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Comment Re: Bullshit narrative ... (Score 1) 230

Wait ... which part of this situation hasn't been obvious for 80 years? The same conditions apply in nearly every politically-regulated industry (which is why consumer-regulation is always far more effective).

The folks from Enron (who aren't presently in jail) have a bridge to sell you! There are plenty of times where a regulated industry is ideal. Public transportation happens to be one that I highly agree with. I want the government mandating safety rules for airplanes, trains, and livery services. If you don't want that, try living somewhere in Latin America or Africa with all those freelance taxis. Where airplanes get so overloaded that passengers don't have room to sit. And if you survive all of that, let me know what you think when you get back.

Comment Re:Stop charging for checked bag (Score 1) 273

I'm well aware of that. I'm also aware that it's relatively straightforward for an airline to determine their average passenger weight quite accurately, and to budget for that in setting their ticket prices. And I'm also aware that it's an idiotic issue to raise in the first place, because airlines have never charged by (or even measured) passenger weight in modern history.

I do wish that airlines would stick to their guns about passenger size. I'm a big guy, and have a hard time fitting comfortably in a coach seat. My hips go from arm rest to arm rest and I have to tuck my arms against my body to keep from having them stick out into my neighbor's seat. I used to travel all the time for work and have had even bigger guys push me into the window or the aisle because they were about 1.5 times as wide as me./P.

Comment Re:armor is a problem ? (Score 1) 609

so armor is the problem, not crazy people with a shitload of privately-owned automatic defense rifles and stuff ?

Very few people in the US own automatic rifles. Only the wealthy can afford to buy one that is obtainable by a person (and not a FFA business). They also have to have approval from their local governments, as well as pay for a stamp to own that weapon.

Comment Re:Depends on your perspective and tastes (Score 1) 410

Yup. If you are already very rich then London can be nice, but for everyone else it's just expensive and dirty. Property prices in particular are insane. Its' grimy, overcrowded and generally not a very nice place to live.

Not that Silicon Valley is necessarily much better, but if you are not obsessed with living in a "tech hub" then there are plenty of much nicer places to be.

I've been to quite a few major cities on three different continents. While the underground in London is indeed dirty compared to somewhere like Munich, I would not consider the greater London area to be very dirty at all. Paris is, on the other hand, one of the dirtiest cities I have ever been to. There are major cities in Latin America that are far cleaner than Paris. NYC is pretty dirty also.

Comment Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score 3, Interesting) 323

There is more to it than being technically capable. If you want to submit a change and aren't able to confidently able to articulate the how and why of it you are going to waste a lot of peoples time, even if the change is technically correct.

I've mentioned this on here before but: When 2.11 kernel came out, somebody put in a sleep with a spinlock in an obscure part of the USB HID driver. I submitted a patch, which was just to revert that one section back to how it was in the previous kernel (which was just without the sleep) and it was rejected multiple times. It was obviously incorrect, but it was not until the 2.17 kernel that one of the mainstream developers submitted the exact same diff that it got fixed. I've never tried to make a contribution to the kernel since. Even when you're reverting a change that is obviously wrong, they won't accept your diff.

Comment Re:Popping the popcorn (Score 1) 262

He was allowed to leave the country, then they requested an interview. While I would agree that the statute of limitations should not run out if you have been officially subpoenaed in a court, in this case he was not given the same courtesy that is given to others. Someone posted a story of someone who is a professional athlete that can do a phone interview for his alleged crime in Sweden, but they have been refusing that to Assange for four years now.

Well I agree that they know where he is and allegedly he is not preventing them from conducting a phone interview. In fact, he probably is more than happen to conduct a phone interview or Sweden would be plastering that information all over the news. I would say that a reasonable judge should be able to determine whether or not his statute of limitations is running or not. The question is, do they have reasonable judges or even a process by which to make this determination?

Comment Re:Popping the popcorn (Score 1) 262

This is going to be interesting to watch. If I understand the nature of the criminal complaint, there's a class of sexual crime that does not exist in the UK that he stands accused of in Sweden, and that this whole mess is going to be a giant can of worms. I wonder if there are any statutes of limitations in Sweden that the authorities, in a failure to interview someone that has been open to it on foreign soil, would run up against if they didn't interview him, which would basically void the ability to prosecute (and to seek extradition) if they don't take this step.

I do not know how the law works in the UK or Sweden, but in the US, you cannot elude capture in order to run out the statute of limitations on your crimes. Once the police file a subpoena to compel you to be interviewed, the clock stops running on the statute. I think this makes sense, in general, though of course could be abused like anything else.

Comment Re:...meth (Score 5, Informative) 168

Nope. Fiber optic, not copper comm lines, so this incident cannot be ascribed to greed rather than mischief.

This is an anecdote and I don't have any evidence to back it up but I know that copper theft is very common here (as it is in most of the US). A phone company guy once told me that they've started labeling the fiber to indicate that there is no copper so that copper thieves don't rip out a half a mile of the stuff only to realize it's useless to them.

Comment Re:The most significant loss (Score 1) 395

...will be when they realize not everyone tht spelz lyk dis is a teenager.

On the upside, they could use that as a way to lay off people too lazy to spell "what", "are", "you" and other amazingly difficult words.

"Dear Mr. Smith,

GTFO, lol.

kthxbai,

Management" ... I'm stuck on 2007, aren't I?

Oh I know a project manager who types exactly like that. He's in his 50's and I believe he does it to try and look like he is young and hip. To me he looks like he is trying to be a teenage girl. It drives me insane. Use complete words and proper spellings please.

Comment Re:NASA agrees (Score 3, Funny) 182

Such an event could send us back to the middle ages

is that hyperbolic or do EMPs cause feudalism?

It's worse than that, I fear. A catastrophic solar storm in the 5th century sent the world as we know it into the dark ages. It took about a thousand years for society to recover from that particular storm, and there are few records left to talk of this catastrophe.

Comment Re:Call me old-fashioned .. but you took out the l (Score 1) 1032

It's easy to say "grow up" when the biggest loan you had to take out was for a motorcycle. An education in the US can cost 10s-100s of thousands of dollars not including living expenses. Couple this with low earnings coming out of college and interest rates that capitalize (interest is added to principle) which occurs during forbearance, deferment, or even while you're still in school. For the vast majority of people, repayment is not so simple when the average wage for a US employee is $45,327 as of 2012 according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. This doesn't take into account the costs of living, healthcare, health insurance, transportation, or god-forbid entertainment.

The time to have grown up was the time PRIOR to making a poor financial decision and borrowing $100k on an education. Even in the poorest of states, a state run university will not run you that much money. If you can't afford to go the private school, then don't go! Problem solved.

Comment It is Absurd... (Score 4, Insightful) 1032

It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college>

It strikes me as absurd that people are finishing their secondary education without understanding the fact that such school loans would be crippling. We must really be doing our high school children a disservice if they have such a poor understanding of economics and mathematics./P.

Comment Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score 1) 510

The government's ability to monitor everyone's financial transactions is part of the broad surveillance state enabled by technology.

To be fair, it's a requirement that banks report cash transactions of $10k or more (or a group of lessor transactions exceeding that threshold) to the Fed. Want to avoid this, write a check. As others have mentioned, walking around with a suitcase of cash is a little sketchy.

As, I believe the statue of limitations had expired on the alleged crime he was hushing up, Hastert could simply have told the truth about the cash withdrawals and avoided lying to the FBI.

Why is it sketchy? I've entered into property agreements that require me to present a large sum of money in cash or certified check to the receiving agent. My bank charges me a fee to get a check from them. They don't charge me a dime to pull out $10,000 in cash. If I pull out $10,000 in cash for a deposit on a property, the FBI is automatically notified by the bank. Yet there is nothing shady about me paying a security deposit in cash. In fact, every time I've asked the agent if they were okay with cash, they've always preferred it.

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