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Comment How to write a good ticket (Score 3, Insightful) 232

need access to my smart-phone for various reasons
[...]
various sorts of data access

Part of writing a good ticket is being specific about your use case and not presupposing the solution. From what you've written, the problem is not technical and has nothing to do with a smart watch. The problem is you are forgetful.

If you can be specific about what you are actually doing with your phone, we can give you solutions that may or may not involve a smart watch.

Comment Impressive (Score 5, Informative) 217

I am a Mandarin speaker. Yes, his accent was horrible. However, this is what impressed me: He understood everything the interviewer asked in one pass. His response was a genuine expression of his thoughts rather than a textbook answer. He did not have to rely on inserting English words. His grammar was basically correct.

Comment There is an old fable (Score 5, Interesting) 264

'There is an old fable,' said Hardin, 'as old perhaps as humanity, for the oldest records containing it are merely copies of other records still older, that might interest you. It runs as follows:

A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occurred to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the manÃ(TM)s disposal. The horse was willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him.

The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: ÃNow that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.

Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, ÃThe hell you say. Giddy-ap, Dobbin,Ã(TM) and applied the spurs with a will.

Comment The park was not set up safely. (Score 4, Informative) 479

Here's a couple of reports on that very same park by a few locals:

I had just visited the park where this happened to watch because i love this hobby (prior to the incident) and there really should be more safety precautions taken in fling fields, because these helicopters are only 40-50 yards from the spectators, and there is nothing stopping these things to do what it did to that kid

Last year I went to a fun fly at that field. A lot of those guys, including Roman (who I met), were pretty much flying right in their faces and on the deck the entire time they were flying. Even that day there was an incident where another guy was flying above his skill level on the deck, the tail smacked the ground and the heli started pirouetting out of control. Well it flew right into the pit area and hit a car, and the shattering glass injured somebody. And yet immediately after there were still about 6 or 7 guys at a time flying next to each other on a field that's about 500 feet wide without any concept of staying in their own flight box. Since that day I hadn't been there again and I definitely am not going back there now.

Submission + - Cisco and US Gov't Conspire to Abuse Legal Process (vancouversun.com)

Mantle writes: "Justice Ronald McKinnon of the BC Supreme Court has ordered a stay of extradition for a British citizen to face criminal charges in the US after finding the US Prosecutors and Cisco conspired to mislead the Canadian courts about the nature of the crime. Justice McKinnon found that in reality, the criminal charges were based on exaggerations and misleading representations in order to pressure the accused into dropping a civil suit against Cisco.

The entire incident was a planned and deliberate act by Cisco, which prevailed on U.S. prosecutors to “grotesquely inflate” a minor civil complaint into a criminal charge requiring 500 years imprisonment.

"Justice McKinnon said that his main offence was that he “dared to take on a multinational giant.”"

Comment Step one: understand the issue (Score 1) 226

What you are describing is not "net neutrality", but usage based billing. There is no problem with that on /..

What /.ers are talking about when they refer to net neutrality is the neutral treatment of data based on the content of the data, NOT the manner in which the content is transmitted. That is a very important technical distinction to make that is commonly misapplied when the term "net neutrality" is used without understanding the underlying issue.

Your electricity bill is "electric neutral" already. If BC Hydro were to overturn "electric neutral" they would bill you differently not only the quantity of electricity you used, but for the purpose to which you put the electricity. They could do things like bill you more for powering a non-BC Hydro branded/partner TV or fridge, but they would sell it to you as a "discount" for using their services. If you complained, they would say oh just switch to a competing provider!

Except the only other "competition" colludes with them in price.

Games

Submission + - Blizzard Claims Ownership of All Starcraft II Maps 5

ccherlin writes: The EULA of Starcraft II contains an extremely disturbing clause:

3. Map Editor. The Game includes a program that allows you to create custom levels, maps, scenarios
or other materials for use in connection with the Game (the “Map Editor”). The following terms are specific to the Map Editor:
a. Map Content. You understand that the content required to create or modify STARCRAFT® II
Modified Maps (as defined below) is included in the STARCRAFT® II game client, and that all
such content is owned by Blizzard and governed by this Agreement. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND
AGREE THAT ALL MAPS, LEVELS AND OTHER CONTENT CREATED OR MODIFIED USING THE MAP
EDITOR (COLLECTIVELY, “MODIFIED MAPS”) ARE AND SHALL REMAIN THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OF BLIZZARD. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, YOU HERE BY ASSIGN TO
BLIZZARD ALL OF YOUR RIGHTS, TITLE AND INTEREST IN AND TO ALL MODIFIED MAPS, AND
AGREE THAT YOU WILL EXECUTE FUTURE ASSIGNMENTS PROMPTLY UPON RECEIVING SUCH
A REQUEST FROM BLIZZARD.

Prior Blizzard games like Warcraft III had EULA provisions that prohibited selling maps created with their editor, but the copyright remained with the map maker. Now? Anyone who creates a new, popular mod like DotA with the Starcraft II editor will have no rights to their own creation.

Submission + - Major Oil Company Data Leaked By Service Provider (blogspot.com)

An anonymous reader writes: At the recent Black Hat USA 2010 security conference, a well known security service provider accidentally leaked a sensitive penetration test report on a major US-based oil company containing enough sensitive information to gain Windows domain administrator access rights as well as the username and password for everyone in the target company's domain. According to the detailed, 39-page report, these access rights included the ability to access servers containing SCADA system information. The report was not encrypted or password-protected in any way. Anyone with access to the leaked document and a copy of Microsoft Word could read the report in full.

The file was inadvertently distributed on USB keys provided to some attendees.

Reference:
http://sharpesecurity.blogspot.com/2010/07/major-oil-company-data-leaked-by.html

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