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User: John+Marter

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Comments · 49

  1. Re:I Killed on A Game Played In the URL Bar · · Score: 1

    That was the coolest part. You have this instant replay that you can view as a two dimensional history of the game.

  2. Re:Password Security. on Are You Sure SHA-1+Salt Is Enough For Passwords? · · Score: 2

    Moreover, you generally have a pretty good intrusion detection system for a password kept on your person. If it has been compromised, you'll know it and can change the password.

  3. Doesn't help when you are stuck on Google Goggles Solves Sudoku · · Score: 1

    Unless the app works better than demonstrated in the video this is not helpful for when you are stuck. By that time the puzzle is partially filled in and possible with wrong answers. In the video this was used only on a blank puzzle. And giving the answer would not be ideal. Better would be if it tells you which squares you need to erase. Or gives a hint for just one square.

  4. Re:How to type...... on What 'IT' Stuff Should We Teach Ninth-Graders? · · Score: 1

    This is the post I was looking for. In 9th grade, students should start developing good keyboarding skills if they have not developed them already. Certainly not the only thing to be concerned about when you are thinking about an IT curriculum, but is is a worthwhile skill.

  5. Re:Poor Planning on Foxconn May Close Factories In China · · Score: 1

    The one child policy is not quite so simple. If both parents are an only child then they can have two.

  6. Re:groan on EyeDriver Lets Drivers Steer Car With Their Eyes · · Score: 1

    I admit I made the same class of comment to my wife before I got that far into the summary.

  7. Demolition Man on Bill To Ban All Salt In Restaurant Cooking · · Score: 1

    Soon all restaurants will be Taco Bell.

  8. Re:And What About... on Melting Memory Chips In Mass Production · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And also, will this get past the requirement for flash of writing out in largish chunks?

  9. Re:no encryption that YOU didn't write is safe on Is Hushmail Still Safe? · · Score: 1

    If you are referring the DES cracker in the book Cracking DES - Secrets of Encryption Research, Wiretap Politics & Chip Design - How federal agencies subvert privacy, one of the points made was that "an ordinary computer is ill-suited for use as a DES Cracker." Their cracker was a hardware device that ran at 40 MHz which parallelized the decryption process in hardware. 36864 search units according to one chart.

  10. Re:Web 2.0 ftw on R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I remember thinking that when I first started reading slashdot. It was the first newsgroup like web site that I frequently read. But having the news topics on the main page kept it interesting.

  11. Re:15 miles across? on Scientists Discover Teeny Tiny Black Hole · · Score: 1

    What if we start throwing massive (antimassive?) amounts of antimatter at it. Is there a point at which whatever is left could expand out of the black hole condition or does it just have to evaporate?

    I'm working off a vague memory that black holes "evaporate" by virtual particles popping into existence near the event horizon and the antiparticle falling into the hole and the normal matter particle moving away from the hole, and that being the Hawking Radiation. Is that about it or am I completely off my rocker? (It can be both.)

  12. Re:Low ID Roll call on A Brief History of Slashdot Part 1, Chips & Dips · · Score: 1

    I had a similar experience with rediscovering my account a few years later. I'm not sure why I got it in the first place. I hardly ever post.

  13. Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth on Dead Musicians Signing Media Rights Petitions · · Score: 1

    Would it help if we gave you 50 years in which nobody else can legally make copies of your table. Then you can put a year into making it and you still have 50 years to recoup your investment. You win because your ability to create something that people would pay for earns you money. Society wins because they have another nice table to choose from. We can call the system copyright.

    The question is what should happen in 50 years? You had a chance to recapture your investment. Now what is the case to keep people from copying the table?

  14. Re:That's complete folly! on Vaporizing Garbage to Create Electricity · · Score: 1

    3. Risk of failure at launch. Rockets explode and everything in them gets scattered all over the vicinity.

  15. Sojourner on Orbiter Successfully Enters Orbit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If it can spot Spirit and Opportunity, maybe it can also spot Sojourner. It would be cool to see if Sojourner made it back to Sagan Memorial Station and circled it.

  16. Re:Why tax software? on Tennessee to Tax Software as Property? · · Score: 1

    There are those who argue that the gas tax is a sensible tax because it tends to reduce consumption of gas.

    My point, however, is not that the individual arguments for a tax are sensible but that they are often framed within this context for debate. Reasonable people differ on whether it is wise to pursue a policy of taxing behaviors that you wish to reduce.

    My point is that there have been very few posts about whether it makes sense to tax software at all. There seems to be an obsession about whether or not the software is owned. To me a more interesting subject is whether or not software should be taxed at all. If you accept my framing of the debate, then the question becomes why should we want there to be less software. Another interesting approach is to say that I have unfairly framed the debate and provide another criteria with which we can judge a tax.

  17. Why tax software? on Tennessee to Tax Software as Property? · · Score: 1

    Not that I am totally consistant on this, but I think it makes sense to tax the things that you want less of, or the things that you want less hoarded.

    With that principle, you can make a case to tax smoking; the health effects have costs that we would rather avoid. You can make a case to tax land; it is a limited resource that we want as many people as possible to get their piece of. You can even make a case for taxing other physical property; physical property takes resources to make which could be used for something else.

    You may or may not agree with these simplistic arguments for taxing items, but the point is there is some case to be made. Why tax software. Why would less software be a better thing?

  18. Re:It's so simple... on WI Assembly OKs Voting Paper Trail · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I can't think of any reason why you should be able to take a record of your vote with you, but I have heard of one reason why you shouldn't. Allowing the voter to take proof of their voting choice allows for vote buying.

  19. Re:Finally a voice of reason on Less Might Be More · · Score: 1

    I agree. I felt depressed reading how advanced the so-called "old" computer was. My main computer is still my Dual PII-233 that I bought from VA Research in December of 1997. The second processor I bought in 2000 not because I needed more power, but just because I wanted to play with SMP.

  20. Impact Crater? on Titan's Surface Revealed · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's no impact crater. It's the primary weapon.

  21. Re:The Madness of King Darl on SCO Madness Reigns Supreme · · Score: 1

    SCO's argument will likely be that this contravenes Congress's will, by creating a commons under rules other than those established by law.
    If Congress cared about the commons established by law then they never would have passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act.

  22. Re:Uptime? on Ten Years Of The Linux Counter · · Score: 2, Informative
    Next time someone tries to tell you closed source is more stable, point them at that. Sure there are plenty of arguments against it running a server that long, but...

    But be prepared to back-pedal when they point out that many systems can't make the list because they do not report uptime. Also other systems, (Linux, for example) cannot make it to the top of the list because they roll over their uptime counter at 497 days.

    Nevertheless, there are some competitors left and the BSD's have completely dominated them.

  23. Re:The association? Why not some home numbers? on Oops, Dave Barry Does It Again · · Score: 1
    It wouldn't be admissible if they didn't have the whole tape. They don't get to edit it. If they didn't keep it, they would have a hard time proving that there was a contract. So if that evidence is not available to me there is no problem at all; they won't have the evidence either.

    At any rate, the burden would be on them to show that a contract does exist. They would have to prove that the answering machine tape did not provide the "uh huh".

  24. Re:The association? Why not some home numbers? on Oops, Dave Barry Does It Again · · Score: 1
    Of course, if you make your tape recording in your voice, and they have a recording of the sale (you saying "uh-huh") you'll have a hard time proving that it was your recording and not you who said it.

    It would be easy to prove that that it was your recording. Why else would you have a tape that was perfectly in-sync with their phone call and continues on that way for 20 minutes?