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Comment Re:So, Donald Trump had a good idea? (Score 3, Funny) 69

Uh, not just no.

There's an entire universe between the excrement that Trump spews and using AI, heuristics, machine learning, etc. to identify terrorists or more likely terrorist like behavior. If nothing else this would give humans searching for terrorists a place to start. It would be a constant arms race but, it is certainly worth the try.

Submission + - Everyone's missing the point with the encryption debate

bmerr71 writes: Seems like the only thing anyone's talking about is that encryption backdoors aren't the answer. Fair point, but there's a much bigger issue that the Government hasn't addressed. Encryption is already "out". The government can't take it back. They can't hide the vast volumes of resources on how to do it. So, banning end-to-end encryption just means that the public loses their ability to communicate privately while terrorists will just go off and build their own end-to-end encryption tools. Backdoors and bans are pointless and will solve nothing.

Comment Re:Isn't this a no brainer? (Score 4, Interesting) 474

Not using an ad-blocker but, I have noticed that the ads have become much more intrusive lately, so I happily disable ads whenever I can. As the disable feature was instituted by /. and a user must contribute (in what the community deems) in a positive manner, I have no qualms about using the feature. I can't imagine the "Good Folks (tm)" at /. biting the hand that feeds them. I strongly suspect that the positive effect of those users posts far outweighs any 'lost' revenue.

Submission + - Houston GT Program Biased Against Blacks and Latinos (npr.org)

tiberus writes: Fernando Aguilar named his only son after his hero, Isaac Newton. When Isaac was tested for the GT program, he didn't qualify. Houston's enrollment statistics indicate that Hispanic and Black students would more likely be identified as GT if they were White or Asian, which is a trend across the country.

Aguilar is stretched thin between his job building servers for a software company and finishing his college degree in statistics. So, getting to spend time alone with Isaac is really special, but finding time to get involved with his son's school is difficult. Aguilar knows the gifted and talented program exists at Herrera Elementary, though he wasn't aware the school was testing Isaac.

Houston school leaders asked Donna Ford, of Vanderbilt University, to examine enrollment in the program, and she gave it a failing grade. "Racial bias has to be operating, inequities are rampant. Discrimination does exist whether intentional or unintentional," she told the school board in May of this year. When it comes to Houston's program she says, "I think it's a clear case of segregation, gifted education being segregated by race and income."

Comment Zero Tolerance Policies (Score 1) 956

Sadly, it's very likely in this case that it's the exact opposite Guilty Until Proven Innocent. As the result of the proliferation of Zero Tolerance Policies in schools, many of us have likely heard of student being suspended or expelled for taking their toy G.I. Joe gun to school (you know the tiny solid plastic ones) or eating their cheese sandwich into the shape of a gun and brandishing it at another student.

It's likely not a case of the teachers or administrators overreacting so much as having to follow the draconian policies foisted upon them by the school board or local laws. It's more appalling that the police actually took the kid away.

Comment Riiggghhhhttttt! (Score 2) 90

"The bill adds a warrant requirement for communications that were previously considered so old as to be irrelevant to their participants and unworthy of privacy protections. Right now, emails and other electronic messages older than 180 days are considered to have been “abandoned” by the people who sent and received them. Law-enforcement agencies don't need to get a warrant to force a company like Google or Facebook to turn over those communications."

Okay, so something a mere 180 days old is "irrelevant" to me and "abandoned" by me but, is of value to the government in my prosecution?!?

Things that make ya go CENSORED.

Comment Perception (Score 1) 417

With all the rhetoric and back and forth about H1Bs the truth is a little consequence. Anyone who is unable to find employment in any portion of the tech industry can readily point to a story or belief, founded or not, regarding H1Bs and blame foreign workers.

Some in industry claim that the root cause of the need for even more H1Bs is a lack of skilled/trained workers. Yet there seems to be little activity that would result in upping those numbers.

Comment Re:Exactly. NEVER change your email address. (Score 2) 269

That's great unless, for anyone of a number of reasons, you don't want to be thatgeek@college.edu for the rest of your life.

What free e-mail address? My university canned all my accounts several years after I finally got around to graduating. That's a lot of overhead for them to have to deal with I wouldn't expect that to live forever.

Comment Re:Prenda? (Score 4, Informative) 75

Ditto . . .

Prenda Law a.k.a. Team Prenda

Prenda Law, also known as Steele | Hansmeier PLLP and Anti-Piracy Law Group,[3] was a Chicago-based law firm that ostensibly operated by undertaking litigation against copyright infringement, but was later characterized by the United States District Court for Central California in a May 2013 ruling as a "porno-trolling collective"[4]:2 whose business model "relies on deception",[4]:8 and which resembled most closely a conspiracy[4]:FOF.1 p.3 and racketeering enterprise,[4]:p.10 referring in the judgment to RICO, the United States Federal anti-racketeering law.[4]:p.10[5] The firm ostensibly dissolved itself in July 2013 shortly after the adverse ruling[6] (although onlookers describe Alpha Law Firm LLC as its apparent replacement[7]), while in 2014, ABA Journal-Law News described the "Prenda Law saga" as entering "legal folklore".[8] [...]

My head hurts now

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