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User: GeckoX

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Comments · 1,965

  1. Re:Yay!!! on Samsung Expected To Sue Apple Over iPhone 5 LTE Networking · · Score: 2, Informative

    Before the first car, no one had ever made a car with 4 wheels!
    After the first car though, 4 wheeled cars everywhere!!!

    Besides, that is just BS to start with. Every phone I have ever owned has had rounded corners (I'm talking cells before smartphones came on the scene). And I'm on my 3rd smart phone, none of which have been iPhones, and only one of which could even remotely be considered to have corners rounded even similarly to an iPhone. Even that one could not be confused with an iPhone.

    But that's all beside the point anyways. It's a freaking Phone. It has a screen and maybe some buttons. They all look very similar. Just like every tv I've ever had has looked similar to the rest. And every laptop. And every car. And every ....

    If it's not at least a technically novel patent, it's a fucking retarded patent. Period. Fuck ALL of the patent trolls, may they sue each other into oblivion!

  2. Re:Websites on How Many Seconds Would It Take To Crack Your Password? · · Score: 1

    Yes, that is what those are useful for. The problem is the bank states that this is what ensures that their shorter password requirements are just as secure as longer passwords!

  3. Re:Websites on How Many Seconds Would It Take To Crack Your Password? · · Score: 1

    One of the banks I deal with only allows a 6 char password! Can you believe that?
    I've had numerous discussions with them regarding all of the issues this poses. They think it's ok because they track IP's and display an image/phrase that you select when you have logged in to your account...what that's supposed to achieve I have no idea. Once in a while they'll go for the two-factor and make you provide the answer to a 'secret question', which of course is from an arbitrary list you had to select when signing up so not very useful.

    They have absolutely no answer when asked directly what the problem would be with allowing longer password lengths.
    Bunch of fucking idiots.

  4. Re:Really? on In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins · · Score: 1

    I really wish more people understood exactly what Atheism means. Atheism is not a lack of belief like most think, but rather a belief that there is no god.

    So for everyone that doesn't believe in the bible or Christian God (or any other), this is not enough to claim being Atheist. Atheism is just as much a leap of faith as any religion, as you actually BELIEVE something to be true that is unprovable. That there is no and can be no divine entity of any sort.

    Now, I don't know about you, but I find this statement almost as arrogant as claiming that the earth is only a couple thousand years old. Knowing that I am but a speck of dust in the infinity of space and time, to claim as fact that there could never have been any entity with any hand in the creation of what we know to exist would be astoundingly naive and arrogant. (whether direct or indirect). Of course I hold very little credence to the idea that anything created ME specifically, that's pretty in-plausible. But the idea that something may have been responsible for assembling the building blocks for life as we know it? Who knows.

    What I do know is that I am not an Atheist. I am a believer of the Scientific Method, and by claiming such know it would be hypocritical to claim Atheism.

  5. Re:Is it "too real"? on Hobbit Film Underwhelms At 48 Frames Per Second · · Score: 1

    Wow, really? Better tell that to James Cameron! He'll be pissed to hear that I'm sure, but he's a good, guy, he'll have no problem telling everyone that Titanic 3D actually doesn't work and they can have their money back!

  6. Re:1366x768 on Windows 8 and Screen Resolution: WXGA Still Most Popular · · Score: 1

    Yes, that's great. Except you went and drank the kool-aid.
    You are getting this but with a drastic loss in vertical screen resolution, which is what people are saying sucks.
    What is missing from the market that everyone here really wants is a widescreen that actually has a higher resolution than monitors from a few years ago. 768 vertical resolution is absolutely pathetic, and yet, that is what the bulk of people are using. And as others have mentioned, it's not that this is by choice, better options just aren't readily available.

  7. Re:Bye Bye America on Copyright Lobby Wants Canada Out of TPP Until Stronger Copyright Laws Passed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh if only our current government had the balls to do this. Historically you'd be spot on.
    Unfortunately there's zero chance right now. Bush North, er, I mean Harper, already has us bent over with our pants down for this. He tried forcing through a DMCA style bill through both terms in minority and thankfully failed. He has no such restrictions now however and it is only a matter of time before this happens.

  8. Re:maybe more secure on Ask Slashdot: Is Your Data Safe In the Cloud? · · Score: 1

    Not only is this dependent on the quality of the sysadmins, it is dependent as well on the policies and actions of those governing any particular cloud. The sysadmins do not create these policies, they merely implement them. Bottom line is that when you put data in a 'cloud', you are trusting the corporation or entity in control of that cloud with your data. Their policies could change at any time. Or the government could do so for them. Or another entity could take ownership and again change the policies involved.

    Bottom line is that once your data is on someone else's server, all bets are off. Someone else is in 'possession' of this data, and may choose to do things with this data that you might not agree with.

  9. Re:Government action on Ask Slashdot: Is Your Data Safe In the Cloud? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Heck, never mind seizure, how about willfully providing this information? Twitter is now providing all public posts to the government.

    Bottom line, if it's in a cloud, you have zero guarantee as to how that information will be used and who will end up with access to it.

  10. Re:Complete rip-off of Ben Gulak's Uno... on Heavy Duty Electric Unicycle Maker Takes On Segway · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Came here to see if any had posted this. Total rip-off. He was at this point over 4 years ago.
    Article from 2008 here: http://www.popsci.com/node/21644

  11. Re:OK, but on Gecko-Inspired Tape Can Be Reused Thousands of Times · · Score: 2

    Ehh, nothing a good lick won't fix!
    (Having had Geckos, I know that they actually do this quite a bit.)

  12. Re:Identifying what exactly? on Anonymous Takes On a Mexican Drug Cartel · · Score: 1

    You're right about the bloodthirsty mob part, but wrong about the rest. It usually requires a bloodthirsty mob to overthrow a violent suppressive regime. Btw, who do you think is in charge of the entire country of Mexico right now anyways?

    A revolution is absolutely needed, but it's going to need a lot of help down there.

  13. Re:Identifying what exactly? on Anonymous Takes On a Mexican Drug Cartel · · Score: 1

    Given that this went public, the kidnap victim is as good as dead anyways.

  14. Re:Identifying what exactly? on Anonymous Takes On a Mexican Drug Cartel · · Score: 1

    Wow, your posts in this thread are really just all over the map aren't they?
    You're getting the responses you are because, well, you're being a total dick.

    Look, everyone knows that the cartels are fucked. And everyone knows that they are thriving on the war on drugs, and that that situation was created by the US. Nothing new here. But you're arguing for the sake of argument. One minute you're saying one thing, then the next something completely different.

    Lets try this then, got anything _constructive_ to add here?

  15. Re:already attacked on Anonymous Takes On a Mexican Drug Cartel · · Score: 1

    So what, they should just bend over and take it?
    All of us should then for ever? Accept as fact that the cartels will be our overloards? Shall I just start forwarding my paycheck to them now?

    You are right about what the cartels are, but your could not be more wrong about how to deal with them or what should be done in this situation. It's about time someone with some balls stood up and said Fuck You. We ALL should be doing this. Fuck, the US should have been fighting a war on the cartels the past 20 years instead of dicking around in the mid-east. THAT would have been worthwhile.

    But sorry, you're right, wouldn't want to reach a hand out for someone else when there is a one in millions chance that collateral damage might somehow affect YOU.

    Let me guess, you also wouldn't stop and help out at the scene of an accident either just in case the person bleeding out might have some blood born disease?

    Fuck.

  16. Re:Money on Expensify CEO On 'Why We Won't Hire .NET Developers' · · Score: 1

    I should just ignore that last line there as at this point it's got to be flamebait...but just in case you're really still that ignorant of what vb.net is at this point....

    C# and VB.NET are one and the same at this point, really just wrappers for the CLR that have syntactic differences, but share all the features of the other. Sure, at any given point one or the other is slightly ahead in terms of feature set, but that flips back and forth constantly.

    What's really a problem with your statement however is the implication that vb is anything even remotely similar to vb.net. This is dangerously naive at best. Place where I work has a lot of old school vb6 devs. Myself and a few other new devs are rebuilding the core system in .Net. Management really wants this done in vb.net so that the other devs will be able to easily migrate into the new environment. I'm still fighting this, it's the WORST mistake they could make. See, at least if they start off in the new system using c#, then they will know for sure that things are different, and adjust accordingly. But if it looks like vb, and they can turn off all those flags like option strict, then it will behave like vb too! Oh joy!

    You see, there really are two vb.net languages, the proper one, and the one that imports the VisualBasic namespace and turns off all the compile time type checking measures meant to hand-hold those few remaining vb6 devs on their way into the land of .net. Unfortunate as this does lead to mistaken ideas about what vb.net is.

    Personally, I actually prefer both for certain things. C# for plumbing and back end work, intricate lambdas, things like that...syntax is just cleaner for this kind of stuff. Vb.Net for front end work, it's just quicker, and in some cases somewhat clearer about what exactly you're doing with events etc. Besides, the not quite as good devs will tend to stop at the c# line and come ask for help instead of diving in to muck stuff up.

  17. Re:They have more control because of us on CRTC To Allow Usage-Based Billing · · Score: 1

    Yes, Teksavvy does have their own backbone and have been growing as fast as possible in the past few years. I've been just waiting for them to come to my area so I could switch to them, they are a great company...er, were.

    This decision kills Teksavvy. Teksavvy does use Bell's copper for last-mile. They have to. Bell has a granted monopoly on this. And now for this use of JUST that bit of copper, they will be forced to pay MORE than Bell's own customers do for overage fees over their entire network!

    This is completely and utterly despicable. These small competitors in Canada have been fighting upstream without a paddle for a decade now against the big 3, and succeeding! And now in one fell swoop they are to be washed away. We'd be better off in Canada tomorrow across the board if the big 3 simply ceased to exist at the end of business today.

  18. Re:60GB is nothing on CRTC To Allow Usage-Based Billing · · Score: 1

    You are missing the crux of the problem. If these costs were indeed what the market would bear, and here's the key point, _given an open and competitive market_, then so be it.

    At the immediate moment you don't have to go with Rogers or Bell in Canada. You can pay a lot less for a whole lot more from one of the other smaller players.

    This removes the competition allowing the big boys who already have a monopoly on the infrastructure to _force_ all their competition to charge a certain price point. No more free and open competition. _That_ is the problem here, and it is a very big problem.

  19. Re:100% dead on on Facebook Adds Friend Stalker Tool · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You know, once upon a time a person could make a mistake or do something they regretted that would be forgotten and never become an issue. You really want that pic that some 'friend' took at a college party and posted tagged with your name to still pop up on searches when you're 40 something looking for a new job?

    Is it no longer OK to make mistakes and have them forgotten?

    The number of posts in this thread that are basically saying 'be perfect all the time and you'll have nothing to worry about, or else suck up the consequences' is absolutely shocking.

    Sure, if _I_ choose to post something online about myself then I will live with the consequences of doing so. But that is not what this is about. Not even a little bit. (Is it just me or is this thread getting very Orwellian?)

    Problem here specifically is that there is this online social community out there that a ton of people use. A lot of people carry out all forms of conversations on it. Sometimes two people will even have a conversation between themselves discussing someone else with the intent that the someone else won't be able to see it, at least that's the way it was the other day when they had the conversation. Now lo and behold, for example, your SO knows all about the exciting trip you have planned as a surprise for the weekend! (See, doesn't have to be about getting fired over some drunken party pic now does it?)

    Kids today, so used to their freedoms being given away by the powers that be that they take it for the norm and now are totally willing, or worse, expect that, privacy is to be given away or be non existent as well!

    Anyways, for my own self, just another tick on the reasons not to Facebook list.

  20. Re:4 x 4? on Membrane That Turns Any Surface Into a Touchscreen · · Score: 1

    Not convinced that that is the case. On first read, that is what I thought too...but they are not very clear and after reading it again I'm inclined to think they actually mean that it can currently only recognize 16 interactive zones.

  21. Re:Security? on Why Digital Medical Records Are No Panacea · · Score: 1

    Sure, of course that's the situation, and that's probably unlikely to change.

    But, which is more secure? Physical patient files on desks, at the foot of beds, hanging on doors, rooms full of them...or electronic files that have at least the potential to require appropriate credentials to be accessed? Yes, both can be broken or abused, but one has the potential to be more secure.

  22. Re:Impossible!!! on Why Digital Medical Records Are No Panacea · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Good points.

    Any system can only be as good as the people that use it. I can't help but feel while reading 'The Data Model That Nearly Killed Me' that the problems encountered actually had very little to do with the electronic record system at all. It seemed more like an incompetent system was in place as a whole. The data model didn't seem to do anything wrong, it was the people using it, or not using it. Not saying whether it is actually a good electronic system or not, impossible to tell...but enough people had enough direct access to critical information, without even thinking about the electronic system, that this guy should not have had the problems he had.

    Is it really the data model's fault that not only did no one use information provided on entry to the er, they didn't even READ it? Sounds to me like the real problem is that new systems were put in place without new processes or training being put in place...and then on top of that the users of the system failed to even fall back on the logical concept of direct communication!

    I do not for one second believe that this situation wouldn't (Or for that matter hasn't) have happened even with the use of standard physical medical charts instead of the electronic record system in place. There is really nothing at all in the story that makes the problem specific to the system or the model being used in that system. Can't believe that had a physical medical chart been used that the same mistakes the medical staff made in this case would have somehow miraculously NOT been made on paper as well.

    Basically, what I take as most important from this guy's story, is that that is NOT a medical facility I ever want to step foot into under any circumstances, electronic records or not!

  23. Re:My hopes for the next game: on New Elder Scrolls Game In 2010? · · Score: 1

    Er, I wasn't talking about 'experience points' or skill points or anything like that at all. I was talking about experiencing everything available in the game. I assure you I most certainly have played the game. Read in context next time and take a chill pill while you're at it.

  24. Re:My hopes for the next game: on New Elder Scrolls Game In 2010? · · Score: 1

    That does work, but you lose out on a bit of the experience with the slider lowered. Either way, it still just doesn't feel right with everything in the world leveling every time you do, even if it's by a lower amount. Plays way better when a wolf is always within the expected range for a wolf :)
    I have played through vanilla oblivion, and I did enjoy that just fine in and of itself...but I do much prefer it with the mods. Pretty much makes it a completely different game.

  25. Re:My hopes for the next game: on New Elder Scrolls Game In 2010? · · Score: 1

    Yes, the mods like OOO didn't simply make things harder, they rebalanced the entire game and made it make sense.

    Vanilla Oblivion got VERY hard VERY fast if you didn't level up very very carefully...with everything in the entire game getting harder every time you leveled up. If you weren't extremely careful with how you leveled your skills, suddenly just about anything in the game could tear you apart. However, if you did level up your skills just right, you'd fare much better. Even in this best case scenario however, what you'd end up with is a game where no matter how far you went, what you accomplished, how high you leveled, everything remained pretty much exactly as difficult as it was when you first started. Not realistic, and got tired pretty fast.

    This is what most mods fixed, introducing balance to the game. Sure, a wolf might give your level 1 char a run for it's money, but by level 20 they should be a joke. And no longer would a mis-placed skill leveling screw you over.

    They made a wicked game engine, but tweaked the game itself to garner more towards the console crowd that were more used to games like Halo. It worked in that sense as they got a lot of business from that segment of the market. On the other end however, the modability of the game allowed the more hardcore to re-tweak the game into one of the best action rpgs to date. There's simply a staggering amount of content available for the game now, and with mods like OOO and other various graphics improving mods, it truly is an amazing game.

    In my mind, I don't see the fact that it took serious mods to really make it shine as a failure of the game itself. It's quite obviously been extremely successful, and is a formula that works well for Bethesda.