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umbra

Re:Ask HN: US bank that offers Two-Factor Authentication? on Sunday August 12, 2012 @09:16PM (#4374186)
Not a bank, but First Tech Federal CU offers it:

https://www.firsttechfed.com/eServices/Security/SecurityKey....

I can recommend them.

Re:Is Technology Dumbing Down the Japanese Language? on Saturday December 12, 2009 @04:09PM (#991962)
Just delete your NYTimes cookie and then you won't have to subscribe.
Re:Google is just an amoral menace on Sunday April 05, 2009 @07:41PM (#547910)
Clouding the issue?

I think there are two separate issues.

1.) Amoral: clearly; they are a corporate entity, not a human being

2.) Menace: who or what are they menacing? If you feel threatened, don't use their products.

Re:Google is just an amoral menace on Sunday April 05, 2009 @11:01AM (#547418)
Dunno about the menace, but perhaps "amoral" is exactly the right word: "being neither moral nor immoral; specifically: lying outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply <science as such is completely amoral, W. S. Thompson> (From the online Merriam Webster Dictionary)

I used to work for a very large vendor of ICs and one of its erstwhile CEO's famously said: "With respect to technology, if it can be done, it will be done."

I agree and so given that, I think any discussion of morals is only applicable to the person who has to decide whether to associate with the company or project in question for paid labor or in the use of their product(s).

It's not whether the bomb, say, is moral or not as an abstract concept, but instead, given all the information available on the impact of nuclear weapons, whether you decide to design the beryllium reflector for the secondary or not...

I didn't like the sounds of "demyelization" induced by a diet of irradiated food. Although no specifics were mentioned about that diet, one has to wonder about the near constant reassurances that irradiated food is safe:

http://www.fda.gov/opacom/catalog/irradbro.html