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Comment Re:Yeah and there's no more North Pole (Score 1, Troll) 94

by mspohr (#45776589) Attached to: 2013: an Ominous Year For Warnings and Predictions

"Oh, BTW, Reagan was also so stupid that he couldn't tie his own shoes." I think we'd need a citation for that... however, given his early onset Alzheimer during his presidency, it's plausible.
"Everything bad that has ever occurred in the 20th century is due to Reagan and Reagan alone." I think you're not really giving credit to many other Republicans who came after and expanded his policies. Both Bushes are prime examples... also, the enablers, Rove, McCain, Gingrich and the whacko Koch Tea Party. There's lots of people who can take credit for destroying our democracy.

Submission + - How Iron Maiden turn piracy into profits (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: In a typical non-constructive manner most media companies (or agencies like RIAA & MPAA) resort to ‘fighting’ piracy. They look at it as a threat instead of an opportunity. When Iron maiden realized that there is huge amount of piracy of their work in South America, most notably Brazil they set out to deal with it. But unlike MPAA and RIAA, Iron Maiden din’t send a fleet of lawyers to go after these fans. What did they do? They went there themselves. Iron Maiden increased their concerts in South America as they knew, thanks to downloads, that there is a huge fan following which, due to whatever reason, can’t buy their music. They are now minting millions from these pirates. Everyone is happy. Learn RIAA, learn.

Submission + - Researchers Connect 91% of Numbers With Names in Metadata Probe

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: One of the key tenets of the argument that the National Security Agency and some lawmakers have constructed to justify the agency’s collection of phone metadata is that the information it’s collecting, such as phone numbers and length of call, can’t be tied to the callers’ names. However, some quick investigation by some researchers at Stanford University who have been collecting information voluntarily from Android users found that they could correlate numbers to names with very little effort.

The Stanford researchers recently started a program called Metaphone that gathers data from volunteers with Android phones. They collect data such as recent phone calls and text messages and social network information. The goal of the project, which is the work of the Stanford Security Lab, is to draw some lines connecting metadata and surveillance. As part of the project, the researchers decided to select a random set of 5,000 numbers from their data and see whether they could connect any of them to subscriber names using just freely available Web tools.

The result: They found names for 27 percent of the numbers using just Google, Yelp, Facebook and Google Places. Using some other online tools, they connected 91 of 100 numbers with names.

Submission + - Airport security is "all bullshit, TSA couldn't protect you from a 6-year-old"

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: ...so says Rafi Sela Airport Head of Security at an Israel airport. Sela has seven major issues with the TSA. First, the TSA "essentially makes its own rules," according to Sela, the TSA is a regulatory agency and a security agency. They essentially make their own rules. No one else — not the FBI, not the CIA, not anyone but a loose-cannon New York cop — gets to do that. I call the TSA the biggest train system in the world, because it's common for much of the floor force to be replaced on a yearly basis. So if the TSA only drills once or twice a year, you've got a ton of screeners who go their entire (short) careers without ever being tested. People need to realize that security can't be treated like a fast food company. These people are tasked with finding bombs, not flipping burgers. Full-body scanners: these scanners were useless. I could strap a bomb capable of taking down a 747 to my body and walk right through a body scanner. Nobody would catch me. Most people pose no threat to anyone, and there's no point in even checking them. The very few terrorists that exist are like needles in a haystack. But the TSA's approach is to check every single piece of hay, in case it might actually be a needle. But if you only check luggage and you don't check the person behind the luggage, how do you know he hasn't camouflaged something into the luggage that you can't find? Trust me: Hiding things is so easy to do, it isn't even funny. At Ben Gurion Airport, we get travelers from their car to their gate in 25 minutes. When was the last time that happened to you in an American airport? Probably never, because a dozen 747s worth of cranky travelers can't take their shoes and coats off, pull their laptops out of their luggage, and queue up for pat downs without chaos.

Comment Re:Don't stop your meds! (Score 5, Informative) 218

by mspohr (#45760967) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Working With Others, As a Schizophrenic Developer?

I am a doctor with many years experience working in the ER. I have encountered many schizophrenic patients who have stopped taking their meds, end up unable to cope and need hospital admission. What happens is that people feel better (because of their meds) and begin to think that they don't need the meds so they stop.
Just don't stop taking your meds. The reason you are feeling better is because of the meds. Just don't stop.

Submission + - The economic decline of the Soviet Union reduced mercury concentration in fish (newswise.com)

Submitted by Accordion Noir
Accordion Noir writes: Virginia tech researchers and a team from the US, Canada, and Russia have released a study indicating that the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 may have had positive environmental results in fish. Reduced mercury releases from mining in areas effected by the economic disarray in Russia led fish to have lower levels of methyl mercury than those in rivers on the Norwegian border or in Canada, where mining continued.

Ice-fishing was used to take samples during November and December, prime season for burbot, a "cod-like" fish at the top of the food-chain in its fresh-water habitat. Research began in Russia between 1980 and 2001, when funding was cut. “More studies are needed in the Russian Arctic if we are to better understand how mercury moves through this type of environment,” said study co-author Leandro Castello.

The article, “Low and Declining Mercury in Arctic Russian Rivers,” is published in today’s (Dec. 20) issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

Submission + - Run Netflix on openSUSE (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Ironically while Netflix’s infrastructure runs on Linux and Open Source technologies, the service doesn’t support Linux, the platform. Netflix is available for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and Chrome OS but not for desktop Linux. One of the reasons could be that Netflix still uses Microsoft’s Silverlight which is not supported on Linux. However Linux users have managed to get it to work on their distros. Now openSUSE users can also run Netflix using Pipelight.

Submission + - Free open source YouTube-clone alternatives for DIY hosting? (gamespot.com)

Submitted by BlueToast
BlueToast writes: With the recent waves of content ID take-downs and backlash, what alternatives and options do YouTube content creators have to host videos themselves while still having the user friendliness of YouTube video browsing, channel management, editing, annotations, and highly-compatible automated video transcoding processing?

I like being able to take recordings straight from my phone and camcorder and upload them straight to YouTube and be automatically processed into different quality versions and guaranteed compatibility, but do not have the same experience with DIY self-hosted solutions that often are sensitive to the video format and troublesome to get working in Flash/HTML5-players. I just want to have something as easy to install and configure like WordPress while being as functional and powerful as YouTube and in my full control through my own resources. I have uses for this privately on company intranets and in public on the web.

Comment Re:Do it (Score 2) 489

by mspohr (#45756059) Attached to: Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split

The Supreme Court just struck down the specific state provisions of the voting rights act.
The act was passed by the Senate so presumably the needs of all states were considered when it was originally passed.
No need for the Senate.
The "commerce clause" has been broadly interpreted as the justification for a lot of Federal legislation. There are limits on what you can do to your citizens. Frankly, I trust the Federal government to do a better job of passing "fair" legislation than the States. Mississippi would probably still have segregation if it weren't for the Federal government.

Comment Re:Do it (Score 1) 489

by mspohr (#45755379) Attached to: Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split

I'm not sure if any legislation infringes on the rights of some states and gives others preferences. States rights are enshrined in the Constitution and the Judiciary takes care of that. The Senate must approve all legislation and is extremely undemocratic. If the Senate were to vote on only "states rights" issues and not stuff which affects actual people, they would have very little to do and would be of little consequence.
As it is, the people living in large states are hostage to the small states.
(I do agree with your Gerrymandering comment about the House. This is completely out of hand.)

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