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User: mark-t

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  1. Re:Cuz Minix Dude Was A Old Guy on Why Was Linux the Kernel That Succeeded? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1. FreeBSD required a hardware FPU, at a time when many computers didn't have them.

    For me, with a '386 at the time that I first heard of Linux, and with no fpu coprocessor, that was a key factor... although not the defining one, because I was soon going to be getting a '387 anyways. For myself, the deciding factor at the time was that FreeBSD did not support any sort of multiple OS system, where with Linux, I could boot from floppy which would then transfer control over to the hard drive after the kernel was loaded (or after lilo came out, even load the kernel directly from the hard drive), and leave my DOS partitions and the hard drive boot sector completely unaltered.

  2. $5k??? Really, NASA? on NASA Will Award You $5,000 For Your Finest Mars City Idea · · Score: 2

    It occurs to me that a feasable plan for a sustainable mars colony is worth a *HECK* of a lot more than just $5K....

    Try increasing that by *AT LEAST* a couple of orders of magnitude.

    Offering only $5K for a practical idea that once successfully implemented is going to be quite frankly worth trillions of dollars is really undervaluing the significance of coming up with a workable plan in the first place.

  3. Re:Wouldn't using this if it were seized... on USBKill Transforms a Thumb Drive Into an "Anti-Forensic" Device · · Score: 1
    Uh... not quite... if they *DON'T* take the USB drive. as you literally told them, then they still power it off... The suggestion amounts to knowingly telling him to do something that you will definitely cause the computer to lose its RAM content.

    It might be better to respond with something that is entirely factual, such as "You won't get anything from the computer by taking the computer from me". Then, if they take the computer, it will still power off... but you could argue that you even warned them that they wouldn't get anything from the computer if they tried to take it from you, so you could not reasonably be held accountable for the tampering of the evidence that they were trying to obtain.

  4. Re:The /. groupthink is strongly against manned mi on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 2

    If humans go to Mars it should be to do what only humans can do (like have babies).

    Except that they can't... at least not the way that they do it naturally. I recall reading somewhere that mammal reproductivity is quite dependent on the earth's gravity, and attempts have a baby outside of that environment would most likely be fatal for the fetus, assuming that the attempt to become pregnant in the first place did not outright fail.

  5. Re:The /. groupthink is strongly against manned mi on Opportunity Rover Reaches Martian Day 4,000 of Its 90-Day Mission · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That research could have been collected in a day by a human being, sure.. but not before probably dozens of people died. just trying to get there.

    We send probes because they are expendable.

  6. Re:Wouldn't using this if it were seized... on USBKill Transforms a Thumb Drive Into an "Anti-Forensic" Device · · Score: 1

    It could be argued that not advising the officers of the existence of this protection measure when they tell you they are going to take your computer would constitute a willful attempt on your part to sabotage their efforts to gather said evidence, and still be considered as tampering with evidence on those grounds.

    Of course, if they don''t tell you that's what they are going to do before they go ahead and do it, then yeah... you probably have a pretty strong defense on that point. But I'd typically assume if they are going and seizing someone's property, that they've already shown the applicable warrant, and so you'd know what they are up to before they go ahead and actually take it.

  7. Wouldn't using this if it were seized... on USBKill Transforms a Thumb Drive Into an "Anti-Forensic" Device · · Score: 1, Insightful

    .... qualify as deliberate tampering with evidence?

    Even if you aren't guilty of whatever they were believing that the evidence on the computer would incriminate you for, that's still a crime, and not a very lightly taken one.

  8. Re:The Curve on Academic Courses on The Programming Talent Myth · · Score: 1

    I've always suspected that the reason for such a bimodal distribution in academia is that the people who would otherwise be in the middle of the curve, are clued in enough to realize that they may not necessarily completely getting it in ways beyond what their grades alone might attest to and end up dropping the course.

  9. Re:Unity3d isn't exactly free. on Should Developers Still Pay For Game Engines? · · Score: 1

    Evidently, the free version of Unity *does* have render-to-texture now. In terms of functionality, only differences between the paid and free versions of Unity seem to be that the free one doesn't let you use a custom splash screen and no multiple developer support.

  10. Re: I don't understand on Game:ref's Hardware Solution To Cheating In eSports · · Score: 1

    How does the serve admin know that the software is accurately reporting what hardware the user has installed when the user controls his own PC, which could without *too* much difficulty be set up to misreport its hardware configuration.to the software that connects to the server?

    I'm sure there'd be a DMCA violation in there somewhere, but this concept and the measures that are being proposed here wouldn't make anyone who genuinely wanted to cheat even blink.

  11. The peter principle only applies if.... on Yes, You Can Blame Your Pointy-Haired Boss On the Peter Principle · · Score: 1

    .... you get promoted to a new position before you are actually fully qualified for that position.

    In my experience, companies don't promote people to having additional responsibilities before that worker has already proven that they are capable of handling those responsibilities, perhaps through a management training program. Such a promotion must actively be sought out by the employee.

    The only other "promotions" that I know of are something like annual cost-of-living salary increases that the most respectable companies may offer to their employees, or else performance-based raises, which are not promotions either, being where one's duties and responsibilities remain essentially unaltered, but one has shown that they are providing a sufficient utility for the company to justify paying them more... generally because after factoring in training costs, the company feels they may have to pay more just to replace them and still get the same amount of utility.

  12. Re:Not Holograms on Microsoft Announces Windows Holographic Platform · · Score: 1

    Well played, oodaloop... well played.

  13. Re:Hudak was a great man on Paul Hudak, Co-creator of Haskell, Has Died · · Score: 1

    What are you talking about? Steven Wozniak built the first Apple computer.

  14. Re:Not Holograms on Microsoft Announces Windows Holographic Platform · · Score: 2

    They use the word hologram to describe this because that's the word that pop culture identifies with... even though it is wrong.

    You are right, however... this no more makes holograms than a View-Master toy invented in the 60's... it just has a lot more tech behind it.

  15. Actually, it *IS* smoother... on Verizon Tells Customer He Needs 75Mbps For Smoother Netflix Video · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ... if you have multiple computers on your lan, streaming different content from different sites.

    I've found routinely that video streaming tv shows from a network's website, which ordinarily runs fine will still start to choke if somebody else in my house is watching a moderately long youtube video in HD, for example.

  16. Re:Here _I_m instead? come? on US Successfully Tests Self-Steering Bullets · · Score: 1

    Easier said than done... obviously I'm not suggesting that nothing get done about it, but I am saying that pretending that criminals aren't going to ever use this kind of thing is laughable... and, as I said, law abiding citizens will have to use inferior mechanisms to defend themselves.

  17. Re:Here _I_ come? on US Successfully Tests Self-Steering Bullets · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Right.... so there's nothing prohibiting a criminal from getting it, because he's not following the law anyways... Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens who might want to defend themselves with a firearm will be using inferior mechanisms to what the criminals have.

  18. Re:This is called "rubber hose cryptoanalysis" on Allegation: Philly Cops Leaned Suspect Over Balcony To Obtain Password · · Score: 1

    ....then the thug will let you go.

    Why should I believe that? If a person is morally bankrupt enough that they are willing to threaten somebody's life, why on earth should I think they are not at least equally capable of lying?

  19. Re:Done in movies... on Allegation: Philly Cops Leaned Suspect Over Balcony To Obtain Password · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hanging a person over a balcony with an implied threat to let them fall is quite definitely qualifies as a threat against a person's life, and that *IS* illegal. Even if no "permanent" harm was done, their actions fail on points 5, 6, 7, and 9 in The Ethics Scoreboard list of ethics fallacies.

  20. Re:Being a less than ideal social fit... on Median Age At Google Is 29, Says Age Discrimination Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    If a communication barrier exists because of some demographic difference between one employee and everyone else, why should a company have to tolerate what they may be able to measure as a reduced level of productivity because of it?

    I'm not saying it should happen, but it *does* happen... I've been fired from jobs for simply "not fitting in" myself... why should being older or even being of a difference race somehow protect somebody from such an evaluation?

  21. Being a less than ideal social fit... on Median Age At Google Is 29, Says Age Discrimination Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    ... in the company culture is a wholly reasonable justification for an employer to not hire someone who is otherwise even the most qualified job applicant. While age shouldn't ever be a reason to exclude an otherwise entirely competent person, if the fact is that if the rest of the office isn't going to easily be able to relate to the person simply because this one person is so much older than they are, that can introduce a communication barrier, however unintentional it may be on everyone's part and that will impede the effectiveness of any programming team that person is put on. Generally, this kind of thing would be more likely to be determined during an initial probationary period than during an interview, however.

  22. Re:Drug dogs on Supreme Court Rules Extending Traffic Stop For Dog Sniff Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    What I know about is just how sensitive a dog's sense of smell is... and how easily they would be able to identify *exactly* where a given odor is coming from. Through positive reinforcement during training, a dog that is being trained to identify a particular scent, is conditioned to find the source of the scent, and so in the field, they would always go straight for the point where the strongest scent is coming from, because doing so was what led to the quickest rewards for the dog. If they can't find what the dog has been trained to sniff out in the very first place that the dog leads them, then either it's simply too well hidden for the officer to find, or else it's not there at all. Claiming that the dog alerted them to the presence of drugs therefore makes them look incompetent if they didn't actually find any.

  23. Re:Drug dogs on Supreme Court Rules Extending Traffic Stop For Dog Sniff Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    If an officer searches a car and finds no drugs, the officer can say something to save face and wave the driver on.

    Of course... my original point is that the officer isn't generally going to say that the dog actually alerted him to the presence of drugs somewhere in the car when they can't find any in there. If a dog is actually alerting to the presence of drugs, it will go *straight* to the location of those drugs, or if the scent is only residual, at least straight to the location of the strongest scent. If that scent is on the driver or on a wad of cash in his pocket, then the dog will alert to the driver, not the car. Remember, a dog's sense of smell is millions of times more sensitive than a human's... they exist in a sensory world that most people can probably barely imagine... and given that they would go straight for the location of the strongest scent, there wouldn't even be any extensive search, per se, beyond perhaps moving things out of the way so the officer can access some concealed location... If there are no drugs there, then that should be the end of it, where if an officer were to say that their dog alerted them to the presence of drugs in the car but they end up looking in several different places in the car, then it appears as if the officer doesn't really have a clue how to interpret what the dog is supposedly actually alerting to.

  24. What blows me away...... on Study Confirms No Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism · · Score: 1

    .... is even *IF* there were some truth to the allegation that such vaccines have a link to autism, which there isn't.... the allegation that this should be justification to *NOT* vaccinate is equivalent to saying that one would rather have their child die from a curable disease than have autism... like autism is somehow the 21st century version of what leprosy was 2000 years ago.

    As someone who was diagnosed a number of years ago as autistic, I can't help but be slightly offended at the notion

  25. Re:Drug dogs on Supreme Court Rules Extending Traffic Stop For Dog Sniff Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    All they need to say is that there *were* drugs in the car or that wad of cash has drug residue on it.

    Right... but a dog is going to know exactly where anything that it smells is really coming from. The police have no business using a dog that *EVER* gives false positives, and a handler who can't manage a dog to find a given smell that has been trained to find such smells is an incompetent handler, because a dog's sense of smell can be millions of times more sensitive than a human's, and there is NO CONCEIVABLE WAY that a dog could ever fail to identify exactly where a given smell was really coming from, even if it is just residual. If it was coming from a wad of cash in the person's wallet, the dog would be alerted to it being in the person's pocket... if it was on the clothes of the person, the dog would know that it wasn't coming from the car if they were not in it. Again, if the police officer cannot interpret the actions of the dog correctly, or ever claims that their dog alerted them to drugs where they couldn't find any, then that is going to just make the handler look stupid if the dog has been properly trained, and if the dog has not been properly trained to find such scents then the police have no business using that dog in the first place.