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Comment: Re:Time to hermeticly seal the drives (Score 1) 415

by John.Banister (#47397737) Attached to: Police Using Dogs To Sniff Out Computer Memory
I had an idea like that once. You could take something like a Kingston MobileLite WiFi Wireless USB Card Reader, plug a Universal QI Wireless Charging Receiver into it, cut the internal battery line and route it via a reed switch, and cast the whole assembly into a big epoxy ceramic coffee mug. It only comes on when the mug has the lid with the magnet put on it the correct way, and you set the mug on a charging pad when the battery gets low. I expect if these sorts of things became common, cops would get pretty good at recognizing ones that didn't use sophisticated miniaturized electronics, and before long, if they thought it was important, they would just x-ray all your stuff with every search. The extra trouble would make it more likely that they'd make sure they convicted you of some sort of offense so that they could charge you for the expense of the search.

Comment: Re:How fitting (Score 1) 333

I was curious about those restroom door symbols so I looked around a little. As near as I can tell, a requirement for pictograms in USA grew out of the ADA in 1990. (OSHA requires that water closets be present, but doesn't require pictograms on that signage.) After passage of the act, the Department of Justice was supposed to come up with symbols. They got them from ANSI, who in turn got them from ISO (now ISO 7001). From this article it looks like at the time the ISO started on pictograms, those in use were signs made for travelers to the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and a sign project that the International Union of Railways started in 1961.

Comment: Re:ban on swearing??? (Score 1) 158

by John.Banister (#47366799) Attached to: Russia Moves From Summer Time To Standard Time
But don't you think the ban on writing it down will strengthen the oral tradition that got those phrases into the language in the first place? It was probably all this unfettered desktop publishing that kept the phrase for "strike on the cunt with an 89mm floppy" out of the language until it was too late for it to have meaning. Now it's just pointless, and soon it will pass out of mind, like data stored on an 89mm floppy.

Comment: Re:You'll want either AT&T or T-Mobile. (Score 1) 146

by John.Banister (#47347277) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: SIM-Card Solutions In North America?
Or, I was lied to. Or, they changed the policy since then. Or, they apply different policies to different regions. In the legal section of the link you posted it says "service activation required" (ie, you can't just buy a sim and send it to somebody. You, the purchaser, have to set up an account as an att customer as part of receiving the sim).

I could say "You are either too stupid to think up any other explanation or you deliberately want to crate a false dichotomy." But really, who knows why you write stuff?

Comment: Amazon (Score 1) 146

by John.Banister (#47341979) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: SIM-Card Solutions In North America?
If you're planning ahead, some vendors on Amazon sell sim cards, including Net10 sim cards, international sim cards, and others. I believe that if you have an Amazon account anywhere, your login works in Amazon for any other country (My only experience is having an account in USA and buying stuff on Amazon.de). If you have the card before you leave, that is simplest and provides the most functionality. Then, if you want to shop for a sim card with a better rate, your phone will be working while you do so. Or, an airtime vendor like wirelessrefill.com might be able to sell you airtime at a better rate for the first card.
