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Comment Re:Age old "issue" (Score 1) 426

No, you don't pay an actual hourly labor rate at a mechanic. You just don't realize how your bill is determined. For any given repair, the time is determined by an industry standard table. You are billed for the job and the parts, not the actual amount of time the labor took.

http://www.howtodothings.com/automotive/how-labor-charges-are-calculated

Comment Re:astounding that defaults are not tougher (Score 2, Insightful) 210

That would be a bad idea.

1. A default password is a default password, and should be assumed to be public knowledge.
2. A complicated default password will accidentally trick user into thinking it is more secure than admin/1234. For example, you have already been tricked.
3. If the device is reset to factory default, the password won't be easily remembered, so a device may be stranded in a default or even unusable state until the owner can find the password via documentation, help-desk, or internet database of default passwords.

A partial fix that is sometimes used, is to give each individual device a separate password, and include this password inside the packaging or attached via sticker. This is somewhat more secure but can lead to problems itself. The user may keep the password, and the password may not be truly unique, or may be guessable. If the password is damaged/lost, the device may be rendered unusable if reset to its default state.

Security

Did the Spamhaus DDoS Really Slow Down Global Internet Access? 70

CowboyRobot writes "Despite the headlines, the big denial of service attack may not have slowed the Internet after all. The argument against the original claim include the fact that reports of Internet users seeing slowdowns came not from service providers, but the DDoS mitigation service CloudFlare, which signed up Spamhaus as a customer last week. Also, multiple service providers and Internet watchers have now publicly stated that while the DDoS attacks against Spamhaus could theoretically have led to slowdowns, they've seen no evidence that this occurred for general Internet users. And while some users may have noticed a slowdown, the undersea cable cuts discovered by Egyptian sailors had more of an impact than the DDoS."

Comment Re:EA at it again (Score 1) 569

It can impact him by having an effect on the rest of the industry. EA may license the technology they use so that it gets used more broadly in other products. EA is very big, so they might decide to go buy a company that makes a competing product he likes and then shutter the product. They may buy a company and then add the features he dislikes to product that makes it unusable for him.

Basically, products are not released into a vacuum and practices that are bad for the customer can spread through the industry if they are included in products that do well. This is a very simple observation that people seem to frequently miss.

While directly taking money away isn't a solution in this case(it certainly can be in the case of dangerously bad products), the desire to do more than simply be quiet is understandable. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you see a problem that you think may spread; you complain, you voice your opinion, and you try to convince people to agree with you. That is how you work to get things changed.

Comment Re:wait what? (Score 1) 369

"Why does it cost 10s of millions to make a game? I've seen indie games like minecraft or terarria or...."

Good games, but simple, with relatively little in the way of 3rd party or artistic assets.

The costs ramp up when you start developing a game that requires a combination of teams of artists, recording engineers, voice actors, etc... High end graphics are going to require dedicated teams too. Moving from high to bleeding edge graphics are going to require even more trained people and the development new techniques. You also may need to pay to license vehicles, locations, teams, people, and/or characters. If you are a large company you may need to localize it for the various countries its selling in so you don't do something like accidentally use "spastic" in a kids game being sold in the UK.

Comment Re:We should not need a petition (Score 4, Insightful) 317

This is a good question, this is an unusual situation and people seem somewhat confused as to who has done what.

It was decided years ago that cell phone unlocking was illegal under the DMCA. But, as part of the DMCA, there are reviews done by the Librarian of Congress that grant temporary DMCA exemptions for certain activities. Previously, one of the exemptions that the Librarian had granted was to allow people to unlock phones. Unfortunately, the exemption was not extended this year, so legality defaults to the DMCA. The DMCA says no unlocking without permission.

The primary action the petition is for the White House to ask the Librarian review the decision to end the phone unlocking exemption. If this does not work, then the petition asks the White House to push for a bill that would declare unlocking to be legal.

Comment Re:I Can't Believe This (Score 1) 284

The problem is that they didn't sell the crop as feed. They *thought* they sold the crop as feed, but they didn't put it in a contract. They only had feed sale rights, but then gave the wholesaler full sale rights. They may have done it on accident, but it could still come back to bite them.

They should have included a step 2b) Farmer A has buyer sign contract that seeds will be sold only as feed, and buyer takes liability for any seed sold for planting. Distribution rights get tricky because you generally aren't just allowed to say, "Well I didn't break the rule, I sold it to someone without telling them and they broke it."

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