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Comment ...But how useful is that netbook (Score 1) 636

For $100 more than the NSpire CX CAS you could buy a netbook and fill it with cutting edge mathematical software such as Octave, Scilab, SAGE and so on

Yeah, sure you can get that netbook, and get the cutting edge software, but can you use it on the SAT. Nope - so its not all that useful for a learning tool anymore, is it.
You should use a type of calculator you plan on using for your long term educational career. My good old TI-85 got me through 6 years of school, and I still have it 10 years later.

Comment Can you sell IP blocks? (Score 1) 264

From what I can tell, you can not, looking at ARIN's policies.

8.1. Principles
Number resources are nontransferable and are not assignable to any other organization unless ARIN has expressly and in writing approved a request for transfer. ARIN is tasked with making prudent decisions on whether to approve the transfer of number resources
It should be understood that number resources are not 'sold' under ARIN administration. Rather, number resources are assigned to an organization for its exclusive use for the purpose stated in the request, provided the terms of the Registration Services Agreement continue to be met and the stated purpose for the number resources remains the same. Number resources are administered and assigned according to ARIN's published policies.
Number resources are issued, based on justified need, to organizations, not to individuals representing those organizations. Thus, if a company goes out of business, regardless of the reason, the point of contact (POC) listed for the number resource does not have the authority to sell, transfer, assign, or give the number resource to any other person or organization. The POC must notify ARIN if a business fails so the assigned number resources can be returned to the available pool of number resources if a transfer is not requested and justified.

That seems clear to me.

Comment Re:Idea (Score 1) 323

We should propose that as a rule.

If your country falls off of the Internet for longer than 24 hours, you forfeit all of the address space allocated to your country, and it goes back in to the unassigned pool. All service points will be instructed to drop peering agreements with your country.

If your country wishes to continue a presence on the Internet, you may re-apply for IPv6 address space

Comment Umm, not just HP, not a back-door (Score 1) 197

Well, most appliance type devices (and in this day in age, enterprise class and mid-tier storage arrays are appliances) contain some kind of technician login, or tech support login for vendor support. When HP shows up onsite, and needs to apply a firmware update with full customer knowledge; this is the account they use.

Generally the account IS hidden, and the password is hard to guess.

USING THIS ACCOUNT DOES NOT GIVE ACCESS TO YOUR DATA. That would require physical access, or access to a storage network to make fiber channel or SAS connections, that is assuming that the controller is not one of the controllers that supports iscsi. If someone you do not trust has physical access to your disk array; and that access is not monitored (camera) then you have bigger issues to worry about.

If you are going to comment on field service accounts on storage arrays, please have some experience supporting storage arrays first so you know what the hell you are talking about.

Comment 18 USC 2242 - when they just cant say no (Score 1) 728

IANAL, but sexual abuse is handled at a state level for the most part. Many of the state laws, and feederal law follows title 18 of the US code section 2242 which states:

        Section 2242. Sexual Abus
        Whoever, in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States or in a Federal prison, knowingly -
              1. causes another person to engage in a sexual act by threatening or placing that other person in fear (other than by threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping); or
              2. engages in a sexual act with another person if that other person is -
                * (A) incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct; or
                * (B) physically incapable of declining participation in, or communicating unwillingness to engage in, that sexual act; or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.

So, if the person being screened can not say "I wish to leave the airport instead of being searched" (say someone that is mute, or does not speak english and no translator is avalable). That could fall under paragraph 2, section B.

Now, the "out" for the TSA can be found in 18 USC 2246, paragraph 3:
      3 the term "sexual contact" means the intentional touching, either directly or through the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person;

If no one was being aroused, than it was not sexual contact, therefore not sexual assault. That is one LARGE loophole.

Comment Rainfall.... (Score 1) 290

Am I missing something, What is the reasoning for water being moved from Alaska to Mumbai, when Mumbai does not get significantly less rain?

The average annual precipitation for Sitka, Alaska is 85.9 inches.
The average annual precipitation for Mumbai is 85.31 inches.
It sounds like Mumbai just needs to do a better job of managing resources.

Comment Re:Let me try to sum things up (Score 1) 526

Well, from what I can tell, this is what Brian has to worry about:
Cal code 485:
One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.

So the questions at hand is did he find the phone under circumstances that would let him know the true owner. We know that he did identity the owner of the phone. If he would have never started searching for the apple guys facebook and linkedin profile, he could claim he did not have the technological means to determine the owner - especially if he would have waited until after the remote wipe. I think that may have started the chain of events.
1. shows the phone is stolen.
2. can therefore be claimed that stolen property was bought and sold.
3. the phone was therefore illegally obtained, and therefore the whole mess of trade secret laws come falling down.

Submission + - Singh wins at appeal (bbc.co.uk)

pajamapaati writes: Science writer Simon Singh has won a lengthy and expensive round in a legal battle with the British Chiropractic Association stemming from his description of Chiropractors' claims to treat conditions such as childhood colic as 'bogus'. The legal ruling has important implications for science writers in the UK, and possibly worldwide since UK laws encourage 'libel tourism' where well-heeled interests outside the UK can use British laws to attack or stifle their critics, even where neither party has any connection with the country.

Comment Re:What about the 30% of people still using it? (Score 1) 194

Well I would not go with 30%, but here are some numbers:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp

According to w3schools.com, 27% of IE users, are still using IE6. I can not believe that Microsoft is just abandoning 27% of there users. Thats not 27% of browser users, or 27% of people on the Internet, that's 27% of the population that uses Internet explorer as a browser. Cruel Microsoft, Truly Cruel.

How would you feel if one day your ethernet cable manufacturer came in and said "Starting in 2 months, we are no longer going to support cat-5 cable" and your networking vendor said "well, we are going to stop making packets that work with cat5, as your cable vendor no longer supports that product" The major cable provider stops supporting something, then all the little network people see the push from the big cable provider, and all the sudden your building still has 27% cat-5 and you do not know when, if or how it is going to work or stop working.

Welcome to the world of your users.

Comment Jumpsuits!!! (Score 4, Funny) 343

Back in the day I worked in the IT Dept for one of the top 4 US airlines (ya know, before all the airlines sucked). Every so often I would head out to the airport, and envy the people in the hangers because they got the cool jumpsuits with the reflective stripes and badges. I kind of wished that we had been supplied those for when we had to crawl around the datacenter. I think nothing would look better than a team of geeky sysadmins running around the datacenter in jumpsuits racking servers and pulling cable. Even better would be some road cones to mark off the area that we are working in!
Image

Own Your Own Fighter Jet 222

gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."

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