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User: OfficeSupplySamurai

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Comments · 28

  1. Re:For Win9, MS should go back to Service Packs... on Windows 8.1 Update Crippling PCs With BSOD, Microsoft Suggests You Roll Back · · Score: 1

    I find it ironic that you say Microsoft should not try to be Apple and talk about how old-fashioned it is to release service packs, when in fact that's how Apple does OS updates. Apple tends to release large updates to OS X all together (10.x.y releases) rather than a lot of smaller updates with individual security and bug fixes and so forth.

  2. Useless information on Can Wolfram Alpha Tell Which Team Will Win the Super Bowl? · · Score: 1

    Also, given how player and coaching rosters vary from year to year, the teams taking the field can change radically between meetings.

    This is one of the most important points here. Maybe the '78 Broncos beat the Seahawks, but that has absolutely no bearing on a game almost 4 decades later.

  3. Re:And? on Female Software Engineers May Be Even Scarcer Than We Thought · · Score: 1

    I agree with you. Otherwise, please ignore this comment. I accidentally downmodded you, and I don't know of any way to undo the moderation. Thanks, Slashdot.

  4. Re:Easter is Backup Day? on Happy World Backup Day · · Score: 1

    You're probably making a joke, but to be clear Backup Day is March 31, the day before April Fools' Day (don't be a fool with your data, etc. etc.). It just happens to fall on the same day as Easter this year.

  5. Re:Perhaps we need to validate the CAs? on Comodo Hack May Reshape Browser Security · · Score: 1

    Yes, this is one of the reasons why DNSSEC holds such promise. It doesn't even need new records or extensions. The CERT, IPSECKEY, and SSHFP (source) records have existed for years but haven't been used since they weren't really useful before DNS was secure. Those three can be used to secure nearly anything you might want, with CERT being the catch-all record that can store web, email, or any other certificate. Since DNS is the system that is charged with knowing who a name is, it makes a lot of sense to put the trust there in a single place, rather than the large number of certificate authorities that it seems are not always trustworthy.

  6. Re:Perhaps we need to validate the CAs? on Comodo Hack May Reshape Browser Security · · Score: 1

    Gee, this would also be nice in DNS, where 'very well known' domains, such as Google, Microsoft, banks, etc could pay to be put on a 'do not change' list and get a more formalized process for management.

    Perhaps you were already alluding to this, but that is exactly why DNSSEC is such a great idea. The trust of a site being who they say they are belongs in the DNS, since that's the system which is actually responsible for knowing. There are already records that exist to store such things: CERT and SSHFP records can secure web sites, email, and SSH, and with secure DNS such things can actually be useful. Just recently .com became signed, so now all three major TLDs (.com, .net, and .org) are signed, and several others are besides (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains). Once this becomes widely deployed it could significantly improve some issues of trust on the Internet.

  7. Check your units on A Handy Radiation Dose Chart From XKCD · · Score: 2

    You're contradicting yourself. If the Sievert already has units of a rate (J/s), then the 400 mSv per hour you mention is a double rate (energy/time^2), some kind of energetic acceleration, which doesn't make sense here. Your second paragraph is correct, but it contradicts your first.

    As others have noted, the units for a Sievert are J/kg, not J/s. This is a very important distinction. An accumulated does requires these units, as J/s is a rate, and then you have to know how long a person is exposed, i.e. there is no accumulation. An accumulated dose implies that if you receive 1 mSv, that is all one needs to know: there is no time scale involved. It is a certain amount of total radiation received. Correcting your first paragraph, 1 Sv received in 1 second is (approximately) the same as 1 Sv received in 1000 seconds and as 1 Sv received in one million seconds. Sieverts are therefore a useful measure for directly determining the effects the radiation will have on a person.

    So in fact Randall's image is accurate, unless there is some minor error in it that hasn't yet been discovered. Given your own misunderstanding of the situation, I hope the press's confusion is a little less inexplicable. You still come to the correct conclusion, which they often do not, but sometimes, science is hard.

  8. Re:Time to look at your own desk... on Last Days For Central IPv4 Address Pool · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What tunnel providers have you looked into? I use the IPv6 Tunnel Broker from Hurricane Electric and routinely am able to reach 12 Mbps speeds, which I'm pretty sure is maxing out my home broadband. If you haven't looked into them before, or if you have but ran into problems, it may be worth checking out again.

  9. Re:Outing the update on Apple Outs Anti-Jailbreak Update · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For most any phone from AT&T, after the contract is up, they will let you unlock it. This makes since, because after the contract is done, you have effectively paid for it, and it does belong to you. I just recently did this with a Motorola RAZR V3xx. I called them up, said the phone was from an ended contract, and asked to unlock it. There were no questions or uncertainty, just "I can help you with that", and the person then gave me the unlock code and instructions after getting the phone's IMEI number.

    This does not happen with the iPhone. After your contract is over, you still are not allowed to unlock it.

    In addition, I personally will probably be paying the full ($600) price for my next iPhone, so that I am not tied into a contract. Why shouldn't I be able to have the phone unlocked?

    Also, don't forget that you need to enter a contract with AT&T to get an iPhone in the first place. If you decide to get the phone for $200, you'll need to pay an extra $325 - $10 a month if you end the contract early. Plus there's the $36 for activation. If you cancel in the first month, you must return the phone, so you have to pay for at least one month of service, which is $65. So if you go this route, you end up paying a minimum of $200+$315+$36+$65=$616 plus taxes and fees.

    So no, it is not in fact possible to have any sort of iPhone for a mere $200. Your complaints about entitlement are misplaced.

  10. Re:Still Quite Meaningless. on "Doomsday Clock" Moves Away From Midnight · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. The whole doomsday clock just seems like FUD.

  11. Re:scary on Cellphone Radiation May Protect Brain From Alzheimers · · Score: 1

    That argument says that the energy is non-ionizing and therefore it cannot change DNA and therefore it cannot cause cancer. How does this indicate any change to DNA? It does not refute the argument you mention.

  12. Sounds like the Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences on New Company Seeks to Bring Semantic Context To Numbers · · Score: 3, Informative

    This sounds a lot like the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences.

    That site labels and stores integer sequences for easy lookup, and will let you simply search for a subsequence to find the one you're looking for. This proposed site keeps track of numbers instead and incorporates more than the pure math that the sequence encyclopedia limits itself to, but it sounds very similar in concept.

  13. Re:MS: Damned if they do, damned if they don't. on Microsoft's Code Contribution Due To GPL Violation · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. In fact, what is being claimed is that Microsoft released under the GPL, and even though they didn't want to do so, they claimed that they did want to. So what? The fact remains that they are in full compliance with the GPL license, and contributed to open source.

    How can people claim that Microsoft is doing this to show how the GPL is a terrible viral license? If they wanted to do that, they would have said so, or it would have been they who claimed that they had to release the software under the GPL. The simple fact remains that Microsoft's own statements regarding this cast open source in a positive light. How so many people can just ignore this boggles the mind.

  14. Re:Misuse of the word "dimension" on Researchers Store Optical Data In Five Dimensions · · Score: 1

    But the point is that here it's not really significant to say "five dimensions." You would be just as right to say four, if you go by this definition of dimension. The idea that it is five is purely in the eye of the beholder.

  15. Re:Yeah, April Fools... on Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In · · Score: 1

    Certainly, it would be much more interesting to hear what, if anything, Conficker is actually doing since today is a day that it could conceivably do something,.

  16. Re:Government work non-copyrighed? on New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy · · Score: 1

    Works produced by federal government employees during their jobs is in the public domain, which gets us for example great pictures from NASA that have no restrictions on use.

    However, works produced by non-employees who simply receive federal funding has no such restriction. If the federal governments contracts out production of, say, a report, it will be under copyright, which can be assigned to the federal government. Thus we have the somewhat interesting situation wherein the federal government holds copyrights only on works they didn't produce.

  17. Re:Correlation is not causation on 45% of Dutch Media-Buying Population Are "Pirates" · · Score: 1
  18. Re:Inflation... on Report Claims 95% of Music Downloads Are Illegal · · Score: 1

    There's actually another problem with their math even on its face. $3.7 billion equates to more than 3.7 billion tracks, since some stores like Amazon sell tracks for less than 99 cents and the music industry cut is less than 100%. 3.7 billion of 43.7 billion is eight percent, so the percentage of legal downloads is probably 10% or more. Then the illegal percentage is 90% or less.

    If they could make such a stupid error in their final result, where else must they have used bad math for the report?

  19. Re:Just Deserts on Nielsen Collects FL Tax Breaks, Then Outsources Jobs · · Score: 1

    I hope I live to see when this situation repeats itself driving corporations to the moon.

    It wouldn't be so bad if some corporations though were driven into the sun instead.

  20. Re:WHICH feeds on What RSS Feeds Do You Use? · · Score: 1

    No, "what" and "which" are equally acceptable. See the informative comment by the anonymous coward below.

    Also, your sig is wrong. The phrase "a lot" is a noun, and is used as such: "I eat a lot of turkey on Thanksgiving." The word "alot" is indeed a valid word, but it is an adverb: "I eat turkey alot."

    If you're going to be pompous about grammar, you could at least be correct about it.

  21. Re:Constitution easy to subvert on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement · · Score: 1
    You skipped the beginning and thereby completely misrepresented the meaning:

    This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. The constitution and the treaties together are the supreme law; treaties most certainly do not overrule the Constitution. If you include the whole bit and observe punctuation, you see the end means all judges are bound by both and nothing in the Constitution or state laws can unbind them.

    Disclaimer: IANAL
  22. Re:First time Bush has posted something sane. on President Bush Signs Genetic Nondiscrimination Act · · Score: 1

    So before you start giving Bush a thumbs-up for some genetic anti-discrimination law, and start feeling comfortable that you will hang on to some shred of personal liberty, you might want to keep in mind that he's now asserting complete dictatorial powers and he could give a good god damn about the Constitution or any bill he has signed, because when it comes right down to it, he's now calling the shots and it's going to take more than some silly little election, or court, or congress to change things. (Emphasis mine)

    Now I could be misinterpreting this statement, but are you talking about the upcoming November election? If so, you seem to be saying either that

    1) Bush will not leave in January when he's supposed to, which is completely preposterous and has about a chair in Steve Balmer's office's chance of happening

    or

    2) his successor will be just the same, in which case how is this a problem with Bush?

    I may be misinterpreting here, and if I am I'd appreciate correction, but you seem to just be trolling.
  23. Re:Is this more Discordian FOSS acquisition? on P2P Scammers' Lawyers Attack Open Source Team · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you go to the actual 7-zip web site and look in the right-hand column there is a link to jZip, so it seems highly unlikely that the 7-zip author is unhappy with them.

  24. Re:It's not a church on Internet Group Declares War on Scientology · · Score: 1

    A cult -is- a religion, even the dictionary says so. And a square is a rectangle, but that doesn't mean they are equivalent and interchangeable. Connotation doesn't enter into it; it's a matter of category. A cult is a *type of* religion (or religious sect), without exclusion to other types.

    Also, you've neglected to mention the time when Christianity was also a 'cult' by your own definition. They read the bible in church in the original language, despite the fact that none of the lower members understood it. Did they do anything to prevent others from reading the texts? It's not like it was a secret language, the original New Testament is mostly Greek if I recall correctly. So unless they kept those who knew Greek away from the texts or tried to prevent members from learning Greek (both highly doubtful), you're making a comparison where none exists.
  25. Re:I hope this isn't taken seriously... on Battle Lines Being Drawn Over OpenSocial · · Score: 1

    This isn't about one social network winning over any other, although I can imagine such a thing might matter to people who have invested a lot of time into building up friends and a profile on one network.

    It seems to me that this is becoming a sort of cold war between Microsoft and Google. Google's main business and source of revenue is advertising, while Microsoft's is Windows and Office, and neither company has much if any presence in the other's main business. They've made it clear they don't care for each other, but rather than compete directly they're providing support to their chosen side somewhere this is real competition, as in this case social networking. Google wants to unite the social networks and Microsoft wants what Google doesn't so Facebook is fighting the integration. Whichever side wins both Microsoft and Google will consider it a competition between themselves and respond accordingly.

    As to who cares about the predominant social networking site, if Google has its way no one will. The OpenSocial initiative is meant to combine all participating social networks into a single large one, so that the difference between say MySpace and LiveJournal will be only a matter of interface. It would be something like Jabber/XMPP where users are on different servers and still chat freely. And with the current interest in social networks it's doubtful that they'll be going anywhere anytime soon. You may not think it is serious, but with the amount of money that's involved others do not agree: $240 million for just 1.6% of Facebook gives a very large valuation for Facebook and it and other social networks should not be so quickly dismissed.