harmless_mammal - Slashdot User

Comment Re:So you're a twat. (Score 1) 1080

by harmless_mammal on Tuesday September 25, 2012 @02:50PM (#41453479) Attached to: Light Bulb Ban Produces Hoarding In EU, FUD In U.S.

Except that you share electrical infrastructure with your community... The power you use affects how much excess capacity is available, how many power plants need to be built, etc... The lightbulbs everyone uses is, at a county and state level, an issue that affects a lot of people. Now if you want to go Amish on us and supply your own power with solar cells and diesel generators, then it truly doesn't matter what kind of bulb you use.

Comment Re:This makes sense if they're recording raw dat (Score 4, Interesting) 221

by harmless_mammal on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @03:49PM (#40374825) Attached to: NSA Claims It Would Violate Americans' Privacy To Say How Many of Us It Spied On

And, also, please realize that organizations like the NSA aren't free to discuss their techniques in a public forum... so they can't publicly tell Sen. Wyden why they don't have the capability to answer his questions.

Comment This makes sense if they're recording raw data.. (Score 5, Insightful) 221

by harmless_mammal on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @03:31PM (#40374509) Attached to: NSA Claims It Would Violate Americans' Privacy To Say How Many of Us It Spied On

Okay, I remember reading (probably on Wired) that the NSA has an unusual definition of "intercept" when it came to domestic telephone calls... An "intercept" for them was going back and analyzing their recordings, not the actual "making" of the recording. If, for instance, I merely record raw packet data on the network and do not interpret it... then I've "captured the firehose", but I don't know what I've got until I analyze it. If I have the budget to "capture the firehose" for the entire US telephone network, but I only need to analyze 10-20K "intercepts" per year, then I probably wouldn't have the equipment or staff to evaluate the details of all the data I have. If that's the situation, then I'd probably respond similarly to Wyden's request. In order to answer his questions I'd have to analyze ALL the data I have, which I don't have the resources or budget to do... and even if I did, it'd expose the details of all comunications on the network... which would be an invasion of privacy.

Comment Growing faster now (Score 1) 1

by harmless_mammal on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @01:07PM (#38739516) Attached to: Half-Life Steam group reaches 10,000 members

24 hours later, the group now has 16,400+ members...

Comment My letter to Steven Metalitz (Score 1) 749

by harmless_mammal on Thursday July 30, 2009 @02:20PM (#28885415) Attached to: RIAA Says "Don't Expect DRMed Music To Work Forever"

To: met@msk.com Subject: Re: your letter to the copyright office I have just read of your letter to the Copyright Office claiming that your clients reject the view that consumers should expect perpetual access to a copyrighted work. I have only one response. Please identify, with specificity, the section in the Copyright Act where it grants copyright owners the authority to deny access to a protected work that has been legitimately obtained. I can save you lots of time, you won't find it. The right of the consumer to access a work protected under the act is implicit in the sale. The consumer did not rent or lease authorization to "access" the protected work, it was an outright "purchase" of that authorization and the revocation of that authorization is not permitted. Have a nice day,

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