Comment Re:"crime"? (Score 1) 279
That some veterans exhibit a strong sense of morality and liberty is seen as a threat, even a crime by the current administration. Doublespeak has become the lingua franca of our "fundamentally changed" America.
Comment keep your head down! (Score 2) 279
So, as a veteran I have to keep my political discourse on the liberal side, especially if I own firearms? I'd like my old country back now please. No, really..
Comment line noise (Score 1) 134
Prenda; giving patent trolls a bad name. Man, that's saying something..
Comment NOOP (Score 1) 678
This should be renamed "the tax auditor full employment act of 2013." The only folks who will like it are CPAs and the IRS.
Comment Oh well.. (Score 2) 133
Larry kills another one. Are there any "open" OSS projects left at Oracle?
Comment Re:Deep (Score 1) 225
Speed: Just about any 4-socket or larger x86 box can keep up with a mid-size mainframe on pure compute tasks.
Availability: Mainframes are not even in the top tier of availability - HP NonStop is (IDC AL4).
IO: Large UNIX systems and some others can keep up or beat mainframes at the IO game. How many MF systems have NVRAM cache?
SW: The only reason to keep feeding a mainframe is that you have SW that *only* runs on one.
Comment Just a matter of time.. (Score 1) 181
Add the new Iranian time machine announced today (really, see http://gizmodo.com/5994334/oh-yes-an-iranian-scientist-has-invented-a-time-machine-so-he-says) and you can get very close to omniscience, if not omnipotence. Add to that their new jet 'stealth fighter' and it's not hard to see someone is just thinking shit up to impress Crazy Pants and keep the ministry of weird shit busy.
Comment Jumped the shark (Score 5, Interesting) 1010
Windows is bad enough, but Windows + Ballmer is a disaster. MS could save itself with some new management.
Comment Learning styles? (Score 1) 348
So, how does the person(s) monitoring this know how *I* learn? Lots of learning and reading styles out there, this is just an effort to give them another meaningless metric to rate students on. Bah.
Comment Re:Embrace, Extend and Extinguish (Score 1) 17
Cisco *invented* this particular game in the networking industry. How else could they charge premium prices for commodity gear running community standards all these years? They stand to loose their shirt.
Comment !oracle (Score 2) 36
Despite the distractions, Autonomy has some real promise in the 'unstructured data' world. What remains to be seen is how well HP can integrate the bits into their other products. Oracle disses the acquisition but doesn't have a comparable product.
Comment clawback (Score 1) 461
I'd like to see a system where graduates could seek financial redress from the university they graduated from if they can't find work after say, 2 years of looking. Why not have the USG seek repayment directly from the school in that case for the federally backed loans given to so many students? Schools would change overnight and they'd focus on 'hirable' graduates PDQ.
Comment Lawnmowers (Score 1) 175
Calling the T5 "the world's fastest microprocessor" is akin to saying 1000 lawnmowers is "the world's largest engine." Oracle has optimized SPARC for a 20th Century workload. Time to move on Larry, the rest of the world has.
DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants 146
Via the EFF comes news that, during a case involving the use of a Stingray device, the DOJ revealed that it was standard practice to use the devices without explicitly requesting permission in warrants. "When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this 'order' wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government — rather than Verizon — to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a 'general warrant,' the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. ... The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:"
Comment service after the sale.. (Score 1) 648
Camera makers have dealt with this in the US by making grey market items ineligible for US-based service. Not a major factor with books, but certainly a factor with lots of other grey market items. Many companies use this as a way to enforce higher US prices, as they argue the US warranty justifies the higher US price.
