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  • Jun 13th, 2017 @ 8:12am

    Speaking of irony

    I just wanted to point out that a news/talk radio station's call letters are WTMJ (Temporomandibular joint disorder, or lockjaw)...

  • Feb 17th, 2017 @ 11:48pm

    Sorry

    As a resident of Indiana, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to America...again...

    We'll get this whole "electing competent representatives" and "providing qualified Vice Presidents" thing right at some point...

    I blame not being able to buy beer on Sunday.
  • Jul 16th, 2015 @ 8:08am

    Since you asked...

    I like to believe that the water gets Particle Man-ny.
  • Feb 23rd, 2015 @ 8:32am

    Year of the Linux Desktop

    But if we make "app neutrality" a thing, perhaps with all those currently Windows only app developers being forced to make those same apps work on MacOS and Linux desktops, maybe this year will finally be the year! *fingers crossed*
  • Jan 14th, 2015 @ 9:31am

    Re:

    Or, even better, DPR and Ulbricht are in fact the same person, but exist as 2 disparate personalities, neither aware of the other. If all else fails, plead insanity. It works even better if he can switch personalities in the middle of examination.
  • Aug 7th, 2014 @ 8:04am

    Re:

    Having pulled down Twitch vids for use in a separate video, this is because 1) Twitch saves your video streams in 30 minute blocks, so even if you wanted to download a 2 hour stream, you'd get 4 30-minute video files, and 2) it's easier on the back end to cut the audio for the whole video instead of trying to automagically cut together a new 30-minute video block (or multiple smaller video blocks) with the relevant portions cut out.

    It's also total bullshit. But you probably already knew all of this.
  • Mar 10th, 2014 @ 12:26pm

    Re:

    I'm inclined to agree with this. The reaction seems a bit too much like "Oh lawdie lawd, every other law is overreaching, this one must be too!"

    It seems like the law is set up to specifically address trying to view naughty bits through or around clothing in secret. Standing in public with your phone out taking pictures isn't very secretive. The worst I can see where this might be misused would be the people who take the "hidden" video of girls wearing yoga pants and stuff like that. But even then, they're not trying to put their camera in some position to see around those yoga pants, they're just being oglers/perverts/[your label here].

    The nanny/babysitter example is also pretty bad. Unless your nanny cam is in the bathroom (which probably violates other existing laws), one doesn't usually anticipate a nanny/sitter getting fully or partially naked randomly in their house while they're out. I'd be more concerned about why this person was traipsing about my home in their birthday suit when they should be supervising my kids.

    Ultimately, even if the law is attempted to be used for unscrupulous suits, a judge and jury should have enough common sense (I know, these days it's so rare it's considered a super power) to realize what the intent of the law is and judge accordingly.
  • Feb 18th, 2014 @ 9:46am

    Naming Choice

    It would seem one might take more care to avoid acronaming (I may have just made that word up) a trade agreement that ends up so close to Kafka.
  • Feb 13th, 2014 @ 12:05pm

    Re: Re: Probably Dumb Questions

    Just to clarify, I wasn't advocating impeachment, just questioning why it wasn't being used instead of a lawsuit.

    And no, actually, I abhor talk radio because I'm not an old white blowhard.
  • Feb 12th, 2014 @ 4:53pm

    Probably Dumb Questions

    So while I can appreciate the reasoning behind the lawsuit, I have a couple of probably dumb questions that maybe someone can answer:

    1) If a member of the Legislative branch believe a member of the Executive has violated the law, is that not what impeachment proceedings are for? Or is the reason for the lawsuit outside of impeachment to include people beyond the president? Or because there's a snowball's chance of the Senate confirming an impeachment?

    2) Should there not be more people involved in this lawsuit? The laws that are being operated under were approved by Congress. The Patriot Act, NDAA, and all the other pieces of legislation have come up several times now for renewal and been readily OK'd.

    3) I've seen comments elsewhere that this is pretty much farting in the wind (or grandstanding, depending on how you want to phrase it) as there's enough precedent that a "no standing" ruling is all that will come of this. What is the actual likelihood of this going anywhere?
  • Jan 14th, 2014 @ 11:31am

    Better explanation?

    The court does leave open the possibility that the FCC could use other aspects of its mandate to establish net neutrality rules -- where it has a much more firm legal footing. In other words, the court is telling the FCC basically: you can establish net neutrality rules if you do it correctly.

    I'm curious as to what their suggestion was, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by 81 pages of legal jargon (and maybe I'm lazy, so what?). Can someone point out what the court's explanations were regarding how the FCC could still accomplish the regulations within the confines of the current law?
  • Dec 31st, 2013 @ 8:16am

    No worries...

    I'm sure after reviewing existing TSA policies and guidelines, someone in authority will assure us that all proper practices and procedures were followed.
  • Dec 24th, 2013 @ 8:59am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    It was just the Christians this time around. It'd be the Atheists if it was about someone getting in trouble for refusing to say "Marry Christmas".

    Unless that particular marriage to Christmas could be construed as gay. Then everyone's head explodes!
  • Dec 10th, 2013 @ 2:26pm

    "gotcha moment"

    "Oh! So you got your 'gotcha moment' now!"

    This phrase bothers me, especially the follow up "I backed off" part. To me, trying to portray a called out BS response as a "gotcha moment" with the facts of the situation is a crappy attempt at deflecting the BS response you just threw out. If that was your legitimate answer, it's not "gotcha", it's your stupid answer. If that wasn't your legitimate answer, why did you answer it in the first place?

    To me, the caller should have called out the staffer for their comment, though their response is understandable since most people don't like confrontations.
  • Nov 26th, 2013 @ 7:46am

    What's with East Texas

    I'm sure this has probably been addressed somewhere before, but I'm a lazy internet user and expect things spoon fed to me:

    What is the reason behind East Texas being so patent holder friendly? Has anyone looked into why juries there so often side with the patent holder, even when, as with this case, its blatantly obvious the patent is invalid? Are there a lot of patent holders who end up on the juries there, so they're pretty obviously going to side with the patent holder (which would seem like a conflict to me)? Is it just a "screw the big guy, save the little guy" mentality? Are we seeing the same handful of people on each jury that sway the rest of the jury (not necessarily saying they're a plant, but if the jury pool is small enough...)? There has to be something special about the people there or the water or something that makes this place such an obvious patent haven that everybody wants to file there, but what is it?
  • Jul 22nd, 2013 @ 8:57am

    Re:

    No one will ever be able to find a good place to get cheese pizza ever again.

    The cheese pizza with the dough and tomato sauce, I mean.
  • Jun 11th, 2013 @ 8:42am

    Re: Re:

    I can't believe some of the despicable AO software on that list!

    What kind of sick perverts developed "Power Chat for BlackBerry?"
  • May 10th, 2013 @ 11:49am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Friends? Relatives? The owner of the apartment he was living?

    I guess I can see an argument for an expectation of privacy when one of these applies, but in this case, none of those examples fit. He rented the apartment using the identity of a dead person, so obviously not someone who can vouch for this person's legitimate use of the apartment.

    What about the 4th Amendment of the owner?

    Again, in this instance, the registered owner of these effects is totally entitled to 4th amendment protections. Rigmaiden, however, was not the registered owner and the original article states that the identity was stolen. I suppose this is assumed, so maybe there's some wiggle room in terms of the use of the Aircard.

    That shouldn't even be an issue.

    I believe there are "reasonable suspicion" laws that allow police to do things without a warrant based on the premise they think something illegal is occurring. If I'm driving a "borrowed" car, and get pulled over, does the police officer need to get a warrant to search the vehicle if he suspects its stolen? Or at least a warrant after the fact? I don't know what the limitations are on laws like this.

    While I agree that the Constitution and its personal protections (are supposed to, but it seems more and more don't) trump most anything, I guess I'm still missing something from the argument. Is the argument more that he is entitled to these protections because it has not been proven yet that he fraudulently acquired these items? So the issue is since the dead apartment owner hasn't been proven dead yet, he should still be treated as if he was just borrowing somebody else's apartment and Aircard until such time as fraud is proven?

    The last thing I'll throw in here, since it doesn't appear to be mentioned in the summary and is probably worth noting, is the judge making the decision also cited "a number of precedent-setting cases to support his decision, including a Ninth Circuit decision that a defendant can have no expectation of privacy in a computer that is obtained through fraud." So in this case, he's not the first judge to disregard this protection. However, the ACLU makes the argument that this instance is not fraud, but the use of aliases. I guess I'm not sure legally when lying about who you are (and making purchases as such) moves from using an alias to fraud (kind of like how important do you have to be such that murder becomes assassination).
  • May 9th, 2013 @ 8:43pm

    Re:

    I was actually about to post something along these lines.

    As far as the using Stingrays and lying to the judge, it's pretty crap that the judge lets that go. However I'm somewhat confused as to how this is an incorrect ruling regarding the privacy aspect.

    I'm pretty sure for an Aircard and apartment, you have to provide (in most instances) more information than just a name, so if he provided the alias' social security number or other identifying information, that would seem more like identity fraud versus using an alias. If it falls under identity fraud, could you then make the argument that the equipment/room did not legally belong to him, therefore the 4th amendment doesn't apply because technically those weren't his "effects?" Does one have to prove that it's actually identity fraud before excluding 4th amendment protections? Or is "Your name is John Doe, this property is registered to John Smith, therefore you are not the legal owner" sufficient cause to assume identity fraud?

    I'm most assuredly not a lawyer (and in most instances that seems to be a good thing), so some of the finer details may not be apparent to me, but if someone can explain why the judge here is 100% in the wrong instead of just 50%, I would be interested to understand better.
  • May 3rd, 2013 @ 5:01pm

    Right once again...

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