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User: Eraesr

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  1. Re:Don't they have something better to do? on Ministry of Sound Suing Spotify Over User Playlists · · Score: 1

    A playlist made by user X is not labelled as originating from artist/publisher/whatever Y. Spotify will say that the playlist is from user X and not imply any relation to the compilation album the playlist is trying to mimic.

  2. Re:Idiocracy on NJ Court: Sending a Text Message To a Driver Could Make You Liable For Crash · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's a whole different situation. If I bring a peanut butter sandwich to work, then I'm directly responsible for putting my colleague in danger. However, if I'm sending a text message to someone I know is driving, then my sending that text message is in no way directly responsible for whatever accident may happen due to the driver picking up the phone and reading the text message. The big difference is that the driver still has a choice here. It's the driver that makes the choice to check the text message. He isn't forced to. Your allergic colleague doesn't have the choice of being exposed to peanut butter or not (assuming this is a real, terrible case of peanut butter allergy) and has no real way of avoiding the consequences.

  3. Re:NOT correct on Oracle Fixes 42 Security Vulnerabilities In Java · · Score: 1

    With a C++ program it is up to me, the programmer to make sure there are no exploits.

    Guess how many programmers are adequately up to that task... And when I say "many", I actually mean "few".

  4. Re:Maybe... on USPS Discriminates Against 'Atheist' Merchandise · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder what would've happened if they labeled the box as containing religious items rather than "atheist".

  5. Re:Better off enforcing an EA boycott on Is It Time To Enforce a Gamers' Bill of Rights? · · Score: 1

    Problem is, if you're boycotting EA, then you'll soon enough be boycotting Activision as well on the same grounds. Ubisoft will follow right behind them and I bet eventually you'll do away with Take 2 as well.
    Not a whole lot of games left to play then.

  6. Re:Why is this necessary? on Dad Hacks "Donkey Kong" - Now Pauline Rescues Mario · · Score: 1

    Jade, from Beyond Good & Evil.

  7. Re: What do you do? on Dad Hacks "Donkey Kong" - Now Pauline Rescues Mario · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah sure, blah blah blah.
    He hasn't actually released the modified game and big gaming corporations don't give a fuck about a dad hacking a 30 year old game this way to make his daughter happy. To "squash" this, a corp needs to spend more money than it's worth, so they're not going to do a thing about it. Simple as that.

  8. Re:Not true. on Ohio Judge Rules Speed Cameras Are a Scam · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Start braking a bit earlier. Jeez, it ain't freaking rocket science.
    Besides, I'm sure you can come up with some exotic situation where you absolutely can't help but cross the line, but that doesn't invalidate the whole setup.

  9. Re:Sorry, little retro rockets won't work for that on Neil deGrasse Tyson On How To Stop a Meteor Hitting the Earth · · Score: 1

    Just engage the tractor beam!

  10. Re:Keep your guard up on Music Industry Sees First Revenue Increase Since 1999 · · Score: 2

    All I worry about is that the RIAA and their kin will interpret this news as their witch hunt on piracy is finally paying off, and all they need to do now is increase their efforts tenfold with even more invasive and restrictive measures.

  11. What a bitter, bitter man on Minority Report's Legacy of Terrible Interfaces · · Score: 1

    The author of the article must be a really bitter, bitter man who doesn't realize Minority Report is just a movie, with computer interfaces designed to look cool rather than practical. In fact, I think Minority Report is one of the lesser offenders when it comes to totally unbelievable bullshit UI's (Jurassic Park and Swordfish spring to mind).

    I've never heard or seen any serious designer strive for interfaces that are identical to what we see in Minority Report. Sounds to me like he works with amateurs who can't differentiate between "cool" and "absurd". And he's blaming movies for the rise of touch screens and the touchscreen gestures we use now? Maybe it's the other way around and the people who designed the stuff in Minority Report had a pretty good grasp on what the future would actually bring us.

    In the end, the design of Minority Report's "orchestra screen" was brilliant in that it exactly matched it's purpose: to look cool, look (somewhat) realistic and get the necessary information across to the viewer of the movie. That interface probably wasn't designed to be intuitive for the actual user, it was meant to be intuitive for the cinema going audience.

  12. Just because THEY can doesn't me WE shouldn't on Cryptography 'Becoming Less Important,' Adi Shamir Says · · Score: 2

    If there's some elite group of hackers who like to target high profile websites and services that can get past the most complex forms of encryption, then does that automatically mean we shouldn't use encryption anymore? For all I know, at the very least, encryption will keep out the 13 year old bedroom hackers who write vbscripts and call it a virus.

    Similar to me having MAC filtering enabled on my wireless router. I know MAC filtering won't keep out the determined hacker, but it will be enough of a blockade for some wannabe punk that thinks it's cool to spend a weekend trying to access insecure wifi routers. To keep out more advanced and experienced intruders, more is needed, but that's no reason for me to just open the gate to every laptop owner with half a braincell who bookmarked a "hacking 101" tutorial.

  13. Re:Good idea on Google Chrome Getting Audio Indicators To Show You Noisy Tabs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Good point. Also, after I posted my message I clicked one of the links in the article and found that so far it appears to work only for the HTML5 version of YouTube, which makes me believe that this only works for HTML5 controls, which means that annoying flash ads with sound can still creep through.

  14. Re:Good idea on Google Chrome Getting Audio Indicators To Show You Noisy Tabs · · Score: 1

    Yeah I think it's a great idea. I just hope it works beyond HTML5 implementations of audio and is also able to tell me if plugins are playing audio (like flash or silverlight animations).

  15. Re:Unrelated to 2012 DA14? on Huge Meteor Blazes Across Sky Over Russia; Hundreds Injured · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, meteors hitting the earth's atmosphere is a very common event. It happens almost every night. The only difference is that this time the meteor was large enough to be visible and have this result. The big 45m piece of asteroid passing by isn't that uncommon either, it's just passing by relatively close compared to other asteroids.
    In short: we're not talking about two uncommon events (certainly not "very rare"). You're falling for the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy here.

  16. Re:"they" can fuck off, the binary units are the o on When 1 GB Is Really 0.9313 Gigabytes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem arises when the two are used interchangeably. I don't care if a HDD's packaging expresses the capacity in powers of 10, as long as it's clear there's a difference between KiB and KB.
    A much bigger problem is manufacturers having their devices marketed with 64GB of storage when only half of that amount is available for the user due to the other half being taken up by the OS and pre-installed apps.

  17. Re:Good on Indiana Nurses Fired After Refusing Flu Shots On Religious Grounds · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The question of whether or not flu shots actually works seems less interesting to me. The case here is that these people refused flu shots based on religious grounds and use that argumentation to combat the decision of the hospital. They aren't having issues with flu shots not working or flu shots being a possible cause of flu itself, no, they argue that their lord and savior instructed them not to take flu shots so they won't.

    The other side of the argument is that there are medical indications that flu shots prevent patients from possible exposure to influenza. It's a safety measure taken to protect patients. For the sake of that side of the argument, lets assume that flu shots simply work in the expected way. Again, whether it actually does or not is not important as that is not being questioned by these religious people.

    So here we have a discussion of patient safety versus religious belief. I find it insulting that a nurse would expose patients (which might one day include myself) to threats they could easily avoid by taking the shot. I think it's a pretty arrogant and selfish attitude, especially for a nurse.

  18. Re:Fahrenheit? on Cassini Discovers First River On Another World · · Score: 1

    This is actually an interesting point, but it works against you. You see, Americans' fear of decimals leads them to use a scale with a finer precision. I'm not too familiar with the conversion, but from this discussion I understand that 1 degree C is roughly the same interval as 2 degrees F. So when you're taking someone's temperature, then you're getting a precision of 0.5 degrees Celsius, while my European thermometer, which indicates temperature in 1/10ths of degrees has a precision of 0.1 degrees Celsius.
    I'm not familiar with American thermometers, they might have a single decimal digit as well, which would move that precision towards 0.05 degrees C, but that sort of precision is not necessary and it turns the "no decimals" argument on it's head.

  19. Re:Sensational! on Police Raid Home of 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay User, Seize "Winnie the Pooh" Laptop · · Score: 1

    The most that can really be said is the 600 euro fine (and the non-disclosure agreement) is absurd for what the alleged crime is.

    I find it strange that a house is being raided over a 600 euro fine. It probably costs 10 times that much money to raid the place and analyze the contents of whatever they have seized.

  20. Re:Get homeshcooled on Student Refusing RFID Badge Now Fights Expulsion Order · · Score: 1

    A school should think of the children, yes, but not by limiting their freedoms and invading their privacy. A school should make sure those "threats" simply have no way of entering the school. That should be their priority, not tracking their every move like a bonafide Big Brother.

  21. Re:Get homeshcooled on Student Refusing RFID Badge Now Fights Expulsion Order · · Score: 2

    Schools have a right to enforce a learning environment as oppressive as some of the highschool slashdotters readers who want to say otherwise. At work you have to do what your boss says or you will be shown the door. What is so different with school. These are not implanted chips or anything and with drug dealers, pedophiles, and other problems it is not a bad idea to track where each student is.

    You're reasoning this the wrong way around. Is your boss tracking you with an RFID chip? Would you like it if he did? I guess not, so why would schools be allowed to do this? Also, your "but think of the children!!" reasoning is a little bollocks as well. The school should make sure drug dealers, pedophiles and "other problems" don't get onto school property. If a school feels it's necessary to track students to protect them from those kinds of problems while they're at the school grounds, then the school is doing something very, very wrong.

  22. Re:Microsoft is right on Microsoft Complains That WebKit Breaks Web Standards · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, webkit only prefixes CSS keywords with webkit- if they're CSS3 drafts that aren't finalized yet. Mozilla is doing the same with Firefox where they prefix things with moz-. The border-radius example is especially a poor one because the border-radius property has been supported for quite some time by both webkit and mozilla, and the webkit- and moz- prefixed variants are deprecated.

  23. Re:It has to be within the app? on California AG Gives App Developers 30 Days To Post Privacy Notice · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, that isn't the biggest problem. Yeah sure, an in-app privacy policy is a problem for a developer, but I'm sure that if you've submitted your app to the appstore within the 30 day limit and it's denied by Apple because of a different reason, a judge will probably take that into account when deciding on that issue.

    No, a much bigger issue in the difference between in-app or an in-store privacy policy is for the consumer. If the privacy policy is in the store, you can read it and assess it before downloading and installing the app. If you don't like the privacy policy, then don't download and install the app. If it's an in-app document or link, then you have to download, install, run, possibly even create an account an login all before you get to see the privacy policy. By that time, the app has probably already completely sucked all personal information out of your phone and submitted it to the app owner.

    Same with a EULA that's presented to you when you install a piece of software on your PC. That EULA is presented to you after you've bought the software. So if you don't agree with the EULA, then I'm pretty sure the seller is forced to completely refund the software to you. It's basically the same thing as buying a bread from the baker and after paying, the baker says that you are only allowed to eat the bread at home, and only if don't put any meat on it.

  24. Re:context on UK Man Arrested For Offensive Joke Posted On Facebook · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it tasteless to make such a joke in front of that audience? Probably.
    Should the police and a judge be involved in something like this? No way.
    A simple moderation action by a Facebook employee (or even the page owner) could've dealt with it in a far better way. What's wrong with a little common sense?
    In fact, I hadn't heard of Mark Bridger or his case, but now I do and now I know about the joke. If a moderator would've simply removed the comment, then it wouldn't spread further. Now it does.

  25. Re:I Wonder If It Will Matter on W3C Announces Plan To Deliver HTML 5 by 2014 · · Score: 2

    Mozilla is still giving HTML 5 a shot with FirefoxOS, but unless major phone manufacturers pick up on that it's DOA as far as I'm concerned.