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User: telbij

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  1. Re:age on MGM to Produce "The Hobbit" · · Score: 1
    Gotta get my Tolkien-geek on.

    It's only when you read all the back story notes Tolkien wrote before writing LOTR that you find out that the Numenoreans, Aragorn's ancestors, were so powerful that they kicked Sauron's butt and kept him imprisoned and tortured in a tower for a long, long time. They were so powerful that they made war on the Valinor, nearly made it, but then were cast down for their blasphemy. That's when Sauron escaped, and the survivors fled to found Gondor and the Northern kingdom.


    This is actually totally wrong.

    What happened is Numenor was an island where the descendants of Elendil lived, and the mainland middle earth was wild while Sauron's power grew secretly. Eventually Sauron built an army and declared himself king of Middle Earth. That's when the Numenoreans sailed across and showed their true power. Sauron saw then that he couldn't defeat them and was taken prisoner in Numenor, but over many generations of kings he poisoned the minds of the leadership and actually became a trusted advisor of the king. He played off the humans fear of death and claimed that the Valar and elves were keeping the secret of immortality on the isle of Aman. So Sauron was the one who convinced the Numenoreans to attack the Valar, knowing they would be destroyed. What he didn't expect was that Illuvatar would intervene and drown the whole island of Numenor where he was waiting for the armies to be destroyed. That's how he lost his pleasant-looking form once and for all.

    There were no survivors from the attack. They were all buried under tumbling mountains. The Numenoreans that lived were the ones that remained faithful to the elves and the Valar. When they heard of the attack they made secret plans to sail away to middle earth (and took a clipping of the white tree I believe). There were so few of them that they had to blend into the populations of middle earth, but Sauron also lost his body, so everything stayed low key for a couple thousand years.
  2. Re:Yeah, make your website more difficult. on Will Solve Captcha for Money? · · Score: 1

    Another solution is to use non-standard methods. Granted, this won't work for people who aren't programmers... but I wrote my own blog software so my form fields are non-standard. I also require previewing before posting, this is verified through the session which requires cookies. A spammer would have to specifically target my site to set up a script, and the script would have to submit multiple submits and keep track of the cookie. Of course that's easy to do, but it's not worth it for the spammer to specifically target my site, especially when I get my first comment spam and just change up the methodology. Unfortunately this solution doesn't scale... but it works for me!

  3. Re:why is it secured in the first place? on Hardware Hacking a Voting Machine in 4 Minutes · · Score: 1

    pwn has gotta be the lamest word ever invented. Please restrict its usage to Halo and Counter Strike.

  4. Re:12 year old emo followers? on Why Microsoft Is Beating Apple At Its Own Game · · Score: 1
    I think that's because it's one of the very worst "articles" I've ever read. I don't think it contains a single actual fact, and I'm not sure it contains any opinions either. It's just vague, inconclusive, hand waving blog.

    Seriously. I read the whole thing hoping that it would get somewhere, but it never did. First of all it didn't mention a single thing that Microsoft is actually doing. Second of all it doesn't really even touch on Apple's 'game' at all. And that's just the title!

    If there's actually one idea in this flaming pile of shit it's that Bootcamp is good for Microsoft. I can't really argue that, nor am I able to even care. Furthermore why would Microsoft care? They don't sell computers.

    A couple choice quotes:

    The suits at Apple may try to innocently play this off like you can run Windows and OS X separately and without interference, but you know as well as I do that they're hoping Windows users will begin to spend a little time with OS X, become hooked, and then essentially ditch their former love.


    No, I think you know as well as I do that Apple would be happy to sell Windows boxes on a higher margin than any other manufacturer. Apple execs aren't part of the fanboy contingent, why would they give a shit what people run if they're buying their hardware?

    Negativity is abundant on the PC side of things because of Vista issues, but everyone seems thrilled with Microsoft's appearance on the Mac scene. Who would have thunk it?


    This guy seems oblivious to the importance of the breakdown of one of the biggest barriers in the history of consumer computing. I'm not sure if he's saying that negativity about Windows should transfer to Bootcamp, or whether positivity about Bootcamp should transfer to Microsoft, but either way it's nonsense.

    We might not know what to do with ourselves if we were instantly granted the ability to officially install OS X on our home or business PC. The question is, would we actually want to do it?


    This is the conclusion of the article. It's just loopy, straight outta left field. Usually when people talk about it it's either wishful thinking or they're trying to make a business case for it. Here the author is just throwing it out there as a random possibility as the conclusion to an incoherent collection of babblings. Is the question rhetorical? If we answered it would it have anything to do with the rest of his drivel? Am I suffering from OCD for even taking the time to read and respond to the article?

    Slashdot needs to get back to its bread and butter: Dvorak
  5. Re:A non-issue on The Struggle of an African-language Wikipedia · · Score: 1

    If people really do care about this, they should look at the root causes and address them in order of importance. Internet access is meaningless without good education. Education is impossible without politcal stability. Political stability is impossible without basic needs such as food, water and shelter. Africa varies widely in what is needed locally, but I guarantee that if the base needs of the citizenry are met then Internet access will take care of itself.

  6. Re:Just you wait.... on Cloned Beef Coming Soon? · · Score: 1

    You have to admit the idea of a slab of beefing growing in a nutrient vat is pretty fucking creepy though.

  7. Re:Of course they are... on Consumer Reports Creates Viruses to Test Software · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Security companies are objecting, on the grounds that it's a generally accepted practice not to create viruses for any reason.


    I also had to quote this sentence because it's so silly. It's generally accepted practice by people who don't create viruses. Obviously a lot of people are creating viruses whether blackhat or whitehat or greyhat. Now where's my MAD magazine?
  8. Re:Ok, then he needs to cut US some slack on Microsoft Insists IE7 is Standards Compliant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fair enough, but think about the situation for a moment. As an employee he has to take the company line. If he says to his boss, "we need to work on CSS support," and the guy says, "No, we need Tabs 2.0 to crush Firefox," then he has to work on that. Not only that, but he can't come out and say the truth. He has to exaggerate the standards improvement to hopefully quiet down the web developer crowd, while at the same time preparing the press release for all the new "user-centric" changes to IE 7. You might say he's a phony and a shill, but that anyone with any integrity would resign under such circumstances. But who would that help? We're all off with him as a standards advocate in an anti-standards company then if he just packed up and left.

    Granted, this is just all speculation, I have no idea what the real situation is like. But it's always worth keeping in mind that spokespeople represent companies, and politics are huge anywhere, especially Microsoft.

  9. Re:More appropriate PR would be... on RIAA Ends Harassment of Grieving Family · · Score: 1
    Would you care to tell me what I'm even looking at?


    It's the RIAA coming to take away a filesharer's firstborn.
  10. More appropriate PR would be... on RIAA Ends Harassment of Grieving Family · · Score: 1

    Out of what's left of our meager and withered sensitivity..."

  11. Re:who cares? on Apple vs Microsoft Both Copycats · · Score: 1

    Yeah, how easily we forget. But that's why I was on Windows in the 90s. Apple couldn't get shit out the door. It's probably more relevant to ask what was NeXT doing.

    It's really not the delaying/cancelling of features that bothers me. It's that Microsoft deliberately overpromises as a marketing strategy. I mean Thurrott had his undies all in a bunch over the fact that Apple was taking credit for all these features they're putting into Leopard, but that's just marketing. Of course they're going to exaggerate. Head over the Windows marketing team and it's like, "How about 'Windows Vista will cook you breakfast in bed'". Is there any reason to listen to them at all? At least with OS X it does something like what the marketing claims. With Vista there's no reason to even think about it until its done.

  12. Re:Problems... on Apple's Growing Pains · · Score: 0

    Bitter, table for one?

    Seriously, stop stereotyping 'apple people'. You're taking the statements of thousands of different people and aggregating them into a single hypocrite. Only problem is, a bunch of people with differing opinions aren't a hypocrite.

    You have no clue about failure rates of Apple products. The fact is no one does except Apple, and that's not gonna be easy to compare to other companies because they all keep that information secret.

    In fact, everything you just wrote is just a bunch of unsupported opinion right out of your head. Of course some people ignorantly claim that Apple products don't have problems. Those are just the vocal minority. Does it help for you to be the opposing force that just spouts a bunch of impassioned nonsense?

    Believe it or not, there are substantive differences to Apple products. If there weren't why would so many devlopers use them?

  13. Re:All Gen 1 in 1 year on Apple's Growing Pains · · Score: 1
    If Apple is satisfied with its current user base, quality problems are not a problem- people bitch on the internet and get another Macbook. However, if Apple is trying to create "switchers" and expand, quality problems will lead to single-purchase customers who go back to other brands.


    I wouldn't say that. When Macs go bad people generally call in their warranty service. No whether being too hot or whiny is subjective, so maybe they can get away with that, but my PowerBook had a bad temperature sensor, which required replacing the whole topcase. I'm guessing replacing that pretty much nullified any profit they made from my initial purchase.

    So you may be right that they don't lose customers as readily, but they still lose profits.

  14. Re:RoR lacks maturity on Major Security Hole Found In Rails · · Score: 1
    This is an example of why many major industries stay away from the "bleeding-edge" of tech products.


    Maybe, but it's by no means a good reason. I could just set aside a miniscule portion the hundreds of hours I saved not writing Java and simply update Rails...

  15. Re:I'm a mac fanboy but on Mac Pro, Mac OS X Virtual Desktops Announced at WWDC · · Score: 1
    No, they're just about claiming it.


    Seems to me you're confusing Apple with their fanboy contingent. Where does Apple claim it's inventing these things? Sure, they say it's 'new technology', but that's in the context of OS X. You can't begrudge a company for marketing to its customer base.

    "Apple merely takes great technology and makes it usable", "Apple polish", "much cooler addition" --- just a bunch of nebulous, subjective opinions supporting the idea that Apple is somehow inherently better than everyone else.


    The thing is that nebulous qualities are important. Phrasing it as "Apple is somehow inherently better than everyone" just belies your personal feelings. Why should the fact that I like Apple's software mean I think they're better than other developers? It doesn't. Fact is I buy probably 3-4 times as much software from other developers as I do from Apple (and that doesn't count free software). Things like usability and polish may be subjective, but they're still important. If you think Apple's software is less usable and polished then let's hear why. Or if you care more about configurability, or you object to proprietary software on a moral basis, then fine, but don't dismiss why people like OS X just because you don't share the opinion.
  16. Re:No wonder Google doesn't want in. on Google Shies Away from Digital Music Sales · · Score: 1
    Wrong direction. Payola means the record companies pay radio stations for preferential treatment to play the record companies' music. Licensing means the radio stations pay ASCAP/BMI for the right to broadcast ASCAP/BMI members' music. Payola is illegal; licensing is legal


    Go back and read grandparent again. This is precisely what he's saying.
  17. Re:No wonder Google doesn't want in-filetraders do on Google Shies Away from Digital Music Sales · · Score: 1
    Ah the "blame the victum" argument. Problem is that all the material on piratebay shoots a hole in your argument. If the product is as bad as every illegal filetrader claims, why are you all downloading it?


    Piracy is neither here nor there my anonymous friend. Am I justifying piracy in any way? No! That's your imagination putting words in my mouth.

    My argument is that people would probably buy more digital music if it wasn't expensive, low-quality, DRM-ridden crap. I've bought a couple albums of iTunes and was not particularly impressed. At $10 an album, the value is borderline. But at $5 an album I'd buy a lot more than twice as much. And frankly, the only reason I buy any at all is because the DRM is pretty easy to circumvent.

  18. No wonder Google doesn't want in. on Google Shies Away from Digital Music Sales · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Digital music is a rough market to be in. The only ones making any money are Apple, and that's from iPods. If the music industry had any concept of developing a new market instead of sucking it dry for the last penny maybe you'd see more companies anxious to get involved. The current business model of suing file traders and restrictive DRM is probably just driving away customers.

    Legitimate digital music is really a step backwards. With vinyl, cassettes and CDs there was a certain standard that meant if you bought music you could use it pretty much anywhere. The equivalent standard for digital music is seen as too easy to copy, so they've insisted on DRM. But the real problem is not that MP3s are easy to copy per se, but that computers have changed the rules of the game. The music industry needs to shift their focus to developing a better product, instead of crippling everything and then getting mad when people don't buy in.

  19. Re:Both Repetitive and Redundant on So How Do You Code an AJAX Web Page? · · Score: 3, Insightful
    No doubt man! Where's his editor?

    This is worse than half the stuff in my freshman comp class at community college. You don't even have to be a writer to improve this, just cut out half the words. Someone ought to introduce him to the technique of reading his writing out loud.

    Take this gem of a paragraph:

    This leads to the question of how, short of the whole kites and Igor methodology, does one accomplish this unholy task? The answer is that it depends on just how and how far one wants to pursue this course. There are three ways to bring life to an AJAX application, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. It all depends on just which parts of the AJAX tool set the developers are comfortable with. It also depends on how comfortable you are with excluding certain members of the planet from the application. Yes, I'm talking about those people who are still running Internet Explorer Version 2.0. Fortunately, it isn't my job to issue decrees concerning browser compatibility; however, it is my job to cover how to implement an AJAX application.


    Not only does every sentence sound horrible on its own, but the whole paragraph communicates nothing at all. Well I guess it claims that there are three ways to do AJAX, but that's a pretty useless little factoid if you're not going to say what they are.

    I can't decide whether I'm embarassed for him or inspired to write a book of my own.
  20. Always Hilarious on Stephen Colbert Wikipedia Prank Backfires · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Colbert report is always hilarious, and this is no exception.

  21. Re:wrong question on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 4, Insightful
    When will the people wake up? I suspect (some) politicians are well aware of the "flaws" found in the system.


    Good point. I guess I figured the one thing politicians should know something about is voting. If it's up to the people then we're pretty much doomed, because the American people don't know and don't care about politics. At this point we're so swamped between work and entertainment that the only way to generate political awareness is if it becomes a fad like it did in the Vietnam era. Either that or a lot more Katrina-style disasters to destroy people's television sets.
  22. When Will Politicians Wake Up? on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You'd think in this day and age we'd have some idea of how to create a secure voting system. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like much of a concern to the politicians. They assume computers are more secure than paper because they don't understand them. Nevermind all the computer scientists warning about the pitfalls of electronic voting. Let's just trust this Diebold sales guy over here! We know he's telling the truth because of the billion dollar contract!

    Here's a hint for politicians: If in a population of 300,000,000 only 1,000,000 are capable of understanding how the voting system works, and if only 1,000 people are actually allowed to see how it works, and if there's no verifiable paper trail or any simple and legitimate verification system, then democracy is a farce.

  23. Not sysadmin but lots of other stuff... on Computer Job w/ No Computer Degree? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I reviewed your original submission, and I gotta say that being a sysadmin is not for you. Well, maybe Windows, but in general a sysadmin has to be extremely good at problem solving. If you couldn't get into Java then you're gonna be banging your head against the wall on a daily basis with the kind of problems sysadmins face. No, they don't necessarily write any code, but the analytical skills required to learn to program are the same as debugging complex interactions between software.

    Being self-taught really has nothing to do with it. There are people that never took a single class but were able to pick up programming form a few simple tutorials and a language reference. Likewise, some people take the Intro to Programming class several times and simply fail to ever grasp the abstract nature of code. A computer science degree is valuable because of the ideas it exposes you to, and because employers may value it, but it doesn't really say much about your ability as a computer professional.

    My advice would be to look for a job centered around specific applications. Something concrete with good documentation that you learn to perfection. Another possibility is building or repairing computers. It sounds like you've already been doing quite a bit, so you probably have an idea of what you enjoyed and what you didn't. The next step is to simply apply for some jobs and see what pans out.

  24. Re:It may be too late... on Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later? · · Score: 2, Insightful
    You don't know anything about me. My parents both just barely finished high-school... they worked their asses off to give my sister and I what we had... but it wasn't much. _I_ worked my ass off to do better and rise above what my parents had done, and I hope to instill that same work ethic into my kids so they can continue to increase their quality of life. When all of my comrades in high-shcool were off getting drunk and making babies I was studying and making good grades so I could have the things I wanted in life... which is the way it should be...


    You need to get the chip off your shoulder and stopping judging others. Just because you think you had it hard doesn't give you the right to judge a billion other people whom you know nothing about.

    You also need to stop worrying about a vicious cycle that leads towards socialism. The natural order of things is that the rich increase their power and concentrate their wealth. Things like tiered tax rates and the minimum wage are checks on the ability of the rich to take complete control of society. We institute these things to create a stable society which benefits everyone. Your moral indignation about someone getting a handout is more of an emotional response than an actual threat to capitalism.
  25. Re:Yet another way the poor kids get left out on House Passes Ban on Social Site Access · · Score: 1

    Yeah, whether the government should have the right to 'ban' websites nationally doesn't even enter into the equation.

    The real question is how these people are even able to tie their shoes in the morning with a grasp on logic this tenuous.