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Comment A lot of hassle for marginal benefit (Score 1) 235

I have many CFLs, several LEDs, all dumb. I am OK with CFLs, and really like the LEDs (at least when they work), but the huge (current) cost does not meet my cost/benefit curve. I need simplicity, I like motion activated lights, I like wall switches, I really do not like to hunt for one more device to allow me to SEE!

Comment Re:Alcatel-Lucent (Score 1) 259

TFA also calls Alcatel-Lucent a troll.

The company that owns Bell Labs a patent troll?

Seems odd....

they are the descendants of a great intellectual power house, unfortunately they seem to exist solely on the past excretions of those endeavors - or have they actually come up with uswful things like the transistor?

Comment Nice and comfortable (Score 1) 302

My home desktop runs Seamonkey. I have an archive of many years worth of emails on it, so I use it and Seamonkey as my mail history "way back machine". I do not suggest it is faster or better, but it is easy and, after long use, very comfortable - never had a major glitch with it. I think it is a good program.

Submission + - "PGP founder, Navy SEALs uncloak encrypted comms biz" (theregister.co.uk) 2

quantic_oscillation7 writes: "Phil Zimmermann and some of the original PGP team have joined up with former US Navy SEALs to build an encrypted communications platform that should be proof against any surveillance.

The company, called Silent Circle, will launch later this year, when $20 a month will buy you encrypted email, text messages, phone calls, and videoconferencing in a package that looks to be strong enough to have the NSA seriously worried."

(...)
"While software can handle most of the work, there still needs to be a small backend of servers to handle traffic. The company surveyed the state of privacy laws around the world and found that the top three choices were Switzerland, Iceland, and Canada, so they went for the one within driving distance."

Comment The guy needed a corporation behind him (Score 1) 757

Without big corp money behind him he is screwed. They can get pizza defined as a vegetable, he can't get the materials he needs to run a small business. By the way, the government defines a small business in various ways depending on the type of business, but can have up to 1,500 employees and take in $21,000,000 a year. You can see why they do not give a damn about this guy, no money - no political power.
Math

Submission + - No proof (yet) of P = NP after all (wordpress.com)

00_NOP writes: "Internet commerce seems safe for now as Russian computer scientist Vladimir Romanov has conceded that his previously published solution to the "3 SAT" problem of boolean algebra does not work. If his solution did work it would have shown that many problems thought to be unsolvable with conventional computers — including decrypting your HTTPS encoded credit card number — would have been solvable in polynominal time. Romanov, who is very far from the sort of crank who normally claims to have proved P = NP or the opposite, is not giving up though..."

Comment A world without spam sites (Score 1) 345

I have to second the time wasted with experts-exchange, but I have learned to avoid that site. My biggest complaint is when I search for an unknown dll or exe file. All the top sites are just shills for scanning programs, many are malware. Try googling any of your services or processes and see haow many links are little more than farms for overpriced scanners. You will see most simply say "having problems with ---.exe" or "---.exe is a possible Trojan, check with XYZ for only$$$" Few results actually tell you anything related to the query. Looking forward to this tool, just wish it followed my Google login.
Privacy

Motorcyclist Wins Taping Case Against State Police 485

stevegee58 writes "Slashdot readers may recall the case of a Maryland motorcyclist (Anthony Graber) arrested and charged with wiretapping violations (a felony) when he recorded his interaction with a Maryland State Trooper. Today, Judge Emory A. Pitt threw out the wiretapping charges against Graber, leaving only his traffic violations to be decided on his October 12 trial date. 'The judge ruled that Maryland's wire tap law allows recording of both voice and sound in areas where privacy cannot be expected. He ruled that a police officer on a traffic stop has no expectation of privacy.' A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general."
Privacy

Alternatives To Paypal's Virtual Credit Card Service? 242

An anonymous reader writes "Paypal has quietly killed the Paypal plugin and the related virtual-card service. The service generated on-the-fly, one-time-use credit card numbers. When I called in and inquired about the service, I was told that the service has been discontinued, but may be relaunching something similar depending on interest. They are treating inquiries as a sort of petition, taking down names and contact info. The forums seem to be a lost cause, as no Paypal reps have replied to the numerous posts regarding virtual cards being discontinued. Does anyone know of a good alternative source of one-time-use credit card numbers?"

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