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User: drakaan

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Comments · 1,295

  1. Re:but that's the problem with the turing test... on Was Turing Test Legitimately Beaten, Or Just Cleverly Tricked? · · Score: 1

    What should the program have claimed to have been? If it was a human extraneously telling the judges that the program was a person with language skills, then I would agree, but the task is to fool humans into thinking a program is a person, and that's what happened, isn't it?

    The entire exercise is always one of trickery, regardless of how sophisticated the program is. I think the illustration is that it's not necessarily that difficult to fool people (which we already knew).

  2. Re:but that's the problem with the turing test... on Was Turing Test Legitimately Beaten, Or Just Cleverly Tricked? · · Score: 1

    They thought it was a child, and not a machine imitating a child with limited language skills? What's everyone quibbling about? You either think it's a machine, or you think it's a person. 1 in 3 people thought it was a person. That's a "pass".

  3. Re:Not just that on Sony Overtakes Rival Nintendo In Console Sales · · Score: 2

    We bought ours because of the titles...all of the gamers in my family are fans of the various Mario titles, and those were great on the Wii. The controller worked well and let you do things easily that would have been hard without the ability to point at stuff with the controller or shake it, etc.

    The console had some big problems, though...most notably no real online community, a lack of HDMI support, not enough graphics processing power, and a shitty disc drive that failed in two units we owned, even though we treated the units pretty carefully. At the price they were charging for the original Wii, I could deal with all of it.

    We have a pair of Xbox 360's that mainly get used for multiplayer shooters. I'm fine with that. I'd really love to play Mario Kart 8 with the family, but not at the price they want to charge for the Wii U...it's a system refresh with a new controller that I'm not interested in, not because it's not a decent console, but because it's not enough of an improvement to be worth the extra cash.

  4. Man do I miss the tagging feature... on Apple Says Many Users 'Bought an Android Phone By Mistake' · · Score: 1

    ...were it still available, I could have done a quick "fuckapple" tag and been done with it.

  5. Re:If you have the opportunity on U.S. Drone Attack Strategy Against Al-Qaeda May Be Wrong · · Score: 1

    Of course, I read that first sentence and dismissed it because it was irrelevant...

    A point on which we disagree because we had different reasons for responding.

    ...You "should have let it go" because you were wrong...

    I understand that you think so.

    ...(you might recall a whooshing noise about that time), yes I decided that I might join you in your colossal waste of time but at least be correct, unlike the two of you...

    I believe I mentioned something about irony before...I wasn't being pedantic, I made what should have been a humorous observation (not unlike your own failed attempt at mirth) that you decided was some sort of "oh no he DIDN'T!!!" bandwagon-jumping and took issue with.

    I get it. I irritated you for what you believe to be no good reason. You are deliberately ignoring my stated reason for saying what I said (which was not pedantry), and that's fine...just understand two things about this exchange:

    • I don't agree that my observation was wrong...it had nothing to do with the point you were making...it was a comment at right angles to your own
    • Every single conversation on slashdot is a waste of time

    If I ever need to find something to do for a few minutes, I'll google MILFish and USian...sounds...enlightening?

  6. Re:If you have the opportunity on U.S. Drone Attack Strategy Against Al-Qaeda May Be Wrong · · Score: 1

    You must not have read the first sentence of my last post, if you're asking why I said it's a bad fit. Again, technically, you're 100% correct, and I should have just kept quiet, but I didn't (for reasons I already mentioned and you brushed aside). You were, indeed, being pedantic, obnoxious, and accurate. I was not being anything other than compulsive on a particular point that I thought ironic and you did not.

  7. Re:If you have the opportunity on U.S. Drone Attack Strategy Against Al-Qaeda May Be Wrong · · Score: 1

    I was associating the GP's comment about not extending acronyms to the original extended acronym in question (USian), which was an attempt to extend an acronym that referred to a nation. I should have let it go, as you are technically correct (I've never heard anyone use the extended acronym "MILFish", but I will stipulate that enough people are likely to have done so that it could be a valid example). I didn't let it go, because (as far as the one-level-previous discussion went) it was a bad fit for an example.

  8. Re:If you have the opportunity on U.S. Drone Attack Strategy Against Al-Qaeda May Be Wrong · · Score: 1

    MILF isn't a nation, so MILFish isn't a nationality.

  9. Re:What about Heretic? on It's Time For the Descent Games Return · · Score: 1

    You're probably right...I dunno about me being a "kid", though, I've been able to legally buy beer for 22 years...depends on your frame of reference.

  10. What about Heretic? on It's Time For the Descent Games Return · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With all of the Descent love, I can't believe nobody has mentioned Heretic yet. I only played either of them a handful of times (I was more of an RTS guy than an FPS guy, so Starcraft/Red Alert/Warcraft II was more my thing), but my buddies played both. Ahh, the good old days, when Windows 2000 was fresh and new.

  11. Re:If you have the opportunity on U.S. Drone Attack Strategy Against Al-Qaeda May Be Wrong · · Score: 1, Informative

    *WHOOSH*

  12. Re:Timothy McVeigh on AT&T Hacker 'weev' Demands One Bitcoin For Each Hour He Spent In Jail · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah...I was borderline sympathetic up until that point. What a douche.

  13. Re:You're talking about the cloud here on OpenStack: the Open Source Cloud That Vendors Love and Users Are Ignoring · · Score: 1

    That's sort of like saying that everyone should be riding the bus because it's too resource-intensive to maintain a scooter or to have it serviced.

    If all the software that those SMBs need to run worked in a cloud environment with no issues, then it would make sense.

    Most of those small businesses, especially not-for-profits, can't spend as much on reliable bandwidth and network infrastructure as they'd need to in order to leverage a cloud solution and not face maddening slowdowns in ordinary workflows.

    If you're resource-strapped and still running XP because you'd go broke upgrading PCs, OSes, and third-party software, then "the cloud" is not a panacaea, or even necessarily a good idea vs. a few hours a month of paying someone to do some basic maintenance.

  14. Re:Gary Powers her on U-2 Caused Widespread Shutdown of US Flights Out of LAX · · Score: 1

    Would have modded that one funny, myself...

  15. Re: you sure? on F.C.C., In Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans To Allow Fast Lane · · Score: 0

    I'd guess that if you can't determine the meaning of the phrase without help, you will fail to understand an explanation. The meaning is pretty obvious.

  16. Re:This approach has gone nowhere for years on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Create a Culture of Secure Behavior? · · Score: 2

    Seconded. The people that understand the risks generally don't represent a problem, but the people that don't understand them often also don't benefit from an explanation in a way that would change their behavior. Computers are not magic, but many people believe that they are. They also believe that antivirus software catches every single bad thing before it happens.

  17. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    So we appear to agree that the addition of hate crime legislation is not useful.

    That page is interesting...It describes what caused them to begin investigating crimes as hate crimes, it looks like it primarily has to do with certain individual states not doing a sufficient or even passably acceptable job of prosecuting civil rights violations.

  18. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    ...but racketeering laws aren't about thought, they're about identifying a series of activities that indicate a pattern of crime that is worse than a single event.

    There are laws, but the laws concerning racketeering activity and hate crime legislation seem completely different in intent, spirit, and word.

    I'm not pretending that there aren't secondary effects from acts of violence, but the crime isn't (shouldn't be) implying a threat against people that saw or heard about a murder, it's murdering people in the first place.

    This type of legislation serves to label already-illegal offenses differently based on purported intent (a hate crime), which is not an additional deterrent to someone with said hateful intent (if they're damaged enough to commit the violent act in the first place).

    Why is it not enough to say that murder is illegal? Should I be less afraid of a bigot killing me, my Caucasian wife, and my mixed race children because murder with hateful intent is viewed as being somehow worse than murder without it?

    My argument here is about hate crime legislation being pointless as a deterrent, not about whether violent acts by bigots cause fear among the population that they are taken against.

  19. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    Why should that matter? What if the offender would repeat the crime without respect to a given identifiable demographic? Is that not equally unacceptable?

  20. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    I'm trying to determine how you're applying this definition to our discussion. Your view seems to be that there is an implied threat arising from a member of a group hearing about or observing a serious offense (murder, assault, battery, etc) that has to do with intent, specifically where the attacker has negative feelings towards a group and a member of the group is the person who was attacked.

    Is that right, or am I misunderstanding your position?

  21. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying that killing people for holding a political position isn't going to be prosecuted as a hate crime, I'm saying that both the law and said prosecution are a bad idea. We appear to differ on that point...I get it.

    When you say "implied threat", what are you talking about, legally?

  22. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    Implied anything (intimidation, threats, mugging) is non-action.

    Klansmen make me (as a person of mixed race and dark skin) uncomfortable because of many of their beliefs, but I defend their right to think the stupid and hateful things that they think.

    Hatecrime legislation takes the thoughts of a murderer or assailant and turns them into something that they are not, namely action.

    I think that 30 counts of intimidation should be no more or less reasonable to prosecute in a situation where the intimidator holds an unpopular view (anti-gay, anti-minority, etc) than where they hold a popular one (anti-neo-nazi, anti-fred phelps, anti-klan, anti-caucasian).

    Racketeering (legally) encompasses a variety of activities. Fraud is not separate from racketeering, it's one charge among many that get looked at collectively. Multiple charges within a certain time frame mean that instead of fraud, bribery, extortion, murder for hire, sexual exploitation of children, etc, the blanket charge of racketeering can be applied.

  23. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1

    Going "I doubt your bullet" or "I doubt your knife" or "I doubt your fist" won't save your life, true. The first amendment is not there to assert that individuals have a right to deprive others of life with a firearm, it's there to assert that the government may not prohibit an individual from owning a firearm with which they might protect themselves.

    I see many arguments against firearms as akin to arguments around hate crimes. The offending thing is not the despicable action (murder, assault), but a peripheral thing (a gun, an opinion).

  24. Re:ACLU on Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Why don't we just add those five words to all of the other amendments in the same manner and at the same time?

    I don't want to have amendments that apply to citizens unequally on purpose...that's a pretty stupid way for a present or past supreme court justice to think about "fixing" a constitutional amendment.

  25. Re:I Pay on Netflix Gets What It Pays For: Comcast Streaming Speeds Skyrocket · · Score: 1

    This Netflix situation is more like:

    1. I ask my cousin in N.Y.C. to drive to Auburn, Maine with a package for me
    2. He arrives later that day and we reminisce about family over drinks
    3. The next day, I move to Vermont, and ask him to deliver another package, but it takes two weeks for him to get there because my cousin can't afford to pay a fee to the state of Vermont to be able to travel at speeds over 5% of the posted speed limit

    ...or at least it's no worse an analogy. It's equally bad at describing what the fuck is actually happening, which is that Comcast is extorting other companies because it can.