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User: Kelson

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  1. The "only" reason Max OS is safe? on Ancient Flaws May Leave Mac OS X Vulnerable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The author shows his true colors in the following statement:

    "The only thing which has kept Mac OS X relatively safe up until now is the fact that the market share is significantly lower than that of Microsoft Windows or the more common UNIX platforms."

    Anytime someone claims that the only reason A is safer than B is that B is used more often, alarm bells should go off. It's never the only reason.

    We went through the same thing with Linux vs. Windows, Firefox vs. IE, I've seen people make the claim about Opera vs. Firefox, it was said about Mac vs. Windows long before OSX, etc.

    If you think about it, the popularity-as-sole-reason argument boils down to claiming that security by obscurity is enough.

  2. Re:Good news on Google's Cache Ruled Fair Use · · Score: 1

    Actually, it's more like handing out the covers to the relevant DVDs and an index saying what shelf you can find them on.

  3. Re:Overkill? on Plan To Bomb Mars For Signs of Climate Change · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sure, but drilling cores is something that needs a lot of equipment and hands-on control. It'd be great for a manned mission, but it's tricky to fit a hundred-foot-plus telescoping drill onto a rover and expect it to work.

    This way you can blast a crater and then analyze the dust spectroscopically.

  4. Re:Makes sense on Bush Administration to Support Nuclear Recycling · · Score: 1

    As if we don't have enough ways to get weapons-grade material already?

    I'm not a fan of Bush either, but the main concern here isn't that we'll make weapons-grade nucelar material -- we have plenty of that -- it's that other countries who don't have nuclear weapons yet will say, "Oh, yeah, we're just recycling the same as you are" and secretly build up a stash of material to start their own weapons program.

    It's not about what Bush and/or the US will do. It's about minimizing nuclear proliferation, i.e. minimizing the number of factions (countries, in general) that are armed with nuclear weapons.

  5. American Graffiti? on Need for Speed Unconnected to Fatal Crash · · Score: 1

    Considering that drag racing has probably been around as long as teenagers have had cars... I doubt there's a connection.

  6. Re:BR tag? on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    So how does one properly mark up a haiku without using
    ?

    I'm curious.

  7. Re:tsk, tsk on Games Are Porn in Utah · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah. What video games need is more appropriate violence.

  8. Re:Let's kill the children and eat them. on Games Are Porn in Utah · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well, that certainly sounds like a Modest Proposal.

  9. Re:Firefox 1.5 on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    My Firefox 1.5 is on XP, I'll bet your on Linux.

    Yes, but I just tried it on my XP box and it works there too. There must be something else going on.

  10. Re:actually, firefox hardly works there on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    You'll beed the Opera 9 preview to show the graphs. 8.51 only manages to show black rectangles.

    If you do manage to view the page in Firefox, the size is actually readable -- it shows the graphs about twice the size at which Opera displays them.

  11. Re:table with no on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    Um... if you've decided to use only table headers ()? I don't know.

  12. Re:Firefox 1.5 on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    The Opera 9 preview displays the graphs, but at a different scale than Firefox.

  13. Re:Button class on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    Then there's the 88x31 or 80x15-pixel banners that are commonly used for things like "Valid HTML," "Get Firefox," "Mac User," etc. in footers or sidebars. They're often referred to as buttons.

    I can't speak for other developers, but I've got several designs where I use a "button" class on the image, the link, or the paragraph containing the set of banners to style them differently than the rest of the sidebar. Centering them, for instance, or ensuring that the linked images don't use a border, etc.

  14. Untitled Document on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, you'd be amazed how many pages are called "Untitled Document" or "Page Title".

  15. Re:Firefox 1.5 on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    Works for me. Firefox 1.5 and Opera 9 preview both display the graphs.

  16. Re:Poor style by Google on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    IE 7 beta 1 - nothing where the graphs would be expected
    Opera 8.5 - black boxes in place of graphs
    Opera 9 preview 1 - graphs are visible but about 1/2 the size they are in Firefox
    Konqueror 3.5 - text from graph appears inline
    Safari - don't have a Mac handy at work, but SVG only recently made it into development versions of WebKit.

    Something key to recognize, though, is that all the major browsers except IE either have partial SVG support already or are working on it. It's kind of frustrating that Firefox 1.5 and Opera 8.5 support different subsets, but they're both working toward a standard so we can expect those subsets to converge over the next few releases.

  17. Re:Opera also supports SVG on A Statistical Review of 1 Billion Web Pages · · Score: 1

    Opera 9 can handle the graphs (8.5 doesn't), but it's still in beta. Interestingly, on my Linux box, the Opera 9 preview renders the pages faster and scrolls more smoothly than Firefox 1.5 (scrolling the first page with three graphs is really slow in FF), but the scale is much smaller. To actually read the graphs on Opera I have to zoom in about 200%.

  18. Hot button issues on Both Parties Ignore the Facts · · Score: 1

    I remember a slogan I once saw: "Sure I could compare the PC and Mac, but I make it a point never to argue about religion."

    The rivalries can get pretty intense. I mean, consider the following:

    Windows vs. Mac
    Microsoft vs. Free/Open Source Software
    Linux vs. BSD
    Red Hat vs. SuSE
    MySQL vs. PostgreSQL
    Firefox vs. Opera

    The list goes on...

  19. Re:yellow dog linux on Red Hat, Linux and Intel iMacs · · Score: 1

    The issue is the warranty. If they just buy a Mac, repartition it and install Linux on one partition, the warranty isn't transferrable to the end-user. But because TerraSoft has a deal with Apple as an authorized reseller, the end user still has a valid warranty from Apple.

    I bought a PowerBook from TerraSoft with YDL and OSX pre-installed in mid-2004. At first I used Linux and OSX about 50/50, but I used Linux less and less until I picked up iPartition and resized everything to give OSX more space. I still have YDL installed, but I can't remember the last time I used it.

  20. Re:Uh Oh... on MPAA Makes Unauthorized Copies of DVD · · Score: 1

    It's amusing, but the MPAA would first have to decide it was worth suing itself. You can't have a lawsuit without a plaintiff, after all. Though they do seem to like making examples out of people.

    Nobody move or the monopoly gets it!

  21. Re:And...? on IE7 To Support XMLHTTP Requests · · Score: 1

    Here's a list of what they were anticipating having for beta 2:

    • HTML 4.01 ABBR tag
    • Improved (though not yet perfect) <object> fallback
    • CSS 2.1 Selector support (child, adjacent, attribute, first-child etc.)
    • CSS 2.1 Fixed positioning
    • Alpha channel in PNG images
    • Fix :hover on all elements
    • Background-attachment: fixed on all elements not just body

    Plus a bunch of bug fixes. I can think of things I could do with every single one of these, and while I'd like more (say, max-width and min-width, or generated content) it's a big improvement. Maybe IE 8.0?

  22. Re:oh let's not talk standards on IE7 To Support XMLHTTP Requests · · Score: 1

    Sure it's not full support -- no one has that -- but at this point the rest of the major players (Firefox, Safari, Opera) all have much better support for CSS than IE does.

    To make some numbers up, supporting 90% of the spec is still a lot better than supporting 70%, especially when people have found really nifty things you can do with that extra 20%.

  23. Re:Backwards Compatability on IE7 To Support XMLHTTP Requests · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Fortunately you can check by capabilities instead of sniffing UA strings, and lump IE7 in with other AJAX-capable browsers:

    if (native XMLHTTPREquest) {
            do native stuff
    }
    else if (ActiveX XMLHTTPRequest) {
            do ActiveX stuff
    }
    else {
            non-AJAX fallback
    }

    In a few years it'll be practical to drop the middle section, assuming XMLHTTPRequest hasn't been replaced by something more useful.

  24. Moral of the Story on Scientific Publication Condemns Photo-Manipulation · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Always flatten your images before submitting them.

    (OK, not really, but you know some people of less-than-sterling ethics are going to walk away with that instead of the real lesson, i.e. don't fudge your data.)

  25. Just like secondhand CDs, secondhand books... on Secondhand Games Stifle Innovation? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the argument wasn't ridiculous enough when the RIAA railed against stores selling used CDs, or when book publishers railed against used book stores? Somehow, because they're games instead of books, it magically makes sense now?

    I imagine thrift shops are preventing the clothing industry from innovating, too?