Slashdot Mirror


User: SJHillman

SJHillman's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
3,106
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 3,106

  1. Re:It's probably necessary on Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm pretty sure Ford's ability to make anything rust will transcend the laws of physics and we'll see aluminum transmute directly to iron oxide.

  2. Re:Self-fulling prophecy? on Antarctic Climate Research Expedition Trapped In Sea Ice · · Score: 1

    Just more proof that you can't measure a system without affecting that system.

  3. Re: hey, seems like all my US Postal Service packa on Surge In Online Orders Overwhelms UPS Christmas Deliveries · · Score: 1

    This is why I've started having important or time-sensitive packages delivered to the local UPS or FedEx store. It's not quite as convenient as being delivered right to my door, but I can usually get it a day or two earlier and don't have to worry about it being left in a mud puddle with a muddy welcome mat put over it (I'm looking at you, FedEx).

  4. Re:No sympathy here on Surge In Online Orders Overwhelms UPS Christmas Deliveries · · Score: 1

    Only if you can still count your birthdays on one hand. Most people understand that shipping is prone to unexpected delays year round, and it's almost guaranteed by mid-December.

  5. Re:What a load of BS on Surge In Online Orders Overwhelms UPS Christmas Deliveries · · Score: 1

    Tracking logs are not always accurate. Especially with FedEx... More than once I've had them mark a package Delivered several days before it actually showed up on my doorstep.

  6. Re:'merica on Surge In Online Orders Overwhelms UPS Christmas Deliveries · · Score: 1

    Google defines "First World" as "the industrialized capitalist countries of western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand."

    So unless you own a really crappy globe, "First World" and "Around the Globe" are not at odds, especially as Asian countries like India and China are pushing their way into First World status.

  7. Re:oh fucking cry about it. on Surge In Online Orders Overwhelms UPS Christmas Deliveries · · Score: 2

    When I pick a political candidate to vote for, I know he won't keep all of his campaign promises so I apply common sense to weed out the more farfetched ones.

    Likewise, when a company promises something that seems a bit farfetched (like making last minute deliveries just before Christmas), I know there's a good chance they'll fall short. It may not be ideal for the consumer, but it's how the world works.

    Surprisingly, USPS delivered all of our Christmas cards by the 23rd in spite of us not getting them out until the 21st, which was after their "Will deliver by Christmas" deadline.

  8. Re:Not so hot any more on ISS Coolant Pump Restarted After Successful Spacewalks · · Score: 2

    It's just to keep the astronauts cool in case they ever have to land the ISS on the sun and can't wait for night time. Duh.

  9. Re:Interesting trend... on Astronomers Discover When Galaxies Got Their Spirals · · Score: 3, Funny

    If Japan is any indication, multiple tentacles are usually followed by bukkake.

  10. Re:Evolution of complex structure. on Astronomers Discover When Galaxies Got Their Spirals · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I'm remembering my astronomy correctly, first generation stars were much larger and faster rotating, but also much shorter-lived in general - some had lifespans possibly as short as a few million years.

  11. Re:Quite a bit different than NSA tracking on It's Not Just the NSA: Police Are Tracking Your Car · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If there's no expectation of privacy on public roads, then why do people get freaked out if they notice someone following them? There is some expectation of privacy on public roads, especially as you move away from cities.

  12. Re:No on It's Not Just the NSA: Police Are Tracking Your Car · · Score: 1

    I bet they have a GPS tracker on that bus you're on too! They know exactly where it's going.

  13. Re:Better Than Commercial Software? on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 1

    A proper data backup plan will prevent crippling devastation, but to say "not seriously affected" is somewhat ignorant. On a large network, it can take significant time to restore all affected files - especially if you need to bring in your offsite backups like we did because it wasn't detected until that set had been moved to our other location. In the meantime, we had hundreds of users calling in and complaining they couldn't access many files. We didn't want to do a blanket restore because that would wipe out many changes to unaffected files.

    TL;DR: A proper backup plan is a storm cellar in a tornado. It keeps you alive, but there's still significant resources invested in clean-up.

  14. Re:Better Than Commercial Software? on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 1

    That seems unlikely, as this vendor has a long-term support contract with us and gained nothing extra from giving us help with it. But make sure you know who you can trust ahead of time.

  15. Re:Justice on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 1

    It requires the user to run it in the first place, usually as an email attachment. And users have long since been conditioned to click Yes/Run/Continue on every pop-up box that gets between them and their perceived goal. As annoying as it is, I like the things that ask "Block? Yes/No" rather than "Allow? Yes/No" because it helps stop some of this click-yes-without-reading behavior.

    The bright side of CryptoLocker's registry access is that it leaves a list of every file that it hit, which helped a lot when restoring from backups as we didn't need to test or restore absolutely every file.

  16. Re:Justice on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 1

    One issue is that it doesn't just affect the infected machine, but also every mapped drive. Reinstalling all of those systems would have been a nightmare's worth of downtime. Unfortunately, most of the mapped drives are a result of legacy systems with very finicky requirements that we can't move off of yet for one reason or another. I agree, your access control system would be nice (although I imagine the initial implementations would be a minor nightmare as proprietary apps try to lock out other programs that could otherwise read that data).

  17. Re:Justice on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 2

    We got hammered by CryptoLocker twice in November. Unfortunately, the backups of one of our affected fileservers crashed the same day, but we still lost very little data (none critical). The worst part is that it hits every mapped drive that the user has write-access to, and some of our legacy accounting and payroll systems require exactly those permissions. It's a real eye-opener, but what really gets you going is when you realize that CryptoLocker is actually pretty tame compared to what it could be - it only targets certain extensions, is easy to remove, is easy to block, and doesn't touch Windows.

  18. Re:NSA etc on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 2

    Get this labeled as "cyber-terrorism" (which is basically is) and they'll be all over it.

  19. Re:Why would anyone install this? on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 1

    I can't tell if you're a troll or just an average AC....

  20. Re:Better Than Commercial Software? on CryptoLocker Gang Earns $30 Million In Just 100 Days · · Score: 2

    We got hit by CryptoLocker twice back in November (in one case, it wreaked havoc on network shares because the user had way more permissions than necessary due to office politics). We didn't pay the ransom, but we worked with a vendor who was very familiar with CryptoLocker. According to them, every time people paid, they got the key as promised.

  21. Re:Apple or Apple Corps on Unreleased 1963 Beatles Tracks On Sale To Preserve Copyright · · Score: 1

    Maybe you should have it with an Apple strudel

  22. Re:yea right on Unreleased 1963 Beatles Tracks On Sale To Preserve Copyright · · Score: 1

    Which, by my calculations, is still under copyright for another 30 years anyway (released 1973).

  23. Re:All the more reason on Unreleased 1963 Beatles Tracks On Sale To Preserve Copyright · · Score: 5, Funny

    He puts his hear to the ground and listens for the distant stampede of electrons running through Cat5. For more interactive browsing, he fires up a faulty power supply to make smoke signals.

  24. Re:What they didn't say... on Next-Gen Windshield Wipers To Be Based On Jet Fighter "Forcefield" Tech · · Score: 1

    The US alone has almost 400 commercial airports with regularly scheduled flights. Worldwide, that number is probably in the thousands. I'd say that 13 exceptions to several thousand fits the bill for "generally" landing below 10,000 ft, unless you want to argue that those 13 airports see the majority of all air traffic.

  25. Re:What they didn't say... on Next-Gen Windshield Wipers To Be Based On Jet Fighter "Forcefield" Tech · · Score: 1

    You mean to say you never come to a stop during landing? You just keep doing 150mph throughout the entire thing? Let's hope your reading comprehension is a little better when it comes to flight manuals.