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Comment Re: You can't make this shit up. (Score 2) 776

A woman can be equal or better (stronger etc) than a man. There probably are a lot of women who could lift more than I can or beat me up. However, on average, women are weaker than men. Also, the strongest woman is most likely weaker than the strongest man. Why else there would be a need for segregation in sports? Have women compete against men in weightlifting, boxing etc.

Comment Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible (Score 2) 186

And yet, there is a difference - even the law recognizes it. The "no item is lost" is not because it's intangible, but also because making a copy does not destroy the original. Compare these two events:

1. I copy a CD borrowed from a friend. The studio still has as many copies of the album as they had before.
2. I break into the studio, grab the master tape, leave a blank tape (the same type) (or copy the tape then erase it) and run away. The studio no longer has the album, but I only stole the music - they did not lose the physical tape.

To me, only the second event would be stealing while leaving all tangible items are in place.

And you cannot steal a "right" - the studio still has the right to copy the album, I cannot take it away from them without getting a new law passed, since the right is just how the law sees it. I can however, infringe on the right, or rather, the exclusivity of it by making my own illegal copies.

And if the cable company did not disconnect the cable after I cancelled the service, then I sure can watch TV without paying.

Comment Re:Sounds like 6 strikes is terrible (Score 2) 186

The difference between real theft and copyright infringement is that if you steal a physical item (say a DVD of a movie), the legit owner of the item no longer has it. He is then out the money he paid for it (paid money, no item). I steal a DVD from you, you can no longer play that DVD.

Copyright infringement is different in that here no item is lost - the studio still has as many copies of the movie as they had before I downloaded it. What the studio considers a loss is the potential profit they would have had if I bought the movie instead, however, that assumes:
1) That I would have bought the movie new for the full price (and not buy used or wait for the price to drop).
2) That the movie is available for sale at all in the store (how do I get the Star Wars Holiday Special legally?)

Remember - if I buy a movie used, the studio gets zero dollars from me.

Comment Re:Home PCs are fast disappearing (Score 1) 141

Now... not many are buying home PCs.

Because most people already have a good desktop or laptop PC at home. PCs do not change as much as they used to, so you do not need to buy a new one (or even upgrade your current one) every year like you used to (unless you play games and really want to have as high FPS as possible). A PC now lasts for many years for common tasks like web browsing.

On the other hand, tablets and phones change a lot, while the hardware may not change as much (or rather, as noticeably), you cannot most of the time upgrade to a newer software version on your old device (like you can upgrade Windows Vista to 7 for example).

Of all people I personally know, the majority have a PC at home (those that don't are usually older than 70 years - didn't need or use a PC all their lives, do not care to start now). Sure, some also have tablets or smartphones.

The measurement of sales for something that most people already have is weird for me. Sure, you can measure sales of some new technology or limited-use things to see how they are doing, but to say that, for example, radio is dead because people are not buying new radios as much as they used to even though most people have a radio and use it (at least in the car) is a bit wrong. Most people already have a radio, a TV and a PC at home, just because sales are dropping may not indicate that the technology is dying, it may be that the devices people already have are still good enough.

Comment Re:Pinto (Score 1) 247

Lithuania. Haven't heard of this happening here. However, in some cases, both drivers can be declared guilty. If the insurance company tries to say that the driver in front stopped for no reason to get insurance money, this still does not excuse the driver behind of not keeping a safe distance (well, what if the driver in front had a reason to brake?).

Comment Re:How you drive (Score 2) 247

In my country if you hit a car in front of you, you are guilty for the accident because you failed to keep at a safe distance. It does not matter if the driver in front stepped on the brakes for no reason (in some cases you may be both declared guilty). The reasoning is that even if he stepped on the brakes for no reason at that time, what if there was a reason (pothole, someone on the road etc) that you could not see? You would still have hit the car in front of you.

Comment Re:Speed cameras reduce fatalities? (Score 1) 247

In my country, speed cameras are preceded with a sign announcing the presence of said camera. The signs far enough away that you can slow down without hitting the brakes too hard (unless you were really speeding). The government said that, yes, more fines would be collected without those signs, however, the intended result is not to collect fines, but to make people drive slow, at least in that area. Which the signs do well.

Comment Re:Dual Homing Failover and IPv6 address aggregati (Score 1) 390

your outgoing traffic will still be fine

That may not be fine as well, since unless IPv6 can cram both host IPs into the packet, existing sessions will get dropped (which may not happen with IPv4, since IPs stay the same). Also, that requires more complex firewall configuration (what's the probability that one of the IPs will not be entered?).

My back-of-a-napkin solution to this a few years ago was that there's an obvious business model for a few ISP to conspire to jointly provide dual-homing.

There are a few problems with this:
1. The ISPs must be willing to cooperate (unlike now, they only have to provide BGP access).
2. The customer still cannot change ISPs (now I can take my AS to another ISP if I do not like the current one or another pair of ISPs if I'm moving and the current ISPs do not provide service in the new location).
3. The failure of an ISP must trigger a BGP announce to stop traffic from coming to it. This may not happen. Currently we had multiple problems where the main ISP failed but did not announce that - out BGP router still though that the ISP is good. I had to write a script that checks if the internet is accessible and if not (for a few minutes) forces our BGP router to use the other ISP (done with prepends and priorities).

Comment Re:Can't remember adresses (Score 1) 390

I remember quite a few v4 IPs of my own machines, machines of the company I work for and of clients.

Adding all that to a DNS server would be a pain (either having one private server with all of them or adding to the servers of the appropriate client, assuming the client has a DNS server, some don't, after all a network of x Windows PCs and a single samba server does not really need DNS, especially if the network is just a bunch of Windows PCs with no server).

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