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Comment Re: Legalities (Score 1) 301

The same issue applies to a police officer recording copyrighted matter in the process of his work in a private home. His possession of an unlicensed recording of Katy Perry (whoever he is) remains a crime, regardless of whether he also has footage covering work - related stuff. Even if it's the same footage.

Comment Re:Sue Them or Give Up? No. Kill them. Messily. (Score 1) 159

Well, I wouldn't go directly to murder.

Removal of fingers, ears, external genitalia, in approximately that order. Lots of unsubtle anal rape with a cattle prod. Come on guys - you've got professionals doing this stuff for your government. It's not rocket science (though you can use pyrotechnics, if you want to be showy). Just good old torture. And you need to communicate to the spammers to make sure that they know their children, siblings or parents are paying for their actions.

Comment Re:"after four nearly sleepless days and nights" (Score 1) 88

The key word is "nearly" ; most people who haven't had to do it on a regular basis are surprised to learn that you can function on quite small amounts of sleep. You do still need some sleep, and your performance degrades over time, but it's not too drastic.

My normal working day is 18-19 hours, but when we're in critical operations I go down to working about 03:00 to 12:00, have a nap after lunch, then am back on shift from 13:00 to about midnight ; lather, rinse repeat. After a week, you're really looking forward to a solid 5 hours sleep, but you can get by, and make decisions and react to unplanned events during that time.

That's oilfield operations, and generally not safety critical (I don't operate cranes or powered equipment, for example) and it's not preferred to working a 12-12 hour shift pattern. But if that's what the manning provided requires, that's what you do.

Comment Re:Questions for any who have been following this (Score 1) 88

A smaller panel got sunlight when the drill was used to rotate the probe. So, if it is powered down and we wait, it should eventually charge back up. Each time that happens, the ESA can work at getting it into a better position, little by little.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. A significant amount of power goes into heating the batteries up, which is necessary to get a significant amount of power out of (and in to) the batteries.

Batteries are, as I'm sure you realise, chemical devices.

All chemical devices operate at different rates at different temperatures.

A popular rule of thumb is that a 10degree (Kelvin/ Centigrade) increase in temperature will double the rate of a reaction.

These will be mollified as the comet comes closer to the sun. But working out the exact probabilities is just plain unpredictable. Plan 'B' of listening for "pings" regularly is indicated, while the rest of the science programme continues.

Comment Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score 1) 698

death counts will be indistinguishable from your average school shooting.

Yeah, that's really been the experience here in Europe, where we have the death penalty for thinking about buying a water pistol. Why, only last week the river of blood gushing out of one of our infant schools was so intense that it washed a truck load of old age pensioneers off the road. Fortunately no harm was done, as their truck ride to the Soylent manufacturing plant ("the grinder" as we laughingly refer to it here) was diverted by the crash into the big cat enclosure at the zoo. One of the tigers has a little indigestion, but the veterinarian assures us that he'll recover.

In the words of Crocodile Dundee, that's not a sarcastic response, THIS is a sarcastic response.

Comment Re:Dumb idea ... Lots of assumptions .... (Score 1) 698

Why are you bothering with WiFi? Most schools are by now thoroughly networked, so judicious placing of the cameras would keep the signals in the wires. At which point you've pretty much dismissed any concerns about unauthorised access to the cameras and video streams. That'll take another couple of thousand dollars off the bill, and now your major cost is likely to be men on ladders actually installing the things.

Of course, it's all insanity, and probably unconstitutional. Imagine impinging on an American's bear-given right to go around freely killing anyone and everyone they want. Next thing you know you'll be allowing people to not attend church and suffering witches to live.

Comment Re:IPv6 as a help? (Score 1) 135

So ... if I cared enough, AND I had any ISPs who did IPv6 (I'm not aware that there are any in this country, but I haven't looked), then before signing on the line, I ensure that I get a contiguous block of 128 or 256 or 1024 IPv6 addresses, to use as I like. Essentially, demand a class C or class B address (equivalent) from your ISP?

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