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User: Eevee

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Comments · 498

  1. One-line explanation of Wikipedia's behavior. on Wikipedia Threatens Artists For Fair Use · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's better to have a judge rule "it's fair use" now than have a judge rule "you didn't defend your trademark" five years from now.

  2. Re:I love how this is tagged on Watchmen 50 Days On, Was It Worth the Gamble? · · Score: 1

    That's so we don't assume it's about the Smurfs.

  3. Re:Economic impact on Fair Use Affirmed In Turnitin Case · · Score: 1

    Not at all. Look at politicians. Nobody goes off the deep end because they use speechwriters.

    The question you want, however, is it considered a violation of the school's honor code? And the answer is most likely yes.

  4. Re:Similar to Windows hate? on Comic Sans, Font of Ill Will · · Score: 1

    It takes a larger area of the character to "smear" for them to become confusing.

    As an example, many moons (and jobs) ago, I worked in this cruddy, run-down building with an equally cruddy and run-down cafeteria...the sort of place anyone with sense would only use if going out for lunch wasn't an option. One rainy day, I risked my gastrointestinal tract and visited it. On the menu, the soup of the day was listed as "brooooll". It took me a while to figure out that it was actually "broccoli" because the menu had been printed on an ancient dot-matrix printer which apparently had never been cleaned and had problems with the paper-feed advancing the sheet. So yes, lower case 'c' and 'o'--as well as 'l' and 'i'--can be easily confused in certain situations.

  5. The Comments Don't Match the Article. on The Secret History of the FBI's Classified Spyware · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Constitution is QUITE clear that a search of private property requires a warrant.

    From the fine article, emphasis added by me: "But the documents released Thursday under the Freedom of Information Act show the FBI has quietly obtained court authorization to deploy the CIPAV in a wide variety of cases, ranging from major hacker investigations, to someone posing as an FBI agent online."

    And from further down in the article: "The FBI obtained a warrant to use the CIPAV on February 10, 2005, and was apparently successful."

  6. Re:Strangled in the crib, or earlier on Academics To Predict Next Twitter and Its Pitfalls · · Score: 1

    Or as Blaise Pascal said, "I have written you a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one."

  7. Re:Your tax dollars at work on NASA Names Space Station Treadmill After Colbert · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I first saw your post, my reaction was "There's a bar on the new module? Cool." Imagine my disappointment when I found out you were talking about typing instead of alcohol.

  8. Re:Body is the Vessel for the Soul on Are Human Beings Organisms Or Living Ecosystems? · · Score: 1

    While I have to admit that the grandparent comment by the AC is pretty incoherent, the intent could have been "maintaining the correct pH balance by staying slightly more alkaline than the average person who takes in too many acidic foods and drinks, such as lemon juice in water." Still wrong, but at a higher grade level.

  9. Re:Was the other OS even Windows? on College Police Think Using Linux Is Suspicious Behavior · · Score: 1

    It's okay, I hate how stupid Slashdot posters can be.

    I realize that if reading the article is almost unheard of then actually looking at the original evidence is unheard of, but...the cop is quoting the guy's roommate. It's likely the officer in question never saw the computer turned on, nor is the warrant particularly concerned with the operating system involved. Furthermore, if you read farther into the warrant, the officer assigned for the forensics has quite a bit of training, so I'm gonna guess here that yes, the cops involved can tell the difference between Linux and Windows.

  10. Don't delude yourself. on Best Easter Eggs and Other Software Surprises · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lots of closed-source apps have a bunch of extra undocumented code that could be possible security vulnerabilities.

  11. Re:Good Idea. on California May Reduce Carbon Emissions By Banning Black Cars · · Score: 1

    Damage to roads from vehicles comes from weight per tire and increases exponentially. So on the current tax scale where large trucks pay thousands a year and cars pay hundreds, the rate for a biker would be in the pennies. So it would cost more to collect than it's worth.

  12. Re:Boing Boing Unreliable on Update — No DRM In New iPod Shuffle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The real story is that Boing Boing posted a story that doesn't involve the author's latest book...

  13. When applied to the entire company. on Data Mining Moves To Human Resources · · Score: 1

    Use of the tool promptly gets stopped when it reveals that upper management adds no value.

  14. Re:I know it's in the original article but... on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 1
    You need to examine your sources better. In the Wikipedia article for Airship, in the third paragraph under terminology:

    In modern common usage, the terms zeppelin, dirigible and airship are used interchangeably for any type of rigid airship, with the term blimp alone used to describe non-rigid airships.

  15. Re:The heck with SAM/long range missles... on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the fine article:

    and safe from most fighter planes.

    Hmmm. most...It's almost as if they thought that there might be some advanced planes...almost as if they had done some research on possible opponents...almost as if experts in the field are as smart as a Slashdot reader.

  16. I know it's in the original article but... on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 1

    I realize it's not the editor's fault this time because the original article makes the same mistake, but dirigible and blimp mean two different things. A dirigible has a support structure holding the gas cells; a blimp depends on the pressure of its gas cells to hold its shape.

  17. Do people even read the links? on French President Busted For Copyright Violation · · Score: 1
    From the wikipedia article on the Napoleonic code:

    The possibility for justice to endorse lengthy remand periods was one reason why the Napoleonic Code was criticized for de facto presumption of guilt, particularly in common law countries.

    It's not merely Wikipedia where this opinion is expressed. McKillop notes that

    It is sometimes suggested, particularly by those from a common law system, that there is no presumption of innocence in the French criminal justice system, but rather a presumption of guilt. This is an understandable reaction by those observing French hearings, particularly in the lower courts, and if aware of the considerably higher conviction rates at hearings in France as opposed to trials in common law countries.

  18. Or the King of the Hill version... on NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory Mission Fails · · Score: 1

    I know what's wrong with it: It's a Ford. You know what they say "Ford" stands for, don't you? It stands for "Fix It Again, Tony."

  19. Sell them. on How Do I Put Unused Servers To Work? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Somebody gets cheap hardware, your company gets more cash, the servers get used for something worthwhile...everyone wins.

  20. tl; dr on Ontario Court Wrong About IP Addresses, Too · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I did a quick search on "phone" and found no references to Canadian case law dealing with warrents and phone numbers--the obvious precedent for warrents and IP addresses. Why is this even posted if the most basic of research hasn't been done?

  21. Re:Call sign... on Cambridge, Mass. Moves To Nix Security Cameras · · Score: 1

    Except the ITU doesn't control how they are assigned within a country. To quote from the wikipedia article, Many large countries in turn have internal rules on how and where specific subsets of their callsigns can be used . Furthermore, the rule is not that strict; you have WACO in Texas and KYW in Pennsylvania.

    Venturing even further off-topic, supposedly the British only agreed to the American request for so many call letters if they would take 'W', 'A', 'N', and 'K'.

  22. Utterly offtopic but I can't resist. on Darwinism Must Die So Evolution Can Live · · Score: 1

    Q: Who works in an amphibious garage?

    A: Newt-onian mechanics.

  23. Re:Buying a low-power TV to save on costs on DAM Pops Energy Star's Bubble · · Score: 1

    The guide can wait to be updated until the next time I watch television.

    It can wait if you aren't recording a show with an external device or the providers never change program schedules without warning. The market for the DVDPal, however, does includes people who record shows and have to live with providers who change programs without warning. Is six hours too often? Yes. But there needs to be some sort of scheduled updates for unattended recording.

  24. Re:And next up... on Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes · · Score: 4, Funny

    With our luck, it would be the hideous offspring of a ZunePony, the ZuneCorn(tm)

  25. Re:Dear Iranian nation on Iran Has Put a Satellite Into Orbit · · Score: 1

    but it can't be justification for the *second* Gulf War more than a decade later.

    I don't like the word "justification" in this situation. It's distracting from the point. I'd say it's more a matter of providing context. If you ignore the invasion of Kuwait, the first war, and the ongoing military actions on both sides in the no-fly zones, then you can't understand the second war and its relevance to other conflicts.

    Whether it was legitimate or not, whether it was wise or not, there was ongoing combat in the years leading up to the second war. Both sides were firing weapons at the other; both sides were aiming to destroy targets belonging to the other. I can't imagine this continual low-level skirmishing did not play a part in the US decision to invade Iraq.