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User: bradkittenbrink

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  1. Re:8.8.8.8 on Paul Vixie: 100,000 DSL Modems May Lose Their DNS On July 9 · · Score: 1

    You realize you've just described the basic architecture of TOR, right?

  2. Re:Ubuntu on Which Linux For Non-Techie Windows Users? · · Score: 1

    Even though I'm something of a gnome fanboy, I'd second this. Windows familiarity is the big advantage of KDE from my perspective.

    I'd also mention that you don't need to take the leap all at once. You can start getting them accustomed to alternative software choices gradually with free software that runs on windows like OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Amarok, etc.

  3. Re:Why is this done in software at all? on Entropy Problems For Linux In the Cloud · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So, I was mostly just giving him shit because of his name. If you want a more serious debate, here's my best shot: The instructions you described are all relatively easy to define a generally useful specification. My main point was that every application has differing standards of randomness that are required. Do you need real quantum-mechanical randomness, or just a CSPRNG? How many bits of random data do you need, and how frequently? I'm assuming that the request is for real quantum-mechanical randomness. I find it hard to imagine defining a good spec for such hardware component, especially since the vast majority of applications don't actually require quantum-mechanical randomness, and the ones that do are likely to have very specific requirements. Anyways, besides the fact that it's tough to come up with good requirements for such a feature, I bet it's really tough to implement as well. I know just barely enough about about hardware implementations to be dangerous, so someone who knows for real, please correct me if I'm wrong. Anyways, circuits that exhibit quantum-mechanical randomness are, as far as I know, essentially the same as circuits that cause metastability in transistors. Because of the need to control for such problems, implementing such circuits on the same die as a normal digital circuit would likely be very expensive in terms of both die area and yield.

  4. Re:Why is this done in software at all? on Entropy Problems For Linux In the Cloud · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's like asking "Why can't they add a DWIM opcode to the instruction set?"

  5. etherpad on Collaborative Software For Pair Programming? · · Score: 1

    for simple plain text stuff: http://etherpad.com/

  6. Re:Too late FBI on FBI Seizes All Servers In Dallas Data Center · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think perhaps the fact it's largely other people's UNRELATED stuff is where the issue really begins to rub people up the wrong way.

    There were a bunch of raids like this in the UK. The police keep taking entire sets of Indymedia servers and not giving them back for ages.

    Seriously. How about if the FBI confiscated the luggage from every room in a hotel, just because 1 of them had 50 kilos of cocaine in their room? I have no idea how they've been getting away with these tactics.

  7. Re:Think this through a bit more next time. on Angry Villagers Run Google Out of Town · · Score: 1

    Rule #1 is: Security through obscurity isn't.

    While that applies to information security. It applies much less to physical security. For example, if "casing" a potential burglary target requires standing outside of it suspiciously, then security is much enhanced even if it's not absolute.

    Rule #2 is: Making a huge stink about your private neighborhood against a well-liked company like Google will probably mean you're going to get a lot more attention than if you just let well enough alone.

    You're right on the money with that one...

  8. Re:OK, then... *WHO* is the official ext3 "moron"? on Kernel Hackers On Ext3/4 After 2.6.29 Release · · Score: 2, Funny

    Whoah, the first time I scanned that I read: "ext3 was merged to the mainline kernel in 2001. ext3 was created in 2005"
    my reaction was, "Wow, well that makes sense..."

  9. Re:Pretty cool on E=mc^2 Verified In Quantum Chromodynamic Calculation · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To me, it sounds more like verifying that Quantum Chromodynamics isn't inconsistent...

  10. Re:They're insane. on Vital Parts of Games As DLC? · · Score: 1

    Even if that were the case, it doesn't matter.
    The availability of a secondary market increases the price of the first sale. If everyone new there was no way to resell a game, a significant chunk of buyers would be a lot less likely to shell out $60 for one. Prices would naturally fall as demand decreased.

  11. Re:This is why... on Microsoft to Issue Emergency Patch For File-Sharing Hole · · Score: 3, Funny

    then I think somebody may have hacked your account...

  12. Re:Wikipedia takes the truth very seriously on Wikipedia's New Definition of Truth · · Score: 1

    Yeah, it's not my fault some idiots modded my post informative without clicking the link.

  13. Wikipedia takes the truth very seriously on Wikipedia's New Definition of Truth · · Score: 5, Informative
  14. Re:Goodness Gracious, Great Gobs of Dough! on SCO's Lawsuit Gets Even Crazier · · Score: 1

    That's 211 septillion, 429 sextillion, 399 quintillion dollars. To compare, the world's GDP (as of 2006) was $65.95 trillion. So the guy wanted over 3.2 TRILLION percent of the world's GDP.

    What? don't try to pretend like you don't...

  15. Re:IANAMP on SCO's Lawsuit Gets Even Crazier · · Score: 1

    Insanity is not a medical criterion, it's a moral and legal one. The key is being capable of knowing the difference between right and wrong. Right and wrong are concepts fundamentally outside the mandate of medical science.

    see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity#In_medicine

    If he's mentally ill then he certainly needs treatment. But that's actually an independent question from whether or not he's a moral agent who deserves to be held responsible for his actions (although one will often inform the other).

    I agree with you though that most US penal facilities do not have a good track record with such things though.

  16. Re:Problem with KDE 4 on Release Team Proposes Gnome 3.0 Plans · · Score: 1

    Second, distros should avoid including immature projects like KDE 4 until they *are* feature complete and stable. Yeah, Kubuntu, I'm looking at you!

    I kind of take issue with this. If you don't want releases hot off the upstream presses, then you should probably be using debian or something like that. The whole reason the *buntu projects were started was to get upstream releases into distro releases quicker. If they didn't make releases like this they'd disappoint a lot of their users.

  17. Re:Foundation on Sci-Fi Books For Pre-Teens? · · Score: 1

    I agree with everything you said.

    However, in case o2binbuzios doesn't believe you that Foundation is not too dry, etc...

    I started reading Asimov with the I Robot short stories. They are what got me interested in the rest of Asimov. They are completely approachable and will almost certainly inspire interest in the Robot and Foundation novels.

    I have recently come to believe that the short story is in some ways the ideal medium for scifi. By that, I don't mean that it's a replacement for the novel, but merely that it does some amazing things that novels can't. A year ago I read through The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke. I had mostly stuck to novels since I was about 14, but this completely renewed my childhood wonder with the genre. I don't can think I can describe it adequately, but there's really nothing like the adventure of being thrown headlong into a completely new universe every 5-20 pages.

  18. Re:Reminds me of Novell on No XP Reprieve; Windows 7 Release Set · · Score: 1

    Apple can disregard backward compatibility where Microsoft can't because Apple has other advantages to their platform. Essentially Microsoft's sole selling point for their platform is the massive amount of software available for it. If Microsoft throws that away, they make all of their users think, "Should I upgrade to new incompatible OS X or new incompatible Windows?"

  19. Re:I don't understand nVidia on Kernel Builders Appeal For Open Source Drivers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fair. From what I've heard though, ATI/AMD isn't releasing their optimized drivers. They're releasing open source reference drivers. There's no reason nVidia can't do that.

  20. Re:Which is why the free market is a fairy tale on Open Source Killing Commercial Developer Tools · · Score: 1

    Just like wikipedia requires all editors to be experts...

  21. Re:Whats the difference? on UK Teen Cited For Calling Scientology a "Cult" · · Score: 2, Insightful
    A good set of criteria, I would add the following:
    4) Exerts coercive pressure or threats on its members concerning any of
    1. their association with non-members
    2. discussion of facts about the organization
    3. their leaving the organization./li[like Scientology]
  22. Re:SQLite on F/OSS Flat-File Database? · · Score: 1

    I don't know, the wtfpl gives me permission to fornicate with the authors' mothers. I don't think public domain does that...

  23. Re:OH NOES! on For CS Majors, How Important Is the "Where?" · · Score: 1

    Agreed almost entirely. I was very happy with my cs education at a liberal arts school. For me it was clearly the right choice. However, it's not right for everyone. A bunch of my friends thought the curriculum was less than ideal. They would have preferred a larger focus on practical applications.

    If you're happy spending your own time working on practical experience, working with open source projects, etc. then I think a liberal arts college can be right for you. If you want a more structured program where they direct you towards practical applications, then a more technical school might be better.

  24. Re:Bad science. on Internet Sites Biased Towards Supporting Suicide · · Score: 1

    Whatever, the only stupidity is that all the suicide support and counseling websites haven't spammed their keywords with all these search terms.

  25. Re:Ray-Tracing Extremely CPU Intensive on Crytek Bashes Intel's Ray Tracing Plans · · Score: 1

    Try to rasterize on any hardware that's good at raytracing. Rasterizing will be tons faster. Rasterization is just as parallelizable as raytracing, but the current apis for doing it (Direct3D and OpenGL) are not.