Man, you beat the ever-loving shit out of that strawman!
Nobody talks about security exclusively through obscurity. Secrecy is just an added layer.
The added security of many eyes reviewing your code makes up for the loss of security from having the code visible. <i>That</i> is why Linux is more secure than Windows. But security through obscurity is not useless.
You need to move, but your only vehicle is a small, pre-owned compact? Why didn't you just by a moving truck? It can do everything you want and more! Sure it costs several times as much, is nowhere near as fuel efficient, and isn't as pleasant to use for your daily commute, but who cares!?
E-readers and tablets are completely different devices, similar only in approximate shape and the fact that they both have a screen. E-readers are low cost, energy efficient, light weight, and have a screen designed to be read in any conditions without causing eye strain. Tablets cost 5x as much, burn through their battery 50x as fast, weigh 4x as much, and have a backlit screen that hurts your eyes if you stare at them to long. Tablets are great for a lot of things. Reading isn't one of them. And if you don't care about those other things, you ought to go with the superior device for your particular use case, even if that means occasionally wanting to check a web page on the road and being caught with an inferior tool for the job.
If you haven't noticed, the people having kids these days grew up on Nintendo and Windows. The technically oblivious parent meme may be on it's last legs.
I know that, and you know that, but did the game devs know it? This screenshot clearly shows a stone wall covered in ice. It also shows what I have to assume is Castle Black as having a ring wall, which it shouldn't have.
No gameplay footage, no demo, no beta, no reviews, screenshots suggesting that the devs didn't really read the books, and a title that suggests it's made to cash in on the HBO series. I think I'll be passing on this one.
Well, I haven't watched the HBO interpretation, but there's not supposed to be sorcery for the early parts of the story. In the entire first book, sorcery is only used once, and that's very close to the end. A big part of the storyline is that when the dragons died, magic faded out of the world, and when the dragons return, so does the magic.
There's not dearth of swordplay or strong, cunning characters in the books though, so if that isn't making it on to the screen, the writers are beyond incompetent. You could pretty much make each chapter an episode and have a good, exciting show.
GRRM is absolutely a great author. His characters have substantial depth to them. Even the "villains" aren't really villainous, they just have their own goals and motivations that put them at odds with the characters you happen to be rooting for. His pacing is steady without getting dull. His plot has twists and turns without ever sucker punching the reader the way inferior writers do. And the overarching themes -- particularly regarding honor and duty -- are rock solid.
If you don't like his book, that's fine. Everyone's entitled to an opinion. But I think you're really short-changing him by suggesting that his magnum opus (written over the course of decades) is a quick money-grab.
There is absolutely nothing in the OP to suggest any sort of humor. It received four insightful mods, and not a single funny mod, so it's pretty clear that most people who read it agree with me.
Trying to claim that you were "only joking!" after someone disagrees with you is one of the most tiresome debate tactics imaginable.
It doesn't work as well as you'd think - believe me, I've tried. What tends to happen is the thermite melts a small hole through the drive, and all drains to the bottom, where it burns a hole in the container and continues further down away from the drive. Even if you use a suitable container (for example, a bucket full of sand), it's difficult to get the whole drive to melt, and there's no way to know if the surviving platters got anywhere near their Curie point. Plus it's a pain in the ass to get the thermite to ignite, and the resulting thick black smoke may very well have your neighbors calling the fire department.
In the end, it's much simpler and less frustrating to simply smash the thing to pieces with a sledge hammer. Thermite for its own sake is fun and (kinda) educational - it's just not a good tool for this job. If you're really paranoid, do a single pass of zeros (or ones, if you prefer) before breaking out the hammer, but it probably isn't necessary. Unless the FBI's hunting you, no one's gonna put in the effort to recover data off a smashed platter.
My thoughts exactly. "Moderately successful devices" don't have their price slashed 40% in their first six months of life. Are they even turning a profit at this new price point?
Why bother? Pounds are only used in day to day life, where the sorts of precision being discussed here would go to waste. You may as well ask why a schoolkid's calculator only holds a dozen digits of pi.
All terrorists are nutcases. No sane person decides that cold-blooded mass murder (often of people only tangentially related to the source of their anger) is the best way to accomplish their goals.
Given my druthers, I'd prefer smart terrorists. Guys like this making RC plane bombs, or that guy who tried to make a dirty bomb to set off at Obama's inauguration. They tend to be easier to catch, because they outsmart themselves. Someone less "clever" might just buy a gun and shoot some people -- see Scott Roeder, Byron Williams, Nidal Hassan, and Jared Loughner.
All different motives (anti-abortion, Glenn Beck told me to, anti-military, straight-up crazy), and all of them not-all-there. Three of the four successful, and the fourth (Williams) only failed because society was lucky enough for him to get a traffic ticket on the way to the shooting. I'll take a dent in the Pentagon's walls any day of the week.
What makes you think other releases weren't also "people first"? Or maybe "core functionality first"? Or "business applications first"?
I know, it's Microsoft, and this is Slashdot, thus you feel obligated to find something to bitch about. But really, you don't have to. Just this once, you can say "oh, good on MS, updating their product instead of abandoning it the way so many companies do".
If a mobster gets a not guilty verdict at a trial, does the FBI have to destroy their dossier on him? Of course not. It's their job to keep tabs on people they consider dangerous. If a terrorist gets a not guilty verdict on the grounds that the prosecution's case was based on illegally obtained information, then the FBI should absolutely keep him on the watch list.
It is good that people can't be locked up unless proven guilty of a crime, even if those people have associated with known terrorist groups.
It is also good that law enforcement officers can keep an eye on people that have associated with known terrorist groups, even if those people haven't actually committed a crime.
Jesus worked on the Sabbath. He associated with sinners. He didn't fast at all the appointed times. The OT is still around, and important for historical reasons, but Jesus repeatedly made clear that the rules were changing.
Ahh, but surely you're aware that Christians follow the New Testament, in which Jesus states that he who is without sin should cast the first stone.
The Old Testament is full of obscure rules that have no bearing on the Christian faith. The Catechism is very, very clear on the taking of a life: you can only do it to protect against an attacker, and even then you should not be trying to kill, only disable.
Why bother buying them if it's "on a whim to see if it's worth the effort of buying them"? At any rate, Oblivion sold nearly two million copies in its first month (long before the bargain bin), so it seems you're in a tiny little minority when it comes to not liking Beth's product.
Their forums are a place to discuss the games, not the legal issues surrounding their parent company. If I go to a meeting, we're free to discuss anything related to the project. If someone then tries to spark an argument over the Iraq War, that is not an appropriate topic for discussion.
Forums allow both positive and negative comments about the topic of discussion (the game). They do not allow offtopic discussions. That seems perfectly reasonable.
The moderator's response (along with the thread being locked):
"The lawsuit is not a topic for this forum. This is a gaming forum run by Bethesda Softworks. The lawsuit was presented by Zenimax, BethSoft's parent company. If the only reason you joined this forum is to discuss this subject, I'm afraid you will be disappointed."
Seems pretty polite to me. Plus it points out that Bethesda has no say in the suit -- the responsibility and control lies with Zenimax, which I hadn't known. Given that fact, they are totally right to keep such discussions off their pages, as there's nothing they can do about it anyway. I guess all these people stating that they'll boycott Bethesda should really be angry at Zenimax.
Here's Zenimax's contact page, if you're interested in actually registering a complaint, instead of just blaming the victim (and given the bad press, Bethesda really does seem to be a victim here).
Lies. Rendition is still occurring, which is bad, but torture is not.
Are banks and automobile companies really so different? Not to mention there is Libya...
Banks were bailed out by Bush, liar. The car companies paid back most of their loans, and even if they hadn't, the money would have gone towards employing Americans during a recession instead of sabotaging Medicare with an unfunded prescription drug benefit. And Libya has cost the US about $1 billion dollars, compared to Iraq which has cost over $1 trillion.
Methinks you have dropped all context [regarding Obama speaking to school children], as well as misunderstanding what "the media" did.
By all means, liar, explain how Obama talking to school children really was an act of brainwashing.
The Death Panels part came not from doctors writing wills but from forming, well, panels deciding how much care people would get - or not.
LIAR! The Death Panels crap started over a section of the bill that would have provided optional will-writing services to people over a certain age, or with life threatening conditions. They then kept the lie going even after that section was dropped from the bill, because imbeciles like you were eating it up so well.
Honestly, it is mind-boggling the way Republicans throw up a wall of lies when faced with criticism. Do you really believe that repeating your lie enough will make it true?
Oh come on, this isn't Christian-bashing (which I personally loathe and call out whenever possible). This is a jab at the ultra-right-wing creationists and their hate-monger media. Most Christians believe in evolution. But if Sesame Street breathed a word about it, the hate machine would go into overdrive and their brainwashed listeners and viewers would become certain that Sesame Street is part of a liberal conspiracy that needs to be destroyed. Within a few months, some assholes would doctor a video to make it look like PBS was helping pimps when they were in fact doing the opposite, and they would be shut down.
If this is satire, it's brilliant. If this is serious, you're a scared, pitiful little creature. Teaching kids to share toys as left-wing propaganda... it's the perfect example of Poe's Law.
You should get into the fertilizer business with that amount of bullshit. Bush kidnapped and tortured people on a whim, stole hundred of billions of dollars from the nation in the form of unfunded wars and mandates, and still got reelected. Obama told schoolchildren that they should stay in school, and was excoriated in the media for Soviet brainwashing. He tried to reimburse doctors for helping patients write a living will, and was accused of setting of Nazi Death Panels. The guy can't get away with doing good things.
Republicans can do whatever the hell they want, because their wing of the media owns the party and would never do anything to hurt them. The liberal wing of the media still takes Democrats to task when they do something wrong (watch Rachel Maddow for a week if you don't believe it), while the conservative media makes shit up to criticize them for whenever they try to do something right.
Slashdot Mirror
Man, you beat the ever-loving shit out of that strawman!
Nobody talks about security exclusively through obscurity. Secrecy is just an added layer.
The added security of many eyes reviewing your code makes up for the loss of security from having the code visible. <i>That</i> is why Linux is more secure than Windows. But security through obscurity is not useless.
You need to move, but your only vehicle is a small, pre-owned compact? Why didn't you just by a moving truck? It can do everything you want and more! Sure it costs several times as much, is nowhere near as fuel efficient, and isn't as pleasant to use for your daily commute, but who cares!?
E-readers and tablets are completely different devices, similar only in approximate shape and the fact that they both have a screen. E-readers are low cost, energy efficient, light weight, and have a screen designed to be read in any conditions without causing eye strain. Tablets cost 5x as much, burn through their battery 50x as fast, weigh 4x as much, and have a backlit screen that hurts your eyes if you stare at them to long. Tablets are great for a lot of things. Reading isn't one of them. And if you don't care about those other things, you ought to go with the superior device for your particular use case, even if that means occasionally wanting to check a web page on the road and being caught with an inferior tool for the job.
Yes, I'm sure parental controls will be enabled by default on every unit and unable to be turned off.
If you haven't noticed, the people having kids these days grew up on Nintendo and Windows. The technically oblivious parent meme may be on it's last legs.
I know that, and you know that, but did the game devs know it? This screenshot clearly shows a stone wall covered in ice. It also shows what I have to assume is Castle Black as having a ring wall, which it shouldn't have.
No gameplay footage, no demo, no beta, no reviews, screenshots suggesting that the devs didn't really read the books, and a title that suggests it's made to cash in on the HBO series. I think I'll be passing on this one.
Well, I haven't watched the HBO interpretation, but there's not supposed to be sorcery for the early parts of the story. In the entire first book, sorcery is only used once, and that's very close to the end. A big part of the storyline is that when the dragons died, magic faded out of the world, and when the dragons return, so does the magic.
There's not dearth of swordplay or strong, cunning characters in the books though, so if that isn't making it on to the screen, the writers are beyond incompetent. You could pretty much make each chapter an episode and have a good, exciting show.
GRRM is absolutely a great author. His characters have substantial depth to them. Even the "villains" aren't really villainous, they just have their own goals and motivations that put them at odds with the characters you happen to be rooting for. His pacing is steady without getting dull. His plot has twists and turns without ever sucker punching the reader the way inferior writers do. And the overarching themes -- particularly regarding honor and duty -- are rock solid.
If you don't like his book, that's fine. Everyone's entitled to an opinion. But I think you're really short-changing him by suggesting that his magnum opus (written over the course of decades) is a quick money-grab.
There is absolutely nothing in the OP to suggest any sort of humor. It received four insightful mods, and not a single funny mod, so it's pretty clear that most people who read it agree with me.
Trying to claim that you were "only joking!" after someone disagrees with you is one of the most tiresome debate tactics imaginable.
It doesn't work as well as you'd think - believe me, I've tried. What tends to happen is the thermite melts a small hole through the drive, and all drains to the bottom, where it burns a hole in the container and continues further down away from the drive. Even if you use a suitable container (for example, a bucket full of sand), it's difficult to get the whole drive to melt, and there's no way to know if the surviving platters got anywhere near their Curie point. Plus it's a pain in the ass to get the thermite to ignite, and the resulting thick black smoke may very well have your neighbors calling the fire department.
In the end, it's much simpler and less frustrating to simply smash the thing to pieces with a sledge hammer. Thermite for its own sake is fun and (kinda) educational - it's just not a good tool for this job. If you're really paranoid, do a single pass of zeros (or ones, if you prefer) before breaking out the hammer, but it probably isn't necessary. Unless the FBI's hunting you, no one's gonna put in the effort to recover data off a smashed platter.
That's a reasonable explanation, but it will only work for so long. Does RIM have anything compelling on the horizon?
My thoughts exactly. "Moderately successful devices" don't have their price slashed 40% in their first six months of life. Are they even turning a profit at this new price point?
Why bother? Pounds are only used in day to day life, where the sorts of precision being discussed here would go to waste. You may as well ask why a schoolkid's calculator only holds a dozen digits of pi.
All terrorists are nutcases. No sane person decides that cold-blooded mass murder (often of people only tangentially related to the source of their anger) is the best way to accomplish their goals.
Given my druthers, I'd prefer smart terrorists. Guys like this making RC plane bombs, or that guy who tried to make a dirty bomb to set off at Obama's inauguration. They tend to be easier to catch, because they outsmart themselves. Someone less "clever" might just buy a gun and shoot some people -- see Scott Roeder, Byron Williams, Nidal Hassan, and Jared Loughner.
All different motives (anti-abortion, Glenn Beck told me to, anti-military, straight-up crazy), and all of them not-all-there. Three of the four successful, and the fourth (Williams) only failed because society was lucky enough for him to get a traffic ticket on the way to the shooting. I'll take a dent in the Pentagon's walls any day of the week.
*sigh*
What makes you think other releases weren't also "people first"? Or maybe "core functionality first"? Or "business applications first"?
I know, it's Microsoft, and this is Slashdot, thus you feel obligated to find something to bitch about. But really, you don't have to. Just this once, you can say "oh, good on MS, updating their product instead of abandoning it the way so many companies do".
If a mobster gets a not guilty verdict at a trial, does the FBI have to destroy their dossier on him? Of course not. It's their job to keep tabs on people they consider dangerous. If a terrorist gets a not guilty verdict on the grounds that the prosecution's case was based on illegally obtained information, then the FBI should absolutely keep him on the watch list.
It is good that people can't be locked up unless proven guilty of a crime, even if those people have associated with known terrorist groups.
It is also good that law enforcement officers can keep an eye on people that have associated with known terrorist groups, even if those people haven't actually committed a crime.
The original statement was that Christians are commanded to kill non-believers. This is false. It might command Jews to kill...
Jesus worked on the Sabbath. He associated with sinners. He didn't fast at all the appointed times. The OT is still around, and important for historical reasons, but Jesus repeatedly made clear that the rules were changing.
Ahh, but surely you're aware that Christians follow the New Testament, in which Jesus states that he who is without sin should cast the first stone.
The Old Testament is full of obscure rules that have no bearing on the Christian faith. The Catechism is very, very clear on the taking of a life: you can only do it to protect against an attacker, and even then you should not be trying to kill, only disable.
Why bother buying them if it's "on a whim to see if it's worth the effort of buying them"? At any rate, Oblivion sold nearly two million copies in its first month (long before the bargain bin), so it seems you're in a tiny little minority when it comes to not liking Beth's product.
Their forums are a place to discuss the games, not the legal issues surrounding their parent company. If I go to a meeting, we're free to discuss anything related to the project. If someone then tries to spark an argument over the Iraq War, that is not an appropriate topic for discussion.
Forums allow both positive and negative comments about the topic of discussion (the game). They do not allow offtopic discussions. That seems perfectly reasonable.
The moderator's response (along with the thread being locked):
"The lawsuit is not a topic for this forum. This is a gaming forum run by Bethesda Softworks. The lawsuit was presented by Zenimax, BethSoft's parent company. If the only reason you joined this forum is to discuss this subject, I'm afraid you will be disappointed."
Seems pretty polite to me. Plus it points out that Bethesda has no say in the suit -- the responsibility and control lies with Zenimax, which I hadn't known. Given that fact, they are totally right to keep such discussions off their pages, as there's nothing they can do about it anyway. I guess all these people stating that they'll boycott Bethesda should really be angry at Zenimax.
Here's Zenimax's contact page, if you're interested in actually registering a complaint, instead of just blaming the victim (and given the bad press, Bethesda really does seem to be a victim here).
Liar, liar, liar.
[Torture] is continued today under Obama.
Lies. Rendition is still occurring, which is bad, but torture is not.
Are banks and automobile companies really so different? Not to mention there is Libya...
Banks were bailed out by Bush, liar. The car companies paid back most of their loans, and even if they hadn't, the money would have gone towards employing Americans during a recession instead of sabotaging Medicare with an unfunded prescription drug benefit. And Libya has cost the US about $1 billion dollars, compared to Iraq which has cost over $1 trillion.
Methinks you have dropped all context [regarding Obama speaking to school children], as well as misunderstanding what "the media" did.
By all means, liar, explain how Obama talking to school children really was an act of brainwashing.
The Death Panels part came not from doctors writing wills but from forming, well, panels deciding how much care people would get - or not.
LIAR! The Death Panels crap started over a section of the bill that would have provided optional will-writing services to people over a certain age, or with life threatening conditions. They then kept the lie going even after that section was dropped from the bill, because imbeciles like you were eating it up so well.
Honestly, it is mind-boggling the way Republicans throw up a wall of lies when faced with criticism. Do you really believe that repeating your lie enough will make it true?
Oh come on, this isn't Christian-bashing (which I personally loathe and call out whenever possible). This is a jab at the ultra-right-wing creationists and their hate-monger media. Most Christians believe in evolution. But if Sesame Street breathed a word about it, the hate machine would go into overdrive and their brainwashed listeners and viewers would become certain that Sesame Street is part of a liberal conspiracy that needs to be destroyed. Within a few months, some assholes would doctor a video to make it look like PBS was helping pimps when they were in fact doing the opposite, and they would be shut down.
If this is satire, it's brilliant. If this is serious, you're a scared, pitiful little creature. Teaching kids to share toys as left-wing propaganda... it's the perfect example of Poe's Law.
You should get into the fertilizer business with that amount of bullshit. Bush kidnapped and tortured people on a whim, stole hundred of billions of dollars from the nation in the form of unfunded wars and mandates, and still got reelected. Obama told schoolchildren that they should stay in school, and was excoriated in the media for Soviet brainwashing. He tried to reimburse doctors for helping patients write a living will, and was accused of setting of Nazi Death Panels. The guy can't get away with doing good things.
Republicans can do whatever the hell they want, because their wing of the media owns the party and would never do anything to hurt them. The liberal wing of the media still takes Democrats to task when they do something wrong (watch Rachel Maddow for a week if you don't believe it), while the conservative media makes shit up to criticize them for whenever they try to do something right.