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User: etcpasswd

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  1. Re:LOL, you people are funny on Bombay High Court Rules Astrology To Be a Science · · Score: 1

    If it "works" for you, it does not mean Astrology is Science - it is Art, at best: The results are open for interpretation. The second point is that if you truly believe in the "Science" of Astrology, there should be no way to improve life, as your fate is set in stone at the time of birth. As far as I know, the remedies are not part of pure astrology, but that's the only way the pundits make money.

  2. Re:Mod me down if you must, but I prefer Visual Ba on Microsoft Remains Firm On Ending VB6 Support · · Score: 1

    If someone wants to buy assembled Ikea furniture from you, what'w wrong with that? Maybe they like the look of the Ikea stuff, and are willing to spend a premium for just not having to assemble it themselves. This is not a claim about how good a carpenter you are, but what kind of tools/equipment you use to give what your customters want, with minimal effort.

  3. Re:Not so many comments here.... on Indian Consortium To Offer 2 Mbps At $2.30/month · · Score: 1

    Slightly offtopic maybe, but Indian programmers get paid way too much (like 4-5 times) compared to professionals in other disciplines.

  4. Re:Software architect? on UML Fever · · Score: 1

    Umm.. kinda like how a 1/2" nail can make a car immobile? Or a short piece of DNA (aka virus) killing a human? Or a small spark of fire burning down a building?

  5. Re:No, Python on Perl's Extreme Makeover · · Score: 1
    a) Scripting languages are very useful in cases where one needs to develop proof-of-concepts quickly. Perl saves a lot of time in this area.

    b) Engineers in our lab (we're a computational biology lab) can easily write up Perl code (for data analysis etc.) more easily than having to explain it to a software engineer. Their time is definitely better spent on research than mastering the art of software engineering.

    c) We have Perl modules for most of our tasks - graphics, graph visualization, http client etc. All these are available via CPAN, saving the hassle of searching for a particular library.

    We've been working on a project written in Perl for about two years now, and the code is still readable and maintanable. My colleague (an engineer, non-s/w) can follow the entire project. Recently though, we started migrating the project slowly to Java. Ironically, Java code is being much harder to follow. But maybe it has to do with how the code is organized.... The bottom line is, the choice of the programming language doesn't determine the readability of the code.

  6. Re:MozillaFirebird is the best on Three New Releases (And Other News) From Mozilla · · Score: 1

    Interestingly, Mozilla FireBird is much more stabler on my WinXP Pro at home than on Linux at work.

  7. Re:On the other hand on Windows 2003 takes 5% away from Linux · · Score: 1
    PNOA (Pulling Numbers Outta Ass) here:
    Suppose, currently:
    Windows users - 90%
    Mac and other Users - 5%
    Linux Users - 5%

    Probability that a user who switched to Linux was using Windows: 0.9
    Probability that a user who switched to Linux was using Mac/others: 0.05

    If it is only 90%, it is not statistically significant.

  8. Re:Accepted as the norm now? on Microsoft "Swen" Worm Squiggles Into Sight · · Score: 1
    He asked me if my computer was infected, whereby I had to explain once again that running Linux, I generally don't have to worry about things like this

    Me thinks a computer virus affects Joe Sixpack more easily than Joe Smartass. Both WinXP/2K and Linux offer security options sufficient for a vast majority of the users that are in the target domain of virus writers.

  9. Re:Can't work there? Why are they here? on No Americans Need Apply · · Score: 1

    H-1 Work Visa is a business deal. Just because I sold a car to you doesn't mean I'm obligated to buy a car from you. Moreover, the reason why I sold you a car in the first place is because you wanted one.

  10. Re:Trade secret? on Current Thoughts in String Theory · · Score: 1

    My glass is half full. We're able to reverse engineer something.

  11. Re:uhoh on Wearing a Tie May Cause Blindness! · · Score: 1

    *wears tie too tight* I wish I were blind NOW.

  12. Re:Yet another mozilla advantage over IE on Mozilla Gets (Beta) Native SVG support · · Score: 1

    One reason for me: Decent Unicode font support. IE renders my native language (Telugu/Indian) impeccably, while Mozilla fails. This is the only instance where I fire up IE instead of Mozilla.

  13. Re:Firebird on Mozilla Gets (Beta) Native SVG support · · Score: 1

    Native SVG support is bloat in the same way as PNG alpha trasparency is. You don't download additional plugins for that, do you? I thought that part of the point of making SVG a part of W3C is to encourage browsers to support the format natively. If there's native support of raster images in a browser, why not vector graphics too?

  14. Re:Full text of article in case of /. effect on Xbox Linux Made Possible Without a Modchip · · Score: 1
    It's more about "help us run Linux or we'll just do it ourself"

    Doh! In your own words, what else is it but blackmail? Why the fuck is MS obligated to help run Linux on it?

    IANAL, but how can such exploit be legal? If your door lock is easy to tamper with, is it implicitly legal for me to break in?

  15. Re:Enterprise and Open Source on Three Enterprise Operating Systems Compared · · Score: 1
    With Open Source Software, this is not a problem at all; support can be done by anyone that has a brain to understand the source and you pretty much get the guarantee it'll work as long as you want.

    I'd assume that in an Enterprise environment, you'd pay for support from the vendor, as opposed to an inhouse hacker. With vendor support, *they* have access to source I assume - irrespective of whether *you* have access to it.

  16. Re:No worms for me, please! on Worms Going Further, Faster · · Score: 1
    Until then, antivirus software is for people who don't understand their operating systems.

    What percentage of the users do you think understand their operating systems? User-friendliness is all about not having to know how the internals of OS.

  17. Re:Hooked on Crack on Will Microsoft Subsidize WinXP For Lindows Buyers? · · Score: 1
    And Linux is free Crack for the rest of your life.

    I've no clue why this meaningless analogy gets modded up EVERY time it is posted. Why isn't this compared to "if you sign a one year contract with cell phone service, your mobile instrument is free" or "your cable modem is free if sign up for the ISP for a year"? Agreed that Microsoft is a monopoly and all (and your drug dealer isn't) but it isn't the same as drug dealing, for God's sake.

  18. Re:You mean I can dodge bullets? on The Computational Requirements for the Matrix · · Score: 1

    The contraction to "I don't give a fuck about spealings" is "/."

  19. Re:game world != real world... on Shadowbane Servers Hacked, Chaos Ensues · · Score: 1
    bugs = assumed to be human error.
    hacking = intentional, deliberate disruption.

    'nuff said.

  20. Re:Matrix reloaded AVIs ain't what you think on BitTorrent Blamed for Matrix2 Downloads · · Score: 1

    True. But for some reason there aren't too many of those files for doanload that are hashed (didn't try for Matrix, but some others I searched before). So I ended up downloading by search.

  21. Re:Matrix reloaded AVIs ain't what you think on BitTorrent Blamed for Matrix2 Downloads · · Score: 1

    Lucky that you got atleast porn. I got some other stupid movies on Kazaa, before I turned to BitTorrent for reliable piracy.

  22. Re:Problem is, its EQUALLY distributed. on BitTorrent Blamed for Matrix2 Downloads · · Score: 1

    How about the one (or more) who created the .torrent in the first place? Sounds like a target to me. Don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to say that who created the .torrent is the only one who violated the copyrights. But my point is this: In case of a P2P like Kazaa it is not clear who the original author is; but with BitTorrent, author can be tracked down.

  23. Re:Computers don't crash on Why Do Computers Still Crash? · · Score: 1

    When I took a course in Operating System concepts, I was surprised to realize that one of the "solutions" for the correction of a deadlock condition (among processses) was "do nothing" and probably let the system crash. Some problems in the domain of OS are actually NP-complete. Being practical means that the OS should let the user processes have a higher priority (literal sense, not in the context of a priority of a process) than the OS itself, to maximize the utlity value of the system. In other words, it is perfectly acceptable for an OS to choose a suboptmial design, and try to make the problems less obvious, or less damaging, which may not involve "solving" the problem. Many computer programs have the luxury of time-space tradeoff, but both are important when it comes to OS. To conclude, if you manage to build a system that doesn't crash at all, the chances are that your actual work done on the computer will slow down.

  24. Re:It's about time... on Chimps Belong in Human Genus? · · Score: 1
    the concious mind is the greatest known thing on the planet.

    Huh? If it is _the_ greatest, most organisms would have a conscious mind by now today. The ratio of the number of species with developed brains w.r.t to trillion other species without should tell us that such a brain isn't really a required component. IMHO, "Perfection" in evolution is not determined by brain, but evolution pattern. There are quite a few species that didn't "evolve" for the past many millions of years because they're (most likely) already perfect. By this notion, we humans are far from being perfect I suppose.

  25. Re:Does gaming reduce productivity? on Does Gaming Reduce Productivity? · · Score: 1

    If the game managed to keep you away from slashdot, that's the right step towards productivty ;)