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User: digidave

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  1. Re:Karma whoring on Nuclear Fusion Discovered · · Score: 1

    I really shouldn't have spelled 'genius' incorrectly. Luckily for me somebody in the previous story spelled 'accelerator' three uniquely incorrect ways in the same comment, so I'm still ahead of that guy.

  2. Karma whoring on Nuclear Fusion Discovered · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm going to go find the best comment from the previous story and re-post it here, thereby making myself look like a genious and simultaneously increasing my karma into the 'humongous' range.

    I'll be right back.

  3. Re:Jack-off security.... on Microsoft Scales Down Palladium · · Score: 1

    IE integration with the desktop has done almost nothing to compromise security. The whole problem boils down to two things:

    1. IE has the ability to run executable code from untrusted sources.

    2. Normal users have way too few restrictions on what their executables can do on the system.

  4. Re:Venus on New Movies of Whirlwinds on Mars · · Score: 1

    Venus' thick atmosphere has created a runaway greenhouse effect. Temperatures can reach 900 C and I suspect there is probably not enough sunlight reaching the surface to grow plants.

    NASA landed a probe there many years ago. You can still find the surface pics on their web site. Guess what? It looks like Mars :)

  5. Re:Well ... on Branden Robinson Lays Down the Law at Debian · · Score: 1

    The first mistake is to think that Debian has a release cycle or that it even needs one.

    Debian stable has all the updated security patches. Debian unstable and testing are upgraded with new software versions constantly. You never need to download a new ISO and install a new version of Debian because the version you have is kept up to date. Distro version numbers are entirely useless for Debian. You just install what you want to install and upgrade what you want to upgrade and *that's it*.

    Debian stable isn't old, it's VERY VERY stable, just like the name says. If Debian is guilty of anything it's that they picked a bad name for their unstable repository. If they renamed it 'Debian new' nobody would be complaining, but this attitude that a RedHat or Mandrake release is somehow more stable than Debian unstable makes everyone think that you should not run Debian unstable on production boxes.

    Most businesses could probably understand the advantage of Debian's non-cycle release cycle if somebody explained it to them. They've all been through upgrades from Win NT or 98 to 2000 to XP and they know it's a huge, expensive, pain in the ass. They know they're still running NT 4 servers because upgrading is too painful. IMO, business is *begging* for a Debian-like release cycle for both servers and desktops so they can finally get out of upgrade hell.

    But nobody's ever explained it to them that it can work that way and MS sure isn't going to offer it any time soon.

  6. Re:Half of Users Already Know Windows Costs Too Mu on The Truth About Linux and Windows · · Score: 2, Informative

    A couple non-critical points that I think a lot of non-Linux users miss:

    1) All Linux distributions are not the same, or even close. Suse or Ubuntu are about all a beginner should use. Some distros are downright scary for non-experts (Slackware) while others pretend to be friendly even though they are not (Fedora/RedHat).

    2) Servers are easy. Even on Windows it's harder to get a desktop system working with all hardware. In fact, Linux often does a better job at detecting hardware than Windows because on Windows you're expected to be able to go download a driver or two while most drivers on Linux come with the distribution. For example, an HP P1000 printer requires a 10MB download on Windows, but 'just works' with most Linux distros.

  7. Re:From the "Mysterious Future" on Opera CEO Prepares to Swim across the Atlantic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Actually, it's doubtful he could continue doing laps all the way unless he was really dedicated and trained hard for several months. I suspect he will float in a chair the whole way while some bikini-clad waitress brings him bottles of beer and lathers sun screen on his body.

    At least that's how I would do it.

  8. Re:Tragedy in the making on Opera CEO Prepares to Swim across the Atlantic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "It could take days, or weeks"

    Or months. Have you any idea how big the Atlantic Ocean is?

  9. Re:download it on Opera CEO Prepares to Swim across the Atlantic · · Score: 1

    Thanks, I've just added that repository. They really cover all the bases for Linux installs. I usually end up using alien to convert rpms to debs when trying to install commercial software.

  10. Re:Prior Art on BountyQuest CEO Patenting Lighting Toilet Water · · Score: 4, Funny

    I had it published in the American Sanitation Solution Providers Biweekly Edition (ASS PROBE).

  11. Am I in trouble? on BountyQuest CEO Patenting Lighting Toilet Water · · Score: 4, Funny

    If he has a patent on lighting toilet water and I have lights in my swimming pool... does that mean I can be sued if I pee in my pool?

    Oh wait, prior art. I did that twenty five years ago. *Whew*

  12. Re:Criminal activity is normal for the RIAA on MPAA Under Investigation for Illegal NYPD Payoffs · · Score: 1

    Really? Please point out these differences as I am having trouble distinguishing them based on their actions alone.

  13. Re:I think DVD prices are not too high... on MPAA Under Investigation for Illegal NYPD Payoffs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah well thost Babylon 5 sets cost just pennies to manufacture. The shows were already produced, so no production costs went into making them for the DVD. A few special features cost very little: a cameraman might cost $20/hour and the interviewees are probably not paid at all, or maybe a couple hundred bucks. There is more profit to be made on TV show sets because production costs are nearly zero and costs are still high.

    So, tell me again why DVDs cost as much as they do? Ah yes, what the market will bare. Looks like a significant portion of the market has decided that prices are too high.

  14. Re:What is the big deal? on Canadian ISP to Name Music Swappers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's all about the amount of proof that exists and where the request is coming from.

    Pedophiles are investigated by the feds who watch users on chat rooms, web sites, credit card bills, etc. They can get a court order for a net tap after they have sufficient evidence. Once they do gather this evidence the conviction is a sure thing because they've been thorough.

    The CRIA matches Kazaa usernames with IP addresses and wants to know the ISP account holder's name so they can sue that person. They aren't careful enough to figure out who's actually sharing files and they don't download all of the shared files to make sure that they really are copyrighted. Who's to say they aren't mislabled personal tunes?

  15. Re:Note to self... on Canadian ISP to Name Music Swappers · · Score: 1

    I don't believe Videotron is handing out information yet, but they support the CRIA and are hoping this becomes one of the "REALLY GOOD" reasons.

  16. Conflict of interest on Canadian ISP to Name Music Swappers · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Article:
    "It's peculiar, added Mr. Sasseville, that the ISPs are fighting the order so fiercely since many of them own entertainment subsidiaries that produce TV and film content"

    I don't think this is peculiar at all. In large a corporation the ISP division would not be responsible for helping the media producing divisions. It's likely that these two areas of the company only share a CEO, with the rest of the corporate structure being completely separate. The ISP has a good argument that turning over their customers' information will result in lost revenue if other customers leave because of it. I would also suspect that the ISP could be sued if the CRIA sues someone who is innocent of copyright infringement.

  17. Re:Under canadian law they're shielded on Canadian ISP to Name Music Swappers · · Score: 4, Informative

    Only downloaders are protected. Uploading is at best a grey area, but it's likely that someone could be successfully sued for uploading vast amounts of copyrighted material.

  18. Re:Lo, How The Mighty Have Fallen... on A Comprehensive Look at Solaris 10 · · Score: 1

    Have you used Solaris and Linux? Linux is a complete replacement for Solaris. Solaris on Sun hardware is better in the same way that OS X on Apple hardware is better (synergy!), but Solaris doesn't ever win out over Linux because of its capabilities.

  19. Re:lol @ #buttes, failures. on Tridgell Reveals Bitkeeper Secrets · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not morally wrong to try to access information from a BitKeeper repository. That's all Tridge did. No attempt was made to clone BK.

  20. Re:As a Canadian on Canadians May Face 25% Download Tariff · · Score: 1

    If they charge you at the register, they are committing fraud. The levy is taken at the wholesale level and the retailer NEVER needs to deal with it.

    A cashier telling you about the levy is their way of avoiding questions from suspicous customers.

    The big stores are not boycotting the levy because they aren't in charge of collecting it.

  21. Re:professional fud on Pros and Cons of Firefox Critically Evaluated? · · Score: 1

    Linux has WAY better hardware detection than Windows. Windows XP won't even recognize my HP Photosmart P1000 printer that's about three or four years old. I need to go download a driver from HP for it.

    I thought better hardware support meant the OS knew how to deal with more different kinds of hardware, not that it had the capability to allow somebody else to write a driver.

  22. Re:Security by obscurity on Pros and Cons of Firefox Critically Evaluated? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tying to the OS doesn't affect IE's security at all, especially on a system where most users run as administrator.

    The problem is that IE is allowed to run binaries loaded from the web without any sort of control over what those binaries are allowed to do. All a malicious web site needs to do is convince IE that it should be allowed to run that binary.

    Firefox has no such "feature". Even Firefox's extensions are just XUL and are very limited in how they can work.

    The only problem with tying the browser to the OS is that if some malicious code breaks the browser, the OS' user interface gets broken as well, but I have yet to see that happen to any great degree.

  23. Re:Safari has 0 vulnerabilities reported by Secuni on Pros and Cons of Firefox Critically Evaluated? · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, Safari isn't available to most users while Firefox is.

    And I don't know whether Apple contributes their code back to KHTML or not, but I've used Konquerer recently and the rendering engine still comes up short against the high standards compliance of Firefox. That's not to say it mishandles standards, but it supports fewer standards than Firefox.

  24. Re:timeframe of patches on Pros and Cons of Firefox Critically Evaluated? · · Score: 1

    First of all, 1,1 isn't out, so get your versions straight before you claim they haven't released any. Second, they're up to 1.0.3. Third, changing version incremental version numbers for new patches is normal practice in the industry. Fourth, you get that patch through Firefox's built-in upgrade tool.

    Also, I've never had to install a nightly build in order to get a recent security patch. While it does show up in the nightly first, it appears in a released version very soon after that.

  25. Funny on Adobe Buys Macromedia for $3.4B · · Score: 1

    After years of trying to out-do each other (LiveMotion vs Flash, GoLive vs Dreamweaver, Illustrator vs Freehand, etc) they just merge.

    This is bad for everyone. Now there won't be competing products and there will be no reason for Adobe Systems Inc. to keep innovating since there is no one to try to stay ahead of.

    It rubs me the wrong way when when one company buys another not to grow their product line with complementary products, but to simple vanquish the competition.