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User: dhalgren

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Comments · 165

  1. Re:Really? on The PHP Singularity · · Score: 1

    This. PHP was fixed to no longer work the way the bug reported wanted it to work with the reporter's broken code. Why was the reporter allowing uninitialized values in the first place? Was he seriously not planning on testing the codebase after the upgrade?

  2. Re:Recursive? on The PHP Singularity · · Score: 1

    Minor correction: "interpreter", not "interface".

  3. Re:Doesn't help on Nanotech Solar Cell Minimizes Cost, Toxic Impact · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would this be up to the company? There's still a grid out there. Maybe we just need more options for feeding it.

  4. Re:Weve seen that argument before on HDCP Master Key Is Legitimate; Blu-ray Is Cracked · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wrong--it's a tool with two uses: copyright violation, and copyright protection. The buyer is also granted certain rights under copyright law. DRM seeks to prevent those rights from being exercised.

  5. Re:Weve seen that argument before on HDCP Master Key Is Legitimate; Blu-ray Is Cracked · · Score: 4, Funny

    You can stick them in the esophagus. You give them a ballpoint tracheotomy.

    Esophagus? If I ever need an emergency tracheotomy, please be far, far away from me at the time.

  6. Re:double standard on Researchers Pinpoint Cause of Gluten Allergies · · Score: 1

    You having a hard time with reality doesn't mean the rest of us have to.

  7. Re:403 is odd? on Google Voice Opens To All · · Score: 1

    But Toronto isn't right on the border. Or the boarder, I hope. Toronto is very heavy, after all.

  8. Re:DOS Is dead use visual basic on For Automated Testing, Better Alternatives To DOS Batch Files? · · Score: 2, Funny

    *whoosh*

  9. Re:more on Japanese Researchers Make Plastic Out of Water · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The implants may be natural, but that doesn't mean that the breasts are.

  10. Re:Science = religion on Science Attempts To Explain Heaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Science and morality are not related. Neither are religion and morality, although those with a vested interest in religion try to make it appear so.

  11. Re:Dunno on Battlefield Earth Screenwriter Accepts Razzie · · Score: 1

    No. At most, the OP is admitting to having had access to a copy.

  12. Re:Dunno on Battlefield Earth Screenwriter Accepts Razzie · · Score: 1

    Understanding Christian Fundamentalism: you're doing it wrong.

  13. Re:Patent risks on H.264 vs. Theora — Fightin' Words About Patentability · · Score: 1

    Mechanical devices are physics, and physics is not patentable. There are various reasons for this, and many of them are good ones.

    Mechanical devices are not physics, they are the application of ideas which are confirmed by physics. In other words, they are technology, not science.

  14. Re:8 pounds a month on The Times Erects a Paywall, Plays Double Or Quits · · Score: 1

    Any thoughts on why your economy crashed?

  15. Re:What, no superliminal rail . . . on "Tube Map" Created For the Milky Way · · Score: 1

    "Superliminal"? Is that where your movie is interspersed with 5-minute segments of a guy shouting at you to TRUST THE POWER?

  16. Re:revoke ALL their copyrights on CBS Refuses To Preserve Jack Benny Footage · · Score: 1

    I don't know what material those films are recorded on, but I'm almost certain there is some difference in the level of risk of damage to the media. In one scenario, you're taking a photo--not touching the media, and you can do it on location. In the other scenario, you almost certainly can't do it (cheaply) on location, and the media will be put through various stresses when unwound, fed through a projector, and played. It could well be that the media is still supple and strong (I have no idea what it's made of) but still, that's a lot more handling than photography would incur.

    If this concern does factor in to it (and this is just speculation, I don't know), then perhaps some agreement could be made to engage a party trusted by both sides to perform the initial transfer?

  17. One mostly happy user on Some Early Adopters Stung By Ubuntu's Karmic Koala · · Score: 1

    Well, just another anecdote in the mix here, really.

    I ran the 9.10 RC in virtualbox for a little over a week before the release, and was pretty happy with it overall. That still wouldn't have told me everything I needed to know, but I know from experience that I should expect problems with the nvidia and intel 4965 drivers, and I have always had to ditch PulseAudio (which I have railed against including as default) and I hate Network Manager. For reference, this is on an ASUS G1S laptop with a retrofit Seagate Momentus 7400 hd running ext4 on all partitions.

    So I waited for the weekend after the 9.10 release to install. I get a 3-day weekend, which should be enough for anybody to recover from a botched OS upgrade even with dumb partitioning (and mine should be fine). The upgrade went off in around an hour with no trouble. I was somewhat shocked that I had no problem with DKMS handling the nvidia driver install, although, as expected, I had to plug in a CAT5 for a couple of minutes to uninstall Network Manager and install wicd (which is just in my experience completely superior anyway).

    I was stunned to realize after a couple of days that I still hadn't uninstalled PulseAudio. Several days on, and it's still running, and still behaving itself. I don't do any serious audio work on this machine as it's a laptop for programming and not an audio workstation so I can't speak to latency but for the first time in my experience it's actually performing as advertised. My wifi worked out of the box and so do all of my ASUS LEDs.

    The desktop layout is solid, things look good, and to me the menu setup in Gnome makes a hell of a lot more sense than in recent Windows and Mac machines I've used (flameproof undies on--I admit I have more experience in Gnome than in Windows or Mac so take that for what it's worth).

    Now, all that said (I sound pretty happy so far, yes?) I offer these caveats:

    - The generic-pae kernel completely refuses to boot to the desktop. Haven't really looked into it yet since I only have (and only need at this point) 2GB RAM--but it was the default kernel so I rewrote menu.lst to make the non-pae kernel the default and am quite happy for the moment running 2.6.31-14-generic. I suspect it's simply a matter of properly setting up the nvidia driver to work with it but am waiting for the weekend to work on that.
    - This upgrade would have sent my folks running. They would have no idea how to edit menu.lst, no clue to plug in the CAT5 and do 'apt-get remove network-manager; apt-get install wicd', and so on.
    - For some reason, the 'disable touchpad' button no longer works--it worked out of the box on 9.04.

    Overall, I would count myself as happy with the upgrade. If I had less experience running Linux (I've run several distros since about 1994 or so) I would likely be less happy. I just want a distro which gets me up and running with my tools and, where possible, my eye candy--and this worked perfectly for that. Aside from ditching Network Manager and swapping the default boot kernel, I have everything I want so far and the Compiz bling is turned up to 11 and working fine. I even (so far) have been able to skip the whole 'disable Pulse' step, since for a change it actually seems to be working.

    So: Grandma-ready? No. But ready to be packaged and given to Grandma to use (without the root password)? Quite possibly.

    Just some thoughts.

  18. Re:6 days? on Ubuntu "Karmic Koala" RC Hits the Streets With Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    Complaining to Kai-lan about something, presumably. And wearing panda slippers.

    *sigh* Yes, my 2-year-old kid watches entirely too much TV.

  19. Re:it rocked on Battlestar Galactica Comes To an End · · Score: 1

    No, the poster just forgot a hyphen. Try reading it as ". . .resurrected Jesus-like character. . ." and it makes sense.

    Torben

  20. Re:Not just cost, but optics on Why LEDs Don't Beat CFLs Even Though They Should · · Score: 2, Informative

    Um, no. That's nonsense. LEDs work just fine on DC, and that's the most common way to power them. In the simplest case, you just use a properly calculated current-limiting resistor as a current source, but any current source with the right output will work. For more complex needs (dimming, colour blending, etc) you can modulate them quite easily while keeping the pulses well above what the human eye can discern. You are alluding to that in the last sentence of your post, but a 10% duty cycle at 10kHz is DC, not AC (unless you're swinging both ways for some reason).

    It's less common to run them off AC but as long as your circuit takes the negative supply swing into account you can do it. This is how (at least some) holiday LED strings work.

  21. Re:Let me be the first to say on Microsoft Programming Contest Hacked and Defaced · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other news, Alanis Morissette is found posting on Slashdot under the name 'db32'.

  22. Re:Congrats ... on On Fourth Launch Attempt, SpaceX Falcon 1 Reaches Orbit · · Score: 1

    On the other hand, private companies commonly release their code and other proprietary information to the public.

    Oh, wait. . .

  23. Re:Darwin on Text-Messaging Behind the Wheel · · Score: 1

    Press Scan then. By your argument we shouldn't have climate controls, cruise control, or anything else with a user interface in the cab beyond the bare minimum required the pilot the vehicle. The difference is in the amount of distraction and the amount of time it takes to complete a task. Changing a radio station takes less time and mental engagement than text messaging.

    Driving is dangerous. Period.

  24. Re:I have firefox 3.0 beta on Firefox 3 Release On Tuesday · · Score: 1

    I fail to see how milk comes into this.

  25. Re:physical access == game over on Gaining System-Level Access To Vista · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Secondly, which moron in Microsoft would allow 'root' level programs to run 'before' the user has logged in as root? Pretty dumb, it seems to me. Maybe they did it on purpose?



    ts7000:~$ ps aux
    USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
    root 1 0.0 1.7 1368 508 ? S May25 0:05 init [2]