Austin’s Techdirt Profile

On the post: Cybersecurity Never Sleeps, Except In Canada

Austin ( profile ), 29 Oct, 2012 @ 09:20am

Closing at 4...or

Current time in Ottowa: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=188

Current time in Kabul: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=113

So there's a 9.5 hour difference in time here between the surveillance and the most likely source/destination of any potentially useful intel. Now, maybe my math is wrong and perhaps my sense of how terrorists operate is rooted too deeply in TV shows like Homeland, but here's the problem with closing at 4:30PM or 9PM, either one: They're closed when the terrorists are awake.

So they're spying on their own citizens, fellow Canadians, but they're LITERALLY asleep at the wheel during the hours when any ACTUAL terrorists are likely to pass information through their network. Brilliant! Fucking brilliant!

I gotta say, as an American this makes me feel better. I mean, at least there's a itsy bitsy teeny tiny chance that the NSA's program MIGHT catch SOME useful intel since, yanno, they're at least fucking awake. Our system may be pure, unaldutured evil, but at least it has a CHANCE of working.

On the post: DailyDirt: Computers Becoming More Like Us

Austin ( profile ), 19 Oct, 2012 @ 08:51am

This isn't all bad

I still believe that having robots do things for us isn't a bad thing. I WANT robot drivers. Have you SEEN how absolutely AWFUL a HUMAN driver is? Even people who drive 300 laps per day in the exact same circle (NASCAR) frequently have wrecks that kill them! For something so readily predictable, that's disgraceful. A robot would never make such a catastrophic error when the task is doing the exact same thing over and over and over...

Cars aside, I don't think allowing robots to replace manufacturing jobs is bad either. I want a future like WALL-E minus the pollution. Think about it: aside from the pollution, WALL-E's future is pretty damn Utopian.

Of course, I also want to eventually be able to upload my mind into a robot chassis and live forever, so if nothing else I want to see advanced AIs because any system capable of running a sufficiently advanced AI should be capable of emulating a human brain with the right modifications.

Seriously though, this isn't all bad news. Some of this is awesome.

On the post: Ubuntu Users To Get To Vote With Their Wallets In Support Of New Features

Austin ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2012 @ 02:17pm

Re:

I code, but only PHP (I can read C, JAVA, a few others, but can't go beyond a "hello world" without a quick reference close at hand) so my ability to contribute patches is minimal. However, I have contributed 20+ WINE compatibility reports, at least 3 Apache bug reports, and I wrote the manual entry for a utility I used because man kept telling me it wasn't found - then I found out it was just missing from my system and the existing man page was much better.

So yes, I contribute. And yes, even I hate Unity. I suppose in a way it is living up to its name, though - Unity has a way of unifying everyone in their desire to return to GNOME 2, i.e. what just plain worked, period.

On the post: Bug In Kobo's Online Store Offers Up Random eBook Prices [Update]

Austin ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2012 @ 06:38am

Well obviously...

"So it's not a "feature", it's a bug."

Dude, these are Canadians. Only Americans would try the "feature, not a bug" trick.

And I say this is an American myself. Eh, nobody's perfect.

On the post: DailyDirt: Smarter Soda Machines

Austin ( profile ), 12 Oct, 2012 @ 09:20pm

Blue Screen of Death?

More like Blue Screen of Thirst.

Though really, they should just put Linux on these. My motto is "if it's good enough for NASA and a wristwatch, it's good enough for anything." Especially since you can install it on a dishwasher. Not all THAT different from a coke machine, really.

On the post: Iran's Latest Aggressive Censorship Plan: Block All Audio & Video Files

Austin ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2012 @ 11:35am

Somewhere in Iran...

Suspect: "Video files? What video files?! I swear all that SSH traffic really is just a lot of commands."

Interrogator: "So you typed 9GB of commands in 2 hours?"

Suspect: "Of course!"

Interrogator "Um...well..."

Because sometimes, the alibi is as ridiculous as the charge.

On the post: UK Student Charged For 'Grossly Offensive' Facebook Post

Austin ( profile ), 18 Sep, 2012 @ 12:23pm

Really?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this asshat deserves jail either, but none of you see the issue here?

Let me give you a hint. You see that part AFTER his line break? Yeah, that second half? That's pretty god damn offensive. I mean, I'm not in the military, I have no family in the military, and I'm not even British (I'm from Alabama, heh) but even I find that second half offensive.

Now that isn't to say I think this dipshit should go to jail for it. On the contrary, they should conscript his ass into the SAS and drop him in the middle of Kabul with nothing but a sidearm with 2 bullets and a helmet camera and tell him "You have 1 hour to make it to the airport or we leave your ass here. Good luck." That way the punishment fits the crime AND we get some good TV out of it. Win-win.

But in any case, while I agree that this isn't jail-worthy, let's all have some context here. We can all agree that killing innocent civilians is as much, and maybe even more, of a tragedy than the death of soldiers. However, when you make it this personal, like he did in the second half of his post, you go from something that makes good sense to insensitive prick pretty quickly. This is almost as offensive as a facebook post can possibly be, folks.

On the post: White House Goes Too Far In Asking Google To Pull Controversial Video

Austin ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2012 @ 02:14pm

I agree with not pulling it, but...

I agree with the decision to not pull the video here in the US, but there is one other thing to think about when trying to understand why Youtube did this elsewhere, and I think it's a key point that often gets lost upon those of us who live in places with no (or at least minimal) censorship.

The people of Egypt have censorship, as do the citizens of Libya, and frankly most of the middle east. It is widespread, it is pervasive, and it is absolute. This means that, by definition, any video that is allowed to air in these countries and originates from them has a certain implicit amount of government approval. This isn't to say that, in some "looser" censorship states, objectionable material isn't occasionally allowed to be released, but it is rare.

That said, a large amount of this rage is a result not so much of the video itself, as a misunderstanding by many people that the video was somehow sponsored by the US government. To a US citizen, the very idea is crazy - and even more so after seeing the thing. (Even atomic-era PSAs had better production value than this drivel...) However, in countries where censorship is pervasive, the mere fact that one can view a video at all carries with it an implicit level of, if not endorsement, at least acknowledgement that the media in question is considered to be non-objectionable.

This is really the crux of the problem, and in a way, it says more about the governments of the countries where the outrage erupted than anything else. The fact that friendly foreign nationals are being murdered in cold blood on what is supposed to be sovereign US territory is less a statement about the video or even the asswipes who made it, and more a statement about the dangers of censorship itself. That is, once it becomes "the norm" then anything that remains uncensored has an automatic "seal of approval" in the minds of viewers. This makes it considerably worse when a would-be censored video slips by and winds up in the wild.

In short, the concept of having no censorship at all is so foreign to these people, they were left with no plausible alternative (mentally) except to assume that the mere existence of the video meant it was sanctioned by the host country's government. That's the true problem here.

On the post: YouTube Restricts Access To Anti-Islam Movie Trailer In Egypt And Libya

Austin ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2012 @ 01:04am

Two things

First, a correction: there were 4 killed, not 3. This is the price we pay for get-the-story-before-the-other-guy journalism.

Second, not only were the attacks apparently committed by a totally separate group from the protesters, it was pre-planned in advance for quite a while (based on past attacks and how relatively sophisticated this was, 2-3 months of prep is a fair guess here) so the fact that they just happened to coincide with the protest is becoming more and more coincidental by the hour.

That said, I do wish people would stop trying to place the blame on one specific religion. Islam isn't the problem. Neither is Christianity or Judaism. The problem is religion itself. When you live your entire life, from your speech to your clothing to your day-to-day actions and even police your own thoughts for irrational reasons, it should be no surprise that some of those "believers" take it too far. When your words, actions, etc. are based on nothing butt logic and reason, violence cannot ensue because, by its very nature, violence is never the most logical or rational solution.

So...is this Islam's fault? No. Is this something that reflects badly on a religion of otherwise mostly nice, kind people? Absolutely! However, if, rather than making decisions based upon the threat of eternal damnation, we did whatever we did in life because it just MAKES SENSE, I'm willing to bet this sort of thing would never happen at all. So really, the fact that a religion is mostly peaceful - ANY religion - doesn't excuse the fact that religions are by their very nature irrational, and thus, their followers are always going to be predisposed to irrational conduct.

On the post: House Approves Bill To Spy On Americans By Misrepresenting Or Lying About What's In The Bill

Austin ( profile ), 16 Sep, 2012 @ 12:36am

Mike Rogers

Not going to add much to the debate here except to state that, much to my own chagrin (I'm a Democrat, mostly) Mike Rogers is a senator from Alabama, not Michigan. I'd let this go uncorrected, except that I am myself from Alabama, and I wouldn't wish having this village idiot as a senator on my worst enemy. Certainly nobody I know in Michigan deserves it.

On the post: 'Amnesia' Is Selling So Well, The Developers Have Forgotten All About Piracy

Austin ( profile ), 13 Sep, 2012 @ 07:18pm

Modding > DLC

I have never understood the EA loginc on this, but if I have learned anything from Skyrim (yeah Bethesda has a shitty legal department but they still make awesome games...) it's that Modding moves units. There is NEVER ANY INSTANCE WHAT-SO-EVER where it doesnt't magke good, sound business sense to enable modding on your games.

And yet, for whatever unknown, illogical reason, EA continues to go above and beyond to ensure that they can sell DLC (often already on the disc) whilst putting even more effort into ensuring that unpaid volunteers cannot sink ample time into improving their product for them.

And yeah, this isn't just EA, but there's a reason I'm using them here: they remain the worst offender.

On the post: Far Beyond Filtering: Is The GOP Looking To Shut Down Porn Producers?

Austin ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2012 @ 07:49am

Blocking TPB

Anyone else notice this could be a back-door method to block The Pirate Bay in the US? They have porn, some of it illegal in the US, and require no age verification (only a user account.)

Sounds suspiciously like hollywood is willing to weaken IP laws if it takes down BitTorrent. After all, the vast majority of trackers also have a porn category and thus almost all of them would end up under such a filter.

Personally, I am a single athiest. I am also an American citizen. Last but not least, I am a fucking nerd. Take away my porn and you might as well take away citizenship.

On second thought, scratch that. I've been meaning to become Canadian for a while now. After all, 14 cents per CD-R is a small price to pay for healthcare and unfiltered internet.

On the post: White House Preparing Executive Order As A Stand-In For CISPA

Austin ( profile ), 10 Sep, 2012 @ 06:40am

Re: executive order

The same reason why the fillabuster hasn't been done away with - it's to counter another imbalance with imbalance. EOs exist because, despite being paid extremely well to do their job, Congress doesn't like their job (their job is to PASS LAWS, nothing else). They prefer to fillabuster everything to make Obama sound bad, and this is a problem that was done away with under Regan, but the republicans re-enstated it under Clinton.

EOs have been around since the country started but were seldom used until dubya. Now both dubya and Obama have abused the process - though for different reasons. Dubya did it because he was an impatient little shit. Obama is doing it because Congress refuses to vote on ANYTHING AT ALL until after the election (and probably afterwards, too.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not really an Obama fan. I'm voting for him just because he's better than Romney, but I still want a genuine liberal to run for President.

But yeah, that's why. It does seem to break the whole checks-and-balances system, except that it's really just a response to a broken check that Congress shouldn't have. Once we outlaw the fillabuster and require that Congress vote on everything quickly, I'm all for outlawing EOs too.

On the post: Should Robots Get Rights?

Austin ( profile ), 07 Sep, 2012 @ 10:33pm

Yes, because...

One day we will have a computer that is small, portable, and capable of emulating the human brain with 100% efficiency.

When this day comes, we have to assume we will either have already, or will soon thereafter develop the ability to map a fully developed human brain, and between these two technologies, the inevitable will happen - humans will BECOME robots.

This has myriad benefits. Instant communication across the galaxy, with 100% privacy control. The ability to share emotions directly, not just language. The ability to disconnect our minds from our form. Bored being a biped? Fine, upload yourself into a rocket or airplane or submarine body and go exploring. We won't need homes. We won't need food. Nor sleep. Nor even air. As long as we can get within proximity of a star to recharge our batteries, we're golden. And when we feel like being around others? Simply connect to the central server and commune with everyone else in existence because we have finally achieved the ULTIMATE form of humanity - raw data.

So yes, we need robot rights, because one day I intend to be one, and I'll be damned if I'm going to wind up as some meatbag's bitch.

On the post: Hackable Irish E-Voting Machines That Cost 54 Million Euros Sold For Scrap: 9 Euros A Piece

Austin ( profile ), 09 Jul, 2012 @ 09:22am

First Hand Experience

Well...technically Second Hand.

My mom was a district court judge in 1999. In 2000, she had to run for election (she was appointed to fill a vacant term by the governor.) As a friend of the outgoing probate judge - who tallied all the votes from the machines in an excel spreadsheet on his personal laptop (not even kidding) - she was able to get him to show her the exact voting results, precinct-by-precinct when she lost by only 0.4% of the vote. The results are frightening.

According to both state and federal election law, if a ballot is marked with a straight party vote at the top - for example, Republican or Democrat - and then the voter checks the box for a single candidate of the opposing party farther down the ballot, that is a spoiled ballot, and the machine is supposed to reject the ballot, after which a poll worker is supposed to walk over and explain that you must manually check each candidate individually in order to vote a split ticket. This did not occur.

After learning this, my mother had the newly sworn in replacement probate judge pull a random sampling of 1,000 ballots and count them. Out of these, 486 had checked the box for republican at the top, and then checked my mother's name farther down the ballot. These ballots, despite clearly being a vote cast for my mother, were counted as votes fer her republican opponent. The 486 votes from this sampling along accounted for over 0.7% of the total vote - enough to cost her the election. Needless to say, her true margin of victory was probably well over 20%. Sadly, with the bush/gore fiasco in full swing, no decent election law attorneys were available, and my mother basically gave up.

On her watch, in a single year, she cleared a 13,000+ case backlog, with many cases dating back as far as 1986. Out of over 17,000 total rulings, she was appealed 3 times, and her ruling was upheld on appeal all 3 times. To date, she remains the best judge in the history of the state. Her replacement was court ordered to both drug and alcohol abuse treatment just 2 years before his election. On the day of his sentencing, having been fired from his law firm, he read a 2 page statement where he stated under oath that he was "not fit to practice law." We learned this only 2 days before the election, and believing that nobody in their right mind would vote against someone with my mother's record, we elected not to release the information (which was public record anyway, if the local paper had been interested to begin with.) Out of his first 9 scheduled court days, he locked himself in his office and refused to come out because he couldn't face a courtroom full of people.

He has since recovered and does a pretty decent job running a fair courtroom. He does not keep as efficient of a schedule as my mother did, but he does seem to genuinely apply the law in a fair manner. Of course, it took him the better part of 6 years to get to that point. The fact remains that my mother won that election, and due to the lack of either oversight or understanding - and maybe both - of electronic voting systems, the citizens of our county were worse off for it.

On the post: Chelsea Clinton: We Must Protect The Children On The Internet

Austin ( profile ), 22 May, 2012 @ 12:53pm

Darwin is correct

I got my first laptop when I was 4, and my first dialup account when I was 9. It took me less than 3 hours online to determine that I should use an alias instead of my real name, and less than 2 days to develop a full persona for use online. I learned many new words, better grammar, and generally became a smarter person. Meanwhile, I had near-total privacy.

As far as I am concerned, if any other child is too stupid to figure out that they, too, should actively defend their own privacy, then they deserve to lose it, plain and simple. Survival of the non-dumbest, I say.

On the post: Wil Wheaton Reminds Us That Torrents Are Awesome, And Not Just For Pirated Movies

Austin ( profile ), 17 May, 2012 @ 01:40pm

New Law Bans Hammers Amidst Cries from Home Builders

DECEMBER 1ST, 2019 - WASHINGTON, DC - It was a cold day in political hell as Jane's Law, a new bill passed by the house and senate and signed by the president earlier today, has officially banned the sale and use of all standard hammers in the United States today. The law was written and named after Jane Brown, the 45-year old mother and housewife who was bludgeoned to death during a home invasion nearly 2 years ago today. Advocates of the new law dismissed the claims of home builders and others stating "Hammers are a dangerous form of weaponry that cause hundreds of deaths each year. Jane's Law gives law enforcement a powerful new tool to save these lives." When we tried to reach the president of the American Homebuilders Association for comment, he said something inaudible, clearly intoxicated, then shot himself in the head. Professor James Gray at Harvard University, a proponent of the hand tools industry said, "Today really is a sad day for America and a true defeat for common sense. Yes, hammers can be used for malice. So can screwdrivers, drills, and virtually any other hand tool. Despite this, we have always recognized as a society that a tool, even one with potential to be misused by crafty criminals, also has the ability to be used to create houses, repair furniture, and even destroy things we actually should destroy." When asked for his view on the subject, Senator Ron Dewings had this to say: "This new law strikes a blow for freedom. American citizens will never again have to worry about a shadowy intruder in the night wielding one of these weapons of mass terror."

The proceeding is a fake news report I generated both in an effort to finally achieve a "most insightful comment of the week" nod, and also to illustrate the key point here that many who would see BitTorrent banned seem to miss: You can punish behavior, but you cannot punish the tool. Any tool, every tool, all tools have the potential to be used for good. Even implements of torture can be used to craft leather belts. When you start to ban a tool rather than it's (mis)use, this is what you get. Do you really want us to go back to hammering houses together with a flat rock?

On the post: DailyDirt: Caffeine In Everything

Austin ( profile ), 17 May, 2012 @ 12:06pm

Re: 6 cups a day? Coffee lovers less likely to die, study finds

This is incorrect. Until we develop the ability to transfer the human mind into a machine exoskeleton, 100% of ALL humans will die. Nothing can lessen these odds. Sorry.

Now, if you mean that coffee can be good for your health in moderation, yes, this is correct. In fact, contrary to popular belief, ALL STIMULANTS are good in moderation. However, the problem is that the human body (and mostly brain) adapt to stimulants much, much faster than other kinds of drugs. This means that a simple steady supply of caffeine will have steadily lessening effects over time until your body eventually adapts to it completely, followed by a slow/sluggish/depressed feeling if you ever stop it.

The solution here is the same as everything else you can ingest: MODERATION. For stimulants specifically, this means NOT drinking coffee on ANY regular schedule. Instead, drink just one cup only when you need it, and limit yourself to a maximum amount per day. Personally, this is 4 cups for me. Alternate the coffee with coke or even tea as needed. Strange as it sounds, the key here is to keep your own body off balance so that it can never adapt to a specific kind of caffeine (yes, it's all the same molecule, but it is usually bonded to other molecules within the specific drink.)

I consume just over 1000mg a day of caffeine between all my various sources and I am 26 and in excellent health, sans the 10 pounds on my waist I should probably lose. I have had 2 physicals now and have no heart problems what-so-ever. All that, yet I still get the same boost from coffee that I did when I first started drinking it at age 12. Moderation folks. Works every time.

On the post: SGI Back From The Dead (Again) And Suing Tons Of Companies For Patent Infringement

Austin ( profile ), 14 May, 2012 @ 11:49am

Except the Kitchen Sink

The really telling thing here is that a company that was founded on the production of Graphics Cards sued a bunch of system makers - but chose to omit both NVidia and ATI. Many will claim that SGI had/has a lot of innovation. What does it say that they cannot make a case worth filing against either of the 2 primary companies in their primary field? Seems like a pretty blatant lack of innovation to me.

On the post: HBO Decides It Still Isn't Difficult Enough To Watch HBO Shows

Austin ( profile ), 19 Apr, 2012 @ 09:37am

While we're here

Just had to mention this while we're covering this topic.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

Yep

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