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User: SatanicPuppy

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Comments · 5,385

  1. Re:New from Gawker Games: Grand Theft iPhone! on Police Seize Computers From Gizmodo Editor · · Score: 1

    There is no such thing as a journalists exemption. In fact, I can't think of a single profession where you're exempt from a law simply because you are a member of that profession.

    The belief that journalists are in any way different from any other shmuck isn't based on any actual facts.

  2. Re:Journalist? on Police Seize Computers From Gizmodo Editor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Newspaper offices aren't exempt from crap. They're out of their minds. (disclaimer: sitting in a newspaper office right now)

    Historically, whenever a journalist has been jailed for not ratting out a source, the cops have pulled all their stuff right off their desks. There is no legal exemption just because you happen to work for a media outlet.

  3. Journalist? on Police Seize Computers From Gizmodo Editor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wait, what? Journalists are immune from having their computers seized? In what dreamworld? They have the exact same first amendment protections as the rest of us. No more, no less. If Apple can get a warrant (which they obviously can), those computers are fair game, along with anything else that might be relevant to the charges.

    The only reason that, traditionally, journalists had extra privileges was because they worked for large litigious media outlets who wouldn't put up with that horseshit, and the government was rightfully wary. These days, not so much.

    Apple has a long history of suing people over trade secret violations, and since all you have to have to be a "trade secret" is simply to be arguably valuable, and, you know, secret, it's not hard to do. In this case I imagine they're looking in to charging them for full-on corporate espionage (which is a felony) and which the guy may be open to, depending on how he obtained the phone.

  4. Re:And then they check it? on Why Computer Science Students Cheat · · Score: 1

    In many places, the code is graded via automatic testing routines. The reason for this is that many big coding houses use automatic unit tests on their OWN code, so learning how to deal with automated testing helps you in the real world.

    Why would you bother grading it by hand? If you're building a program that does anything other than "Hello World" complete testing is non-trivial.

    Can you imagine hand grading and checking for cheating, when you're dealing with 1,200 submissions? For one class? That's not uncommon at big schools.

  5. Re:Because that first step is a doozy on Why Computer Science Students Cheat · · Score: 1

    I was in a programming competition in high school, and when it got down to the wire and we couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with our 7th program, we just commented out every line that threw a compile error...And the goddamn thing worked perfectly.

    I don't know, to this day, how the hell that was possible.

  6. Re:Problem on Why Computer Science Students Cheat · · Score: 1

    It's not, actually. When I was in college, I was in a 400 level OS design class that was all group projects.

    For the first project my team had the highest score on the programming part: partly this was because we were pretty good, but mostly it was because the group that was the best shared their work with about 4 other groups, and they all got zeros for the project.

    Now my group was made up of four people: two people who could program, and two people who could not program at all. 400 level class, remember? Had about 8 pre-requisite programming classes.

    Do the math, and think about the number of people who were being carried in that class, and that was the only group programming class I had in college. Excessive collaboration absolutely should result in a big fat F.

  7. Re:TFA wasn't clear on Will Adobe Sue Apple Over Flash? · · Score: 1

    It'd have to be anti-competitive behaviour. Basically monopoly lock-out, same as Microsoft gets sued over.

  8. Re:Asshole on Raleigh Councilman Offers Child Naming Rights To Google · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yea, well it'd have to be better than Boner Gaylord Jr, now wouldn't it?

    Seriously, what's he got to lose?

  9. Re:...Or an arms race on SSD Price Drops Signaling End of Spinning Media? · · Score: 1

    I still have one from when they were 6 deep x 4 wide, and about 2 inches thick...A big bad 32mb drive.

  10. Re:Stop calling it 'insurance' (or update Wikipedi on House Passes Massive Medical Insurance Bill, 219-212 · · Score: 1

    Once upon a time, you would have called it fire insurance, because that's what it would have been. One company with a truck, whom you paid, who would then come put your house out if it was on fire.

    You know how that worked out? Competing companies setting their competitors houses on fire, blocking traffic to keep them from getting to the fire, and extorting the homeowner whose house was on fire.

    We decided that was a bad idea, and went with a single-payer system, because it kept everyone honest. Somehow...I'm sure through magic...It didn't end up causing unmanageable bureaucracy and firehouse "death panels".

  11. Re:CDs! How *quaint* on UMG To Price New CDs Under $10 · · Score: 1

    I've still got vinyl gear, and vinyl media, but I'd never buy anything new (aside, obviously, for maintenance items on my turntable).

    It's just not very convenient, and, frankly, a lifetime of listening to loud music has left me ill-equipped to appreciate any subtle difference in quality.

  12. Re:$1.4 Billion on The Death of the US-Mexico Virtual Fence · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, it's that or kill all the old people. Your choice.

  13. Re:Substandard help ahoy! on NY To Replace IT Vendors With State Workers · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If they are able to actually fire an employee without jumping through a million hoops, then they're more likely to get and keep good employees.

    It's not that all state employees are terrible, it's that they're just not accountable for their performance, and it's hard to stay sharp when you don't really have to answer to anyone.

  14. Re:Anti-Union on NY To Replace IT Vendors With State Workers · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Never seen a state or a union employee work 40 hours in a week.

  15. Re:What point are you making? on Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive" · · Score: 1

    Not sure I follow. I don't think anyone has yet accused "Kings Quest" of driving people to murder, and yet at the most violent time in my life, that was the most violent game I played.

    After I got older, and got into shooters, I seldom ever got into any trouble (and if you think that a religious discussion with a drunken Irishman was caused by my intolerance, you've never met a drunken Irishman), which would suggest that my violent tendencies were attributable to my youth, rather than my gaming habits.

  16. Re:Ah, the good old days on Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC · · Score: 1

    Agreed. "Press Credentials" sounds like you get something for nothing, but I remember having to practically blow people to get a press pass. It's never a guarantee, and the only reason it has this sort of cache in NYC is because they have so many people that they've had to make a rule to keep things under control.

    Anyway, breaking into the field is easy, you just have to be willing to start at the bottom.

  17. Re:Bloggers for Satan. on Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC · · Score: 1

    They aren't hiring anyone. They're just saying that you won't automatically be turned away because you don't represent a big media outlet.

    These events are standing room only. Not everyone is going to get in regardless, and the current rules about journalists are just a rule of necessity to keep the attendance under control.

  18. Re:I write for Slashdot on Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So? If someone was willing to pay you to do it, would something change?

    That's all "journalism" is. People mystify this crap like it's some kind of secret fraternity, with secret rules.

    Here's how it works. First, you write/video a bunch of shit.

    Then you go to a media outlet, and say, "Here is my shit. If you like it, I can produce shit like this for you."

    If they like it they say, "We like your shit. Go out and produce shit RIGHT NOW, so we can see what your shit looks like when you don't have time to prepare." If they like the shit you produce under pressure, you'll be hired and be an official journalist.

    That's it. That's the whole thing. Now, to work for some big outlet, they'll expect you to have worked somewhere smaller and produced good shit while you worked there. But that's about the only barrier to entry. I know a guy who went from a paper that had circulation smaller than my college paper to one of the top 5 papers in the country in less than 5 years, all because people liked his shit.

  19. Re:Ah, the good old days on Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC · · Score: 1

    There is still good journalism out there. You can't measure a profession by the lowest level material produced. And having a big company willing to vouch for you is a good sign to traditionally conservative event promoters: they're not required to let anyone in on press credentials. As far as government stuff goes, if the meeting isn't open to journalists, it's not open to the public either, and vice versa.

    They don't receive special credentials because they got a degree, they receive special credentials because they represent an influential organization. If you let in the guy who works for the New York Times for free, you may get a write up that will be viewed by multiple millions of people. It's a business decision. If you only represent yourself, buy a ticket. Likewise if you represent a big, influential blog, you can probably get press credentials.

    There also seems to be some belief that press credentials are given to journalists without them having to ask. This may be the case with established clubs/venues/promoters, whatever, but more often than not, the journalist has to call and ask for them. Nothing stopping a blogger from calling and asking, and there is no law that says that anyone is entitled to press credentials.

  20. Re:great, thanks a lot on Bloggers Now Eligible For Press Passes In NYC · · Score: 1

    Yea, the elite...I work with journalists every day and the word "elite" doesn't apply to any of them except the moronic "folksy" guy, and then only in his own mind.

    I don't think there is anything wrong with allowing an established journalist to say, "Don't worry about this guy, he's with me." 90% of the ones I know would say that for a pint of beer, and it's not like they're hard to find (hint: pick up the dead tree product, and look at the names at the top of all the printy words).

    It's a hell of a lot better than just throwing every event open to every schmuck with a blogspot account, or on the other hand, requiring a government-sponsored vetting process to figure out if you're relevant enough to merit a press pass.

  21. Re:Try "fishing for noobs", not admins. on New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins · · Score: 1

    What I thought was, "Fucking /26 blocks? Are you kidding me?" Not to mention that opening 25 to 128 different IPs makes no sense at all.

  22. Re:Try "fishing for noobs", not admins. on New "Spear Phishing" Attacks Target IT Admins · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Exactly. I'm just going to open up some port, or change my mail settings because some schmuck sends me an email?

    I changed an IP address on a single server and it ended up being 6 hours on the phone with corporate VPN jockeys and contractor VPN jockeys and failover tunnel configuration, and the WAN guys, and the next day I had to put in another hour because a different business unit on an outsourced customer service portal had missed that we were moving the server, and they had to get set up as well.

    Firewall/Server changes from an ISP over email? Right.

  23. Re:Violent crime descrese after first video game on Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive" · · Score: 1

    Bit if a stretch to call it non-fiction...Any number of people have had valid and serious objections to any number of his points.

  24. Re:Uh... no. on Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive" · · Score: 1

    See? It's their dream study!

  25. Re:Correlation is not causation on Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive" · · Score: 1

    Shrug, I think there would be less outrage because it conforms to their confirmation bias, but I think that this study will get more press than it deserves because it appeals to the anti-gamer confirmation bias.

    Doesn't change the fact that it's meta-analytical wanking.

    I think gaming has negative physiological effects, but frankly I think that's more because it's a sedentary activity than anything else. If you spent the same time out running and playing, you'd probably be healthier.

    Kids who get out and exercise aren't going to see any real negative effects from moderate game playing, though as a parent myself, I'm not letting my kids play really violent stuff until they're older, any more than I'd let them watch really violent movies.