Slashdot Mirror


User: mellon

mellon's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2,585
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2,585

  1. Re:Sign up? on Sign Up At irs.gov Before Crooks Do It For You · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Request a transcript, like the author of the article did. However, bear in mind that if you register for an account, now all a fraudster needs to get into your irs.gov account is pwnership of your computer, which may be even easier to get than the personal information required to sign up.

  2. Re:it could have been an accident on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    The frustrating thing about this is that as soon as the method that the terrorists used to take over the planes in 9/11 was understood, the take-over-the-cockpit scenario became much harder, because now you have to defend yourself from all the passengers as well as the crew. There was no downside to adding the door security, but it was superfluous, and now we can see that it has a serious downside.

    I think the problem here is thinking in terms of absolutes. What was needed to address the 9/11 scenario was a change to the balance of power, not a perfectly secure cockpit. Having a lockout that prevents crew from accessing the cockpit is too much security, because while it mitigates one risk, it creates another risk, and the second risk isn't particularly less likely than the first.

  3. Re:If helicopters become commonplace on LAPD Police Claim Helicopters Stop Crimes Before They Happen · · Score: 2

    It's not a novelty.

  4. Re:Captain Obvious on LAPD Police Claim Helicopters Stop Crimes Before They Happen · · Score: 2

    As a general rule, it's preferable not to have continuous noise. I only ever spent a brief time in LA, but the helicopters were really disturbing. I wouldn't be surprised if the stress they cause increases violence and shortens lives. But the lives it shortens are civilian lives, so I guess it's okay.

  5. Re:Although... on Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price · · Score: 1

    Being able to flash the firmware is kind of cool, actually, particularly since it's open source, so you can hack it first.

  6. Re:But it's still a Chromebook... on Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price · · Score: 1

    Good advice. This is why I tend to buy the official Google labeled thing and not the third-party version. Works for Android too. I am indeed trolling the chromium os site to see if info on the new pixel will pop up. So far nothing.

  7. The retro bulbs look fantastic. on New Crop of LED Filament Bulbs Look Almost Exactly Like Incandescents · · Score: 4, Informative

    We have a bunch of these--had to mail order them, since they aren't available at retail yet. They look very realistic, and produce a nice warm light. I wouldn't want them for my only lighting, but compared to the old fake edison bulbs, they are fantastic--no stupid excess of heat, and much more efficient.

  8. Re:First Post on Homeopathy Turns Out To Be Useless For Treating Medical Conditions · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, that's too weak. You need to dilute it until it's a .0000000001st post.

  9. Re: For god's sake man! on Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price · · Score: 1

    We are here for you, brother or sister!

    )

  10. Re:64GB on Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price · · Score: 2

    More ports. Runs Linux. I agree about the touchscreen, though. Don't really quite understand that for a laptop.

  11. Re:But it's still a Chromebook... on Google's Pricey Pixel Gets USB-C and a Lower Price · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually that means it runs Linux natively, which is kind of a big draw from my perspective. I'm considering getting one, but will not be running ChromeOS on it if I do.

  12. Re:In other news on Clinton Regrets, But Defends, Use of Family Email Server · · Score: 1

    If they set up a guard to keep people out, that's pretty disturbing. My mom is in a nursing home right now for rehab following knee surgery at the moment, and they do not have security guards at her nursing home, nor did they at the previous one she went for rehab when she had hip replacement surgery. Both of these were real nursing homes that also have rehab centers.

    What nursing homes do have are people at the front desk who prevent you from leaving if you aren't supposed to. This is to protect Alzheimer's patients and other patients with dementia, who could easily wander off into traffic. But a security guard preventing people from coming in to visit patients is weird. It's pretty routine for clergy to visit folks in nursing homes, so a home that prevents them from doing so would be raising a really big red flag. If you have a home like that near where you live, you should do something about it, not just sit there criticizing.

  13. Re:As if SMTP were ever secure... on Clinton Regrets, But Defends, Use of Family Email Server · · Score: 1

    First of all, having the NSA as your IT security team, even if it were true, is a double-edged sword. But secondly, that is not in fact the NSA's remit. The NSA may advise on security, but they don't operate it. And as you are no doubt aware if you follow the news, the government is not notoriously full of clue when it comes to IT.

  14. Re:As if SMTP were ever secure... on Clinton Regrets, But Defends, Use of Family Email Server · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A moral dilemma is when you're trying to figure out whether to kill one person to save three, not when you are trying to figure out where to store your email. That's an IT decision. Just because the right thing to do is clear to you in the abstract doesn't mean it would even be clear to you in practice. How would you feel about carrying two phones? How would you feel about having your private email on a government server? When you read science fiction, does the character with the smart phone carry two of them so that she can have access to her secure stuff and her regular stuff? Hell no.

    So yeah, of course we can armchair quarterback it, but let's not pretend it's not political.

  15. As if SMTP were ever secure... on Clinton Regrets, But Defends, Use of Family Email Server · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The sad irony here is that the Clinton presidency was the first where they had to set up a real email presence, and they hired some really smart people to do it. They did a great job. But that was a long time ago, and things have moved on. So they're getting criticized for using SSL 2.0 for transport security, which is a valid criticism now, but is still better security than most people have. And of course it's not like security on government servers is better. So this is kind of obviously a deliberate attempt to create a fuss over something that really isn't as significant as it's being pumped up to be.

    On the plus side, maybe more people will start using strong TLS transport security for their email...

  16. Re:Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 1

    Of course all C++ features have their uses. Otherwise they wouldn't exist. Every one of them scratches some itch.

  17. Re:Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 2

    I don't think you actually mean "virtual classes" here. But yeah, if you have to implement classes in C, maybe you should have used C++. One of C++'s problems is that it builds on C, though, so the fact that you can do some things, particularly classes, better in C++ than in C shouldn't be a surprise: that's the itch they were scratching.

  18. Re:Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 2

    True, but for example while Scheme is highly extensible, there isn't a lot of really obscure syntax, nor is there a preprocessor. Anything that's Turing complete can develop widely divergent dialects, but C++'s dialects are notoriously obscure.

  19. Re:Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You can find some really elegant C++ code out there. I am quite fond of the Qt libraries, for example. But Qt is its own C++ dialect. The company I work for codes a lot of our software in C++, and it is really nice, clean, maintainable code. But we have a style guide that everybody has to follow, and that's how we pull it off. Essentially, we are not writing in C++. We're just using a C++ compiler to compile NomLang.

  20. Re:Ugh on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh no, on the contrary. There are plenty of idiots who can write code in C++.

  21. Write-only code. on Was Linus Torvalds Right About C++ Being So Wrong? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem with C++ is that it's way too easy to write write-only code, because the language has so many features that nobody but language experts understand all of them. So we all program in different dialects, and then scratch our heads when we read other peoples' code.

  22. Re:Why Force Your Children to Live in the Past? on Ask Slashdot: Should I Let My Kids Become American Citizens? · · Score: 1

    Sure, the new part of the old-time religion teaches that stuff, but unfortunately the old-time version of it heavily emphasizes brutal repression, and some of the addenda to the new stuff was clearly written to repeal the actually innovations in the new part, to which you are referring. In practice, the old-time religion OP is referring to does not teach peace, love, joy, forbearance, kindness, or any of that stuff. It teaches war, paranoia, retribution and selfishness. It's almost as if the antichrist had taken over large parts of the church in the U.S. Actually, it's just as if that had happened. :(

  23. Re:HTTP isn't why the web is slow on HTTP/2 - the IETF Is Phoning It In · · Score: 1

    The anonymous hit piece is the Slashdot article, submitted by "anonymous."

  24. Re:HTTP isn't why the web is slow on HTTP/2 - the IETF Is Phoning It In · · Score: 2

    Personally I have no opinion about HTTP/2, but I have to say that this anonymous hit piece looks a lot like some IETF participant who didn't like how the process came out trying to create the appearance of consensus against it by pumping up the anger of the interwebs without actually saying what's wrong with the spec. When I see people making statements not supported by explanations as to why we might want to consider them correct, my tendency is to assume that it's hot air trying to bypass the consensus process.

    It's also a bit annoying to see the IETF accused of having published a document advocating snooping when in fact someone floated that idea in the IETF and it was shot down in flames, and what we actually published was a document stating that snooping is to be considered an attack and addressed in all new IETF protocol specifications (RFC 7258).

  25. Re:"Expected", "could", and "maybe" on Warmer Pacific Ocean Could Release Millions of Tons of Methane · · Score: 1

    If all predictions had indeed not come to pass, you might have a point. But of course that's hyperbole, which is to say: you are making shit up. In the real, fact-based world climate science has an all-too-good track record. Yes, it is not perfectly accurate, but that's really not something with which to comfort yourself. If you get run over by a bus, it doesn't matter whether it hits you from the front or the side: you're still dead. It's best to pay attention and get out of the way when there is a bus bearing down on you. And as for extinction events, it doesn't matter whether they're human-caused or not. What matters is not being taken out by them. Or anyway, so the thinking goes...