Slashdot Mirror


User: Douglas+Simmons

Douglas+Simmons's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
390
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 390

  1. DRM not worth the bother on Gaiman on MP3 Audio Books, Mirrormask · · Score: 1
    Not for nothing, but I'd wager that the bookworms among us, audio form notwithstanding, are a little less likely to wear t-shirts with the DeCSS code, plus it would make a lot more sense to keep things simple in the format most likely to be supported by CD players (in this case, most often car radios which tend to be newer than Joe Audiobookguy's hi-fi back home).

    Also, in addition to being a whole to-do schlep for publishers, DRM-like functions have had history with pissing the public off (remember that Beatie Boys album?).

  2. how's this possible on Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 DoS Exploit · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Unless somehow this is truly "in the wild" sasser style, which I highly doubt, I'm more inclined to piss and moan for a fix for all these firefox process running away and ram leaking like ... the levees. But I guess that's just not as sexy a thing to get everyone all freaked out over. Or maybe I'm the only one opening up over a hundred tabs on my pr0n hunts.

    And let's suppose it is in the wild and to get infected I don't have to go to some Russian site selling stolen credit cards. Can anyone see how that could be possible? You'd have to go to a site knowingly and maliciously designed to exploit this, right?

  3. hiding your address on DSPAM v3.6 Released · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Other than annoying whitelists, there is no anti spam warez that is bulletproofly reliable. The best defense against spam is never to type your personal address anywhere on the internet. Once your address is spotted by a bot, you're screwed and it will only get worse over time.

    If you want to give your site's visitors a simple way to contact you without losing your email addess to the spam harvesting "folks" (not to mention without forcing your visitors to fire up a client they probably don't even have configured with a mailto link), just set up a simple form and use simple php to make it convenient for them to reach you while keeping your email address safely tucked away.

    Though this is only possibly with PHP, ideally running on a Debian system, it's the most important language to learn in the universe. For a starter's guide, check out this site.

  4. the Tragedy of the Commons issue... on Rural Oregon Leads the Way for Large-Scale WiFi · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Every time a new large scale public wifi deployment story hits the wires, the topic of preventing abuse while maximizing usability emerges. Maybe it's just my 4:23am weirdness, but I think I'm on to something: Given that all unsuccessfully throttled bandwidth will always get sucked up by people who will inevitably figure out how to procure gigs of entertainment/warez, thereby screwing over people downloading important shit, both, rather all types of data transfering people will be left frustrated. However, as bandwidth improvements continues to enable us one not-to-distant day to transfer real quick-like the highest quality five channel 30 frames per second 1600x1200 pr0n, to use video as an example, bandwidth will eventually surpass what we could possibly need to keep ourselves "busy" and there eventually will be enough public juice to go around without throttling (pingflooding usage being an exception of course).

    Yeah this brings us back to Bill Gates quotes paralleling my pr0n res hypothetical to be good enough to suit us (like the 640KB did), but, I mean, c'mon, won't that video quality suffice?

    The answer is yes, until the market fully adopts 3D holograph pr0n that will require some more zeros and ones.

    I mean, c'mon.

  5. Thank you, NMAP-developer-like people. on Interview with NMAP Creator Fyodor · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This article takes me back to my slackware days. People ask me how I learned what I know, and the answer is that back in the day I got my hands on nmap and other impressive tools and through wild guess and checking began to conceptualize the whole net thing. Well, to come clean, I'd give out free shells on IRC and ttysnoop other people running nmap to hack my box -- that's how I got started.

    My point is it didn't come from books, a class or even man pages (that's a given), but toolin' around with the tools epitomized by nmap. Seeing this article touched a nerve in me to say thanks as the readers of this, in my estimation, is a group most densely populated by people who coded wares that got me to wherever I am today, which apparently is a very low-level pron tycoon, who's all about the high res.

    Thanks.

  6. Wireless gonna happen? on Video iPod Apple's First Bad Move? · · Score: 1
    When I heard video iPod and "download newscasts" to put onto your ipod and go, I was thinking that the next logical thing would be an ipod that could handle this function of buying $2 clips wirelessly through cell towers so people could get a little bit closer to "live" media, but then I thought about the audio. Apple never put a radio tuner on any iPod, obviously for marketing reasons (people'd be more inclined to buy more itunes music if they couldn't listen to the radio). But they could concievably beam people straight into iTunes from future ipods, I guess pre-programming the ipod like a cell account with its own ESN, for these functions, but then there isn't much room on that screen and leaving the computer mandatorily in the picture gives Apple literally more room to maneuver on a monitor for marketing purposes.

    Why haven't they roled a iWireless iPod out yet?

  7. Re:In other news... on Google Terror Threat · · Score: 1

    You got it wrong. The paper map technology has not changed in a long time, but terrorists may now obtain sensitive data on nuclear plants with incredible military-level resolution using conventional maps designed to fit in glove compartments thanks to the recent Japanese advancements in electron microscope technology.

  8. Bad for digiticians! on 180 Solutions Cuts Back on Spyware Installs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, I'm as glad as the next guy to kick spyware writers in the teeth, but we the slashdot readers are a group most densely than any other made up of people who are paid good cash money (sometimes sex!) to clean this crap out of people's computers. Just as Microsoft is capitalizing like a mafia on protection from viruses for money, a market created from writing crappy operating systems, we the slashdot lobby should push for "free speech" rights of the malware industry.

  9. overuse of punctuation on Creative's X-Fi Audio Chip Reviewed · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Fuck, you!

  10. states' rights .... on Broadcast Flag Back in Congress · · Score: 1
    I just want to note that the Row Wade case does not legalize abortion, it illegalizes the prohibition of any state to enact such a law. In otherwords, it limits the right of states to make their own laws and constitutions. If the majority of people in Alabama believe abortion is murder and they feel like they are surrounded by a holocost in infanticide, and that makes them feel sad, the politicians they elect may not make such a law. And that makes me said. So, if you want to conserve the notion that we are a group of states and like snowflakes each state may be made up of people with different persuasions, the federal government has no business enforcing such a law. You can call that conservative, wanting to preservie the protection of states' rights.

    Oh and by the way, everybody seems to refer to Roe v Wade as "The Law of the Land" but it is only a trial verdict that made its way up the appeal lader. It's the precedent of the land.

    Which reminds me of this joke: Q: How does Bush feel about Roe v Wade? A: He really doesn't care how the people get out of New Orleans (roe/row, get it?).

  11. regarding addiction to safe things on China's Internet Addiction Clinic · · Score: 1

    Benzos like valium, xanax and klonopin are also considered addictive, but they're quite safe in that the worst that could happen is that you sleep a lot but you will not hit a lethal level (unless you take so many your stomach exploads, like in Se7en with the fat guy). Yes I know if you put barbiturates into the picture, like booze, it's a different story, but if you mix internet addiction with smashing your head into the monitor constantly it can be fatal as well; so the alcohol mixture point doesn't nullify the analogy.

  12. Anxiety misdiagnosed... on Anxiety Disorders Discoverable by Blood Test · · Score: 1

    Quite often people are diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and are treated with benzos or schedule 5 drugs like BuSpar when in fact they do not have GAD, their root disorder is depression, a common symptom of which is anxiety. When this is the case, the anxiety can be successfully treated with antidepressants and not necessarily addictive benzos.

  13. Re:Warning to all those at work!!! on 20,000 Show up for X-Prize Expo · · Score: 1
    thought the [domain] drove the point home adequately

    my apologies.

  14. Re:Flight picture here on 20,000 Show up for X-Prize Expo · · Score: -1, Troll
    Oh yeah? Well, here's a better picture

    you're out of your element, pmike,

  15. Re:Redhat is nowhere in Europe on Red Hat CEO Szulik on Linux Distro Consolidation · · Score: 1

    Conversley, Debian users are very diversely spread throughout every country. You can chalk that up to the distro's only form of promotion, word of mouth. No matter how hard you market a product, the superior products will sell themselves (in this case, for free). The only thing it can't yet do is apt-get mod-points but they're working on that.

  16. The Great Tunnel on Successful Supersonic Jet Launch · · Score: 1
    I got an idea for a way around this sonic boom problem. Create a super-duper bigass tunnel made with the best sound insulation money and indentured servitude can buy, make it long enough for the jet to be able to (with the help of high-tech japanese chip technology) accelerate across the sound barrier while in the tunnel, maybe have a really super quick door (make sure it's on the right end) that closes behind the jet after it enters the tunnel so you don't have any sound escaping from behind, then you hang a few of these suckers around the country 15K feet above the ground using space-elevator-like technology so, well I'm not sure why you'd want to do that actually, maybe it would help speed along the development of an actual space elevator.

    I'm sure it would be easier to build than it sounds, no pun intended.

  17. Japan versus Existing Companies on Successful Supersonic Jet Launch · · Score: 1
    Airbus's momentum from their supersized 747 has had the wind knocked out of them with these two major crashes in only a few months span. Nobody dead, but major failures nonetheless, and that association's gonna stick for a while. Boeing's left themselves vulnerable to no longer being the top dog by resting on the 747. Japan has a clean nonexisting slate in aircraft manufacturing, whereas everyone else in the industry, airlines especially, have scarred rapsheets. If they can just get this thing to break the sound barrier at acceptable levels, as with pretty much all things related to technology, they will rise to the top with a quickness.

    First sushi, now this [knock on wood]! Keep it up Japan!

  18. All we need now is ... on Optimizing Development For Fun · · Score: 4, Funny

    this to be implemented into apt-get so we the debian community are still superior to those pompous fun-compiling gentoo users.

  19. States' Rights on California Passes Violent Games Bill · · Score: 1

    Well, I'm glad it's just the state and not the federal government stepping in, making some bullshit commerce clause argument to justify their jurisdiction.

  20. Re:Buying my own copy on PBS Features Einstein's Famous Equation · · Score: 1

    thanks .. i was just spamming my sig :). Questions are good bait sometimes, i guess they have to be less stupid.

  21. Buying my own copy on PBS Features Einstein's Famous Equation · · Score: 1

    Anybody know off hand how/where I can buy this and other older PBS productions? Much obliged..

  22. Re:Possibly not vapor[hard]ware on Exoskeletons in IEEE Spectrum · · Score: 1

    They let her have a few water downed ounces of it in the evening, but they don't let her keep the bottle. Without bourbon what is there to live for? Thanks for reminding me, gonna grab my jim beam.

  23. This is good. on The Argument for Crackable Media · · Score: 1
    Legalizing this will accomplish a few things: It will strengthen the competition in the market for professional cryptographers, and it will ultimately improve the quality of the product which is good because the people we need to defend ourselves from tend to be the type that ignores the law.

    So why the hell not.

  24. Possibly not vapor[hard]ware on Exoskeletons in IEEE Spectrum · · Score: 4, Insightful
    designed to help elderly and disabled people walk, climb stairs, and carry things around.

    My 91 year old grandmother's being issued a walker was a blow to her pride and quality of life. She's in a home where they keep an eye on you, help you pee and take meds. They try to make sure she uses her walker, but there are times when she is alone in her room at night, probably loaded on bourbon, and she tries to make it to the bathroom without her walker. She's fallen multiple times doing this, the last time breaking her pelvis.

    Now if these Japanese could make a device to protect the health of loved ones, especially the uncooperative flavor, that they are more inclined to use because it isn't as big a pain in the ass as her walker and the like, you'd see them export even more goods.

    The last Japanese themed article I read on slashdot was about some stupid heat efficient automatic door thing, and like a lot of people, it struck me as vapor that ain't gonna happen. Here this may not be the case because there is potentially strong demand from people like me to pull this through enough R&D to get in finally into the market. I'm not the only one with a 91 year old grandma with a strong appreciation of whiskey. Go Japan.

  25. nope on 2005 IgNobel Prize Awards · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not pretty obvious because the swimmer's hands do not need to move as fast to "grip" the liquid. The question is, does that factor outweigh the poorer hydrodynamics from the increased density. That's why subs surface when they can to cruise faster