Slashdot Mirror


User: pavera

pavera's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,130
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,130

  1. hmm not scalable.. on Solar Power Put to Good Use · · Score: 1

    Um, you have to have 25,000 acres to produce 200MW with that thing. You would have to sacrifice the entire SW US to produce enough energy for California alone.

    I'm sure this 25,000 acres has to be relatively flat as well, making the SW US impossible to use as it is spotted with all sorts of mountains, and the bottom of the tube has to be the highest point under that skirt of solar panels to maximize air flow, so in most places you're talking about a tube sitting at least 200 or 300 feet above the ground.

    I can't think off-hand of a single place where there are 25,000 acres between Salt lake City and Las Vegas that meet those criteria... anyway 25,000 acres for 200MW is bizarre.

  2. wow a 5 spot! on Microsoft Will Pay If Its Bugs Damage Your Data · · Score: 1

    Ok, so I install their spyware removal software, it corrupts my hard drive and causes me to lose 2 days of coding... so figuring I make $150/hr, 16 hours... that's $2400 in direct losses, and MS is gonna give me $5? and I'm supposed to be impressed??!

    How about the really pony up and say they'll cover all direct costs because of virus infections on their platform. That would be extremely impressive, but will never happen cause MS would go bankrupt if all the businesses I contract for sent all my bills for spyware/virus/etc problems straight to MS...

    Anyway, in the end, they are offering $5 on a beta product if it damages data that could be worth a whole lot more

  3. Re:Doesn't make sense! on Was the Lokitorrent Suit a Hoax? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    because you can't "buy" all episodes of all tv shows, that is the main thing my wife looks for on torrent sites, you can buy some really popular shows, but most you can't buy.... so how else are you supposed to get the content?

  4. Re:2.4/2.6 compile times compared -- v/s whitebox on 4-Way Sun Fire V40z Reviewed · · Score: 1

    you are completely full of it.
    Anand took over 10 minutes with j1, since you have a single proc, doing j3, j5 whatever will make the build slower as you'll lose cycles in process switching, you won't gain anything by running multiple jobs because you have only 1 processor. It is 100% impossible for you to have built the kernel with the same options any faster than their -j1 build.

  5. Re:The perfect crime on Court Says FCC Out-of-Bounds With Digital TV · · Score: 1

    They never will because the people making the cards/tv's etc all want to sell more cards and tv's and this a gov't forced upgrade they see it as a boon for profits.

  6. Re:Do they charge full price? on Blockbuster Sued Over Late Fees Claim · · Score: 1

    Yes,
    We used this service recently, and got hit with a $95 charge for 3 movies, then we returned them, got credited the 95 and billed like 2 bucks for restocking... Anyway, we kept the movies for 3 weeks, so to pay $2 was quite reasonable I thought, but if we would have kept them another week, we'd have been in the crapper cause they wouldn't have accepted the return and we would have been stuck paying 95 for 3 movies I could get at best buy for a total of $45...

  7. My favorite on MS Employee Calls for No More Passwords · · Score: 1

    dumping out all of the password hashes and then cracking most if not all of those using rainbow tables and then using that as evidence you should switch to Linux!

    Ok, so Windows is more secure because it supports long passwords with spaces? Wait, linux does too. So this whole point is moot as far as which is more secure. Windows fanboys need to learn that linux is more secure because it was designed that way, Windows is insecure because it was designed to never touch the internet or a network for that matter...

  8. Re:User experience on MS Security Chief Says Windows is Safer Than Linux · · Score: 1

    granted most of these are programs, but 1 of them is an MS program, and I have the same problem with windows messenger, by default it starts whenever you log in and takes focus as it pops up windows about email, buddies, etc, etc... These 2 programs (spyware and messenger) are MS apps, so they don't get excused.

  9. Re:User experience on MS Security Chief Says Windows is Safer Than Linux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Linux and Mac OS manage to get these settings "right" by default.. Why should I pay more for an OS and then have to work harder to make it behave the way I want? That's like paying extra for a house that's a fixer-upper.

    Here, you can buy this house that has everything working, looks nice, great house, 300k, or you can buy this house right next door, the plumbing is shot, the kitchen needs to be redone, the flooring is 15 years old and needs to be replaced, and you can have it today for the bargain basement price of 450k!

    We're actually charging extra because with this house once you're done with it, it will be exactly what you want, not what the people who are selling the house next door want you to have.

  10. Oh wow, MS if funny on MS Security Chief Says Windows is Safer Than Linux · · Score: 1

    Ok, so they are more secure because they have less patches? So now all MS has to do to be "secure" is not release patches for vulnerabilities, as is obviously their strategy, as the secunia links state that there are 0 unpatched vulns in redhat and suse, yet there are 4 unpatched vulns in Server 2k3... out of 44 errate, 4 unpatched.

    And granted 15 in 2k5 is less than 30 or whatever redhat had, but those 30 include patches for web browsers, office suites, database software, programming languages, web servers, all sorts of software. Obviously this has been said before, so I'll probably get modded redundant, but comparing windows to linux wrt patches is like comparing a 50cc motorbike to a v8 super-charged sports car. Is the motorbike easier to fix? yes. Does that mean it's "better" no. and once you get all the cludges and hacks onto that 50cc motorbike to make it go half the speed of the car, you've got so much complexity, it will never run reliably... and that is windows.

  11. hmm, possible, but very difficult on Precedent for Warrantless Net Monitoring Set · · Score: 1

    Ok, while this is possible I suppose, how exactly are they gonna implement it? I mean if they have a sniffer that goes off every time it sees the word drugs in an email, or sees "I'm gonna kill him" running across the net... well... basically they're gonna have a million false positives and it will be a prohibitive waste of time and energy to follow all those leads.

    Maybe they can come up with a really solid filter.. but uh, really smart people have been trying to get a good binary filter for spam for what? 10 years now? And we still suck really bad at that. Searching for anything that could be considered "illegal" activity will also be prohibitively difficult.

    The guy in the story shouldn't get off either though, I mean how often do cops set up random drunk driving road blocks? In Vegas (where I'm from) they do it at least 2 times a year on the freeways into and out of Vegas... They search everyone's car for alcohol, make people take breathalizers, search for drugs, all of it. When you go to the airport they don't have any reason to "suspect" you, but they are allowed to search through all your stuff. Anyway, my point is this sort of mass searching isn't really practical on the net, maybe it will become so, but right now they'd just end up arresting a bunch of people who ordered viagra through spam, or drugs from canada.

  12. Re:And your answer is.. on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    No my answer would be put the blame where it should be on MS's shoulders. I think it would be totally reasonable for MS to build a new OEM image every time they patch something, and test it in house for 3-4 months, and then release it to the OEM's.

    That's fine, make MS pay for making bad software, then maybe they'll fix it if it's actually costing them money when their coders do stuff wrong, then the coders will get in trouble, and won't make crap software next time. Making Dell pay for extra engineering/testing/etc because MS can't write software is possibly the most misguided thinking I've ever known.

  13. Re:Only problem exists between chair and keyboard. on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    well, maybe I'm just better at doing default installs than you.... I haven't had a soundcard or wireless nic issue in a very long time in linux (like 2000 with redhat 7.1 I think was the last time my wireless nic wasn't discovered in the install). I have a much easier time configuring wireless nics in linux than in windows. the last time I spent a day getting some hardware to work it was a wireless NIC that windows didn't like because windows thought it could use its built in driver, but that crashed the system, and then windows wouldn't let the third party driver install because it conflicted with the default driver windows had installed already...

    Anyway, obviously ymmv, I have wireless nics that I know linux supports, I don't support hardware vendors that force me to pay $300 for an os....

    As for OS X, my wife and brother have been using it exclusively for about a year and a half now... do they miss windows at all? Have they ever bugged me saying "This OS X is great, but I can't do x, y and z now cause I don't have the software"? No, not once. What software are you looking for? Some proprietary oil services/exploration software? GIS software? For 99.9% of computer users, email, web, calendaring, photos, movies, music, file sharing, palm pilot, office suite, etc... The mac has software for all of that, and all of the mac's default software for that stuff (minus file sharing obviously...) is much better than windows equivalents.

  14. Re:I Can And DO Blame Microsoft on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    Ok, yeah, sure, exploit java... hmmm, pretty sure I've seen exactly 0 exploits in java, but ok whatever. Further, OS X never lets a program install without notifying the user and asking for a password. windows activex lets anything happen, without notifying anyone or doing anything besides dutifully dropping the malware onto the harddrive.

  15. Re:I Can And DO Blame Microsoft on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    You are an idiot my friend.

    Mac OS X by default cannot be remote hacked (there are 0 services running), and because opening an email in the preview pane of the default mail reader on Mac doesn't automatically execute code the way it does in Outlook, email viruses are much harder to get as well (if any exist for OS X I don't know). Spyware? Oh yeah to install that you have to have an activeX capable system... no OS X is not vulnerable..

    Linux, at least Redhat linux, by default is quite difficult to exploit, assuming you set the root password.

    I have a linux box that is a mail/webmail server, those are the only 2 open ports (25 and 80). I have no firewall on the box, about 20 users use it daily. Yes I have to keep apache, php, and postfix patched, but that amounts to maybe 2-3 times/year that I'm worried about patching, and applying the patch doesn't require a reboot, or any sort of thinking (up2date postfix apache php) and done... Actually, I have a cron job that does that automatically once a week and then restarts apache and postfix. It's been running right out on the internet for 3 years not without getting exploited. so, in short, no you are wrong.
    Worst reply ever.

    You obviously have never used anything except MS, or you would know that there are systems that were actually designed to be used on the internet, and have reasonable defaults, and for the most part secure software. Systems that are hard to exploit do exists. MS just doesn't make any of them.

  16. Re:Because she didn't run SP2 on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    It's not, and the reason is that it breaks alot of installed software base. Nero doesn't run under SP2, alot of other things broke as well. When MS released it I was working for an ISP, we did nothing for the month after it was released except tell people that the reason software x, y or z stopped working was because they installed SP2.

  17. Re:Because she didn't run SP2 on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    I'm glad you have an OC3 plugged into the back of your computer, but even 7mb/s DSL can't download SP2 in 4 minutes, so go try again.

  18. Re:Don't Blame MS - blame the PC makers on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    Ok, so its acceptable to you that after Dell puts the latest patches on a system that everyone running Nero can't anymore? With just a popup saying "sorry we broke it"??!! What the hell kind of crack are you smoking?

    So if dell signs an OEM agreement with Roxio and then the next MS patch breaks their software for cd burning Dell is just expected to go renegotiate another OEM agreement with another cd burner software vendor? I'm really confused about how its "OK" with you that Nero stops working in SP2, and how that's acceptable or "good testing".

    Good testing is not knowing that something is broken, it's finding the broken stuff and fixing it. That is why it took us 6 months to build an XP image that worked, because you find things that break in the new image, and then you have to fix them we found all the problems in the first month, it took 5 more to make everything work reliably.

    all I can say to your response is ROFL. Yeah, oh wait, you proved my point in your response, in one sentence you said "MS is good at testing, but not really". They are good at testing, except if you want to burn cd's, and then their fix is a dialog box that says "you can't do this".

    You are an MS apologist of the worst kind.

  19. Re:Only problem exists between chair and keyboard. on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The biggest problem with Windows is that Microsoft gave a very powerful OS to Joe Servicepack who has NO CLUE how to get it stable and keep it stable.

    Ok so how do you explain OS X's security/stability? I got fed up with my brother and wife getting spyware/adware/viruses in windows (even a good firewall can't stop email viruses or spyware). I got them both using macs at their last upgrade cycle (about a year and a half ago) and neither of them has had a problem since. But guess what OS X is no toy OS, I use it on a daily basis for network programming, system administration, java development, everything. I can get into the guts of the system and do anything, and for multimedia mac kills windows.

    Point is, Apple managed to release a very powerful OS that Joe Servicepack (or my wife or 16 year old brother) can use every day to do things they need to do, without having to worry about virus updates, spyware updates, etc. No viruses, No hacks, no slowdowns, no system reloads, everything just works.

    So if Apple can do it, why can't MS? MS is what Novell used to be, you have to be a sysadmin to make it run properly, but what 99.9% of people want is an OS that can run itself reliably without having to call the $300/hr tech every week.

  20. Re:Don't Blame MS - blame the PC makers on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 1

    The problem with your car anology is that, when you take the car in to get it repaired for a recall *FORD* pays for the dealership to fix it. The dealership doesn't get the shaft. In your model for dell, MS should be paying for those 2 guys (and a gaurantee it would be more than that, the amount of testing that has to be done on a new image is not trivial, or easy).

    At my last company I helped build the new windows xp standard image for the entire company (5000+systems). It took 10 guys 6 months to fully test all of the software that had to work, and to test the stability of the systems, and get fixes from MS, and a couple from the vendors who made the GIS software we used so that it would work reliably. When you're talking about an image that is going to be put on > 50 systems, you have to do some serious testing on that image to assure that it will work. With MS's history of patches that break things, this would be no trivial 2 person 10 minute task.

  21. Re:Don't Blame MS - blame the PC makers on Why Does Windows Still Suck? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This almost would seem like a reasonable argument, except that MS would probably charge dell an arm and a leg to "distribute" the patches, as that is strictly forbidden by MS on their update service. Further, it would be a huge chore for Dell to do. Why doesn't MS release a new OEM version of windows every time they release a patch? It's their product, why don't they keep it updated? Oh yeah, cause if they released a new version every time a patch came out they'd need to more than quadruple their regression testing staff.

    And there you have the reason why Dell doesn't do it either, they would be forced to create a huge staff just to test each new patch level against their hardware, and a large enough set of software that you could call it "representative".

    Why should dell be forced to foot the bill for MS not writing decent code? That is a bizarre piece of logic.

    That would be like this:
    Hi we're GM, we made this car but as soon as someone drives this car off the lot with these tires, and this fuel pump, the car will fail. So, here's the deal, dealership, we expect you to pay us for this version of the car, and then at your own expense you need to put new tires on this car, and a new fuel pump in it. Now remember though, if you put a new fuel pump in it, it might break the spark plug system, and if it does, you'll have to re-engineer the spark plug system for us... how does that sound?

    That is what you're saying though, why doesn't everyone who resells MS's products foot the bill to fix them. That's insane.

  22. Re:Getting into IT as a career path is stupid on Open Source is Not a Career Path · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I learnt to program

    forgot about the english/spelling classes though eh?

  23. the only thing that scares me... on IBM Subpoenas Intel Into SCO Fray · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is that SCO/Caldera is Canopy group, and Canopy group has made almost all of its money by suing huge and successful companies. I'm not sure on their exact record, but I know they've done this sort of thing at least 2 or 3 times already. They are pretty good at doing this, so I don't like to see anything "going their way" at all... hopefully IBM can keep it on course, and kill them dead soon.

  24. Re:How about browser-in-browser thin client servic on Google Planning Web Browser? · · Score: 1

    Microsoft when they started weren't an "evil" company, they came and got rid of the evil overlord of the time IBM, (who ironically we now all revere). It is a simple case of absolute power corrupts absolutely. If Google goes down this path and suplants MS, guess what, they will be corrupted, and they will become evil. It is gauranteed, a forgone conclusion. Shareholders, profit hungry management, and the need to continually grow so that they can keep good employees happy with their stock options.

  25. Re:How about browser-in-browser thin client servic on Google Planning Web Browser? · · Score: 1

    yes thin client has its limitations, but most of them can be engineered around. I've been installing thin client setups for small/medium businesses for 2 years now based on linux, as long as you get a solid idea of what they need to do, you can make 99% of things work. Businesses love this as it restricts the damage employees can do, it lowers costs of management and hardware, almost eliminates client hardware replacements, if google does a thin client app service, they will clean up in the small/medium business sector, everyone will pay $20/mo to have all their apps and not have to worry about anything else.