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User: msobkow

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Comments · 5,287

  1. Sexism and racism on Google Is Offering Free Coding Lessons To Women and Minorities · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sexism and racism are perfectly acceptable if you're against men and whites.

  2. If the editor really matters on Ask Slashdot: Correlation Between Text Editor and Programming Language? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If the editor really matters, you're not much of a programmer. Text is text -- any editor should do.

    Don't confuse relying on IDE crutches with being an editor.

  3. What the hell? on A Physicist Says He Can Tornado-Proof the Midwest With 1,000-Foot Walls · · Score: 2

    Between the Higgs-Boson crap and this thread, I think Dice has decided to declare it "Give A Wingnut A Headline Week". :(

  4. Re: Blackberry - only vendor serious about securit on BlackBerry Back In Profit · · Score: 1

    BTW, that happens to include "friendly" governments like those of the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.

  5. Re: Blackberry - only vendor serious about securit on BlackBerry Back In Profit · · Score: 0

    Oh, yes. Companies like Blackberry, Apple, Microsoft, et. al. should all be "digital anarchists" and rebel against the governments of the countries they sell products and services in because you say so.

    How about you put your ass on the line against those governments?

  6. Wonderful on Harley-Davidson Unveils Their First Electric Motorcycle · · Score: 1

    They'll finally have a model that doesn't sound like an elephant with a bad case of gas. :(

  7. "Sting?" on Chinese Vendor Could Pay $34.9M FCC Fine In Signal-Jammer Sting · · Score: 2

    They were advertising and selling openly. I fail to see how any kind of "sting" operation was required to trick them into selling the illegal hardware, or to catch them doing it.

  8. Re:So now where? on Freecode Freezeup · · Score: 1

    You also can upload release files to SourceForge. I see nothing in their usage terms that requires you to host the code repositories on their servers; it's just the default to do so.

  9. Re:Some questions on IRS Lost Emails of 6 More Employees Under Investigation · · Score: 2

    Good. Someone with a functioning brain cell is asking the right questions.

  10. Re:The innovation posts are amusing on Chinese Gov't Reveals Microsoft's Secret List of Android-Killer Patents · · Score: 1

    Oh bull shit.

    They bought their operating system (Next.)

    They bought their core GUI kit (Next again.)

    They were far from first to market with an MP3 player.

    Rounded corners on a square case is not "innovation" -- it's product design.

    Emulating a barrel bolt for "slide to unlock" is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain cell.

    They bought most of the components of the iPhone instead of designing their own.

    They're not innovators. They're assemblers and product marketers.

    Not that you fanbois will ever accept that.

  11. Let me know on Bill Gates To Stanford Grads: Don't (Only) Focus On Profit · · Score: 0

    Let me know when Bill gives away all his money. And I mean *all* of it. And then goes to work with a charity in Africa or India or somewhere, depending on the people around him for food, clothing, and housing.

    Until then it's all bullshit. He's a greedy bastard and I don't buy the "charity! I'm actually a good guy!" for a minute.

  12. It's a bullshit excuse to start with on Congressman Asks NSA To Provide Metadata For "Lost" IRS Emails · · Score: 2

    In both the US and Canada, data is supposed to be retained for 7 years by companies. It's standard practice to archive email at the SERVER before letting a client download it. Some places won't even allow email downloads, but force you to stick with protocols that leave the email on the server for safe keeping.

    I don't buy it for a second. They didn't "lose" the emails and they can get them from the system backups for the email server ANY TIME.

    Someone should be SHOT for this fraud.

  13. The innovation posts are amusing on Chinese Gov't Reveals Microsoft's Secret List of Android-Killer Patents · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find the innovation posts decrying the lack of innovation at Microsoft, Apple, etc. quite amusing.

    Big companies have rarely been known for innovation, and often known for acquisition of the innovative. As far as I know, the sole exception is IBM at this point in time, though there was a time when HP did a lot of research and innovation as well.

    But Apple has never been an innovator; they bought the ideas and companies that caught their interest and marketted them. The same with Microsoft. They bought DOS. They partnered with IBM on OS/2 leading to a lot of the technology behind Windows. They bought SQL Server from Sybase ASE (SQL Server is modified ASE 10.) I'm not even sure they coded Office instead of buying the pieces elsewhere.

    "Innovation" in the minds of a lot of people is about bringing new products to market, not inventing technologies. And who is to say that researching something that never makes it to market isn't a waste of time and energy? What good did Nortel's patent portfolio do them in the face of incompetent and abusive management practices? They were the Canadian king of the telecom markets, right up there with AT&T, but management managed to kill them off. Yet one can't deny they invented a lot of key telecom technologies.

    To sum up: Innovation is overrated. And in a world where it's "all been done before" such as IT, "innovation" is often no more than repackaging something that was done 20+ years ago that people forgot about.

  14. Of course on Can Google Connect the Unconnected 2/3 To the Internet? · · Score: 1

    Of course they'll succeed with this critical mission. After all, the first thought a starving child has when they wake up with no food, parents with no jobs, and wondering if they'll eat today, all that matters nought. Their first thought is "I wish I had high speed internet."

    The fact that the first thing these people would do is trade a free smartphone for food is also irrelevent.

    After all, we're out to save the world through cat videos and LOLs. Screw rational thought.

  15. Personally I'd be far more interested in a memory card port so I could have as many saved games and downloads on them as I want. 32GB is a joke nowadays without an expansion option.

    As many have pointed out, it's already not enough to play a large number of modern games. Who the hell would want to buy a game device that's obsolete by design?

  16. Stick a fork in it on Despite Project's Demise, Amazon Web Services Continues To Use TrueCrypt · · Score: 1

    So the old project is done. Stick a fork in it, grab the source, and spin another.

  17. Better yet, ignore Apple entirely and focus on Samsung and the other Android devices. If Apple wants to be idiots, let them pay the full price of their stupidity for once.

  18. Re:Whew! on Millions of Smart TVs Vulnerable To 'Red Button' Attack · · Score: 0

    Being a smart ass and having a sense of humour is not claiming to be brilliant.

    You, on the other hand, seem to have an arrogant ego the size of a medium planet. :P

  19. Re:Patching time on Microsoft Fixing Windows 8 Flaws, But Leaving Them In Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    How, pray tell, does delivering a new DLL with new APIs "break" existing code? Microsoft has added those APIs for writing safer software; they didn't modify existing APIs to do it. But in order to "run on Windows", developers can't use those new APIs without ignoring the huge number of Windows 7 boxen out there, never mind the old Vista boxes.

  20. Whew! on Millions of Smart TVs Vulnerable To 'Red Button' Attack · · Score: 1

    Looks like I just escaped disaster by not owning a TV at all. Torrents, baby, torrents and streaming.

    I honestly don't understand why people would buy a "smart" TV instead of a monitor, surround sound speakers, and plug it in to a laptop or computer. How many people really use OTA broadcasts nowadays?

  21. Re:Article is dumb. on Microsoft Fixing Windows 8 Flaws, But Leaving Them In Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    Have you ever noticed the runtime libraries that application installers check for and auto-install while installing the application?

    Is there some reason you couldn't do the same for these magical Win7 patch libraries/DLLs?

  22. Re:It's Time To Move On. on Microsoft Fixing Windows 8 Flaws, But Leaving Them In Windows 7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The question is not just whether an OS is secure, but how long it takes for patches to be rolled out. While Microsoft often sits on their laurels when it comes to releasing patches, the king of procrastination is Oracle, which has left known issues in the wild for decades.

    Still, I don't disagree with the general intent of your post, which I read as "closed source is not necessarily worse than open source." But that's only up to a point -- timely patches are critical to maintaining the security of a system, and when Microsoft purposely omits patches for downlevel releases that are still under support, they do a great disservice to their customers, to the 'net community as a whole, and to their own reputation and therefore bottom line.

  23. Re:Note to Curmudgeonly Posters on Apple Acquires Social Search Engine Spotsetter · · Score: 1

    Ever hear of the tech bubble of the 90s?

    The way I see it, this mania for "social" sites is another tech bubble.

    Bitching about it should remind everyone with a functioning brain cell of that last debacle.

    But then there are people like you, who think that this crap is "special".

  24. Who? on Apple Acquires Social Search Engine Spotsetter · · Score: 1

    How much did they waste on a "service" I've never heard of before and would have no interest in using?

    As someone else commented, if I want to know what my friends are doing, I call or email them, not check some random corporate spy network.

  25. I think on Fixing the Humanities Ph.D. · · Score: 1

    I think the fact that these people think a "tenure track" is the only use for the degree just might have something to do with why fewer people pursue it.

    Maybe a few people don't want to teach, hmm?