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User: colfer

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Comments · 409

  1. Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused" on Computer Failure Causes Gridlock In MD County · · Score: 1

    The added blue is for people with red-green colorblindness. Maybe it's a matter of degree. Or 90 degrees. Were the lights horizontal instead of vertical, by chance?

    Off-topic, I lived in a city in the 1980s where some traffic lights were still on the side of the street instead of overhead. So many out of towners were running reds and wrecking the city had to put in the overheads.

  2. Re:Not a good article on What Happened To the Bay Bridge? · · Score: 1

    I've read many news reports, but was still waiting for some close-up pictures and diagrams. So the article was helpful in that way.

  3. Re:Lack of redundancy on What Happened To the Bay Bridge? · · Score: 1

    The Bay is probably not suited to daily kayaking, due to strong tidal currents and high winds (the Golden Gate is a wind gap as well as a water gap). Kayaking around the San Francisco Bay Area and twice-daily tides.

  4. Re:Closed for DAYS? Lucky California. on What Happened To the Bay Bridge? · · Score: 1

    Bad, but it is a two lane bridge carrying 3800 cars per day. Actually, that should make it easier to fix.

    The Bay Bridge is the Big Dig of the west. It is the largest public works project in California history, a ridiculous feat. Gov. Terminator tried to change it to a simple trestle, but the ensuing delay and furor only succeeded in adding to the cost.

  5. Re:WARNING for users with several profiles on Mozilla Releases SeaMonkey 2.0 · · Score: 1

    It works if you reduce to one profile only before upgrading from Seamonkey 1.1.x. The profile does not need to be "default", mine was "default2". After upgrade, you will have a migrated copy of the profile in the new location, parallel to where Firefox and Thunderbird keep profiles. If the old profile is taking up disk space you want, you can delete it. There are some open bugs on the lamentable multiple profile migration situation.

  6. Re:We can finally explain wherefore Celtic people on Neanderthals "Had Sex" With Modern Man · · Score: 1

    The Goths were Germanic, not Celtic. You might be thinking of East Germanic (Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals,..) vs. West Germanic (Saxons, Franks,...). Then everyone moved, and the Visigoths were the "west" Goths, more or less. But you're right, the Celts were all over the place beforehand, or that's the story anyway. Celts, Germans, you can look at them as languages, or as cultures which left behind things in the dirt. Either way, it's not clear how one group stays defined: spreading over, or mutual sharing; language from the top, or from the bottom, by force, economic pressure, etc. People move and take their language with them, or they adopt the new local tongue. Or languages can spread without the people moving. Etc. etc.

  7. Re:Wait!!! on NCSU's Fingernail-Size Chip Can Hold 1TB · · Score: 1

    Err, I mean 50 GB?

  8. Re:Wait!!! on NCSU's Fingernail-Size Chip Can Hold 1TB · · Score: 1

    DVD's store 20 GB now?

  9. ClickOnce users should be using IE? on Mozilla Unblocks Microsoft's .NET Addon · · Score: 1

    Or at least I would. Am I the only one that feels more comfortable with things like that relegated to IE? I don't use the IE Tab extension either, I use IE View, so it opens in IE. Maybe it's just a personal preference.

    I realize a plugin like Java has the same powers as ClickOnce, but I just don't want more MS on the FF side. A good feature would be:

    "Warn user that a third party add-on has been installed and allow disabling". https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=476430

  10. Re:The *real* flaw in the system is exposed on Identity Theft Is Usually an Unsophisticated Crime · · Score: 2, Informative
    The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that electronically recorded mortgage records do not suffice for foreclosures sometimes. There are 60 million real deeds in the U.S. that list "MERS" (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) as a creditor instead the name of a bank, etc. An army of lawyers should be on this issue as it pops up around the country, or federally.

    http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/03/ruling-rattles-mortgage-industry/
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/business/27gret.html

  11. Re:Retailers are finally getting serious about it on Identity Theft Is Usually an Unsophisticated Crime · · Score: 1

    What about idiot banks that send letters to warn you when you change your address. Fine, but the letters list no account number and say to call an 800 number if you have any questions. That is just training people to give away account numbers & pass-answers to anyone who contacts them. Especially since we had not changed an address.

  12. <keygen> tag on Microsoft Finally Joins HTML 5 Standard Efforts · · Score: 1

    Who knew there was a tag? And that MS has a better one? Apparently IE has supported all along, based on Netscape's invention, but will drop it in Windows 7.

  13. Re:For this one, RTFA on Microsoft Finally Joins HTML 5 Standard Efforts · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Mozilla developer who posted a response on the list agreed strongly also.

  14. Re:Adobe Reader has always been bad for this. on Adobe Chided For Insecure Acrobat Reader · · Score: 1

    Firefox 3.0.12 updates to 3.5, when you ask for updates. Then if you ask again, you get 3.5.1, to fix the critical security bug in JIT.

  15. Re:Evince vs. Acrobat on Adobe Chided For Insecure Acrobat Reader · · Score: 1

    The USPS thing expects some feedback from the reader. It may require Javascript to be enabled in Adobe Reader, I've had mixed results otherwise. By the way, Adode Reader updates turn JS back on! At least in version 8.x.

  16. Re:workaround in firefox on Your Browser History Is Showing · · Score: 1

    That kb is out of date on many topics.

  17. Re:Yeah, a fix on MS Issued a Fix For Its Unwanted FireFox Extension · · Score: 2, Informative
    And you must enable it in order to uninstall it.

    To properly update the .NET Framework Assistant, this update must be applied while the extension is enabled in Firefox. To remedy the result of installing this update while the extension was disabled, uninstall the update, re-enable the extension, and reinstall the update.

  18. Re:Human Nature on How Comic Fans & Shops Are Stereotyped · · Score: 1

    Sadly, I don't think there's a whole lot we can do about it.

    Correction, it's a continuing struggle. Forty-five years after Selma, the U.S. elected Obama. It didn't happen by magic, or by some inevitable trend in human nature.

  19. Re:Origins on WHO Investigates Claims That Swine Flu Resulted From Human Error · · Score: 1

    Next to one of the largest* hog farms in the world, with almost 1,000,000 head.

    It's a farming town where most people commute into Mexico City for the work week, though.

    * I Googled "largest hog farm in the world" and came up with a lot of stories about the third largest one proposed, on an Indian reservation, at 859,000 head.

  20. Re:Disabling Javascript is standard on Adobe Confirms PDF Zero-Day, Says Kill JavaScript · · Score: 1

    Any document that wants JS will prompt you, and if you breeze by with a "yes", then JS is now on for all documents, until you go disable it again. If you say "no", then your document may not even open. PDF's are great for so many things, scale wonderfully, etc. This feature bloat just ruins it.

    Acrobat has had buffer-overflow vulnerabilities in even with JS turned off, due to some nonsense about Windows prefetching the meta info or something.

  21. Re:Can we always kill javascript? on Adobe Confirms PDF Zero-Day, Says Kill JavaScript · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The US Postal Service click-n-ship requires you turn on that JS crap in Acrobat. Once you click "yes", Acrobat leaves it on unless you go disable it again, each time. Vendors like the USPS need to get a clue.

  22. Re:Cat & Mouse. on Hulu Munging HTML With JS To Protect Content · · Score: 1

    But not to store for a millennium.

  23. Re:Huh? on Firefox Beta Touts Advanced Engine, Solves 8 Flaws · · Score: 1
    TFA is wrong about 3.0.7 being vulnerable. It cites this article, which in fact says:

    Mozilla on Wednesday released an update to the Firefox Web browser that its developers said fixes eight security issues found in Firefox 3.0.6, six of which were rated critical.

    The most serious of the vulnerabilities fixed in version 3.0.7 could allow attackers to run arbitrary code on a victim's computer, Mozilla warned in security advisories Wednesday.

  24. Re:Proofs? on Details Emerge On the 2006 Hacking of Congress · · Score: 1

    The summary does link to an article.

  25. Re:It had to be the Chinese on Details Emerge On the 2006 Hacking of Congress · · Score: 4, Informative

    Negotiations over trade policy, for one thing, were compromised. What makes you say there's not much there? Congressional committees monitor all the executive agencies, and keep tons of confidential info.