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Comment Linux (Score 5, Insightful) 126

On one hand, you hear about him flaming out people who break shit in stupid ways.
On the other, you also hear him accepting blame for not checking things properly himself: "Serves me right for not digging all the way down the mess of macros"

Whatever his eccentricities, he sounds quite fair to me.

Comment Re:What a fantastic idea! (Score 2) 40

Why do you think they have no money? Or no need for financial services like bank transfers or loans? I'm surprised that the image of the average African as a fly ridden naked tribesman grubbing in the mud for meager sustenance, persists to this day. The same idea that prompts the question: "Why would these people need cellphones (or smartphones)?", when there have been so many stories about cellphones having brought about a revolution in local commerce and finance.

Comment Re: I use Kaspersky (Score 1) 467

Got stuck with Vipre at work for a few years. It was nothing short of a complete disaster, to the point where on some systems, it just had to be shut down completely so the systems would function. Combined with the latest ratings from AV Comparatives (lol @ 88% detection rate and huge false positives) and I'd say nobody should ever run that garbage. It's truly terrible.

ESET's NOD32 is good and Kaspersky is very good. Nothing else has been consistently good for quite a while.

Comment Re:They already have (Score 1) 667

Sure, there are going to be mediating forces in the environment. Melting is an obvious one. The positive feedbacks have been getting the most attention because they are really scary. It appears that there are gas clathrates in the ground and under water that can come out at a certain temperature. The worst case is that we get an event similar to Lake Nyos, but with a somewhat different mechanism and potentially many more dead. The best case is a significant atmospheric input of CO2 and methane that we can't control.

I don't think I have to discount Trenberth. He's trying to correct his model, he isn't saying there is no warming.

Comment Re:It only works when it isn't (Score 1) 163

I don't want a teleported camshaft that is printed with a 3D printer that uses chocolate for the printing material.

Actually, printing real-world stuff in chocolate via 3d scanning+printing would be *awesome*,and would probably have a decent market. Those scale model cars that you can buy; print those, in chocolate. You can eat your way through the car and see all the intricate parts as you do so.

Get yourself printed...in chocolate. Then eat yourself. Or take a bite outta the boss!

Lots of fun applications there.

Comment Re:Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Score 1) 673

And this year, the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in the USA is around 23% or less. For effective vaccines (measles, etc) with severe consequences for infection, it makes sense, but recent research is showing that people who have previously been vaccinated for influenza are actually *more likely* to get sick with a newer strain (again, NOT an issue with the measles vaccine). For flu, I'd guess that people who are exposed to the live virus in small quantities may build more natural immunity than those that a vaccine, but research hasn't shown the cause yet. There are two ways to get immunity after all:
a) An effective vaccine
or
b) Get sick, suffer the consequences, and naturally build immunity

In the case of (b), if you're infectious before showing visible symptoms (and/or you're not willing to become a hermit until you are clear) then the vaccine is still the best route, and more in the community interest. In the US, where sick days are lacking, many people aren't willing (or able) to lose the pay either. You also end up with dipshit parents who deliberately expose their kids to nasty stuff so that they *WILL* get sick and later be immune... which just seems cruel and unnecessary.

Comment Legit reasons (Score 1) 247

There are legitimate reasons for doing it. Businesses which essentially have the telephone equivalent of a NAT (lots of inside lines, only a few incoming numbers), or forwarding etc.

People with VOIP lines may have only an outgoing line with no number to call back. I've had this and used my cellular # for call-display.

That said, there should be a way to authorize or verify numbers for caller-ID purposes, perhaps by sending a text message or confirmation call with a passcode. Then, only those who have registered a number can use it for caller-ID purposes.

Comment It's just moving your trust to someone else (Score 5, Insightful) 83

So this-or-that company promises you unbreakable encryption or that they won't poke their nose in your data. Do you trust them? I don't. All it takes is a little firm chit-chat from the national security agency of the country your data is hosted in, and your "safe" data isn't safe anymore.

If you really insist on putting files and shit in the cloud, encrypt it yourself before uploading it. Better yet, run your own server and provide yourself with your very own fucking cloud. Those who want real security aren't lazy and do the work themselves.

Comment Re:They already have (Score 1) 667

Thanks.

McKitrick is an economist out of his field. Trenberth and Fasullo cite many of their other papers and the publications to which they were submitted, but it seems mostly not accepted. But their conclusion seems to be that there were other times in recent years that the rate of warming decreased for a time only for it to return to its previous rate. I only see the abstract for Kosaka and Xie, but they state "the multi-decadal warming trend is very likely to continue with greenhouse gas increase."

Comment Re:If all goes well. . . (Score 4, Insightful) 228

Home automation enthusiasts quickly discover that it's wise to always pick equipment that has a manual override, and does not depend on the master controller or even its own electronics. Light switches that function independently of the controller, locks that can still be opened with a key if necessary, etc. And even when no device is broken, the software still craps out or does something unexpected, or needs changes. Some people add an "I am dead" switch to set their HA setup to full manual mode, so that other members of the household can still turn on the lights or the coffee maker in case the system craps out and the expert happens to be away.

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