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User: Emperor+Skull

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  1. I doubt this is on purpose. on Bing Search Tainted By Pro-Microsoft Results · · Score: 2, Funny

    Because I just don't think MS has the technology to pull this off. Bing/ Live search just suck. I get better answers by asking my cat and she only responds with "meow" if my question has the word "treat" in it.

  2. Re:Unexplained Achievement "The Maker"? on Slashdot Launches User Achievements · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Um. I don't think you thought this one all the way through...

  3. Re:No kidding! on Auto Safety Tech May Encourage Dangerous Driving · · Score: 1

    Yep. My friend owned a 1979 Midget. I rode with him 3 times. The car broke down and we walked home all 3 times. The last time it was actually more comfortable to walk in 20 degree weather than to ride because in the car I thought my shoes might melt from the heat in the footwell and I thought I might get frostbite on my face from the air leaks in the cabin.

  4. How about... on Torvalds Rejects One-Size-Fits-All Linux · · Score: 5, Funny

    Linux Starter
    Linux Home Basic
    Linux Home Premium
    Linux Business
    Linux Enterprise
    Linux Ultimate

  5. Linux is so much better on Windows 7 To Come In Multiple Versions · · Score: 1

    Compared to the 5 versions of Windows 7, how many distributions and versions of Linux are there to choose from? Look at Ubuntu/EduBunto/Gobunto/Xubunto as an example. If it's so obvious that multiple versions of Windows 7 are going to confuse the masses and doom it to failure then what does that say about Linux?

  6. Re:traction control on Ford To Introduce Restrictive Car Keys For Parents · · Score: 2, Informative
    Very good (professional) drivers can stop quicker than cars with ABS in some instances, such as a racetrack, because a driver can learn the limits of adhesion between the tires and a particular road surface and brake at the threshold of lockup. ABS systems are either going to have to wait until lockup actually occurs, or rely on some preprogrammed logic about how hard the brakes are being applied and how fast the car is deaccelerating. Not all ABS systems are created equal.

    Multi channel ABS systems do have a fantastic advantage in cases where each individual wheel has a different amount of traction due to surface conditions and weight transfer. No way a driver with a single brake pedal can compete with this.

  7. Marketshare.Com on Firefox 3 Already Rules the Roost · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    For a dose of reality, head to marketshare.com

    The ratio of Firefox users (all versions) to IE users is about the same as the ratio of Vista users to XP users.


  8. Some suggestions on Entertainment Weekly Bemoans Lack of Great Science Books · · Score: 2, Interesting

    James Burke - Connections, The Day the Universe Changed, etc. Simon Singh - The Code Book Schneier - Beyond Fear

  9. The question is about certificate validity on When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable? · · Score: 1

    The question about if a certificate is self-signed or signed by a CA isn't really the issue, it's ensuring that end-users don't get certificate warnings in their browsers. An end-user should NEVER have to click through a certificate warning. That means the name in the certificate has to match the site, the certificate hasn't expired, and the certificate is trusted by the clients browser. If your application is internal to your organziation then you can distribute the certificates. (For example, we distribute our self-signed root cert to Windows machines through group policy.) When you are dealing with the Internet and customers, then there is no excuse to have an invalid or untrusted certificate.

  10. Re:Windows 95 made Money! on Bill Gates: Windows 95 Was 'A High Point' · · Score: 1

    Not initially, but Microsoft pushed out updated versions of Windows 95 that did include early versions of IE in order to take advantage of the explosive growth of the Internet. Windows 95 did had TCP/IP built in as well as Dial up Networking even in the inital release. FTP, Telnet, TN3270, Gopher clients were just as important to us as NCSA Mosaic and Netscape at that time. Sure it was dial-up, to Universities or corporations mostly because public ISP's didn't exist to any great extent in 1995. All these Internet clients ran on Windows and Windwos 95 was an easy choice over the next few years for personal computing as the Internet went mainstream. The existence of the Internet definitely helped personal computers running Windows 95 proliferate and sales and proliferation of Windows 95 definitely benefited from the existance of the Internet.

  11. Windows 95 made Money! on Bill Gates: Windows 95 Was 'A High Point' · · Score: 1

    As anyone who has actually used Windows knows, Bill wasn't talking about OS quality, features, security or stability; he was talking about adoption rate and profit. Windows 95 rode the new wave of consumer PCs and access to the Internet. MS made bundles of money on it and 98 (which was little more than an incremental update to Windows 95.)

  12. Re:On the web side of things on What Examples of Security Theater Have You Encountered? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I ran into a problem authenticating through their antiquated AD system AD as in Active Directory? The oldest it could be is about 8 years since AD was first implemented in Windows 2000 and there have only been two newer versions. It can't have been that antiquated. It's also trivial to do authentication against AD in a variety of ways, especially from a web application. That hasn't changed much in Windows 2003 or 2008. Of course a customer that paid for what you describe probably didn't have their AD working right either...
  13. You can secure against this to some extent. on Gaining System-Level Access To Vista · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Change the BIOS boot order so the hard disk is the only allowed boot device.
    Enable chasis intrusion in the BIOS
    Password protect the BIOS
    Put a lock on the case.

    Not perfect, but it makes this a lot harder and a lot easier to detect.

  14. Re:Oh dear on Teen Discovers Plastic-Decomposing Bacteria · · Score: 1

    Some people are scared of everything. The two types of bacteria mentioned in the story already exist, just like countless other types of bacteria. You probably already have some on your keyboard, and in a thousand years or so your keyboard will fall apart because of it. Aren't you worried about all the other bacteria on your keyboard like E Coli or Salmonella? Those things have a lot more immediate threat to you. Isolating bacteria for useful purposes in't new. Dumping oil eating bacteria on spills in the ocean hasn't made a bit of difference in oil reserves. Just like the plastic eating bacteria, a little soap and water, lysol, bleach or probably just the presence of other bacteria is enough to keep them in check.

  15. Re:in pennsylvania on Changing a School's Tech Disposal Policy? · · Score: 1

    Administrators get really ticked off when you give students broken computers for free.
    Thats because students (or even employees) will disable good equipment so it looks broken. It also makes it harder to prosecute students found with stolen equipment. With a proper disposal process, its a lot harder to steal state property.
  16. Louisiana on Changing a School's Tech Disposal Policy? · · Score: 1
    Louisiana sells old equipment by the pallet. I've seen whole pallets of gear go for $10. Unfortunately they tend to put keyboards on one pallet, computers on another, and monitors on yet another. A lot of it was sent there for a good reason, so you end up needing to buy a whole truckload of crap to get one working computer. Every now and then I've come across something worth buying, but most of the time it's not worth spending the day waiting in a hot shed for the particular lot you want to come up for auction.


    See for yourself at:

    http://www.doa.louisiana.gov/lpaa/auction.htm

  17. Re:One problem machine out of many installs on Windows XP SP3 Creating Havoc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In what way was XP an improvement over Windows 2000

    Cleartype. If Windows 2000 had decent font smoothing I'd still be using it.

  18. Re:Changelog? on Xbox 360 Update Shuts Out Hackers, Fixes Issues · · Score: 2, Insightful
    What about 'features' that others have argued are anti-competitive in nature and damaging to third-party software vendors.

    Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

  19. Re:Oh wowee on Maglev Elevators by 2008? · · Score: 1
    You forgot quieter. You have obviously not had the pleasure of getting a hotel room next to the elevator. I imagine people living in high rise apartment complexes will be thrilled as well.

    Now if they can figure out how to quiet the occupants then they would really have something.

  20. Re:who cares? on High-tech Cars Replacing Driver Skill? · · Score: 1
    Where do you find a car with airbags but without power assisted brakes and steering?

    The Mazda Miata has always had airbags in the US and was available without power steering in certain models from 1990 to 1999. I don't know of any modern US car spec without power brakes though.

  21. Re:Less expensive cars... on High-tech Cars Replacing Driver Skill? · · Score: 1
    Also, what happens if you have to drive someone else's car, and theirs does not have all the gadgets and gizmos?

    It's the same problem that people who can't drive a manual transmission face now. Hell the other day I had to drive my car in and out of the service bay for State Inspection because the mechanic couldn't drive my car.

  22. Re:Downsite? on Steam Hybrid Car from BMW · · Score: 1

    Superchargers spin all the time, but usually there is a vacuum operated air bypass valve so that most of the time they aren't compressing air or consuming much power. I have a aftermarket supercharger on my car. Max horsepower went from 110 to 190. My average gas mileage dropped from 26 to about 23 mpg since adding the supercharger, but highway mileage is still the same at 28mpg. The power is great, but the additional complexity, noise and cost are why you don't see them more. There still are plenty of supercharged production cars from a wide variety of manufacturers; Ford Lightning, Mecedes SLK, Pontiac Grand Prix GTP, off the top of my head.

  23. Re:/. em on MS Invites Security Questions · · Score: 1
    Actually, if you put in "none" as the first and only user it dosn't create any users

    Cool. I didn't know that.

    [CTRL][SHIFT][F3] at the first welcome screen drops the system back to sysprep factory mode. We get a lot of machines preinstalled and it's easy to do this, switch to mini-setup and reseal, then use our sysprep.inf to complete the installation and kick off our customization scripts.

  24. Re:/. em on MS Invites Security Questions · · Score: 1
    It was a developer, not a marketing person that wrote the XP Windows Welcome oobe and allowed it to be used in place of the mini-setup. The fact that this tool forces a user (that doesn't know how to drop back to sysprep factory mode with CTRL-SHIFT-F3) to create a user account that is an administrator with no password and then logs them in automatically.

    Those developers are just as bad as the scientists who research how to make cigarettes more addictive to kiddies if you ask me. Just because marketing asks for it doesn't mean you should.

  25. Re:I Just Asked them the Big Question on MS Invites Security Questions · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nah, it's more like you are in a field and you know there are land mines out there somewhere. With closed source you are relying on the army that buried the landmines to find them, defuse them and just maybe keep you from stepping on them. With open source you have a technical geologic survey of the area available for everyone to see, but the only geologists that have the ability to read the surveys are out to discredit the army. Generally the army has a bit more credibility so lots of people tend to follow their advice even though from time to time someone looses a leg.