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User: Nafta

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Comments · 27

  1. CD or CD player on Digital Rights Management on CD's This Christmas? · · Score: 1


    Is it the CD that is faulty or the CD player. All the store needs to do is to take another CD player to court and play the CD. The CD works, but not in your "faulty" player.

  2. CDs? on KEO Time Capsule To Remain In Orbit 'Til 52001 AD · · Score: 2

    Won't they be obsolete?

  3. Re:MAPS RBL and Restraining Orders (YesMail anyone on Slashback: Reneging, Wandering, Spamming · · Score: 1
    Why should a few self-righteous 'spam busters' control access to these entire markets?

    In the past I have subscribed to an ISP in one of these markets. The price for email was 2.5c per kB (US$ 25 per megabyte). Satellite phones are a little cheaper now, but in the same ball park. To claim that someone has a right to send email to me, without compensating my loss, is simply wrong.

    If someone wants to access these markets, let them go through the trouble of setting up their own ISP.

  4. Dog on Sampling Your Molecular 'Aura' · · Score: 5

    There is already a highly sophisticated device that can do this. Not only that, it doesn't take 10 seconds to analyse the air particles. It can do it in a fraction of a second.

    The unit is almost self contained, running on just a few buscuts a day.

  5. Just to quash a rumour.... on Windows ME - The End Of UMSDOS And BeOSfs Over Vfat? · · Score: 2
    i think this anti-linux conspiracy paranoia is going a bit far this time. microsoft has promised to do away with dos, and they've finally delivered. i'm sure linux installers aren't the only programs affected. however, the end result is a far more stable operating system. most of what i've heard about win-me has been quite postitive.
    Linux does not need MS-DOS to run.
  6. Hmm I wounder on New Doom Details · · Score: 2
    I'll be incredibly and pleasantly surprised if Carmack and company pull a rabbit out of their hats and give us a story.
    Perhaps they could hire Steven King to develop a story. I know FPSs need a simple overall plot to follow, but he could throw in some really evil subplots.
  7. Pron pedlers have kids too. on Censorware Flaws Shown To COPA Commission · · Score: 1

    Well, it's not like conception is a problem or anything.

    Seriously.
    One thing these family council people don't seem to realise is that most almost all of the people who sell porn are trying to sell it to people over age. Lets face it you really aren't going to get much money from selling to a 6 year old. Lolly money doesn't stretch that far.

    A self monitoring rating system, such as a TLD, will not be perfect, however it will always be more accurate than ad blocking software. Dishonest people will always try to get around the block etc. This works as long as the system is not unduly forced. Everyone wants to trade with an honest person, so self monitoring your site should be more profitable.

  8. Hate on Slashback: Spookiness, France, Reds · · Score: 1
    The war may have ended, but nazism was not eradicated, only driven underground. The anti-hate laws are there to remove the fuel from the fire, in the hopes that in another few generations the worst of the hatred will be extinguished.
    To remove debate from the issue is very dangerous indeed. Evidence, like most things, decays over time. Documents get lost, witnesses die, and buildings collapse. With no debate, the issue dies in the public mind, and we forget.

    If you have correctly identified the fuel for the fire, the source of the rage, then perhaps it is good to quiet the issue. To let the hate groups forget, would bring peace. However, I don't think you have found the fuel. The anger forms from other things. The disillusioned, and dispossessed, these are the people that create the hate. The anger in these people is only strengthened by censorship, and gives the anger credibility. Yet another force to push them around. These people will focus on anything visible. Here is where we create the bigot.

    Once created, our friend the bigot, will latch on to anything that justifies their bigotry. The truth of the allegation does not matter. Pseudo facts and circular arguments will do. Evidence will be created to suit. Counter evidence will be routed around.

    What is needed is to retain the real evidence, and fight the fabrications before they have a chance to gain credibility. Those who witnessed the events, need to record their experiences. That way future generations will not have to face spurious allegations empty handed.

    That way we remember what happened.

  9. Re:BBC article on On Preservation of Digital Information · · Score: 1
    open source IS NOT a magic bullet.

    True, but it is a good shot.

    The alternative is something stored in a proprietary format. That format would die with the company. I.e., the data becomes impossible to access (as opposed to just difficult).
  10. BBC article on On Preservation of Digital Information · · Score: 3

    BBC currently has an article on the same subject. This a great advantage of Open Source (preaching to the converted, I know) because that is the only open standard (and therefore durable) format. All other proprietary formats will come and go with the companies that make them.

  11. Re:Thoughts on James Fallows on His Brief Microsoft Tenure · · Score: 1
    Does the manager at Chevron really need to think that her word processor is "better" than the one the manager at Exxon-Mobil or Shell uses?


    Subconsciously, yes. Although the manager is not dumb and would be analytically sceptical of the product, (s)he will be constantly looking for something that has an "edge". Open Software as a whole may have an edge, however if you can copy in an instant whatever edge the competition has, that edge no longer exists.
  12. My local paper! on Would You Ever Read A Newspaper Again? · · Score: 1

    The local paper is 1400dpi, lighter than a laptop, and can last almost 4 weeks in the lavatory provided I don't get diarrhoea.

  13. Thoughts on James Fallows on His Brief Microsoft Tenure · · Score: 2

    the main paying customers for Office are big corporations
    I hope Open Source companies (such as RH) can break into these markets. However, When they do, the software they use will probably not be Open Source. The manager at "Chevron" has to believe that they are getting something better than the others. With Open Source, that "belief" is too easily disproved.

  14. Good Stuff on Borland C++ Now Free-as-in-Beer · · Score: 2

    As someone who reads slashdot so they won't look like an idiot next time they meet the other programmers, I agree with the "free speech/sheep" aspect. However, I'm currently stuck with MSVC++ (have to, Boss thinks windows is "the thing to use") and dammit I am drooling at the prospect of another compiler.

    I'm hoping the collage kids start handing in their programming assignments using Borland's C++ that way they don't get tied into this damn MS crap.

  15. 3D LCD wall a possibility? on 38-Inch LCD Panels · · Score: 2

    I might be wrong, but doesn't those screen still have the problem with a limited view angle?

    According to Philips's Password magazine, they have overcome some of this problem with "simple compensation foils". They also have a Colour 3D-LCD Evaluation Kit.

    If only they would combine the two.

  16. I'll believe it when I see it, on 3D LCD's for Sale · · Score: 1
  17. Re:TV? on New Technology Creating Isolated Loners = Old News · · Score: 1

    Really stressing TV would have weakend his argument.

    Um, using TV or radio as an example would have to use real names. That would mean he would have to do some research. i.e. spend time away from the computer.

    Nah, easier to just leave them out.

  18. Comic strips. on New Technology Creating Isolated Loners = Old News · · Score: 1

    Those evil nasty tabloid paper things. People prancing around with barely a whisper of clothing on. "Save the world" they say? Hah!
    Mums and Dads unite lest yee children start wearing their underpants over their tights.

  19. Q: Search for things on Most Distant Object in Universe Discovered · · Score: 1

    Could someone search for these things using the seti@home setup? I think it would be much more fun because every now and then you would actually find something.

  20. Q: Age on Most Distant Object in Universe Discovered · · Score: 1

    Yes, this is significant, since it basically allows us to see 13 billion years back in time.

    So does this point us in the direction of the center of the universe?

  21. DDoS. on etoy.com Returns · · Score: 1

    Way to go! They finally get their site back up and slashdot posts a link to it, thereby ensuring it becomes flooded!

  22. Theft of PDA on Voice-Op Linux PDA · · Score: 2

    "Penguin: where are you?"

    "Here! Here! he stole me! nasty brute! ..."

  23. Re:Isn't this Compaq and the IBM BIOS all over aga on Comments on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act · · Score: 1

    Compaq reverse engineered IBM proprietary BIOS and created the first PC compatible.

    There is a slight difference here. It is not possible to copyright "function", so the ability to reverse engeneer in order to produce a chip that is functionaly the same, was held up by the courts.

    What the MPAA has done is to use the fact that DeCSS's sole purpose was to defeat an anti copyright measure. If someone was to add DeCSS to a player and distribute it that way, the (IMO) would not be breaking the law.

  24. Re:What People have done Wrong on Comments on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act · · Score: 1
    "No person shall . . . offer to the public, provide or otherwise traffic in any technology . . . that---
    • "(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act];
    Any player designed via open source will have a component that does the above. Although the component's sole purpose is to do the above, it is part of a larger package (i.e. the player), which in tern is part of an even larger package (the OS).

    I think someone (I am not a US citizen) should submit that any Open source component should be specifically stated as exempt, otherwise the bill will be used as a direct attack on the Open Source movement.

    (Legislators don't have a clue what Open Source is)

  25. Re:Woopee do on Nano Logo · · Score: 1

    6 microns across eh? What about 0.18 micron

    Look at the resolution, easily 30 to 100 across.

    That would make it about 0.06 to 0.18 microns per dot