Slashdot Mirror


User: belg4mit

belg4mit's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,464
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,464

  1. Re:Won't somebody think of the children!!! on Is Simplified Spelling Worth Reform? · · Score: 1

    I'll agree it's not an argument, however conservatives sure make a lot of
    "think of the children" arguments as well. It's just a special case of ad hominem.

  2. Re:Exception to the rule. on Elastic Tabstops — An End to Tabs vs. Spaces? · · Score: 1

    I actually meant befunge, but neglected to double-check first.
    Befunge source is a matrix.

    >p.s. Anyone that programs in the whitespace programming language deserves
    >what he/she gets when someone else comes along and reformats it :-)
    An argument again' Python if I ever heard one :-P See also Acme::Bleach

  3. Exception to the rule. on Elastic Tabstops — An End to Tabs vs. Spaces? · · Score: 1

    Mmm, I don't think you can reformat brainfuck at will.

  4. Re:Metric on NASA Finds 4-5" Crack in Shuttle Insulation · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because they couldn't possibly have put it in units
    that your 3rd cousin in Arkansas could understand.

  5. OT: Words on New Human-Powered World Hour Record · · Score: 4, Informative

    The pieces are fairings.
    The adjective fair means unincumbered.
    The verb fair, from ship building, is to make smooth and flowing. ...in a fully fairinged recumbent bicycle. (verbing) ...in a fully fair recumbent bicycle. ...in a fully faired recumbent bicycle. (original)

  6. Re:Social Experiment. on Mysterious Website Actually Social Experiment · · Score: 1

    My theory is you're a dumbass, and this reply is the test.
    It's an experiment whether or not it gets published by the APA.

  7. Re:Is there an IANAL in the house? on IBM using Napoleon Dynamite Quote to Encrypt Data · · Score: 1

    Depends on where you are. In the US the MLB certainly seems to think it owns
    exclusive rights to them and everything else.

  8. Re:Second Aduio Program on Downloadable Film Commentaries Becoming Popular? · · Score: 1

    Ummm, SAP is not always Spanish. It's also sometimes used to provide descriptive audio
    about events on the screen (increaaing the "watchability" of a show for the blind).
    This use might be more prevalent on PBS though.

  9. Re:Possible approach... on Software to Divide an Image Into Discrete Patterns · · Score: 1

    Emboss finds the edges (and turns everything else gray). If you start with "simple"
    enough images (GIFs with large solid polygons, not JPEG photos) then you ought to
    get good results. All that remains is to globally replace the dull gray fill.

    If on Win32, InfranView can do Embossing for you.

  10. Re:Disregarded disabled citizens? on MA Senator Decries OpenDocument Decision · · Score: 1

    The Big Dig doesn't do me much good here (in Cambridge, MA) either.

    The dam thing is just a "better" way for people outside of the city
    to get from one side to the other. Now the Urban Ring would actually
    benefit the people whose construction it'd inconvenience, but that
    (like other things) would make too much sense.

  11. Re:Slashdot -- 4 day old news... on WGA Turning Off PCs in the Fall? · · Score: 1

    They both suck, get over yourself.

  12. Re:How was the show written? on Ask Futurama Star Billy West About...? · · Score: 1

    It's Matt Groening, see? The Simpsons has a mix of "common man" and "thinking man" jokes too.

  13. Re:Atheists push to establish State religion on Internet Deconstructing State Church in Finland · · Score: 1

    Personally I like "If atheism is a relgion, then 'bald' is a hair color."

  14. Re:Obvious, simple anti-phishing solution? on Dealing with Phishing · · Score: 1

    But it's not random. Once this becomes common all you have to do is to start listening outside
    of a bank. Not only do you then have the ability to target only actual customers when phishing
    (yeah, um I totally forgot about my account with the Bank of Bangkok), but you get their
    safewords too.

    If you wanted to do something like the original idea, but slightly more convoluted, is to give
    customers an OTP with strings to tick off as they receive "official notices" from the bank.
    Granted, you could not (safely) automate this.

  15. Re:Bad analogy on Dealing with Phishing · · Score: 1

    TweakUI is bad comparison (the response times for mouse events, mini arrows on shortcuts?),
    LightStep is a bad comparison (putting Linux on an ipod?). The right comparisons are ipod
    socks, windows themes and color schemes (or the screensavers, etc. that they alreay listed).

  16. Re:Obvious, simple anti-phishing solution? on Dealing with Phishing · · Score: 1

    Because email is sent in the clear?

  17. Insulation on Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? · · Score: 1

    Thermal and electrical. For above ground, you do not have to shield the cables to prevent conductance between them. On the flipside, high tension wires generate a
    non-trivial amount of heat and burying them might aggravate the situation?

  18. OT: awfull CSS (pre) on Håkon Responds to Questions About CSS and... · · Score: 1

    What's with turning pre into an iframe for 3 or 4 characters of scrolling?!
    I mean, if you want to do this in some way to save readers from wide comments,
    fine. But apply a class to the article contents to undo the god-awfulness.

  19. Re:CSS Parent Selector? on Ask Håkon About CSS or...? · · Score: 1

    Sorry, I should have said arbitrary attribute of an arbitrary element, fulfills a similar role
    to variables but not entirely. e.g; being able to apply the CSS value for margin-left of
    div.foo to margin-right of the current element.

    I was double-checking via google (to see if CSS3 had some reference to them that I missed), and
    there is a fiar amount of interest in variable support. Most poeple want vars so they can clean


    h1{ font: blah blah blah}
    h2{ font: blah blah blah}
    h3{ font: blah blah blah}


    I'm not sure why h1, h2, h3{ } wouldn't work here. However, if you're setting
    many other attributes for a given element type it'd be nice to be able to use variables to
    avoid cut-and paste bloat and still keep related things tight and together. Otherwise you
    have to something which is equivalent but does not read as well to some:

    /*whatever the syntax might be */
    var = blah blah blah

    h1{ font: var; color: #def}
    h2{ font: var; color: #abc}
    h3{ font: var; color: #789}
    h4{ font: var; color: #456}


    Or something...

  20. Commenting on Ask Håkon About CSS or...? · · Score: 1

    Why didn't CSS include C++ style comments as well? Many people seem to use them interchangably
    elsewhere, so when you adopted half of this classic pair you break many people's assumptions of
    functionality and subtly invalid CSS can result.

  21. Inheritance on Ask Håkon About CSS or...? · · Score: 1

    I understand that cascading->inheritance, but why are one's only options inheritance or
    explicitly setting values? Why is it not possible to set an element's attributes in reference
    to an older ancestor, or to ignore the parent's setting and auto as if the parent's attribute
    were not set (were set to auto)?

    e.g; Given two nested div's, and the need for the parent div to not be of some pre-determined size
    but not be full-page (achievable with display: inline): it does not appear to be possible to have
    the child maintain the prior/wider (tight) "auto" width.


    #ctrl{ position: relative; cursor: help;
            border: 1px dashed #ddd; /* display: inline */}
    #tip{ display: none; }
    #ctrl:hover #tip{ display: block; border-style: ridge; padding-right: 1em;
                      position: absolute; left: 2em; top: 1em; z-index:4;
                      background-color: #fffff4; }


    Basically, shrink-wrapping and stretching appear to be convoluted and require some divination of
    the user about the size of things (even when using em)... and yield not -quite right results.

  22. Re:CSS Parent Selector? on Ask Håkon About CSS or...? · · Score: 1

    Indeed, or the ability to refer to arbitrary values of arbitrary tags? Or to use variables?
    Or or or... and why do the specs move so slowly?

  23. Re:Do you remember when Slashdot had no ads? on WSJ on CraigsList and Zen of Classified Ads · · Score: 1

    Yes, but neglecting the quality of posts... the signal to noise ratio of pages is so high that even
    without ad-blocking you don't really notice them.

  24. Re:[Hijack] New topic: favorite pens and pencils on Manual Writing Tools? · · Score: 1

    I've been trying to track down some graphite ink pens. Apparently these were all the rage in the
    40s, but Office Depot still makes them? They sound great in theory, writes like a pen, erasable
    like a pencil (and not like an erasable pen).

  25. Re:Not Worthwhile to Unplug on Game Console Energy Usage Comparison · · Score: 1

    How trite. For nuclear is clearly the option, eh? No externalities there... no-siree-Bob.
    As ClamIAm insinuated, the example I gave is probably on the order of $10+ savings. A 2
    year ROI is not bad at all.

    Prices vary (20+), and they're sometimes called "console surge protectors", however the
    term has been co-opted for high-end A/V line cleaning, so better results can be had with
    "under monitor surge protector".