re:A Supreme Court No More on Supreme Court: AT&T Can Force Arbitration · · Score: 1

    This isn't a dumb suit. Around here you pay sales tax on the purchase, which if it's a free phone would be zero dollars. It's definitely not dumb to expect that AT&T would properly advertise that fact, telecoms get way too much leniency over fraudulent pricing claims as it is.

  4. Re:What is arbitration? on Supreme Court: AT&T Can Force Arbitration · · Score: 1

    That was my experience dealing with an adjudicator for the state, nominally the scum was an adjudicator, but in reality he behaved more like an attorney representing the other side. He told all sorts of lies and refused to let anything on record that might make my former employer look bad, even as he accepted their perjured testimony without any substantiation.

  5. Re:Leprosy can be cured. on Yes, an Armadillo Can Give You Leprosy · · Score: 2

    Chiropractors don't work that way. They realign the spine and frequently give exercises to keep the core strong and healthy, this would be way out of their typical scope of practice. And there's little overlap there, pharmaceuticals don't solve postural problems, at best they'll loosen up a back spasm, but they definitely won't do anything for the underlying condition.

  6. Re:GPT Support on Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37 · · Score: 1

    That's good to know, I've been googling this for a few days now, and finding out which Linux distros really support it and which ones can be made to support it by following a series of arcane and ill defined steps has proven to be quite challenging. I've found utilities that will do it, but in general not all of the distros include GTP fdisk on their installer and going manually like I had to for FreeBSD isn't possible for me at this stage without actual instructions which cover the entire process. At present the process with FreeBSD isn't any easier, I just had a much easier time finding clear directions as to how to accomplish the task. As it stands now, the development release of Slackware seems to be the first one I've found which includes the capability in the install disc without a lot of extra steps.

    But, I'm sure that'll change and I'm sure that somewhere out there the steps to do it exist.

  7. Re:GPT Support on Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37 · · Score: 1

    This is precisely why I do that. Filesystems like /boot and /root which don't change very often but are critical shouldn't be affected by filesystems like /var and /tmp which change frequently and are relatively unimportant or easily recreated, and I definitely don't want to lose the information in /home because of one of the other filesystems barfing.

    Plus, wanting to dual boot with at least 2 other OSes, I would prefer not to have to mount my entire install just in case something goes wrong during the process.

  8. Re:GPT Support on Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37 · · Score: 1

    I've tried that in the past, and my only saving grace was that the partitions didn't last long enough for me to create my own files. Literally for a while I was reinstalling the OS every single time I needed to reboot because of filesystem corruption. Granted that was a while ago, and IIRC ext3fs, but still, it's not a good practice to be in.

  9. Re:Security implications on EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open · · Score: 1

    I've got an open-mesh router which does allow you to do that, you can also serve up ToS and charge if you're so inclined to do so. But it's nice because you can make it so that none of the devices can see each other and you definitely can throttle the guest accounts.

  10. GPT Support on Ubuntu 11.04, Slackware 13.37 · · Score: 1

    Do either of these support installing to a GPT partition? I've been looking around for a Linux distro that actually allows me to install to a GPT disk without much fuss and haven't had any luck so far. It would be nice since my main reason for wanting GPT is Linux obsession with using up all my primary partitions.

    Now if only Win XP could be made to boot from a GPT partition without sacrificing all the extra partitions I could have with GPT.

  11. Re:What is a patent for? on B&N Responds To Microsoft's Android Suit · · Score: 1

    Because it's easier to decide whether or not to pay if you've actually seen the patents that are supposedly involved. Additionally as soon as B&N starts filing papers against MS involving the alleged patents they show up in the public record, MS would have to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the judge that those public records shouldn't be made public. They could do that, but I doubt they'd be successful.

  12. Re:B&N got nads. on B&N Responds To Microsoft's Android Suit · · Score: 2

    No, what they're saying is that MS is misrepresenting the value of the patents in the hopes of shutting down Android or at very least damaging the competition. And that would be a no no for a company with a dominant position in the OS market and an interest in having a larger presence in the mobile market.

    Theoretically the courts could force MS to get rid of their patents or license them under reasonable terms. If you just own a bunch of patents but aren't a dominant player in a market you can ask pretty much whatever you like for your patents when you sue, but if you're a player in that area there may be other considerations.

  13. Re:Wishfull thinking for USA on China's High-Speed Trains Coming Off the Rails · · Score: 1

    I'm curious about this, in the US we've been doing that recently, is the difference really as simple as at what point the corners began to be cut? Or is there something more going on here to suggest where we're likely to end up.

  14. Re:OnDemand == Netflix ? on DirecTV Plans Netflix Competitor · · Score: 1

    Same as when Dish came out with free HD, DirecTV was only willing to extend that to new customers, pissing off those that have been subscribing. I can't blame them as nobody in their right mind will go back to Comcrap after having satellite service, the worst outcome for DirecTV would be folks switching to Dish or dumping their pay TV completely.

  15. Re:And this is why... on Does China's Cyber Offense Obscure Woeful Defense? · · Score: 1

    The Chinese can't allow the yuan to trade freely. Their economy is heavily dependent upon exports, if they were to allow the yuan to strengthen they'd have to completely redo their economic policy, hence why they refuse to do it. Remember that even with the growth of their economy, they still don't have enough to go around, and that's assuming that they allowed the rural workers to get a piece of it.

  16. Re:typewriter is dead on Last Typewriter Factory in the World Shuts Its Doors · · Score: 1

    Now if they could only hook the "any" key up to a firearm, most of our technology problems would be solved.

  17. Re:Good luck with that on Is YouTube Launching a Netflix Competitor? · · Score: 1

    And how many of the remaining households have a connection that's fast enough to stream movies? I'm not sure what the numbers are, but I don't think it's particularly fair to include households with a connection insufficient to stream in that calculation, otherwise Netflix would likely be doing a lot better in that respect.

  18. Re:GOOG isnt so sure anymore on Google Announces WebM Community Cross Licensing · · Score: 2

    No, but no matter how deluded or paranoid the chances are good that you're not alone in thinking it.

    Google is an American company and in America you can never be completely free of some bogus patent that somebody has managed to get by the USPTO, and because they don't ever bother with verifying that something is actually eligible before granting it a patent it's nigh impossible to ever have something that's truly patent free.

    Plus, it's better because of the royalty free bit. H.264 is not royalty free and never has been, they've only opened it up for free streaming, which means that they only get paid twice, once to encode it and once to decode it, which is what this was all about in the first place.

  19. Re:Hey Obama, remember you promised to close Gitmo on WikiLeaks Releases Guantanamo Prisoner Files · · Score: 1

    You do realize that it's not his fault, right? Because the US isn't taking any of the detainees there's a fair number of other countries that also refuse to do so, because if we aren't willing to take the innocent ones, why should they? And the congress refuses to allow the necessary changes to make it happen.

  20. Re:I'm honest on Computer Opens Unmanned Store For Holiday · · Score: 1

    Would you trust a store to access the DOL records?

  21. Re:Makes sense. on Nintendo Announces Wii Successor for 2012 · · Score: 1

    Nintendo has a rotten track record in that respect. The Cube to Wii is the only time they did that on their consoles. They could have done so with the SNES, but opted not to, the sound was IIRC the only thing holding it back and definitely could have been done.

    They did significantly better with their handhelds, you could use a Gameboy cartridge up to at least the Game Boy Advance, and possibly a bit beyond that.

  22. Re:Upgrade on Nintendo Announces Wii Successor for 2012 · · Score: 1

    It's not a meme, it's true. If the game isn't sufficiently immersive that you forget about that, then the game sucks and fixing the graphics isn't going to solve that problem. We've long since hit the point where increased graphical quality was anything other than nice.

    Unless you're one of those people that insists on sitting with their nose on the screen and quibbling about why you can see the pixels.

  23. Re:So why the armed raid? on Bizarre Porn Raid Underscores Wi-Fi Privacy Risks · · Score: 1

    Because whenever they serve a felony arrest warrant they go in weapons drawn until they've secured the premises, then they present the warrant that they've got. In this case it's not clear to me whether or not they had a warrant, and the article doesn't specify.

    The reason why they always serve felony arrest warrants in that fashion is because somebody with such a warrant is likely to be expecting to be arrested and realizes that if arrested they're likely to go to prison. Consequently, the officers expect that they are likely to be encountering weapons.

    Doesn't matter whether the felony is non-violent or whether the individual has a previous arrest warrant.

  24. Re:It's called "market forces", dude. on US Funding Five Game-Changing Energy Projects · · Score: 1

    I knew that there was a better term for it. And yes, that's precisely the point, one of the reasons why the fleet efficiency is so high in Seattle compared to the rest of the country is precisely for that reason, between oil industry gouging and high state taxes, it's more affordable to increase the efficiency than to just pay for the extra fuel.

    Even better if you use the tax revenue used to maintain the price on renewable energy.

  25. Re:public domain research on US Funding Five Game-Changing Energy Projects · · Score: 1

    Not if you go to a small school, the one I'm going to doesn't have a library because it's so tiny. Consequently we don't pay for access. Same goes for the other options I had for my certificate, none of them are large schools and none of them have their own libraries either.