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User: freakho

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  1. Anagram Shirt on ThinkGeek ThinkGeek ThinkGEEK! · · Score: 1

    == Shop at ThinkGeek, Fools
    || Fools Shop at ThinkGeek

  2. Dammit on Do 'Bandwidth Bullies' Abuse Their Positions? · · Score: 1
  3. It's called 'civil disobedience' on Oxford Yanks Student Page Over Spoof DeCSS · · Score: 1

    That Oxford official was a blithering idiot. The whole damn point was to show how phobic most people are of Official Lawyer Letterhead, it was explained to him that he proved the damned point, and he still doesn't get it!

    I could post a long written interpretation of a growl right here, but I think you get the point already.

  4. Re:It's far too early for this on Quantum Project · · Score: 2

    Actually, "publicity stunt" pretty much sums it up. It'll be online-only for a year, after that, they're going to release it like normal. This gets them lots of free exposure in a group (us) that heavily overlaps sci-fi fans.

  5. It's funny, laugh. on Backdoor In Microsoft Web Software? · · Score: 1
    Let me be the first to point out that this is severely miscategorized.

    I'll apologize in advance to all those forced to run MS servers.. but what do I care, I'm on vacation.

  6. Re:Code Not a Form of Expression?! on DeCSS Injunction Ruling · · Score: 2
    Dude, if wearing an armband to protest the Vietnamm war is considered free speech...
    Actually, Tinker has been effectively reversed by a bunch of case law that says students indeed do leave most of their rights at the school door. Welcome to the USSA. Start screaming now, or we'll all be stuck here forever.

    fh

  7. about time on Australian Internet Censorship Fails · · Score: 1
    It took this long for this issue to come up? I had thought they were gonna start enforcing it ages ago. This is all a big "duh" anyway, other than Melbourne IT supporting the site, which was very cool of them. It would have been very easy for them to cave, but they didn't.

    So is every other .au site you surf to now gonna point to a US server? Maybe after .gov.au sees the cash flowing out, they'll pull their heads out of their asses. One thing conservative politicians understand is money. Actually, make that the one thing.

    fh

    ps - michael, move this to the front page, ya dork. We all need something to cheer about in the month of the MPAA.

  8. A slight kvetch.. on Crackdowns, Fools and the MPAA · · Score: 1
    When Boycotting, you really need to look at the companies behind the studios. The movie industry only makes up some of their bottom lines, their tentacles extend everywhere you look. Hell, that Blockbuster you don't want to disrespect is owned by one of those companies (Viacom/Paramount). As well as 2/3 of your cable channels (Viacom, TW/WB, News/Fox), many of the actual cable lines (TW), every network but NBC (but half their shows are actually made by TW/WB anyway), much of the publishing industry (Viacom and TW), lots of music lables, and a smattering of electronics (sony/columbia). You can't flip the dial or spend an entertainment dollar without profiting one of these companies.

    Know who you're boycotting, and boycott thouroghly. A true boycott may well mean limiting yourself to PBS and MP3's, but I for one am willing to do it, and am doing it. Which, incidentally, explains why I'm here of all places at this hour. I'm working on a letter to send to the MPAA, TW, Viacom, Disney, Sony, MGM, Universal, and Fox explaining what I'm doing and why; and am proselytizing my friends and relatives - a long list of names at the end can only help. I recommend doing something similar, if only for the sheer thrill of actually doing something about this. (besides donating to the EFF, but you already did that, right?)

    fh

  9. Re:Hopefully... on FOX.com Apologizes to Linux Users · · Score: 2

    I don't think it was incompetence, really, just analness combined with ignorance. If you look at the script itself, it indicates that the writer wanted every person who viewed the site to view it the exact same way, without a pixel's difference. Thus, he had to check for browser and OS, since IE/win and IE/mac display differently, and NS/w and NS/m do too. And, of course, he checked for flash, and then decided to wrap all of this up into one script, all of the checks dependant on the other. And he knew not of Linux, and ended up excluding all alt OS's with a bad script. This is not the problem, however. The problem was the original intent of forcing everybody to see the exact same page.

    This can't really be called incompetence, as anyone capable of the lengths necessary to do this probably is capable of pretty much anything web-related. This here was a case of bad web design philosophy. The people who do this are highly-educated, technically-skilled, not-incompetent, fucking idiots.

    Of course, web designers have PHB's, too, especially since half the time they are still under the marketroids. Imagine trying to explain to a marketroid that flash is overrated or that a shift of one element by a few pixels across platforms is not fatal. Uugh. I know people who've had to work in situations like this, and it's not pretty.

    In short, I reserve judgement on the designer's competence until Rob gets the actual designer, instead of a talking head, to make a statement... or maybe an interview? :)

  10. No HTML, but I have .gifs on Anonymity on the Internet · · Score: 1

    ..of the individual pages at http://freakho.home.mindspring.com/pd fgif.htm.

    Fair warning: they're pretty bug downloads.

  11. Mirror on Anonymity on the Internet · · Score: 1

    It'll inevitably be /.'ed, it is a .org, after all. SO:
    Here's a mirror.

  12. Re:At the same time, SUN stocks raises by near 9% on Sun Apologizes To Blackdown Team · · Score: 2

    Apparently stock market investors don't seem to be like us.

    Quite right. They're pushing web firms with no profits to unbelievable prices, so when you consider that Sun has consistently increased their profit margin, while at the same time making no (fiscal) mistakes, you can begin to understand why they love Sun. Investors hate suprises, and Sun has delivered them none.

    There are "moral" mutual finds, that don't invest in companies with "sins" on them. Maybe it's time to start an OSS moral fund, supporing companies that get it right?

  13. Which raises a very good question: on IDs in Color Copies · · Score: 1

    Are there any effort going on at reverse-engineering/removing this 'feature'? I assume that since it's been known for years, and simply not publicized, that somebody has been working on this.

  14. Read the article. on IDs in Color Copies · · Score: 2

    ..just crop the watermark out..
    This is encoded in 'background noise' in the image, and is not visable. The algorithm for decoding the watermark is known only to the manufacturers and a few government agencies.

    ..it would be interesting to watch the black market..

    Wrong. This has been around for at least five years. It is not a new thing. It's been an open secret for years, many people even assuming it was an urban legend, and the media ignoring it.

  15. Re:nits to pick on 'South Park' Creators in Web Deal · · Score: 1

    Exactamundo, mi compadre. I dunno about Director, but did you notice the number of random and obvious here-one-cut gone-the-next photoshop textures in the movie? Hilarious.

  16. nits to pick on 'South Park' Creators in Web Deal · · Score: 1

    In the latest examples of how Hollywood is trying to turn the Internet into an entertainment venue..

    Macromedia approached them, and MM is most definitely not hollywood. But that's a nitpick.

    What's more interesting is what M&T say about the technology just now becoming good enough for them to work with it, and the article cites Flash as the intended media. Flash has been around for a bit, IIRC.

  17. Re:Distro? on Gateway Linux Microserver · · Score: 1

    What I meant was: thank god somebody outside the community is realizing the roll-your-own aspect, instead of wrongheadedly focusing on the existing Linux distributors, because they can't even contemplate that there's not a company to deal with. Sorry 'bout that.

  18. Distro? on Gateway Linux Microserver · · Score: 1

    It list its OS as "Linux 2.0 operating system". If they partnered with a specific disto, you know licencing would require that they trumpet it from the rooftops. Did they actually develop their own distro? Go Compaq!

  19. Yummy on Online Speech Indexing · · Score: 2

    Not only for the SMG thing, but also imagine the possibilities when applied to C-SPAN. Now you don't have to listen to hours of mind-numbing, coma-inducing boredom or hope and pray that the media will deign to bring a certain issue out of the Washinton black hole in order to find out about your favorite target of litigation. Like, say, the one you're reading.

  20. Resist the urge to cry "stupid lawsuit!" on Net Gambler Sues Credit Card Company · · Score: 2

    The plaintiff, though admittedly probably not an upstanding citizen, actually may have valid legal grounds. In the article, it states that the companies dissalow merchants from accepting CC payments for gambling from customers living in states where it is outlawed. SO, had they enforced these policies, he wouldn't have lost the money. Sounds like a solid negligence case to me.

  21. Grr. on The Genome Project and the Dark Side · · Score: 1

    Too many viewings of Gattaca, Katz. The actual sequencing of the HG is not, could never ever ever be, bad in and of itself. It can only have positive effects, and more positive effects than we can possibly imagine right now. The danger comes when people with ethical shortcomings start to use this information in.. well, ethically challenged ways.

    Why is it that, thought technophobia is considered backwards by most people these days, when it's applied to something relating to DNA, it's considered wise? Why is all cloning research denied federal funds when lmost no one is interested in cloning whole human beings (which is the thorny issue) but instead wants to grow better organ transplants? There are lots of other examples of this strange syndeome, but right now I'm too pissed off to remember them.

  22. Bad Cliff, Bad on Corporate vs Open Source:Sun Stealing Blackdown? · · Score: 1

    This story needs to be updated to reflect the actual situation, but since this is and Ask Slashdot:

    If Sun & Inprise don't ever credit them (I realize somebody said it's likely they will, but hypothetially..), then Sun is still within the terms of the liscense. Therefore, the most effective action to take is to do what this article has accomplished already: raise a huge stink. Make sure nobody will ever work under the exploitative SCSL ever again. (which should have been done from the beginning, IMHO, but whatever) So: problem solved. :)

  23. Re:orwellian? on Oz Government to Become "Biggest Hacker in Town" · · Score: 2
    Do we have reason to believe that these measures would be abused?

    Well, yes, we do. When one is speaking about governments or large corporations, there is a modified Murphy's Law in effect. If the potential for abuse exists, someone will do it, eventually. And the higher the person with the potential to abuse is in the power structure, the less likely it is that the abuse will ever be stopped once it begins. Accept this as fact now, and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches.
  24. Damn right, and criminal charges too. on No EToy for Christmas · · Score: 2

    Boy did they pick the wrong state to file in.
    This is a classic example of a Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAAP), meant to force somebody w/ less money and power to shut up.
    California has an anti-SLAAP statute. Look here for more details. Any lawyers in the crowd know about success rates in using this sort of statute?

  25. Re:Welcome to the New World Order. Enjoy your stay on Anti-WTO Riot, State of Emergency in Seattle · · Score: 1
    are not acknowledging using rubber bullets or CS (tear) gas, despite ...

    This scared the shit out of me, too, since the media were obviously being lied to by the police, and obviously chose to believe them over their own eyes. But CNN checked themselves and finally told the truth instead of repeating the press releases in their latest revision of the story.