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User: Kymermosst

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  1. Re:heh on Mom Makes Website, Gets Sued for $2 Million · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They could have made it 'better' by being like "We're glad you brought this to our attention and we're going to fix it. Thanks for your vigilence!"

    Unless she's full of it and they didn't do anything wrong.

    I mean, if someone punches you in the face for something you didn't do, do you sit on your ass and go "gee, thanks for that" like some coward?

    Personally, I would demand satisfaction.

  2. Cable tricks and other tricks on How Can You Screw up a Network? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Take an ethernet cable and flex it back and forth (crease-style). Works best with solid conductor cable (I hardly ever see braided anyway). Chances are you'll seriously thin out or break a wire, and if it's one of the right four, you'll have issues.

    Two DHCP servers on the same LAN is fun.

    Plug a crossover cable between two ports on your switch. See what happens (most should disable both ports, but some freak out).

    Crimp your own ethernet cables. That leads to all kinds of fun the first few times you try it.

    Meh.. I'm not good at breaking stuff, that's all I can think of.

  3. Re:You're an anti-american piece of shit on Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn Awarded Medal of Freedom · · Score: 1

    Simply because you don't have any answers, you fucking scumbag. Hell, you haven't lifted a finger to help with anything. You have actively conspired to make things worse. We should fucking execute you, if we had any balls.

    Go to France, cocksucking piece of shit.


    Yeah, that really showed him!

    Seriously, if you disagree, you might actually try and be a little civil and defend your point of view with legitimate arguments.

    Instead, you've simply been written off as another 'duped' red-state hick who somehow manages to post on Slashdot, even if you have valid reasons for believing the way you do. Congratulations.

  4. Re:Who wrote the introduction? on A Guided Tour of the Microsoft Command Shell · · Score: 1

    If you are operating any OS without a full system backup, your whole system is essentially a single point of failure.

    True enough.

    Furthermore, there are numerous files in the various *nixen that also act as SPOF as well and this is true of every OS that I've come across in production use.

    Well, maybe inittab on some systems, but if you can get even to a single-user login as root, there's hope. Some damage to the Windows registry prevents the OS from being accessable at all, and you can't even boot to a command prompt. If restoring the backup doesn't work, it's over.

    However, in Windows XP/2003 even if you don't create any backups at all, you will have at least one known good configuration which includes the registry to fall back to when something terrible happens. It was created as part of the installation process. I don't know of any 'normal' users that know how to create one but the capability is in the OS to do so when you wish ...

    The last time I had to roll back the registry to the "known good", it completely hosed the system. Ended up doing a reinstall. The problem is that too many things rely on state that no longer exists because the registry is fundamentally dynamic.

    Most configuration files in /etc on *nix are only read by the application, not written. Any run-time settings are saved elswhere in most circumstances. Separating the "read-only" data from the "read-write" data (from the application perspective) just seems like a logical separation of purpose.

    It's not that I oppose the concept of a standard configuration mechanism, it's just that I think the way Microsoft implemented it wasn't so good, here's why:

    * Virtual data is retrieved through the same interface as defined data.
    * Read-only data is stored in the same database as read-write data, yet there is little permission enforcement or separation of function on a per-key basis.
    * It makes it too easy for a bad app (malicious or buggy) or bad user (malicious or stupid) to change things that it shouldn't be changing, due to lack of access enforcement.

    Simple things would fix the registry, including journaling of changes since the last backup (this seems obvious, maybe it's already being done?), and some form of access control mechanism, things like:

    1. Allow keys to be created that can only be accessed by the original application that created the key, unless the user intervenes somehow.
    2. Require user intervention when applications want to modify certain subtrees of the registry. Just imagine how much spyware could be prevented if a dialog box popped up and said "3l337-adblaster.exe would like to modify the auto run portion of the registry. This may change the way your computer starts and what programs are run when the computer is started. Allow? ".
    3. Allow signed applications more latitude.

    They all suck if you are a sysadmin. Life sucks if you're the sysadmin!

    Well, things were good in Solaris until Solaris 10 came along and made things different (especially the way services are started).

    Really I don't mind hunting down all the config files... I keep a list of where the most important ones are, for the sake of any sysadmin (especially the on-call) who needs to work on the box.

  5. "Emission free", my ass! on The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And it's completely emission free.

    Ah, so the processes for gaining the aluminum and magnesium are completely green! The mining does no damage, getting the the metals out of the ore releases no pollutants and the process takes no nasty chemicals or fuel.

    What a revolution!

  6. Re:impressive on A Guided Tour of the Microsoft Command Shell · · Score: 1

    Is not that bash or python are bad, but bash-like shells are 30-years-old unchanged technology.

    Now, where have I heard that before?. Bob, is that you?

    To steal the response from Nick Petreley: I'm using 30+ year old technology to post this respose. You might have heard of it, it's called "Ethernet".

    And you're right, bash hasn't changed one bit.

  7. Re:Who wrote the introduction? on A Guided Tour of the Microsoft Command Shell · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The registry is a centralized database of configuration settings for the OS and applications. Its no different than having 5000 configuration files scattered through a system

    AKA "Single point of failure". At least with 5000 config files, if just a few of them get hosed, you can rebuild them easily. Your registry has something happen to it, you might be doing a complete restore or reinstall.

  8. "Gradually" turn on the sonar... on Navy Sued for Sonar-Blasting Whales · · Score: 1

    "They also want the Navy ... to turn on sonar systems gradually so that the animals have time to flee."

    If you turn it on gradually you give away your position and movement. The whole idea is to put out a short burst at full power, so that there is little time for enemies running passive sonar to react to the signal.

  9. Re:Line of sight still, though.. on The Future of Wireless Connectivity · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wimax doesn't require line of sight.

    No, but you must be damn close to line of sight (you must be NLOS - near line of sight). And you need something for signals to reflect off of. WiMax is able to handle multipathing and multipath distortion of signals.

    But that doesn't mean it won't go through walls.

    When we're talking about RF frequencies above 1 GHz, if the relevant signals goes right through a wall from transmitter to receiver, you have line of sight for it. Line of sight means the signal is going from transmitter to receiver directly without significant reflection, attenuation, or refraction. If the signal does not arrive directly, you do not have line of sight. If the signal arrives mainly via reflection or refraction (possibly by more than one path, 'multipathing') you have near line of sight (NLOS).

    Examples:

    If you have two antennas on opposite sides of a wall, and the signals go through, you have (direct) line of sight.

    If it doesn't go through the walls, you do not have line of sight.

    If you do not have line of sight but the signal goes out the door of one room, bounces down the hall and into the door of the other room and to the other antenna, you have near line of sight.

    If you have an 2.4 GHz transmitter on one side of a magic optically transparent glass wall that blocks 2.4 GHz, and a receiver on the other side, you do not have line of sight for 2.4 GHz. You do have line of sight for the visible spectrum, however.

  10. Re:I'm glad YOU think things are so great on Named Innovators/Developers of Color? · · Score: 1

    That's a nice thought, but can you honestly say you'd be out there on the corner in the middle of the night facing down some armed gang members?

    Yes. That's why I keep a loaded pistol within easy reach of me when I sleep. Of course, where I live now there isn't any gang activity. (The cops say there is, but I haven't noticed anything but wanna-be graffiti).

    I know of empty lots in South-Central L.A. where businesses burned down in the 1992 riots and to this day have not been rebuilt.

    I used to live in San Bernardino. I've seen gangs walking the streets during the day armed with baseball bats and confronting everyone who didn't cross the street before they got to them. My dad use to make a living fixing apartments in Muscoy... occasionally getting shot at. So yeah, I know what it's like.

    Granted, that was over 15 years ago and I don't know what it's like now (especially since the peace agreement between the Crips and the Bloods was negotiated.)

    I still think pride and a proactive stance is going to help a lot. They can start with neighborhood litter patrols. It's a good way to see what's going on while doing something else good at the same time.

    There have been hundreds of stories on TV and in magazines about neighborhoods turning themselves around without more money coming in. How many of them are true, I cannot ascertain, but I imagine most of them are.

    Ever seen the movie "Stand and Deliver"? It's based on a true story, and that was just one man and one classroom taking pride in what they were doing... and believing that they could both be better and make a difference.

    I'm not saying it's a complete solution, but this critical change in attitude would go a long way.

  11. Small scale? on Rural Oregon Leads the Way for Large-Scale WiFi · · Score: 1

    even at such a small scale

    Small scale? Were you referring to the network that the story is about? I guess it depends on how you define "small".

    Coverage of this 'small' network in Oregon: 700 square miles.

    Area of city of Los Angeles: 469.1 square miles.

    P.S.: For those keeping track, this story is a dupe.

  12. Re:I'm glad YOU think things are so great on Named Innovators/Developers of Color? · · Score: 1

    All of which are true statements IMO.

    So which is it? Are they true, or are they your opinion?

    It makes more sense to fix the poor elementary and secondary schools, and bring more jobs to "minority" neighborhoods than to try and fix the problem at the university level.

    It's up to a community to fix its own schools. Schools are mostly run at a local level with local board members elected from the local population.

    Also, you've already stated that the '"minority" neighborhoods' are crime ridden, so how do you convince businesses to move there?

    You'd be better off finding a way to convince people in these areas to take pride in themselves and their communities and take a stand against the people who are dragging the whole community down. Then you'll have a lot less fixing to do.

    Crime will go down. It'll be easier to bring business in. Property values will go up, bringing more in property taxes, which pays for schools in most states. Schools will therefore have more money, and conceivably the students will get a better education. Businesses that hire more educated workers will find the neighborhood more attractive.

    Or, we could throw even more money at the problem and see what happens.

  13. Re:easy one on Your Favorite Math/Logic Riddles? · · Score: 1

    "Warning: 0^0 replaced by 1"

    Ahh, that looks like a classic TI-89/92/V200 message.

  14. Well, let me see here... on Will MacIntel Hardware Open The Door for Mac OS X CAD? · · Score: 1

    ... is the Apple switch to Intel-based hardware going to better my chances for a Mac OS X CAD workstation, or will it remain a pipedream?

    My wife lost her ability to see the future, and my friend who can read the minds of distant CEOs an product managers isn't here right now, so I guess I'll have to resort to my magic 8-ball:

    "Better not tell you now"

  15. ADS Tech cooked my 80 GB Western Digital on External Hard Drive Enclosures? · · Score: 1

    Itty bitty fan and itty bitty vents did little to cool the drive.

    I now use it as a test sled for drives... without the plastic case. It's good for that. I may use it to convert an old SCSI box with a real fan into an external USB enclosure.

  16. Yes, I block. on Why Do You Block Ads? · · Score: 1

    With ad blocking becoming ever more popular among users, why do you block ads?

    Because they are f***ing annoying. They play loud music, they steal focus and interrupt what I am doing. Some nasty flash and/or JavaScript ads consume my poor laptop's CPU and memory resources and make things run slow. Overall, they slow things down and get in my way.

    They leave cookies and trackers and attempt to invade my privacy.

    Now, I don't mind embedded jpg or gif ads too much, especially when they are unanimated. I've even clicked on one or two, and I don't go out of my way to block them. Though if they leave a cookie from the ad server, they are gone.

    And with what?

    I use pdsnd. I look through my cookie file and examine the source host of any obnoxious/popup ads. I then negative cache their domains.

    Do you view internet ads as different from say, TV ads?

    Yes, if they are loud (audio-compresed), flashy, popup crap. I block TV ads, too, via my DVR.

    What about in a magazine? Do you not buy a magazine because it has too many?

    Magazine ads don't flash, suddenly spring up in front of the page, or make noise. I don't have to actively do something in order to ignore them. They are a completely different thing.

    Of course, smelly cologne ads will keep my from buying a magazine.

    I'm specifically talking about the ads in a webpage, but even popup blockers can cause problems with me using a site.

    If I can't use a site because it doesn't work without the ads, then it's probably not a site worth visiting, anyway.

    As an example of good internet advertising, Google ads.

    As an example of relatively good advertising, Slashdot's ads.

    As an example of completly aweful, wish-I-could-nuke-the-server's-building kind of ads, see x10.com or just about any pr0n site.

  17. Hey! You are all supposed to be geeks! on iPod nano Owners In Screen Scratch Trauma · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It doesn't take a genius to go buy a Palm or PocketPC screen protecter, cut to size, and put over your iPod's screen.

    This is supposed to be "News for Nerds"... you'd think more "nerds" would have figured this out by now.

    I don't even own an iPod, and even I thought of this. (I *do* have a PDA, though.)

  18. Slashdot is _NOT_ an MMOG. on Cursing as Peephole Into Brain Architecture · · Score: 1

    As someone who plays a lot of MMOGs, in my experience this is only mostly true.

    Sorry, Zonk, being a prolific poster on Slashdot doesn't count as an MMOG.

  19. Re:"charges for the votes" on Malaysians to Vote on First Astronaut · · Score: 1

    Charging for votes is also simply a bad precedent for a government to set. If people get used to the government charging for votes, it may just end up that the government charges for *every* vote at some point in the future.

    Just a bad idea all around. Glad we got rid of that idea here.

  20. Nova on Study Puts Hole In Comet Theory Of Life's Origin · · Score: 1

    Nova is known to do documentaries on crackpot and minority theories.

    Using Nova as an educational tool, you are likely to learn about theories that are already proven false or have little evidence backing them up. The documentaries are certainly twisted into a certain point of view and convey information that the scientists they interview wouldn't have agreed with. Especially on topics related to Geology.

    I'd say the same thing about most of the Discovery Channel's content, given the experiences of some scientists I know. A friend of mine is on a research project, and the Discovery Channel came to do a documentary. The Discovery Channel people kept attempting to change the focus to an infamous aspect of what they were researching, not what actually *mattered*.

    Just remember that these programs are designed as entertainment and to get high ratings (even on PBS... nobody donates if nobody watches), not necessarily to deliver the best information. I don't mean to say that all the information is bad, innacurate, or not mainstream, but a lot of it is.

    Caveat emptor...

  21. Re:Oh, thank you very much on Global Warming Past The Point of No Return · · Score: 1

    Nah, write a Perl script to convert the original code to Perl.

  22. Re:Kyoto on Global Warming Past The Point of No Return · · Score: 1

    If only President Clinton had ratified the Kyoto Protocol, this would never have happened.

    If only you'd paid attention in government class and knew that the President doesn't ratify treaties, the Senate does.

    The President makes the treaty, and 2/3 of the Senate concurs ('ratifies').

    US Constitution: Article II, section 2, clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

    P.S.: Yes I get your satire, and you probably belted your post out rather quickly, but lots of people have never read the Constitution and don't have a clue about what it actually says.

  23. Re:Oh, thank you very much on Global Warming Past The Point of No Return · · Score: 1
    It'd be funnier if you wrote syntactically correct BASIC code instead of this. In reality, this is what happens:
    RUN
    ?SYNTAX ERROR AT 10
  24. Re:Doom and Gloom on Global Warming Past The Point of No Return · · Score: 4, Informative

    Err, I don't know...maybe the missing ozone layer has something to do with it?

    No. Completely wrong. The missing ozone allows UV radiation through, not more heat. Ozone itself is a greenhouse gas and a pollutant.

    Note that while ozone is considered a greenhouse gas only in the troposphere, the primary source of tropospheric ozone is stratospheric ozone... which is what the hole is in.

    Bottom line is that stratospheric ozone relies on continual production to sustain itself. Certain chemicals (CFCs, for instance) both interfere with production and destroy some existing ozone in the stratosphere. This creates the hole.

    Eventually, (surviving) ozone in the stratosphere sinks down into the troposphere, where it becomes a greenhouse gas, and contributes to globabl warming. This process is the biggest contributor to tropospheric ozone.

    So, in reality, the ozone destruction is limiting global warming to an extent, though since some CFCs themselves are powerful greenhouse gases, it is not a net reduction.

  25. Re:Let them wildcard - just make them pay on CentralNic Enables uk.com Wildcard DNS · · Score: 1

    I think you may have missed the point of the post you replied to, which, in response to the top-level post that suggested making companies pay for their wildcarded names, said:

    Try reading the article. Lets say you register: rtfa.com for $15USD. How much do you pay to then register idont.rtfa.com?

    After putting minimal thought into it, you know that if you register rtfa.com, you don't pay one dull cent for idont.rtfa.com, because *you* control the third-level domain.

    Thus, in the case for uk.com, they paid $15 (or whatever) for the second-level domain, and pay exactly nothing for any *.uk.com (not counting paying the sysadmins and everyone else who keeps that stuff running, of course).

    This is the point the post you replied to is trying to make, which nullifies the entire idea the top-level post conveyed.