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User: emurphy42

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  1. Re:It'll still be spam on IBM's Five Predictions For the Next Five Years · · Score: 1
    And even then, you'd throw it in anyway and cackle with sadistic glee, wouldn't you? I sure as hell would.

    "If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." -Jack Handey

  2. Re:All wrong on IBM's Five Predictions For the Next Five Years · · Score: 1

    btw, in "hashing the same password with different salts", "the same password" is precisely the problem on both sides of the analogy. How do you get the same unencrypted password/fingerprint to not pass through whatever the current hash/salt happens to be? If the salt is a PIN, then that's a whole additional factor.

  3. Re:All wrong on IBM's Five Predictions For the Next Five Years · · Score: 1

    Yes, we heard you the first time, now bugger off.

    Back on-topic: Not only are fingerprints liftable, but (at least when I tried them out a couple years back) they didn't work for crap anyway. I would have screamed bloody murder if they'd been a requirement rather than an option. Checking Wikipedia, there are other methods like iris scans, as well as basically the equivalent of hashing the same password with different salts; anyone know how viable any of those things actually are lately?

  4. Re:For two months? on Ready For Your Payroll Software Update? · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This. More specifically, Googling (2012 Social Security tax cut) leads to http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/20/payroll-processors-say-two-month-fix-undoable/

    According to the proposed law, the two-month extension of a 4.2 percent taxable wage is applied only to the first $18,350 of income. Wages exceeding $18,350 paid during the first two months of 2012 would be subject to a 6.2 percent Social Security tax rate.

    Yes, any decent payroll software has tax table updates, but they don't all support multi-tier rates like this. I consult on an accounting suite with a payroll module, and they had to release a full-on code patch this year to support a change in Connecticut that took effect in August, whereas they usually just release simple updates that save you the trouble of hand-entering all the new rates.

  5. Re:Just change the desktop then... on The Condescending UI · · Score: 1

    I use fvwm, you insensitive clod! #okaynotreally

  6. Re:there goes a business plan have a girls of X sc on Schools Buy .xxx Domains In Trademark Panic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We-el, unless the school also buy up girlsof.xxx ...

  7. Re:"Fixes" the issue? on Dolphin, a 3rd Party Android Browser, Relayed URL Data · · Score: 1

    Except the server-side database was limited to about 300 URLs for which the WebZine feature was available, so why upload all your URLs instead of just downloading theirs?

  8. Re:The Cray and the altair had a race.... on Whither Moore's Law; Introducing Koomey's Law · · Score: 1

    Yes, the difference between the top and bottom of the barrel at any given moment is significant (perhaps about 2 orders of magnitude, assuming that the points shown are typical), but the difference between the barrel now and the barrel in 10-15 years is about equally significant. That same Cray was 5 times less efficient than the IBM PC (about 5 years later), and about 1 million times less efficient than your typical modern laptop (about 35 years later).

  9. Re:Better article on Why the Fax Machine Refuses To Die · · Score: 1

    But how will they run up their ad numbers?

  10. Re:So... on Court Renders $3 Judgment Against Spamhaus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Only after sinking however much money into lawyer's fees, and awards that low are fairly obvious code for "we're required by law to award you something, but you're a real asshat so you get the absolute minimum amount allowed".

    From a quick scan of TFA, the final judgment boils down to:

    • The spammers missed several deadlines, then blamed the last one on their lawyer dropping the ball and his partners being tied up on other cases at the time, then got an extension of a few weeks and promptly busted out a dozen-odd witnesses (they'd previously claimed that only the boss knew the relevant info) and upped their claim to about $135M. Even negligence would be grounds enough for them to lose something, and furthermore this history is evidence enough that they're deliberately screwing around and thus grounds enough for them to lose more.
    • The spammers were demanding Spamhaus to disclose irrelevant details about its employees and equipment (it was pointed out that Spamhaus doesn't track who downloads their list, so wouldn't know which ISPs might be using it to block spam).
    • Said boss's back-of-the-envelope estimate (cost of one e-mail multiplied by number of e-mails he thinks were blocked because Spamhaus listed them as an alleged spammer) bounced around so much ($11M to $135M to $122M to $30M) that he was clearly exceeding his reasonable business knowledge, thus the whole idea was thrown out for lack of evidence.
    • The $27K was based on "okay, fine, we'll buy you lost three client contracts a month earlier than you would have otherwise", but $27K was revenue and it was pointed out that they should be looking at profit instead. Said boss claimed it was pure profit because "the e-mails were already sent"; this was questioned generally and specifically, and also thrown out for lack of evidence.
  11. Re:Destroying cancer cells is bad. on Biological 'Logic Circuit' Destroys Cancer Cells · · Score: 2

    The AC's link goes to a domain squatted by those "what you need, when you need it" assholes.

    Here is the site that I assume the AC meant to link to (one of several near-identical sites, also including cancerfungus.com).

    Here is a Wikipedia article mentioning Tullio Simoncini, the guy behind said site:

    Other criticisms were directed to Mazzucco after his decision, starting September 2008, to publicize an alternative cancer therapy based on Sodium bicarbonate and proposed by Italian ex-doctor Tullio Simoncini. Said therapy is currently unproven, and Simoncini was expelled from the Italian Medical Association after he was tried and found guilty of fraud and manslaughter, since a patient died, allegedly as result of Simoncini’s treatment.

    For bonus points, here is a defense of the idea written by David Icke, infamous "world leaders are really evil reptile aliens in disguise!" conspiracy theorist. And here is another positive mention at cancerfightingstrategies.com, and here is that site's "where to get products" page with a mix of bogus vitamins, bogus berries, and faith healers.

  12. Re:How do you get that job? on When Algorithms Control the World · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's some more explanation from TED and from his own current company..

  13. Re:Wildly misleading headline on Google's Self Driving Car Crashes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    TFAs are largely about questioning whether
    (a) it was indeed the human's fault
    (b) the robot effed up first, then the human took over and attempted (unsuccessfully) to recover

  14. Re:I'm Confused on the Article's "Cathedral" on Is Google+ a Cathedral Or a Bazaar? · · Score: 1

    News to me too, but according to that same article, they were more in that direction (but moved in the bazaar direction in response to CatB). Closed-source, meanwhile, is the obvious next step from "source is unavailable except when the cabal releases" to "source is unavailable, full stop"; the original definition of "cathedral" does represent that, if only by presenting a weaker form of it.

  15. Podcasts on How Do You Keep Up With Science Developments? · · Score: 1

    TED has already been mentioned. There are some others out there, I'm sure.

  16. Science podcasts on How Do You Keep Up With Science Developments? · · Score: 3, Informative

    TED has already been mentioned. There are some others out there, I'm sure.

  17. Re:Grandparents follow the pictures on Google+ Already At 10 Million Users · · Score: 1

    "Get one service to post copies to the other", presumably.

  18. Goddamn Laputans! on Japanese Scientist Creates Meat Substitute From Sewage · · Score: 1

    I hope they only plan to feed this to animals that they hate.

  19. Re:Tangled mess of .. on NSA Trial Evidence 'Riddled With Boxes and Arrows' · · Score: 1

    Fourthed.

  20. The SMBC rule applies on Does Quantum Theory Explain Consciousness? · · Score: 3, Insightful
  21. Back-of-the-envelope calculations on Should a Web Startup Go Straight To the Cloud? · · Score: 1

    You say "millions of ... daily hits". For simplicity, let's say that you get about 1 million hits per day; that's about 10 hits per second, and that's if they're spread out evenly throughout the day. If it's fairly business-centric and USA-centric, then let's say that you get about 90% of those hits during a period of about 10 hours; that's more like 25 hits per second. Now how long will it take your server, on average, to process one hit (taking multiple processes/threads/etc. into account)? The difference between 0.02 seconds and 0.12 seconds now determines whether it gets swamped or not.

    If you do run this type of volume on your own kit, then you'll need to pay serious attention to (1) optimizing for processing speed (including volume of data sent back and forth between your site and the user) and (2) using multiple web servers and/or database servers with load balancing.

  22. Re:WTF? on Hypertext Creator: Structure of the Web 'Completely Wrong' · · Score: 5, Informative
    Project Xanadu: Original 17 rules

    6. Every document can contain links of any type including virtual copies ("transclusions") to any other document in the system accessible to its owner.

    Youtube demo (the actual demo starts at about 3:15)

  23. Re:Maybe I should try this on Workers Will Smash Their PCs To Get an Upgrade · · Score: 1

    Just this past weekend, I moved some stuff off an old Windows 98 workstation at a client. I'm pretty sure the user hadn't been performing percussive maintenance... Also upgraded the primary application software (for the first time since 2005 or so) and a few custom reports (dating back to the pre-Crystal Reports era).

  24. Re:Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fht on Google Earth To Include Google Deep Sea · · Score: 1

    This turns out to be about 200 miles west of Seattle. Hmm...

  25. parent post links to goatse, downmod plz on A Game Played In the URL Bar · · Score: 1

    (nt)