"Really? Allied projections for an island-by-island invasion of Japan involved literally millions of casualties of allied personnel and uninvolved civilians."
It always comes down to two extremes, doesn't it? If you don't do what I want, you'll have to take the complete other extreme and look how evil that is...
Why not drop the a-bomb in the sea. You're saying if we don't nuke a major city, the only other alternative is to hide the a-bomb and fight with sticks?
"And I said, who are we (yes, not all Slashdotters are from the US, but most / many are in fact from the US) to tell China what to do with their supercomputer? Kettle, black, glass houses, and so forth..."
And more interestingly, how many slashdotters are in America and using supercomputers at work to run nuclear weapons simulations?
"My bank-card pin-number uses a different trick. I just used four consecutive digits of pi. The trick is that they're pretty far into the sequence. Oh, and I made a mistake when I set it, so it's actually wrong. Oops. Guess it's pretty random, then.;)"
I reckon it's probably still four consecutive digits of pi... (and indeed would be, no matter which 4 digits you chose!)
"I can remember about 5-10 or so years ago there being another study of this same thing and it claimed about 90% of all traffic was porn, so are we getting less sinful or is the other 70% copyrighted songs and movies now?"
I think you misspelled "viruses". (not that anyone would ever do that!)
"Ever go to a site where the big flashy graphic of the naked (chosen gender pronoun here) is a tiling together of image fragments so that the "image maps" are easier and coincidentally the user can't steal a freebee for the home colleciton by selecting "save image as"?"
I'm just imagining the websites of the future with 18000 images on one page, each of the form: <img src="onepixel.gif?color=CD4025"> <img src="onepixel.gif?color=CD4530"> <img src="onepixel.gif?color=D04328">
"I've seen this mostly as a way to comply with HIPAA"
Oh, the stupid disclaimers were in use long before HIPPO, and are still used by loads of people with nothing to do with medical stuff, and loads of people not in HIPPY's country.
By reading this email, you agree to bomb a building.
"On Friday, 2004-05-29, while waiting for some files to move in order to clear some/tmp space, I noticed a couple hits to this page with http://slashdot.org/as the referrer. In quick order I thought "Why the heck would Slashdot readers look at this?" and then "Oh, crap!" I've been meaning to move more of my personal files from my server at Wintek in Lafayette, IN to the one I have with FDCservers.net in Chicago, but I'd run into problems and delayed it. No more! There are high fees for bandwidth usage at Wintek and the FDCservers machine is unmetered. It was time to move quickly.
Because of a lack of disk space at Wintek it took me awhile to get my data exported. Then I quickly installed it in Chicago and configured redirections (lairds.org -> lairds.us) in time for the Slashdotting. Unfortunately I didn't configure caching of the Zope data in time and the HTTP server became very slow to respond due to all of the dynamic images. (It was interesting that the machine was still quite responsive for SSH sessions. Yea, 2.6.5!)
Now to track down the "Anonymous Coward" who submitted this as a Slashdot story..."
"Just a question, though, are some of the changelogs ESR mentions available for easy download? The kernel changelogs are easy to find, but what about the changelogs for emacs, Gnome, gzip/gunzip, and all of the other GNU software?"
Does someone know better web-CVS repositories than I can find in a 3-minute google search?
"Trains make no sense in the wide-open Midwest, but here in the Northeast, Amtrak is actually an efficient and relatively pleasant way to get between major cities."
I see the aliens have successfully diverted attention away from Area 51 again...
"I personally don't understand why so many people 'make a fuss' about DRM, when the companies are adding it in to protect their property that is being pirated!"
Property? Oh well if they're transmitting property then they don't need to worry about DRM or even copyright, because it's already covered by property laws.
How exactly are they transmitting property to multiple destinations? Maybe that could be the subject of a technical article. I always thought they were just transmitting TV signals. (i.e. very much NOT property)
Don't you just love the trolls on any article like this... "SHUT UP, CONSUMER!!!"
"I mean, it can only get so high on He, and I'm assuming that at its apogee there will still be an appreciable amount of atmosphere. Would an ion drive be able to overcome the drag force? Anyone willing to do the math?"
"No one I know would want a one-passenger car. And how exactly is one gonna haul groceries home?"
Well, I've just got back from the supermarket on a bicycle with groceries. Of course, shopping more frequently than once per month helps (means you get fresh food too), and living 100 yds away from the supermarket (and 5 miles from work) is probably something worth considering when you get your next job and/or house.
Or you could just get a big car. Fuck it, who needs to live in the same city as your office anyway?
"Of course, nothing can help you with key logging"
Apart from Tinfoil-hat linux.
More usefully, when are we going to see an on-screen keyboard option for the X login window? It could pop open on request to reveal a keyboard you can click on to type passwords
Slashdot Mirror
"Really? Allied projections for an island-by-island invasion of Japan involved literally millions of casualties of allied personnel and uninvolved civilians."
It always comes down to two extremes, doesn't it? If you don't do what I want, you'll have to take the complete other extreme and look how evil that is...
Why not drop the a-bomb in the sea. You're saying if we don't nuke a major city, the only other alternative is to hide the a-bomb and fight with sticks?
"And I said, who are we (yes, not all Slashdotters are from the US, but most / many are in fact from the US) to tell China what to do with their supercomputer? Kettle, black, glass houses, and so forth..."
And more interestingly, how many slashdotters are in America and using supercomputers at work to run nuclear weapons simulations?
"My bank-card pin-number uses a different trick. I just used four consecutive digits of pi. The trick is that they're pretty far into the sequence. Oh, and I made a mistake when I set it, so it's actually wrong. Oops. Guess it's pretty random, then. ;)"
I reckon it's probably still four consecutive digits of pi... (and indeed would be, no matter which 4 digits you chose!)
"after her Grandson convinvces her that "If you upgrade to Windows XP, you won't have as many problems."
Anybody who recommends WindowsXP for their grandparents has got to be either some kind of masochist, or they really like being free technical support.
"It says I just got a virus, can you come and fix my computer?"
"If they don't really know [their password], they can't write it down and can't divulge it."
Unchangeable embarassing passwords are good for that too...
"I can remember about 5-10 or so years ago there being another study of this same thing and it claimed about 90% of all traffic was porn, so are we getting less sinful or is the other 70% copyrighted songs and movies now?"
I think you misspelled "viruses". (not that anyone would ever do that!)
"Sure that doesn't sound too impressive, but back then a gigabyte was a lot."
7.3% larger than it is today, if the SI trolls are to be believed...
"Ever go to a site where the big flashy graphic of the naked (chosen gender pronoun here) is a tiling together of image fragments so that the "image maps" are easier and coincidentally the user can't steal a freebee for the home colleciton by selecting "save image as"?"
I'm just imagining the websites of the future with 18000 images on one page, each of the form:
<img src="onepixel.gif?color=CD4025">
<img src="onepixel.gif?color=CD4530">
<img src="onepixel.gif?color=D04328">
We'll stop those image-thieves yet! (evil laugh)
"The patch is six weeks old. At what point does it cease to be Microsoft's problem and become the PC owner's?"
So you buy a $300 operating system, and it won't even run for 6 weeks without developing a security problem?
"Hey! How come the Microsoft Site is not slashdotted? They are running Windows Server 2003 with IIS and everyone here knows that is bad..."
At least they're not running Windows 2000. "You can't connect to this computer, it already has 10 connections open"
"American television viewers don't like television shows that make them feel stupid"
Another theory is that American television viewers who agree to track their own TV usage for the ratings don't watch intelligent TV shows...
"What do I care? I mean, I'm going to be quite dead."
Dead, and benefitting from another 70 years of copyright on everything you wrote.
"I usually find you can just pick up the url by selecting it, then middle button drop it into the browser"
Oh, and try selecting a URL without either doing a mousedown or a mouseup on either end (both of which will open the URL in a browser)
If it needs to be selected, don't make it a hyperlink!
"I've seen this mostly as a way to comply with HIPAA"
Oh, the stupid disclaimers were in use long before HIPPO, and are still used by loads of people with nothing to do with medical stuff, and loads of people not in HIPPY's country.
By reading this email, you agree to bomb a building.
A note at the end of the article reads:
"Over $10K a year, gasp!"
Whoa! You could keep a Windows computer running for almost a week with that kind of money!
"Just a question, though, are some of the changelogs ESR mentions available for easy download? The kernel changelogs are easy to find, but what about the changelogs for emacs, Gnome, gzip/gunzip, and all of the other GNU software?"
Does someone know better web-CVS repositories than I can find in a 3-minute google search?
[*] EMACS ChangeLog on the web
[*] GNOME ChangeLog on the web
[*] GZIP: Download it
[*] Other GNU software? See Savannah
Bonus points for anyone who can link to the Internet Explorer changelog...
"The android Data, one of the most popular characters in TNG amongst geeks, is a fanatic poker player. Coincidence? I don't think so."
So maybe we could build a robot and send it in to play poker for us?
Do you think they'd serve it free drinks?
"Trains make no sense in the wide-open Midwest, but here in the Northeast, Amtrak is actually an efficient and relatively pleasant way to get between major cities."
I see the aliens have successfully diverted attention away from Area 51 again...
"is it legal?"
Ask the guy who was arrested for taking photographs of the White House.
(answer: it's legal for some people, and not for others)
"I personally don't understand why so many people 'make a fuss' about DRM, when the companies are adding it in to protect their property that is being pirated!"
Property? Oh well if they're transmitting property then they don't need to worry about DRM or even copyright, because it's already covered by property laws.
How exactly are they transmitting property to multiple destinations? Maybe that could be the subject of a technical article. I always thought they were just transmitting TV signals. (i.e. very much NOT property)
Don't you just love the trolls on any article like this... "SHUT UP, CONSUMER!!!"
"I mean, it can only get so high on He, and I'm assuming that at its apogee there will still be an appreciable amount of atmosphere. Would an ion drive be able to overcome the drag force? Anyone willing to do the math?"
Yeah, there are people willing to do the math.
"No one I know would want a one-passenger car. And how exactly is one gonna haul groceries home?"
Well, I've just got back from the supermarket on a bicycle with groceries. Of course, shopping more frequently than once per month helps (means you get fresh food too), and living 100 yds away from the supermarket (and 5 miles from work) is probably something worth considering when you get your next job and/or house.
Or you could just get a big car. Fuck it, who needs to live in the same city as your office anyway?
"Just block port 25 by default. If someone calls up and asks for it to be enabled, do it free of charge, no questions asked."
"To view this screensaver, you need to telephone your ISP and ask that they unblock port 25."
"Of course, nothing can help you with key logging"
Apart from Tinfoil-hat linux.
More usefully, when are we going to see an on-screen keyboard option for the X login window? It could pop open on request to reveal a keyboard you can click on to type passwords