Slashdot Mirror


User: Chris+Mattern

Chris+Mattern's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
7,102
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 7,102

  1. Re:Solution?: Use DRAM SSD for email storage on Corporations Face Problems with Employee Emails · · Score: 1

    That should work fine for your private email server, however, public businesses are subject to a whole host of records retention guidelines,


    Public business are subject to tighter rules on record keeping than private persons, true. But if it's shown you deleted information after the subpoena for it was served, it doesn't matter what you are, your ass is grass.

    Chris Mattern
  2. Re:Solution?: Use DRAM SSD for email storage on Corporations Face Problems with Employee Emails · · Score: 2, Informative

    Don't be ridiculous. You subpoena *information*, not hardware. You present them with a hard drive that's been wiped of its data, even if you wiped it merely by unplugging it, and you've erased subpoenaed data, and you are in a WHOLE lot of trouble, including, quite possibly, criminal prosecution and jail time.

    Chris Mattern

  3. Re:Couple Thoughts on Where are Wii? · · Score: 1

    The whole generation of NES gamers are graduating college now,


    The NES was released in 1985. Assuming the "generation of NES gamers" was 5 at the time, they are now 27. Maybe if they hadn't spent so much time with the NES they'd have graduated earlier.

    Chris Mattern
  4. Re:Meh. on CompUSA To Close All Stores · · Score: 1

    Yeh, I live right near where the old Alexandria CompUSA store was. It got closed in the first big wave of closings a few months back.

    Chris Mattern

  5. Re:A New Mech Warrior or Shadowrun MMO? on Shadowrun Finds a New Home · · Score: 1

    Well, yeah. In a MechWarrior MMO, every character should be, well, a MechWarrior, just like every character in City of Heroes is a superhero. That seems kinda obvious to me...

    Chris Mattern

  6. Re:Fantasy of Finality on Final Fantasy Turns 20 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The title "Final Fantasy" is another example of Engrish. The Japanese meaning of the title is "Fantasy of Finality,"


    OK, you've intrigued me. How can the title have a Japanese meaning when *it's not in Japanese!* (Yes, the game has the same English title in Japan. No, it's never had a Japanese title).

    Chris Mattern
  7. Re:In a perfect world on Gates Expresses Surprise Over IE8 Secrecy · · Score: 1

    Then if I want to go to a web site that needs to execute script, but which I do not want to extend full trust, I use FireFox with NoScript and limit what script sources I allow to run.


    So, you're saying that IE7's security model is sufficient broken that you have to use Firefox for the places where it doesn't work for you. Which, by my estimation, is going to be a significant fraction of the sites on the open internet.
  8. Wow... on Saturn's Moons Built From Ring Material · · Score: 1

    Fourteen posts and no "That's no moon..." jokes yet?

    Chris Mattern

  9. Re:Good job! on Ham Radio Operators Are Heroes In Oregon · · Score: 1

    Fast, small--and useless in wide-spread emergencies, as the cell network invariably collapses under the crush of the sheer number of calls people are attempting to make. All you're going to get out of a cell phone in a real emergency is a message that your call could not be completed.

    Chris Mattern

  10. Re:Shall I tell you a story on British Village Requests Removal From GPS Maps · · Score: 1

    There once was a time when most trucks had TWO people in the cabin, the driver and the "bijrijder" (no idea what the english word his, but his job is to lend a hand).


    Babelfish translates it as "driver's mate". You may have once had such a thing in the Netherlands, but honestly, I don't think it's ever been done in the US. In fact, I'd never really heard of this before.

    Chris Mattern
  11. Re:Easier solution on British Village Requests Removal From GPS Maps · · Score: 1

    Plus English towns don't have authority to impose such a fine. English government is pretty centralized. Authority to extract money out of the citizenry is *very* centralized.

  12. Re:Support CC authors and related publishers. on An Acerbic Look At the Future of Reading · · Score: 1

    I think you need to talk to your ISP, or something. All those pages loaded perfectly fine for me, although the lobsterhunter and linuxchix pages didn't have anything on them about Kindle.

    CHris Mattern

  13. Re:Management != Techies on Large Tech Companies Moving Beyond the Cubicle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Noise-isolating headphones work mostly against background white noise. They aren't so good at blocking out, say, the guy talking on the phone one cubicle over. Earplugs, on the other hand, are very effective and quite cheap.

    Chris Mattern

  14. Re:I wrote this essay over a year ago... on Secret Mailing List Rocks Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    Well, since all opinions are valid, the opinion that wikipedia should secretly favor qualified experts is a valid opinion, and you should have no problem with what they're doing. Right?

    Chris Mattern

  15. Re:Maybe it's their new hookup instructions? on Comcast Continues to Block Peer to Peer Traffic · · Score: 1

    I think the problem may be due to their new cable modem hookup diagram.


    While that is funny as hell taken out of context, if the context is what I think it is, it's actually very, very good instructions and I'm glad to see Comcast is doing it. Because plugging your computer directly to the internet before making sure it's configured, patched and firewalled is a really *bad* idea.

    CHris Mattern
  16. Re:how, exactly on Texas Science Director Forced To Resign Over ID Statements · · Score: 1

    3,000 years ago how could you have a scientific review of planetary structures, e.g. is the the world is round or not?


    Well, as far as the earth being round, that was easy.

    Watching ships disappear hull first as they sail over the horizon.

    The fact that there *is* a horizon.

    Observing the earth's round shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse.

    There's abundant evidence that the Earth is round that only requires you to take notice of what's around you. By about 2500 years ago most philosophers were agreed that the Earth is round.

    Getting rid of the Earth being at the center of the universe took a lot longer, of course. It shouldn't have; it should've been accepted much earlier that the intricate epicycles of the Ptolemian system were simply ridiculous. But that one had a lot of man's view of himself in the universe tied up in it.

    Chris Mattern
  17. Re:Corporate Censorship on Game Journalist May Have Been Fired Over Negative Review · · Score: 3, Informative

    Who was the last President you know of that was not from the big two parties? 1849/50?


    1797. The last President who was not from one of the two big parties was George Washington, who wasn't a member of any party, nor was Congress divided into parties during his administration. The original framers of the Constitution disliked parties and had attempted to craft a system of government that wouldn't require them (as a Parliamentary system like Britain's does). However, inevitably, after Washington, the US political scene was always divided up into two parties, and the President always came from one of those two parties. One party was always the Democratic Party (originally the Democratic-Republican Party), while the other was replaced several times (the Federalist Party, then the National-Republican Party, then the Whigs and finally the modern Republican party in the 1850s). If you only want to count Democrats and Republicans, than the last one was Millard Fillmore, President from 1850 to 1853, who was a Whig.

    Chris Mattern
  18. Re:Apropos quote in the article on Media Research Exec Says Music Industry Is On Its Last Legs · · Score: 2, Funny

    if the music industry goes away, who will provide music?


    Musicians?

    Chris Mattern
  19. Re:Uh... on Vista Branding Confusing Even To Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Your argument would be more convincing if it weren't for the fact that in the "system requirements" listed for any software "recommended requirements" are in fact the minimum requirements, while minimum requirements are "if you have this, the box won't burst into flames. Probably."

    Chris Mattern

  20. Re:Think of the Avatars on Flawed Online Dating Bill Being Pushed in New Jersey · · Score: 1

    How would one do a background check on an avatar? Or will Avatars simply now be discriminated against, and prohibited from joining social sites altogether?


    Poor Aang, that seems very unfair to him.

    Chris Mattern
  21. Re:obigatory joke on Russian Police Seize Kasparov · · Score: 2, Funny

    Checkmate!


    If he can just hit that bulls-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards!

    Chris Mattern
  22. Re:Skype unbreakable? on Skype Encryption Stumps German Police · · Score: 0, Troll

    Bundesverfassungsgericht


    Mark Twain was right. The German language is a tool of the devil.

    Chris Mattern
  23. Re:In Jedi on When Did Star Wars Jump the Shark? · · Score: 1

    This degree of "fail" in Ep1 did however set us up properly for the journey to the city of Whine that was the teenage Anakin.


    At least we know his son Luke "I thought you said this thing was fast" Skywalker comes by it honestly, along with his midichlorians. And Han did smack him down for it, now that I think of it...maybe that's why things worked out for him :-).

    Chris Mattern
  24. Re:Well on computers at least on Why Do Games Still Have Levels? · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did you have to get the icicle from your house, or his?


    Actually, you have to get the icicle from an ice gnome. But the gnome doesn't want to give to you, so you have to get the sleeping herb to put him to sleep to get it. But the apothecary that sells the herb only takes Borgrovians Drikkits for payment. So you have to travel to Borgrovia and..

    Chris Mattern
  25. Re:My fear on 6 Major Pre-Production Electric Vehicles Compared · · Score: 1

    Yes because a 15 gallon tank filled with gasoline is as safe as kittens.

    Doesn't matter if you store energy in batteries or in combustable liquides, when a fuel cell full of stored energy is released in an uncontrolled manner, it will always suck.


    You say this like you expect the public reaction to be rational. One death in a LiIon fire and the batteries will be banned.

    Chris Mattern