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Comment Re:I fly all the time (Score 1) 487

I fly frequently as well. In many small airports, they try to push ALL people through the rape-scanners. The same policy is in effect at major airports depending on the terminal.

I also have dark skin.

Ever gone 7 flights in a row and get "randomly selected" for further screening? Ever had your genitals grabbed by a TSA agent? 4 times during one screening?

Ever been kicked out of an airport for refusing to be scanned? Had your flight cancelled by the police? Been surrounded by police and TSA for refusing a scan?

I have. Believe me, it's not fun.

Dosimeters are not that expensive, and they would go a long way towards making people feel more comfortable, but regardless of cancer risk or radiation risk, the TSA creates a violation of personal privacy, security, and comfort. They do so without providing even a fraction of a security improvement. I would even go so far as to say that security is worse with TSA in place.

Comment You can't (Score 2) 758

You can't do it because ITunes leverages napster data.

I know this because I have some obscure tastes in music. I have a tape and a cd of an old band. I downloaded one of the songs that's only on the tape from napster. I was disappointed with the recording because of three glitches in the track. Years later, itunes pops up. I buy the song from itunes. Low and behold, same three glitches are in the itunes version.

This happened for not just one song, but two songs from two different artists in two different genres. One was a single glitch, which I would have dismissed as chance, but four glitches at the same timestamps from two different songs in two different genres?

Comment How do I photograph thee, let me count the ways... (Score 1) 248

Logitech Webcam for notebook that's terrible, creative labs webcam for notebook that's terrible too.

iPhone, iPhone 4, iphone 3g, and my other iphone 4.

Nintendo DSi

Nikon D300, D50

Casio Point and Shoot x 2

Security Cam

And I suppose i should also count my old polaroid, and my 2 nikon film cameras. Of course, there's a pinhole camera or 2 lying around somewhere. And the 3d camera that I never use.

Well, that's just in this room. I'm sure there's others around the house that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Comment Re:Yep (Score 1) 156

I think the assumption is that he'd have more sales if it was sold by a publisher. Sure, he would have. But he shopped the idea and it was rejected. Even if his sales quadrupled, it probably wouldn't have been a book that traditional publishers would have been looking to publish.

Selling 1800+ copies of a book no publisher would touch is an achievement, and not an easy one to reproduce.

If you can come up with a really good idea 4 times a year and follow through to completion within a reasonable deadline you're only looking at a $36k income. That's not very good as a full time job. However - if you can do that in the evenings it's a heck of a side income, and the more you can consistently perform, the more you'll sell.

There's also the question of investment. Amazon's options are zero or minimal investment. Spend a little bit of money and have 100 or 1000 copies printed at a time and handle the delivery yourself and you can double your profits - plus you have the capability of handing over copies to local booksellers to see if they'll sell in store.

For every person looking to go down this path, there are a lot of paths you can go down. The easiest path and most potentially successful is a publisher. They have marketing plans, distribution contracts, and above all else - talent on hand who are pretty good at determining the sell-ability of a given book. They aren't the only answer, though. 2000 copies sold is nothing to a publisher, but for an individual it can be huge. Personally, I think that before writing anything you have to determine your target market and how to communicate with them.

Comment Have you tried to compile this thing? (Score 1) 481

I'm remiss to discover that no open source browser can be compiled for windows without Visual Studio. Most of them can't be compiled with the current version of Visual Studio. If I want to make updates and try them out, I have to go through the trouble of setting up a virtual environment specifically geared towards browser development. I'm pretty disappointed all around. It's no wonder that so many bugs remain unaddressed for so long.

Comment Re:Good advice - Always use your ISP for DNS (Score 1) 348

The geo location on my ip has always been pretty accurate - within 25 miles. Running my own dns server alleviates the problem and keeps me away from relying on my ISP. (which accounts for at least half the downtimes I experienced prior to spending the 15 minutes it took to set it up in the first place.

Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 73

To answer my own question

It contains no specific penalties for non-compliance with the law, but could open the door to lawsuits or legal actions by the state’s attorney general.
Source

I don't think you can call a law "tough" when there are no penalties.

Intel

Intel's Sandy Bridge Processor Has a Kill Switch 399

An anonymous reader writes "Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors have a new feature that the chip giant is calling Anti-Theft 3.0. The processor can be disabled even if the computer has no Internet connection or isn't even turned on, over a 3G network. With Intel anti-theft technology built into Sandy Bridge, David Allen, director of distribution sales at Intel North America, said that users have the option to set up their processor so that if their computer is lost or stolen, it can be shut down remotely."

Comment Exactly (Score 1) 150

This is exactly the reason that platforms like OSX and Windows are so secure, and linux is so riddled with viruses. Can you imagine the problems we would be facing if people actually had access to review and update those operating systems?

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