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djackson

49 karma · joined May 20, 2011

Data Analyst currently in Washington D.C.

Python/Numpy/R/(My)SQL/Stata/Unix/Linux/etc.

I get answers to big questions from big messes.

www.dangerlibrary.com

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djackson··on DOJ investigation yields fresh evidence against Google, Apple in lawsuit
The economic consequences of non-compete agreements are interesting, to say the least.

I'm curious to see what happens to average salaries for programmers over the next few years if this investigation results in more competition. I'd also like to see if programmers care enough to bounce back and forth even more for salary bumps, but that's harder to measure.

djackson··on Congressman blacks out his official .gov website
At least one of those activities is blacking out his website on SOPA blackout day.
djackson··on Pirates and Copyright Holders: Please Stop Making Stupid Arguments
I think the point is a bit clearer if you imagine each song having its own market.

I am not a member of the market for dubstep. I am a cheapskate in the market for Taylor Swift songs - I'd never pay full price, but I could be tempted if they were twenty cents each. I am a paying customer in the market for old blues albums.

So any one consumer is not always a cheapskate or always a paying customer. Every consumer is a cheapskate in most markets.

djackson··on 18TB hard drives made possible using table salt
> and a greater challenge for SSDs trying to catch up with the amount of storage on offer.

This technology is pretty much exclusively for backups, no? Not really the competitive space for SSDs. With only a single read/write head and 18TB of information on a drive, you're looking at an enormous performance bottleneck.

djackson··on The Facebook Timeline is creepy as hell
> Or before they sell it all to markters

They do this now...

djackson··on Why 80 Percent of Web Projects Are Total Bullshit: A Freelancer’s Rant
*irreplaceable
djackson··on Why 80 Percent of Web Projects Are Total Bullshit: A Freelancer’s Rant
succinct
djackson··on Can the Dutch Get the World to Eat Bugs?
It's not about what they eat, it's about what it becomes in the digestive system.
djackson··on The patent system isn’t broken — we are
One of his supporting arguments cuts both ways.

Apple's patent on "hand scaling velocity" simply gives a mathematical formula for the sentence: "scale at a speed proportional to how fast the fingers are moving."

There is nothing groundbreaking or advanced about the math here, or the idea behind it. Anyone implementing a multi-touch screen is likely to come to discover that a fixed scaling speed sometimes feels sluggish or awkwardly fast, and so that speed should adjust based on user input. And now, without realizing it, they've infringed on Apple's IP and are open to being sued.

djackson··on Xkcd Password Generator
He's just removing the right-most letter/number swap in each iteration.
djackson··on Can the Dutch Get the World to Eat Bugs?
Don't you end up eating the digestive system of the bug along with the rest of it? The sticking point for me is not that the animal is a bug, but that I am eating its waste. Never having eaten bugs, I'm not sure how exactly this works out.

When eating shrimp and lobster, you are typically eating the processed muscle mass (and shell, if you are into that), rather than the whole animal in one bite.

djackson··on New in Gmail Labs: Preview Pane
The screenshot looks remarkably similar to the Google wave layout.
djackson··on HTC Announces Web-Based Bootloader Unlock Tool
Will be interesting to see how many people take advantage of this.
djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
If you killed someone, I want them to win the case against you.
djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
They have the information. They have your hard drive. You have a key, or they can brute force the information out with decryption software. This is not a Fifth Amendment case. They don't want or care about the password itself. They can't use the information you provide (the password) to incriminate you, no matter what the password is.
djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
This case is not about rights, it's about a specific entity, the Department of Justice of the United States of America, having a specific investigative power, namely, that they don't have to keep a horde of expensive consultants on retainer to decrypt people's boring, completely legally irrelevant documents. On the off-chance that they lose that power, they'll still get whatever it is they want from your laptop, it'll just take longer and cost more.

Nobody is revising the Bill of Rights, the Fourth or Fifth Amendments.

djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
I don't think that in the case that someone has your laptop in hand you can still plead the fifth. If there is evidence pertinent to the case on the physical drive obtained by the government, then they already are in possession of the container holding that evidence. Beyond that, it's a matter of litigation expense to crack it. It's up to you, at that point - unlock the laptop and allow a search or force them to hire a consultant (lawyers and cops are shitty hackers) to dig into it for them.

The hand-written note argument doesn't hold water, in my eyes, because it is the encryption of all of the evidence, not any one document, that is at issue. As was mentioned, the government has compelled people to open safes.

djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
I don't think you understand what a subpoena is.

A subpoena is a compulsory order to produce all documents related to a matter, whether the government knows they exist or not. So yes, if you believe in subpoena power, you agree that you should have to produce that box.

djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
Nobody has the right to avoid a reasonable search in the United States. You are protected by the fourth amendment from unreasonable searches, but you aren't going to convince me that a detective has no right, with a warrant in hand, to search a suspect's home for a murder weapon.

Similarly, you aren't going to convince me that a prosecutor, warrant in hand, has no right to search a computer for evidence of credit card fraud.

djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
Do you think the government should have subpoena power in order to collect evidence? Do you think they should be able to search a murderer's home for the weapon? I'm not saying they should have this power without a warrant, but nobody has the protection from a _reasonable_ search.
djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
Yeah... no.

There's a line, and past that line, law enforcement has no power to enforce laws at all. Removing the DOJ's ability to collect evidence is, in some cases, the equivalent to denying a detective access to a crime scene. If all productions of electronic evidence can be encrypted, and the defense is not forced to decrypt those files, then dirty corporations only need to encrypt everything to defend themselves in court.

Defense: "We produced everything you asked for."

Prosecution: "We can't even verify that statement. Decrypt it"

Defense: "We don't have to."

Case closed.

djackson··on DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
It's easy to see why you wouldn't want someone to decrypt your laptop.

What about Bernie Madoff? Wouldn't you be furious if all data produced by a corrupt hedge fund manager was encrypted? Wouldn't you want the DOJ to be able to hold them in contempt of court? If you hamstring your government, you aren't allowed to complain that it is ineffective.

djackson··on Has Dropbox set the stage for a privacy revolution?
From the same page:

"Other than the limited license set forth in Section 11, Google acknowledges and agrees that it obtains no right, title or interest from you (or your licensors) under these Terms in or to any Content that you submit, post, transmit or display on, or through, the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in that Content (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist)."

djackson··on Mark Zuckerberg's profile on Google+
Wouldn't you do the same thing?
djackson··on Ooops.
Why would he need to explain it to the windows that are using his coworkers?

Also, it's very unclear to me what that the situation you are describing entails.

/s

Grammatically, your sentence is no less ambiguous.

djackson··on CSS3 regions: Rich page layout with HTML and CSS3
yawn It's been done.

http://textaligncentaur.com/

djackson··on This Guy Has My MacBook
Yeah.. that was pretty much what I was going for, there.
djackson··on This Guy Has My MacBook
1. Person A has a laptop

2. Person A no longer has a laptop. Person A did not sell or give away this laptop. The laptop was stolen.

3. Person B now has the missing laptop.

Conclusion: Person B is in possession of a stolen laptop.

djackson··on Google Wallet
Actually, a lot of phones have NFC technology in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication#NFC-en...

djackson··on [dead]
Well, since the TSA aren't law enforcement, they can't legally detain anyone - they rely on the police (local / state) for enforcement. Technically, Texas could have their officers refuse to detain those the TSA refused to clear.

At that point, the feds would need to step in with either the FBI or Federal Marshalls to prevent fliers from boarding planes.

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