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User: Sockatume

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Comments · 5,843

  1. Re:Why does the submitter see this as a bad thing? on Apple Outs Anti-Jailbreak Update · · Score: 1

    Actually it ranges from "free of charge" to "shit out of luck": my carrier enables it for every iPhone on their network.

  2. Obvious on Larry Ellison Rips HP Board a New One · · Score: 5, Funny

    With so many senior tech company staff quitting or being fired in the past few weeks, I must conclude that there is a connection. The Earth is doomed, and these individuals have been chosen to be part of the secret task-force designing the space craft that will whisk the rich and influential away to live on another planet.

  3. Re:If Microsoft did this... on Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations · · Score: 1

    Something like "Dupe".

  4. Re:Why? on Skype Files For IPO · · Score: 1

    Doesn't have to be over 3G. If people get interested in video chat, they could get interested in Skype video chat because of its ubiquity, and that's a way into getting them as Skypein and Skypeout customers.

  5. Re:Hello world on Skype Files For IPO · · Score: 1

    In scale and finances, yes. In nature, no. Nobody got to be a trillionaire making own-brand cornflakes, and they certainly shouldn't try when they have a successful business as the nation's go-to oatmeal company, if you'll pardon the metaphor.

  6. Re:Why? on Skype Files For IPO · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Approaching one of the big cellular networks would be a good move, and require investment to improve their capacity. Right now they have a deal with Three in the UK that sees their client installed on all their smartphones. Skype snatches the lucrative "overseas student calling home" market away from phonecards, gets some more visibility, while Three gets to look like they're the hot shit dogs on the 3G data campus. (In fact, they've arranged to route Skype calls on their standard voice network for convenience.)

    They're probably viewing Apple's recent attempt to launch videocalling in the US with some enthusiasm, too. That'd take some serious infrastructure.

  7. Re:Hello world on Skype Files For IPO · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not every web service with a social function needs to be Facebook.

    Not all great software needs bespoke hardware. Ubiquitous software abhors it.

  8. Secret new project on Skype Files For IPO · · Score: 5, Funny

    Skype to distribute protocol based on millisecond trades of own stock, Voice Over IPO.

  9. Re:He's wrong on Buried By The Brigade At Digg · · Score: 1

    Furthermore, artificial promotion of "right" stories would be conspicious, defeating their sneakiness, and to artificially promote every non-"left" story so as to effectively bury the "left" ones would require many, many more votes than they currently have.

  10. "Sweatshop"? Seriously? on Inside the Mechanical Turk Sweatshop · · Score: 1

    I think the mass exploitation of impoverished workers for manual labour to produce consumer goods is a bit far from a scheme that lets net-connected Westerners with a lot of free time elect to earn a few cents for clicking around some web sites. It barely even compares to a gold far, for christ's sake.

  11. Re:Oh well on Flash Ported To iOS and iPhone 4 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Surely you exaggerate? I've seen more shit web design in plain old HTML than everything else combined. Your UID suggests you're old enough to remember Geocities and Angelfire.

  12. Re:Wirelessless on Some LA Coffee Shops Are Taking Wi-Fi Off the Menu · · Score: 1

    Because I know many people will start speculating without bothering to click a link, that flub appeared in the original submission, and is not hypercorrection by the editor.

  13. Re:There is no zero on Building the Zero-Fatality Car · · Score: 1

    They could approach it closely enough that the death-and-serious-injury rate amoungst Volvo owners, multiplied by the number of Volvo owners, multiplied by some arbitrarily large time period, is small but finite. That'd (probably) achieve their stated goal, not the implicit one.

    I suggest they attack the middle variable by not selling any more Volvos.

  14. Have to know which is known and which is unknown on ReCAPTCHA.net Now Vulnerable to Algorithmic Attack · · Score: 1

    If you get one of the answers right, and it's not the known, then you're still stuck, though. So its success rate is closer to 18%: it identifies one word correctly 35% of the time, and on 50% of those occasions, it's the known word.

  15. Re:Use hydrogen. on The Second Age of Airships · · Score: 1

    The failure of the "flammable paint" theory distracts from a related and more general issue. If you can keep the hydrogen in, keep oxygen out, with a sturdy and light container, you can use it fearlessly. This is an engineering challenge which may be intractable though. You don't just have to consider reliably isolating the gas during flight, but also during collision, crashes, impacts, etc. etc.

  16. Re:It may be a win by default.... on Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse · · Score: 2, Informative

    Please, read the judge's decision. The only matters he issued a ruling on were SFC's uncontested motion for summary judgement because of Westinghouse's failure to appear in court, and the appropriate damages under copyright law.

  17. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong on Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse · · Score: 1

    It wasn't tested. It didn't even come up for discussion. The case was lost because Westinghouse failed to participate in discovery, and had basically withdrawn its own defense.

  18. Re:Not what it seems on Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse · · Score: 1

    I don't think the judge entered a decision on GPL's validity. That the case was "taken seriously" and that this implies the GPL's importance is irrelevant: the judge has to actually state as much.

  19. Re:It may be a win by default.... on Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse · · Score: 2, Informative

    Precisely. Res judicata only applies to actual decisions of fact or law. If I bring suit against you for libel and claim you're a martian sympathiser, and you don't show up, I win by default but no legal precident is set regarding your loyalties to the green men of the red planet.

  20. Re:Make you wish you where a hard-hacker. on Wipeout Recreated With an RC Car · · Score: 1

    Ha, it's kind of like the inverse of those LBP games where they built mechanical computers in-game to perform programming functions outwith the game's design.

  21. Re:Always wondering... on Large Zeus Botnet Used For Financial Fraud · · Score: 1

    Not all services use captchas. I'd guess that most assume that if you're a bot trying to log in, you will make multiple attempts and can be locked out of making futher attempts. How many architects would think to protect against automated entry of the correct credentials?

  22. Re:We live in a multimedia word on Barnes and Noble Bookstore Chain Put In Play · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Expecting someone to learn to love reading by starting at the classics, is like expecting someone to learn to love mathematics by starting at the Riemann zeta hypothesis.

  23. Re:We live in a multimedia word on Barnes and Noble Bookstore Chain Put In Play · · Score: 1

    Unirregardless, it reads like ass.

  24. Re:That's fine on Filmmakers Resisting Hollywood's 3-D Push · · Score: 1

    "Stupid" with regards to the question "what is a great film for a Slashdotter", but smart with regards to the question "what is a great film for children". Clearly 3D is something that enhances the moviegoing experience for them, in much the same way that bright colours, happy music and a positive resolution to the plot would. Gauging the relative merits of a technology soley based on whether a slashdotter likes it is one of the worst metrics I can think of, because slashdotters are not a remotely useful sample for most situations.

  25. Re:Similar to color... on Filmmakers Resisting Hollywood's 3-D Push · · Score: 1

    They should try selling Kermode's famous "2D glasses". One person who finds 3D unbearable may be enough to discourage a group from going, but if you provide them a way of viewing the image in mono, that may be avoided.