Posts by Kevin Fields 88 publicly visible posts • joined 6 May 2007
Well, Gina may have the upper-hand for now, but not for long. The BOFH has been spurred by lovers before, and I predict that this was merely a grand set-up by Simon to actually gain the upper hand on Gina.
The question is, with the annual company Christmas and New Year's Eve parties ahead, can he pull it off without creating a grand catastrophe (such as his near demise a few seasons back)?
The sad thing is that, if Miranda receive any of his kit back, I don't think he can trust it. Who knows if they've implanted any sort of devices to intercept electronic communications, or even to simply record and transmit any ambient sounds around the equipment?
Any way he could make a claim just to have the government reimburse him for the cost of the equipment and in return have all the equipment destroyed?
This is exactly what I heard from another research study released just after the last US elections. People, for the most part, feel confident in their own elected representatives, but don't feel the same way about the ones they didn't elect, even if they have the same voting patterns and records.
Last time I looked, there were a half-dozen or so proposals floating around aimed at patent reform, most of which has bi-partisan support. Many in Congress have been waiting for President Obama to clearly indicate what types of reforms he would like to see. Now that they have it, I imagine we'll have a decent bill before the end of the current Congressional term.
In 2011 I ended my subscription cable TV service. However, because I still have cable Internet service, I can pick up most of my local stations via ClearQAM for free, and watch it via the TV tuner in my PC as well as purchasing a ClearQAM-capable HDTV. To supplement much of the content that we missed, I invest $16/mo in Hulu and Netflix and have bought a pair of refurbished Roku boxes. It's worked well for my family.
if Aereo can deliver the several over-the-air TV networks that my cable company doesn't carry on ClearQAM (mostly the digital sub-channels of the major broadcasters), I may be interested in ponying up for it.
No wonder I refuse to own a credit card and try not to use my debit card when I can use cash. It's nobody's business but my own as to what I bought. The only data that MasterCard needs is who processed the transaction so that they can bill them for it. My purchasing habits are NOT yours, and if you want to know more about it I suggest you sweeten the pot and offer me something in return other than the priv of using your card in the first place.
I think the DOJ acted wrongly, outrageously so. It won't matter if Swartz's lawyers file a complaint. The complaint board will most likely find that while mistakes were made, it wouldn't be anything to punish for, because that's what they almost ALWAYS determine. It doesn't matter how much anguish, suffering or harm that government lawyers cause in their actions, even in the worst case scenario they're almost never fired. Even when judges dismiss cases because of DOJ misconduct, the review board has a history of deciding that the judge was just wrong. It's a badly broken system.
"He has become too public, is too agressive and appears to want to play the martyr."
When a foreign nation can compel your own country to send a SWAT team into your home and treat you like a terrorist over some stupid music files, you have every right to play the martyr card to the hilt.
I've tried to get Android on x86 running on a few different Dells. It could be that they're older kit (Two Celerons and a PIII), but I also couldn't get it to run on my newer i3 that I bought less than a year ago. Lots of video issues. I'd love to play with it more, specifically as an OS replacement on older laptops in the house since the kids really don't want or need to do more than websurf, e-mail and play AngryBirds and the like.
Here's what Perez said about the theft: "This is after filing my first ever police report when I found my jewelry missing and Dietz was the only one with a key." I don't find that to be libel, she is stating two facts, and the reader can draw their own conclusion. Perez believes Deitz took the jewelry, but did not explicitly say so. A police investigation didn't conclude that Deitz didn't steal the jewelry, only that they could not find any evidence that Deitz had stolen the jewelry. In other words, the only evidence (Deitz had a key to the property) was circumstantial and the theft couldn't be substantiated.
The other text that the court asked to be removed is, "I won in summary judgement (meaning that his case had no merit)." Since this is not what a summary judgement means, it is technically wrong.
I can see where the courts would ask for the latter to be amended, but not the former.
The Patriot Guard Riders is one of many groups who participate in anti-WBC activities. Primarily composed of motorcycle enthusiasts, they freely offer their services of riding around a funeral, gunning their engines to drown out the megaphones of the WBC, and waving large American flags to block their signage. The American rock group Foo Fighters showed up at one rally and staged an impromptu performance on the back of a flat bed truck to drown out a WBC protest in Kansas City. Many groups have turned to outright mockery, such as zombie crawls or clown conventions.
Very curiously enough, if the WBC follows through with this protesting at the Newtown funerals, they're going to have an interesting counter-protest... from the Ku Klux Klan. While the group also opposes gays (as well as minorities and other groups), WBC upset them by protesting military funerals and at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day.
Granted Microsoft paid 2x-4x the price that Skype was valued at, but to be honest Skype is an undervalued product. Skype closed their losses from $410 million to $7 million in one year, and that's with bumbling eBay at the helm. Skype partnered with a company that at least understands VOIP, networking, communications and advertising? Skype will turn a profit on it's first year under Microsoft, cut expenses and boost revenues.
Keep in mind that these overseas operators are being charged with a) bribing at least one bank officer to illegally process payments and cover up their activities, b) used three other individuals to illegally process payments through their own bank accounts and lie to banking officials about the nature of their cash flow.
Yes, it's absolutely stupid that the US has a screwed-up perspective on online gambling, and yes it was absolutely stupid how those laws were put into effect. It should be turned around. Whether or not you think these laws are right or wrong, it is absolutely clear that bribing bank officials and lying to bank officials is not only illegal, but wrong.
Aside from that, a small change in domain names and moving your registrations to entities outside of the United States will fix this issue.
Why should Open Source developers and users be upset over a tiny man in his white tower throwing hissy fits? Yes it is sad that one of my favorite open source games, OpenTTD, cannot be developed for iPad/iPod Touch and given away for free in the App Store because App Store policies are not compatible with the GNU Public License. Sadly, this is the fate of consumers who purchase into a platform which shackles them to the whims of a megalomaniac.
I don't own a PS3, or a PS2, I'll admit to owning an old PSOne but it was given as a used gift and honestly I never bothered to hook it up. Sony is going overboard here and it's completely turned me off from wanting to even use any of their products. The CD rootkit issue was bad enough a few years ago, but IMO they've gone too far now in trying to defend their security.
The great thing is that it takes the Feds months to get a judge to sign off on the seizure of the domain, and within 24 hours the sites are back up on a new domain name and it will be months more before the Feds can get a new seizure. Not that I openly condone piracy, but this is a rather inefficient waste of taxpayer money.
I know the economy is tight, but axing your staff at Christmas is nothing short of sheer horror!
Can I borrow "Santa Elf"? There's a data center in Denver that could use a little of that Christmas cheer after us telecommuters found out we're being cut back to 18 hours a week because we overhired and don't want to lay off too many staff just in case our work production comes back.
If your goal is to reduce carbon output, then simply make the demand for it. Trading in carbon "credits" only allows a company to continue the same level of pollution as before, except now it's government-sanctioned. We're not doing any service to our environmental stewardship with this. The only way to reduce carbon emissions is to demand that companies do so under penalty of law, with further heavier punishments for continued violation of pollution standards. And I would argue that such punishments include shutting down companies that repeatedly violate the law. Yes, it is heavy-handed from on-high, but this is the price you pay for not using your own common sense and needing the government to put you in a nanny state.
IIRC, didn't Amazon terminate affiliate agreements for all affiliates located in North Carolina?
Not that this is a big deal. If you're doing significant enough business as an affiliate, just register as a corporation in Delaware instead. They like your business taxes, and it still lets you make your sales to North Carolina residents without them having to incur taxes.
The first key to pulling this off is realizing that most store staff rarely, if ever, care to know who their customers and vendors are, and cannot identify who may be trying to compromise their systems. I work as a freelance merchandiser and auditor for several different companies. Often times I work for these separate companies at the same store within days of each other. The store staff rarely, if ever, recognize me, even though I live three miles from the store and shop there a few times a week.
The second key is to look like you know what you're doing. When I was working for a company that needed to advertise a big event but didn't have the budget to do so, I once went to every newspaper box and news stand in three towns slipping an advertisement into the daily newspaper. This would have cost thousands of dollars to do if they had paid the newspaper. Instead I spent $20 in quarters to access the news boxes, and nothing to go into stores and news stands to insert the advertisements in the early morning hours, just moments after the newspaper carriers delivered them. If anybody asked me what I'm doing, I told them that the newspaper forgot to include a huge advertisement for a client and I had to go back behind them and fix them. Nobody ever questioned me, nobody ever asked me for ID, nobody ever called the newspaper to verify it.
The third thing is to actually appear to be who you are. When I am a merchandiser, I always wear a nice short-sleeve button-down shirt, a tie, and clip-on name badge etc. I look like I'm representing the client, I go to the front desk and I sign into the vendor log (and often get a peek at what other vendors are coming in and out of the store, at what hours, and how often). When I was impersonating the newspaper carrier, I dressed and acted the part - warm clothing that was slightly worn so I looked like I didn't care if I got news ink on them, slightly rotten attitude because I'm up so early in the morning working, etc.
So I could see these scammers easily working this over. All they would have to do is look like a hardware tech, show up at the store, sign into the vendor log and get to work. If anybody questioned them, they just explain that they're from XYZ company and are here to do upgrades on equipment, convince staff it will only take a few minutes, and then get right to work. Name badges, company cards, even a faked letter of authorization in case some real hard-ass manager questioned anything. I'm sure in nearly every case, few people if any questioned what was going on. Because one assumed the role and demonstrated they knew what they were doing, store staff blindly trusted them. And, in truth, most likely the store staff was either too busy working to notice, or too busy goofing off to care.
I know it's off-topic, but blame El Reg, they started it. I don't necessarily agree with his opinion on music piracy, but he is right that the music industry failed to capitalize on the catalogs that they had and because of their inactivity, they allowed the thieves to get the jump on them. You can't unring a bell, we'll never go back to the old days where you were paying $20+ just to get one decent song.
Anyhow, back to the off-topic. I think Gene Simmons is a great father. He's not a friend to his children, he is their parent. He's taught them right from wrong, he's lead by example on how a person should act as a decent human being. He holds strong and controversial opinions, but he does so in a manner that not only shows respect for his beliefs, but also respect for those with whom he disagrees. Unlike many of his peers, and the children of his peers, the Simmons family is probably one of the more stable and wholesome families you could find anywhere.
One person made an incredibly insightful statement - a man of this world, who could have selected anyplace in this world to become a citizen of, chose the United States, amid its many flaws and faults. They are right, that does say something. I wish nothing but the best for Mr. Torvalds and his family.
Google is making a point that AT&T and Verizon made long ago -- that these particular phone calls are going to a calling zone in a rural area where the local telephone commission has determined can charge outrageous connection fees. This happens nowhere else in the United States except to this one small exchange, and it is done on purpose as means for generating revenue for a rural area that has no other means of revenue creation.
In the modern day an age of telephone and communication services, this type of behavior borders on true piracy, IMO, and it should not be tolerated. A reasonable fee, with small fluctuations in prices depending on the area, is acceptable. Outrageous connection fees are not, though.
BUT -- the courts have already ruled that all telephone companies cannot shut out this one exchange because of this shameful behavior because it robs consumers of freedom of choice, and they cannot pass on the increased connection fees to consumers who want to use the services set up in this one exchange. They have the option of increasing EVERYBODY's fees to offset this, or they can choose to eat the costs, but they don't have the option to NOT connect calls.
Google may not want to admit it, but their service becomes a telephony service the second it moves from the Internet to the public telephone network. Vonage and other VoIP providers have all failed to make the argument that they are not a telephone service. Although all Google's service does is connect one user's phone to another phone line, it does so by crossing over to the public telephone network, and thus falls under a telephone product. Just because Google Voice is free should not matter -- it is Google's choice to make it free. if AT&T wanted to do so, they could make their telephony products free as well, and they would still be responsible for the connection fees.
Until the law changes that outlaws the abhorrent behavior of this one rogue exchange, Google should not be evil and should follow the law. Google should not be evil and it should work with the rest of the telephony providers affected by this to rally public support to end this.
As if the sun, the earth, or the universe actually care what a few LEDs on a readout state. I personally would be very happy if the whole world just stayed on GMT, screwing with time zones from one location to another and then trying to adjust for "more sunlight" during one section or another is just silly. If you want more activities to be done in natural light, then actually adjust your activities to do just that.
Does this honestly matter in 1st world countries which have large chunks of society and industry that run 24/7? Does it really matter to the average citizen in New York, London or Tokyo if it is daytime or night time for any particular task that doesn't actually rely on the sun being available? This is why we created electricity and reliable power grids.
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