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User: Sorthum

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  1. Re:160 characters on Wikipedia Will Soon Be Available Via Text Messages · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's already queriable via DNS.

    dig +short txt ${1}.wp.dg.cx

    Throw this into a script, invoke it as "script TOPIC".

  2. Yeah, I had a few unfortunate websites I was keying in out of muscle memory. I found that the solution ultimately was to add an entry to /etc/hosts until the habit faded. It may come time to do that with Slashdot if this crap keeps up.

  3. Re:Nothing new here on Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware · · Score: 1

    "A fraction of the cost," while technically true, is far from the truism it used to be. Gone are the days where you could spend $800 and get the equivalent of a $3000 prebuilt system. In many cases, you're hard pressed just to break even today.

  4. Re:Nothing new here on Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware · · Score: 1

    This is something of a dated way of thinking. In 2012, you don't usually see component failures; while it happens, it doesn't happen nearly as frequently as it used to. Therefore, "knowing what's in the box" is a value add of dubious value to many users. "Seagate, Western Digital, I don't care, I just don't want it to break on me."

  5. Re:Nothing new here on Windows 8 PCs Still Throttled By Crapware · · Score: 1

    Some people just want a computer, not a hobby.

  6. Re:Ouch. on US Air Force Scraps ERP Project After $1 Billion Spent · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oh wow, it gets worse. Oracle won this with a $88.5 million bid; what the hell took the Air Force so long to pull the plug with that kind of overrun?

  7. Ouch. on US Air Force Scraps ERP Project After $1 Billion Spent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems that this is a common theme with ERP rollouts-- scope creep tends to get them all in the end. Granted, most organizations seem to wave off long before the $1 billion mark...

  8. Re:Automatic provisioning? on How Internet Data Centers Waste Power · · Score: 1

    Well... yes. My employer runs three racks of servers all in; we don't have the bandwidth / R&D budget to investigate better options. The big players (Google, Amazon, etc) need to pioneer research in this area, at which point it will (ideally) trickle down to the masses.

  9. Re:seriously? on Ask Slashdot: Scripting-Friendly Smartphones? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sometimes.

    I'd argue this is part of the geek/hacker mindset, and while it's a valuable asset, we have to remember that this places us outside of the mass market in some fairly significant ways. As a direct result of this, we're no longer the "target market" for consumer electronics.

  10. Re:there's a middle ground too on Gmail Takes Largest Webmail Service Crown · · Score: 3, Informative

    The problem with this approach is that it ties you to your ISP. When you move or they get bought in ten years, you have to try to recall EVERYONE who has your email address, and convince them to update their address books.

  11. Re:And, by /just right/, do you mean..? on Gmail Takes Largest Webmail Service Crown · · Score: 1

    Postfix didn't exist until December of 1998. Before that, you were likely using Sendmail, or (god help you) qmail.

  12. Re:Don't do personal shit at work on Ask Slashdot: What's Your Take On HTTPS Snooping? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This was more sensible a decade ago; nowadays with so much of our lives online (banking, shopping, correspondance) it's no longer "reasonable" to not do anything "personal" on the internet while you're at work.

  13. Re:20 dollar sonies on Ask Slashdot: Best Headphones, Earbuds, Earphones? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I very much agree with you. The entire *reason* that those companies have so many divisions is that they want goodwill you feel towards one of their products (say, the Discman of old) to transfer over to other lines of products (say, their headphones).

    However, what this means is that when one division (or, in this case, several) radically screw the pooch, a lot of people associate the negative experience with the company as a whole. Ergo, due to the CD / DRM issue almost a decade ago, I won't buy a Playstation, a VAIO, or a $20 pair of headphones that say Sony on them.

    It's not just *GOOD* feelings that transfer over, Sony.

  14. Re:No offense, but... on Ask Slashdot: Provisioning Internet For Condo Association? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, not trying to be offensive here, but answering the questions you've posed has spun up an entire industry; it's decidedly non-trivial. On the plus side, for a project of this size you can quite easily get a number of consultancies in Chicago to quote you free of charge.

  15. Re:Busy databases on Ask Slashdot: What Type of Asset Would You Not Virtualize? · · Score: 1

    Assume a DC-wide power outage. You power things back on.

    If you can't come back up without the controller (which is on a VM) you fail.

    Now, I'm not a VMware guy, so you'll have to tell me-- what does this failure case look like?

  16. Re:Conclusion of the report... on Oz Govt Pushes Ahead With ISP Customer Data Retention · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or tor. Or VPN endpoints overseas. Or ssh tunnels.

    I don't really see how legislation can reasonably expect to keep up with technological innovation.

  17. Re:Wow! Teetering on the edge! on Oz Govt Pushes Ahead With ISP Customer Data Retention · · Score: 1

    Sure, but that's still far closer than it should be to becoming law.

  18. How could they even begin to do this? on Oz Govt Pushes Ahead With ISP Customer Data Retention · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't see where it stipulates what would need to be retained. Is it merely header information? A list of URLs (SSL will break this)? A copy of the data itself?

    No matter which direction this goes, it seems to me that it would be very, very easy to overwhelm them with data. Fire off a perl script that connects to $giant_list_of_random_URLs 500 times a minute. Turn it down when you need to do work, crank it up when you go to bed... and you're suddenly costing them an enormous amount of storage while turning their signal to noise ratio into crap.

  19. Re:Yes, you can do that. on Who's Pirating Game of Thrones, and Why? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Replying to do erroneous moderation (was aiming for insightful, whacked redundant instead).

    The difference between "illegal" and "right and wrong" are two very different things; the further they diverge in a given society, the more dysfunctional that society appears to the broad brush of history.

  20. Re:Censorship and seizure on VeriSign Could Add 220 New Top Level Domains · · Score: 1

    True, but...

    wait for it...

    ICANN has more domains.

  21. Re:USA land of pay as you go on ACLU Obtains Cell Phone Tracking Training Materials · · Score: 2

    That's a bit misleading; every time this has been brought to light it's been the case of the general public bribing a cell company employee. It's a problem, to be sure, but it's also not like I can punch my credit card info into verizonrecords.com or whatnot...

  22. Re:Leave the TSA alone! on Aviation Security Debate: Bruce Schneier V. Kip Hawley (Former TSA Boss) · · Score: 2

    I went to Disneyland last week, will be going again tomorrow; they've never had a fingerprint scanner that I'm aware of...

  23. Re:Best Buy for Apple and Nintendo products on Best Buy Closing 50 Stores · · Score: 1

    There's something to be said for sticking to your list price; if everyone charges the same thing for a widget, then you're competing on a more level playing field rather than the race to the bottom we're seeing now.

  24. Re:Restocking fee on Best Buy Closing 50 Stores · · Score: 1

    It's a bit disingenuous to go from talking about video card economics to large televisions; I'd probably never buy either the former locally or the latter online.

  25. Re:Restocking fee on Best Buy Closing 50 Stores · · Score: 2

    You are when you calculate the frequency of needing to return a product sourced online. Once in a while a product has to go back, but it's far from common.