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Communications

Your High School Wants You To Install Snapchat 157

Bennett Haselton writes: They would never admit it, but your high school admins would probably breathe a sigh of relief if all of their sexting-mad students would go ahead and install Snapchat so that evidence of (sometimes) illegal sexting would disappear into the ether. They can't recommend that you do this, because it would sound like an implicit endorsement, just like they can't recommend designated drivers for teen drinking parties -- but it's a good bet they would be grateful. Read on for the rest.

Comment Re:Money talks, electric car walks (Score 1) 181

I love the idea of electric cars, and Tesla is on my "lottery win" shopping list. With that said, if you apply hard numbers these cars do not make any sense at the current gas prices.

The truth is that none of the cars in the luxury category make any economic sense -- why spend $60,000+ on a luxury car when a $12,000 Honda Fit would get you to your destinations just as effectively?

So why do expensive cars sell? Because they're cool. And cool is something that Tesla's cars have, in spades.

Imagine what will happen to electricity costs during peak usage when everyone runs AC AND charges electric cars at the same time!

Okay, I'm imagining a lot of people switching to charging their cars at night, and running the AC during the day.

Comment Re:Dewhat? (Score 1) 150

Most users don't care. Most users wouldn't care that their keyboard COULD be logged, even if they were told. MOST users are using wireless keyboards to type twitter and facebook posts.

They also use those same keyboards to log in to their bank accounts, so they'll care after the first time their checking account gets drained. (And for those that don't use on-line banking, they'll care after the first time their Facebook account starts posting goatse pics for their mom to see)

Comment Re: Only 30 Grand? (Score 1) 426

Nope. 120K miles on my Prius and the battery is as good as new. Try again.

I'm not sure a Prius is a valid comparison; a Prius never has to drain (or fully charge) its battery fully because it can always switch over to gasoline. That means there's a lot less stress on the Prius's battery than there would be in an electric-only vehicle.

(It will be more interesting to find out how a Model S's or a Leaf's batteries are doing when they reach 120K or 200K miles)

Comment Re:I'm shocked, SHOCKED! (Score 4, Informative) 190

That's a niche product, so there are few producers of that stuff. Why would you expect to find stock at different prices unless there's something wrong with it? They don't produce a lot of excess stock.

It's more than just a result of being "niche" -- the same thing happens with Apple products. In order to become an authorized resaler, the stores have to sign an agreement to only sell the products at the manufacturer-specified price. It's done to prevent dealers from getting into price wars with each other, but by the same token it means that the consumer can't get a better deal by shopping around.

Comment Re:Good ol' 777 (Score 4, Insightful) 105

Because that would give information to a potential attacker! You don't make security problems easy to diagnose!

Security through obscurity, eh?

No thanks. Either the system is secure (even against an expert hacker), and therefore no security is lost by providing informative error messages.... or the system is insecure, in which case no security is gained by making the error messages hard to understand.

Deliberately obfuscating error messages only makes the system harder to use by its legitimate users (and therefore more likely to be bypassed in ways that compromise security) while doing nothing to keep hackers out.

Comment Re:So they are doing what? (Score 5, Insightful) 509

It's wrong to kill people, if you do so, we will execute you. (Slashdot is quite US centric and the US still uses the death penalty.)

I'm against the death penalty myself, but the above is an oversimplification. The actual policy is more like "It's wrong to murder people, if you do so, we will put you to trial, and if you're found guilty by a jury of your peers, and all of your subsequent appeals are denied, then you may be executed".

The key distinction being the (alleged) operation of due process and rule of law leading up to an execution, as opposed to the ad-hoc extrajudicial killing in the case of an individual committing murder.

Unless you observe the distinction between what the law is allowed to do vs what an individual is allowed to do, the logic fails under its own weight. For example, you could use the same construction to accuse the US of hypocrisy for uncontroversial practices: "it's wrong to kidnap people and keep them in a cage; if you do so, we will imprison you", or "it's wrong to take money from people against their will; if you do so, we will make you pay a fine" ... but I don't think anyone is (seriously) arguing for getting rid of all prisons or fines.

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