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Comment Misleading (Score 1) 71

The headline says Four Million Websites, but the truth is (according to Google) is that it's Four Million Webpages, and a good number of those are security-related sites that talk about the vuln, not expose it. Can we possibly look into reporting the facts instead of inflating them?

Comment No Question... (Score 1) 500

We've seen this trend in just about everything in our daily lives as well. Back in the '50s and '60s, Service Stations were just that - SERVICE. There was a knowledgeable individual that would check the oil and such when you gassed-up your car. Today, none of this exists because it's cheaper to pay some pimply-faced kid to man the cash-register vs. paying someone with the knowledge to actually service an automobile. Now before you make the argument that cars are more technologically-advanced nowadays, consider the fact that you're still spending YOUR money on your car - just that the "service" station isn't spending THEIR money on it anymore - your money is going into the up-front cost of the automobile instead of spreading it out over the life of the product in the way of maintenance and upkeep. The same holds true for technology. You pay an engineer to design the system correctly first, and the cost over time goes down because you don't need to pay an engineer to maintain it - the tools available today do a pretty good job of replicating what you paid the engineer to do, at a fraction of the cost. Apply this same logic to fast-food. Nobody at McDonalds really knows how to cook or prepare a meal. All the "engineering" is already done, so you only have to pay the minimum-wage folks to replicate what's already been done. This list goes on and on and includes everything from your car to your house to your meals to the subject at hand. How many of us still know how to perform repairs that need to be done around the house? I'd bet that's a small number, because we paid for a "system" that doesn't need much maintenance, and when it does it's fairly modular (nobody sweats copper anymore - it's all plastic tubing that snaps together. Nobody adds electrical outlets because the house is pre-wired).

Comment Re:Lawsuit? (Score 3, Insightful) 181

As much as it's true that a thief won't bother with something that's not worth his time, there's another side of the coin to keep in mind. If it costs considerably more to make something more secure, the customer isn't going to purchase the product to begin with. I've gotta believe that the banks have accepted a certain amount of risk, and therefore they've determined what those ATM's are worth to them given the cost of the unit itself as well as the cost of dealing with any issues that arise - including penetration.

Comment A rose by any other name... (Score 1) 356

TFA mentioned "improved customer service" but I can't imagine that any focus will be placed on improving anything, unless it improves the bottom-line. The shareholders get dividends based on how profitable a company is, and my guess is that by changing the name, they're not necessarily trying to conjure up customers, but investors. They're not the ones sitting on hold for xfinity minutes just to talk to some McDonalds Drive-Through Graduate.

Comment It's all about marketing and hype (Score 1) 228

They're giving away a measly $10,000 each, for a total of $40,000 - IF ALL FOUR contestants make it full-term. The vague rules they have posted in the application say that you must agree to sign other "agreements", which (conveniently) are not available right now. Yeah right, like I'm gonna sign something *now* that obligates me to sign something later, whether I agree to the subsequent agreements or not. This leads me to believe that like others have suggested, they'll set forth such stringent and restrictive rules that almost ensure the contestants will NOT make it to the $10,000 mark, so they'll end up with the $2,500 given to you up front. Several of us are quite capable of going *completely* off the grid, but updating Twitter/Facebook/Myspace is not my idea of completely disconnecting. This means that their investment here (not counting the marketing costs that would normally be associated with an upcoming film) are somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $20,000 if someone does make it. At the end of the day, it's to generate hype for the movie using a different approach. Ultimately, isn't everything about generating revenue?

Comment EditPlus (Score 1) 206

For $30, EditPlus (for Windows, but runs great in wine) is awesome. Granted it doesn't do all the things that a full-fledged IDE does, but the fact that it's got a built-in FTP client makes my life easier when I maintain several different sites. It's lightweight, flexible and easy to use.

Comment Re: Idling is bad for the engine (Score 1) 454

...it's bad for the engine to "warm up" your car by letting it run idle in park. It's also a waste of time and gasoline.

Agreed, but it's the lesser of all evils. A *cold* car (and I'm referring to anything north of the Mason-Dixon) is better off getting a chance to circulate oil and "warm up" vs. getting in and putting the strain of moving the vehicle on cold, non-circulated oil. It's even worse if you get in and rev the engine to warm it up. Sure, there's an ecological argument here, but there again, studies have shown that the vehicle emits less pollution if allowed to gradually warm up before a load is applied vs. applying that same load to a cold (again, *cold*) engine. Do I have statistics, articles and data? Nope - I grew up where it gets above 90* for about three weeks out of the year

Comment Funny you should ask... (Score 2, Interesting) 366

Just last evening I was approached by someone who has been *very* successful in starting non-profit org's, and asked me to "help out". Instead of compensation, we've worked out a deal where I can claim my time as a charitable donation (because after all, that's exactly what it is). That means that this donation offsets a bit of the work that I've done elsewhere. The charity is happy because they get "free" work, I'm happy because I get to do what I love, and it feels good to "donate". Besides, the networking contacts have already started to pay off!

Comment Re:MRI technology? (Score 2, Insightful) 100

MRIs have resolution down to 90nm.

Simpler/faster solution would be to insert a piece of paper in between all the pages to be scanned...

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of using the MRI to begin with? Inserting ONE sheet of paper between EVERY page in a book doesn't seem like it would take much more effort than flipping the page and photographing it.

Comment Re:Is Spam really that evil? (Score 1) 206

...and you're right. Consider the local library's "freedom" to the public internet. You can't do squat on those machines - either legitimate or not - because they're locked-down. You're granted a small bit of "freedom" in exchange for a high level of immunity. On the other hand, not running any sort of antivirus, spam filter or firewall means you have complete, unrestricted access, but at a penalty. Sure, modern society is capable of stopping the bad guys, but at what cost? I don't want my ISP filtering my access any more than I want my government telling me who to work for.

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