I'm not a big fan of software patents, but they exist and Comcast's defense is bogus. Independent invention is not a defense against patent infringement. I notice they didn't say anything about the patents being invalid, just that they want to claim that because Tivo didn't write the X1 code the patents don't apply.

As far as I know, there is no mathematical algorithm to generate true randomness. So would it be possible to write an algorithm simulating the universe? Would testing the universe to see if it is random or pseudo-random tell us anything about whether it is a simulation or not?

If his response was "That's an invalid user name, we'll just reject it and fail the command" that would be OK. Ignoring it and running as root silently isn't.

It only pauses because it takes CPU cycles to do the garbage collection - this machine is infinitely fast so GC would be instantaneous.

Goatse?

Reduction to principle. Disclosure of working source code for software patents. Scale fees to company size.

There's oversight involved if you have a permit. For example, you have to report any accidents or other incidents and those become part of the public record. If you aren't in the testing program then you don't need to report those.

If cops are personally liable for illegal searches and got prosecuted and jailed, then they would be thinking twice themselves. As it is, they can even jail you on bogus charges without any repercussions - "you may beat the rap but you won't beat the ride". Unfortunately, cops are not even prosecuted for straight-up murder very often, so thinking that prosecutors would bring charges for illegal searches is just fantasy right now.

My experience has been that the TCP checksums are fairly useless - they can detect single bit errors only since they are just simple checksums, not CRCs or something more sophisticated. According to the article what was actually happening was that the virtual ethernet driver (veth) did not flag bad packets correctly. There's a flag that tells TCP there's no need for it to checksum since the hardware has already verified the packet. On errors, the veth driver set that flag instead of the one that says it couldn't verify the checksum.

Alabama and a bunch of former Nazis

I used to work for a woman who was a horrible bully. When she turned it on me I had a similar comment to her and she never did it to me again - but I did see her doing it to others. As you say, most bullies are really cowards.

More likely it is the nature of email/online communications. It's much easier to be nasty when you don't have to see the other person. There's also tone, etc. If I call a friend a rude name when we're together they know that I'm joking. Smiley faces don't cut it, especially with people that you don't know well.

This whole fraud detection stuff is nonsense. It's just been cheaper for the banks to build this hack instead of actually implementing a secure payments system. Come on, credit card number + name + expiration date + security code? All information that doesn't change?

We're at the point where we can make a smart card that does everything with strong crypto. It could even have a USB connection or, possibly, Bluetooth, to let you make secure transactions from your computer.

When you buy a cartridge, it's just that, a cartridge. They don't tell you how many milliliters are in it and you don't get charged by the milliliter so how much ink is left in the cartridge when it's "done" is irrelevant. There's a cost per print and that's the important metric. Obviously there's some reason why they don't drain them completely dry and it doesn't really matter since you're paying by the cartridge not by the milliliter.

Like this white supremacist who found out that he's 14% African.