Slashdot Mirror


User: jotok

jotok's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
718
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 718

  1. Re:Pussies. on Google To Restart Talks With China · · Score: 1

    There's a saying:
    When you owe the bank a hundred dollars, you're fucked.
    When you owe the bank a hundred billion dollars, the bank is fucked.

  2. Re:Wouldn't it have been easier on Newspaper "Hacks Into" Aussie Gov't Website By Guessing URL · · Score: 1

    It's sad that some people consider 2007 to be "back in the day."

  3. Re:Because it was done on a computer, on Federal Judge Orders Schools To Stop Laptop Spying · · Score: 1

    But saying "laptops are useless in high school" sounds a lot like someone 50 years older saying "ball-point pens are useless in high school".

    You really think so? Every tool has its place, but schools in general have failed to use this kind of technology in any useful way.

  4. Re:Why bother? on What To Do With a Free Xbox 360 Pro? · · Score: 1

    HD output? Really?
    I never poked around very much but for me XBMC only ever produced a bog-standard 480i signal. How did it push 1080p over component cables? Was there an xbox with digital out that I missed?

  5. Re:Different Audiences? on Are Game Consoles Ruining DLC? · · Score: 1

    I have yet to see this tested/demonstrated.

    I know that before anyone discovered keyboard-and-mouse a lot of people were playing Doom with the gravis gamepad. IIRC it was Thresh who popularized pwning n00bs with WASD and since then nobody even thinks of playing a PC shooter with a joystick.

    Keep in mind this was 1994.

  6. Re:Different Audiences? on Are Game Consoles Ruining DLC? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I have a weird setup...all my movement keys are laid out from SHIFT to B and the A-L row is for options (flashlight on/off, reload, whatever).

  7. Re:Not really on StarCraft II Delayed Until 2010 · · Score: 1

    Where were you stationed? TCOM gives me (reliably) 16 down/3 up right now. Kabel BW has a 32/6 package I think, and I know that's also consistent.
    This to me is way better than anything I ever got from Comcast, Verizon, Cox, etc.

  8. Re:Depressing, but not uncommon on Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable · · Score: 1

    Caveat: I am not an expert.

    In my opinion there is very little to "doing IT" beyond a series of low-level to mid-level jobs: helpdesking, laying cable, basic administration, etc. It's not clear to me that there is a way for you to gain experience by doing new tasks or to move up into management, even project management.

    In your position, it sounds like you need to do more education outside of work--get into architecture and engineering and work your way up into consulting gigs. Or drop $3k of your own money to get a cert (you can consider this an investment). Very few companies seem to bother with education benefits (minimal investment in employees usually equates to high turnover and is a sign of a crap working environment IMO).

    As for dream jobs, I work in network security. I started on the lowest of low rungs and made sure that everyone knew I was the reason why our investigations succeeded...I wrote whitepapers and I got as much customer facetime as possible. Along the way I was lucky enough to get some certs which are good for getting your foot in the door with HR but no replacement for hands-on. Now I'm doing consulting and the pay and benefits are really good, but I'm not sure I would call this a "dream job."

  9. Re:Depressing, but not uncommon on Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are you suggesting that the economy can always grow?
    This sounds like a terrible idea. I don't want to spend my entire career job-hunting.

  10. Re:You know... on Music Streaming to Overtake Downloads · · Score: 1

    I live in Europe and the trains seem to work a lot better here. Planes are faster and the price is the same but they're a lot less comfortable.

  11. Re:Wait one minute. on McAfee Sites Vulnerable To XSS Attack · · Score: 1

    The same is true of the other vendors. Symantec and Mcafee are both largely acquisitions companies with great enterprise stuff and crappy consumer stuff.

  12. Re:Sounds like an inside job. on Virginia Health Database Held For Ransom · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Trivial for FBI to get a warrant for the guy's login details from Yahoo.

    Of course, if he's using TOR, then they're hosed.

  13. Re:Wouldn't it have been better.... on Speaking With the Devs Behind a 7-Year Game Mod Project · · Score: 1

    Well, having an opinion and having any creative ability are surely divorced, in any case.

  14. Re:Wouldn't it have been better.... on Speaking With the Devs Behind a 7-Year Game Mod Project · · Score: 1

    That's silly. It's created and marketed for a specific audience. It has things that audience likes. If you don't like the Hannah Montana movie, and you're not a preteen American girl, then what does your opinion matter? If you go on and on about how much you dislike it and why, then you sound like an idiot because the simple answer is: Don't watch it.

    The OP I was responding to didn't play the mod, but felt like he could pass judgement on it. Maybe he feels he deserves something in this mod he's not getting--ok, fine. Don't play it, then, Scooter!

  15. Re:Wouldn't it have been better.... on Speaking With the Devs Behind a 7-Year Game Mod Project · · Score: 1

    Yes.

    It reiterates the principle that every time anyone produces something like this, for every 1 person who enjoys it--you know, the target audience--there are 100 people who don't like it and just sit around bashing the project, despite never having gotten one off before.

  16. Re:Nimda deserved its place on Looking Back At the Other Kind of Virus · · Score: 1

    I'd like to throw a few bricks at Symantec over this

    What for, exactly?

    The vendors don't get definitions out until they have received and reverse-engineered a sample of the malware. In most cases they get it very early, in some cases they get it from the authors themselves who just want a write-up, in rare cases they will buy them.

    In any case, I often hear customers saying "Man we got this worm, fuck $ANTIVIRUS_VENDOR!" but I don't know how you expect them to protect you from something if they haven't seen it yet. As you mentioned, your company didn't take security seriously--although I understand (for good or ill) that there are plenty of endpoint products out there now.

  17. Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher on Why Is It So Difficult To Fire Bad Teachers? · · Score: 1

    I think you're wrong, to the extent that race and culture are congruent.

    My folks both taught in the inner city of Chicago for over 30 years. This is a culture where a generation is 15 or 16 years and it makes more sense to kids to turn to violence and crime than to study and try to improve their lot (convincing them that this was in fact possible was, they said, the hardest part of their jobs).

    In these cases race and culture were also congruent with economic status, and you see a lot of the same problems (substance abuse, early pregnancy, etc.) among poor rural whites, so obviously poverty has a lot to do with it. But aside from Eminem I don't see a lot of white artists who write wildly popular songs about objectifying women and selling drugs.

    As I said, convincing the schoolkids to give up that narrative in favor of a less glamorous and more difficult one is hard--one thing they have found over the years is that if the school district has enough money for things like field trips, so you can show them a greater world, then it helps a lot.

  18. Re:I guess I'm at the far extreme on The Economist On Television Over Broadband · · Score: 1

    Outstanding points. I'm convinced--this is something I would pay for.

  19. Re:Not new on The Real Story Behind Gaming Addiction · · Score: 1

    No, you're missing the point. Chess requires you to develop certain skills before you can apply any of the contextual knowledge. If you're not good at "longterm planning" (e.g. holding in your head several branching pathways to represent all the possible moves and countermoves--what, 5? 10 moves ahead?) then memorizing isn't going to help you.

    Likewise WoW requires a lot of specific skills or else you just won't be good. I understand this. But WoW players have several times maintained that the IN-GAME ATTRIBUTES they acquire (speed or strength or whatever statistics you guys have) are equivalent to actually being able to apply the underlying skills that make you good at chess--which is nonsense.

  20. Re:Not new on The Real Story Behind Gaming Addiction · · Score: 0

    Well, no.

    The rate at which you regenerate a statistic has nothing to do with YOU, the person playing the game. It's not a skill you have acquired at all. It's just something the game ALLOWS you to do since you performed a certain action a million times.

    Knowing HOW to do a raid, that is knowledge or skills you have picked up. But the attributes commensurate with your level, specializations, gear you have selected...none of that is the same as learning how to play chess.

    Also that is not very complex mathematics. You could napkin that while blind drunk and write a script to do it all for you (in fact I know people do this in Wow).

  21. Re:addiction is misleading on The Real Story Behind Gaming Addiction · · Score: 1

    Sure, for a given definition of "fun."

    I find most games highly derivative and boring. WoW especially. I would rather read or putter around in my garden in my free time.

  22. Re:Not new on The Real Story Behind Gaming Addiction · · Score: 0

    That is not the same thing at all.

    In one you ACTUALLY LEARN SOMETHING.
    In the other, you go through repetetive motions until you are awarded the status of having "learned something" in the game.

  23. Re:DVDFab on Decent DVD-Ripping Solution For Linux? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are a lot of new Linux users who are comfortable enough with Ubuntu, and even dicking around in bash, but who are not comfortable compiling stuff from source because it's not immediately clear how you go about removing, upgrading, etc. without the package manager. Yum and Apt are a hell of a crutch.

    Right now I'm in dep hell on a CENTOS box because there is no slick way to install php 5.2 from any of the repos. So I know I will have to track down all the dependencies myself (two of the seven have their own deps...le sigh) which I'm just dreading. And then what happens when I need a new version of PHP? I have to jump through these hoops again?

  24. Re:Did His Contract Specify "Internal Waters"? on How To Rack Up $28,000 In Roaming Without Leaving the US · · Score: 1

    "Strongest signal" is not the same as "best connection" from the customer's point of view. The bottom line is that if there are several towers the device can "see" that will offer the same level of support (it's digital; simply because one signal is stronger doesn't really mean it's better) with varying costs, then any customer will want to choose one with the lowest cost.

  25. Re:No thanks. on Second Netbook Wave Begins · · Score: 1

    I think 10" is still an acceptable size for a netbook. I got the HP Mini 10" and it's pretty portable (fits in a messenger bag), and it's the only keyboard my giant sausage fingers can type on.