User: erlehmann

Why is this modded insightful and not funny ? (nt)

On: Why the BBC's iPlayer is a Multi-Million Pound Disaster

Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)

there *is* a new protocol currently developed

On: EarthLink Says No Future for Municipal Wi-Fi

It doesn't scale up to even 100 users at once.

That is not entirely correct, OLSR does have problems with numbers close to 1000 nodes. However, there is a new protocol in development to provide a Better Approach To Mobile Ad-hoc Networking (B.A.T.M.A.N. [1]).

[1] https://www.open-mesh.net/batman

i do not know were you live

On: EarthLink Says No Future for Municipal Wi-Fi

but i live in germany and most private networks i encounter in berlin or munich and also smaller towns are encrypted. yeah, WEP is easily crackable, but you do not want to face time in jail here for posessing aircrack-ng [1], do you ? [1] http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/31/1629259

city-wide wifi has its uses

On: EarthLink Says No Future for Municipal Wi-Fi

for example in the eastern part of germany, after reunification, there were lines in cities that could not be used for DSL. the german "freifunk" (literally "free wireless", both as in beer and as in speech) project managed to build some sizeable city mesh nets using a routing protocol known as OLSR [1,2].

just look in awe at the leipzig cloud [3]. also, try to imagine wireless cell phone / pda mesh nets (probably doable right now with openmoko).

[1] http://olsr.org/
[2] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3626.txt
[3] http://db.leipzig.freifunk.net/uptime/png/ -- careful, images is 3165x4206

First I read this as ...

On: Facial Recognition Vending Machine Debuts

... Facial Recognition Voting Machine Debuts

what's with guilt by association ?

On: Germany Implements Sweeping Data Retention Policies

You can see that a person have contacted another person, and probably even where this was (if it's a mobile phone), but you can't see what they have been talking about.

ever heard of Andrej Holm ? he and his family were (and are still) constantly snooped just b/c he used the same words as other suspects and was intellectual. ah, yeah and also:

Holm's home and office were searched, after one man he had met with was implicated in a plot to firebomb tanks at a German military base.

maybe like ...

On: Germany Implements Sweeping Data Retention Policies

... this ?

propaganda everywhere

On: Germany Implements Sweeping Data Retention Policies

policies like this which are presumably trying to stop neo-nazi groups and terrorists

yeah. as if /anyone/ with a brain believes that bullshit.

really stupid OP ?

On: Germany Implements Sweeping Data Retention Policies

PGP, man. also, who mods stuff like this up ?

logical fallacy

On: Germany Implements Sweeping Data Retention Policies

It's been "right" here and there for decades -- possibly, centuries.

same thing could be said about slavery some hundred years ago. only because something is law, it isn't automagically right.

apparently, they dont need to: see guantanamo (nt)

On: Germany Implements Sweeping Data Retention Policies

no text

Re:Color vision...

On: Monkeys and Cognitive Dissonance

psychologists could tell us perhaps ?

i doubt that

On: Low-Cost Board Runs Linux, Google Apps

pre-made thin clients witout moving parts and with low power requirements (like sun's) would make more sense to me in the long run.

Re:Alternate rationale.

On: Paying People to Argue With You

Your supposed '16 year old smarter than adults' is perhaps one of the few who may not be coerced into smoking in the first place.

coerced ? she knows the dangers, still decides to do it sometimes. your problem with that ?

The arbitary boundary of adulthood exists and for some odd reason people under it make more mistakes.

in general, young people make more mistakes. i wouldn't dispute that.
but you cannot deduce any arbitrary (you say it yourself) limit this way.

'prove me wrong' is no defense at all, just teasing the opponent. also, ad hominem doesn't work if you are AC.

Re:Confusing The Issue

On: Does Hacking Grades Warrant 20 Years in Jail?

There is a big difference in that this person had access to all the data on the computer system.

why should the crime be more severe if there is more sensitive data on the computer ?

Re:Alternate rationale.

On: Paying People to Argue With You

However, an exception to this rule can be made when it comes to minors, who may make poor choices.

clearly, this is a flawed axiom. i know a 16 yr old who is indefinitely more wise than most adult students i see at the university. to contrast this, one of my brothers is 16 yr old and stupid (not mentally disabled, just stupid) and will probably never become truly an "adult". also, i know quite a number of people who mentally didn't develop that much since puberty. in the end, maturity is not a number, prove me wrong.

i bet someone will say "we did it always this way"

On: Paying People to Argue With You

parents comment makes it clear that everyone who voted grandparent up is somehow vulnerable to flawed axioms.

Re:The importance of this race cannot be overstate

On: Carnegie Mellon Wins Urban Challenge

If, on the other hand, *every* car was automated, it would be so much easier to implement.

also, if every car was automated and the controls were built into the road, there would be a massive single point of failure.

and you will be baked (nt)

On: Vista Runs Out of Memory While Copying Files

Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)

Hello everybody out there using youtube -

On: YouTube Filtering Is On-Line

I'm doing a (free) video content management system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like google video) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since july, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in youtube, as my CMS resembles it somewhat
(same logical layout of the web frontend (due to practical reasons)
among other things).

I've currently converted "britney_nackt_xxx.xvid" and "on-night-in-paris.wmv", and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them

                                JoSch (josch@mister-muffin.de)

PS. Yes - it's free of any youtube code, and it has a multi-threaded encoding process.
It is NOT protable (uses a perl lib only in ubuntu 7.10 etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than porn, as that's all I have :-(.

( trac at http://mister-muffin.de/proj )

Re:Did anyone else notice the ads?

On: The Evolution of Language

i assume any sane person uses adblock already.

i predict iphone voting as of 2009

On: Hacking the Presidential Election

you can vote for one of the two parties from the comfort of your home, using your iphone.

third-party modifications render your vote void, of course.

look, i can

On: Corporate Encouragement For Sharing Your WiFi

well, FON is *not grassroots, they are neither open nor free. they distribute their routers totally locked down. "pah", the average customer thinks," that won't affect me". only that it does.

see, FON wants *me* to pay *them* for access to *my neighbour's* wireless. when i asked him to open his AP, he said he couldn't, because if he installed openWRT (or another open firmware) he wouldn't get the benefits FON offers (i never knew if he used them actually).

also, technically FON requires a direct internet connection. urban wifi would be much more likely to succeed, if they used mesh network strategies (what would mean with even only 20% of APs actually connected to the net, traffic is) like the german freifunk project does. hell, freifunk developers even create new routing protocols. if you wanna see what openWRT and freifunk devs are making possible, check this graph [1] from the german city of leipzig.

i just cannot see why technical people are falling for this FON scam (other than plain ignorance, of course).

[1] http://leipzig.freifunk.net/

databases are risks

On: Designing Software With Privacy in Mind

somehow it's simple: when government or bigbiz collects information about you, this information is stored in databases. from these information, conclusions are drawn. the simplest thing is that a health insurance won't accept you b/c you are genetically inferior. but, speaking of government, one german citizen was abducted by the CIA [1], another man was wrongfully imprisoned in guantanamo for 5 years [2].

this happened due to some entries in some databases about them hanging around with the wrong people.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz

i can literally see this becoming a meme.

On: Japanese Bureaucrats Reprimanded for Wikipedia Editing

"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam."
srsly, what were they smoking, err thinking ?