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Comment Re:"Batteries... has the potential"? (Score 1) 334

They does?

Funny, I would've thought the Fark Nitpicking Patrol would have been full of early risers.

Why would the Fark Nitpicking Patrol be on Slashdot? Are there not enough typos on Fark to satisfy them? I know that can't be the case, there are thousands of man-hours of work just correcting misused apostophe's alone.

Comment Re:Drug dogs (Score 2) 409

I've known people who have had their car searched because a dog allegedly signaled that there were drugs in the car when there were not. They looked like stoners (long hair and tie-dyed shirts) so the cops probably thought the odds were good they would find something. When they didn't they just blamed the dog and said something along the lines of, "well, you were probably smoking pot in this vehicle at some point, and that's probably what the dog smelled."

The dog is just an excuse to violate your rights.

THIS. There are no statistics on how frequently dogs "alert" and the subsequent search finds no contraband. The police document when they do find something in such a search but don't document it when they don't, so the statistics make it appear that dogs are extremely effective. When confronted with double-blind tests they don't perform nearly as well. They also generate a lot of false positives, when training the dog almost always encounters what it is looking for so when they get in the field they tend to generate a lot of false positives. The police are fine with this as it gives them probably cause to perform a search. I'm glad the SC is finally pushing back on this issue.

Comment Re:New product (Score 1) 342

There was zero actual explosives in there and there was a showy, but mostly harmless fuel combustion which does not qualify as "explosion". Seriously, they do this in the movies because it looks impressive and at the same time does very little actual damage.

The Falcon 9 does have a Flight Termination System to destroy it if it goes off course, so there may still be explosives on the rocket when it is landing.

Comment Re:Everything's a negotiation (Score 2) 892

Negotiation is not about collaboration nor finding the best solution, it's about finding the best deal. Good negotiation skill is always detrimental to the person you negotiate with. In a team, a good negotiator is detrimental to the team.

I don't think that's true at all. Good negotiators make good team members because they are able to compromise. They know how to view a situation from somebody else's point of view and create solutions that are beneficial to all parties. It's the people who are unable to negotiate that suck at teamwork. They get focused on only their point of view and refuse to concede any points, when dealing with poor negotiators it is often "My way or the highway!".

Comment Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. (Score 1) 653

Except that law didn't actually force any pastors to marry any gays and the law has a specific religious exemption built into it. From further reading, it appears there was a dispute on the nature of the business of those particular pastors (they run what appears to be a commercial wedding chapel called "The Hitching Post") and the city was determining if it was a commercial enterprise or a religious enterprise. It's not like these are practicing preachers that marry people, they marry people for a living. They have since reorganized their business and made it clear they are a religion-based business, therefore they are exempt from the law.

Comment Re:Seizure? (Score 1) 114

Isn't Seizure a medical term? Like in epileptic seizure? I haven't seen it used in context of police policy before. I always hear confiscate when people mean to take possession of by legal authority, not seizure. Just saying.

Oh, you haven't heard it in that context so it means it is being used incorrectly? At least as far back as the writing of the US Constitution it has been used:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Also:
seizure
noun
1. the act or an instance of seizing.
2. the state of being seized.
3. a taking possession of an item, property, or person legally or by force.
4. a sudden attack, as of epilepsy or some other disease.

Comment Re:Ok then... (Score 1) 247

The quote didn't say that Colt, Smith and Wesson were guns. It says that they were men, which is true.

We all get that you're excited at the opportunity to be pedantic and show off your gun knowledge, but you should at least finish reading the goddamn sentence that you're referring to before hitting the reply button.

Did you know that every gun in the world is named after a man? Colt, Browning, Smith, Thompson, Kalashnikov... all men.

Did you read the quote? It's quite clear that the character is claiming those names are the names of guns as well as men. Or do you not know what "named after" means?

Comment Re:Those without a timeline will be at an advantag (Score 3, Insightful) 209

Seriously? Read a book. Watch the History Channel

Why, so I can learn about "Ancient Aliens"? Or learn about how items are priced when pawned? Or keep track of the doings of "Swamp People"? I support your idea (learn history!) but watching the History Channel is one of the worst ways to do that.

Comment Re:If you don't authorize it, it can't divulge inf (Score 2) 330

Yeah, because disabling it in SOFTWARE makes it impossible for the tv to activate it when your not looking right?
If you want to be totally safe, you need to cripple the hardware itself!

And how hard is that? In my home, the wifi is encrypted so if the TV connects via wifi, I simply don't give it the key. If it connects via ethernet, I disconnect the ethernet cable. It's not too hard to prevent the TV from phoning home.

As for the original question, at this time it doesn't seem like there are too many options for this. I bought a "smart" tv several years ago, I thought it would be helpful since I wanted to be able to stream Netflix without getting a third-party box. The interface is terrible, it's very slow and unresponsive. There haven't been any updates to the "NetTV" portion of the software, so pretty much the only thing worthwhile is Netflix - most of the other services it supports either are useless or don't even exist anymore. If the company cared about providing updates and staying current with services it might be worth it but there is no motivation for the company to provide software updates since they would prefer I just buy a new TV if I want access to current services. With things like Chromecast and FireTV, it makes a lot more sense to get a dumb TV and add the smart features you want via a cheap dongle rather than paying hundreds of dollars for the TV manufacturer to add the same hardware with a crappier interface to the TV.

Comment Re:BitCoin's isn't a mature cryptocurrancy (Score 1) 148

The problem isn't with the technology in general so much as its infancy.

No, the problem is with the technology, it depends on trusting the person it's sending money to deliver something. That is a flaw quite clearly. Unlike other technologies that depend on other methods to deliver like laws that can be enforced, Bitcoin is designed to make this difficult.

I don't see how Bitcoin is different than cash in this regard. If you are purchasing something without escrow then you will always run the risk of the other party making off with your money/property. If this happens, they still broke the law no matter if you were paying in cash, Bitcoins or Triganic Pu. If you don't trust the party you are doing the deal with you should take steps to protect yourself, no matter the currency.

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