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User: aaaaaaargh!

aaaaaaargh!'s activity in the archive.

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  1. Bullshit on Secret Service Critics Pounce After White House Breach · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Guy walks on White House lawn, agents take him down. Nobody was hurt, never was the president or his family in danger. The Secret Service did his job. End of story. The rest is just the usual sensational media hysteria.

  2. Re:Me too. on Why You Can't Manufacture Like Apple · · Score: 1

    plus, you'll get sued by Apple...

  3. Re:Pro Tip: on Dropbox and Google Want To Make Open Source Security Tools Easy To Use · · Score: 2

    Why is OP modded Flamebait? He's right!

    Dropbox is the last company on earth that should be trusted with anything related to security or encryption. They have proven to be incompetent regarding security (and programming in general, for what it's worth) and there are countless alternatives on the market that are better than Dropbox. And yes, hiring Condoleeza Rice does not make them more trustworthy either. Having her in the board is like appointing Dick Cheney as a human rights adviser.

    People who honestly believe Dropbox can keep their personal documents safe against hackers or, an even more ridiculous idea, against the NSA must be seriously misinformed or deluded.

  4. Is Apple going downhill? on U2 and Apple Collaborate On 'Non-Piratable, Interactive Format For Music' · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have nothing personal against Apple or U2, but if Cook thinks he can keep Apple's overall positive image as a "cool company" (not to speak of rejuvenating it) by collaborating with a pop band whose peak of success was in the late 80s/early 90s, then I can only conclude that Apple has a rough future ahead.

    Perhaps I am missing the grand picture here but it's hard for me to imagine anything less innovative and more boring than this U2 bullshit in combination with a wrist watch that looses power after one day.

  5. Re:There is no on Apple's "Warrant Canary" Has Died · · Score: 1

    Your reply is an excellent confirmation of his second point, though ...

  6. Re:No surprise on Study: Chimpanzees Have Evolved To Kill Each Other · · Score: 1

    ... and why does the quote tag not work in fucking /. beta??? :-/

  7. Re:No surprise on Study: Chimpanzees Have Evolved To Kill Each Other · · Score: 0

    Except that with our complex planning it's actually easy to satisfy our evolutionary urges without needing to resort to violence.

    If that is so, then why are we by far the most violent and aggressive species on earth?

  8. Re:Grim on Obama Presses Leaders To Speed Ebola Response · · Score: 2, Informative

    You might have a point there. If this happened in the US, people would perhaps really go nuts, many would likely panic and do all kind of crazy things, and some of them would shoot around like mad men, killing their fellow citizens, doctors, nurses and aid workers, and then infect 20 other people ... and then refuse to get vaccinated even tough a vaccine was available ...

  9. Time to watch out on Steam for discounts, I guess ...

    Thanks for the info!

  10. Re:define on German Court: Google Must Stop Ignoring Customer E-mails · · Score: 1

    If that were so then Google could just show the ads randomly and besaid third parties had no way of ever finding out about their fraud. But it doesn't work that way. Besides, Google also sells data to the government, e.g. to law enforcement agencies. The average cost of a wiretap in the U.S. in 2012 was $50,452. Google does it for much cheaper.

  11. define on German Court: Google Must Stop Ignoring Customer E-mails · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure they are customers. They are paying with their personal data, which Google hords and then sells to third parties. Without the people who use Google's free services, Google wouldn't earn a cent.

  12. Re:No Need on Ask Slashdot: What Smartwatch Apps Could You See Yourself Using? · · Score: 1

    Apple doesn't do that, they have no need.

    In this case they might have a need. There are only so many needless gimmicks that even the most fanatic Apple fanboys are willing to buy, although clever marketing has been said to be able to turn a pile of shit into gold.

    We'll see.

  13. Re:Headline that asks a question on Is It Time To Split Linux Distros In Two? · · Score: 1

    Well, for me the year of the Linux desktop is here since 2007. I just hope that not too many people get the same idea and decide to switch to GNU/Linux in future, because that would mean that I'd need to give free tech support to more people and I have no interest or time for that. It is better if GNU/Linux continues to stay under the radar of casual users, moms and morons (I was about to say "greedy business men" too, but then I realized that Android probably also counts as "linux").

  14. Re:Bah humbug censorship on Responding to Celeb Photo Leaks, Reddit Scotches "Fappening" Subreddit · · Score: 1

    Coincidentally, 100% of all people who write "100% sum game" have no clue about what that phrase could mean if it had any meaning at all, 90% of all people who write "zero sum game" know absolutely nothing about game theory, and 89% of all statistics are made up ad hoc.

  15. Re:Is there any point continuing GCC's development on LLVM 3.5 Brings C++1y Improvements, Unified 64-bit ARM Backend · · Score: 1

    I'm using GNAT Ada with GCC, as practically all other Ada users. GNAT is the only Ada version that implements the latest language features of Ada 2012.

    Adacore alone is reason enough to continue developing GCC. The commercial version of GNAT uses GCC and is used in production systems like airplanes you fly with.

  16. Not due to Putin's ego on Invasion of Ukraine Continues As Russia Begins Nuclear Weapons Sabre Rattling · · Score: 1

    But he's also a realist.

    No, he surely thinks so but he is not (really) a realist. He has in fact a rather distorted view of reality, influenced by historical Tsar novels and shitloads of intelligence reports, but believes firmly that his assessment of the world and other world leaders is 100% accurate. The only people he knows and regularly meets who could object to his world views are filthy rich oligarchs whose only interest is in staying filthy rich. He lives in his own bubble like most slightly mad dictators in history before him, and his reality distortion will become worse the longer he stays in power. Like many people he also entertains bizarre and incorrect personal pop psychology views of other persons, which in his case are the result of a relatively rough childhood (including being beaten by his father) and extensive KGB indoctrination.

    If he were a realist he'd be primarily occupied with Russia's economy, which could be flourishing by now if there was still a middle class in Russia, rather than leading his country backwards and annecting territory of foreign nations in the 21st Century.

  17. Set In The Past on In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment For a Novelist · · Score: 1

    The problem is that apparently some officials believe that school shootings would somehow become less of a problem if nobody is allowed to talk or write about them...

  18. Re:can it get me home from the bar? on Hidden Obstacles For Google's Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 1

    Perhaps some people prefer to be killed by other people rather than by a mega corporation like Google. Seems not unreasonable to me. Who wants his widow to have to fight Google lawyers after his violent death?

  19. Re:can it get me home from the bar? on Hidden Obstacles For Google's Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 2

    Oh man, some Google car managed to safely move around a cyclist once. I feel so relieved. Clearly they must be safe.

  20. Re:Hidden Files section? on Islamic State "Laptop of Doom" Hints At Plots Including Bubonic Plague · · Score: 2

    Nah, you're not very knowledgable yourself. I'm not an expert either but at least read up a bit on history rather than referring to wacky websites. You're mentioning one of their historical justifications, but one of minor importance. (It's also among the most silly ones, because the Kalifats they admire so much and wish to rebuild were at their height at a time when the Muslim world was the most tolerant, when people of all faith were living together without problems while Christians were slaughtering each other in Central Europe.)

    If you want to understand the motivation of these terrorist movements (which are pretty evil, no doubt about that), you need to look at the colonial history of the Middle East and how the French, Brits and the US messed up the region. And if you think that's the past and they have learned from their mistakes, think again, because they have just repeated them in Iraq and, very recently, in Egypt. When you install dictators and puppet military juntas in foreign countries and the only notable opposition left is radical islamic, then you ought not be surprised if radical islam arises in the long run.

  21. Re:Hidden Files section? on Islamic State "Laptop of Doom" Hints At Plots Including Bubonic Plague · · Score: 1

    While I generally would agree with this suspicion, I don't think you're right this time.

    IS poses a huge threat at least to European countries because they have so many fanatic supporters who will return with combat experience and indoctrination from Syria and Iraq. They are more radical than Al Qaeda in some respects. I'd be surprised if there weren't an increase in (attempted) terrorist attacks. Whether that justifies all the Western security theater is another question, of course.

  22. Re:"Moderation?" Don't you mean "Censorship?" on Study: Social Networks Have Negative Effect On Individual Welfare · · Score: 1

    It has nothing to do with moderation anyway. People on social networks barely interact with each other, they're reading about others like in news feeds, and they don't really do anything together. It's kind of obvious that things like (random examples) playing in a band, having a barbecue, watching a movie with friends or doing wild river rafting tend to make most people more happy than browsing web pages all day.

  23. Re:"Programmers" shouldn't write critical software on Software Error Caused Soyuz/Galileo Failure · · Score: 1

    Classical fallacy. The safety records for human drivers include each and every moron who drives piss drunk or under other drugs or simply cannot drive. Unless you're one of those, they will give you almost no useful information for deciding whether you should consider SDCs safe in comparison to your driving skills. And by adding personal anecdotes you confirm the OPs point even more.

  24. Statistics as standalone field on Statistics Losing Ground To CS, Losing Image Among Students · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quite the opposite is the case. Unless we are talking about experiments with terrabytes of data most software packages are complete overkill anyway, you could make your statistics with a pocket calculator instead. The problem is the conceptual work. Most institutes and individual scientists would be much better off if they employed a well-trained full-time statistician. Provided they were interested in correct and robust results rather than getting one more pilot study published as soon as possible (which will in turn be based on an insignificantly small non-random sample using an inadequate model).

  25. Re:I hope not on If Java Wasn't Cool 10 Years Ago, What About Now? · · Score: 1

    Ada favors readability over brevity, so it takes a longer to type programs but makes them much easier to understand. I find it so easy to read that I can dive into the code bases of packages and even GNAT itself and understand them without resorting to commentaries or additional documentation. It has its quirks, though, and a relatively steep learning curve.