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User: zrodney

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  1. Re:I thought system admins were gardeners on Are IT Security Professionals Less Happy? · · Score: 1

    yep -- and they spread around a lot of manure!

  2. he's from another era on Donald Knuth Rips On Unit Tests and More · · Score: -1, Troll

    skimmed the article -- he says unit tests and immediate compilation are bad because of all the cpu resources it would take to do something like that (!)

    my dualcore laptop really has no problem with that.

    debugging ALGOL on punch cards as he has done would be brutally painful, of course, but here we are in 2008 with no punch cards or ALGOL.

  3. SCTV: The Movie? on Pixar to Release All New Movies in 3D · · Score: 1

    Finally, a medium that can take the high caliber of SCTV and Count Floyd's MONSTER CHILLER HORROR THEATER and deliver it to a mass audience in it's original format!

    http://www.sctvguide.ca/programs/monster.htm

  4. Re:1929 on AMD To Shed 10% of Its Workforce · · Score: 1

    bingo -- I'm shocked at how many people don't realize that the railroad baron era was terrible for most people. Somehow, everyone always thinks that they will end up rich unless the government takes it all away in taxes.

    very ignorant, and just what the greedy manipulators want to see

  5. style sheets to block annoying ads on Bonzi Class Action Suit Settled: No Foolin'! · · Score: 5, Informative
    Most of you have seen Bonzi's banners...

    nope -- I don't see any of them anymore thanks to the userContent.css style sheet.

    it will match urls for ads and replace the image with nothing. So, you get the web page without any irritating ads at all.

    The css lines are customizable as much as you like. They look like this:

    A:link[HREF*="?click"] IMG { display: none ! important }
    A:link[HREF*="?banner"] IMG { display: none ! important }

    more details and the file at this url:
    http://www.fogcat5.com/twiki/bin/view/Fogcat/Mozil laCustomize

  6. Here's to dear old RPI on Interview with Student Sued by RIAA · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ah... the memories of college days gone by...

    "can you spell Rensselaer?"

    GO ENGINEERS!

  7. open source != free coders on A Positive Outlook on the Software Industry · · Score: 4, Interesting


    If you believe free software is good (I do)

    And if you believe software reuse must come sometime (I do)

    Then you cannot think that there will be a strong market for coders for ever - it just doesn't make sense.


    I have to point out that just because the code is free doesn't mean the programmers who understand it have to work for free. Many employers actually develop code and release it as open source, but the developers who do the programming are well paid.

    Also, the idea that using open source and software reuse in the future will eliminate the need for talented developers and their paycheck is ignorant.

    If anything, reusing prior code is much _harder_ than developing from scratch. It takes experience and skill to understand how the parts from an open source package are to be stiched together into an application. There is no magic open-source button that will make it work for free.

    This sort of attitude that "all the software has been written" is a lot like the idea that the patent office should be shut down in 1899 because all the ideas have been thought of.


    1899 quote refererence

  8. environment or plot? on How's Your Whuffie? Interview with Cory Doctorow · · Score: 1

    I bought the book, and read it last week. It's a good story, but the ending is a letdown if a little bit suprising.

    Most of the effort is in dreaming up the world of the near-future and the implants and wuffie.

    I was more disappointed with the book before someone asked me what it was about. It turns out that you have to nearly recite the entire plot just to give a summary because of all the new ideas and setting.

    Without explaining dead-heading, whuffie, the bitchun society, and the adhocs in disney, the rest of the story doesn't make any sense at all.

    so, maybe the actual plot isn't as important as the environment that the story takes place in.

    anyway -- it's a good quick read that will probably become a fixture in the scifi book world similar to Neuromancer or Burning Chrome.

    some people really don't think Gibson is a good writer either

  9. correlation on How's Your Whuffie? Interview with Cory Doctorow · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm just guessing here, but your choice of terms is misleading.

    If you say that personal hygene and being a high quality programmer are have no correlation, it doesn't mean that most programmers don't bathe.

    In fact, it's a statistic term that means there is no relationship between the two variables. Or, that it's just as likely to find a well dressed clean good programmer as a slob good programmer.

    Maybe you were trying to imply there is an inverse correlation between the two?

  10. Re:Good idea on Tampering with Taste Buds for Better Coffee? · · Score: 3, Informative

    a lot of european coffee is cafe crema, not percolated or automatic drip like here in the US.

    the difference is that the hot water is forced through the grounds under high pressure which helps
    to get the crema foam and tasty organic compounds without getting the last part of the bitter dregs.

    the resulting coffee is strong but smooth and not bitter, dark with a lighter colored foam on top even
    before you add cream or milk

    www.capresso.com is one web site that sells machines that make cafe crema.
    The automatic machines would be great in a office if people can clean up after themselves

  11. you bastard on Tampering with Taste Buds for Better Coffee? · · Score: 1, Funny

    the smell, the deducing aroma that fills you with an eager anticipation of the magnificent black gold that is about to wash down your throat (oh my god, someone gimme a coffee right NOW! :)


    now I HAVE TO GO MAKE SOME COFFEE

  12. wheelchair research on Segway Banned In San Francisco · · Score: 1

    with all the negative comments about how goofy people look riding segues around, I haven't seen
    comments about how the design for the HT segue is actually the core of the design for the same company's
    advanced wheelchair which rotates to raise the rider to a more elevated height in some positions.

    It's possible that the segue is really just supposed to be a promotional device to draw attention from
    investors and the media.

    maybe

  13. video in windows format... sigh on When Appliances Revolt · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The best is the list of video clips showing off the possessed car.

    I'm not going to get the crossover plugin just to watch some windows media stream of a bwm with a broken computer. ;)

  14. Re:Just out of curiousity... on TiVo to support HDTV by "Year-End" · · Score: 2

    "in fact the DirecTivo's do not have an encoder"

    which means that they can't record signals off the air or off regular cable, only the digital satellite channels.

    I get my local stations from basic cable and the hbo, etc from satellite, so I have a normal tivo which can both record satellite and broadcast cable. The satellite is re-digitized though I think.

    When I first bought a tivo a couple years ago, I got the directivo which sounded like a great thing, but it couldn't record any local stuff. So, no news, no network shows. back it went.

  15. Re:802.11g for meta information? on TiVo and Rendezvous · · Score: 2

    yeah he is very confused, but likes to look educated

    the tivo normally uses a 56k modem over a phone line to download the metadata including the show listings.

  16. Re:Why so upset about this concept? on You Can't Link Here · · Score: 2

    you are absolutely correct --- it's not very hard at all to force people with a non-local referrer or no cookie to redirect to the front page, and to allow those who have the correct redirect through.

    there is no need to hire a lawyer or a lobbyist even

    I think that if the server has the configuration options and they don't bother to use them, they have no right to expect people to follow some arbitrary rules they make up on their own.

    this keeps coming up over and over ...

  17. Re:PPOE on DIY Ethernet Audio Receiver · · Score: 3, Informative

    you could add a power over ether net, but you probably would add power hum and other noise
    by using the computer's noisy power supply for an audio device.

    better would be to include a small power supply, or get power from the audio equipment's power somehow.

    even better would be to opto-isolate the ethernet from the audio equipment to further remove any switching power supply hum from the computers.

    A computer power supply and an audio power supply are designed for different problems. They might "work"
    but it won't be as nice as a supply that fits.

  18. Re:These drones are way too expensive on Droning On · · Score: 0, Flamebait


    Are you always so arrogant? Must feel good.

    Thank goodness for danheskett.
    I guess we can all shut up and go home now.

    Did you know that more than 1/2 of the multimillion dollar drones have simply crashed or flown out of range?

    hmm?? did you?

    that doesn't sound very good for business to have
    a 50% delivery rate.

    A guy with a truck is a lot more reliable and cheaper.

    This doesn't even look at the cost of one of those drones falling out of the sky on a shopping mall
    or something like that. I don't think a drone delivery service would be able to be insured at a price that would make it possible to compete.

    But you have it all figured out. Good for you.

  19. These drones are way too expensive on Droning On · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just saw an article about these drones on another site yesterday. What many of the stories forget to
    mention is that each drone plane costs more than FOUR MILLION DOLLARS, so they are not the inexpensive
    throw-away solution that it appears.

    I think it will be many many years before FedEX and other freight haulers seriously consider using
    something like an unmanned drone for delivery.

    It's much cheaper to hire a pilot and use a plane, or hire a truck, and it will still be much cheaper for a long time to come.

  20. look out! on Listen to Webpages While Driving · · Score: 2

    " I love to work with RealBasic when you want a quick and stable result."

  21. why listen to Ben Stein?!!? on 85 Big Ideas that Changed the World · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    This Ben Stein essay originally in Forbes or somesuch is such tripe.

    This is the same guy who hosts the pointless trivia
    show on Comedy Central "Win Ben Stein's Money".

    If that's not clearly exactly the sort of crap that he is saying has led to the decline of the US, then he's not reading his own essay.

    The show is all about getting some $$$ for answering some pointless questions and winning something for nothing.

    His essay clearly highlights a lot of important issues, but his life and lifestyle put him in the "part of the problem" side.

  22. Re:Don't need it. on SBC-Yahoo Partnership Cuts User Privacy · · Score: 2

    hmm. this is one time I'm happy that I use the
    dynamic ip service from them. All it says back
    is that the ip is from a dynamic pool.

    Of course, you also need to use dynamic dns to
    have a server reachable from outside, but thats
    free.

    [whois.arin.net]
    Pac Bell Internet Services PBI-NET-8
    64.160.0.0 - 64.175.255.255
    PPPoX Pool - rback29 SBCIS-10137-15141
    64.173.40.0 - 64.173.43.255

    # ARIN Whois database, last updated 2002-12-12 20:00

    The lameness filter tells me to use fewer junk
    characters here. Not very helpful.

  23. Re:No Linux Client on SBC-Yahoo Partnership Cuts User Privacy · · Score: 2

    that's true -- once things are working there's no
    problem for the most part. In fact, I've gotten
    the tech support people to understand that if the
    little blinky light on the adsl modem is always
    flashing, then it's their problem. It just takes
    some understanding about the life of a phone tech
    support person, and how to have them actually help.

    Sometimes, you might have to "pretend" that the
    software is installed. They really can't tell
    either way, and you will eventually get to talk to
    a higher level of support when they give up.

  24. No Linux Client on SBC-Yahoo Partnership Cuts User Privacy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I got a flyer in the mail from SBC/Pacbell/Yahoo about
    this new service. I have dsl via pppoe on a linux
    box running as a vpn router, and I use mozilla/phoenix
    as my browser.

    I tried going to the web page on the flyer, but it
    just doesn't do anything.

    I wonder what happens if I never sign up for this
    yahoo service? Guess we'll see eventually.

  25. Re:Why Tape Is Good on Large IDE Drives as Long-Term Archival Media? · · Score: 2

    "With tape, the failure of a tape drive doesn't separate your from your data (unless it catches on fire with the tape in it or something.)"

    Which actually does happen from time to time. I have
    had many VXA tapes trashed by the autoloader/drives
    in my 15 tape backup system. That's painful because
    the tapes hold more than 30 gig each.