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Comment Blame the roads for bank heist (Score 4, Interesting) 216

So, when a bank is robbed and the thieves use a getaway car then he should obviously be blaming the roads, or the car companies, maybe the gas station for allowing them to be transported to the bank and away from the scene of the crime.

Why is it that the method of transport is suddenly to blame here?  If we always use the car analogy to describe technology concepts then should the roadways be inspecting the contents and destination of all travellers to prevent or detect crimes?

So in this analogy we have criminals who committed the crime and the bank (Sony) where the locks were found to be insufficient and the guards were not watching the right doors.  Why does the blame need to extend beyond those parties?

Of course the governments would probably jump at the chance to inspect all traffic and the contents of all vehicles on the road if they thought they could get away with it.  To protect the people of course, no other reason.

Music

Gangnam Style Surpasses YouTube's 32-bit View Counter 164

First time accepted submitter neoritter writes "The Korean pop star PSY's viral music video "Gangnam Style" has reached the limit of YouTube's view counter. According to YouTube's Google+ account, "We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY. 'Gangnam Style' has been viewed so many times we had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer (9,223,372,036,854,775,808)!"

Comment The Prisoner (Score 0) 231

Why am I picturing something out the TV series "The Prisoner" from the late 60's

https://www.google.ca/search?q=the+prisoner&espv=2&biw=1117&bih=629&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=T4JqVImWGpWzyATShICwCQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg#tbm=isch&q=the%20prisoner%201967&revid=649089287&imgdii=_

Number 6?

Somehow scary giant floating white bubbles chasing you down?

Comment Re:Wondering about those numbers. (Score 4, Interesting) 192

8.1 is not an automatic update.  It requires launching the store, accepting the update and waiting for the lengthy download and install process to finish.  I have seen plenty of Windows 8 PC's that nobody bothered to upgrade.  Not a single person I have talked to still running 8.0 was even aware of the upgrade.  It's not like they made a conscious choice to stick with 8.0, they simply didn't bother to even find out.  Microsoft would have to make a greater effort to force them to upgrade through automatic update and continuous prompts that keep requesting permission to download and upgrade when they boot up to get this to change.

That's pretty much the one and only reason why most of these users have not upgraded on their own.  95% of those windows 8.0 users are simply not clued in to the fact an upgrade should be done.  4% likely had problems getting the upgrade to install or download so just stick with 8.0 rather than troubleshoot the issue.  Lets peg 1% or less are those choosing to stick with 8.0 (good enough for them, corporate standard, too much trouble, not enough bandwidth to download, etc etc)

Comment Answer: Both (Score 5, Insightful) 126

Why would it have to be exclusive?

Car makers can simply support both protocols in their built in systems and whatever device you bring just pairs up with it.

Why would an automaker want to exclude potential customers by only supporting one method or the other is the question you need to ask.  Unless Apple or Google is subsidising the cost of the car they just want to make the most attractive package possible and sell more cars.

Comment Never use them except when below cost (Score 1) 110

Personally I avoid using Godaddy unless there is one of those sales where they are selling domain registration or transfers at below cost.

I have registered a fair number of domains with them at the $1 to $5 price points you can sometimes get and when a decent coupon for transfer comes up from someone better like Namecheap I transfer them away.  Godaddy looses money on the deal.  I might transfer those domains back into godaddy on another below cost transfer deal but I just transfer it back out again if I find another deal or if the renewal is approaching.  I have never paid them the normal cost of renewal.  Every time I have done any business with them it's below the approximately $7.85 cost they are paying to the central registry.

So if you advocate a boycott of Godaddy that's fine.  But if you want to hurt them even more then take advantage of their below cost coupons when you can and actually cost the company money but remember to transfer those domains away again when you can.

Comment Industrial look get industrial looking cable trays (Score 4, Interesting) 250

You can get really nice industrial cable trays.  Mount them high enough that they aren't immediately noticeable but they maintain that industrial and exposed look.

The good ones are powder coated so you can get a colour of your choice to match the office.

Use a tool called a cable comb when you are running the cables to put the cables into very straight and neat bundles.

Here is the manufacturer of a good quality system for cable trays:
http://wiremaidusa.com/
(they have many resellers.  Your cabling contractor likely deals with a supplier who can get this)

Here is the cable comb tool for making straightened bundles of cables that look neat in they tray:
http://www.acomtools.com/

If you want something more enclosed then you can go to full conduit installation using metal pipes.  The pipes can then be painted to match your ceiling colour.

Privacy

Ask Slashdot: Best/Newest Hardware Without "Trusted Computing"? 290

An anonymous reader writes "What is the best/newest hardware without trusted computing (TC) / Trusted Platform Module(TPM)? I am currently running ancient 32-bit hardware and thinking about an upgrade to something x64 with USB3, SATA3 and >1 core on the CPU ... but don't want TC/TPM. I have no need to run anything like Blu Ray movie disks or Microsoft Windows that requires TC/TPM or the UEFI boot process. Is anybody else still trying to avoid TC/TPM? What have your experiences been? Any pointers?" Worth reading on this front, too: Richard Stallman on so-called Trusted Computing,.

Comment Re:The solution (Score 3, Informative) 144

Would it shock anyone to know I actually did this reboot to a malfunctioning public Wifi base station recently and it worked?

I had a client moving into a new commercial location where the local cable company (Shaw) has one of their public Wi-Fi terminals installed.

They did not have their own network connection yet (booked for a few days later) so we just joined their computer to the public network but it was horrible. The connection showed moderate to high packet loss which was strange because the base station was in the roof a few feet away. Even doing a ping test to first hop (the base station) was showing the packet loss problem. Increasing the packet size on the ping tests showed the problem was got worse as you increased the packets so anything that wanted a sustained download and not small little transactions was suffering worse effects.

So I went into the back, found the power injector for the base station and cut the power. Plugged it back in, and after the reboot it was working well. No more packet loss, and a usable connection.

Maybe Shaw needs to update the firmware on these Cisco base stations they are using.

Comment EDI VAN charges ~$0.50 per KC (1000 characters) (Score 1) 168

Back when EDI (Electronic data interchange) was new it was often described as each transaction costing "similar to a long distance fax" back in the days when long distance was expensive. Was about $1.50 per transaction.

They measure the data in KC (kilo characters). Typical pricing back when it was popular was $0.50 per KC in early 90's plus many other fees. (could have been more when it first came out)

For a small company you would make a dialup connection to a VAN (Value Added Network) to submit a transaction and check for new transaction responses. Larger companies would have a permanent X25 network connection to the VAN which would have it's own monthly connection fees and data fees but was faster and near instant. There are still legacy users of these EDI VAN networks who have not shifted to the Internet versions of the EDI standards. Hopefully they renegotiated their rates at some point and didn't just let their contract auto-renew all these years.

SMS is easily the most expensive current communication on a per MB basis in common use today and it gets more expensive as providers tend to increase the rates on SMS and not lower them. $0.25 per message domestic, $0.60 per roaming message on Telus.

Comment Re:Obvious High Risk (Score 2) 199

I was randomly selected for the SSS tag on my boarding pass. It was great. We were in Phoenix and the regular screening line was massive, at least an hour long. The "special" line had about 10 people in it. We zipped right through. Would have needed to skip lunch if we were in the regular line.

We noticed the letters on the pass too before entering the lines so I guess they have not really cared about this "issue" in the past.

I think the special screening is more of a quality control measure on the regular screening guys than it's a real boost to security.

Comment Re:Like .ca for Canada? (Score 1) 87

It was possible to register the same name with a different province but the original owner would have to give you written permission first so it was less likely to occur. I can find a few examples where two different companies did get their provincial level domain and now one of them has claimed the second level domain. But it's very rare. Most of the time if another company wanted to register the domain in their province and the system told them it was unavailable they wouldn't pursue it further and try to get permission, they would just pick something else.

So yes, owning mydomain.ab.ca used to mean that the system would not allow anyone else to register mydomain.bc.ca or mydomain.ca. They used to require proof that your corporation was registered nationwide before they would let you use the second level national domain but they would reserve all variations on second and third levels of your domain name automatically. When the system switched to putting all domains at the second level then most of those provincial domain name owners got their second level name registered. They can keep the historical old one and keep paying for it or let it expire and only keep the second level version. There was no discount or extra costs for second or third level domains. They never tried to kick up the costs to register the second level domains.

Maybe the UK could handle their second level domains the same way? I mean they still get the extra money from people who decide to keep both versions but at least they are not raising the pricing.

Comment Re:Thorium reactors? (Score 5, Informative) 226

Primary reason is the many billions of dollars of development needed to figure it all out.

There is no design for a "working commercial thorium reactors". It's all just bits and pieces of theory, and experimental reactors that only answered some of the questions.

It's a possible technology, just not an actual technology. Kind of like the guy at NASA who recently got into the news for a pen and paper proposal of how warp speed might be possible. We are still a long way from building interstellar spaceships. Just like we are long way from building a Thorium salt reactor that works and is economically viable.

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