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User: tboulay

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  1. Some people just don't get it. on Defense Distributed Has 3D-Printed an Entire Gun · · Score: 1

    Hitmen have just found a murder weapon that they can print, shoot and then melt down into a set of coasters. I wonder what a 22 round shot from coffee coasters will come up as when it's run through a ballistics database? Actually, if cops come to question him he could offer them a cup of coffee and make sure not to stain his table by setting their cups on a recycled murder weapon or 2.
     

  2. Re:Canned Reply on Against Online Surveillance? You Must Be 'For' Child Porn, Says Legislator · · Score: 1

    Ya, the only way that we get any kind of accountability is when a party is in the position of a minority government. At least that way we can pressure the other, smaller parties (Lib/NDP) and the Cons can't shove things through without at least one other party on their side.

  3. Canned Reply on Against Online Surveillance? You Must Be 'For' Child Porn, Says Legislator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I sent a letter in protest to my MP and got a similar canned response. it appears to be an answer from any conservatives in government. Here was my reply from Pierre Poilievre, my local MP.

    -------------
    Thank you for your message.

    As you point out, these Bills did not pass in an earlier session of Parliament, and will need to be re-introduced. As such, I cannot comment on them until that time and the text is available.

    That being said, our message is clear: if people use technology to commit crimes, such as distributing child pornography, the police will apprehend them and they will be punished to the full extent of the law.

    Sincerely,

    Pierre Poilievre, M.P. Nepean-Carleton
    Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities
    LP
    -------------

  4. Damn thoes catholics on Ontario Teachers' Union Calls For Health-Related Classroom Wi-Fi Ban · · Score: 1

    You know catholics and they're undying insistance on mounds of evidence before they casually believe something.

  5. another aproach on How Do You Explain Software Development To 2nd Graders? · · Score: 1

    Just pretend that you're giving a presentation to your parents on software development; only you won't have to 'dumb it down' so much for second graders.

  6. ya, ok. on Unmasking Anonymous Email Senders · · Score: 1

    Cash, Internet cafe, translate, translate back, send.

    Research money well spent huh.

  7. great on Panasonic Launches Beautifying Camera · · Score: 1

    All we need now is a beautifying pair of glasses, it's kinda re inventing the wheel though, beer has been removing pimples, moles, blackheads and warts from the face of the people you're looking at for centuries.

  8. Re:The cult of gratuitous uptime on Why You Shouldn't Reboot Unix Servers · · Score: 1

    I kind of agree here. Most of what I've dealt with in the past has been fully redundant; mostly with load balancing and H/A. Any company that implements systems like this have at least quarterly windows where we would fail one side of the cluster in a purposefully "bad" way (ie. pulling the power cables). So most of the best built systems I've ever worked on have no more than 90 or so days uptime.

    I have however had systems with more. 1284 days on a sun ultra 1 is the most. I've been a sys admin for a long time and I'm very much of the persuasion that I almost never have to reboot a unix box, and I'm almost always able to solve issues on the live system.

    The highest uptime boxes however, had absolutely nothing to do with my pride in their uptime and pretty much everything to do with the fear of what what would happen if this ancient little obscure system with software that hasn't been sold in 9 years went up in smoke on reboot.

  9. Re:This is telling on 10% of IT Pros Can Access Previous Jobs' Accounts · · Score: 1

    Even though that's the case (and I'm actually surprised the number isn't higher, considering my own experiences), the real revealing thing about this is that the VAST majority of IT professionals are professional enough not to take advantage of this or to retaliate against former employers. With the exception of a few high profile cases, almost all IT workers do not use these backdoors for sabotage, theft, etc.

    I'd have to agree with this. I'm really surprised that the number isn't higher. I guess it depends on how diverse of a group they're including in the over arching term "IT professionals". I'd guess that if we were limiting ourselves to server/network administrators the number would be much much higher. Personally, I have not tried, but I'd put any amount of money someone wanted to wager on my being able to gain the highest level access available at my previous employment in a matter of minutes.

    This is simply from the fact that I know the architecture of the network in detail, as well as the attitude towards security.

  10. Re:There is no anonymous on Anonymous Claims Possession of Stuxnet Worm · · Score: 1

    "There is no anonymous"

    "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making the world believe he didn't exist."

  11. Re:Not banned, and no change. on Vatican Bans IOS Confession App · · Score: 1

    I hope it wasn't meant to replace a priest.. the rectangular shape of the iphone would be mighty uncomfortable, .. I mean, sure it has vibrate, but still.

  12. wow.. just wow. on Vatican Bans IOS Confession App · · Score: 1

    Talking to a smartphone? .. the vatican won't have it .. if it's not telepathic, and it's not done to an invisible 2000 year old zombie Jewish carpenter it just isn't religion.

  13. Re:Why all the hate? on Iran's New Space Program · · Score: 1

    To paraphrase Hitchens.

    'we're approaching the day when a messianic regime gets their hands on apocalyptic weaponry"

    That people who do all they can to impose their barbaric ass-backward, anti science 'religious' ideology's all the time, are none the less able to cynically usurp the products of rational thought and the scientific method - is the saddest part of all.

  14. Re:So... on Bill Gates Says Anti-Vaccine Effort Kills Children · · Score: 1

    See this is my thinking. People who are stupid enough to take medical advice from Ace Ventura and and Miss October can only be helping humanity by increasing the odds that their offspring don't get the opportunity to have offspring of their own.

  15. In related news... on Bombay High Court Rules Astrology To Be a Science · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sand and rocks are now drinks.

  16. Great. on News Corp. and Apple Unveil The Daily · · Score: 1

    Awesome, so basically news corp. will be inventing news on a new platform now.

  17. Re:Oblig Car Analogy on Bing Is Cheating, Copying Google Search Results · · Score: 1

    Actually, I think it is kind of 'cheating' in a sense. Without Bing, your google results would be perfectly fine. Without google your bing results (depending on the search) would suck. Toyota may look at a car and copy the parts, but they don't get the actual parts from ford, they still make their product from the ground up. After toyota has copied the car, if ford goes under, toyota doesn't.

    Look at it this way, Bing copies results from google, they compete and Bing wins the search engine war. The day google folds, Bing instantly becomes a worse product than it was the day before. Remember, they're not trying to mimic googles algorithm, they're using it and claiming it's their own. Designing a search engine like google and actually being dependent on google are two different things.

  18. The main problem on The Hidden Reality Draws Ire From Physicists · · Score: 2

    The main issue is that anyone familiar with the scientific process understands that there is a huge difference between the theory of evolution and string theory. People that learn about science in the wall street journal and the new york times don't understand this. Yes, the fringe of theoretical physics houses some exotic 'theories', but not all theories have the same level of evidence. I really wish that all of science used mathematical terminology, ie. string conjecture, the multi-verse conjecture etc. When something is proven to the extent of plate tectonics or biological evolution, then it should be promoted to theorem. This way, the idiot masses would know that when they read about string conjecture in the wall street journal, it's an idea that scientists are working on, trying to test etc.

    It would also put an end to the "it's just a theory" crap when fact and reality run up against the magical fantasy's of two thousand year old Palestinian goat herding desert nomads.

  19. Re:Thats just on Model Says Religiosity Gene Will Dominate Society · · Score: 1

    I have no doubt that genes play a role, but honestly, I have a hard time believing that the role of genes is very significant. I highly doubt that people who live in Sweden (~80% atheist) are really that genetically different from people who live in Saudi Arabia. At most I'd guess that genetic factors influence some over arching social behavior, (ie. genetically predisposed to credulity.).

    If one generation of parents over the entire world broke the god myth at the same time as they break the santa/easter bunny myth, there would essentially be so little religion left in the world that we could confidently say that the 2000 year long nightmare was a thing of the past.

  20. Not a real big surprise. on People With University Degree Fear Death Less · · Score: 2

    Not really a huge surprise that people who are smarter and better educated have a more healthy outlook towards the one thing that will happen to us all, without exception.

    I'd imagine that if you believed that there was a coin toss chance that you would not actually die, but rather spend an eternity in agonizing torment, death may be a little more worrying.

    In the vast majority of cases, higher education = less of a chance that you're frightened by the myths of bronze aged, goat herding, middle-eastern desert nomads.

  21. It's actually kind of sad... on The Advent of Religious Search Engines · · Score: 1

    It really is sad and pathetic that people go to such lengths to shelter themselves from the world in order not to pop their preferred little bubble of unreason. Sure, being a parent I can understand wanting to keep unwanted and un-searched for porn from the eyes of your kids, but that's what a parent is for. By the time I allowed my kids to surf the web freely and unsupervised I had to simply accept that if they were old enough for me to grant that right to them, they should be old enough to handle anything they come across.

    But this search engine is not simply a 'safe' gateway to protect kids from the evils of porn, it's a gateway to protect the fantasy's of their parents from the evils of reality.

  22. Re:Fair enough on Mozilla Demanding Firefox Display EULA In Ubuntu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't see why Ubuntu doesn't just swap a few icons, change positioning of some of the menu items and compile their own flavor of firefox without an EULA.

  23. Only the Kernel Matters... on SCO Drops Linux, Says Current Vendors May Be Liable · · Score: 1

    IANAL but as far as I can see unless there is a direct violation in the kernel itself, they can go fuck themselves. The kernel is all that matters, everything else is independant. If say for instance the RPM package contains a violation then SCO can take it up with the writers of RPM etc.

  24. Unless you 30 second skip the commercials instead. on Study Finds Tivo Less of a Threat to Advertisers · · Score: 1

    ya know "select-play-select-3-0-select" then you can just use the "skip to end of program" button to skip ad's 30 seconds at a time.. :)

  25. What if you could turn matter to energy and back.. on Improvements in Teleportation · · Score: 1

    ok .. I've thought about this for quite a while now and here's my take on it..

    If you could transform matter to energy and back .. basically "star trek transporter, even replicator.. " replicator because as I understand it the food etc. that it produces is food that's already been scanned in.. anyway .. what if someone were to really invent that here in our world.. what would happen..

    I personally think that it would totally change the world as we know it .. but it would be fought all the way .. could you imagine the great evils of the world.. (mpaa & riaa)!!! they would flip.. now not only could someone copy the content but actually the physical medium.. it would put an end to virtually every business in the world.. any company that produces something would be put out of business.. it would bring about the end to the economy as we know it .. I just think if something like this was actually invented .. the person and the invention would disappear rather quickly ..
    I mean think about the possibilities .. If I had a replicator at home I'd never have to buy another product again .. once it was scanned in..