Slashdot Mirror


User: platypussrex

platypussrex's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
141
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 141

  1. Re:eSports aren't like regular Sports on The ESports Athletes Who Tried To Switch Games · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another difference is that 50,000,000 people won't pay to watch eSports on any given weekend but they will for football and basketball etc.

  2. Re:NSA mail on The Inside Story of Gmail On Its Tenth Anniversary · · Score: 1

    On the subject of April Fools, does anyone else miss the days when /. had an awesome page of nothing but April Fools articles for the day?

  3. Re:News? on The Strange Story Of the Sculpture On the Moon · · Score: 3, Informative

    From TFA: "Now, after years of obscurity, Fallen Astronaut is making an unexpected comeback. Four decades after van Hoeydonck’s private meeting with the Smithsonian’s director, the Smithsonian invited the artist and his most famous sculpture out into the public for an absurdly belated lecture on Dec. 12 at the National Air and Space Museum"

  4. Re:Preventative Maintenance on A Short History of Computers In the Movies · · Score: 1

    the AN/FSQ-7 had two parallel systems, so that one could be working while the other was down for tube replacement. One site I read stated that it had around 99% up time. Each system would also cycle the voltage slightly as it was ready for it's shift, to force premature failure in tubes that were on the borderline.

  5. Re:I am confused. on Meet Paunch: the Accused Author of the BlackHole Exploit Kit · · Score: 4, Informative

    it gets even better. In the linked article it explains that Paunch sells ads that appear in the control panels for all the renters, so not only does he get income from renting the system, he he also gets the income from that ads that are popping up in your system after you rent it from him!

  6. Re:I am confused. on Meet Paunch: the Accused Author of the BlackHole Exploit Kit · · Score: 2

    I'm certainly not an expert on this, but TFA says they "rent" the kit, and in a linked article it mentions administrative user panels for the people who rent the product, so it sounds as if you don't actually buy the code, but rather rent access to a system that lets you acquire and manipulate your botnet.

  7. Re:How about on California Outlaws 'Revenge Porn' · · Score: -1, Troll

    The case that was in the news recently about a woman who had to change her name because she was so ashamed of the pics her ex posted is a case in point here. A bit of investigation found out that the pics were selfies, of her doing things such as anal insertions. So yeah, it's hard to see how she didn't consent when she put something up her butt while naked, took the pics, and send them along to the guy.

  8. Re:Pathetic on Twinkies: The Breakfast of Champion Programmers Still Hard To Get · · Score: 1

    They are incredibly easy to make.

    The new Hostess is non-union and has lost most of it's talent

    If your first statement is true, it's hard to see why the second one would matter.

  9. a bit silly on PIN-Cracking Robot To Be Showed Off At Defcon · · Score: 2

    different phones have lockouts, and delays for new guesses based on wrong guesses. TFA mentions the delays, but not the data wipes. The whole thing seems a bit silly. There are easier ways to hack into most phones than brute forcing the pin with a robot.

  10. Re:Heat. on Ask Slashdot: Transporting Computers By Cargo Ship? · · Score: 1

    Speaking as someone who has actually moved personal items from the northern to the southern hemisphere, depending on where you go, the single biggest threat to you property may well be theft. It can happen anywhere along the route and no one will be willing to say they received the goods intact.

  11. Re:Who's affected? on Walmart Abandons Amazon's Kindle Lineup · · Score: 2

    things that you don't care where you got them because you're going to replace them when they break.

    Sounds like a Kindle to me ;-)

  12. Re:Back to School on When a Primary Source Isn't Good Enough: Wikipedia · · Score: 4, Funny

    Or that wonderful scene in Annie Hall when they are in the queue at the theatre, the loudmouth ass in front of them is spouting off about his knowledge of Marshall McLuhan, and Woody Allen brings out Marshall McLuhan in person to refute the ass.

  13. Re:Devil's advocate here... on The UK's New Minister For Magic · · Score: 1

    >

    For a double blind experiment, both the doctor and the patient need to ignore (the phrase you are looking for is "not be aware") if they are on placebo or not -hence *double* blind.

    I see, you think you are cute, but you misunderstand the point of double blind. The point of doing double blind is if there is a possibility that the clinician might know which drug is the test and which is the placebo and then if that knowledge could have even an unintended effect on the subject during the course of the treatment. Since the surgical patient is usually unconscious this can't happen, but if a person were being extremely careful they could have one physician interact with the patient while they were awake (before and after the surgery) and have a separate doctor do the actually surgery (or not) but lie to the "awake" doctors so they always thought the surgery was done. You are probably right that no one has been confused enough to do something like this, for ethical reasons if nothing else, but in addition to not understanding when double blinds are appropriate, you also fail to understand a ruptured appendix. Roughly speaking, the mortality rate from having the surgery is about 1 in 1,000,000 while having no surgery after the appendix ruptures is almost a death sentence. Which pretty much makes your cuteness irrelevant.

  14. Re:Devil's advocate here... on The UK's New Minister For Magic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have to call BS on this one. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but from what you said, it sounds like that you are claiming something like: Take two people each with an acute appendix. For one, do an appendectomy, for the other, put him out, wake him up, and tell him he had an appendectomy. And the surgery is no more effective than lying to the guy. Sorry, but there is no way in hell that can be true.

  15. Re:Seems to get hung up at 96% for me on Data-Mine Your Own Facebook Data With Wolfram Alpha · · Score: 1

    except that I don't want WA to know my FB login and pswd. That's what it kept asking for, even after I logged in to my (mostly bogus) FB account and gave it permissions. Smells fishy to me.

  16. Re:Seems to get hung up at 96% for me on Data-Mine Your Own Facebook Data With Wolfram Alpha · · Score: 0

    Didn't work. Had me log in to FB, give it permissions, then it kept begging me to create a WA account. I call BS on it.

  17. Re:awesome publicity for public awareness on NASA's Own Video of Curiosity Landing Crashes Into a DMCA Takedown · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So you are sitting in your kitchen eating some food you just purchased at a store. Suddenly some guys in black suits burst through the window, knock you to the floor, and take the food, leaving behind a message stating that someone else claimed it looked just like the food they bought, so it must have been theirs. And you are claiming it's all OK because you can go down town to an office, fill out a report, and in a couple of weeks they will return your supper to you. Sheesh

  18. Re:Dear Proprietarians and Patent Trolls on Patent and Copyright Wars Gone Wild · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I screwed up and read TFA. What a waste of electronic ink. Talk about lack of substance, analysis, or depth. I feel dumber afterwards than I did before I read it. This is probably a real topic, but you'd never know if from that article.

  19. Re:yes on Political Science Prof Asks: Is Algebra Necessary? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have degrees in math and have taught Math at the university level. The biggest problem is that many of the people we send to college in the US should be in tech school instead. They probably won't benefit much from Algebra, but then they are most likely flunking many other courses as well. History, Literature, Biology, the list goes on. For the ones who should be in college, and who will benefit from a college education, they absolutely need the skills that a good mathematics education will help them acquire. For the ones who should be in tech school, they often can't even do basic whole number arithmetic so naturally they don't benefit from Algebra at all.

  20. Re:Nuke it from orbit on Ask Slashdot: How To Clean Up My Work Computer Before I Leave? · · Score: 2

    Sounds to me what he's really worried about is them finding all the porn he's downloaded to the computer over the years.

  21. Re:Reflections from the UK on Obama Wants $1 Billion For "Master Teachers Corps" · · Score: 2

    Corps members will lead ongoing professional meetings and teacher development activities; assist their schools and school districts in evaluating and providing feedback to other teachers; and validate and disseminate effective practices to improve STEM instruction.

    So they will not be paid to teach as much as they will be paid to lead meetings... just what we need in the education system is less teaching and more meetings -not-

  22. Re:Efficiency? on East Texas Getting Compressed Air Energy Storage Plant · · Score: 1

    with Texas in the throws of a multi-year drought, it's not so much efficiency as it is possibility

  23. I wonder on East Texas Getting Compressed Air Energy Storage Plant · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    what the environmentalists will use for an excuse for why this is evil... maybe compressed air is bad for subterranean cave bats?

  24. Re:DSNChanger??? on DNSChanger Shut-Down Means Internet Blackout Coming For Hundreds of Thousands · · Score: 1

    And yes, I know what I'm talking about, I do this for a living, I give speeches about it, I've been doing research on this for over a decade. If you're in Europe, you can hire me on this.

    Wouldn't life be wonderful if everyone who made speeches knew what they were talking about? What part of dancing bunnies is eluding you? Sure some users are morons, but the rest will do about anything to see those bunnies.

  25. Re:Proof Positive on Righthaven Defies Court In Domain Name Ruling · · Score: 1

    Someone above made the comment that if lawyers are disbarred, the company just hires more lawyers, and while that's true, what the judge should (and may well) do is to impose monetary sanctions on RIghthaven itself. No amount of disbarred lawyers will make that go away.