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User: barzok

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Comments · 1,538

  1. Re:She got what she wanted on Court Rules Against Woman Who Didn't Like Search Results · · Score: 1

    That's a lot of time & money to spend on such an endeavor.

  2. Re:This is $90 million on a billing error? on Verizon Wireless To Issue $90 Million In Refunds · · Score: 1

    Verizon Wireless is a separate company from the rest of Verizon. Just like the catalog & web operations of many retailers are separate from their brick & mortar stores.

  3. Re:Why not? Here are some reasons... on Bittorrent To Replace Standard Downloads? · · Score: 1

    because I prefer to get my bits from the official location. Yea, I know a checksum should be good enough but I'm old school here.

    "Old school" is downloading from your nearest mirror (official or otherwise) and validating the checksum anyway. So what's the difference?

  4. Re:Aptitude on Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers? · · Score: 5, Funny

    There have been news articles about terrorist organizations specifically recruiting engineers for their skills so they can build weapons. This is not some coincidence of psychology, it is a fact of necessity.

    I had a bunch of Iranians ask me to build them a nuclear bomb. I gave them a box full of pinball machine parts & kept the Plutonium to use as fuel for my time machine.

  5. Re:How can they understand lectures? on Preventing Networked Gizmo Use During Exams? · · Score: 1

    Jeez, spend 4 years in USA attending a university and go back to Korea without knowing English? Money well spent...

    If it got him that high-paying job back home when he was finished, it was money well spent.

  6. Re:there is no more excuse to steal movies on HDCP Master Key Revealed · · Score: 1

    it's 2010 and we have netflix with it's so so instant streaming. along with a few other buy/rent online stores that offer content at decent prices. we even have blu ray's coming out with a digital copy so you can watch it on your phone, ipad, laptop without an optical drive, etc.

    How's that work out for when I need my media away from a broadband connection and I'm not buying into Blu-Ray yet (or what am I buying doesn't have the DRM-restricted digital copy)?

  7. Re:On your own dime... companies don't care. on Leaders Aren't Being Made At Tech Firms · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is it. Why promote from within when you can hire someone to be an asshole manager from outside the company?

  8. Re:Yep. My practices are justified. on Google Releases Chrome 6, Pays $4337 In Bounties · · Score: 1

    It uses Keychain on OS X AFAIK, and there's a 1Password plugin for it so you can use that as well.

  9. Re:BillG hated the concept! on Microsoft Patents OS Shutdown · · Score: 1

    Maybe you just need to buy better than the $450 laptop at walmart, or a new battery, and the Windows machine will also last a few days in sleep (which it should).

    It's a Thinkpad T61 and I haven't trusted it to sleep 16 hours from the time I got it.

  10. Re:BillG hated the concept! on Microsoft Patents OS Shutdown · · Score: 1

    Hibernate & sleep are 2 different things.

    Hibernate works for me 95% of the time. The 5% of the time it doesn't, it crashes & burns in spectacular fashion.

  11. Re:BillG hated the concept! on Microsoft Patents OS Shutdown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He may or may not have understood the concept of in-memory caches and unsaved user work, but it didn't much matter to him.

    I know it's easy & popular to rag on BillG, but toward the end of his tenure at MS, he did occasionally come out as an advocate for users & pushed for simplicity & fixing broken things in their ecosystem. Take this example from when he attempted to install Windows Movie Maker in January 2003.

    But back to the shutdown thing.

    As a naive user, why should I have to ask my computer for permission to shut down? When I tell my TV to power off, it just does it. When I turn the ignition in my car off, the whole thing stops. Same with my VCR, my cell phone, you get the idea.

    As a non-naive user, why is it that when I tell my XP laptop to Hibernate, 5% of the time it just flips out, every application crashes, and I can't do anything, including just shutting the damn thing down until I've cleared all the "this program has crashed, how would you like to debug?" messages and then wait for the UI to become responsive finally to the point where I can tell it to shut down. And then takes 5+ minutes to actually shut down. When I close the lid on my MacBook, OS X puts it to sleep. When I open the lid, it wakes up. Every time. Why can't Windows do this? I can't just go to Standby because it drains the battery too much, so I have to Hibernate.

  12. Perhaps it's warranted on Microsoft Patents OS Shutdown · · Score: 1

    If designing a shutdown process is this complicated maybe it does deserve a patent.

  13. Re:Justice Department on vacation since 1980 on It's Official — AMD Will Retire the ATI Brand · · Score: 1

    This is hardly their worst offense, but how did the Bush Justice Department ever let AMD buy ATI to begin with? Are we really OK when there are only two major manufacturers of processors and graphics hardware?

    They were too busy dragging their heels on the Sirius/XM merger at the behest of the NAB to notice.

  14. I really don't care if my kid sees a boob on FCC Fights To Maintain Indecency Policy · · Score: 1

    But the latest "quit smoking" PSAs they're airing in New York are absolutely disgusting. I don't have YouTube available to link to the actual video, but here's the gist of it:

    It shows a man lighting a cigarette using the flame from his stove. The picture then cuts to a surgeon, opening up an aorta, and squeezing out fat and plaque that has accumulated inside the vessel. It's the aorta of a 32-year-old smoker.

    The description doesn't really capture how vile the video is. It's enough to completely ruin your appetite for a while. This can pop up anytime you're watching TV, but it's most common between 5 & 8 PM.

    It's apparently acceptable under the guise of "public health" but I doubt you'd get a pro-breastfeeding commercial approved that actually showed a woman nursing.

  15. Re:Valve... on Steam Prompts OS X Graphics Update · · Score: 1

    Pointing a customer to already existing documentation on how to get their GLX setup properly would cost far more than any revenue you could bring in? You are crazy. I can prove it..

    Telling a paying customer "here, go figure it out yourself from these links which we claim no ownership of & can't tell you for certain will work" is shitty customer service.

    The RTFM response may work on a "community" forum or a user mailing list, but not when you're calling up to get support for something you've paid for.

  16. Re:Code? on Employees Would Steal Data When Leaving a Job · · Score: 1

    Under the GPL at least, you only have to make source available if you distribute the program. If it's exclusively for internal use and never leaves the company, you aren't obligated to release the source.

  17. Re:Code? on Employees Would Steal Data When Leaving a Job · · Score: 1

    worse if you're open sourcing it.

    You're assuming that the company hasn't agreed to open source the code. Some companies actually do release stuff they've done, or contribute back to OSS projects they use.

  18. The counties are not happy about this on Convicted NY Drunk Drivers Need Ignition Interlocks · · Score: 1

    While the offender may be responsible for the cost of the device, each county has to set up & pay for the monitoring, including staffing for it. The state mandates it, but is not paying for it.

  19. Re:To Answer Logistic Questions on Convicted NY Drunk Drivers Need Ignition Interlocks · · Score: 1

    To address the questions about drinking after you start the car, the system will beep loudly indicating you must blow into it again while you're driving or your vehicle will shut off. This happens once every 20-40 minutes.

    This sounds incredibly dangerous, please tell me it's not just an instant cutoff with a timer. Shutting the car off in traffic would be very, very dangerous - does it at least wait till you're at a complete stop?

    I know there's a lot of people out there that have been negatively affected by drunk drivers but in most states the punishment really can be life destroying.

    So you're saying that endangering unknown numbers of people and potentially destroying their lives is less significant than "destroying" the life of the person who chose to drive drunk?

    But your first offense with a DUI ... where do we draw the line?

    Ask the families of any of the thousands of people who've been hit & killed by a drunk on their "first offense."

  20. Re:Doom3 to dark? on id Software Demos Rage On iPhone, Releases Source Code For Two Games · · Score: 1

    Yer mom?

  21. Re:It's warming up--pretty much on schedule on NASA Universe-Watching Satellite Losing Its Cool · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe we've just become accustomed to NASA missions far exceeding their expected duration.

  22. Perhaps bills shouldn't have names at all on Senate Approves the ______Act Of____ · · Score: 1

    The USA PATRIOT Act was written prior to September 11 and lay in the shadows, its supporters waiting for the opportune moment to present it. It rushed through & was passed primarily on its name - what incumbent who wants to keep his seat will vote against something that sounds "patriotic"?

    Maybe, just maybe, if there there was no title, people would at least skim through the bill before making a decision on it. I can dream, can't I?

  23. Re:That show has went downhill anyway on Discovery Threatens Fan Site It Also Promotes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This time the captains even whored themselves for Geico commercials [youtube.com] that ran during the show.

    You forgot to mention the very obvious placement of the Geico coffee mugs in the wheelhouse of the Time Bandit.

    Sig Hansen has been listed as a producer and/or consultant on the show for several years - no real surprise there.

    I think Discovery overplayed the drama, but I don't think it was as bad as you make it out to be. Edgar Hansen has apparently been threatening to leave the boat for a few years now. Addiction to various substances seems to be fairly common across the fleet (a reference was made somewhere to "the other Jake" being 6 months sober late in the season, and other guys have talked about getting sober as well).

    There's only so many ways you can film & edit the crabbing grind & keep the viewership year over year. They had to pull in more of the human drama, and what happened w/ Phil Harris was perfect for the producers to latch onto. Otherwise, what's to talk about - the weather? The Bering Sea gets nasty weather - but you can't produce a full season of TV off that.

  24. Re:They're damaging to our government on Pentagon Demands Return of Leaked Afghanistan Documents · · Score: 1

    We're in another Viet Nam type era.

    Oh, come on, it's not that bad. It's not like we're fighting an unwinnable land war in Asia with a large portion of the local population aiding the forces we're fighting, or at least completely distrustful of our forces & not seeing them as "liberators."

    Oh, wait...nevermind.

  25. Re:No need to buy them... on Where To Start With DIY Home Security? · · Score: 1

    How do you know she was legit, and not just part of a crew casing the neighborhood?