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User: labratuk

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Comments · 768

  1. Re:419 Eater on Nigerian Scammers Scammed · · Score: 1

    Oh man, I suck.

  2. 419 Eater on Nigerian Scammers Scammed · · Score: 3, Informative

    For more examples of this, people at 419Eater and scamorama have been reverse scamming 419ers for years now. Oh and then there's my sig.

  3. Quick on Software to Divide an Image Into Discrete Patterns · · Score: 5, Informative

    Open inkscape. Drag image in. Select imported image. Go Path -> Trace bitmap. You'll probably want to use the 'multiple scanning' options. Probably with fewer than the default 8 scans. Select created vectors. Open the fill & stroke dialog and set it to 'no fill' and a plain black stroke.

    As always, you'll want to play with parameters to get good results.

  4. Re:TOLD YOU SO! on WGA Turning Off PCs in the Fall? · · Score: 1

    Have you considered growing up, stopping playing games and doing something productive with your free time? I can tell you - it's a lot more satisfying.

  5. Re:How is this legal? on WGA Turning Off PCs in the Fall? · · Score: 1
    "Hey, our operating system isn't designed to break deliberately."

    Hmm. I don't think Apple can say that. Their operating system is crippled to only run on their computers.
  6. Whew. on Using Agile Methodologies To Make Games? · · Score: 1
    Agile puts the emphasis on producing demonstrable iterations of a game almost immediately into production, creating prioritized vertical slices that iterate on the most critical elements and features. The method also puts great emphasis on the organization of teams and the relationships therein, as well as the cycles in which teams must plan and carry out their project objectives.

    God knows managers have to find something to talk about to justify their salaries.
  7. Re:WRT54G well worth it on Linux Hackers Reclaim the WRT54G · · Score: 1
    Others have said it, but the reason is that VXWorks has a smaller footprint. The VXWorks versions have half the ram and half the flash space of the other versions.

    They obviously didn't try very hard. A bunch of 'amateurs' having to reverse engineer the thing proved that it was possible to fit a fast and stable linux system into that small space.
  8. Re:The people who criticise Richard Stallman... on RMS Calls to Liberate Cyberspace · · Score: 1
    Having NO drivers versus proprietary ones - which is better?
    Not having bought the dodgy unsupported hardware.
  9. Re:S-ATA hotplug on Linux 2.6.17 Released · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://linux-ata.org/software-status.html#hotplug

    It's not just a matter of enabling it, it's about making it reliable.

    More here: http://linux-ata.org/features.html

  10. Re:Moral of the story... on RAID Controller Shoot-Out · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...and a proprietary striping format, so when you have controller problems you have to use the same vendor's software & hardware to recover your data.

  11. Excellent on UK Music Fans Can Copy Own Tracks · · Score: 1
    Mr Jamieson also called for Apple - which makes the popular iPod portable music player - to open up its iTunes software so it is compatible with the technology of other manufacturers. Apple applies a digital protection system to its downloads, which means they are not usually compatible with other companies' devices.

    Haha.

    "But Apple's DRM is super extra good because it's Apple, guys, and they're on our side. It's not Steve's fault - the music industry tells him he has to cripple the files."
  12. Re:The problem is Linux, not Lenovo on Lenovo To Shun Linux · · Score: 1
    Do you know of any other laptop where *all* hardware components work under Linux as they are supposed to?
    Thinkpad R50e. Audio is fine. Display is an intel i8x0 - works fine with DRI - 3D acceleration, video acceleration. Ethernet fine (why wouldn't it be?). Block devices fine. Never had a reason to try the modem. All the special little keys are fine (although some of them I have yet to assign to do anything).

    This actually all came out of the box working with debian etch installer (beta2 I think).
  13. Re:Oh Right... on Microsoft Claims OpenDocument is Too Slow · · Score: 1
    ...before Apple eats your lunch.
    What - making crappy proprietary lock-in software?
  14. Re:Remarkably Calm and Coherent for RMS on The Curious Incident of Sun in the Night-Time · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, Free languages like python, perl, ruby and php are incredibly fragmented.

    You want to be able to rely on something unified like Java ( and sablevm and kaffe and jamvm and microsoft java and ibm java and gnu classpath and gcj and jikes and apache harmony and jupiter ).

  15. Re:Understandable on The Curious Incident of Sun in the Night-Time · · Score: 1
    Even more frustrating is that many of the other OSS "leaders" (*cough*de Icaza*cough*) feel it necessary to start brand new projects out of a sense of NIH syndrome rather than help support the platforms that are actually needed by the industry.
    Oh, so we shouldn't try and go off and actually do something for ourselves and instead should sit around whining about why Sun won't give us a free handout?

    Eating out of the palm of their hand is exactly where Sun wants us, and it would certainly not give them an incentive to make java Free software.
  16. Re:Again, is it IM's fault? on New IM Worm Installs Own Web Browser · · Score: 1

    Hey, do you know what OSs are for? Managing more than one process on a processor at once. So what you'd basically be doing is reinventing the same thing, only this time with a huge great big hunk of mostly unused code (the kernels) sitting between the master OS and the processes. This doesn't give you much.

    You've got to accept that processes have to be able to talk to each other (read the IPC chapter in your unix manual). And if they can do that, it can be exploited. Repeatedly virtualising everything ad nauseum is not a real solution.

  17. Re:Oh well... on Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux? · · Score: 1
    And you will never get average users to care about what is (from their perspective) the abstract philosophy of a bunch of hardcore nerds.

    Then you will never end up with a (majority used) system that's better than windows.
  18. Re:He's sorta right, but mostly off target on Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux? · · Score: 1

    Well done for determinedly trying to do something the windows way on unix and failing miserably. Unix is clearly inadequate.

  19. Re:Oh well... on Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux? · · Score: 1
    Why haven't any Linux companies done it?


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software

    It's about more than software which (supposedly) "just works".
  20. More fun.. on MIT Media Lab Fashions · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This technology will be a real boon for fickle New York City baseball fans at the Subway Series in the future (they can simply flip a switch to change from a Mets to a Yankees jersey.

    Does this hint at the possibility of 24bit truecolour mexican waves?
  21. Re:he may have some valid points. on John Dvorak's Eight Signs MS is Dead in the Water · · Score: 1
    Preoccupation with Google. Microsoft is too easily distracted by successful companies who are not competitors. There is a deep-rooted belief that if a company like Google is successful, then they are an enemy per se.
    If we follow your Idea that Microsoft is no longer affected by the market, I think Google is a competitor. Microsoft's main business now is Being A Gorilla (tm). Having a lot of money allows them to enter almost any market, underperform and create bad products, and still come out on top.

    Microsoft sees Google amassing large amounts of capital and thus gaining the power to compete with them in the Being A Gorilla arena. Microsoft fears getting crushed.

    But then again, what do I know?
  22. Re:ffmpeg, nice! on Summer of Code Now Taking Student Applications · · Score: 1

    Agreed that ffmpeg is a very cool and vital project.

    However, if I could have one wish granted, it would be for more projects to use the system libav* as opposed to embedding their own in their projects. I'm sure I have at least five copies of the ffmpeg code on my machine here.

    Am I right in thinking that the ffmpeg guys actually encourage embedding libav* rather than using it as a shared library?

  23. Re:Sometimes gentoo is a pain. on Homeland Security Uncovers Critical Flaw in X11 · · Score: 1

    Oops. I'm referring to another recent X vulnerability which was improper memory usage in XRENDER.

  24. Re:Sometimes gentoo is a pain. on Homeland Security Uncovers Critical Flaw in X11 · · Score: 1

    As almost all systems I have come into contact with by default start X with -nolisten tcp, this shouldn't be remotely exploitable per se. However, if someone malicious were to run a specially crafted X app on your desktop, they could get superuser priviliges.

    So it's something to worry about if you admin a bunch of unix desktop machines where the users mustn't get root. Or if you regularly download and execute random untrusted X apps from the internet. That could root you.

  25. Re:Anti-competative! Predatory! Monopoly! on Windows Vista To Make Dual-Boot A Challenge? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In ten years you'll be saying exactly the same thing about replacing cocoa so you don't need a machine made by Apple ever again.

    Way to go there, migrating to a locked in proprietary platform. Oh, and on top of that, one that's crippled to only run on mandated hardware.

    But Apple are hip at the moment, so it doesn't matter.