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User: necrognome

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Comments · 386

  1. seriously on Keeping Your Data Private From the NSA (And Everyone Else) · · Score: 2

    If you are an individual (e.g. not an intelligence agency), and the NSA is actually interested in your communications, then you have far more serious problems than data privacy. If they are your adversary, you have probably lost whatever game you were trying to play.

  2. Re:Constitution on The NSA: Never Not Watching · · Score: 1

    Wrong. Your "papers" are personal writings (e.g. journals, diaries, etc.) or correspondence of which there are no other copies. Your bank records, heating bills, and "phone call metadata" are copies of data that third parties (Citibank, Duke Energy, AT&T) own. Obtaining said data does not involve a search of your home or your person.

  3. Re:Any chance this will cause real outrage? on US Mining Data Directly From 9 Silicon Valley Companies · · Score: 1

    If you remember aaaalll the way back to 2005, a whistleblower at AT&T in San Francisco made public the NSA's secret wiretapping program. Despite ongoing lawsuits brought on by the EFF, it doesn't seem like the majority of the public really cared at all.

    Seems like most people simply don't give a shit about their rights.

    One could also say that the slippery slope didn't obtain. Disclaimer: I was outraged at the time, but have yet to see the men-with-guns at my door.

  4. Re:We don't need more privacy laws on Schneier On a Generation Gap In Privacy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The only people who *need* privacy are those who are a) doing something illegal or unethical and want to keep others from finding out or b) doing something competitive and want to keep their progress from their competition.

    People in category (a) deserve no legal cover for their actions.

    In other words, "People who are doing something unethical deserve no legal cover for their actions." 'Unethical' may be defined as "belonging to a class of activities that my peers and I disagree with or find distasteful." Your argument, and the fact that many others have similar positions, actually makes an excellent case for privacy.

  5. SNAFU on Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In · · Score: 1

    I woke up in the metaverse today.

  6. nth post on 1,234,567,890 Seconds Since Unix Time Began · · Score: 1

    Congratulations!? :D

  7. Re:Hahahah on McCain Picks Gov. Palin As Running Mate · · Score: 1

    What's the matter mods? After 10 years of VBA "engineering" do you find yourself managed by some "foreign guy" or *gasp* a female? ROFL.

  8. Re:Hahahah on McCain Picks Gov. Palin As Running Mate · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Equal Opportunity hire? Dude, I suspect some serious bitterness on your part towards "various groups," ostensibly for your own lack of success in life. If there are any beneficiaries of affirmative action among these candidates, they are the son of an admiral, and his running mate, the ex-beauty queen.

  9. Re:The devil is in the details on Judge Rules Man Cannot Be Forced To Decrypt HD · · Score: 1
  10. Re:So.. shall the bets begine on First Psystar Mac Clones Ship · · Score: 1

    "Hacker types" know how to build their own machines.

  11. Re:NE, NY states too small for this BS on New York to Implement an 'Amazon Tax' · · Score: 1

    Pissant states? ROFL. Do us a favor and stay the hell away from here when oil exceeds $200 a barrel. Enjoy the desert and the global warming.

  12. Re:Tax and spend! on End of the Internet's Tax-Free Ride? · · Score: 1

    I'm beginning to understand the mindset of folks who may have voted for Bush in 2004. You folks really are that stupid, and are more-or-less the reason why this nation is finished in a decade or so.

  13. Re:Atheists, Come Out! on Richard Dawkins to Appear on Doctor Who · · Score: 1

    Fyi, the referenced article takes place in Oklahoma, which is perhaps the buckle of the "Bible Belt".

  14. Re:Pfft. So what? on Ubuntu Linux Validates As Genuine Windows · · Score: 1

    There is an enormous difference between your use of a spreadsheet program and a power user's use of Excel. Excel is the killer app for folks in securities, finance, accounting, marketing (at least the pricing side of marketing), etc. OpenOffice doesn't remotely bridge the gap between Excel and everything else.

  15. Re:Not the same market! on RPG Devs Should Beware MMOGs · · Score: 1

    Xenosaga! Xenosaga was nothing but a series of long cutscenes interspersed with the occasional battle. Xenosaga was more interactive anime than game.

  16. Re:Just give us the option on Cleaning up Thunder Bluff · · Score: 1

    I don't know how old your kids are, but you may want to give Disney's ToonTown a try. Asshattery is absolutely verboten there. Although it's kind of a "kiddie" game, you can have quite a bit of clean fun and foolishness with cartoon avatars.

  17. Re:Just give us the option on Cleaning up Thunder Bluff · · Score: 1

    Then your only solution is to game with folks you know or folks who have been vouched for (directly or transitively by n degrees*) by folks you know.

    * n may have an upper bound of 6, if you believe the word on the street.

  18. Re:Dr. Death strikes again. on The End is Nigh for XP · · Score: 1

    The problem with Linux and BSD has always been that developers don't like to document what they have developed.


    The *BSDs are well documented. I can only speak of my OpenBSD experience, but few of my questions haven't been answered by the man pages and FAQ on openbsd.org. The FAQ usually points you to the man pages for more detail on the topic at hand. Hard questions and bugs can be talked about on the misc mailing list.

    Linux is less well documented, but few folks deal with the kernel, per se, from a "i need help" perspective. Distributions are where most folks go to get their kernel. Gentoo has great forums and really thorough instructions that "non-gearheads" find hard to read. Whatever. The documentation is there, but folks don't like Gentoo's lack of handholding. With the exception of Slackware (which is kind of minimal), other distros are significantly less well documented. What little I know of Ubuntu involves the security flaws its developers have introduced while "fixing" Linux. That and the Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Foobuntu nonsense.

    YMMV.

  19. Re:Remember.. on Principal Cancels Classes, Sues Over MySpace Prank · · Score: 2, Funny

    Actually your comment was hilarious, so now I'm posting to unmod my "Overrated" that should have been "Funny". Sigh. Where is the f$cking "unmod" button with the new whizbang posting system!

  20. Re:Bob really sucked on The Top 21 Tech Flops · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In a sense, however, Microsoft Bob was a tremendous success for its project manager, Melinda French. I'll let you do some googling to find out what happened to her.

  21. Re:Considering many early HDTVs have no tuner on Time Warner Cable Runs Out of HD DVRs · · Score: 1

    I have a 32" LCD HDTV and no cable (TimeWarner loves charging commercial prices for lofts). We are working on a satellite solution. I use rabbit ears, which provide perfect reception for HDTV channels (you know, that whole digital, error-correction, thing). My average signal quality (measure by the Sony Bravia's builtin "stats" app) is 95%. So, maybe every couple of hours or so, a frame gets skipped/discombulated. If I run into any fubarishness with the signal quality, I can always move the rabbit ears around and see the effect via the app's diagnostics. This beats any cable company's customer support. FWIW, channels 2.1, 5.1, and 13.1 (PBS) have better reception on one end of the windowsill, and the other channels prefer the other side. YMMV.

  22. Re:Say what? on iPhone, Apple TV Headline MacWorld Keynote · · Score: 1

    You should be able run WoW with integrated graphics. WoW runs just fine on my Thinkpad X41, which has an Intel 915GM chipset. Mind you, bells and whistles are turned off, but it's quite playable at 1024x768.

  23. Defcon on The Games of 2006 Awarded · · Score: 4, Informative

    Overlooked (mind you I didn't look too hard) in both of these articles is one of this year's great strategy games: Defcon. Everybody dies!

  24. Re:Looks like Nintendo's PR department missed one. on Gaming's Biggest Blunders of 2006 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The controllers are not defective. PEBWAC.

  25. Re:best strategy for getting one? on Gamestop To Be Resupplied With PS3, Wii · · Score: 1

    If you live within a reasonable distance of NYC, try visiting the Nintendo World Store. That store and the Times Square ToysRus seem to have been well stocked.