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  1. Re:Trial and extradition were never the goal on US Judge Say Kim Dotcom May Never Be Tried or Extradited · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He was put out of business and lost tens of millions of dollars from the raid. His punishment has already been served, without trial, and without due process.

    Except this whole thing was orchestrated to prove to legislators that the current law cannot be used to stop the bad guys and that America needs those tougher laws that the lobbyists cannot get though.

    "Ok, they won't give us the powers we need to make it impossible to send movies to your friends... How about we try and do everything possible we can to take down someone we can paint as the bad guy (fat douche looking hacker with an attitude, nice!) and when it backfires we can say it isn't cause we are not trying hard enough. It is because we need bigger legal guns."

    Kim will get his stuff back. He will put Megaupload back online, even without everyone's data, because Kim will want to make a point, and the point will be exactly the point the RIAA and MPAA want him to make. "Look we even had the bad guys raided by a swat team... And they went right back to selling bandwidth to pirates."

  2. they are worth it on Are Code Reviews Worth It? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    no

    You often *have* to review a entry level programmer's work until it reaches an acceptable quality. I consider code reviews as a method of improving the programmer more so than the code. One an engineer is producing generally acceptable code it becomes safe enough to treat their code as a black box and wait for problems to be unearthed by testing. If you are shipping bugs your problem is testing, not code reviews. Finally, the cheapest way to do code reviews is for a manager to just scan submitted code from time to time and send out polite emails if they see something amiss. On the other hand getting five senior guys in a room to discuss the work of another senior engineer is a just going to result in unproductive, cranky engineers.

  3. Re:it is worth it on Google Losing Up To $1.65M a Day On YouTube · · Score: 1

    I'm not asking for genius. I'm just saying they have to have a plan beyond puring money into a hole or they wouldn't be doing it. And it seems pretty obvious what plan you would have with a site like YouTube.

  4. it is worth it on Google Losing Up To $1.65M a Day On YouTube · · Score: 3, Interesting

    YouTube positions Google to try and be the next iTunes, to turn Android into the next iPhone and be the place where video and audio providers need to be to sell their content. I'm sure Google knows this and considering the economic realities of the day are looking at ways to move in on Apple. I mean really, why else would they be burning that much money folks. There has to be more of a plan when it comes to Google and media than to spend 5 billion waiting for bandwidth to become cheaper.

  5. fail early on The Perils of Pointless Innovation In Games · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With our budgets the conservatism is understandable. At the same time when you are trying to make a new product there is also pressure to be the one that stands out. So the creative process demands that you try new things, preferably early on in the project. I think the real problem here (sorry to parade out an industry truism) is not failing quickly enough. If a new feature or mechanic becomes a *big deal* and is not allowed to fail when it starts to suck, the investment of money and ego may require it to ship. However, trying new things when you have time to take the risks, and are not overly committed to shipping them, is the thing that keeps us evolving.

  6. Re:Cute robot on "Tweenbots" Test NYC Pedestrian-Robot Relations · · Score: 1

    Would it ever get there? I'm going to try it tonight. Hey, that way you might even get lucky... tonight.

  7. Re:Inaccurate wiimote description on TrueMotion Game Controller a Step Up From Wii Remote · · Score: 1

    Ok, look. The Wiimote has no idea what direction it is currently moving in. It only knows about *acceleration* in it's local space. So for example due to gravity, (a kind of acceleration) when you hold it still it knows exactly which way is down. But that is about it. Also the accelerometers are bloody cheap, so all they are really good for is triggering an event when you jerk the damn' thing.

  8. the only problem is the word citizen. on Jobs Rumor Debacle Besmirches Citizen Journalism · · Score: 1

    I mean would you be "besmirching" an anonymous coward? Oh, by the way AMD cannot get credit and is going to loose it's fabrication contracts. You heard it on slashdot first!!!

  9. a 4 year old can negotiate on Getting Paid To Abandon an Open Source Project? · · Score: 1

    but I have an information, that in Soviet Russia there were absolutely no lessons on contracts and how to negotiate

    This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. People negotiate over who washes the dishes and who takes out the trash. You don't need a course in school to figure that one out.

  10. the demographic has changed on Balancing Challenge Against Frustration In Games · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Personally I'm as hardcore a gamer as they come, and I'm just plain bored of spending more than 5 min on a single challenge. I don't mind if it's hard, but once I start spending 15 min at a time to get past different parts of the game because they are ramping up the difficulty, I'm so bored. I have a job, and I can easily afford to buy a new game at that point, but what I don't have is a ton of free time. The core audience got older and games have to adapt.

    After the third time you fail a particular challenge, "skip" and "easy" options should be available. It is that simple. Then they can make it as hard as they want. I paid good money for the thing, why can't I play it the way I want? Sure, keep track of the stuff I skipped and add it to a menu so I can go back and finish it if I want to claim to have completed the game. Heck I don't mind if I have to go to youtube to see the final scenes if I don't feel like finishing every damn' thing.

    Seriously. How is GTA too easy? The gameplay gets so repetitive before it is half way over, you wouldn't want to spend entire evenings grinding through it!?!

  11. This just means that IE users are more mainstream on Firefox 3 Already Rules the Roost · · Score: 1

    Just because your users don't care so much about upgrading all their software as soon as possible doesn't mean you have a problem. I'd say it was a measure of success, that you we able to reach the non-technical crowd, a much more important accomplishment. That said, I'm sure most IE users just use whatever is on their computer and don't give a damn' making them an unimportant demographic in terms of measuring success.

  12. finally someone gets it on AMD's New Card Supports Linux From the Get-Go · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ATI supporting Linux opens up a whole world of, for instance, new laptop choices.
    And this is where things are headed -- cheap laptops, specifically with reasonable graphics and in the developing world. By encouraging Linux on laptops AMD/ATI moves the market to what they think they can dominate. They are hoping to realize the benefits of the AMD/ATI merger this way.
  13. rasing "mental health" is going too far. on Jack Thompson's Letter To Take-Two Exec's Mother · · Score: 0, Troll

    I have to seriously wonder, is this man mentally ill?

    And seriously, the kinds of attacks against him here are no less one sided than the man himself. This forum is out of control on this topic. And I say this as a senior engineer in the games industry eagerly awaiting my copy of GTA which is in the mail.

    In large part this is simply a matter of perspective, and a case of impassioned arguments that are untempered by a close look at the facts. For example take a look at this high-ranking youtube video of an interview with them man after a school shooting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weG7A4lTGtg Clearly he is quite emotional about the chronic youth violence in the USA. And again, being less aware of the facts and thinking you were trying to save lives you might just email some "evil" CEO's mother yourself. If we sided with the man we would be applauding him, not questioning his mental health.

  14. water is wet on Disillusioned With IT? · · Score: 1

    "However, over the last couple of months I have become a little disillusioned with $JOB."
    In other news water is wet. After 12 years you have to admit you held it off *amazingly* well.
  15. Re:Is it just me... on US Government to Have Only 50 Gateways · · Score: 1

    They could design it so that the 50 points lead to a network that is redundant behind the 50 points.
    That's just wishful thinking. You know the number 50 reflects the least number they could pick *without* having to run a significant amount of cable.
  16. Re:I don't think that... on Widespread Keyboard Failures on OLPC's XO-1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Agreed. And the competition is going to make as much hay with this as possible.

    While this kind of thing happens to the major manufactures, having had this happen right out the gate is going to be a permanent black mark that intel, asus and the rest are going to use in their advertising. OLPC should have been more careful to ensure that faults could be repaired. After all, these are going to the third world, and over there they fix all kinds of things we would throw away.

  17. in coder terminology on Dealing With an IT Bully · · Score: 1

    For those of you needing help with this concept: If your relationship with someone is such that the "idiot bit" has been set, you should discontinue sending them status messages as them may malfunction.

  18. canada back online on Demonoid Tracker Is Back Online · · Score: 1

    I don't know about this 1:1 ratio thing of which you speak, but I am sure glad to be able to resume leaching from Canada. They blocked the country due to legal threats quite a while ago, and now seem to have forgotten to do so again. Will see where that goes.

    If you ask me it is the protocols job to get leaches to contribute not the sites. After all the site serves ads regardless...

  19. embassies and organisations can use this on Freenet Version 0.7 Release Candidate 1 Available · · Score: 1

    Who CAN you really trust to use this new "darknet" with?
    It sounds like this is a response to the story about *embassies* that discovered they were 1-hop on freenet away from an attacker. I assume the people who actually need this level of security will find a way to set themselves up. E.g. set up enough "front" nodes that the important traffic isn't so obvious to the rest of the darknet. Individuals are in much worse shape when you consider that the connection can be seen as enough evidence by an authoritarian regime, and the point of freenet, which is hiding content, becomes less important.
  20. this *is* microsofts approach on Open Source Business Model Using Software Patents · · Score: 1

    I thought this was where Microsoft was heading with the Novell deal etc. By allowing Open Source to use their patents they infect it and find a new and possibly more secure way of getting money out of large companies. Remember Microsoft is promising not to sue independent open source developers (although people running their code are not so lucky.) http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx

    I cannot condone this kind of "open source" as it involves patents which make me not free to write my own code. That is no kind of freedom at all. I hope the distributions shun this poison.

  21. don't buy it on Head First JavaScript · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have a copy of the previous version of this book and as a senior engineer I found it terrible. It's targeted at people who need to be coddled into thinking about simple technical things, and that coddling (read: stupid jokes and silly pictures) just gets really annoying when you are actually in the mood to read useful information. The JavaScript "nutshell" book is an amazing reference however, in that it gets right to the point and doesn't gloss over useful details. It is hard to believe they were printed by the same publisher.

  22. people switch because of standards?!? on IE8 Will Be Standards-Compliant By Default · · Score: 1

    if IE stops sucking then nobody will switch.. I'm expecting firefox 3 to pack some serious performance and standards-compliance improvements

    Standards compliance in this case will result in broken pages, at least in the short term. Not sure why people would switch for that. Also surprised that you think people when to Firefox for the standards compliance. I thought they went over for the usability the add-ons that didn't suck. Standards are, and always will be a nerd issue. Everyone else just wants you to shut up and make it work.

    I just don't see how rolling out automatic updates one day that break working sites is the right thing. Right or wrong, users will blame Microsoft. I guess they deserve it for implementing standards incorrectly, but there really should be a better way.

  23. how much has the world changed? on Microsoft to Give Away Developer Tools to Students · · Score: 1

    Is this an admission that MS is loosing significant mindshare to open source, or has the world changed to the point where dev tools have to be free to students to get traction? Personally, I'd have been better off is I'd been provided more than printf as a debugging tool in University.

  24. lynx on Adobe PDF Exploits In the Wild · · Score: 3, Funny

    At this rate there won't be many safe applications left to use.
    Good old lynx. Surfing the web in text-only since the beginning of internet time.
  25. not lazy, just ripped off on McAfee Worried Over "Ambiguous" Open Source Licenses · · Score: 1

    It's naive to think they would try and get a free ride by stealing code. They have tons of resources to develop their own stuff, and a legal department that would scream bloody murder if anyone asked about GPL'd code. Odds are, they contracted something out, and that developer saw an opportunity to make a quick buck by stripping the licence off open source code and selling it as their own work. Companies that sell a proprietary product are generally very aware that being on the right side of the law when it comes to IP ownership is what keeps them alive. In this case I doubt stealing GPL code was a high-level descision.