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User: Wowsers

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Comments · 789

  1. Engineers value on Japan "Running Out of Engineers" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I did an engineering degree. When you start, your illusions get shattered when you find out that you are not valued like say, someone that did English, art or politics degrees. When you leave, who is in charge of engineers, more engineers? No, people that studied worthless English or art subjects who cream more money then you (unless you're a top-notch engineer).

    On a degree, you find that you have to pay for very expensive text books (you never thought books could be that expensive), whilst courses like English get away with £5 ($10) or less cost books to study. All science degrees take up a load of time in study, whether at university or your own time.

    Engineering / IT are uncool subjects because most lecturers teach in a style that it's just one long math test.

    Students should be given grants to study sciences, and no grants for the other easy subjects that universities seem to push these days.

  2. Which version is ready? on Getting Past "Ready For the Desktop" · · Score: 1

    If I was to say Linux is ready for the mass desktop market, I would say, sure, the 32 bit version probably is. The 64 bit version certainly is not. For the average Windows user, it would be impossibly difficult to install the 32/64bit kludge to get the 32bit Flash / 32bit Java* (for websites), and 32bit Skype running with ease on a 64bit setup.

    When I finally started to seriously use Linux after playing around on-off for years, I had a new 64 bit machine which I setup to dual boot with Windows XP. While I now use Linux most of the time, Linux still cannot do ANALOGUE video capture properly and video editing is problematic and not refined as some Windows packages. The webcam support, while not the fault of Linux, is still bad. Usenet readers are bad, in Linux they all seem to assume you're constantly on-line 24/7, and most don't save locally what you post. And on KDE, compiz uses far more system resources then Beryl (they never did seem to merge the best bits of Beryl back to Compiz).

    Some packages like Skype are light-years behind in development compared to the Windows versions.

    * There is a 64 bit version of Java that does work with Firefox, but has may problem sites where it just refuses to run.

  3. Usage on IE 7.0/8.0b Code Execution 0-Day Released · · Score: 5, Funny

    People still use Internet Exploder?

  4. Never mind on Bletchley Park Facing Financial Ruin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't worry, the pathetic English hating UK government will spare no effort in wasting £17bn on an 2 week politicians / IOC orgy at the London Olympics games that only the freeloaders want (as opposed to the taxpayers who don't want it).

    The things that are important to a nation are discarded, and what gives no benefit gets taxpayers money thrown at it like taxpayers money was going out of fashion.

  5. What's the cameras use? on CCTVs Don't Work in the UK · · Score: 5, Informative

    In my part of the UK, the spy cameras were installed under the pretext of protecting the people, only the idiots bought that excuse, and they've been proved to be mostly useless for that proported use.

    April 2008, the law in the UK was changed by the government which now allows any official spy camera to be used for "traffic enforcement" (more easy money).

    Lo and behold one week into this new scheme, in my local area a woman was attacked and sexually assaulted at a bus stop while waiting for a bus. What happened we'll never 100% know, because the camera operator was more interested in catching motorists going in a wrong lane, then to record video of tha assault and catch the guy that did the assault (what the camera was installed for in the first place).

    The whole camera installation nationwide is for state surveillance of you, and it feels really uncomfortable knowing you are being filmed walking or driving around, whilst criminals remain untouchable and don't give a damn about the cameras.

    Resist the cameras in your country, or suffer the surveillance fate of the UK.

  6. Where on 100 Email Bouncebacks - Welcome to Backscattering · · Score: 1

    I don't have any of these "bounce" messages. I don't know it it means I have no nerdy friends, or I have very good rules for dealing with spam.

  7. Re:HELLO WORLD on On This Date in 1964, the First BASIC Program · · Score: 1

    I wanted to POKE around your code, but pressed for time, I only got a quick PEEK.

  8. Re:Do I care? on Unexpected Slashdot Downtime · · Score: 1

    Frustrated nerds and geeks had nowhere to post to, how were they to vent?

  9. Keep away on MS Beta Software To Manage Unix/Linux Systems · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I dual boot Linux and Windows, the less Windows knows about Linux on the system all the better, especially when you consider Windows wants to do stuff like on re-installing Windows, install it's boot loader over the better Linux one. Who knows what Windows would do to file permissions.

  10. Recommendations on India Launches 10 Satellites At Once · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone should tell the European Union about this way of launching satellites... then the politicians might stop wasting vast amounts of European taxpayers money on their own vastly over-budget but completely worthless GPS system, using the tracking of road drivers as one excuse for it's existence.

  11. Design objectives on Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 · · Score: 1

    I design the graphics and code for the sites I build. See what response you get when you have a fairly basic looking page which does use properly compressed graphics which loads REAL fast.

    Where's all the cr@p like Java / Flash / embedded video!!! Sometimes you despair.

    Not everyone uses high-speed internet, and I find it insulting to design large pages that take a while to download, and eat up a viewers bandwidth allowance (as well as your own servers allowance if you use off-site hosting).

  12. Re:FBI Wants Authority To Filter Net Backbone on FBI Wants Authority To Filter Net Backbone · · Score: 1

    While you're at it, why not tap all our phones and open all our postal mail as well? Hell, walk on into everyone's house looking for evidence of criminal activity! Why not? Lucky you you don't live in the UK then, there is a law already in use for "anti terror" which allows the authorities to bug anyone it likes just for fishing expeditions, for example...

    A council has used powers intended for anti-terrorism surveillance to spy on a family who were wrongly accused of lying on a school application form.

    For two weeks the middle-class family was followed by council officials who wanted to establish whether they had given a false address within the catchment area of an oversubscribed school to secure a place for their three-year-old.

    The "spies" made copious notes on the movements of the mother and her three children, who they referred to as "targets" as they were trailed on school runs. The snoopers even watched the family home at night to establish where they were sleeping.

    Feel safer? No, neither do I.

    Full article from Telegraph newspaper.
  13. Reason for pinball dying on The Last Pinball Machine Factory · · Score: 1

    The reason that pinball is dying is we all grew up, and got to press our girlfriends / wives buttons instead.

  14. Politicans on Bio fuel on $1/Gallon "Green Gasoline" In Sight · · Score: 1

    Earlier in the month the brainless politicians said the UK had to add 2.5% of Bio fuel to petrol and diesel "to be green". Today the same moron says that we have to do something to cut the price of food for people.

    How about reversing the idiot decision to add 2.5% bio fuel, and release that land back to growing food, and thus make the price of food cheaper.

    Oh, that idea is a bit too simple though, they'll never go for that.

  15. Trusted components?! on Fujitsu HDD with AES 256-bit Encryption · · Score: 1

    Another attempt at the trusted computer environment, but... why should I trust the hardware/vendor/store?

    At least using a regular hard drive with software encryption, if you're smart enough, you can read the code that does the encryption in Linux and and check that it doesn't do anything you don't want it to.

  16. Re:Desperation? on Microsoft Quietly Offering Ad-Funded Version of Works · · Score: 1

    it is very hard and annoying to use Microsoft products _sometimes_. Ads means additional annoyance. "I see you're trying to write a letter, press this advert to continue so you lose your train of thought."
  17. Re:Differences on Fedora 9 Preview Cleared for Launch · · Score: 1

    Fedora continually gets application updates over its version lifespan as new versions of individual apps are released. You've described how Mandriva works. Does anyone other than me actually use that distro? It was released a few days ago an I must have blinked and missed any mention of it's release here. Still, installing the development branch to test applications or all of Mandriva before release is... interesting.
  18. Packet inspection on Bush Cyber Initiative Aims To Monitor, Restrict Access To Federal Network · · Score: 1

    Knowing governments, they will specify an implementation like:

    This internal email is incriminating, set archive bit to not archive.

  19. Service on Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality Is Already Gone · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the CEO was trying to be really witty with his remark that Net Neutrality is "bollocks", but I have a more factual comment, Virgin Media customer service is a load of bollocks. Pay an arm and leg for shitty customer service and shitty internet experience in general - no thanks. There are other choices for ISP's in the UK.

    Is he trying to out-do Ratner for attracting customers (read 'The Speech' section).

  20. Stolen parts on Stolen US Military Equipment Being Sold On eBay · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure that they could get the stolen parts back, don't Paypal have an excellent record for helping all sides in disputes?

  21. Odd solution on Mysterious Sound Waves Can Destroy Rockets · · Score: 1

    What they need is an Oddball at launches to demand people stop sending out "negative waves".

  22. Funny that. on FCC, FAA Still Don't Want Cell Phones on Planes · · Score: 4, Funny

    What a strange co-incidence, I don't want phones on a plane either. I don't want to hear 400 calls of "Hello, you never guess where I'm calling from."

  23. Re-releases on Pixar to Release All New Movies in 3D · · Score: 0, Redundant

    If they re-released "Toy Story", it could give a new dimension to the name "Woody".

  24. At last. on $90 Asus Sound Card Whips Creative's Best · · Score: 1

    At last a half decent card at a reasonable cost too.

    Shame it has no SP/DIF in and the SP/DIF Out is shared with Line and Mic (I hate shared connectors they are a real pain as you can't have permanent connections at the rear). Looks better than my old Soundblaster AWE32 (which I remember only buying because DOS games wanted all things Soundblaster and the card had pretty good S/N ratio for it's day).

    As for using it in Linux, ALSA support would be nice, and hope PulseAudio can use it too...

  25. Inspect this! on ISPs Using "Deep Packet Inspection" On 100,000 Users · · Score: 1

    My old ISP rolled out "deep packet inspection" in an attempt to throttle user bandwidth on ports they didn't like (including VoIP to push their own VoIP solution), they were very proud of their achievement. I was also very proud of my achievement by leaving them for a company that gives me what I pay for, not throttling ports "to enhance my user experience".

    The only way to teach these companies a lesson is where possible, leave them for another company, money (and subscribers) talk, and a lack of subscribers hurts them.