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User: scovetta

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Comments · 516

  1. Offspring from washing machines-- B-O-R-I-N-G on Doctorow and Stross Release Latest Novels for Free · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...This is an unconventional story about an entrepreneur (who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine)...

    Dammit, we already have an overabundance of stories about children bred from washing machines. Can't these people come up with something original???

  2. Custom Attributes on Check Boxes and Radio Buttons Conquered by DHTML · · Score: 1


    I haven't seen this done anywhere, but you can add your own attributes to tags:

    <input type="radio" subtype="skin1"/>

    You access it by grabbing the element (via JavaScript/DOM):

    x = (the element)
    a = x.getAttribute("subtype");
    if (a == 'skin1') {
    (do something)
    }

    The syntax might be slightly off (getAttribute might return an object that you have to .getValue() of), but you get the point. I've used this to do some fancy schmancy validation by adding event handlers on the fly (that way your logic is bundled up in a .js file, and your html is clean(er)):

    <input type="text" validate="integer"/>
    <input type="text" validate="customer_id"/>

  3. Re:obvious man question -- really? Slippery Slope on The Internet Archive Sued Over Stored Pages · · Score: 1

    Is it though? If you thought of the Archive as the answer to the question, "What was at this web-site at that particular moment in time?", then it could be likened to a library containing an old newspaper.

    If this lawsuit is successful, then would that translate into search engines (after all, what is Google other than a front-end over a "copy" of the web (albeit optimized for searching)? Search engines then wouldn't be able to spider sites without permission. What about browser cache? Proxy cache? "Save As" menu items? Alt-Print-Screen? Your own damned memory?

    Looks like a slippery slope to me...

  4. Diagramming Sentences on Improving Education? · · Score: 1, Informative

    I attended catholic school, and in 8th grade (circa 1992), we were diagramming sentences. I haven't met a single other person under 50 that has even heard of such a thing.

    The point is that most people have very poor grammar, even if they think they're just fine.

    For the curious, here's the first link I found on Google.

    http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams2/diagr ams2.stm

  5. Re:Taxes? on Apple's 500 Million Songs · · Score: 1

    Where does he live? I'm sure that close to 100% of /.ers would love a chocolate bar or two or a hundred.

  6. Re:Taxes? on Apple's 500 Million Songs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are 10,000 songs automagically worth $10k? Seriously, how is that determined? If Starbucks gives me a free lifetime supply of coffee, do I owe them 20% of $infinity?

  7. Re:priorities on OSS Web-based File Management? · · Score: 1

    ...and yet there was a bit of a to-do made when the same group of idiots flew airplanes into a couple of office buildings in the U.S. a few years back. Funny how priorities can vary like that.

    As I recall, there were, in fact, other /. postings that day, too.

  8. Olympics 2012? on Six Bomb Blasts Around Central London · · Score: 1

    Any thoughts on whether this might have been planned to coincide with London winning the Olympics 2012 bid yesterday?

  9. Oh lordy lord! A proprietary algorithm? on Vein Patterns to Verify Identity · · Score: 1

    ...and a proprietary algorithm...
    I'm sorry, any time I read the word "proprietary", my /.-brainwashing tells me that such an algorithm is probably broken (either in design or implementation).

    It seems to be that an open (as in beer) algorithm that can be critiqued and improved would be a business advantage to the company who brings it to market. If they are worried about competition, then build a better product. And in the wonderful USA, I'm sure they can patent the method of extracting identity from vein-patterns without including the particular algorithm, so they're safe anyways.

    Personally, I'd be suprised to see that vein-patterns are unique enough to work in this case. And how is this any better than a fingerprint scanner? Most people don't like getting lasers pointed in their eyes, but do we really need another biometric device?

  10. goto considered harmful !!! on 'DVD Jon' Breaks Google Video Lock · · Score: 4, Funny
    + // Google mods
    + const char* allowed_host = \"video.google.com\";
    + char * host_found = strstr(p_sys->url.psz_host, allowed_host);
    + if ((host_found == NULL) ||
    + ((host_found + strlen(allowed_host)) !=
    + (p_sys->url.psz_host + strlen(p_sys->url.psz_host)))) {
    + msg_Warn( p_access, \"invalid host, only video.google.com is allowed\" );
    + goto error;
    + }
    I'm disappointed by Google's use of the 'goto' keyword. As was clearly described in this paper, the use of 'goto' leads to "swiss-cheesing" of the brain, the inability to think logically, and a plethora of other problems, leading eventually to brain-rot and inability to write code in anything but Perl.

    I think we should all remember that just because Google is the pinnacle of success and is second only to (insert your diety here), Google too can make mistakes.
  11. To Larry and Sergey on Google Earth Launching For Free · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Thanks for not being evil!
    -Mike

  12. Red Box? on Cringely Shows How to Get Free Cell Calls · · Score: 1

    Isn't this a form of a red-box? (or blue box, or cyan box, or whatever the color of it is?)

    Ahhh, nostalgia.

  13. Dyson Sphere? on Space Ring Could Combat Global Warming · · Score: 1

    Instead of a ring, why not build a sphere around the earth to keep all the deadly sun-rays out?

    Probably a better idea would simply be to blow up the sun...now where's my trilithium?

  14. Re:So how many... on Amazon's 1,082-volume Classics Collection: $7,989 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You fool! A review clearly indicates:

    A small caution is that they do have not really duplicates but different versions or translations of some works as "The Iliad" by Homer has four different books:
    ISBN: 0140445927
    ISBN: 0140275363
    ISBN: 0140444440
    ISBN: 0140447946

  15. Re:So how many... on Amazon's 1,082-volume Classics Collection: $7,989 · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Aeneid by Virgil
    The Aeneid by Virgil
    The Aeneid by Virgil


    It's a good thing they've got three copies of the Aeneid by Virgil. I'd hate to have only read two of them and missed out on what happens in the third.

    Looks kind of like the selections of ready-made web templates you get for $30.00. 250,000 web-sites my foot.

  16. Quicktime -- ARRGH! on Deep Impact Comet-Smashing Video · · Score: 1

    I'm sure all of the insensitive clods out there have Quicktime installed, but for the rest of us who don't want bloatware, can somebody please convert it to some other format and post a link?

    And can someone please write a .mov codec and winamp plugin? That'd be great, thanks.

  17. Availability? on If Bad Software Developers Built Houses... · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Perhaps part of a good user interface would be availability?

    If the owners of this site built a house, it would only allow one person in at a time. The door would remain locked until they left.

  18. A New Internet? on RFID: The Next Internet? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't they mean, A New Website on a private network, that uses Cuecat/AOL "keyword" links? Wouldn't they have been better off just making a nice web page and have the rfid code load up the revelant web data?

    This sounds like the work of.. Marketing!

  19. Not screwed up yet?! on Mars Rover Breaks Free · · Score: 3, Funny

    What I can't understand is, why didn't "management" come in and screw this all up? How could something that was supposed to last only for 90 days last for 18 months? Seems like with most things, if they are supposed to last for 90 days, they MIGHT make it to 93 or 94 days.

    My hats off to the engineers. I wish I worked at a place like that.

  20. Watch Out... on Drilling to the Center of the Earth · · Score: 1

    This has already been done. They found an ocean down there, dinosaurs, and they even brought a duck. This team needs to do it with a drill?

  21. Re:Brilliant! Simply brilliant! on Longhorn Drops 'My' Prefixes · · Score: 1

    With the incredible quality of Internet Explorer, "My Computer" is really "HaX0r's Computer" anyway.

    As dumb as this is, I noticed something odd the other day. If you browse to a share \\foo\c$\Documents and Settings\username, you'll see "{username}'s Documents" instead of My Documents. I thought "My Documents" was just a plain directory name. If you happen to create a folder named {username}'s Documents locally and then browse to it via a share, you see two folders with the same name.

  22. Re:This is wrong on Genetic Testing For Geekiness? · · Score: 1

    Have you ever tried to use 'xor' in conversation? (or on a date?)

    Say Mary, how'd you like to go the movies xor play some minigolf this weekend?

  23. Re:Jury nullification on Vigilante Hackers use Old West Tactics for Justice · · Score: 1

    Isn't that an option when you compile --with-evil-bit?

  24. Re:IBM encourages company blogging on Motivations for Corporate Blogging · · Score: 1

    I think those were exactly those of Sun... See http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jonathan/20050515 .

  25. Re:Intersting. on Linux and OpenOffice save Microsoft Presentation · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the intro to gentoo. I think I'll try it out. Oh, -1 Offtopic, too.