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User: domatic

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  1. It could have been worse. on Student Given Detention For Using Firefox [UPDATED] · · Score: 1

    Portable Firefox configured to use Tor or a rotating selection of open proxies has and probably is popular among HS students. I'm not saying this kid did that but if I were admin on that network, I'd be extremely interested in anyone installing software that wasn't provided in the first place. The superiority of FireFox over IE has very little to do with this and more to do with the kid using a school computer as his personal playground.

  2. Re:How realistic are these programs? on More Details Emerge On Domestic Spying Programs · · Score: 1

    Perhaps "keep track of political dissidents" is a better way to put it:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

  3. Re:Decoupling IE and Windows... on Opera Tells EU That Microsoft's IE Hurts the Web · · Score: 1

    kdebase-dev is only needed if you are building source packages against KDE. I'm not a KDE build maven so I don't know why some packages would need konq binaries to be built.

  4. Re:Decoupling IE and Windows... on Opera Tells EU That Microsoft's IE Hurts the Web · · Score: 1

    And on the other side of the fence, try and remove konqueror from kde.

    It can be done. And you're still free to use any other alternate file manager or browser:

    apt-get remove konqueror
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    The following packages will be REMOVED
    kdebase-dev konq-plugins konqueror konqueror-nsplugins
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
    Need to get 0B of archives.
    After unpacking 10.3MB disk space will be freed.
    Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
  5. Don't Date Robots! on The Future of Love and Sex - Robots · · Score: 5, Funny
  6. Re:Wow it runs well on a throttled Core2, on KDE 4 Uses 40% Less Memory Than 3 Despite Eye-Candy · · Score: 1

    If KDE stays true to form, the size of all of those things will be independently settable. No GNOME devs, being able get things just the way you like them without using a registry editor is a good thing.

  7. Re:To compare with GNOME... on KDE 4 Uses 40% Less Memory Than 3 Despite Eye-Candy · · Score: 2, Funny

    What do you call that? FrankenDesk ;-)

  8. Re:Actually... on KDE 4 Uses 40% Less Memory Than 3 Despite Eye-Candy · · Score: 1

    Linux server services on the other hand are positively spartan. This applies to more than just Linux but the people developing things like Samba, Apache, PostGre, and MySQL very obviously care about speed and memory footprint.

      I agree with you about OpenOffice but most of the K-apps are inexpensive if you're already running KDE. If you're running GNOME and fire up the occasionally KDE app then yes, you'll have to wait for a lot of libraries to load and services to start. The stable of KDE apps makes extensive use of those and kwrite fires up in a second on my KDE desktop. GNOME is treated somewhat unfairly in this in that most "GNOME apps" are really GTK apps that don't leverage the GNOME frameworks much at all. Thus, none of the major GTK apps are painful to load in KDE. Linux also seems to more deeply buffer and cache things than Windows does too. The first start of Firefox or OpenOffice is slow but subsequent launches takes seconds or less if you didn't cheap out on memory. If you DID cheap out on memory, there are lighter apps that are still competent at things like editing and CD-burning.

    Incidentally, I don't fire up GNOME sessions much except the occasional live-cd but each release of KDE (3.x series) has been a little faster, little more polished, and a little bit lighter on memory than the last. Again, you really don't feel it unless you are using it as a desktop day in and day out. The KDE devs simply design apps assuming the KDE frameworks are already memory resident.

  9. Apropos Oldie But Goodie on Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? · · Score: 1

    "They're Made Out Of Meat"

    http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html

  10. Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist on Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? · · Score: 1

    The phrase "practical purposes" suffices for my agreement.

    Since you suggested googling Fermi's Paradox, I suggest googling "proving a negative". You could also have expressed the same sentiment with phrases like "Based on the current evidence, extraterrestrial intelligence is unlikely." But in this crowd of pedantic precision lovers, an equivocal statement of nonexistence on a subject we're barely equipped to study is going to draw fire.

  11. Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist on Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I agree with you that we have no evidence of other intelligent life and that anything we say about other intelligence in the universe is pure speculation. What you haven't done is demonstrate "nonexistence" which the reference to Fermi's paradox doesn't do.

  12. Re:Same Old SP1 on Vista SP1 Release Candidate Available · · Score: 1

    I have one for you then. Vista breaks some (all?) applications based on some (all) versions of Oracle Forms. This was a showstopper in my organization. We won't even consider allowing Vista in here until three years after release or SP2 whichever comes first. Even then, either the OF app or Vista will have to fixed to allow this app to work.

    You can work around the problem by installing FireFox and manually copying the JInitiator plugin to the FireFox plugins directory and this is in fact what we advise for home users stuck on Vista.

  13. Don't Cross The Streams! on Desktop Synchrotron to Capture Molecular Action · · Score: 1

    I have an idea! We'll cross the streams!

    (Ray groans) "...cross the streams!"

  14. Re:Best quote ever! on NASA Snaps Mysterious "Night-Shining" Clouds · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does this mean we can randomly diddle the knobs of a complex system we don't understand and expect no consequences? No!

  15. Re:I want a mythbusters class as well on Weird Science Offered As University Class · · Score: 1

    That sound's more like Penn and Teller's class than Jaime and Adam's. For all the flaws with what they do on MythBusters, things aren't being dismissed out of hand. They spend real money, time, and effort to at least attempt demonstrating the workings of myth. Organized skepticism seems to be more about berating dumbasses who should know better. That can be entertaining but if someone is stupid enough to believe John Edwards can make a long distance phone call to his relative in heaven then a stern talking to from James Randi isn't going to fix his problem. I'm not saying the things they take apart in your class aren't total horsehockey; I just question the ability to install BS detectors in people that lack them after the fact.

  16. As Q would say on Russian Chatbot Passes Turing Test (Sort of) · · Score: 4, Funny

    "The Internet contains wonders to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the stupid."

  17. Re:The film focused my fears into a productive act on Brawndo, It's Got Electrolytes. It's What Plants Crave · · Score: 1

    I'll do it only if the night deposit box is "ergonomically designed".

  18. Re:Well shit. on Brawndo, It's Got Electrolytes. It's What Plants Crave · · Score: 1

    I'm not going to buy it but I am going to laugh my ass off every time I see a beer-gutted redneck swilling it.

  19. Re:Just plain incompetent on Users and Web Developers Vent Over IE7 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think of Microsoft devs as neither incompetent or malevolent. Their executives and anybody above middle management may be another matter. What they mainly are is indifferent to anything except MS products. If standards ARE leveraged, it's just a way to get things quickly working. I doubt most of them either know or care about how MS is holding back web development. The only important thing is getting the current project out the door and the specs for that come from higher up. The higher ups on the other hand use phrases like "de-commoditize protocols" and "knife the baby" so malevolent is a fair description of how they operate.

  20. Re:I don't get it. on Sun Offers Reward Program to Boost Open Source Effort · · Score: 0, Troll

    Sun now needs active outside communities around the products they are open sourcing. The thing is, they demand the copyrights to anything that goes into their trees. Many who would normally contribute to a project won't with that stipulation especially since Sun is a for-profit entity. In effect, they are offering compensation for the copyrights they insist on having.

  21. Re:Makes sense on Spam Trap Claims 10x-100x Accuracy Gain · · Score: 1

    That one is fairly easy. Create an entirely valid account that is never used for personal or business use. Use an account name that is really off the wall. I doubt a business contact would fumble finger and send mail to hotgreasysex@uprightbusiness.com. I doubt anything that comes to THAT account is any good.

  22. Re:The economic solution on Spam Trap Claims 10x-100x Accuracy Gain · · Score: 1

    And I'm not going to suggest hunting them down with cops and guns, either.

    But you have to admit that a little hands-on system administration is fun to think about. Hell, round these guys up, give them a five minute head start, and pissed off mail admins can pay $5,000 apiece for a chance to bag one. This guy still rocks my world:

    http://deekoo.net/peeves/spam/spammers/premiere/index2.htm
  23. Re:Symbolics ... on The First 100 Dot Coms Ever Registered · · Score: 1

    I actually possess a five digit uid but I haven't used it in years. I used to base my nym on my real name but that since that became a nasty proposition and I would prefer to be googleproof, I throw all of my nyms out and start fresh now and again. Obviously, I'm not a reigning personality anywhere ;-). Don't get me wrong, I'm not operating with a nymcluster. I just reboot my online persona now and again.

  24. Re:Symbolics ... on The First 100 Dot Coms Ever Registered · · Score: 1

    Looks like THAT joke backfired :-).

  25. Re:Symbolics ... on The First 100 Dot Coms Ever Registered · · Score: 1

    I don't see the Turbo button either.