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User: cratermoon

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  1. Re:So they threw a tantrum. on Think Tank's Website Rejects Browser Do-Not-Track Requests · · Score: 1

    Excellent solution. We can also start a filter list for AdBlock (or insert your favorite browser extension) and start dumping domains that refuse to honor DNT into the bitbucket.

  2. Re:Do Not Track != Do Not Advertise on Think Tank's Website Rejects Browser Do-Not-Track Requests · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > that loss of revenue means that marginally some sites will close, some will stop offering advanced features, and fewer such new features will be offered?

    Guess what? That's called "capitalism". Can't make money or compete in the market? Out you go. Don't try to use the government or the legal system to force people to allow your marginal and failing revenue model to continue to be profitable.

  3. Re:That's fine on Think Tank's Website Rejects Browser Do-Not-Track Requests · · Score: 1

    You do realize you can create an maintain your own filter list that blocks what you want, right?

  4. Re:That's fine on Think Tank's Website Rejects Browser Do-Not-Track Requests · · Score: 2

    We should start another category and block list for AdBlock: domains that refuse to honor DNT.

  5. that works two ways on Think Tank's Website Rejects Browser Do-Not-Track Requests · · Score: 1
    So they want to play that game? Drop this line in your /etc/hosts file:

    127.0.0.1 www.itif.org

    Maybe we can start a blackhole list for domains that don't honor DNT the way it was designed? Maybe in the form of an addition list for AdBlock?

  6. no ops on Ask Slashdot: Should Developers Install Their Software Themselves? · · Score: 1

    As a developer, the last thing I want to deal with in ops issues. Here, I give you the install script, does it fail? Fine, let's fix it. Do I want to be on call at all hours because your monkeys can't run 'make install' properly? Fuck no. Half-assed attempts by ops staff and craptastic server clusterfucks that result are not my problem, and trying to install my software on a mis-provisioned system with a single-core 128MB instance when the system requirements clearly state a 4-core system with 4GB should result in immediate termination.

  7. bring money on Ask Slashdot: How To Fight Copyright Violations With DMCA? · · Score: 1

    Congratulations, you've illustrated perfectly one of the major problems with the DMCA. Written by corporations for corporations, the law implicitly equates a rights owner with a person or institution that has substantial resources to pursue and litigate violations. Nowhere in the law is there relief for the individual creator or small business whose works are appropriated by another party that has money and lawyers.

  8. everything old is new again on Can Microsoft Really Convince People To Subscribe To Software? · · Score: 2

    In the days before the personal computer revolution, all software* was by subscription. Companies and universities bought hardware form the IBMs, Honeywells, DECs, and Amdahls of the world, but then paid a subscription fee for support in the form of maintenance and upgrades.

    Then the microcomputer came along, and there was no software for it at first, so people wrote what they needed. Some of it was good enough that people were willing to buy it, at retail, just like milk or bread. Some software vendors would support purchased software with upgrades, either free for a time or for small fees, but it wasn't subscription-based.

    Microsoft was one of the biggest forces in the world of boxed retail software. Remember the Windows 95 midnight release?

    A couple of decades or more later, and now Microsoft decides that the "pay forever" model of the giants it supplanted is the right path. While it is something of a regression to old ways, it's also an outgrowth of the absurd situation we've come to in copyright and licensing laws.

    What other models are there now? Apple sells you the hardware (computer or phone) and you get the patches and minor updates for free, but they push you to upgrade your hardware relatively frequently -- iPhone 6 anyone? Ubuntu gives you the OS, but they have deals with corporate partners and will probably be pushing ads into the os soon. A number of vendors give you the software, upgrades, and source, but charge you for the kind of "call up somebody and get this fixed now" support that management likes.

    The situation Microsoft is in may be unique, however, because they can no longer convince consumers -- or most corporations -- to get on the upgrade treadmill, thus they've lost their steady income stream. MS can't get their customers to cough up more money on a regular basis for the next version. Who can blame the customers when the difference between Office 2010 and Office 2013 is, well, what exactly is different, other than Metro? Why should anyone upgrade?

    This inability to keep pumping their customers for additional money to upgrade is the main driving force behind the subscription model. With a copyright regime which increasingly says the user only "rents" the software, and declining revenue from the Office cash cow, Microsoft really has only once way out: charging you a monthly fee for the privilege of editing your letters and calculating your spreadsheets.

    *footnote: except software you (the company, the university) wrote yourself.

  9. Re:Pssh nice prior art dude on Google Extends Patent Search To Prior Art · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A method "obvious to a person that is well-versed in an art" is not supposed to be patentable either. Except Apple added "on a mobile phone", and THEN, well, it changed everything!

  10. Pssh nice prior art dude on Google Extends Patent Search To Prior Art · · Score: 4, Insightful
  11. Re:Now with Arf IV engines! on Weather Delays Two NASA Launches · · Score: 1

    Silly answer: It's a Terrier Malemute with an improve Malemute upper stage.

    Serious answer: it's a sounding rocket based on the US Navy RIM-2 Terrier surface-to-air missile from the 1950s as the first stage, with a Thiokol Malemute upper stage. The Terrier is used as a first stage for a variety of small rockets.

    A recent launch of note that used Terrier-Malemute variants was ATREX.

  12. Baskerville is a good font. Maybe not the best for everything, but nice. Definitely preferable to shit like Bleeding Cowboy

  13. why this happens on NASA's Own Video of Curiosity Landing Crashes Into a DMCA Takedown · · Score: 1

    According to a number of sources, the reason this happens is related to the way YouTube partners with companies like Scripps. Essentially, when one of YouTube's enterprise customers uploads a video, in the process of making it available YouTube kicks off an automated search that immediately goes looking for other copies of that video, already online.

    This is why a video that's been on YouTube for months or years and is clearly someone else's property can get shown on a late night talk show and then suddenly get a copyright takedown

    In short, YouTube assumes that if one of their paying partners uploads a video, it must belong to the company, and no matter how long that content has been on YouTube before Scripps, NBC, or whoever uploads their copy, it must be a pirated copy.

  14. People still use desktop email clients?

  15. Re:Having issues with java/systems? try this on The Leap Second Is Here! Are Your Systems Ready? · · Score: 1

    Calling date with a time will set the clock, but the string given must match the expect format. Using -s just allows for a more free-form time/date string.

  16. Re:Having issues with java/systems? try this on The Leap Second Is Here! Are Your Systems Ready? · · Score: 1

    Ah hah, and clock_settime() will get the kernel's attention to clear the deadlock.

  17. Re:out of a state you want on The Leap Second Is Here! Are Your Systems Ready? · · Score: 1

    Is this John Wayne? Is this me?

  18. Re:Having issues with java/systems? try this on The Leap Second Is Here! Are Your Systems Ready? · · Score: 1

    That's a fix? Other than shutting down ntp, what does it do? date `date +"%m%d%H%M%C%y.%S"` is pretty much a no-op.

  19. Re:Obviously a functional unit on Witness Ridicules 'Hands-On' Reviews of Surface · · Score: 1

    Microsoft does hire the best people in the field, but they also have a retention problem. Just look up the big names that are former MS folks. Among the things credited to ex-Microsofties: Picnik, stackoverflow, Zillow, Valve, Cranium, and Zappos.

  20. failures on Witness Ridicules 'Hands-On' Reviews of Surface · · Score: 1

    If I don't get to play with the thing until I can invoke a crash or at least a major system error, I don't consider it "hands-on". Nearly any nitwit can set up a demo where the reviewer is allowed to push a certain button and the right thing happens. Hand over the device to someone while they poke at prod at it in ways the creators never imagined.

  21. Thanks on Too Many Biomedical Graduate Students, Not Enough Jobs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    THANK YOU!

    Every time I read another article or book about how we need more STEM education in schools I want to pull my hair out and scream "HOW ABOUT SOME FUCKING JOBS THAT PAY?"

    Let's be honest, getting a degree in the sciences, math, or technology is hard. It takes dedication right from an early age in school where science and math studies are bastardized by political interests that insist on BS like "teaching the controversy", and even if you can get a good education, those interests play second fiddle to athletics and prom night.

    Then you go into college where you get weed-out classes and tons of labs that cost a lot of additional money over tuition, books, and room and board.

    After *that*, if you have the dedication, you do graduate work for an advanced degree and possibly post-doc work.

    After all that, *if* you can find a job, you get paid for a year's work about what a Wall Street broker makes during the time he's sitting on the toilet taking a dump, and forget about tenure-track educational positions, those are rarer than hen's teeth in the 21st century.

    I'm not done yet -- if you do manage to go though all that, you end up a field where the very basis of your work - the scientific method and things like evolution and global warming - are just punching bags to idiot politicians who won't hesitate to destroy your reputation and career if your findings don't square with their personal fantasies.

    If the US is serious about science, math and technology, they'll stop harping about needing more education and start paying attention to revitalizing the field's job prospects and respectability.

  22. where's the bottom? on SEC Calls For Review of Facebook IPO · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was telling a friend just yesterday I thought Facebook would be a good buy at $17/share. Thomson Reuters Starmine's price makes my recommendation look like irrational exuberance.

  23. Re:Wrist watch is for style, not gadget on Ask Slashdot: Wrist Watch For the Tech Minded · · Score: 1

    A friend of mine showed me a motoactive watch recently. Cool idea. If it had an e-paper screen like the Pebble I might want one.

  24. problem on Ask Slashdot: Is Outsourcing Development a Good Idea? · · Score: 1

    If your boss is willing to dismiss any aspect of development as 'monkey work', that's already a problem, and outsourced or not, the result will reflect that.

  25. chkdsk is needed for NTFS still? on Microsoft Redesigns chkdsk For Windows 8, Improves NTFS Health Model · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Maybe Microsoft could try building a filesystem that didn't shit itself. Nah.