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Comment Re:I don't think Obama is really paying attention (Score 1) 533

He just demonstrates to Muslims that even a non-Muslim can tell ISIS isn't Muslim

More than a quarter of British Muslims recently polled said they support militant Islamists who attack westerners they consider out of line with jihaddi sensibilities. That's 27% who applaud the slaughter of magazine publishers by ISIS-associated Muslim fanboys/girls. Those people think that ISIS is very Muslim, and is in fact a better example of practicing Islam than the more "moderate" groups who don't practice or support such violence. What is it, exactly, that you think Obama is demonstrating to those millions of people who simply laugh at his assessment of the Muslim-ness of one group or the next?

bombs don't differentiate whether someone is Muslim or not

With whom are you having that debate? Bombs aren't supposed to make distinctions between innocent people and medieval-minded wackadoos following the Koran's guidance and lopping heads off of the local insufficiently-Islmaic villagers. It's human intel, targeting, and decisions that make that distinction.

totally misunderstand the meaning of the words others say

No, you're just annoyed that someone actually paid attention to the words someone said.

Canada

Secret Memo Slams Canadian Police On Inaccurate ISP Request Records 18

An anonymous reader writes Last fall, Daniel Therrien, the government's newly appointed Privacy Commissioner of Canada, released the annual report on the Privacy Act, the legislation that governs how government collects, uses, and discloses personal information. The lead story from the report was the result of an audit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police practices regarding warrantless requests for telecom subscriber information. Michael Geist now reports that a secret internal memo reveals the situation was far worse, with auditors finding the records from Canada's lead law enforcement agency were unusable since they were "inaccurate and incomplete."

Comment Re:I don't think Obama is really paying attention (Score 1) 533

So, here you are, twisting and turning, trying to avoid the actual commented-on issue, which asserts that Obama has the power to "take away" Islamist street cred, or bestow it. Limit your comments to whether that's actually true, or not. Which Muslim, in which country, is going to be thinking one moment that ISIS adherents are strictly faithful Muslims fighting the good fight against evil things like women who want to read and write, and then based on something Obama says, change their mind and decide that position (and thus ISIS) is no longer actually Islamic? What kind of person do you think holds ISIS as being defender of the faith but who also holds Obama as someone they should listen to as an authority on what is, or is not, authentically Muslim? Can you point to a single person, anywhere, who holds both positions?

Comment Re:I don't think Obama is really paying attention (Score 1, Interesting) 533

Or he is smarter and more strategic than you are. By refusing to acknowledge ISIS as 'real' Islam he takes away ISIS primary claim to legitimacy and hands that legitimacy to the moderate Muslims (ie Jordan) that will join in the fight against ISIS.

Do you really think that an organization of many thousands of people which slaughters other Muslims for being insufficiently Muslim will give a rat's ass whether or not a politician in the US considers them to be sufficiently Muslim? Obama can no more "take away" their embrace of fundamental Islam than he can turned to by millions of other Muslims as an authority on whether they are legitimately following the Koran. What nonsense, to even suggest such a thing.

People like the Jordanians will demonstrate their "legitimacy" through their own actions, not through having the president of the United States proclaiming their particular adherence to their own cherry-picked passages in the Koran as being the "right" one. Would you consider Obama to be also a strategic genius for weighing in on which groups in Israel or Brooklyn or Poland are legitimately Jewish? Please.

Comment Re:Perception (Score 1) 420

He's not talking about the ACTUAL dress, he's talking about the photographic portrayal of a dress is the crappily exposed and presented JPG that everyone is looking at. The dress, as recorded in the JPG, is a barely-blue-tinted light grey, and the black elements have a demonstrably uneven RGB that makes them look gold (because that data represents a color low on blue ... which is to say, it's a golden hue).

Comment Re:fees (Score 0) 391

I've already had to turn down a couple of high-prestige projects for some remote stuff because of this.

If they're "high-prestige" why aren't you willing to move? It's not like you own that apartment you're renting. Move out when your lease comes up and make sure you tell management why you're doing it. Good tenants are hard to find, if you complain infrequently and pay your rent on time (less common than you'd think) they'll be sorry to see you go and will listen to your reasons for doing so.

Doesn't solve your problem in the short term but it's more effective for long term change than griping about the problem on Slashdot.

Comment Re:Stomp Feet (Score 0, Troll) 391

Because corporations bad, mmm'kay?

That's really the crux of it. Any argument against this ruling is immediately shouted down. I posited this question on another forum and received the equivalent of -1, Troll: Why is everybody cheering a ruling that attacks hypothetical problems (the oft discussed "fast lane" has yet to actually happen) while ignoring the actual problems that are impeding innovation? The "killer app" that started this whole argument is streaming video, so ask yourself which of these two things are a greater threat to that: The data caps that are currently being imposed or the fast lane that only exists on paper?

Comment Re:Romulan Ale (Score 1) 411

Last Halloween I got suckered into running a 13k in costume; since the only costume I own is a TNG uniform and one of my friends wore a TOS redshirt it wasn't much of a leap to get smashed afterwards on Romulan Ale. Alas, I found out the hard way that my Playmates Type II Phaser doesn't work on the bouncer at our local pub. He's a big guy, so maybe I just needed to bump it up to maximum stun....

Comment Romulan Ale (Score 2) 411

I've seen a lot of recipes over the years; the one that comes the closest to the effects of the "real" thing is equal parts Everclear, Bacardi 151, and Blue Curacao. It kind of tastes like gasoline but that's part of the appeal, along with pretending it was smuggled across the neutral zone after you've consumed too much of it.... ;)

Comment Re:Just damn (Score 0, Troll) 411

Human beings are one of the few (the only?) species on this blue marble that can override their baser instincts in favor of reason. I personally know several people who quit smoking cold turkey after many years. It's simply a matter of will power. Don't whine about the "tobacco" companies if you can't summon it even when you know the consequences.

Comment Re: nice, now for the real fight (Score 1) 631

Considering that they also very definitely involve interstate commerce (the internet)

That reading would seem to permit the Feds to override any and all State laws against political subdivisions doing anything. Some States have decided as a matter of public policy not to engage in public solid waste collection but rather to rely on the private sector for such services. Can Uncle Sam override such decisions?

I would agree with the FCC's action if it was limited to overriding laws that preclude people from starting co-ops. I think it's a bridge too far for the FCC to tell a State that it must allow a political subdivision into the telecommunications business.

Comment Re:How do we know? (Score 2) 631

*shrug*, Rush makes his living by being a showman. I don't really care for the show, though as a human being I have respect for anyone that can laugh at himself, which Rush does (he has played himself on Family Guy, amongst other things), so there's that. If you're looking for an in-depth and impartial analysis of the issues you're probably not tuning into The Rush Limbaugh Show. Conservatives see a slippery slope here to further regulation. I don't entirely discount that argument and it's hard to escape the fact that the internet became what it is today by being unregulated and free of top-down mandates that impede innovation.

I'm generally supportive of what the FCC is trying to accomplish but I think the means they're using is questionable at best. They're also going after hypothetical impediments to innovation (the oft-discussed fast lane hasn't actually happened) while ignoring real threats (data caps) to innovation. Frankly I'd rather see them in the business of regulating tariffs than telling the ISPs how to run their networks (*), because I view data caps as a far more serious threat to internet video (the "killer app" that started this whole conversation) than a fast line that has yet to come to fruition.

(*) Here's a hypothetical for you: Is it "reasonable network management" to prioritize one's voice service over other applications? Keep in mind that circuit switched voice is fast becoming a thing of the past, on both wireless and wireline. On the wireline side you've got the cable company's VoIP service running on the same DOCSIS node as your neighbor's bittorrent download. On wireless you've got VoLTE replacing circuit switched voice, so voice is just another data application there as well, one that's competing for bandwidth on an increasingly congested wireless data network.

If the answer is "Yes" then you've advantaged Time Warner/Verizon/et. al's voice product over Skype and similar offerings. If the answer is "No" then you're placing phone calls at the same "best effort" level as your neighbor's porn addiction.

Comment Re:Get ready for metered service (Score 1) 631

There's a cost for the "pipe", but how much does the "water" cost? If the cost is negligible, than it makes more sense to pay for the size of the pipe & not the amount of water flowing through it.

That model does make sense for the internet and very few people argue with pricing broke down by speed tiers. It breaks down when people expect that they can utilize 100% of their pipe 100% of the time. In my area Time Warner sells 50mbit/s connections and has eight DOCSIS channels on their coax plant. At ~42mbit/s per channel that's a maximum of 336mbit/s shared amongst all users on a particular node. Some simple division will reveal that less than seven users subscribing to the highest speed tier are enough to completely saturate that pipe. You can translate this into your water analogy easily enough by observing what happens to your water pressure when the fire department decides to flush the hydrants in your neighborhood.

Caps really aren't the best way to manage this "problem" because they ignore the actual limiting factor of bitrate. 95th percentile billing would make more sense but good luck explaining that to the masses.

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