Slashdot Mirror


User: DarkProphet

DarkProphet's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
378
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 378

  1. Re:wrong. lars owns the rights to the album. on Lars Ulrich Pirates His Own Album · · Score: 1

    Not true. Unless Lars is the only copyright holder (what about the other band members?) AND solely has retained ALL distribution rights (haven't seen the contract w/record label, but I doubt it), downloading a copy of the CD is just as legally in question as pretty much any RIAA lawsuit. If Lars already owns a copy of the CD, his action constitutes fair-use and is 100% legal. Unless, of course, he used a downloading program which also _uploads_ media. If any uploading took place, he is in violation of copyright by unauthorized distribution -- unless he is the sole copyright holder and retains all distribution rights (very doubtful).

    Hope that clears things up.

  2. Re:Wait, how does it get passed? on Acquired Characteristics May Be Inheritable · · Score: 1

    I suppose its possible that immature eggs can still be affected by the mother's body chemistry prior to and/or at fertilization. The question is what is the mechanism in which body chemistry can influence gene expression? My guess is that the particular chemistry of the ova (and likewise sperm) may impact which sections of DNA are "flagged" as active or not (junk DNA). It makes sense that cellular chemical composition would play heavily into the development of a fertilized egg the same way a pregnant mother's chemistry can dramatically affect the baby's development (e.g. crack babies). DNA itself is not solely responsible for making us who and what we are, but it would be worthwhile to know in what ways (if at all) we could pass on positive traits to our offspring aside from gene manipulation.

  3. Re:turn tables on How To Argue That Open Source Software Is Secure? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    FWIW, I like Linux and FOSS, but I don't totally hate Microsoft or Windows as a rule.

    Have you personally gone through the millions of lines of code in the Linux kernel to make sure that there isn't a backdoor? No? Then you're just taking someones word for it.

    True in theory, I guess, but the difference is that I -- or anyone I hire -- could audit the Linux kernel code at any time. The same simply isn't true for Windows. Even if it were possible to get access to the Windows kernel code, it sure wouldn't be free. With Windows, I have to take someone else's word for it. With FOSS, I have options to independently verify any such claims.

  4. Re:Nonsense on Why Windows Must (and Will) Go Open Source · · Score: 1

    I lol'd. I saw an ad (maybe Best Buy?) not long ago, and sure enough, that old chestnut was in there and I smiled. Course, for me the point was moot because I could never connect at better than 48k anyway :(

  5. Re:Enter the Balaclava light regiment...... on MS Confirms Six Different Versions of Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    Of course not. There is always room for improvement. UI improvement is sort of subjective though, and users that are used to doing $task in $os are naturally going to be critical when attempting to do $task in $os++.

    Your parent post made the point of why the heck should we do all this upgrading of machine, os, and software -- to do the same thing we already do, but no faster. Its a valid point, and in the workplace is mostly a case of 'everyone else is doing it'. Sad but true, OTOH it keeps the tech sector employed and (hopefully) improving their products.

    Change for change's sake in the business world is called 'innovation'. Its only natural that companies will occasionally drop the ball in the forward march we call progress. I mean hey, they've got like a million monkeys banging out code. They've got to get something right eventually, eh? :)

  6. Re:Why does "ultimate" need to exist? on MS Confirms Six Different Versions of Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    Sort of reminds me of the Plus! pack for Win95 (or was it 98? idk). Biggest rip-off evar. I mean, sure, pinball was cool for a little while, but honestly...

  7. Re:Pirated on Web Rescues Un-Aired Super Bowl Ads · · Score: 1

    What a bunch of marklars.

  8. Re:intellgient life... on New Paper Offers Additional Reasoning for Fermi's Paradox · · Score: 1

    Who's to say that hasn't happened?

  9. Re:Solved? on New Paper Offers Additional Reasoning for Fermi's Paradox · · Score: 1

    Well unfortuately, it is just as legitimate a number as any of the rest used in the Fermi paradox.

    I realize the numbers in the original paradox were meant to be conservative estimates, but hasn't science made any discoveries since then that might alter those numbers?

    I mean, we here on Earth have been broadcasting radio signals for about 100 years. That time coordinate range is a needle in a haystack compared to the estimated life of the known universe. It could be up to 100 years or more before we would receive an intentional response. That we haven't heard from ETs yet only means that either our nearest listening neighbors are in excess of 50 light years away, they aren't listening, they choose not to respond, or we don't have any neighbors that close. None of that really gives us any useful information about intelligent life in our galaxy. The Fermi paradox needs to be thrown out the window because it isn't a particularly useful as a thought experiment, or for anything else for that matter.

  10. Re:It's quite clear what the reason is on New Paper Offers Additional Reasoning for Fermi's Paradox · · Score: 1

    I rather think the response to hearing those A-bombs go off would be more in the vein of "Awww, cute!", and that they are waiting for us to grow out of adolescence before they bother to try to have a serious discussion with us :-)

  11. Re:It's quite clear what the reason is on New Paper Offers Additional Reasoning for Fermi's Paradox · · Score: 1

    Most Christians? I take issue with that, so here is the obligatory [Citation Needed].

    As long as we're talking bullshit, I'd say that most Christians do not take the creation story literally. Even if it were the case, there is nothing in Genesis that I am aware of that equates to "There is no such thing as aliens.". If so, please point me in the right direction, out of curiosity's sake.

    I would have to agree though that the Catholic church is not the be-all-end-all representation of the Christian faith, and anything coming from them (or any other organized religion) should be taken with the appropriate amount of NaCl.

    As an aside, today is the second Monday in a month's time that I've gotten a parking ticket for parking in a church parking lot over lunch -- when the lot is otherwise empty and unused by the church. What a bunch of assholes. Do unto others my ass...

  12. Re:KDE 3.5 works great, Ubuntu dropped the ball on Linus Switches From KDE To Gnome · · Score: 1

    Yeah it was off kernel.org. I think that might have been around Redhat 5.1 or so. I believe I needed the newer kernel for graphics card support. That worked, but it broke other things :-)

    As for being marked alpha or beta, I totally agree.

  13. Re:KDE 3.5 works great, Ubuntu dropped the ball on Linus Switches From KDE To Gnome · · Score: 1

    True, it would be easier to follow. Then again, the Linux kernel's versioning convention is not exactly intuitive either:

    Odd numbered minor versions are development trees (e.g. 2.1.x)
    Even numbered minor versions are 'release' trees
    (e.g. 2.2.x)

    That surprised me the first time I 'upgraded' my 2.0.x kernel to 2.1.x and shit fell apart :-)
    I don't know if they still do it that way though.

    The first few minor versions of every KDE point release (2.0, 3.1, etc) tend to be rather crufty.

    The reason they released it as 4.0 is because it is a new tree built on new Qt (i think) and as such merits a major version change. KDE.org did make it quite clear to stay away from 4.0 unless you felt like bug testing. It IS the distro's fault for adding KDE 4.0 when the development staff itself said it wasn't ready for everyday users. You'd think the distros would be smart enough to get that. At least Kubuntu 8.04 gave me the choice to use 3.5 instead.

  14. Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. on Linus Switches From KDE To Gnome · · Score: 1

    If you grab the packages from KDE.org, you can mix and match to your heart's content. Its more work to compile and install it on your own, but you can get a lean installation that way. Go yell at your distro for a better installer :-)

  15. Re:A reasoned analysis? That's good. on Linus Switches From KDE To Gnome · · Score: 1

    But KDE4 was an alpha release. 4.1 was a beta release. Surrounding projects have done no better -- Amarok currently will not transcode automatically from flac to aac for ipods; it insists on mp3. This is a bug; it used to work. The stable Amarok won't fix the bug, because it's being depricated in favor of the kde4 version of Amarok, which doesn't yet support transcoding. WTF?

    If memory serves, KDE 2.0 and 3.0 had the same issues. Whether using your favorite distros' packages or compiling from scratch, shit just didn't work that well. I'm not sure if in the past it was due to jumping Qt versions or what, but is was messy until 2.3 (and 3.3) or so. Its just how the KDE development and release cycle goes, I guess.

    That said, KDE 3.5 works great for me, so I'll happily stick with that until KDE 4.4 or whenever they get the 4.x line straightened out. I just hope Kunbuntu continues to support 3.5 until its actually safe to make the jump to 4.x

  16. Re:Let's actually take a look then, shall we? on Do Game Demos Have an Adverse Effect On Sales? · · Score: 1

    WOW has a demo and it has the highest subscription rate out of any MMO in the country.

    Exactly what I was going to say. The funny thing is, the WoW 10-level demo actually kinda sucks insofar that you don't get to run an instance or pvp. But, I guess that stuff is a little complicated for a newbie taking a test drive, so simple is good.
    The cool thing about WoW is that the full game basically gets more kickass the further into it you get. Some titles like AoC apparently couldn't deliver on that point. My new boss wants me to try Lord of the Rings Online, which I am sort-of interested in trying, but AFAICT there is no demo, and I just can't justify buying another MMO 'sight-unseen'. I don't want to play with him if the game sucks, even if he is my boss XD

  17. Re:Looks Like a Paw. Brings to mind Pet Supplies. on New Google Favicon Deja Vu All Over Again? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, thats pretty much along the lines of what I was thinking. Even after reading in this thread that there is a 'g' in there, I couldn't see it at all.
    Firefox's addressbar background color is white :-/

    The favicon wouldn't be all that bad if they would just put a dark colored border around the edges.

  18. Re:Let's Reiterate... on First Look At Windows 7 Beta 1 · · Score: 1

    USB 2.0 support, I think, and even that was in a Win98 service pack.

  19. Re:I might go mad... on World of Warcraft, the Restaurant · · Score: 1

    'Least I got chicken...

  20. Who the hell is SHE to make such a comparison? on Esther Dyson Grudgingly Defends Internet Anonymity · · Score: 1

    Maybe she should have posted that pile of crap as AC? Ms. Dyson does her gender and her namesake an incredible disservice by spouting such ignorant bullshit.

  21. Re:Note to non-Americans on McDonalds Files To Patent Making a Sandwich · · Score: 1

    1. Wow, classy.

    2. I quote: 'Americans refer "burgers" as "sandwiches".. reserving the word "burger" to refer to just the patty...'

    3. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
    Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. Link

    From the linked text: Scholarly, up-to-date etymologies, including dates to show when terms entered the language, and showing clearly labeled Americanisms. Hmmm...

    4. Did I mention; classy?

  22. Re:Note to non-Americans on McDonalds Files To Patent Making a Sandwich · · Score: 1

    Well, when I have trouble understanding the definition of a word, the dictionary is the first place I look. It just so happens that if you had known the definition in the first place, you wouldn't have been confused. Cool, you pointed out a cultural difference. Dandy. We get it. Just admit that you failed, and we can all move on.

    And please, in the future, if you're not an American, kindly refrain from speaking for us. You got it wrong. We can tell you better than anyone what our customs are. Thanks.

  23. Re:Note to non-Americans on McDonalds Files To Patent Making a Sandwich · · Score: 1, Informative

    From dictionary.com:

    sandwich
      [sand-wich, san-]
    -noun
    1. two or more slices of bread or the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese, etc., between each pair.
    2. open sandwich.
    3. something resembling or suggesting a sandwich, as something in horizontal layers: a plywood sandwich.
    -verb (used with object)
    4. to put into a sandwich.
    5. to insert between two other things: to sandwich an appointment between two board meetings.
    Origin:
    1755-65; named after the fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-92)

    Eh, at best you are being overly pedantic and as such myopic. Anyone confused by the association between a hamburger and the generic term "sandwich" doesn't even have the mental capacity to belong on the _other_ side of the Mickey D's chow line.

  24. Re:AHA! on Scientists Discover Proteins Controlling Evolution · · Score: 1

    Poit!

  25. Re:This Is What "Idle" Should Be Used For. on Math Prof Uncovers Secret Chord · · Score: 1

    Well, not exactly shocking, but somewhat unusual. Are there any famous bands/artists from that period that you do like? For example, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised by your opinion if all you listen to is gangsta rap, urban beats, or some other tone-deaf no-talent tripe. I suspect that isn't the case though, so share -- since the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Aerosmith evoke such a negative reaction from you, what music does make you want to rock out, stick it to the man, and make babies*? :-)

    Note: 'Sticking it to the man' in the literal sense may fail to make babies.