Posts by Old Handle

Re: Weasel words

I can think of some legitimate reasons for the distinction, for instance with a password, it's possible you forgot it or they've got the wrong guy and you never even knew it. But you can't forget your fingerprints and if it turns out yours isn't the right finger, that would been you're off the hook, rather up the creek.

That said, I totally agree with the judge that this kind of fingerprint dragnet is over the line.

This was pretty much my thought. I think he has a good point, it was not unauthorized access (or hacking in common parlance) but that doesn't mean he couldn't be guilty of some other crime.

Re: mac AV

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't viruses, in the technical sense, nearly obsolete even on Windows? Worms and Trojans seem to be the hot thing now.

Re: What ???

I see. I guess it's possible only good guys found database. If so they were very lucky, but I don't know how they can be so sure of this.

Re: Mythbusters

But wait... which mouse turned cannibal? The one eating cardboard or cereal?

Re: How much money spent campaigning???

It's probably fair to note that "one frigging state" has significantly more people than Australia.

But yeah, way too much money being spent on this, I certainly wouldn't disagree there.

And DougS, it's exactly like one guy giving $144M to a campaign. Except, one gal in this case, and it was her own campaign. If I'm keeping the numbers straight, she received a relatively unimpressive $16M additional from other people.

Re: Dear New Owners

Good ideas except for more integration. That's the main reason I don't use most of Google's services.

Re: Unbelievable

You realized they did bring clippy back, in a sense, right? I mean, I have no first-hand experience whether Cortana is as annoying, but on some level it's the same concept.

It could be argued that virii is valid as a "humorous" or jargon plural in a computer context, much like boxen. As I understand it, the original Latin word was uncountable and meant something along the lines of miasma (but wetter), so it's not like there's specific correct way to pluralize it.

But I do object to "virii infections". You wouldn't say "diseases infections", so that shouldn't have been plural in the first place.

Re: Remind me...

It's beige, so that's not it.

I think the idea that it's intended to replace food completely is pretty much hype. I'm sure a few people really use it that way, but mostly I think it's just a convenience food. For the record I've tried the stuff and found it inoffensive. With a little sweetener and flavoring, you can even bring it up to mildly pleasant! For lunch on the go or breakfast in a hurry it's a fine option.

Also it's cheap, at $1.80 per "meal". I don't think that's a big consideration for most of the people who buy it, but at least you don't feel like you're getting ripped off.

The only bad thing is the shelf life isn't particularly impressive, so it's really not a good option for apocalypse supplies.

Re: Preferential Voting

I kind of like approval voting better. It's so impressively simple.

Re: The big question

It's a PC, I don't see any reason it wouldn't.

Re: Simple question for US voters

Sure. Gill Stein and Gary Johnson both have there pluses and minuses, I could understand why someone might have a hard time picking one or the other.

I'm not a fan of either scheme, but it seems a little more plausible that the average non-pedoterrorist user would want to be "protected" from accidental exposure to CP than TP* Although the IWF's blacklist was actually working as intended when it messed up Wikipedia, where as this one only did it by accident, so I guess that's a point for France.

*terrorist propaganda

Re: Why are they a commercial entity anyway?

Someone got $$ in their eyes I think. A small commercial wing of the project could have worked out well, but I'm definitely getting the feeling it's more parasitic than symbiotic in this case.

Re: No Ore

I was thinking of that too. No action is better than overreaction. And one credit card charge is an incredibly thin basis for swooping in and raiding someone's home. Still, in an ideal world they would be carefully sifting through those records and looking for stranger evidence against a few, instead of just ignoring them.

Re: This is NOT a patent.

As they should have, because this clearly falls under the "obvious" category. A self-driving car must obey traffic laws, and traffic laws say you must get out of the way of an emergency vehicle with its lights flashing.