Posts by Charles 9

Re: inspired by 8chan

That's arguable if someone has to commute two hours each way into the boonies to work (meaning no public transport, high capacity fuel tank is essential, and a powerful engine may be needed to negotiate steep terrain).

Re: "Rational Gun Control"

My point is, Haters Gonna Hate. Killers Gonna Kill. And there isn't much you can do to stop someone that determined without crossing moral event horizons. Which is it going to be: chaos or the police state?

Re: Guns or the people using them?

But what about the Second Amendment? The Supreme Court has already ruled that it's an individual right AND that a militia can be one person.

Re: "guarantee me that no one with evil intent will try to break in my house or assault my person"

"This is the bit I can never understand, there's something fundamentally wrong with people living with constant irrational fear of home invasion."

Unless the fear is JUSTIFIED, as in people all around them ACTUALLY DO get burglarized on a routing basis, sometimes in ways that pretty much say if they want in, they'll get in in spite of God, Man, or the Devil.

Try a country with much more culturally-diverse populations. Few are more diverse than the US, and those that are tend to be worse.

The main reason? The primary driving force behind the violence is culture clash: either within or between cultures that can only see violence as a solution to their problems: either because it's the only thing they know or because all other ways are blocked. Here's a hint: most violence in the US is actually between criminals. A sizable chunk of the rest are suicides that simply pick the gun as convenient but can easily change methods (as the US suicide rate is pretty average while being MUCH worse in Japan and South Korea, both heavily-gun-controlled).

Re: inspired by 8chan

As was a book and movie titled One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Thing was, the conditions depicted weren't exactly contemporary (and if you think that was bad, it was much worse in Nellie Bly's day when she got herself committed to a facility to get a hands-on on just how terrible asylums were in her day--and people wondered why they preferred to lock mad relatives in their attics instead).

Re: inspired by 8chan

Oklahoma City seems to defy your claim. 150+ people killed, a tall building wrecked, and not a single bullet was fired. It was homemade ANFO, using nothing but materials available to any farmer.

Re: inspired by 8chan

Remember, no guns were used in Oklahoma City OR 9/11.

Re: inspired by 8chan

No, because it'll only increase incidents of higher crimes as people who NEED the car for their job to feed the family (as they're the breadwinners) get dinged for too many minor things, lose their wheels, and they can't feed the spouse and kids. IOW, you just start creating a group of VERY desperate people. And you know what they say about desperate people...

Re: inspired by 8chan

Perhaps he's taking a roundabout path to declare that the root problem is part of humanity itself and is pretty much intractable. To use the meme, "Haters gonna hate."

Re: Grammar Nazi alert

Or is it "slew"?

Re: Grammar Nazi alert

No, murder usually requires deliberation, as in the deadly act was made with the intent to kill. Thus why murder has greater and lesser degrees. The greater degree requires either premeditation (as in it was planned) or wanton disregard for the law (as in committed simultaneously with another felony such as robbery--thus the "felony murder" designation). A deliberate strike to kill made in the spur of the moment (say catching your spouse cheating, the scenario sung by Maroon V in "Wake Up Call") is a lesser degree because it wasn't planned beforehand.

OTOH, a premeditated strike not meant to kill but lethal anyway could be construed as manslaughter instead of murder (being a reckless instead of deliberate act, that's often the key in distinguishing between the two). So would acting in wanton disregard and causing someone's death in the process (DUI manslaughter, for example).

Re: "You can pretty much draw a conclusion..."

"There's a big difference when to kill tens of people you need to be skilled and resourceful, or just enter a shop, and exit with some assault weapons, high-damage ammunition, and large-capacity quick reload magazines, or even have them delivered right to your house, for a few hundred dollars only."

Are we forgetting the massacres that were made at ZERO cost because the killer used common implements available to everyone AND already at hand...like his/her own personal vehicle?

And frankly, it doesn't take a whole lot of skill to make certain dangerous implements. Indeed, most anyone here knows the recipe for black powder or to make homemade ANFO.

Hell, 9/11 was committed with nothing more than box cutters. Imagine someone armed with a ceramic (non-metallic) knife could do with a first-class seat and the patience to wait for the instant the cockpit door is open.

Re: So, since 1961 ...

You must be referring to the Bath Township massacre.

Interesting thing to note. Everything the killer used was legally obtained. Including the rifle (anti-predator tool) and the explosives (excavation charges), because he was a farmer.

Re: "Rational Gun Control"

Farmers can easily kill hundreds of people using nothing more than the tools of their trade.

The Bath Township massacre, one of the worst in American history, was committed by a disgruntled farmer who blew up after losing a local election. He used his legally-purchased hunting rifle and TNT made available for use as excavation charges.

The Oklahoma City attack was committed with a rented truck and homemade ANFO. The latter was produced with common AN fertilizer (normally denatured to prevent it being weaponized, but they found a way to REnature it) and diesel fuel: both commonly used by farmers (for their fields and for their tractors, respectively).

So noted. What's happened is that some speech fails the "Fire in a Crowded Theater" test created by the Schenck decision. Speech that can disgust or repulse is one thing. Speech that can incite violence is another matter altogether.

What about "silent corruption," where the bits got flipped and STILL passed?

Re: What?

Airliners get routinely serviced. Satellites are one-way trips built to tight budgets.

Re: Is that the only problem?

Most of THAT stuff IS rad-hardened. The catch is that expensive stuff like that isn't worth it for a datellite, so they need a solution on the cheap.

Re: Not sure that I get it.

"Reading a El Reg article does not make you an expert."

But I DID stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Joke aside, honest question. The second solution says two cores. How does it know which one is right if one flips, and what happens when both flip differently at the same time?

Re: hardware access

Cameras like that tend to pick up things our eyes don't, such as infrared. That can be exploited to emit an anti-camera interference that normal eyes wouldn't see. Sort of like how Macrovision exploited the slower reaction time of pure TV connections to changing sync signals to throw off machine-to-machine copying.

Re: Rather than argue

They'll just say it's not a good example. Frankly, those who insist on it will willingly ignore any examples to the contrary. Even Turing's famed Halting Problem disprove has been met with the reply, "Then just build a HYPERcomputer!"

So why aren't we subject to a full-on strip search after some OTHER dumb fool tried the same stunt, only this time the TATP (no nitrogen to sniff) was found in his UNDERWEAR? Panty Bomber, anyone?

Re: In answer to his question

To which I always ask, "What do you do with a masochist, who would GET OFF on getting hit with a wrrnch, or a wimp, who would faint at the mere sight of the wrench?" Either way, they're not gonna tell you anything useful.

Re: Alexa Smith

You can do that by syllable (listen for the schwa, etc). Still gonna run into false positives.

Re: Oh Google

So what happens when (not if) there are microphones in EVERYTHING (AND you can't break the mics without breaking both the device AND your warranty)?

Re: It says something about the modern world

No, it's just that everyone and their mother gained access to the equivalent of dynamite. Now locks are the least of your worries.

Re: Why can't people just stop fucking about with things

Because we're not the norm nor the majority. Always take Joe Stupid into consideration when it comes to UI decisions, as Joe Stupid can't tell an address from an anvil.

Re: I reckon the proper term is 'institutional stupidity'

So how does it tell the difference between a ZIP and an EPUB (they're both ZIPs internally)? It'd be like telling the difference between a Ford Topaz and a Mercury Mystique (essentially the same car if not for the make marks).

PS. Why Do I get the feeling someone's going to eventually exploit a shebang for some nasty malware (a la Confused Deputy) in future?

Re: Legacy ip only?

Will you walk away from a fool and his money...sonny?