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User: profet

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Comments · 79

  1. Whats the problem? on How Would You Improve SQL? · · Score: -1
    For example, if you want all 100 columns from a table, 'SELECT *' works quite nicely. However, if you want all but 1 of the 100 columns, be prepared to spell out 99 column names.

    Um...

    SELECT * FROM foo WHERE primaryKey != 'bar'

    Whats the problem?
  2. Coastal Flooding Will Not Happen. PROVE ME WRONG! on Ice-Free Summers Coming To Arctic · · Score: 0

    Let's think logically.

    Frozen water takes up more space than liquid water. The artic is made up of ice with no land (as opposed to the antartic). Now it is known that most of the ice exists below sea level.

    If the ice melts, the global water level will go down.

    Please, prove me Wrong.

  3. Best Game Ever... on Return of Text-Based Games? · · Score: 1

    Zork

    nuff said

  4. Re:week-old news.. americans like their space on New York Taxis Will Go Hybrid · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    I live in the American Midwest
    Too bad...

    Once you leave jesusland you see that people don't ride around in pickups all day.

    There is simply not enough space. The big problem is not the leg room... but the trunk space. People haul kinds of crap around the city in cabs. If they have a boot the size of an anorexic teenage girl's purse, then they aren't very useful.

    Personally, I'd rather drive.
    Congratulations. Personally, I'd rather be the heir to a billionaire. Sometimes things aren't possible.

    Now go back to your Bush shrine and leave us blue states alone.
  5. Re:AOL? on AOL Launches Free Webmail Service · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hrm... So you use AIM for corporate IM?

    Sounds like a standup company... Please let me know which one it is so that I know not to give them any of my personal details...

    JBlowCorpDivX: Hey John, what is Jane Doe's current balance? Account number XXXXXX, SSN: XXX-XX-XXXX
    JDoeCorpDivY: No idea Joe, so how about them yankees?

    Fantastic. Tell the people in charge to invest in an internal purpose built IM solution. One that doesn't involve using a third party's servers.

  6. This one has been around for years... on 10.4 Widget Site Opens Doors · · Score: 1, Insightful

    http://www.konfabulator.com

  7. Don't RTFA... Spyware... on IBM Says its Future is in Services, Not Goods · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Gotta love the spyware contained in the article.

    Avenue, A Inc. Whatever that is.

  8. For PIMs on Uses and Software for a Modern PocketPC PDA? · · Score: 1

    You need to buy Pocket Informant. It should be mandatory for all PocketPC's.

    www.pocketinformant.com

  9. Re:Microsoft will charge you around 3X that? No. on Woz, Others Ask Apple To Go Easy On Tiger Leak · · Score: 2, Informative
    Windows XP Upgrade $99
    Um... did you even bother going to the linked page? $99 = used copy of Windows XP Pro.

    From Microsoft, Windows XP Pro for $299, Upgrade = $199

    Now... also keep in mind that $129 gets you the full version of the OS. So its $129 vs. $299.

    RTFA.
  10. Re:Greed on Woz, Others Ask Apple To Go Easy On Tiger Leak · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Apple sues over pre-release of upgrade that consumers are asked to pay for, and people don't agree with the policy? Who'd of thunk it?

    Welcome to the real world...

    The real problem is that you don't agree with apple's naming conventions.

    Call a product Windows 98 and then change it's "upgrade" to Windows Me (please no ME jokes...) and everything is dandy.

    Call a product OS X 10.3 and then its "upgrade" OS X 10.4 and people moan and bitch.

    The truth of the matter is, $129 ($99 for students) for a new operating system is a steal. If you can't afford it, fine, no reason for you to upgrade. Microsoft will charge you around three times that.
  11. Re:OS X on What Makes a Good UI? · · Score: 1

    Exactly.

    The question is not "What" but "Who".

    And the answer is Apple.

  12. So whats wrong with Freenode? on New IRC Network For Open Source Projects · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Is there anything wrong with freenode that requires a second network? Won't this lead to the eventual division of potential useful chatter?

    I just don't get it.

  13. Re:headphones on iPod Most Popular Music Player on Microsoft Campus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Could be, or maybe they just don't want to get mugged. White iPod headphone do a great job of saying "I've got an expensive, easy to steal piece of electronics on me."

    So thats why the iPod shuffle was released... Its all coming together now...

  14. Re:Mercedes electronic...useless on Mobil SpeedPass, Various Car RFID Car Keys Cracked · · Score: 1

    Sounds great... But unless they can run away from flatbed trucks... They are totally useless.

    The point is this:
    If somone wants to steal your car. They are going to steal your car.

    It is fairly rare to have a car stolen for "joy riding" now a days... It is much more common for cars to be stolen for parts or to be shipped overseas.

    Either of these scenerios imply that criminals are looking for a specific model, meaning they will know how to bypass any stock security systems. Or they will just throw the $100k car on a flatbed and completly avoid the security system.

  15. Re:That explains it on Steve Jobs Demos NeXTSTEP 3.0 · · Score: 1

    Since you are one of the 12 people that got it to download...how about throwing up a torrent?

  16. Re:Python Servlet Engine is the answer! on PHP Becoming More Popular · · Score: 2, Informative
    Sick of the problems with PHP? Badly implimented APIs, web pages with ugly code buried everyplace doing things that it should be?

    Try PSE! It cures warts, common colds and PHP!

    http://nick.borko.org/pse/

    Ciao!


    Oh come on... If you are witing ugly PHP code then you don't know the language.

    Have a JAVA/.NET developer look at PHP5 and they'll tell you how it exudes enterprise level features.

    Add Smarty and PEAR to the mix and you have one hell of a platform.
  17. Re:No Mac emulator yet? on Codeweaver's Crossover 4.0 Adds iTunes Support · · Score: 1, Informative

    um... you might want to look up what WINE stands for...

    here's a hint:

    W ine
    I s
    N ot an
    E mulator

  18. OpenLDAP on Single Sign on Solutions on the (Very) Cheap? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Think Active Directory without broken Schemas.

    Most languages PHP, JAVA... have ways of using LDAP (even Active Directory) to authenticate.

  19. Re:or you could just use this... on Online MD5 Cracking Service · · Score: 1

    doh!!! thats why you should always use "use strict"

    $line[10] =~ s/data/digest/;

  20. or you could just use this... on Online MD5 Cracking Service · · Score: 2, Interesting

    #!/usr/bin/perl

    use Digest::MD5;

    use constant POSSIBLE_CHARS => 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ';
    use constant LAST_POSSIBLE_CHAR => substr(POSSIBLE_CHARS, length(POSSIBLE_CHARS) -1, 1);
    use constant FIRST_POSSIBLE_CHAR => substr(POSSIBLE_CHARS, 0, 1);

    print "Digest:\t";
    $digest = <STDIN>;
    chomp($data);

    $ctx = Digest::MD5->new;

    print "Beginning to decrypt...\n";
    $attempts = 0;
    $current_string=FIRST_POSSIBLE_CHAR;

    $start _time = time();

    while($digest ne $attempt)
    {
    $current_string = next_string($current_string);

    $attempts++;

    $ctx->reset();
    $ctx->add($current_string);

    $attempt=$ctx->hexdigest();
    }

    $end_time = time();

    print "String decrypted...\n";
    print "String = '$current_string'\t\t\tHash = $attempt\n";

    $time_to_complete = $end_time - $start_time;
    $seconds = $time_to_complete % 60;
    $time_to_complete = ($time_to_complete - $seconds) / 60;
    $minutes = $time_to_complete % 60;
    $time_to_complete = ($time_to_complete - $minutes) / 60;
    $hours = $time_to_complete % 24;
    $time_to_complete = ($time_to_complete - $hours) / 24;
    $days = $time_to_complete % 7;

    foreach $unit (($seconds, $minutes, $hours))
    {
    if($unit < 10) { $unit = '0' . $unit; }
    }

    print "String found in $days days, $hours:$minutes:$seconds\t\t\t$attempts cycles\n";

    sub next_string
    {
    ($string) = @_;

    $last_char_of_string = substr($string, length($string) - 1, 1);

    unless( $last_char_of_string eq LAST_POSSIBLE_CHAR )
    {
    substr($string, length($string) - 1, 1, substr(POSSIBLE_CHARS, ( rindex(POSSIBLE_CHARS, $last_char_of_string) + 1 ), 1));
    return $string;
    }
    else
    {
    if( (length($string) == 1) && ($string eq LAST_POSSIBLE_CHAR))
    {
    return FIRST_POSSIBLE_CHAR . FIRST_POSSIBLE_CHAR;
    }
    else
    {
    return next_string (substr($string, 0, length($string) - 1) ) . FIRST_POSSIBLE_CHAR ;
    }
    }
    }

  21. Re:yeah, exactly, "cost of doing business" on Telecom Carriers Use Deceptive Advertising · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No one is saying they shouldn't make money.

    The gripe is that they are using the old bait and switch tactic, by disguising extra fees as taxes.

    So instead of advertising a plan for $50/month + tax...its actually $40/month + tax + B.S. charges.

  22. Can you spot the real taxes? on Telecom Carriers Use Deceptive Advertising · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Federal Excise Tax: $1.29
    Federal Universal Service Fund: $0.56
    State Gross Receipts Tax: $0.15
    State Sales Tax: $1.76
    State Telecom Excise: $1.00
    County Surcharge: $0.05
    County Telecom Excise: $0.79
    MCTD Surcharge: $0.24
    Local Sales Tax: $1.81
    State 911: $1.20
    County 911: $0.30
    Regulatory Programs Fee: $0.86

  23. Only 5 million songs is no surprise on iTunes 4.5 Authentication Cracked · · Score: 4, Informative

    I live in NYC and have seen exactly 1 bodega with iTMS Pepsi bottles.

    Maybe someone forgot to ship these things to places where people actually would use them?

  24. Old News on Tesla Special on PBS · · Score: 4, Informative

    So Slashdot is going to start posting when reruns air?

    This special was already shown four years ago and is simply a rerun.

  25. Re:Tried Smarty, switched back to raw PHP on PHP Template Engines? · · Score: 1
    That was added in Smarty 2.6.1, just recently. Not very useful when you have a deadline to meet a year ago.

    Your original quote was:
    For instance, I wanted to have "month" and "year" appear at the top of smarty's date select boxes,but you can't do that.

    Maybe you meant "couldn't" but you said "can't." So I replied with that in mind.

    Now let's see, how do I add a blank entry in between the first element and the other elements? What if I want to add "any month" at the end of the months, separated by another blank line? It's a wall, waiting to be hit.

    I think you are losing site of the goal here. The date/time tags are for quick and dirty drop downs. If you want to do all this custom work, then just write your own option tags. It's not a wall. It's you being short sited.

    Dividing an array into a grid for display is definitely display logic. Yeah, you can accomplish it using Smarty's awkward loops, but PHP already has a function to divide an array into "chunks", why can't I just use that? It's a *lot* clearer an less error-prone just to call this function on the array, then run two foreach loops.

    What you call awkward, I call different. And there is nothing wrong with different. I like being able to point my template designers to the 50 pages or so of smarty documentation rather than the thousands of pages of PHP documentation and OO theory needed to read/edit my projects.