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Comment Re:Perhaps at last an affordable mini PC? (Score 2) 180

You still need a case - and the mini ITX cases generally come without power supplies. You could likely get this with case and power supply for under $200 but not by a lot.

A M350 mini-ITX case runs $37 on Amazon. Presuming the power supply isn't some stupid proprietary design, $5-10 for a power supply. I did exactly this for a Intel miniITX HTPC that used a laptop charger as the power supply.

Comment Re:This could be fun.... (Score 1) 164

To which I would have said that it's up to you, the manufacturer or it's representative, to prove that the use of an "unauthorized" hard drive caused the NIC to fail. It's just like using non-OEM parts or fluids in a car for a repair, it doesn't void the warranty if the non-OEM part didn't contribute to the failure that otherwise would have been covered.

All this presumes that you're in the US jurisdiction and that it was an actual warranty and not just a service contract people thing are warranty. FTC information as it pertains to auto repair, but the same applies for other types of warranties.

Comment Re:Just hire a CPA (Score 1) 450

If they only make $350 in the side-gig why the hell would you report it?

Because some people are honest. Because while you may not report it, it may show up on someone else's taxes as a deduction/business expense. Because some people do many sub-$350 side jobs. Because some people don't want to take the risk if/when they do get audited that $350 makes a difference.

If a professional tax preparer told clients that if it's sub-$600 to just sweep it under the rug, I'd find a new professional tax preparer.

Comment Re:WTF (Score 4, Informative) 319

No, freedom of speech is the freedom to offend (or rather, "criticize") your government.

No. Freedom of speech is your right to communicate your ideas and opinions to others that wish to hear it without government interference from doing so. Typically it comes with a restriction that such communication does not cause harm to others. Causing hurt feelings because your prophet was satirized in a cartoon is not generally causing harm to others.

Comment Re:Lobby = Corruption (Score 2) 190

You're presuming that all 725k people in the district want to lobby their critter. We can barely muster 1/2 of eligible voters to vote in a presidential election. The last midterm election had just over 1/3 the people voting. If you consider that it's likely that households would have a similar or common voice, then the numbers get even smaller. Factor in apathy and you can calculate the number of constituents that actually have a need, want to talk to, and eventually follow through with talking to their congress critters at 10 people. Maybe. That might be higher than actual though.

Comment Re:Don't confuse power production and nuclear weap (Score 1) 166

As for a plutonium contaminated waste facility, I should point out that Los Alamos had quite the plutonium problem. They solved it by painting the walls coral - bright bleedin' orange - and then painting over with white paint. The rule was simple - if you see orange, call the safety people. It was (and is) not a perfect solution, but it was (and is) a workable one.

Is this a metaphorical solution that I'm not understanding, or an actual solution to a problem that I don't understand. I'm presuming the problem is radiation contamination, but I'm not understanding how deteriorating white paint that shows orange paint underneath is a viable detection solution.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 331

If you are a company where your business is providing disk space for random files of a subscriber, you'll need to deal with law enforcement. But it's not likely that the business will be liable for the contents of those files unless they completely ignore any credible notification of illegalities. For the average Joe running a random piece of software that allows him to sublet his excess storage likely would have a lot more scrutiny and a lot more hassles proving those files aren't his.

I look at it like someone being caught transporting drugs. If they were shipped via UPS, Fedex, or USPS, the courier and company aren't going to be arrested. But if you or I got pulled over and drugs were found in a box that we were "just delivering for someone", we probably would be.

Comment Re:Airline anaolgy is incorrect (Score 1) 448

Having multiple different channels of the same network isn't the problem. While I'm not sure anyone watches all of the ESPN stations at once, I think if you took a sports fan that wanted to subscribe to the "ESPN channel" that you would get all those channels. Same with Discovery, CSPAN, whatever that has multiple variations on the same basic channel.

The diversity of channels and forced bundling as it stands today is for instance Viacom insisting that if you want to receive Comedy Central, that you must also receive (and more importantly to them, pay for) Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, Spike, TV Land, etc. I like watching a few shows on CC, but I don't watch anything on the other channels yet I'd have to pay for them as part of the forced bundle.

Comment Figures (Score 1) 65

It figures that this news comes out now. Yesterday I ordered 3 QI receivers for my family's Galaxy S4 phones and 8 charging pads to charge them and two other tablets. I'll eventually get to toss em on on the pile of technology I was on the losing side of, next to the HD-DVDs, plasma screen, Betamax player...

Comment Re:Laywood (Score 1) 72

I can't comment on glass or carbon fiber filled filaments, but for Laywood and Laybrick (more like sandstone than brick) it's more about texture and appearance than physical strength properties.

I was at a 3D printing show last year and saw several architectural prints that used Laybrick and they looked amazing. And several Laywood organic designs looked equally impressive. Upon examination you could tell that they weren't actually wood (at least solid wood) but the weight, shading variations, and texture made it feel different than just a piece of normal filament.

Comment Re:Cyptowall is very sophisticated (Score 4, Informative) 181

Cyptowall was recently being distributed by yahoo ads via a compromised flash ad http://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-ad.... You could have received it by going to your favorite news site.

That article makes no mention of a compromised flash ad. It actually doesn't mention any type of compromise or flash. Yahoo ads served up an ad that took people to a server that could lead to a compromise. Just visiting a page that had that Yahoo ad didn't compromise your machine.

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