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User: Theatetus

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  1. Wi-Fi passwords are not security features on Linux Distributions Storing Wi-Fi Passwords In Plain Text · · Score: 1

    They're (weak) access control features. Secure at the transport level.

  2. "It wasn't hard; we told the team it was metric" on NASA Scientists Jubilant After Successful Helicopter Crash · · Score: 3, Funny

    "and then had them write a safe landing program in FORTRAN."

  3. Yes... nothing's quite as "brilliant" as su - on Snowden Spoofed Top Officials' Identity To Mine NSA Secrets · · Score: 1

    Sigh

  4. The two questions are orthogonal on Utah To Teach USA is a Republic, Not a Democracy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is nothing about being a Republic that prevents a country from also being a Democracy. I'm sick of that false distinction. A Republic is a state whose head of state is not a monarch. A Democracy is a state whose government's authority derives from the people. A state can be one, both, or neither.

  5. I'm a heretic on this, but firewalls are pointless on Firewalls Make DDoS Attacks Worse · · Score: 2

    for computers that deliberately offer a server to the public. Do what you want to do with network topology, instead. If your computer offers a web server, why is it listening for anything other than HTTP requests on its public-facing interface? If its not listening for anything other than HTTP requests on its public-facing interface, what does the firewall do?

  6. Mercury-based medicines? on Do Tools Ever 'Die?' · · Score: 1

    Not sure if that counts as a "tool", but I really don't think anyone uses them anymore. The Blue Pill and the Corrosive Sublimate are pretty much gone.

  7. Re:Did the author sleep through Anthro 101? on Tool Use By Humans Pushed Back By 800,000 Years · · Score: 1

    Right, that was my point. I read an article where a commentator said "We have a lot of Cassandras running around predicting doom, but nothing's happened yet." Of course (and maybe this was your point about self-consistent foolishness), this was about the financial system just before the collapse in 2008, so in a way the guy was vindicated in calling them Cassandras. It's just not what he meant.

  8. Re:Did the author sleep through Anthro 101? on Tool Use By Humans Pushed Back By 800,000 Years · · Score: 1

    We clearly went to different schools. In my case, EE 101 was a freshman survey course introducing students to engineering. And, yes, the "quantum leap" thing bugs the hell out of me too. That and dismissing doomsayers as "Cassandras".

  9. Did the author sleep through Anthro 101? on Tool Use By Humans Pushed Back By 800,000 Years · · Score: 4, Informative

    Even non-hominids use implements like rocks and sticks. Tools are specifically fabricated or altered: what's important about tools is not that they are used but that they are made. Unless we find the rocks they used and see whether they were flaked by the hominids or just found already sharp, we can't call these "tools".

  10. Ushahidi also means "martyrdom" on Ushahidi Crowd-Sources Crisis Response · · Score: 1

    Just as a warning.

  11. They've discovered Italians? on New "Hairy" Material Is Almost Perfectly Hydrophobic · · Score: 0, Troll

    Hairy? Check. Water-repellent? Check. How hard is this, guys?

  12. Learn PostScript? on Modern LaTeX Replacement? · · Score: 1

    Just a thought.

  13. OK... If this jackass doesn't deserve it... on 35 Articles of Impeachment Introduced Against Bush · · Score: 1

    ...someone please tell me what a President has to do to deserve it. Seriously, if this shitwit isn't removed from office, what will a President have to do to have that happen?

  14. Kent? This is Jesus, Kent on World's Newest, Most Powerful Laser Comes Online · · Score: 1

    Nice that we can create things hotter than the sun in a lab.

  15. Right, so users are held hostage... on How Microsoft Dropped the Ball With Developers · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...by the crapware "enterprise" software industry that has succeeded mostly in just taking money from companies and giving them products that badly replicate where Lotus was 20 years ago. By itself, that would just be those companies' problems, but in the end other users and developers get held hostage by that same crapware because new versions of Windows have to keep supporting it.

  16. CBC with a predictable IV... on Fujitsu HDD with AES 256-bit Encryption · · Score: 1

    ...is really just ECB.

  17. Either NASA was using FORTRAN again... on Schoolboy Corrects NASA's Math On Killer Asteroid · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...or they forgot to do the metric conversion. Again.

  18. What, Darwin isn't working fast enough? on Rocket Racing League Ready To Launch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Patience, people, the gene pool will weed you out on its own.

  19. Negative. This is a DFSM on Building a 5-Ton Calculator From 19th-Century Plans · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is possible using these materials and a potentially limitless but deterministic input source to make a universal Turing machine, but this device as designed and as it is not fully programmable (it was Ada Lovelace who pointed that fact out, along with a very early formation of the Church-Turing thesis when she commented in the margin that a suitably-designed engine could be alternately arithmetical or analytical depending on how the inputs and outputs were interpreted).

  20. Those of us in EE call it a "system" on Sun Developing Open Media Stack · · Score: 1

    like, R(s) -> E(s)G(s) -> Y(s) kind of "system".

  21. I can think of no possible negative consequences.. on Laser Triggers Electrical Activity In Thunderstorm · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...to shooting a laser at a big storm cloud trying to generate lightning. None whatsoever.

  22. You need to enable it on First Looks at The Gimp 2.5 · · Score: 1

    And before people start asking me why you should have to enable it, you have to enable expose too, or at least I did the last time I had a Mac.

    But it's basically just like expose: put your mouse in the top right corner (or wherever you configure it) and you get all the windows nicely shaded and more or less tiled, pick one, and jump to that desktop with the window in focus.

  23. There's also skippy on First Looks at The Gimp 2.5 · · Score: 1

    Which doesn't rely on having a compositing manager (though it also has fewer features).

    I think it was written for e but it works well on Gnome and Windowmaker.

  24. This is why you never release on Fridays on Dealing With an IT Bully · · Score: 1

    Seriously, anybody who does a release on Friday is a frigging moron. And anybody who has an application server/middleware product and still talks about versioned "releases" is also a frigging moron.

  25. Chris Hansen isn't a 13-year-old girl, either on Eve Online Client Source Code Leaked · · Score: 1

    It's sort of like that, AFAICT