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    Lawsuit Claims Microsoft Discriminated Against Women

    I have worked in the Seattle tech sector for years now and can say that while it's a predominantly male workplace, I have never witnessed a culture of misogyny or sexual discrimination. I have, however, seen plenty of people (mostly men) whose bad attitudes limited their upward mobility. I'm...
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    Researcher Hacks Self-Driving Car Sensors

    So, what you're saying is that it should be illegal to research security vulnerabilities? Fascinating.
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    Amazon Does Restaurant Delivery In Seattle

    As if Seattle needed its Amazon infection to grow any worse. You may as well be giving your money to a messianic brainwashing cult. Two words, from a former Amazon insider of 8 years. Fuck. Amazon. Say it with me, folks. Fuck. Amazon.
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    Amazon Denies Accusations Of 'Brutal' Worker Treatment

    One time, at an all hands meeting, when Jeff Bezos was faced with the question "With so many organizations offering better salary and benefits while requiring less time in the office, what is Amazon's plan for retaining its workers?" His answer? "Well, they can fucking choose to work somewhere...
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    AT&T Helped The NSA Spy On The Internet

    Amazon does the same. They have a complicit relationship with the NSA and federal government's spying programs, and have furnished them with the means to take a peek at any customer assets hosted in the whole of AWS. I can say with 100% certainty that after Amazon's transparency report...
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    Amazon Denies Accusations Of 'Brutal' Worker Treatment

    I was an Amazon insider for 8 years. This article actually understates the brutal treatment of workers there. I'll chime in with my two hundred thousand cents later, when I'm not at work and can discuss it at length.
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    Skynet Happens To Be Real Confirms NSA

    Well, for a couple hundred dollars you can buy a device that clamps on to a fiber and can tell you if there is light present, and which direction it is traveling through the fiber. That's with a mild radius tapping less than 1db worth of signal from the cable. Given an unlimited budget for...
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    Skynet Happens To Be Real Confirms NSA

    Most people don't realize this, but "tapping" fiber is as simple as putting a mild radius (i.e. a bend) in to it. Every bend causes fiber optic cable to "leak" light as some of it escapes the cladding. It's conceivable that a sensitive enough eavesdropping device has been developed, to capture...
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    Skynet Happens To Be Real Confirms NSA

    You know how companies like Google, Apple, IBM, et al, tend to force the government to leverage the FISA process before revealing customer information in response to an investigation of potential acts of terrorism? Well, let's just say that the government doesn't need to go through that process...
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    Skynet Happens To Be Real Confirms NSA

    That happened several years ago, when Amazon formed a complicit relationship with the likes of the NSA and CIA. Amazon is one of the world's foremost data mining companies, and you better believe that the federal government is a big customer of theirs.
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    Employees Complain To Apple CEO Over Bag Search Policy

    I've worked in pretty much all of them, globally, and sad to say they started implementing some downright draconian security processes over the last year or so. Definitely not the same employer they were several years ago.
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    Employees Complain To Apple CEO Over Bag Search Policy

    If they think that's bad, they should try working in an Amazon datacenter, where someone might need to subject themselves to as many as four screenings, bag checks, and pat downs, just to replace parts in a broken server or network device.
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    Amazon Announces New Renewable Energy Project in Virginia

    Amazon operates its datacenters under the operating corp "VA Data", with the original intent being to circumvent sales taxes. That said, just about every time a state comes to them demanding tax money, they have been forced to comply. Even though "VA Data" is the operating company, all of the...
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    Richard Stallman Says Windows Is Malware

    Yeah, that GPL code is never going to do anybody any good, ever, is it?
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    White House Finally Stands Up To Google

    They maintained huge dev teams of highly talented developers, to develop software, for free. That's a great business model if you are killing it on sale of value added services (see: RedHat), but nobody was buying their overpriced 1U servers, much less the value-added services to support a...
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    White House Finally Stands Up To Google

    You forgot to mention the part where Sun would have gone bankrupt had they not been purchased, due largely to razor thin margins on their Wintel hardware, Microsoft's successful disruption of Java proliferation, and the well drying up for support contracts on MIPS hardware. They did...
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    Richard Stallman Says Windows Is Malware

    You know, I have been engineering systems with Linux for years, and only now do I fully realize and appreciate how painless it is to set up. New users are going to struggle at first, but once you know the Linux install process it really does go pretty quickly. In an afternoon, one can endeavor...
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    Richard Stallman Says Windows Is Malware

    Outside of the Android OS, Linux will probably never pass muster as a general use operating system grandma's email. That said, there's myriad use cases that make it a superior choice to Windows as a server OS. For a small business or departmental concern, Microsoft is a fair choice. A...
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    Cellphone Stops Bullet Fired By Robber

    Not terribly familiar with firearms, are you? Believe it or not, a 9mm actually has similar muzzle energy to the .45ACP, but a higher velocity, making it MORE likely to penetrate. The larger a bullet is, the larger the wound channel is, but less penetration occurs relative to a smaller...
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    Device that allows you to power network gear from dual feeds

    Yep, this. Auto transfer switches are typically steaming piles of horse shit. The problem with them is that most modern power supplies are of the switching variety (for efficiency purposes), and they do not contain many capacitors to store a charge, rendering them almost completely unable to...
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    Microsoft Raising Pricing for Certification Exams

    They can raise the price all they want, the certs will still be absolutely worthless.
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    Lasers to Replace Spark Plugs in Combustion Engines

    Tune ups? The "tune up" as it was once known hasn't been a regular part of automotive maintenance for the better part of 25 years. Back in the day, the tune up was needed to realign engine timing and swap spark plugs that were fouled by burning a mixture that was too lean or too rich. Because...
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    Should The 'Internet Kill Switch' Power be Curbed?

    That's a nice rant, but you are forgetting one crucial thing. Most internet peering happens between public sector entities, not Government agencies. Those backbones you're referring to are owned by public, for profit entities. Do you think the most powerful lobbying forces on earth are going...
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    Network pics thread

    If I posted pics and the management found out, it would pretty much guarantee my early dismissal. All I have from my 3 month stint in Northern Virginia, implementing all this stuff, are the stories of 100+ hour work weeks and some downright unbelievable paychecks. Oh, and a few legendary bar...
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    Network pics thread

    I only wish I could show you guys pics of the network I just finished implementing for my employer. It entailed no fewer than 64 top end switching chassis (Juniper EX and MX series), a metric shit ton of Cisco ONS 15454 chassis (doing 80 channels of DWDM /w ROADM), and many hundreds of miles of...
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    Should The 'Internet Kill Switch' Power be Curbed?

    This "kill switch" discussion is pie in the sky. The cluelessness of our politicians could not be more apparent. There are major logistical concerns surrounding the feasibility of an internet kill switch. 1.) The internet is not centralized. 2.) The code does not presently exist on...
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    Amazon Cloud Uses FedEx to Ship Data

    It wouldn't matter a lick. I doubt their systems actually execute any data being imported.
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    eBay Wants You To Sell More Stuff

    Amazon got to where they are through providing the best possible customer experience, in addition to competitive prices. That model instilled bigtime customer loyalty and it's paying off for them in spades. Ebay could probably benefit from a similar model, though it's probably too late for...
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    Nine Year Old Systems Engineer

    I think more than anything this illustrates how shamelessly easy Microsoft certs are to obtain.
  30. B

    How the Fourth Amendment Applies to Cloud Computing

    I wonder what that means for the likes of a number of private/public corporations which are subcontracted to the CIA, NSA, and FBI for domestic surveilance.
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    Dragon Age: Origins, $34.99 (PC), $45 (Xbox/PS3), FS, Amazon 12/15

    Good deal on an awesome game. Really enjoyed it, myself.
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    Cisco VRF examples

    VRFs are what you would use when connecting to a provider network, and performing eBGP peering with them, while using 10.*/8 space or other RFC1918 aggregates. You see, the provider may be peering with other private networks, also using RFC1918 space, so hence you have to find a way to uniquely...
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    Monitor is causing hum in microphone recordings.

    The fact that your monitor is a CRT probably has something to do with it. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the flyback transformer or the circuits ancillary to its operation are leaking. What sort of pitch does this hum come in at? I'm assuming it's not 60hz.
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    Monitor is causing hum in microphone recordings.

    A ground loop isolator wouldn't be a bad idea. What would really help, I think, is a power conditioner. Ferrite beads wouldn't hurt, either. LCD monitors all have one or more small fluorescent tubes, which requires a high voltage ballast circuit to be driven. To me, it sounds like that...
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    $200-$500 Dorm / Apartment 2.1 Speakers

    Your statement is wholly laughable, and you should realize that you're telling a professional sound engineer that he doesn't own any high end equipment capable of bass. Really, your statement made my night. Thank you for that. The human ear can pick up from 20hz to 20,000hz, and you're...
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    $200-$500 Dorm / Apartment 2.1 Speakers

    If you really *MUST* have a subwoofer, KRK does sell one that is matched to their studio monitors. I am not kidding when I say that the best hi-fi system 10 grand could buy won't hold a candle to a pair of KRK monitors and a computer with a decent add-in soundcard, in terms of sound clarity...
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    $200-$500 Dorm / Apartment 2.1 Speakers

    Hmm, where to start? Firstly, a lot of engineered sound bits (like CDs, for example) have the bass rolled off below 40hz. This is done because the vast majority of playback devices are incapable of reproducing frequencies below 40hz without unwanted harmonics in the more audible ranges...
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    Low volume when hooked to two computers

    You need an A/B switch of some kind. Basically, what's happening is the jack on the other computer causing a short circuit, which is diminishing the output of your signal. If the output jack on the other computer didn't have a high level of impedence, you wouldn't be hearing anything at all.
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    $200-$500 Dorm / Apartment 2.1 Speakers

    I would go with the KRK monitors, myself. No need for a subwoofer, and the sound will be louder, cleaner, and fuller than virtually anything available in the hi-fi universe. One thing should be remembered about studio monitors, though. They cast an amazing stereo field (almost like wearing...
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    clipping problems with foobar equalizer

    In the digital realm, any time you push a signal past 0dbu, hard digital clipping results. The solution? Don't push any band on your EQ beyond 0dbu. Slide down the gain for the bands you want to take out (likely the midrange), and make up for the loss of signal with more (analog) volume...
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