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Comment Sociological problem: CYA (Score 5, Insightful) 158

Part of the problem is the CYA issue.

If you're writing the code, you sound like a laborer ("I have to..."). If it breaks, it's your fault and you're on the hook publicly.

If you present a third-party component in a meeting, you sound like a manager ("I propose that we..."). Once three or four other people in the meeting have concurred, if something breaks it's the third party's fault. A ticket or two are initiated, it's someone else's problem and everybody gets to cast blame somewhere beyond the walls of the company.

Rational behavior, regrettably.

Comment Re:What part of "Consent" Don't You Understand? (Score 1) 311

If it was unsolicited, actually, it does.
It's a widely recognized pricinple that unsolicited merchandise may be considered a gift.

In point of fact, sending email or sexts should be prosecuted every time because in practical terms they are quite clearly "unsolicited advertising material for the lease, sale, rental, gift offer or other disposition of any realty, goods, or services" without being designated as such.

Copyright belongs to the person who pressed the button to take the picture, which then poses even trickier questions if that person is not the subject. If it is the subject, then consent is clear, and sending the picture does in fact give them the picture for personal use but clearly not for commercial use. Implied consent is at play as well - if a person you're being intimate with takes your smiling picture, it's pretty clear you implied consent for the picture to be taken (which says nothing about any further usage).

Whether the subject is publicly recognizable matters as well (ie if it's just a close up of your cooter, you're going to have a hard time arguing that is 'publicly recognizable' except for the attention you yourself called to it).

Further, you're simply mistaken dragging moral 'rights' into the question at all. I agree with you that taking a nudie pic, and then later using it for revenge porn is shitty and immoral. But we're not arguing how the world SHOULD BE, we're discussing it as it IS.

And you misread me completely. Of course do whatever you want in private.
I just think that anyone RECORDING what they do in private - particularly with someone that they don't know extremely well - is a moron if they're surprised to find it on Reddit tomorrow.

Comment Re:Pull the disk (Score 1) 466

My desktop system is about 5-6 years old and it's got a built-in IDE controller, I just never used it. My suggestion would be to look on his current system (or find someone with a previous-gen desktop ), I bet there's an IDE controller there. Just turn off, plug in the IDE cabling, and fire it back up, copy over.
Or am I the only one with a drawerful of IDE cables?

And the whole "IDE has tricky settings" is a canard: if you have a single IDE (like, I suspect, this one) leave the pins on 'master'.

Comment Re:One thing for sure (Score 1) 531

To take the last part first:

Your post is pretty ignorant and short sighted, based on a very narrow perception of the world you have. People like you really should refrain from having discussions about the metaphysical in AI when you clearly don't understand how humans have evolved in that respect, even over the past couple thousand years.

You shouldn't be quite so keen on putting down other commenters in this way - your own comments are not deeply insightful either, even you appear to think so yourself. All you achieve is to alienate the person you are talking to, as well as others who will see you as immature and lacking in self-confidence. And you don't actually need to try to put other people down - just keep to known facts, argue logically and accept that if you are wrong, you stand to gain new insight, so it is hardly a 'defeat'.

Plus, of course, where do you see that the GP 'clearly doesn't understand how humans have evolved'? To me this sounds like the kind of arguments I used to get into as a teenager who had just realised he knew it all - no more than agressive bluster, really. You'd do better by seeing the GP for what it most likely is: humour. Otherwise you'll end up sounding like a politician.

No, they won't. They will believe based on observations and known history. You do not know even how long you've existed. You believe you've existed your entire life, but your existence from your perspective is nothing more than a collection of memories that may or may not be real, you have absolutely no way to confirm or deny that, you can only assume that its true and move forward because assuming anything else is just a waste of time.

You are making some bold assumptions here; these are issues that have been discussed very throughly for centuries; summed up rather eloquently by Descartes: 'Cogito ergo sum'. The scientific method springs from the need to address the uncertainties of cognition being subjective - it is the best way we have been able to think of, which will over time help our knowledge progress towards objectivity, if applied scrupulously.

So, you assume that all intelligence must by necessity be like human intelligence; IOW, you haven't been able to imagine any other form of intelligence. I suppose most people have difficulty doing that - myself included - but that is no reason to assume that none exists. Apart from the fact that we don't really know what constitutes 'intelligence' and whether that has any bearing on things like consciousness and self-awareness, there are actually people to who not knowing everything objectively is not a burden, and to whom the idea of absolute certainty is seen as a threat; they are called scientists.

Comment Re:Good method for improving (Score 1) 347

If you don't have it, you'll make bad decisions. For example, answer the question, "should I use framework A, or should I write some code myself?" If you can't estimate how long it will take to use the framework and compare it to how long it will take to write the code yourself, then it is impossible to make a realistic decision.

That's a bad example because that's almost never my criteria. I could write my own framework almost as quickly as I could suss out the quirks of someone else's, and that's usually a teensy part of the overall project lifetime anyway. Instead, I judge on things like "do I want to spend the rest of my time here maintaining this thing?" and "who's going to own security updates?" and "will it be easier to hire people with experience on this one or on the one I haven't written yet?". Sometimes there's no good framework A to use, or maybe framework A exists and is popular but is unfit for this specific purpose, so we write something in-house. Either way, notice that "time to get started" is a trivial or nonexistent part of the equation.

Comment Re:GNUradio? (Score 1) 135

We implement it as a chip that intercepts the serial bus to the VFO chip, and disallows certain frequencies. On FCC-certified equipment we might have to make that chip and the VFO chip physically difficult to get at by potting them or something. This first unit is test-equipment and does not have the limitation.

My main interest in this SDR project would be as part of a home-brew RF/digital test/research bench for a variety of mobile cell-based equipment and development of new types of devices for new uses.

How does a company like Harris Corp. get away with manufacturing/selling Stingrays for use in the US, and can this project possibly use the same technical exceptions used by Harris Corp. to negate the requirement to artificially cripple it?

Strat

Comment Re:GNUradio? (Score 1) 135

The receiver has a block on certain cellular frequencies in the 800MHz band. This is the only restriction. The radio can tune to any frequency between 50MHz-1000MHz, otherwise.

Is this block implemented in software or hardware? Could it theoretically be bypassed/removed by someone technically oriented?

Strat

Submission + - Patent Trolls On The Run But Not Vanquished Yet

snydeq writes: Strong legislation that will weaken the ability of the trolls to shake down innovators is likely to pass Congress, but more should be done, writes InfoWorld's Bill Snyder. 'The Innovation Act isn't an ideal fix for the program patent system. But provisions in the proposed law, like one that will make trolls pay legal costs if their claims are rejected, will remove a good deal of the risk that smaller companies face when they decide to resist a spurious lawsuit,' Snyder writes. That said, 'You'd have to be wildly optimistic to think that software patents will be abolished. Although the EFF's proposals call for the idea to be studied, [EFF attorney Daniel] Nazer doesn't expect it to happen; he instead advocates several reforms not contained in the Innovation Act.'

Submission + - The Programmers That Want To Get Rid of Software Estimates (medium.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A look inside the #NoEstimates movement, which wants to rid the software world of time estimates for projects. Programmers argue that estimates are wrong too often and a waste of time. Other stakeholders believe they need those estimates to plan and to keep programmers accountable. Is there a middle ground?

Software project estimates are too often wrong, and the more time we throw at making them, the more we steal from the real work of building software. Also: Managers have a habit of treating developers’ back-of-the-envelope estimates as contractual deadlines, then freaking out when they’re missed. And wait, there’s more: Developers, terrified by that prospect, put more and more energy into obsessive trips down estimation rabbit-holes. Estimation becomes a form of “yak-shaving”—a ritual enacted to put off actual work.


Submission + - FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations On 3-2 Vote

Just Some Guy writes: After years of argument and record-breaking citizen participation, the FCC voted along party lines to enact regulations (hypothetically) limiting carriers' ability to slow down their competitors' traffic. While a full analysis of the regulations isn't available yet, initial signs are very promising.

Said carriers have already deployed their press releases.

Comment Re:Minority (Score 1) 516

Save me a seat at the table. I think these screenshots look like a nice update. This is timely to me because I was stuck in a meeting this week and looking at the presenter's projected Windows 7 desktop, and thinking of how ugly and unhelpful the current icon set is. Have you ever actually looked at the Outlook icon? It's a big "O" and a faint envelope in orange on a yellow background. Unless you've used it enough to associate that with Outlook, you wouldn't make the connection. The Mac Outlook icon is a lot simpler, nicer, and more visually obvious. The rest of his toolbar icons were the same: shapeless, indistinct, and unappealing. I like these new ones a lot more.

To the "change for change's sake!" Luddites: this isn't that. The Windows 8 Metro desktop abomination is that. This is a company updating its visual components to meet the expectations of the day. Everyone does this. Food labels change. Magazine layouts change. Car styling changes. Furniture colors change. Clothes change. Why do you think Windows icons should look the same for eternity? And spare me the "it's confusing!" whining - a file folder is still instantly recognizable as a file folder. Its look has evolved, but it's still the same basic shape and color.

Mark today on a calendar: I defended Windows's visual appearance. I never thought that would happen.

Comment Re:Cost of America (Score 1) 280

"A supermajority of voters favor deficit spending, so that's the policy we currently have."
So why cry about "outrageous" spending in the first place?

"Amortize the deficit across everyone, and you'll find that all households cost "the taxpayer" many thousands of dollars per year."
You apparently missed the 'net' part of my comment. If you'd RTFA, you'd see that Heritage was talking net results, meaning total contribution vs cost; And yes, that means that a giant pile of American citizens are leeches, you're saying it's ok we add more?
Personally, I'd love it if such a calculus determined your vote: if you are a net 'taker' = no vote. (Including corporate welfare for corporate officers, of course.)

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