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User: Glires

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Comments · 18

  1. The pranks were just trojan horses on Ask Slashdot: What Happened To the Prank Apps That Used To Be Popular? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I still have a CD that has a library of all the prank apps that I used to use back in the 90s. Nowdays when I read the disk, modern virus scan software reveals that every single one of them was really a trojan horse that was meant to secretly deliver a spyware app, a backdoor, or a virus.

  2. De da dee da dee da do do on Microsoft Edge To Support Dolby Audio · · Score: 1

    You haven't really heard the Hamster Dance until you've heard it in Dolby

  3. And if you believe that... on South Park Game Censored On Consoles Outside North America · · Score: 1

    The last two weeks we've been too busy to play video games and, look at what we did. There's been drama, action, romance... I mean honestly you guys, do we need video games to play? Maybe we started to rely on Microsoft and Sony so much that we forgot that all we need to play are the simplest things. Like, like this. [grabs a stick from the ground] We could just play with this. Screw video games, dude! Who needs them?!

  4. Misinformation Demolition Derby on Government To Require Vehicle-to-vehicle Communication · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So all I have to do is alter my car so that it tells the other cars that I am approaching from behind at 120 mph when I'm really only driving 60 mph and the cars in front of me will automatically swerve out of my way! Awesome!

  5. This is why poeple call their jobs "work" on Ask Slashdot: What Do You Do If You're Given a Broken Project? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your description sounds exactly like the only thing that I've ever been paid to do in my entire career. My job is to fix broken things and make them work. It sounds like that's your job, too. If everything were working perfectly, they wouldn't have needed to hire you in the first place. If fixing the project is beyond your skill, then perhaps moving on to a different employer is a good idea.

  6. Re:The example is flawed on Why Standard Deviation Should Be Retired From Scientific Use · · Score: 1

    A problem with that line of thinking is that if those five values are the whole population of interest then you cannot establish that it is a normal distribution, which is a fundamental prerequisite for even considering the existence of a "standard deviation". Even for samples, normal-curve statistics are designed for large sample sizes (n>30). If your sample size isn't large enough to derive a normal distribution curve, then your RMS values are not measuring from the normal peak, but rather from a meaningless arbitrary value. Robotically plugging a small sample size into a large-sample statistical formula doesn't produce a valid statistical result any more than plugging your body weight into "C x 9/5 + 32 = F" would tell you your body temperature.

  7. The example is flawed on Why Standard Deviation Should Be Retired From Scientific Use · · Score: 1

    The example in the article isn't even an example of a standard deviation. He may have plugged his five values into the RMS formula, but what it produced isn't an actual standard deviation because five values is too small of a sample size.
    This article is really a demonstration of why people should stop misusing the term "standard deviation" than it is an argument of why people should stop using standard deviation.

  8. "Moo"ving off-topic on Facebook May Dislike the Social Fixer Extension, but Many Users Love It (Video) · · Score: 1

    Well, with the automated milking systems used on precision dairy farms the cows do get to choose how they get milked. Not that it has anything to do with the Facebook discussion other than to suggest that Facebook treats its users with less respect than the average dairy cow.

  9. Who would know to stop updating? on How To Foil NSA Sabotage: Use a Dead Man's Switch · · Score: 1

    So how would the oblivious tech guy in charge of updating the message know to stop updating the message if the senior executive who knows about the contact and is under the gag order isn't allowed to tell the tech guy to stop updating the message?

  10. Maybe if they actually integrated it... on Skype: Has Microsoft's $8.5B Spending Paid Off Yet? Can It Ever? · · Score: 3

    Of course Microsoft isn't going to make any profit on Skype if they don't actually use it in any of their products.
    Sure it's in Office365, but it's not in Office 2012.
    I guess it will be in the not-yet-released XBox One, but it isn't in the currently-available XBox 360.
    They didn't give me the option of merging my Skype friends with the Xbox friends, or my Outlook contacts with the Skype contacts, only my MSN contacts (by now I had forgotten I even had any MSN contacts).
    Some idealist in the Microsoft management probably thinks that Skype will be some sort of hook that makes people buy products and should therefore be limited to the products that most badly need marketing help. But in reality all they have done is put Skype on track to be obsolete before they even finish integrating it with any of their products. In a few years, Microsoft will have killed Skype like they killed Groove.

  11. But will the car be compatible with my street? on Concern Mounts Over Self-Driving Cars Taking Away Freedom · · Score: 1

    I'd sure hate to buy a Google car and then find out that my town is having all of the streets automated by Microsoft. I wouldn't be able to get my car past the driveway!

  12. Re:Doesn't need to be multi-tasking on Using Laptop To Take Notes Lowers Grades · · Score: 1

    I completely agree. Not just in school but I've also found it true in business meetings. The only notes worth taking have drawings, charts, annotations, margin notes, circled words, arrows, non-roman characters, etc. If the information is something that is easy to type on a laptop, then chances are that nobody needed it to be written down in the first place.

  13. The private key is locked in a vault... on Ask Slashdot: How Do I Request Someone To Send Me a Public Key? · · Score: 1

    If you are sending an email to a large corporation, then the public key is useless to you because whomever is receiving your email doesn't have permission to use the company's private key to decrypt the email.

  14. How is this bad news? on Brown vs. Startup Over a Sandwich · · Score: 1

    So the university that "really encourages entrepreneurship" has managed to get the entrepreneur free national publicity by threatening (but not actually filing, to date) a lawsuit. I feel like a tool just for having read the article.

  15. Responsibility, what's that? on The Man Who Sold Shares of Himself · · Score: 1

    This sounds like an overly complicated way for someone to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions.

  16. It depends on how critical the product is on Ask Slashdot: How Often Do You Push To Production? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sometimes all of those meetings and paperwork serve a useful purpose when an application is critical. If a one-day build of instagram doesn't work, then the only consequence is that there are fewer grainy photographs of someone's cat. If a one-day build of a power distribution system doesn't work, then an entire city loses electricity.

  17. Free-Market Mad-Libs on The Case Against Net Neutrality · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hmmm... this line of thought sounds familiar for some reason.

    If the government regulates [mortgages], policies for [mortgages] are set by one entity: the [FTC]. However, if the government stays out, each company will set its own policies. If you don't like the [FTC]'s policies, you are stuck with them unless you leave the United States. If you don't like your [mortgage banker]'s policies, you can simply switch to another one. So which model sounds better to you?

  18. The author obviously doesn't listen to music... on Where Is The Innovation? · · Score: 1

    Did he forget about the MP3??
    I'd say that was a pretty big innovation that's crept into everyone's life and even changed how we think about intellectual property.
    Sure, you could argue that it's just an incremental improvement on previous compressions, but then again, the graphical browser is basically just an incremental improvement on the text-browsers that we've had since the 60's.

    But on another note, I really don't think that a technology that hasn't even made it's first half-century should be prematurely lumped into the same category as millenially old innovations as wheels and mechanizing warfare.

    Why doesn't someone find some real news to post instead of just picking these abstract arguments? I'd call that an innovation.