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Comment: Re:Beta (Score 1) 192

no: i think that the better response is: The primary difference between google glass and the plentiful recording devices lready around us in and around stores, ships, and sometimes even street corners is that google glass is (as currently devised) rather obvious. if you want to put these sorts of restrictions onto Google glass, then you should put similar restrictions onto inside-and outside CCTV recordings.

That having been said, I think that there is something to be said for having things like secure storage of images -- not so much to protect the public, as to protect the user of google glass for recordings that (s)he makes in more private circumstances. Of the tens of thousands of pictures I have, the couple dozen that I think could qualify for encryption were not taken in public.

Comment: Re:This is disgusting!! (Score 1) 577

by darkonc (#43716919) Attached to: Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Patent Case

The defendant in this case was NOT sued for just planting seeds that happened to be GMO. He was sued for deliberately spraying his crop with glyphosate herbicide to kill non-RR plants in order to isolate the RR gene, and then he saved the resulting 100% RR beans and planted them the following year. Portraying him as an innocent and unwitting victim is absurd. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Yes, this guy is a creepy slimeball who deserves exactly what he got. -- but my question is whether or not the rest of the world (or, at least, the US) deserves what he got -- which is a SCOTUS precedent that effectively validates plant patents. You just know that Monsanto's lawyers are going to go hog-wild widening this precedent into areas that the court tried to say that it wasn't referring to.

I'd even go so far as to wonder aloud whether Bowman (the farmer) was paid under the table to be Monsanto's plant-patent poster boy.

Comment: Re:Monsanto is knowingly not protecting its patent (Score 1) 577

by darkonc (#43716843) Attached to: Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Patent Case
Part of the 'problem' is that (as I understand it), self-fertile.. Apparently there is very little, if any, pollen externally released or captured. In other words, air-borne contamination of other farms is relatively unlikely (especially with a relatively heavy seed).

This is in contrast to Canola (rapeseed), which pollinates like a weed and has a very light seed. Monsanto has also generated a 'roundup ready' canola plant, that is very much at risk of invading into other farms unbidden.

Comment: Talk to the Intrusion Crew. (Score 4, Insightful) 238

by darkonc (#43380557) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Unwanted But Official Security Probes?
One thing to note: If they manage to get in, the it's a good thing to know about how they did it.

In the meantime, you want to talk to the crew that's doing the intrusion testing and make sure that they'll be keeping anything they find confidential, and that you'll get the results of the work that they're doing. What they're doing is annoying, but it's better to have it done by friendlies than to have someone truly hostile find some day-0s that they can use against you (presuming that you're willing to close any holes that they find).

Comment: Adjustable charging cycle. (Score 1) 591

by darkonc (#43379757) Attached to: If I could change what's "typical" about typical laptops ...
Lithium Ion batteries have the longest lifetime when they're charged to 90% and discharged to 50%. I use my laptop remote, quite a bit, but the bulk of the time, it's plugged in. For maximum battery lifetime, I'd like to specify that charging should stop at 90%, if I'm expecting to commute soon (don't need a full charge), 100% for long trips, or 50% if it's going to stay plugged in for the next week (or months).

It would take minimal work, in terms of hardware, to do that, but it would allow me to extend my battery lifetime enormously.

Comment: loan/grant vs tax break: (Score 1) 276

by darkonc (#43379737) Attached to: Fisker Lays Off Most Workers, Plans To Shop Around Remaining Assets
The biggest difference between a loan guarantee or a grant, and a tax break is that the former two have a lot more accountability. There are tax breaks that are a lot bigger that have gone to various companies -- and have the same (negative) effect on the deficit. The difference is that the tax breaks are announced, but what they cost the country (in terms of a decrease in income) never really gets accounted for -- other than estimates that may, or may not, be accurate..

Comment: Re:Reinstall Ubuntu. (Score 1) 573

by darkonc (#43314401) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: New To Linux; Which Distro?
The 0nly place you should be able to stomp on critical files would be the home folder -- and even then, it should only prevent login, not booting. (although a newbie user might be confused between the two.). Unlike Windows, a Unix/Linux system has enough of a distinction between the system and the user that a non-privileged process should be utterly unable to prevent the system from getting to a login prompt (without using a privilege escalation exploit). Unless the OP had auto-login turned on, and confused an inability to get to the desktop with an inability to boot, I'd have to agree with the earlier diagnosis of an intermittent hardware problem..

Comment: Re:The two purposes are not mutually exclusive. (Score 0) 398

by darkonc (#43283019) Attached to: Re: Bitcoin, I most strongly agree with the following:

Everyone that holds it wants to hype it so that it goes up in price vs actual currencies, but if the usage drops, it's useless, and only the people at the top of the scheme, those that mined very early, get anything that resembles a return.

Sounds rather like the Dollar...

Would it help if I got out and pushed? -- Princess Leia Organa

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