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Comment Re: Confused about 1.1 million amount (Score 3, Insightful) 61

Sure, there are a lot of accounts created to prop up the sales numbers but aren't claiming rewards to otherwise make the project look more awesome. There is actual investors to this company, and they are likely looking for a return on their investment. Propping up their own campaign to make their company look more powzers to the media, thereby getting more presales doesn't exactly seem that far fetched. Either that or there are a lot of people who believe in what these guys are doing and don't want the product in the end.

Comment Re: Why? (Score 4, Insightful) 92

If all of those devices were centrally managed, sure. Let's say that instead you are a college, with dorms, and an internal network that those in the dorms can use with direct access to things like Mail and whatever, or a BYOD scenario where users are allowed to use their cell phones to get email and even be on wifi, but you want to respect your employees privacy on their private purchased devices rather than adding them to an MDM.

Do you really want to bug those user's repeatedly with self signed cert validation prompts or just say "okay, $30 / year is worth avoiding the helpdesks"?

In most cases, yes, a CA and group policies makes the most sense though and should be the answer. There are just a few fringe cases where it is easier to pay the few bucks than waste the time explaining why the user is in fact safe and just press okay.

Comment Re:How do you (Score 2) 962

Using terminology like "everyone" is the problem here. In these cases, there are a few outlandish instances that stand out saying "this is horrific", a few "this is bad" instances, some questionable ones that could go either way, and an incalculable number of "these are perfectly fine".

Brianna Wu saying "every man" is just like a racist saying "every Jew", and it also makes it difficult to take what are certainly very real issues seriously. But at the same point, she was able to point to 4 problems over a long career, not "every day I show up to work and am confronted by dozens of threats of rape, torture, or other sadistic behavior by unknown random people". And yet when someone told her that under no circumstances would they ever have sex with her, even after her death she responds by being afraid to go out in public after dark. That seems more like an "anti-rape" threat or a "just leave me the hell alone, it's never gonna happen" message than one to be concerned about.

Is she overreacting, perhaps. Are there more cases that she didn't feel inclined to mention, perhaps. Are the things that she mentioned "severe", yes. Should they be taken seriously, yes. But at the same point, they should be taken seriously against the individuals who levied those statements, not against an entire group. She accuses all men of being sexist, but in that statement she is herself showing that she herself is sexist of men and feels that she should be treated differently than any person regardless of gender.

Workplace problems should be taken seriously, and as the leader of the studio it is her place to handle them. If she isn't willing to do so, then she can either hire someone into an HR role or take her comments to an existing HR person to let them address it instead.

Comment Re:Pft (Score 0) 962

Scott: My... mom and dad are... dead?
Cartman: I came just in time to see Mr. Denkins giving his report to Officer Barbrady. And of course, to steal the bodies... After a night with the hacksaw, I was all ready to put on my Chili Con Carnival, so that I could tell you personally about your parents' demise! And of course, feed you your chili. Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it, "Mr. & Mrs. Tenorman Chili."
Scott: Oh my God! Oh my God!!
Cartman: Nyahnyahnyahnyah nyah nyah! I made you eat your parents! Nyahnyahnyahnyah nyah nyah!
Stan: Jesus Christ, dude!
Scott: My mom and dad are dead! No! NOOO!!
Thom: Uhm, excuse me?
Stan: Who are you?
Johnny: We're that band, Radiohead.
Scott: Jesus!
Ed: Jeez, what a li'l crybaby!
Colin: Are you gonna cry all day, crybaby??
Thom: You know, everyone has problems; it doesn't mean you have to be a little crybaby about it.
Ed: Come om, guys, let's go. This kid is totally not cool.
Thom: Yeah, that's the most uncool kid I've ever met.
Phil: Little crybaby!
Scott: No, wait! Waaiittt!! Oh my God, Oh my Gaawwwd!! Noooo!
Cartman: Yes! Yesss!! Oh, let me taste your tears, Scott! Mm, your tears are so yummy and sweet.

Comment Re: There is only one "Solar system" (Score 4, Informative) 81

"Solar System" in this case would be a specific noun, and as such warrants the capitalization. Sol, our Star, is also a specific noun, hence its warrant of capitalization, just as we would capitalize a person's name. If one is referring to "a solar system" in a generic sense rather than an unknown but implied specific Star and it's surrounding Planets, then lower case is appropriate.

Comment Re:He cant or wont? (Score 1) 382

Semantics: the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.

Not the US Constitution, however the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. 1541-1548) is Federal Law of the United States, and acknowledged by the UN Security Council. The United States Constitution creates the Separation of Powers as well as the mechanisms for the Legislative Branch to enact new laws, which themselves become part of the United States Code. In this case, the Legislative Branch wanted the law, the Executive (Nixon) vetoed it, and was then overridden by a 2/3 vote in both Legislative Houses at which point it became law.

There is a clear distinction between a "Declaration of War", the use of an "Authorization of Military Force" provision by Congress, or simply "Going to War", as is possible without Congressional Approval under the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

Under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the President can commit our Armed Forces to any act that seen fit without authorization from Congress in the form of an Authorization of Military Force or a formal Declaration of War with the following restrictions placed on it:
- the President must notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action.
- armed forces are forbidden from remaining for more than 60 days + a 30 day withdrawal period.

Comment Re:Hard to get excited. (Score 5, Insightful) 129

And when Facebook is saying that only 1.48% of their bandwidth is going towards images. That puts said reduction 5% reduction at a new percent of 1.41% at the expense of increased CPU time to transcode all existing images, which is itself not free. It is a marginal savings, even for an organization the size of Facebook. It certainly adds up over time, which is great, but when there is really great low hanging fruit like cutting the 37% of their bandwidth used on videos by 20-30% by getting HEVC or VP9 really working well (would then be 26% total), then that is a way to save significant money not just in Bandwidth but in Disk Space for retention as well.

Comment Hard to get excited. (Score 1, Interesting) 129

Sorry, it is hard to get excited about marginal improvements in still raster image compression. Yes, rasters are really important and everything, but at the same point images themselves are so absurdly small already compared to the likes of video technologies, and video is the vast majority of the internet. Seems like a better use of their time to focus on making HEVC or VP9 more capable.

Comment Re:He cant or wont? (Score 1) 382

Authorizations to Use Military Force are intended to be joint efforts taken by multiple members of the United Nations and specifically for the purpose of engaging in "Peace Keeping" (boy, is that a wonderful euphemism!) operations.

Still, legally a separate distinction from a "Declaration of War" or other incidents of just "Going to War".

Semantics, I know, but the thread ultimately revolves around the Legal Powers assigned to each Branch of Government, and those semantics do matter in that regard, even more so when talking about superseding the legal authority for State Sovereignty amidst conflicting interpretation of laws as to whether something like Tesla's Sales Practices should be able to function under the terms of Federal Jurisdiction due to the Interstate Commerce Clause or whether it should be controlled by individual State laws due to customers "residing" within a State and them purchasing an automobile.

Comment Re:He cant or wont? (Score 1) 382

It was my understanding that "he" in the OP's context was more the "title" rather than this specific man, since this specific man has in fact not "declared war, gone to war, ..."

There have been "authorizations to use military forces in peacekeeping operations in compliance with guidelines of UN Resolutions" but not a "Declaration" by the Executive and in the eyes of the law there is a pretty gigantic distinction (Morally, there is none).

States do have some degree of sovereignty when it comes to making their own laws.

The President has the authority to enact an Executive Order which will have with it the full force of law with it, but only within the confines of Federal Law.

So, the OP is completely wrong in that the President can't legally do either of those two things due to the Separation of Powers for the Executive Branch.

There is something to be said for the Interstate Commerce Clause placing this into Federal jurisdiction rather than State, but that would be a very massive change and would probably be better suited for the Supreme Court rather than either the Legislative or Judicial branches.

Comment Re:For us dummies.... (Score 1) 382

Technically, it is because laws are on the books to require that only parties that are approved by the State legislatures be authorized to sell, dismantle, repair, or license new or used vehicles in a commercial, for profit setting. Some states went in and made laws to govern Dealerships themselves as being "third parties" from the manufacturers themselves to promote competition and reduce pricing collusion between Dealerships within a geographic region. Sure, the Manufacturer still sets MSRP and even the price at which the Dealership buys the vehicle, but in those states those Dealerships need to operate independently from the Manufacturer to prevent them from artificially limiting supply of products that may sell better but have lower margins to drive people towards higher margin purchases or other non-defined but considered sleazy business practices that make serial killers look like saints compared to the average car salesman.

Basically, think of it like the eBook fiasco that has been going on. Apple let the Publishers set an MSRP versus Amazon saying "everything only costs this price, regardless of writer, content, or what you charge us." Apple's giving Publishers more control over pricing of their products on a minute by minute basis allowed them to increase their pricing for their products while preventing customers from being able to purchase a fungible product at a similar price point as they were able to do previously.

Or on the flip side, Amazon is going in and telling people "nope, you aren't allowed to buy this new title from us because we choose not to sell it to you, but you can buy this completely different product that is more lucrative for us instead", effectively using their customers as pawns against a publisher to negotiate more lucrative terms.

Neither are really directly comparable, but that is as close a comparison as I can find at this time. More of a "let's push through some laws years ago to protect us from some of these horror stories that our friends of friends of friends told us about dealing with a bad used car salesman."

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