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Comment: Kindle (Score 1) 417


Comment: Morality Engine (Score 1) 406




Comment: Re:bad summary (Score 1) 121

by Tiger4 (#45424466) Attached to: POV-Ray Is Now FLOSS

Us old timers know what it is. It's a ray tracer from the early early days (it was used to render one of the covers of my books back in the mid 90s). I honestly thought it went the way of the dodo since I haven't heard about it in years.

I've run it in MS-DOS many times. Got a nice rendering of The Ringworld system, complete with background stars and shadow squares. The last time was on a Vista machine. A NEW Vista machine, I made some springs or some such thing. Haven't been back since.

Comment: Re:Exactly right (Score 1) 599

by Tiger4 (#45333751) Attached to: Withhold Passwords From Your Employer, Go To Jail?

The process should be the passwords to every system written down, sealed in individual envelopes, then all of them sealed in one large envelope and locked in a safe. the envelope seals are anti-tamper sealed and signed by at least two responsible people, a sysadmin and a manager. As long as nothing changes, all is good. If any of them needs to change, you break the seals and redo those. On the systems themselves, it should take two people to authorize the password change, with notice going out to them and others that the change happened. That is less likely to be implemented, so it becomes the weak point of the system.

At no point should a single person be the only one with all the key passwords. This case is what happens when you let it all fall to one guy.

Comment: Re:Passwords are property of the employer (Score 1) 599

by Tiger4 (#45333683) Attached to: Withhold Passwords From Your Employer, Go To Jail?

It wasn't his work to defend. It belonged to his employer. Work for hire, and the guy that hired him told him what to do. That same person could have entirely destroyed the work, told him to rebuild it, then destroyed it again, over and over. As long as Childs is being paid his agreed and legal rate, it is entirely the employer's option to do so. Pride in his work, or more likely self-righteous pride in himself, does not properly enter into this at all.

His only defense at all is "preventing public waste" which is subjective as hell and probably not his call anyway, certainly not after the judge ruled against him.

Comment: Re:It may all be for naught (Score 1) 250

by Tiger4 (#45242979) Attached to: Jeffrey Zients Appointed To Fix Healthcare.gov

1. ACA is Federal law. The fine / tax/ whatever is Federal, imposed on the residents of the states.

2. You might look a bit further up, to Amendment 16, where it says


Comment: It may all be for naught (Score 4, Interesting) 250

by Tiger4 (#45241179) Attached to: Jeffrey Zients Appointed To Fix Healthcare.gov

Good luck to Zients. He's a good guy and I don't doubt the code can be repaired with enough effort. A lot of effort, maybe, but it can be done.

But it might not matter. The Los Angeles Times had a story about how the real code running the show (the legalese in the ACA law) may have a fatal flaw in it. The federal government may not be able to grant subsidies to low income people in the states that did not set up their own exchanges. The law specifically says the states must do it in order for the money to flow. So 36 of the 50 may not be able to get the money. But they are still subject to the penalty for not signing up. This means the people least able to afford insurance get hammered. And since they are treated differently than people in the other 14 states that do have exchanges, you can bet an Equal Protection lawsuit will be quick in coming.

Federal judge is due to issue the initial ruling soon.

Comment: Re: I only go... (Score 1) 415

by Tiger4 (#45149521) Attached to: I typically visit a doctor (for medical reasons) ...

My citation is only the daughter of friend, who did indeed go into autism spectrum after a series of vaccinations. He doesn't believe, and neither do I, that it was thimerisol. But her decline was quite obvious from just after the injections to a few years later when she stabilised.

Neither of us advocates non-vaccination, far from it. But ignoring a real risk, when we've seen it happen, isn't "science" either.

Comment: Re: I only go... (Score -1, Troll) 415

by Tiger4 (#45137699) Attached to: I typically visit a doctor (for medical reasons) ...

I'm not mercury/thimerisol basher, but it isn't entirely true that vaccination can't cause autism. It isn't the mercury, it is the potential for overloading the immune system. all those vaccines are reputedly dead. Yes. But the immune system still has to respond to them, to be ready to fight off the real thig some day. One vaccine, probably no big deal for most people most of the time. A few hours of sore arm or osre butt and off you go. But several vaccines, injected into a weakened but not quite obviously compromised immune system over a short period of time? That is a differnet story. That person may become overwhelmed, and then its an open question on what collateral damage may occur.

Anyway, that is the new, and relatively legitimate science, route the "vaccines cause autism" reaserch is going. The potential "solution" would be fewer vaccines spread over a greater period. But that leaves the child open to more infections longer. Or find a way toi detect these borderline cases before the injection series begins.
