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User: Geminii

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Comments · 979

  1. Being the hot potato on Smart Phone Gets Driver Out of a Speeding Ticket · · Score: 1

    Got out of a parking ticket once (the parking inspector stood ten feet away, watched me park in an empty slot in a carpark, then walked away as I approached him to ask if the parking spot was valid (the lines were half-faded). When I returned to the car and discovered I'd gotten a ticket, I replied back to the local parking authority with the details and advised that if the prosecution continued I would be asking for that particular parking inspector's records for the past five years to be audited to determine what percentage of his tickets had been challenged.

    The ticket was dropped like a hot potato.

    If I'd pulled off a radar-gun lack-of-evidence ticket-slip like the one in the article, I would have been asking for an audit to be conducted on the last two years of tickets for both the cop in question and anything involving that radar gun. Just to make the point that authorities do NOT get to walk away scot-free when they accuse people without bothering to follow procedures. Doing so - or even attempting to do so - should result in burned fingers. And yes, I say this as a long-term public servant myself.

  2. We're Tolkien about shafted. on Tolkien Estate Censors the Word "Tolkien" · · Score: 1

    Can you dig it?

  3. Re:Lack of empathy on Man Pays $200,000 To Save Fake Online Girlfriend · · Score: 1

    "Trust, but verify."

    I might trust someone I'd met half an hour ago with five bucks. If they'd been a good friend for years, I might trust them with a couple hundred or a few thousand dollars, depending on how rich I was. I wouldn't trust _anyone_ with ten grand (let alone 200) without some damn good paperwork in advance. Particularly if I'd never laid eyes on them.

  4. Re:Huh? What? on The Death of BCC · · Score: 1

    or?

    AND.

  5. Re:Carl's an idiot on The Death of BCC · · Score: 1

    Take that, Julian!

  6. Re:BCC still existed? on The Death of BCC · · Score: 1

    So why hasn't the IT team for that company installed something which prevents emails-to-all unless authorised by the CIO? I've seen it done at a number of larger employers; it's by no means impossible. Even better is having all larger (multi-hundred and over) email groups locked down so that if someone not on a preauthorised list tries to send to them, they get a popup saying it will have to be authorised by $bigboss-for-that-team, and this this OK?

    Bigboss then gets a message in their email requesting authorisation of the original email, along with the proposed recipient list and the approximate cost (in dollars, time, and resources) to send it. They can choose to deny it, authorise it for immediate sending, or authorise for overnight sending. Their response is then logged as well...

  7. Twenty mil? on Feds Pay Millions For Bogus Spy Software · · Score: 1

    Twenty mil would buy a lot of Slashbeer and Firehose accounts. Come on, someone, get onto it!

  8. Re:Here we go again.... on A Car You Can Drive With Your Thoughts · · Score: 1

    So it's great technology for controlling prosthetic limbs which could be controlling a car... but not the car directly?

  9. Re:and I thought my boss was bad on Employer Demands Facebook Login From Job Applicants · · Score: 1

    Little did he know he was friending a fake account which one week later would be Porn Central. :)

  10. Re:I think Beck has started to believe his own con on Glen Beck Warns Viewers Not To Use Google · · Score: 1

    I'm thinking of writing a crazy book, and shopping it to one of these neo-con publishers, all to get me some early retirement on the backs of the ideological loons. I'm not sure yet if I should invent a new angle, or tie together multiple existing memes in a new way.

    You should write a keyword-based, self-updating book-creation template which allows you to hork up one of these every six weeks under a different name. Then go on conservative talkshows to promote them, wearing really paper-thin disguises every time (pornstache, Clark Kent glasses, bad dye job, wig, false nose etc). See how long it takes for people to start putting two and two together.

  11. Re:Pathetic on Microsoft's New Plan For Keeping the Internet Safe · · Score: 1

    Well, they could scan what they think is your PC. You do have thirty-eight templates for virtual sandboxes which randomly swap in and out every three milliseconds, right?

  12. Alpha Male? on Man Open Sources His Genetic Data · · Score: 1

    Out of curiosity, given the possibility that his data might now be used as a baseline for genetic patches in future decades, this is one way to pass on at least part of his genetic information to potentially millions or billions of future humans. It's kind of the technological version of having a ten-thousand-strong harem, without all the hassle of upkeep and servicing costs. :)

  13. Re:Who wrote this crap code? on Man Open Sources His Genetic Data · · Score: 1

    Of course not, it's the result of a genetic algorithm. :)

  14. Of course on Number of Facebook Friends Linked To Anxiety · · Score: 1

    This is only relevant for people who give a rat's ass about any of the ten thousand "friends" parasitically hanging off their Facebook account.

  15. Re:Media on Scientists Invent World's First Anti-Laser · · Score: 1

    I see I shall have to invent Cancer-Toggling Bullets. Shoot a cancer patient, they live. Shoot anyone else, they get cancer...

  16. Perspective on How Major Film Studios Manipulate YouTube Users · · Score: 1

    From the perspective of users, what's the problem? Video they're searching for is either there or it's not - who cares who uploaded it or why?

  17. Re:Not so scared of Army control on Out of Egypt Censorship, US Tech Export Under Fire · · Score: 1

    How about every place where religion of any stripe is on the rise?

  18. Re:Texas Budget Deficit on Amazon Pulling Out of Texas Over $269 Million Tax Bill · · Score: 1

    Everything's bigger in Texas. :)

  19. Re:It works this way : on Online-Only Currency BitCoin Reaches Dollar Parity · · Score: 1

    only way to beat the system, is to be able to have zero cost for the electricity you spend, and then join it with mega server farms.

    but, the system says that, at a point where zero cost for electricity is a practical reality anywhere on the planet, there will be no need for money

    The interesting part is when some sections of the planet have zero-cost electricity and megaserver farms, and other sections do not.

    Buy a megaserver farm. Buy a megaboatload of solar cells and some geothermal and tidal power sources. Hook everything together. Free processor cycles! This doesn't mean Ma and Pa Kettle have free processor cycles, though.

  20. Re:criminal mastermind on Insider-Trading Suspects Smash Hard Drive Evidence · · Score: 1

    This is assuming that (a) he actually threw any hard drives at all into any trucks, or (b) that the hard drives he threw into the trucks contained the information he says they did.

    If the prosecution digs through kilotons of garbage and gets nothing more than wasted time and money, it's not L's fault that they couldn't find the drives, or that drives they found and pulled out which LOOKED promising before the encryption was cracked contained nothing more than 500 terabytes of lolcats.

  21. Re:"I'd rather not." on Court Says California Stores Can't Ask Customers For ZIP Codes · · Score: 1

    So this would be valuable information to them? Well, should I ever shop there, I'm more than willing to enter negotiations for access to data I hold that they consider valuable. If they offer enough, I might even give _accurate_ information!

  22. Re:Treating symptoms on Court Says California Stores Can't Ask Customers For ZIP Codes · · Score: 1
    How about one that makes it illegal to require customer information during any part of a business interaction, or to degrade the quality of any business interaction based on the non-receipt of customer information?

    I wouldn't mind one locally which says "If you are a business, you will accept cash, and you will not be a dick about it." I've run into several businesses which only allowed customers to pay via direct unfettered access to the customer's bank account - the business would not take cash or credit card.

  23. Re:Ah, but hindsight... on Professor Rejects Camera Implanted In His Head · · Score: 1

    Still, some day he'll be able to look back on it all...

  24. Re:Navigation before tools on 'Death By GPS' Increasing In America's Wilderness · · Score: 1

    "Include routes through high-crime areas [ON/OFF]"

    No need to be racist, just tell anyone who asks that the crime statistics come from the city government.

  25. Re:Every helpdesk is offshore to most people on Is Setting Up an Offshore IT Help Desk Ethical? · · Score: 1

    If you're a multilingual multinational, is it cheaper to have a single location hiring many (expensive bilingual) people who can speak non-local languages, or to have one English-speaking helpdesk in an English-speaking country, one Spanish-speaking helpdesk in a Spanish-speaking country, etc etc?

    Come to think of it, is it cheaper to hire people in one location to work the graveyard shift at penalty rates, or to have two or three helpdesks around the world which hand off to each other over 24 hours? You'd also gain redundancy and a degree of protection against SPOF issues...