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Comment Re:We Are All Under Suspicion Now (Score 0) 232

by Arker (#47668111) Attached to: Fugitive Child Sex Abuser Caught By Face-Recognition Technology
You forget that the people pay for the government, and are supposed to own it. The government is supposed to be part of the nation, not an external bloodsucker set on top of it. And searches are supposed to require a warrant, supported under oath or by affirmation, giving probable cause that a crime has been committed.

So yes, if the FBI wants to take OUR database which is in their care, and compare it with OUR database which is in the care of the INS, then they should do so within the constitutional framework, get a warrant, and only get to keep the results that match the warrant, not everything else.

Comment Re:So, such rules are bad for keeping people worki (Score 1, Informative) 327

by Arker (#47668053) Attached to: California May Waive Environmental Rules For Tesla
Of course they are.

And how does anyone even pretend this is legal? They can just 'waive' laws for special people and leave them in place for us proles now?

This is not the American way. One law for everyone. If the law is wrong, repeal it, don't 'waive' it for your friends while the rest suffer.

Comment Re:Why is (Score 0) 201

by Arker (#47643829) Attached to: Netflix Now Works On Linux With HTML5 DRM Video Support In Chrome
His point only stands up if the utterance indeed had the sarcastic intonation. Intonation being absent in written word, his point fails completely.

Yes it's *possible* to say that sarcastically, but no I have never heard anyone actually do it. They are just dropping a word from a cliche that has been worn so slick by the passage of time their tongues cannot adhere.

Comment Re:Translated into English (Score 0) 306

You got modded down but it's basically true.

There are two sides to it - some laws and agreements that are truly senseless - but a large part of it really is a complaint from rent-seekers about subsidies they feel entitled to.

The fact is solar PV is at present NOT very that cost effective, even in the markets where it works best.

Removing illogical obstacles to PV installation would be a good thing, but 'generous subsidies' paid for predominantly by the working poor, to help rich landowners install PV and cut their bills going forward, is not.

I would also suggest that Floridians worried about their sunlight going to waste investigate solar-thermal (hot water) rather than PV (photovoltaic) panels. Quite a bit less expensive and you dont need to generate electricity to displace some demand.

Comment Re:Service in exchange for a free modem? (Score 0) 224

by Arker (#47626687) Attached to: The Hidden Cost of Your New Xfinity Router
What you are getting is the ability to use similar hotspots as you move around. The actual utility of that seems questionable - most are going to be in someones home where you cannot use them anyway.

If you own your own modem and it works I would advise you to keep it no matter what they offer. The wireless gateways are absolute junk.

Comment Re:Just refuse the new gear (Score 0) 224

by Arker (#47626667) Attached to: The Hidden Cost of Your New Xfinity Router
Indeed. Every router-and-modem-in-one-box I have seen yet is a POS. The very best case is if they will accept bridge mode and imitate a modem properly. Very often they actually will not (though they may appear to agree at first, and only cause problems later. I would actually go one better and refuse to take their modem as well, since they will only have old beat-up returned modems in stock. Buy a decent modem and tell them to provision it then leave it alone.

Comment Re:Libertarians, discuss! (Score 2) 183

by Arker (#47608965) Attached to: Hotel Charges Guests $500 For Bad Online Reviews
I cant see any compelling reason you should not be able to agree to a non-disparagement clause, assuming it's clearly presented ahead of time and you knowingly agreed to it in return for compensation. Devils advocate, of course, is to point out that it's not really clear that this was the case - the 'policy' may not have been clearly presented ahead of time and knowingly agreed to by guests and I saw no mention of compensation. So if it ever went to court there would be room for invalidation.

Regardless, it looks like the market is taking care of it fine, without even needing a court to review the 'contract' - the very fact that this business tried to impose such a policy is set to cost them a pretty good slice of profits, and the public nature of the reaction is helping to discourage any other businesses that might try the same thing.

You were saying?

Comment Re:High speed car chase on "Cops" (Score 2) 140

by Arker (#47604501) Attached to: Least Secure Cars Revealed At Black Hat
Simply letting him get away would be horrible, because of the prevention aspect. If that were standard practice on the part of the cops, then the rate of car theft would certainly go way up.

But there is another possibility besides letting him go and flying off in a risky high speed chase. There's this old-school police technique called a 'tail' where you follow at a distance and let the target think he's getting away (while of course using your radio to get ahead of him.) Much less chance of injury or death that way. Too old-school for US cops these days, but in some backwards jurisdictions it might still be used.

Comment Re:Makes Perfect Sense (Score 3, Informative) 138

by Arker (#47595413) Attached to: Study: Dinosaurs "Shrank" Regularly To Become Birds

"There was a lot more oxygen in the air back then. It wasn't just hotter. With the lower oxygen levels the huge dinos wouldn't do so well because they didn't have muscles for breathing like we do."

I think you are rather badly mistaken. There was actually much less oxygen in the atmosphere then.

Warning, link is not really a webpage, js required :( but you can search yourself for a better source.

Comment Re:What's there to compare? (Score 1) 402

by Arker (#47589229) Attached to: Comparison: Linux Text Editors
"TSE costs $45. And if you are ok with that huge flaw, then by all means..."

Huh?

Being windows only (WINE works but I dont want to have to rely on it,) and closed source are drawbacks I care about, and why I am not using it. The $45 is nothing for a quality tool. I bet you've paid more than that for games that you did not even play through once.

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