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User: a1englishman

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Comments · 244

  1. Re:What banks *should* do! on Anti-Phishing Tools · · Score: 1
    If you want to know something, you just visit eBay or your bank account.

    Why? Because your stolen information is likely to be available on eBay?

  2. Re:I can see it now.... on NASA Boosts AI For Planetary Rovers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There was an article in a recent Car and Driver, about the DARPA sponsored Grand Challenge. AI piloted vechiles had to traverse a course in the California dessert. None of the vechiles made it very far at all. As much as we'd all wish it, this kind of thing is a long way off. Here's DARPA's official site.

  3. Don't be fooled on MSIE 7 May Beat Longhorn Out The Gate · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't be fooled: IE6 will remain a pestulance for many years after IE7 debuts. There will be many people, influential people, who won't downloand IE7 because it's too big. Even if IE7 pulls some miracle and implements good CSS compliance, you're going to have to sense IE6 and below, and comensate for the damned thing.

  4. Re:No on Is Typing a Necessary Skill? · · Score: 5, Funny
    the fact that he was so familiar with the software running on that Mac that he didn't even need to see it

    That's because the Mac UI is so unbelievably perfect, that it hasn't changed in the period between a Mac SE and the NCC1701. Hadn't you noticed the portrait of Steve Jobs hanging in the back of the engine room, all these years?

    Flame suit on!

  5. Re:CEO testing? on Memory Card Torture Tests · · Score: 1

    The same kind of CEO who's password was always "password"....


    Well, it does ask for your password.

  6. Re:Bad news or good news for printing services? on Memory Card Torture Tests · · Score: 1

    Outside of drug stores with 1 hour developer machines, I have never seen a price of $2 to develop a 36 exposure roll. Drug stores are netorious for having bad chemicals, and machines full of lint. You want a good print, you send the film to Kodak or Fuji's lab, and pay the piper.

  7. Re:Who cares? on Can GNU Ever Be Unix? · · Score: 1
    If it's "close enough", surely big business are going to do more research than just look at whether it's been certified by The Open Group just so the Linux community can use its trademark?

    If company X has an application running on a certified Unix, and they want to replace it with cheaper hardware/software, they are going to want another certified Unix. Otherwise, they are going to waste a lot of time and money getting their application to run on the new platform. It is bennificial to them to get another certified Unix platform. If Linux and BSD could get Unix certification, it would help their adoption in these scenarios. However, as the article states, the Unix license agreement binds the signer to ensuring that all updates to the OS continue to remain compliant with the Unix certification.

    The author of the article seems to be of the opinion that the differences aren't very big; however, stated differences include threads and error codes. Thread APIs don't sound fun or easy, and while it may be easy to change error codes in the OS, this could screw lots of applications. Many would have to be recompiled, and a lot would have values hard coded, instead of #DEFINEd.

  8. Re:Question on OpenBSD 3.5 Reviewed · · Score: 1

    So you don't trust your employees?
    Do they complete their tasks in good time?
    Do you get acceptable results?
    If your employees are driven to playing games, have you taken time to examine whether you have an engaging environment, and make your employees' input welcome?
    Seems like the problem comes from higher up.

  9. Re:Ok, here is where I object: on PHP 5.0 Goes For Microsoft's ASP-dot-Net · · Score: 1
    We went through those pains where I work when NT4 hit EOL. (Ok, *technically* we hit those pains when MS refused to work on a fix because NT4 was going to hit EOL in the next 6 months.)

    Second, an honest question. *WHERE* can you still get NT4? I know that were I work we had to push a bunch of products through testing on Win2K because all of our suppliers notified us the same week that they were no longer able to get NT4 licenses.

    Basically, this is not much different from the old days of heavy metal. You bought a VAX or whatever, and you paid for an annual maintaince contract. DEC would provide upgrades to the OS, which were all paid for through the contract.

    Fast forward to today. Instead of paying for a service contract, everyone pays for OS upgrades. Many people procrastinate, and leave their servers running NT 4, while the world moves on to Server 2003. It's all very well crying boo hoo, but if you want to remain current, you have to pay the licensing fee.

    So, we're comparing a pay license from MS with a free license for Linux. Well, that's the decision you have to make. Do you want an enviroment that tries to make it easy for admins and developers, or do you want an environment where you have to memorize half a dozen HOWTOs and man pages to do anything?

    Linux is a good thing, indeed, but sometimes you have to sleep with the Devil.

  10. sneaky on Star Trek XI: Romulan Wars? · · Score: 1

    Maybe the Romulans are increadibly sneakie.

    Camera pans accross the bridge of the Romulan ship: There's nothing but shrubberies sitting in planters. Each time we return to the image of the bridge, the planters are in different spots.

    Ah, but we know where the Romulans are hiding: One planter blows up, killing the first Romulan. Then another, and another, and soon the Federation has thwarted their evil nemisis.

    Appologies to Monty Python.

  11. Re:That is the sound of inevitability... on Mono Project Releases Version 1.0 · · Score: 1

    I doubt you'd know pompus if it bit you on the ass. You are confused teenager with no experiance, and the sarcastic abilities of a dead penguin.

  12. Re:6 year uptimes... on VAX Users See the Writing on the Wall · · Score: 1

    The VAX wouldn't have required a powerdown to hardware upgrades, or software patches.

    With VAX, and its ilk, you have one big machine that will stay up no matter what. (Sounds like me ;-) With PCs and their ilk, you have lots of little, redundant, machines. You have to design failover into the system.

  13. Re:That is the sound of inevitability... on Mono Project Releases Version 1.0 · · Score: 1
    I can hack C and Lisp without having to bloat my machine with the latest virtual programming environment du jour. Try that with Windoze.

    I don't think you know what the bloody hell you're talking about. Java is a platform that insolates the developer from the system they are developing on. It gives them a level playing field on whatever machine a user may wish to use.

    .Net is advertised by Microsoft as being able to do this also. With the aid of Rotor and Mono, this is coming into reality. Even if it doesn't, it still adds value to its native platform: Windows.

    Your argumet gets muddled when you start associating the assumulation process with Java and .Net. The assimulation refers to everyone being forced to run Windows, or face being made extict. Java is absolutely a force in opposition to this affect. It allows people to use whatever platform they wish, without worrying about being made obsolete.

    As for your argument about Linux being better than Windows because you can "hack C and Lisp", I wonder if you've noticed these languages have been available to Doze since day one? Not only that, they are still redily available and in strong use. Well, not Lisp, but when has it?

    Your arguments are specious and lack clarity. Anyone claiming to be "l33t" probably isn't.

  14. How to make money on RIAA Dumps Unsold Inventory to Settle Anti-Trust Case · · Score: 1

    How to make money from the stash of CDs:

    1) Sell them on eBay
    2) Sell them door to door
    3) Stack them up in the crafts class, and make them into clocks. Sell them on eBay.
    4) Use them in experimants to remove epoxy coating, and recycle the aluminum. Once successful, sell them idea.

  15. Re:that setup is just cool on Big Bang of Convergence · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sad news my friend: When you have a houseand a little extra money, you won't have time to attempt this. You'll be mowing the lawn, hanging drapes, throwing away junk in the garage, entertaining your kids, and hanging out with the wife. I tend to believe the guy who built that system was making it all up. Sounds good, but pure fantasy.

  16. Re:Too Many Checkbox feature on Chipset Serial ATA RAID Performance Exposed · · Score: 1

    Much unlike the days of the IBM XT: Configure the hard drive via a set of DIP switches on the controller card. Lost the manual? Better hope the card was documented somewhere on someone's BBS.

    System remembering date and time? Either buy a clock card/chip, or get used to entering it every time the system reboots.

    Or them Commodore 64 disk drives (1541)? Had to snip a wire, inside the case, to change the drive's ID.

    My TRS-80 Model III was much better: Fast forward or rewind the cassette tape to where your program or data was stored. Press play and wait.

    We were cleaning our our garage the other day. I showed her an 8" floppy disk I had stowed away, and she just couldn't believe it. I promised her it would be better as a rigid device. ;-)

  17. Re:Software doesn't rust... on Software Upgrade Crashes UK Air Traffic Control System · · Score: 1
    The problem is that there is no GUI IDE and the current generation of programmers do not want to invest their time in trying to learn how to do some real programming.

    Oh give over, you gnarled old troll. Certainly, today's tools allow for faster and easier code development, but any competent developer could work without those tools. When I started, there were no debuggers for Turbo Pascal or Turbo C, you had to know what you're doing and develop good diagnostic skills to fix a bug. There's quite a number of incompetent people who can not diagnose a problem with a debugger. It has nothing to do with the generation.

    Software development is much more a craft than a science. It sucks that the BAA system went down, I feel for those developers who've toiled hard to make a safe and stable system. I hope lessons are learned, rather than a witch hunt ensues.

    It would've been nice if they had a redundant system to deploy to, and switched over to it. Often in these cases, it just isn't feasible. Even if they did, there's no guarantees that something would choke.

    30 year old systems may be written in C, but I expect this is written in Fortran or Cobol. These are the languages that are holding the world together.

    More then likely

    Furthermore, the correct word is "than". Then is used in sequences: "First I learned English, then I started posting to /." Than is a comparitor: "More people us English on /. than Japanese."

  18. Re:Lessons... on Attitudes in IT - Mediocrity Wins? · · Score: 1

    Mod the parent up as insightful, for God's sake!

  19. Re:Question: on In The Works: Windows For Supercomputers · · Score: 1

    Does the Cray YMP support CTRL-ALT-DEL?

    (/. ate my angle bracketed keys)

  20. Question: on In The Works: Windows For Supercomputers · · Score: 1

    Does the Cray YMP support ?

  21. They could strong arm us on China Developing own Standards · · Score: 1

    I don't know if you've noticed, but most of those standardized products are manufactured in China. Their population is great enough to force us to use their standards, rather than the other way around.

  22. Re:Seeing as they like history...... on Linus Not The Father Of Linux, According to Report · · Score: 2, Informative
    AFAIK, they were sued, and they lost, which is why DEC was allowed to modify NT to run on Alpha systems

    This is news to me. Perhase a little is true; however, Windows NT was designed and originally marketed to run on multiple platforms: Intel x86, MIPS, and Alpha. Microsoft took care of the x86 platform, but each vendor took care of the ports to MIPS and Alpha. In theory, only the Hardware Abstraction Layer needed work. As we all know, the MIPS and Alpha were hardly raging successes, and they eventually faded out and NT support killed by DEC and MIPS.

    Applications were supposed to be available in a variety of flavors: One for each platform that ran NT. Since no one took the time to port apps to MIPS or Alpha, there wasn't much demand. The Alpha was the fastest platform to run NT for quite some time, but the Pentiums got better, and the Alphas didn't keep up.

  23. Re:Neat on The Logic Behind Metric Paper Sizes · · Score: 2, Funny
    Tada! You'd get this.
    Now you've gone and done it. Thousands of people will be linking to Staples, and purchasing size A4. Staples in turn will start stocking nothing but A4, and the whole of American society will be turned on it's ear. Filing cabinets will be the wrong size, and all other social aspects will deteriorate. In the end, George W. Bush gets re-elected, and Chaney declares a war on intelligencia.

    You bastard!

  24. Re:Pray that we get more Congressmen like Rep Bouc on Two Congressmen Push for DMCA Amendments · · Score: 1
    What?! You mean Cowboy Neal isn't already on the ballot? Damn I thought it worked like a /. poll.
    Who would you elect for President?
    • George W. Bush
    • John Kerry
    • Zaphod Bebrobrox
    • Cowboy Neal
  25. Re:So basically, Sony copied Apple . . . on Sony Connect Online Music Download Store Launches · · Score: 1

    Where the bloody hell are you "routinely" buying new CD's for US$8? The sodding dark side of the moon, or your delusional fantasy?