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User: Asmor

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Comments · 469

  1. Re:It's a cute jab at apple on Google Working On Siri Competitor Majel · · Score: 1

    Actually, I'm reacting to someone who couldn't see an obvious implication. You should take up your beef with the however-many-greats grandparent post.

  2. Re:It's a cute jab at apple on Google Working On Siri Competitor Majel · · Score: 2

    How exactly?

    "It was Apple's idea!"

    "Star Trek"

  3. Re:Wierd on Anonymous Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites · · Score: 1

    I think the idea is that making consumption illegal (not to mention highly stigmatized) increases the "barrier to entry." There are people who do not seek out CP, who would if it were legal (just like there are people who don't smoke weed, but would if it were legal).

    Fewer people consuming means less money to be made. Less money means less incentive for production. This is of course assuming there is money to be made... I honestly don't know. It could be that the whole "CP system" runs on reputation or something, like the hacking scene, but either way the point remains the same: fewer eyeballs = less currency = less incentive for production.

    Looking at it another way, consuming CP does indirectly cause CP to be produced, so people who download it are contributing to its creation. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this particular point being sufficient to make it illegal, but I'm also not a lawyer or a parent.

  4. Re:Moderation system on Help Shape the Future of Slashdot · · Score: 1

    I actually disagree. I don't go reading at -1, but I see posts quite frequently that go against the "standard groupthink" and are modded up, e.g. things pointing out flaws with Apple/Linux and/or pointing out the positive bits about Microsoft/Windows.

    Of course, half of those start, "I'll probably get modded down for this...", so maybe that's the keyphrase.

    Really, the only groupthink I've seen is a bit more meta, in that everyone assumes that some subset of opinions will always be modded down, but that's not the case. In reality, there may be a bit more of a barrier (e.g. pro-Linux comments don't need to be quite as insightful to be modded as up), but well-thought out and presented points of view tend to rise to the top regardless of whether they fit the Slashdot "standardd groupthink" or not.

    All this said, I'll probably be modded down for going against the groupthink that such conversations will never be modded up. ;)

  5. Re:Common issue on Security Flaw Bypasses AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II Screen Lock · · Score: 1

    Also, the 5-second rule applies to the *home button*. Background apps can not start within 5 seconds of pressing the home button (although this doesn't take effect if you're pressing the home button to wake the phone up. It does seem that Widget Locker ignores the home button if it's already running.

    Here's what happens with my phone, which is running Widget Locker and the stock pattern unlock screen.

    Normal behavior:
    Wake phone -> Widget Locker -> Swipe to unlock -> Pattern unlock screen -> Input pattern -> Home screen

    Testing the 5-second rule:
    Unlocked, awakened phone -> Press home button -> Press end button to put phone to sleep -> Wake phone up. Pattern unlock screen is shown, not widget locker. Widget locker displaces pattern unlock screen once the 5 seconds have elapsed.

  6. Re:Good thing on New Video Brings Portal To Life · · Score: 1

    There's a TF2 map called Mario Kart which has a hidden portal (one of the warp pipes, of course) to the skybox. That's always fun. :)

  7. Re:But... on Atari Targets Retro Community With Cease & Desist · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a french company formerly known as Infogrames. They purchased Atari, sat on it for a while, realized "Nobody's ever heard of Infogrames," and changed their name.

    That was, I believe, in the early 2000's. I worked for Atari briefly in 2003 and got the impression that the name change was fairly recent.

  8. OMG! on Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes · · Score: 1

    Oh my gosh! I was wrong! It was Earth, all along!

  9. Re:Unimpressive? on GPU-Powered Planetarium Renders 64MP Projection · · Score: 1

    It occurs to me that my math was a bit faily there...

  10. Unimpressive? on GPU-Powered Planetarium Renders 64MP Projection · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm missing something, but 8000x8000 doesn't seem like a terribly impressive resolution, especially stretched across a 71-foot dome (is that radius or diameter? No, I DRTFA, why do you ask?). Hell, my monitor at home's 2048x1152, so this 'amazing' projection system is the equivalent of 8 of my home monitors?

  11. Re:No WebGL... on Opera 11.50 Released · · Score: 2

    And nothing of value was lost.

  12. Re:They're the same people on Firefox Is For "Regular" Users, Not Businesses · · Score: 1

    Many people don't have a choice what they use at work. There are lots of places which lock down computers, either with actual permissions restrictions or simply with policies (e.g. "No installing your own software").

    Speaking from my own limited experience, in college I used to help image the machines for the CS department every year. It was a small department and only 50-60 machines in 2 labs, but making and testing the image was a *huge* task that took us months (my boss was half time and I was a few hours a week).

    One of the things we had to do was turn off auto-updating on everything, because we used Deep Freeze to lock the computers down. If we didn't turn off auto updating, then every time you rebooted the machines you'd get pestered to update every little self-important piece of code.

    Now, this was just at a college where our primary concern was making sure that the computers were consistent and usable. In a corporate setting, you've got much greater security concerns (keep stuff from getting in AND getting out), greater responsibility (a simple screw up can cause millions of dollars in damage), and a much larger 'fleet' to maintain...

    It's easy to understand why enterprise IT departments prefer less frequent releases and stricter policies.

  13. Re:We don't want your business. on Firefox Is For "Regular" Users, Not Businesses · · Score: 1

    Not the AC above, but I came here to say what he did...

    While you're perfectly within your rights to use the word retarded like you do and, arguably, even correct,

    1. It makes you sound juvenile (in that typically one pictures middle schoolers and high schoolers using words like 'gay' and 'retarded' as general pejoratives) and robs you of credibility.

    2. It may be wiser to choose a term where the literal definition isn't completely at odds with the point you're trying to make.

  14. Parent is NSFW on Carmack On the Wii U and PS Vita · · Score: 4, Informative

    Picture of a penis ejaculating. Just FYI. I will say, impressive timing on the shot.

  15. Re:I get the sense that Lulz is related to Anon on Daily Sony Hacking Occurs On Schedule · · Score: 1

    Uh... Seriously?

    They're called Lulz Sec.

    I feel like a douchebag just for explaining this, but "for the lulz" is the reason anyone on /b/ (read: Anonymous) does anything.

  16. Re:This is important? on Science Channel Buys Rights To Firefly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since when is it news that a second rate basic cable channel gets the rights to air a show? Call be when they buy the rights to make new episodes.

    since Firefly is

    [snip]

    I'mma let you finish... but I just wanna say... Stargate is the best show of all time!

  17. Re:private key on the machine? on PS3 Root Key Found · · Score: 1

    They've found the key used to sign the code (presumably, the private key... not that it really matters). I didn't RTFA, but "found" here shouldn't be taken to imply that they just saw it lying around somewhere... More likely, it was deduced/reverse engineered through some flaws in the implementation.

    To put it another way, if the consoles have the public key, then they've discovered the private key which corresponds to that public key.

  18. Re:Subject and body conflict, again... on African Villages Glow With Renewable Energy · · Score: 1

    Didn't Russia attack Mongolia and annex it to Africa?

    Wait, that's not right. Is it? I can never remember if annex means what I think it means.

  19. Typing well implies experience on Does Typing Speed Really Matter For Programmers? · · Score: 1

    The point seems to be being missed...

    It's not that a good programmer must be a good typist, it's that a good programmer must spend a lot of time working with the keyboard, which in turn will turn them into a good typist.

    Someone who's not a good typist can't have spent much time working with a keyboard, ergo does not have much practice programming, ergo is probably not a good programmer.

  20. Re:Ubiquity on Why Special Effects No Longer Impress · · Score: 0

    Also known as the "your mom" effect

  21. Re:Interesting on 8pen Reinvents the Keyboard For Mobile Devices · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The issue with swype is that, no matter how good you get at it, you still have to pay attention to the screen.

    With this, you could type without looking at the screen, finally allowing smartphone owners to text and drive as efficiently as the luddites with their old-school keypads. ;)

  22. Re:Future steps on 8pen Reinvents the Keyboard For Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    Graffiti is exactly what he's describing, in what I thought was a fairly obvious tongue-in-cheek manner.

  23. Re:price on E-Books Are Only 6% of Printed Book Sales · · Score: 1

    I'm a happy owner of a Nook. The only faults ebooks have right now is that even basic typesetting is almost entirely non-existent on them. Things that could be done automatically by the ereader -- things you don't realize you want until you don't have them, like paragraph-optimized justification, automatic hyphenation, preventing lone paragraph lines on page boundaries, hanging punctuation, and ligatures -- aren't there. Ebooks are displayed either with left-aligned text or with an obnoxiously-spacious justification.

    I've just purchased a Kindle 3, and though I've only read one book on it so far I've been very impressed with its layout of text. I was actually walking home the other day and thinking about how I never even noticed a difference between the layout of the pages in the ebook and what I'd expect from a regular book.

    I obviously can't comment on how the Kindle compares to the Nook, since I've never tried a Nook, but for what it's worth I think the Kindle's layout engine is just fine.

  24. Re:somes it's neccesary on Is the Web Heading Toward Redirect Hell? · · Score: 1

    That sound you hear is the point, zooming at mach 5 over your head.

  25. Re:Action points on Co-op Neverwinter RPG Announced For 2011 · · Score: 1

    Indeed, the action points they describe are pretty much identical to the original action points introduced in 3rd edition's Eberron (or possibly Unearthed Arcana? Whichever came first...). I don't recall them officially allowing you to reroll, but they were definitely used to add +1d6 to any roll (after you make the roll but before the DM tells you the results).