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User: Baki

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  1. Re:Not getting revenue anyways. on Will Mainstream Media Embrace Adblockers? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't agree. I run adblock most of the time, but when I don't and happen to see an ad, I occasionally see something interesting and click on them, yes even buy something.

  2. Re:No problem. So what's the alternative? on Will Mainstream Media Embrace Adblockers? · · Score: 1

    I can't watch TV all day now want to buy a paper (which also costs money b.t.w.) so I don't understand why you say that news sites have no value.

    If there would be no free alternatives anymore, I and many others would pay (a modest fee) for news sites.

    I would love it when advertisement would be gone and also nonsense-news intended to generate page hits (i.e. advertisement views) and instead would get better quality sites that cost a little. My time is too valuable to spend on &^#&^@# advertisements.

    Of course, I'm talking only about a fraction of the price of a normal paper, since I glance through news sites (and more than one) and don't read them concentrated as I might with a newspaper. But, let's say, the 10th of the price of a normal newspaper for a few sites that I frequently visit would be ok.

  3. Re:Regulations are stupid on FCC Probing Apple, AT&T Rejection of Google Voice · · Score: 1

    So you suggest that "right" can also (should also) mean small-government and little government spending? I don't see that, looking at history. Many of the (extreme) right regimes such as the fascists had very big state apparatus. Right are not exactly the same as anarchists.

    Only anarchists believe in small goverment, i.e. no interference of the state and no rule of law.

  4. Re:Here it is for 5c on NIH Spends $400K To Figure Out Why Men Don't Like Condoms · · Score: 1

    So do you feel the same for "female circumcision" then (removal of the clitoris or similar for girls)?

    Just as this is punished with long imprisonment for all involved (including parents) even if they send the girl to their country of origin to have it done, I think that "normal" circumcision for boys should also be punished. It is mutiliation without consent, and should not be performed until the person has become adult and opts to do so himself.

  5. Re:Dutch Govt to tax cars to feed horses too? on Dutch Gov. Wants To Tax Online Media To Fund Print · · Score: 1

    In fact: alsmost yes. New cars are taxed with about 40% "luxury" tax. After the EU has finally forbidden this, it is being abolished over the timeframe of 12 years, but as a replacement new taxes are being invented on car traffic. The enormous amount of tax from cars is being used for many other things, mainly not for roads and car infrastructure.

  6. Re:Quite on What Free IDE Do You Use? · · Score: 1

    Even for a 1 million lines of code large scale C++ project? With a complex and deep class hierarchy?

    Well, probably one should use C++ for such products nowadays anyway.

  7. Re:3G is still expensive on Why Linux Is Not Yet Ready For the Desktop · · Score: 1

    In Switzerland I pay about $20/month for 3G (HSDA) but at least it is virtually unlimited use.

    Roaming (abroad) still costs a fortune though.

  8. Re:Games on Why Linux Is Not Yet Ready For the Desktop · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you are even older (like me, over 40) you remember a time before personal computers, the oldest systems for gaming were only consoles:

    At 11 I got my first "console", it had only 4 variants of ping/pong black & white on the television.

    Then at 13 I got the first real console, a Philips videopack G7000. Others maybe got an Atari (the Philips was mainly known in the Netherlands, and since most of my relatives used to work @ Philips it was the logical choice).

    Only 2 years later (I was 15) real computers started to appear: the first real computer I experienced appeared at school, a commodore PET. You could program games in basic or machine code (enter pages of hex codes). I was immediately hooked on computers and have been ever since...

    Shortly after I moved to a C64 and later to an Atari ST. Only 1 year ago I have bought a console (WII) mainly for my children. I still prefer computers (windows PC alas, I would prefer linux if games were available) for gaming.

    But anyway, consoles have been around longer than computers I would think.

  9. Re:Stupid article on Why Game Exclusivity Deals Are Feeding the Hate · · Score: 1

    No you cannot be forced to distribute, but it could and should always be allowed for anyone to import yourself. Built-in region codes are clearly anti-competitive and generally an annoyance, and could be forbidden for this reason.

  10. Re:A UPS on Kernel Hackers On Ext3/4 After 2.6.29 Release · · Score: 1

    I have had 1 power outage in 8 years (in Switzerland) but various kernel oopses over the years. So at least in my case, the chance on a sudden lockup due to a kernel bug is much much higher than a power problem. Therefore a UPS won't really help.

  11. Re:This seems strangely familiar on Microsoft Shoots Own Foot In Iceland · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But we know that for years now, MSFT has been frantically trying to prevent the use of OSS by "important" organizations. Once a few of them start actually doing it, and find that they can live well with it, also paying customers might defect. That's why MSFT has been practically giving away their software to those that don't want to pay if they are deemed important enough customers (such as government organizations).

    Though the tone of the article is inflammatory, the point is that MSFT is taking a risk and maybe even breaking its own policies of the past here; once the icelanders proove that one can do business with OSS just as well, this will create a dangerous precedence for them; at least in Iceland and maybe also elsewhere.

  12. Voluntary? on How the US Lost Its China Complaint On IP · · Score: 1

    I wonder how voluntary many countries really enter these agreements. If you do not, the US and some other western countries will view you as a rogue state and boycott you. I feel many countries including China are blackmailed into accepting these agreements.

  13. Re:Seriously... on iTunes DRM-Free Files Contain Personal Info · · Score: 1

    What happens if someone would steal my laptop full of itunes files, and the one who stole it would send these all around and share them on p2p networks?

    Maybe I should report a theft of a computer just in case, as a defense in advance against accidents.

  14. Re:Hardware of Software Problem? on e1000e Bug Squashed — Linux Kernel Patch Released · · Score: 1

    At least for consumer hardware we have come to expect that it cannot be damaged by buggy software, but in general it is not true that hardware should always protect itself against bad software. Just consider much of embedded software, e.g. the flight software for aeroplanes. Wrong software will result in "hardware damage", the same for most robots etc.

    I am quite sure that even a microprocessor driven washing machine nowadays could damage itself if the (embedded) software were buggy.

  15. Re:Pity on Copyright Board Lawyer Responds On Pandora's End · · Score: 1

    Indeed. Up to 5 years ago I used to buy about 4 CD's a month, but since then I haven't bought anything. And I won't until the system has changed that tries to subvert civil rights in order to push through their own interests.

    I only copy music since then. And even without the possibility of internet, no problem I'll just swap a disk with 500GB of music once in a while with some friends. They'll never be able to stop it, not even with the most draconian laws.

  16. Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that on Fire Your IT Boss · · Score: 1

    There are groups of developers that systematically (sometimes not even knowlingly) overestimate and underperform; it may be a cultural thing. If you are heading such a group and don't know some details yourself, it is impossible to break through such problems.

    I have been managing such a group myself for the past 1.5 years. I was glad that I know better than some generations of managers before me and was able to exchange half of the population. Currently, 3 people do the work that used to be done by 10 (and 5 others do new things).

    But at the same time I'm also glad that I can return to developing code myself soon; if I would be a 100% manager for another year, I feel I would have been dumbed down so much that I'd never be able to return to my real profession.

  17. Re:FYI (heads up) Privoxy on IE8 Will Contain an Accidental Ad Blocker · · Score: 1

    I used it a long time ago, but it cannot come close w.r.t. comfort to an integrated solution like adblock.
    I do not like predefined filter sets, I want to select myself what to block and what not.
    With adblock this is a breeze, with privoxy and other external solutions, it is very cumbersome.

    The adblock plus element hiding helper has even increased the comfort (moving interactively in the structure of the page, widening and narrowing the block and then block a certain tag+class).

  18. Re:Obligatory... on Apple's IPhone 3G Firmware Update Bombs · · Score: 1

    It is incredible how far some go to defend apple in every aspect. So now even the scarcity in models and functionality is a good thing? Would it also be better if every car brand would have only a single model, and every TV producer or computer producer would have only 1 model in order not to confuse the poor customers?

    Once I intended to buy an apple mini, but remarks like this make me really hate apple.

  19. Re:Too far on Stallman Attacks Gates, Microsoft, & Charity Foundation · · Score: 1

    Not that I don't think it is noble of Gates to give away part of the money he made, but it would be more just and effective to disallow individuals to earn such insane amounts of money. Instead, the state should organize (or at least fund through taxation) help for the poor instead of "charity". This way all of society is forced to contribute a fair share for development of poorer parts of the world instead of this being optional. In the current US, some super rich such as Bill Gates may choose to do so, but many others don't. A system of taxation would be more fair to obtain the necessary funds.

  20. Re:In Short, Yes on Do Static Source Code Analysis Tools Really Work? · · Score: 1

    The cost is immense:

    I have seen some large projects where loads of people were wasting their time with configuring such tools, with trying to analyze the results. Others had to "fix" the problems but then it became clear in many cases that the tool produced false positives, resulting in more tweaking of the rules/configuration of these tools.

    Also, many became so focussed on the tools that they replaced (partially) normal code reviews and common sense; the result was that the most horrible problems went undetected, but according to the predefined rules everything was ok. There was a lot of emphasis on coding style and syntactic issues, but whether the software really did not contain functional bugs was automatically deprioritized.

    So no, I would not say that such tools have no expense, even if the tool itself is free.

  21. Re:I skip ads the right way... on Youngsters Skip DVR Ads Less Than Seniors · · Score: 1

    Advertisements are a waste of resources.

    You pay with your money to finance the advertisements, it makes the products more expensive. Part of the advertisements is "returned" to you by subventioning certain products (e.g. television channels).

    What do you get for that money?
    1. subjective information (a euphemism for lies and misleading information) on products
    2. a waste of your time
    3. free products of low value

    It would be better to abolish advertisements alltogether and have objective information on new and existing products and services instead.

    With the money saved because products are cheaper (no ads to finance) you could easily pay all the subventioned products/services that you really think are worthwhile, e.g. pay tv of high quality only instead of cheap and time wasting commercial tv.

    The economy as a whole waste a lot of people, time and money on sending out wrong and subjective information, without any benefit whatsoever.

    The bad thing is, even if you don't use those free (subventioned) products such as free television, you still have to finance it since you are paying for it through product prices whether you like it or not. So actually it is really immoral, you are forced to finance products/services that you may not even use.

  22. Re:Shameless Hibernate Plug on Half a Million Microsoft-Powered Sites Hit With SQL Injection · · Score: 1

    Then they should learn to use it. I've been using it for 3 years in a very complex online application with heavy batch processing as well and extreme performance requirements (to generate stock exchange orders for several 100-thousands of customers, i.e. a highly critical application as well). I have found 2 real bugs in those three years, and I can tell you we used each and every feature of hibernate and used it to the max.

    After a while of course I know hibernate and its internal structure/code inside out. It is not easy, one should not use hibernate with the idea to hide oneself from sql or the complexities of the database. In fact, the hibernate developers recommend you should be a database expert and always check the generated sql, this is not a tool for DB ignorant java developers to be able to use a database.

    When used correctly, it is a huge time saver and also saves a lot of manual and tedious coding.

    We used the "man in the middle approach" where one makes an OO design and a DB design and then maps the two using hibernate mappings. We were able to map a wide variety. If one sticks to sound DB design principles (such as normalization, using surrogate keys everywhere) the mappings work very well and without much tricks.

    Hibernates excellent caching and use of prepared statements provides very good performance. One can fine-tune the amount of data loaded and how it is kept in memory or overflows to (fast) disk hash files very well. It would be almost impossible to reach such performance by manually coding everything, at least it would cost much more time without much extra performance.

    This application is used internally only and has been running for 3 years now without any flaws in the crucial parts.

    There have been some suspicions for bugs in hibernate, in each case I was able to demonstrate that this was due to the developers incompetence and was due to wrong usage and/or not reading the consize manual of hibernate.

    By the way, I hate and do not trust architects that don't code. Someone must bridge the gap, the architect must be able to code and thus give the right example to the rest. I am a software architect myself but always need to do enough hands-on developing myself.

  23. Re:Outlawing file sharing is like... on Europe Rejects Plan To Criminalize File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    The state could lock up everybody doing it, or at least ruin them financially (which will in the long term also result in locking them up). But with 1% of US population already behind bars, who is going to pay for locking all file sharers up, and who pays for the economical damage of financially ruining a large amount of people?

  24. Re:Underground on Europe Rejects Plan To Criminalize File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    It will also drive it out of the internet, but it won't go away. In times of terabyte harddrives, people will swap such disks, similar to the good old days when this was done with floppies.

    The spread will be slower, but broader. People won't be able to share and fetch a single file very fast, but instead they will wait longer and then share simply all music that has ever been produced in one go.

    Will the police and state forbid people to walk around with a harddrive in the future?

  25. Re:Maybe the real problem... on Stroustrup Says C++ Education Needs To Improve · · Score: 1

    Java has not grown much: it has added enums and generics, not much else. Most growth in java has been standard API's, but the language itself has been pretty constant.