Slashdot Mirror


User: hduff

hduff's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,318
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,318

  1. Re:An interesting caveat on $57,000 Payout For Woman Charged With Wiretapping After Filming Cops · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the police orders you to "stop filming" even IF YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO DO SO, you are still not following their orders. This ALSO applies to flight attendants. It doesn't matter ONE LITTLE BIT if the order was proper, you ARE guilty of not following it.

    The CURRENT "proper way" of doing this is to follow their orders and then file a complaint at the station about the infringement on your rights. And yes, you won't have your videotaped evidence. And yes, police will likely retaliate. And no, the officer won't be immediately fired with cause. You lose.

    It is not illegal to refuse to obey an order that violates the law ("Kill that innocent bystander by order of the police!"), especially one that violates your clearly established Constitutional rights ("Surrender your Constitutional rights or face arrest!").

    Yes, you will be arrested and face retaliation, but you should prevail in court. If you don't want the hassle, obey the unlawful order.

    That said, there's a time and place for everything.

  2. Re:Start menu on Microsoft Won't Bring Back the Start Menu Until 2015 · · Score: 1

    Any word yet on Clippy?

    Should soon start work for that LA basketball team Balmer purchased.

    "Is that a three-pointer you're attempting? Can I . . ."

  3. Odd version Numbers on Microsoft Won't Bring Back the Start Menu Until 2015 · · Score: 1

    Which validates the belief that the even version numbers (Vista, Win8) are crap and the odd version numbers (XP, Win7) are better.

  4. Waiting for the inevitable reboot of the franchise.

  5. It Never Fails . . . on Study: Stop Being So Cynical, You Could Give Yourself Dementia · · Score: 1

    What is exercised the most becomes the strongest.

  6. Scotty . . . on Quad Lasers Deliver Fast, Earth-Based Internet To the Moon · · Score: 1

    Beam me up.

  7. Re:Bing is good for rewards & zeitgeist on Microsoft Announces Windows 8.1 With Bing To Sell Cheaper Devices · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you can write a script that will do that for you and possibly make some random clicks.

  8. Binged ... on Microsoft Announces Windows 8.1 With Bing To Sell Cheaper Devices · · Score: 1

    ... in the butt.

  9. But ... but ... on Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice · · Score: 1

    This must be ancient alien plastic.

  10. Finally on Google Overtakes Apple As the World's Most Valuable Brand · · Score: 1

    A new face for EVIL.

  11. My two cents on Data Mining Shows How Down-Voting Leads To Vicious Circle of Negative Feedback · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My thoughts are that posting in on-line communities is done mostly for reasons of self-esteem (although there are obviously other motivations) by people whose task is to share and receive useful-to-them information.

    If your self-esteem is high, the post itself provides the validation and positive or negative comments have little to no effect on what you post since validation is intrinsic.

    If your self-esteem is low, validation comes through feedback. Positive feedback is then seen to come from kindred souls and negative feedback from trolls. In both cases, validation is extrinsic and therefore has a volatile effect on the poster.

    My problem with TFA is what they quantify as "better" content. People post using words, phrases and grammar that they come equipped with; their level of education is fixed for the most part; their real-life experience and socialization is essentially fixed for the short run. Their ideas and opinions are already formed. There will not be any substantial improvement in the quality of what people post, no matter what the feedback is.

    Obviously, we need to fund more studies, especially studies done at exotic locales and funded by government money.

  12. Re:Git? When Linux hit the scene, on Linus Torvalds Receives IEEE Computer Pioneer Award · · Score: 1

    Without Linux, GNU, and BSD, it's no stretch to say that we may not have had an Internet today in any way that we'd recognize

    It would most likely look like AOL and BBS.

  13. FARK.com on Yahoo Stops Honoring 'Do-Not-Track' Settings · · Score: 1

    Does Slashdot get all its news stories from FARK.com?

    I read most of the current crop there first.

  14. Having the souce Code does not make it safe on Snowden Used the Linux Distro Designed For Internet Anonymity · · Score: 3, Informative

    Unless you compile from vetted source code on an un-compromised system using an un-compromised compiler, etc., you can't be certain the binary they provide is the same as what compiling the source code would provide.

  15. The Blame? on IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt · · Score: 1

    So who added that little sentence to the farm bill?

  16. Easily Explianed on Microsoft Confirms It Is Dropping Windows 8.1 Support · · Score: 1

    Coffin . . . meet nail.

  17. Re:"those wishing to support GNOME" HAH! on The GNOME Foundation Is Running Out of Money · · Score: 1

    For those of us who wish to hasten the death of GNOME, is there anything we can do?

    Yes. Contribute money so they don't change the way they do business.

    Agreed; bail them out. They will not learn any lesson from their poor decisions and will perpetuate them.

    This same divergence from their core mission was responsible for the downfall of Mandriva who spent their IPO money on "remote learning" technologies and abandoned their community of loyal users to "do it their own way" because they "knew better".

  18. DirectX 12 is now just a wrapper on DirectX 12 Promises Lower-level Hardware Access On Multiple Platforms · · Score: 1

    for openGL?

    imokwiththat.jpg

  19. Re:This should rope in literally a handful of crot on GOG.com To Add Linux Support · · Score: 2

    The dosbox configs for example have no consistency in the style department, so you actually have to understand them in order to write the new one.

    Rather than just complain, you could contrinute better DOSBOX configs back to the GOG community and encourage GOG to write to a higher standard by example.

  20. PlayOnLinux on GOG.com To Add Linux Support · · Score: 5, Informative

    PlayOnLinux can already access your GOG account and install many Windows games automatically and run them using WINE.

    Here's a good tip for older games that use DOS4GW.EXE: download the GPL'ed binary from http://dos32a.narechk.net/inde... and re-name it DOS4GW.EXE, then substutite it for the original. You'll find a noticable improvement in game performance, even using WINE o DOSBOX.

    If your game uses CWSDPMI.EXE , download the latest version of it from http://web.archive.org/web/201...

  21. It's A Shame on GOG.com To Add Linux Support · · Score: 1

    Not everybody uses Ubuntu or Mint.

    It's a shame they decided to support a specific "distro" instead of just generic Linux. How hard can that be?

    What's wrong with specifying minimum version numbers for libraries, using /usr/local/games and providing standards-compliant *.desktop files? How difficult is that?
    Or better yet, ship the required libraries with the binaries (providing the source code via ftp) and using a wrapper script to load the correct libraries and run the game for a "works-every-time" experience.

    To GOG's credit, their support forums contain a wealth of information about running some of these games using Linux. As well, PlayOnLinux can install supported *.exe games directly from your account at GOG, so they have been supportive of Linux for a very long time.

  22. So . . . on How the NSA Plans To Infect 'Millions' of Computers With Malware · · Score: 0

    Has my meemaw's computer been compromised?

  23. You still own all the original CDs on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 1

    So I don't see the problem.

  24. Mageia4 on Ask Slashdot: Linux For Grandma? · · Score: 1

    All my ex-Windows family members have been happy with Mageia4. Grandma has the most locked-down instance: an LXDE desktop with a pared-down menu and locked-down configuration. Her "favorite" win32/win16 apps are handled by Codeweaver's Crossover. Never had a problem or complaint from her.

    My wife, OTOH, loves to tinker and will not stop. She get Windows7 in a virtual machine with her data saved to the underlying Linux OS, so "fixing"her computer is as easy as killing the broken VM and launching a clone.

    The sibs and kids seem to be happy with Mageia4/KDE4 except one who is Apple-only.

    Since they are all on the same distro, I maintain a local repo of customized configs and apps, so re-installing/new computer is easy if it becomes necessary.

  25. unintentionally transform ??? on Government Secrecy Spurs $4 Million Lawsuit Over Simple 'No Fly' List Error · · Score: 1

    There was nothing unintentional about the government's actions.

    --
    Don't like beta? Keep protesting until they listen and change.