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Comment Re:Beyond request? (Score 2) 121

The budget request isn't really NASA's request of how much they think they need, but rather the White House's request on behalf of NASA, acting in its role as head of the executive branch. The White House makes decisions about how much it thinks each agency and/or program needs, and presents that budget request to Congress. Congress, having the ultimate spending authority, can allocated either more or less than the request in various categories, if they have different ideas about how much should be spent on what.

Comment Re:Suit gains a plaintiff (Score 1) 71

Especially because it would just waste the court's time. If people do exist in the purported class (i.e. some people actually did buy an iPod between those dates), then all throwing out the suit would do is lead to a new suit, with different plaintiffs, being refiled. Might as well save the court's time and just keep the current docket open.

Comment Re:Hiding evidence (Score 2) 192

They're not trying to compel Microsoft Ireland to do anything though: they're trying to compel Microsoft U.S. to retrieve the data and turn it over to the court. Since Microsoft U.S. has access to the data, they are able to do that. If Microsoft Ireland were firewalled off so U.S. employees could not access Ireland data, it wouldn't be an issue.

Comment Re:Hiding evidence (Score 1) 192

That's true, but seems pretty similar to the case where you have e.g. multiple physical copies of a document. What happens if a document is photocopied, and both Microsoft's Seattle office, and Microsoft's Dublin office, have a copy of the document? My understanding of traditional subpoena law is that either country could subpoena the document in this case, even if it were considered privileged or private data under the law of the other country.

Comment Re: Useless Use of Cat Award (Score 1) 125

Imo the version you present is clearly inferior. For one it's ugly, breaking the left-to-right dataflow nature of shell pipelines. For two it requires more tedious line-editing if you change out the source, e.g. if phonelist is encrypted, with the previous version you just replace "cat" with "zcat", whereas with your version you have to rearrange the commands. "cat" in this case just functions as a noop data source, like a 'dac' node in a Max/MSP graph. Overloading the first command in the pipeline with special syntax to read from a file is bad, non-modular design: "grep" should just read from stdin, not have some special syntax and code to read from files.

And no, your version isn't faster, either.

Comment Re:Hiding evidence (Score 2) 192

Their analogy also fits how I personally think the case should be resolved. The court seems to be unsure about the personal access of Microsoft's American staff though. In your example, a U.S.-based employee has to be ordered to comply with the German subpoena. But it sounds like in this case, Microsoft's U.S. employees can comply with the subpoena fully themselves, without having to order Microsoft Ireland employees to assist. So the court seems to be leaning towards thinking that in that case, as corporate officers subject to U.S. jurisdiction, they can be served subpoenas to retrieve that data, even if the data is elsewhere—because data isn't a legal person.

You could imagine a kind of really walled-off setup where Microsoft US employees literally can't access Microsoft Ireland data without a Microsoft Ireland employee authorizing it. And then the Microsoft Ireland employee would be directed to only authorize it in accordance with Irish law. The trouble is that that's a really cumbersome way to run an international business. So Microsoft US employees, or at least some of them, seem to have direct access to worldwide Microsoft data.

Comment might work at big companies (Score 1) 415

Oddly enough this actually became common with Linux before Windows. Many big companies that use Linux pay for an annual RHEL subscription, even though you could use a gratis version of Linux. The current prices: without support, it's $50/yr for desktops, $180/yr for workstations, $350/yr for servers. With support, $300/yr for workstations, $800/yr for servers.

Comment Re:The anti-French jokes are on you (Score 2) 699

Open mockery of France didn't really start until the first Gulf War

Rather earlier than that. Open mockery of the French has been an American thing since at least my parents' generation, probably longer. I remember it being common as a kid myself, before the Gulf War. You can see the baguette and cheese tropes in old silent films, even. It's true that the sentiment wasn't quite as negative as it was for Germans, though: French were at least considered civilized, unlike the Hun.

Comment official statement (Score 1) 85

The North Korean statement itself is here:

The SONY Pictures, a film producer in the U.S., has reportedly been attacked by hackers.

The hacking is so fatal that all the systems of the company have been paralyzed, causing the overall suspension of the work and supposedly a huge ensuing loss.

Much upset by this, the U.S. mobilized many investigation bodies including FBI, CIA and the Department of Homeland Security for urgent investigation and recovery of the system.

We do not know where in America the SONY Pictures is situated and for what wrongdoings it became the target of the attack nor we feel the need to know about it.

But what we clearly know is that the SONY Pictures is the very one which was going to produce a film abetting a terrorist act while hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK by taking advantage of the hostile policy of the U.S. administration towards the DPRK.

We already called upon the world to turn out in the just struggle to put an end to U.S. imperialism, the chieftain of aggression and the worst human rights abuser that tramples down the universal rights of people to peaceful and stable life and violates the sovereignty of other countries, as well as its followers.

The hacking into the SONY Pictures might be a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK in response to its appeal.

What matters here is that the U.S. set the DPRK as the target of the investigation, far from reflecting on its wrongdoings and being shameful of being taken unawares. And the south Korean group, keen on serving its master, groundlessly linked the hacking attack with the DPRK and floated the "story about the north's involvement", an indication of its inveterate bitterness towards its country fellowmen.

The U.S. and south Korean puppet group are all accustomed to pulling up others for no specific reason when something undesirable happens in their own land.

The south Korean puppet group went the lengths of floating the false rumor that the north was involved in the hacking that happened in the U.S., a country far across the ocean.

It should be well aware that it can not evade the severe punishment by the anti-U.S. sacred war to be staged all over the world if it blindly curries favor with the U.S. as now.

The U.S. should also know that there are a great number of supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK all over the world as well as the "champions of peace" who attacked the SONY Pictures.

The righteous reaction will get stronger to smash the evil doings.

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