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User: Chris+Mattern

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Comments · 7,102

  1. Re:Make sure the have basic English reading skills on Ask Slashdot: How To Reimagine a Library? · · Score: 2

    Yes, there's a lot of drivel in published books. The signal-to-noise ratio is *still* immensely better than random posts off the internet.

  2. Re:Teach the students what a library is on Ask Slashdot: How To Reimagine a Library? · · Score: 2

    Dinosaurs in F16s!

    Actually, it was tyrannosaurs in F-14s. Yes, those are recognizable as F-14s, too. Watterson was an excellent draftsman with a good eye for detail.

  3. Re:Pollution from China on Up To a Quarter of California Smog Comes From China · · Score: 1

    If you can show that US pollution is reaching Europe like Chinese pollution is reaching the US, then, yes, the EU should have a say. Can you show that a quarter of EU air pollution comes from the US?

  4. Re:Tried playing this game on Celebrating Dungeons & Dragons' 40th Anniversary · · Score: 1

    The original edition was the best IMO -- one single box, three small booklets with everything needed to play

    Er, come again? The original three-booklet edition did *not* have everything you needed to play. It directed you to have a copy of Outdoor Survival to do the wilderness adventures. You could probably fudge that, but what you *couldn't* fudge was that you also needed a copy of Chainmail for the combat rules (or else have a copy of the first supplement, Greyhawk, which introduced new combat rules).

  5. Re:Oblig XKCD on Yep, People Are Still Using '123456' and 'Password' As Passwords In 2014 · · Score: 1

    You didn't read the cited XKCD, did you? Not that kind of the brute force, the *other* kind. The kind where they beat it out of you with a lead-lined hose.

  6. Re:XKCD nailed this ages ago on Yep, People Are Still Using '123456' and 'Password' As Passwords In 2014 · · Score: 1

    If the hackers decide to use a dictionary attack, then an xckd-style password is about as good as one 4 characters long.

    Wrong! At best, one character has only a couple of hundred possibilities--more likely, less than a hundred. There are a lot more words, even if you limit yourself to common words.

  7. Re:Good news! on Yep, People Are Still Using '123456' and 'Password' As Passwords In 2014 · · Score: 1

    *And* you'll be able to use it to get into the presdient's luggage!

  8. Re:So I was sitting behind a Gbus/Fbus on 85 today on Protesters Show Up At the Doorstep of Google Self-driving Car Engineer · · Score: 1

    Ahem..
    BART!? /blockquote.

    I didn't do it! Nobody saw me do it! There's no way they can prove anything!

  9. Re:HP has the pull to get MS to fix windows by 8.2 on HP Brings Back Windows 7 'By Popular Demand' As Buyers Shun Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    No drilling through folders

    Newflash: I *want* to drill through folders. When you have enough items, organizing them into folders is the only way you'll find stuff.

  10. Re:Touch-screen desktop PCs are a fad on HP Brings Back Windows 7 'By Popular Demand' As Buyers Shun Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    Why not just layer touch on top of the existing UI?

    Because then you have a crappy touch UI. MS has already been down this road. Touch and keyboard/mouse are entirely different input methods and require entirely different UIs. Trying to use either in a UI built for the other is trying to hammer square pegs into round holes.

  11. Re:Chrome Remote Desktop on Short Notice: LogMeIn To Discontinue Free Access · · Score: 1

    Firewalls? Set SSH to listen on whatever port the firewall lets in. NAT? How does LogMeIn get through NAT, if it comes to that? If it's through a proxy, SSH can do that. You need to set up the proxy before hand, but that would be the case for LogMeIn, too.

  12. Re:This stuff is so stupid (and so is Forbes) on Candy Crush Maker King.com Has Trademarked 'Candy' For Games · · Score: 1

    I think the intent of the statement wasn't "Hasbro should have already trademarked Candy" as much as "The fact that Hasbro hasn't already trademarked Candy shows it's not trademarkable"

  13. Re:This isn't helping... on Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High · · Score: 1

    And how many people died at Three Mile Island? That's right: none.

  14. "A lot of the privacy people... on Senator Dianne Feinstein: NSA Metadata Program Here To Stay · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...perhaps, don't understand that we still occupy the role of the Great Satan."

    On the contrary, I think they understand that very well.

  15. Re:This isn't helping... on Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High · · Score: 1

    She said that communism is good at dealing with that kind of thing

    Remind me again, did Chernobyl happen in a capitalist regime? This is so wrong as to be ludricrous. The communist regimes of Eastern Europe and Russia (and China) have produced some of the worst ecology horror stories every seen. Commujnist regimes don't clean these sorts of messes up, they just make sure that anybody who complains about them get shut up, by force if necessary.

    She made the rather obvious point that communist states find it easier to act for the collective good

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Can't...breathe...

    If you think communist regimes are *ever* run for the benefit of anybody but those in charge, you are more delusional than I would've thought possible.

  16. Re:This isn't helping... on Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High · · Score: 2

    China is the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, not just in absolute terms but also per unit of GDP. Air pollution in Beijing is so bad that the health implications are very evident, and massive.

    But because they aren't a democracy, they'll be able to fix that! Well, they haven't done much *yet*, but they'll be able to get right on that. You betcha.

    Oh, wait, they have done something. They've insisted that the US Embassy in Beijing stop measuring the daily air quality.

  17. Not news on Study Doubts Quantum Computer Speed · · Score: 1

    It's long been known that quantum computing offers speed-ups only on certain problems. Thing is, many of those problems are of immense practical import (like factoring large numbers).

  18. Re:what makes it uncensorable? on Building An Uncensorable Course Guide At Yale · · Score: 4, Informative

    You see nothing of this sort in the summary because the summary is wrong. If you'd read TFA, you would've found out it is *not* a site, as stated by the summary, but rather a browser extension. Since it doesn't reside on any central server but rather in the browser of each individual student, it is indeed effectively uncensorable. However, it should be breakable: if Yale changes their website so that the extension no longer matches it and thus cannot scrape it, it should break.

  19. Re:For / While in C on Ask Slashdot: What's the Most Often-Run Piece of Code -- Ever? · · Score: 1

    That actually breaks the C standard, but I suppose control systems aren't much worried about portability.

  20. Re:Biology workbook on Creationism In Texas Public Schools · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At some point in recent American history, we decided what we believe is more important than what is.

    "Recent American history"? That has always been default mode for 95%+ of people everywhere. It used to be much, *much* worse.

  21. Re:Maybe... on US Senator Warns Against Political Surveillance By Drone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, she's got guns. She just doesn't want *you* to have them.

  22. Re:In other words on TrueCrypt Master Key Extraction and Volume Identification · · Score: 1

    Shut your machine OFF before you get to the border; don't put it to sleep.

    And when the spooks turn it back on, the key gets copied into RAM again because that's part of the bootup process, and necessary if the system is to read the disk and finish booting.

    In the end, it's difficult to secure something when you're handing them both the lock and the key, no matter how cunningly you've wrapped up the key.

  23. Re:very key reasons this is an issue. on OpenBSD Looking At Funding Shortfall In 2014 · · Score: 1

    This is simply nonsense. A single state laws can't make something legal in other countries.

    True, but the NSA, being a US government agency, only cares about what's legal in the US. It is perfectly willing to do what is illegal by Canadian law as long as it is legal by US law. I would be very surprised if Canadian intelligence agencies didn't work on the same principle in reverse.

  24. Re:Too bad on OpenBSD Looking At Funding Shortfall In 2014 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Heinlein had it nailed:

    "Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as âoeempty,â âoemeaningless,â or âoedishonest,â and scorn to use them. No matter how âoepureâ their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best. "

  25. Re:frost pist with a wager on GNU Guile Scheme Gets a Register VM and CPS-Based IL · · Score: 1, Troll

    Also, WTF is all this "guile" about?

    Sonic BOOM!