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Comment Re:Cell jammer (Score 1) 1003

Awesome Idea - until the person beside you is using the cell network to navigate and is quietly listening to directions until the cellphone stops working.

Then distracted by the lack of directions starts messing with the phone to fix the problem getting far more distracted from the road than they already were.

Or someone who is texting every couple of minutes... instead of hanging on to the phone for a few seconds at a time they'll now probably study the phone until the text goes through... which will be far longer.

Or worst yet, someone who needs the phone for a true emergency.

Man, that sounds like it will make drivers less distracted *rolls eyes* And don't get me wrong - I don't advocate actively using your phone while driving at all, but your "solution" will at best do nothing, and at worst just create a bigger problem.

Comment Re:32 GB in my Mac Pro (Score 4, Informative) 543

Memory is the first thing you should upgrade, followed by an SSD.

One size does not fit all.

There are valid reasons that memory should be a primary concern for upgrade just as there are valid reasons your processor, video card, or hard drive may be more optimal for immediate upgrade. While this is an extreme example, I guarantee an old Duron processor running in a server motherboard with 16GB of ram will lose every benchmark test to a new i7 running alongside 2GB of ram.

It also depends on what you're doing:
Is it a file server for a small set of files? - the solid state would probably be better.
Is it a gaming machine? Perhaps a video card or better processor would be more cost-effective.

I'm not saying that more memory is bad, I just hate it when people think it's a one-size-fits-all scenario.

Comment Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score 1) 317

I used to have this same mentality. At one point in my college dorm I had 7 different computers running as everything from a homebuilt linux router to a fileserver to a compile server I could offload long compile jobs to. Sadly both marriage and no longer having free unlimited power have changed that. I have to justify having the computers around that I do and many of the old ones get pruned out by my wife. I've found out that having an effective virtual machine setup on a couple higher efficiency new or new-ish computers is actually cheaper in the long run than keeping old ones around. Afterall - instead of paying between $20 and $30 per month per additional computer for any ~200W always-on system in addition to your main higher-end computers, it's much more cost effective to buy a $400 tower (or cheaper in many cases) and conglomerate all of your always-on functionality into VMs on one box. I personally save up to $60 per month just by combining a few of my lower horsepower boxes and only running 3 now (mainbox / DVR / VM taskbox.) it makes up that $400 cost in very little time at all.

Comment Re:Oh crap (Score 1) 550

Don't forget about the tinfoil hat wearing /. community that insists that pharmaceuticals are a plot by the government to brainwash you into buying American products so they can spy on you.

*pops meds*

Man I feel like getting some Coke from McDonalds. TTYL /.

Comment Re:Microbreweries (Score 1) 840

The taste is just oh so much better

Not always true - in fact, a lot of the larger breweries got to where they are by making at least one stellar beer. (not always true as Coors and Anheuser-Busch got to where they are by making a popular beer with lucky marketing breaks and a hefty profit margin)

With that being said, the quality control at larger plants is generally much stricter than a microbrewery is capable of.

That's not to say that microbreweries are without merits - My cousin is capable of producing nearly the legal limit of beer as homebrew without being classified as a microbrew and he has made 2 of best I've ever had, not to mention the various Microbrews I've been blown away by, but with that being said, there are treasures all over with the big breweries too. Guinness (Guinness), Fat Tire (discontinued, formerly Anheuser-Busch), Michelob Amber Bock (Anheuser-Busch), BlueMoon (Coors), Yunling (Yuengling brewrey - mid-size) Much of Leinenkugel's offerings (Leinenkugel brewing co. - mid-size), Almost anything Dogfishhead makes (Dogfishhead - mid-size) and a good chunk of what Sam Adams makes (Sam Adams Brewrey, mid-large size)

Comment Re:notify the government? How about us? (Score 2) 62

Agreed - even 48 hours is a bit long in today's digital world and the government would only be a middle-man to who the information needs to get to as you were saying.

If the legislators knew anything about computers, maybe they'd do something smart like require auditing software which detects mass-retrieval of data. That way, in most instances, the leak can be detected immediately instead of potentially not at all like some companies.

Heck - I think it would be better to require them to notify the government and their consumers within 48 hours of the breech regardless of whether or not they have detected it and subject them to a fine based on the severity of the retrieval and how detectable it should have been if it took them more than 48 hours to detect and report.

It won't stop data breeches, but it will make sure decent audit systems are in place.

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