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Comment bigger problem (Score 2) 165

We all know that IE is tightly integrated into Windows and the two can never be separated Microsoft testified to that under oayh, and we all know that they would never lie to the court or congress. So making IE open source would demand that Windows be open source. Clearly Microsoft can't open source Windows, so they will have to keep IE closed source too. That's too bad, because I was looking forward to that piece of crap working it's way into other projects.

Comment Phase 1 (Score 3, Interesting) 385

This is just Phase 1. Once this is in place then in Phase 2 if you ever use any service that uses https then you must be trying to hide something and so they can take all of your data. Same for any other use of encryption, you might be a criminal or terrorist hiding something. And if you ever send anything through the mail in a sealed envelope, well you must be a criminal trying to hide stuff.

Comment Re:In "Real-Time"? (Score 0) 121

So you are trying to tell us that they not only recorded this thing that occurred in "the span of a millisecond" but they also understood and were able to take actions on it while it was still going on? I don't buy it, any more than I buy that the previous millisecond events were recorded after they arrived at the Earth rather than when they arrived at Earth.

Comment US Ego (Score 3, Interesting) 122

Cuba is NOT about to make any big changes. At least not unless the man who has been busy trying to destroy this country by Executive Action decides to prop up the Communist Government at our expense. The idea that Cuba has been suffering from an isolationist policy imposed by the United States is bogus. We were (somewhat) cut off from Cuba by our government, but we are only one country. Canada and most of the rest of the world has still been trading with them. Sure, Cubans drive around old American cars from the 50's, but they keep them running and keep fueling them with imported gasoline. Other countries would be glad to sell them newer cars, it is just that when you have a communist mindset keeping the economy depressed, no one has the money to buy new modern expensive cars.

Sure, they might sell Americans some cigars, although there has been a supply of them coming in through Canada already. They will not be selling us sugar, but not because of any real barrier. Rather because of a completely artificial barrier, Cubans who moved to Florida when Castro took power have gotten laws in place that impose such high tariffs on imported sugar that we can't import it, and we have higher prices on Sugar than the rest of the world, with all of that money going into the pockets of a few politically powerful Cubans in America who grow sugar and trickling down to the politicians they buy to keep the system in place.

Cuba is going to see a little bump in tourism, at least while the novelty is still there, but it will not be that much or make a big impact, they already have tourism from the rest of the world and from Americans going there through Canada who show their American passports and ask that they not be stamped to avoid problems back home. We will still over pay for sugar compared to the rest of the world and have tariffs that keep us from importing it from Cuba.

Comment We have bigger problems (Score 1, Insightful) 83

If people in other countries have and put up with corrupt governments, and go out and kill and eat "bush meat" and get Ebola, that's too bad but we have our own corrupt politicians here, I don't see how we can take on correcting theirs when we can even correct ours. And we have the flu virus in this country, and even with our first world hospitals and our Obama-care the flu is killing more people in America than Ebola is killing in the entire world. Yet I don't see Obama sending the Army to help out when one of my friends gets the flu. Perhaps we should realize that we are no longer the largest economy in the world (China is, although I think we still give them "foreign aid", and do that with money that Obama borrows from China!) and start trying to solve some of our own problems rather than playing World Doctor and World Cop and World Missionary and World Peacekeeper.

Comment this is a good thing (Score 1) 314

closing Radio Shack means there is no longer any place you can just run out and grab a specific capacitor or DB9 connector or whatever

No, it means that the company selling overpriced defective floor sweepings may go away, and that could well open the door for another company that may treat their customers better. If RS is replaced by someone worse, the new company will go out of business too. But they could be replaced by someone far better, even if it is "only" a small private company serving a local market. Such companies were discouraged to exist before, since a large part of their potential market were more likely to go to one of a dozen shit shacks scattered around their city than track down the one decent seller. And even if they are not replaced, I'll not miss the chance to buy defective junk at amazingly inflated prices.

Comment Good Ridance (Score 1) 314

I grew up in a major city where there were companies who ran parts counters where you could actually buy good quality parts, like resistors, caps, and transistors for pennies (unfortunately, they are gone now). I appreciated the ability to get stuff without needing to deal with mail-order and pay a small fortune in shipping. But Radio Shack was never a good option. The stuff they sold was crap, and it was over priced crap. RS substitution transistors often failed to match the parts they were supposedly a substitute for in some critical parameter. Even phone jacks would be mis-wired or intermittent. The staff was worse than ignorant, they gave customers wrong information. They certainly lived up to the motto "You've got Questions, We've got blank stares!" I'll honestly be glad to see them go, while they might not be replaced with anyone better, some people who might have opened decent parts houses have been discouraged from doing so because having a dozen shit shacks in their city was a barrier to drawing in customers.

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