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User: ShinmaWa

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Comments · 438

  1. Privacy in a store? on NYT on RFID Tags · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is stupid.

    Its not like Wal-Mart doesn't have security cameras every 10 feet that zoom in on you, the contents of your cart, what you are carrying, etc.

    Also, its not like Wal-Mart doesn't keep records of everything you buy and when you bought them, which can be linked up to the timestamps on aforementioned security cameras.

    Trust me, RFID tags on merchandise isn't going to harm your privacy in a store one tiny bit.

  2. Lawyers aren't necessarily evil on Interwoven Patents Code Versioning · · Score: 1

    By serving members, I assume he means senator, congressmen, presidents, and judges. In other words, people with the direct power to create and change law. I suspect the 90% is close.

    But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I would HOPE that 100% of federal judges are lawyers! It also seems to me that those who are best suited to create and modify laws are those who have extensive knowledge of the law and how it works (i.e. lawyers).

    Lawyers are not corrupt people. There ARE corrupt lawyers, just as there are corrupt people in every profession. However, simply being a lawyer doesn't make a person corrupt or evil. It makes them well-versed in the law, and nothing more. The blanket assumption of "s/he's a lawyer and therefore can't be trusted" annoys me greatly. It's very short-sighted and ignorant.

  3. Re:How does a website spend $80mln? on Salon Asks for Help · · Score: 2, Informative

    The only difference between Salon and a print publication is the lack of a hardcopy edition.

    And that's one HELL of a difference!

    The vast majority (upwards of 80%) of a hardcopy newspaper's cost of production is in the printing and distribution. The money that goes into the giant presses, the paper, the inks, the distribution system, and horde of people on the payroll to operate and maintain all that hardware is astronomical.

    Granted... most papers of a small circulation rent press time from larger papers. However, even renting the presses is very, VERY expensive.

    And yet, many small print newspapers with a circulation of 50,000 make due with a lot less than $80 MILLION! In fact, I've never heard of one with a budget anywhere NEAR that much!

  4. Re:In 30 years... on Nerd Vacation to the Earth Simulator · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your grandkids' PC will be made out of room temperature superconductors. The "CPU" will be a single chip containing a lattice of 1048576 10 Ghz processors. It will incorporate a quantum co-processor, qubit level hyperthreading, and 1024 Etabytes extratemporal random access storage.

    Great! Just in time for Duke Nukem Forever!

  5. Re:Boundary of the Charging Zone on London to Introduce Traffic Congestion Charge · · Score: 1

    Public Holidays (of which we get alot fewer than you 'merkins)

    UK:
    Wed., Jan. 1 -- New Year's Day
    Fri., April 18 -- Good Friday
    Mon., April 21 -- Easter Monday
    Mon., May 5 -- Early May Bank Holiday
    Mon., May 26 -- Spring Bank Holiday
    Mon., Aug. 25 -- Summer Bank Holiday
    Thurs., Dec. 25 -- Christmas Day
    Fri., Dec. 26 -- Boxing Day

    TOTAL = 8

    US:
    Wed., Jan. 1 -- New Year's Day
    Mon., Jan. 20 -- Martin Luther King's Day
    Mon., Feb. 17 -- President's Day (not widely celebrated)
    Mon., May 26 -- Memorial Day
    Fri., July 4 -- Independence Day
    Mon., Sept. 1 -- Labor Day
    Mon., Oct. 13 -- Columbus Day (not widely celebrated)
    Tues., Nov. 11 -- Veteran's Day
    Thurs., Nov. 27 -- Thanksgiving
    Thurs., Dec. 25 -- Christmas Day

    TOTAL = 10 (8 if you don't include Columbus and President's Days)

  6. or... Windows in general on IEEE Wants Congress To Re-Examine DMCA · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Gee.. been working on this for hours now with no problems at all on my Windows box.... just a couple more minutes and I can save it and.... [BSOD]... IEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

  7. The A.T.A.R.I. Asteriod Extermination System on Mining Asteroids@Home · · Score: 4, Funny

    Many years ago -- I exterminated thousands of asteroids at home using the Asteroid Targetting And Removal Instrument 2600.

  8. and what about DISTRIBUTION? on Websites Complaining About Screen-Scraping · · Score: 1

    Nice troll.

    I find it very funny that you cut off the rest of the phrase you quoted -- "COPYING and DISTRIBUTING". Last time I checked, a computer's memory is not -- by nature -- a distribution medium to a mass audience.

  9. Re:Overheard in the Oval Office on Bush Orders Guidelines for Cyber-Warfare · · Score: 1

    Bush: Erm, yes sir. Isn't it about time for your nap now Mr President?

    I realize that was a typo -- but in its own way, its very insightful! :)

  10. Re:Here's a thought -- less disposable income! on AOL Not Alone In Subscriber Decline · · Score: 3, Informative

    Except that your unemployment rates only count those people who are getting unemploymeny compensation. All those who haven't had a job long enough to loose their unemployment benefits are not counted. All those that didn't claim unemployment (generous severence packages and the like) are also not counted. I would venutre to guess unemployment is really easily over 8% if you count all these factors.

    Wrong, wrong, and very wrong.

    The unemployment rate is determined by a survey that is conducted monthly by the US Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics called the "Current Population Survey". The CPS is in no way linked to unemployment benefits and who is receiving them. You do not have to be claim unemployment to be counted as unemployed in the CPS.

    As I used to be a surveyor for the "Senseless Burro" for a large portion of my college career, I know the CPS very, very well. The definition of "unemployed" that gets counted into the unemployment rate is any person who:

    1. Is currently unemployed.
    2. Has actively looked for work in the past 4 weeks.
    3. Is currently available to work.

    This includes people who are not working but waiting to be recalled to their former job.

    For those of you living outside the US, this same system is used to determine unemployment in Canada, Mexico, Austrailia, Japan, and every country in the European Economic Community.

  11. Croup-ware? Oh the jokes! on Corporate KDE · · Score: 1

    Was it really wise to name a project that sounds like Croup-ware?

    croup n.
    1. The rump of a quadruped
    2. a spasmodic laryngitis especially of infants marked by episodes of difficult breathing and hoarse metallic cough

    So -- is this software for a horse's ass.. or babies with respiratory problems?

  12. Re:Yeah, but on Advergames · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Miller Lite" NASCAR disc I retrieved once

    I love it! Virtual drunk drivers going 200 mph around a racetrack. Now that's my idea of big fun!

  13. Re:It's Because Technical Programs Have _Answers_ on Grade Inflation in Higher Education · · Score: 1

    When you read something, that is translated to brain impulses as you understand it. Same thing.

    Which are just low-level electrical impulses! You are right! Human and Computer languages are the same: they are both a series of electrical impulses!

    I realize I'm being flippant, but I just wanted to point out that this conversation is going to ridiculuous extremes.

  14. Re:Wrong on World's Most Annoying IE Toolbar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    stupid. And that's what not patching for six months is.

    And if the whole world was as computer savvy as you, I'm sure I would agree with you.

    However, this isn't a worm that only affects enterprise software and professional webservers that have admins that monitor patches and read bugtraq.

    This is a security flaw that affects Grandma and Little Brother. People who use the Internet to look up cooking recipes or look for pots on eBay. They don't know that patch exists, don't know there is a security flaw in the first place, and wouldn't know how to fix it if they did. They have more important things to worry about -- like Timmy's little league game and Johnny's play.

    To call the masses "stupid" for not patching is downright wrong. I completely blame Microsoft for not going out of their way to make sure everyone knows about that security flaw and making it easy for everyone to patch. To me, that's the cost of the monopoly -- and one that Microsoft is LONG overdue to pay.

  15. Re:It's Because Technical Programs Have _Answers_ on Grade Inflation in Higher Education · · Score: 1

    If I write a little manual on how to do a few key tasks on someone's computer, how is that different from programming the computer to do those tasks itself? Unless I'm directly carrying out the tasks, I must have communicated something to the computer. And I used written language to do it.

    As a student of languages, both human and electronic, you should know that writing on paper doesn't make it a communication. It has to be interpretted by the receiver. The big difference here is that if you give the same instructions to 5 computers, each of the 5 computers will interpret the language precisely the same way (assume identical architectures for now -- see below). If you give your written directions to 5 people, each will interpret it slightly differently. I believe this is what the original author meant. However, I could be wrong, because I'm interpretting his communication.

    If there were a 1:1 correspondence for writing code, then why could 5 people make a program that does *exactly* the same thing, and all have completely different code?

    Is that really the case though? They might all have the same *outcome*, but do the programs do *exactly* the same thing?

    If 5 people write these 5 programs:
    print 1+1+1+1+1
    print 10*2/4
    print sqrt(25)
    print 2+3
    print 500/100

    They all produce "5" and they are all completely different code. However, the programs aren't doing the same thing to get there.

    "Ahh!", I can hear you say, "But you could write the equivilent of 'print 5' in 10 different languages! All doing the exact same thing and looking completely different!" I reject that since it would also take 10 different compilers to transform that into the one language the computer actually understands -- which has (last time I checked) a 1:1 mapping.

  16. Re:"Why TCPA" on IBM Trials TCPA Chip Under Linux · · Score: 1

    Of course, if there were a reason to over such an overengineered and format-precise format, it would be defensible. But where's the reason, here?

    Many white papers are written for publication (i.e. printed), which means it was probably submitted to IBM as a PDF for publication in a journal. IBM tends to use PDF as its publication format because its cross-platform, virus-free, and relatively widely supported. It was not written to be a "web page".

    There's a 99% probability that the individual who wrote the paper did not put it on the web. Someone else put his paper on the web on his behalf.

    So.... someone would have had to convert the PDF into properly formatted HTML. The original author is most likely NOT going to do it. He probably doesn't know nor care about IBM's web publication standards and has better things to do than to learn them. The web content people most likely have a policy of leaving published materials in PDF format to prevent having to spend lots of time converting PDF to HTML.

    I'll admit that there's a lot of guesswork in there, but it matches my experiences in white paper publication and large multinational organizations, and it makes a lot more sense than your argument that the "author feels some artistic attachment to the exact number of words per line he used and the aesthetic layout of where the page breaks are". That's just silly and stupid.

  17. Re:Some nice quotes from the misinfo rebuttal on IBM Trials TCPA Chip Under Linux · · Score: 1

    Have a look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for some clear thinking on this.

    Right! And of course, the EFF would NEVER even THINK of being overly biased about this! I'm sure the EFF would be completely open, honest, fair, and completely FUD-free.

    While you are at it, go to www.nra.org for some "clear-thinking" on gun control.

  18. Re:Ironic on MonsterHut Jammed for Spam · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not really ironic.

    The page you saw actually belonged to Ultimate Search -- a rather infamous squatter company.

    Its no suprise that ultsearch put links to spam filters on there.

  19. Re:dip switch dipshit on DMCA Invoked Against Garage Door Openers · · Score: 1

    131072 is not a lot of combinations. 1 attempt every minute would take 91 hours.

    Uhhhhhhh....

    1 attempt every minute would take 2184 hours or about 91 DAYS.. assuming around-the-clock attempts.

    However, I will concede that with a known manufacturer of garage door, the effort is reduced to about an hour and a half (assuming 1 attempt every 10 seconds, a much more reasonable number).

  20. Re:Why so upset about this concept? on You Can't Link Here · · Score: 2, Insightful

    could also say that AE supports the devil or write an essay on how they bill people who owe $666 .00000003% more often. It is called freedom of speech/expression. I could also cite my works by saying I found it in Vol 5, chapter 2, page 123, par. 5 instead of saying 'check the library'.

    Yes, but that would be YOUR content, not using another's content directly off their webpage to give associated messages that they did not directly give.. and making them pay for it to boot. That ISN'T freedom of expression. That's theft of services.

  21. Re:Why so upset about this concept? on You Can't Link Here · · Score: 1

    The real reason that many of these sites impose these restrictions is to prevent other sites from mooching their content.

    Take the NYSE for example.

    I could set up a site that links to their stock performance graphics, thereby forcing NYSE to subsidize the content on my site with their processing power and bandwidth.

    Furthermore, I could set up pages that links all the graphics and content from other sources, thereby needing hardly any bandwidth at all to host my site, but forcing others who aren't associated with my site to pay for my content hosting.

    There's also the association issue. It would be so easy to create a site that combines satanism and American Express on a single page, using content hyperlinked from a satanism site and American Express, thereby giving the impression that American Express supports satanism.

    Do these sites really have an issue with sites hyperlinking to them without permission? Probably not. However should someone attempt to abuse these sites, American Express has given themselves an avenue to act.

  22. Re:Irritating on Microsoft's Reaction to OSS Adoption · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think that Halloween VII is an even better example. In this document, Microsoft says the best way to attack OSS is by stressing the TCO of Microsoft vs. Linux. That document is dated 4 November.

    One month later (3 December), IDC puts out a study giving Win2K a better TCO than Linux.

    Coincidence?

  23. Re:Case for effects of Global Warming on Should We Change the Weather Even If We Can? · · Score: 1

    I remember in the late 70's, after a few years of particularly harsh winters dating back to the mid-60's, that the environmentalists and many "top scientists" were predicting another ice age by the year 2000 because of pollution. The rivers were going to freeze and the arctic ice cap was going to extend as far south as Toronto. You might remember all these theories and hype if you think hard enough. I certainly do.

    During the 80's and through the 90's the weather warmed up, and suddenly that same pollution that was causing global COOLING was now causing global WARMING.

    The problem with your argument is that you've taken two points of sample (20 years ago and this year), and determined that it had to be because of "global warming", rather than perfectly normal fluctuations in weather patterns.

    In either case, I'm predicting that the earth will start to see cooler weather again in about 2015 or so. I also expect the scientists and experts will either a) applaud themselves on how they saved the world or b) find some other human wrong that is accounting for the sudden freezing of our planet.

  24. Re:What's not so good? on Struts Kick Start · · Score: 1

    Hm. I'm not quite sure I follow you here. I haven't read the book, only your review, and I'm a bit puzzled by your statement regarding business objects in actions.

    I've not seen the offending code either, but I think I understand the nitpick.

    In a prestine MVC environment, the business objects (the Model layer) should never be exposed to or by the view or controller layers. In other words, BusinessObjectA should never be used directly by ActionHandlerB, but rather use things like contracts and lightweight objects to seperate their concerns.

    Problem is that setting up lightweight objects and contracts confuses the issue at hand in sample code. With all the infrastructure needed to keep your MVC structure prestine, the point of the example gets lost in the noise.

    I would probably defend the author's decision to break the model a little to improve clarity, rather than have pages and pages of infrastructure simply to keep the MVC infrastructure completely spotless.

  25. Re:Open Source? on IBM Buys Rational Software · · Score: 2, Informative

    we are mostly a hardware company

    Not even hardly. IBM is mostly a services company (over half of IBM's employees and about half of their revenue hail from the services division). Over the last year, IBM has sold off a lot of its hardware lines, including -- most recently -- its hard drives.

    We also sell a set of software engineering tools

    That they do. However, you linked to VAGenerator, a product that is being sunsetted. What they DO produce is the Open Source-based (i.e. Eclipse-based) WebSphere Studio Application Developer.

    we'll probably integrate Rational's tools with that

    You betcha -- but a lot of it has already been done. WSAD already integrates with ClearCase. Rational also has a product called Rational XDE that already gives somewhat-Rose-like integration into WSAD.