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User: Chris+Mattern

Chris+Mattern's activity in the archive.

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Comments · 7,102

  1. Re:Training the boy to be a manly man on Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday · · Score: 1

    *Tight* tights!

  2. Re:traitor on Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not? It's *West Virginia*. WV got carved out of Virginia for the express purpose of having the natives shoot at rebels.

  3. Re:Monopoly on EA Spends 3x More On Marketing Than Development · · Score: 1

    2K sports no longer has the rights to produce sports games with actual major-league teams. EA has bought exclusive rights to all of them.

  4. Re:Awful attitude on Alan Turing Apology Campaign Grows · · Score: 1

    No one has memory of the emotional impact of the Mongols and the Roman empire.

    Considering that the Mongols and Roman Empire had nothing to do with each other (the Mongols entered Europe some 700 years after Rome fell), that's not surprising.

  5. Re:just Turing? on Alan Turing Apology Campaign Grows · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just because you think an apology from the people who didn't do it to the people it wasn't done to is pointless doesn't mean that you think that it should be forgotten.

  6. Re:just Turing? on Alan Turing Apology Campaign Grows · · Score: 3, Insightful

    An apology from the government is a symbolic act,

    "Symbolic acts" aren't worth the archetypes they're printed on.

  7. Re:Gentoo?? on Making an Open Source Project Press-Friendly · · Score: 1

    No, no, that's backwards. You get a girlfriend if it's front page news. That's why you should return the reporter's calls.

  8. Re:WTF? on Crime Expert Backs Call For "License To Compute" · · Score: 2, Funny

    So you're saying it only works if you're an Ork, then.

  9. Re:Note to self: buy another laptop on Homeland Security Changes Laptop Search Policy · · Score: 1

    Fine, *process* your stuff on the laptop, for which you may need all kinds of horsepower. But the files themselves shouldn't be there; have your apps access them remotely.

  10. It's an emergency! on Emergency Government Control of the Internet? · · Score: 1

    Someone is *wrong* on the Internet!

  11. Re:Note to self: buy another laptop on Homeland Security Changes Laptop Search Policy · · Score: 1

    Bingo. My laptop has no data on it, and with rare and temporary exceptions, it will stay that way. All data is in boxes that stay in secured areas, which I access via encrypted VPN.

  12. Re:Copying files on Homeland Security Changes Laptop Search Policy · · Score: 1

    How did you know there was a number 2, and that it was classified? I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to come in to clarify some things, sir.

  13. Re:Best line of story: on Treasured "Moon Rock" Is Petrified Wood · · Score: 5, Funny

    "And when we held the rock up to the receiver, NASA said, 'Yep, that's just what a moon rock sounds like!'"

  14. Re:Doesn't suprise me on Bug Means High School Students' Schedule Errors May Last Days · · Score: 1

    Prince George's County "Upper Marlboro Schools" is a complete clusterfuck.

    Prince George's County *anything* is a complete clusterfuck. You should see their police. Hope you have medical insurance, and a good lawyer. With the latter, you might actually make a good profit out of the encounter.

  15. Re:Probably for the best... on Bug Means High School Students' Schedule Errors May Last Days · · Score: 1

    I guess "Student Kills Teacher During Class" is preferable.

  16. Re:Gotta love the straight-faced hypocrite on "Violent" Video Games To Be Banned In Venezuela · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A hallmark of civilization everywhere is the idea that the state, as embodied by the government, has a monopoly on violence.

    Guess I live outside of "civilization." Don't worry, I'm just as happy having a right to self-defense.

  17. Re:Egoism, Individualism and Violence. on "Violent" Video Games To Be Banned In Venezuela · · Score: 1

    Individualism interferes with your proper sense of duty to do whatever El Jefe tells you to.

  18. Re:The rat race continues.. on WPA Encryption Cracked In 60 Seconds · · Score: 0

    The question is can anything be secure in the long term if an attacker can monitor the conversation between alice and bob 24/7?

    And the answer has been shown to be yes for any reasonable definition of long term...but only if you don't fall into one of a huge number of subtle errors that can be made.

  19. Re:It's a search without a warrant. on ACLU Sues For Records On Border Laptop Searches · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They don't want to know what's on your laptop - not really. There's 3 factors here. First, they enjoy intimidating people. It makes them feel important. Not because they're assholes, but because they're human. Part of the reason for the bill of rights is to protect us from ourselves. We are all capable of terrible things.

    There's so much wrong with that statement it's hard to pick a point so I can coherently counter your foolishness.

    That said- I assure you that the founders of this country didn't believe we needed protecting from ourselves.

    On the contrary, his statement is very, very correct. Start by Googling the Stanford prisoner experiment. Then you can go on to the Milgram experiment. It's not pleasant reading.

    And the founders were extremely aware that we needed protection from ourselves. They regarded it as the primary problem in constructing a fair and stable government, in fact. As James Madison said in the Federalist Papers, "It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

  20. Re:It's a search without a warrant. on ACLU Sues For Records On Border Laptop Searches · · Score: 1

    a US or British style Bill of Rights and Constitution

    The United Kingdom has neither a Bill of Rights nor a Constitution.

  21. Re:Very Optimisitic Speedo. on Steam-Powered Car Breaks Century-Old Speed Record · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was tempted to put up a picture link for "very optimistic speedo" but on second thought, I'm afraid of what Google might turn up.

  22. Re:All oficial times on Steam-Powered Car Breaks Century-Old Speed Record · · Score: 3, Informative

    Um, no, they don't. Coal-fired ships generated steam to drive a reciprocating piston engine. Nuclear powered ships use their superheated steam to drive turbines.

    Also, "naval", unless the ships you're referring to are in fact associated with belly buttons.

  23. Re:Encryption != Security on Sun Plans Security Coprocessor For New Ultrasparc · · Score: 1

    You're making a fundamental mistake. You're assuming that the terminology applied by the vendor is meant to be descriptive. Its only purpose is to persuade people that they want to buy it.

  24. Re:Hack The Planet on Offshore Drilling Rigs Vulnerable To Hackers · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't worry, Dan Brown completely obfuscated the code for that.

  25. Re:Foxes in charge of the henhouse... makes sense on Nielsen Struggles To Track Modern Viewing Habits · · Score: 1

    The media companies have a vested interest in getting the best audience data they can, so I'd say the "foxes...henhouse" argument is flawed in this case.

    The media companies have no such interest. The *customers* of the media companies (the advertisers) have that interest. The media companies have a vested interested in prying as much money as they can out of the advertisers. Which they can do by getting large audience numbers...or by forging large audience numbers. This is very much the foxes guarding the henhouse.