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Comments · 469

  1. Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. on Jan 2009 Deadline for HDTV Cutoff · · Score: 1

    fucking a

  2. Re:Of course you have to keep shooting on Doomed: How id Lost Its Crown · · Score: 1

    I call shenannigans.
    anyone who knows anything about zombies knows that destroying the head is the only way to kill them.

    "I never thought I say on tv. Removing the head, or destroying the brain"

  3. Re:Exactly on Man Arrested for Using Open Wireless Network · · Score: 1

    Yes, the door is merely a marker to tell people that this is the end of the public domain, as is a big locked fence. Where, however, is the analogue in an unsecured wireless router?

    I would think that a WEP encryption would be the equivalent of a door. Anyone with access to google can figure out how to hack through WEP. But that is a flag saying, this is a private network.

    Telling people who get their wireless jacked isnt placing the onus of security on the victims, its placing the onus of delineating their property on the property-holders. It is a property that they are actively broadcasting to the rest of the world, beyond their traditional dividing lines of doors and fences, and it is their responsibility to manage it as they would any more tangible thing.

    WEP should simply be the standard setting, just like logging in at each boot with full name and pword is standard on Windows and OS X.

    Requiring people to secure their own wireless networks would not, of course, prevent the prosecution of people who log in to open ones and then hack other computers on the network and steal financial or other info. thats still a crime.
    Besides, dont you think people would suddenly become able of setting up a wep themselves if they learned it was their legal responsibility to either do so, or let whomever use their internet?

  4. Re:Open doors on Man Arrested for Using Open Wireless Network · · Score: 1

    the construction of virtual space is vastly more complicated than a cookies in your home analogy can deal with. Particularly when the question needs physical and virtual space to overlap, as in the case of leeching wifi from a neighbor, or random stranger's house.
    Its really more like if you had a servant, with a plate of cookies, walking beside every person to walk by your house. All they have to do is reach out and take one. You havent told them not to. You're making it so easy to take a cookie that you must mean them to be had by all who pass. But when someone takes one, you call the cops on them for robbing you.

    If you make a choice to not secure your WiFi, you have chosen to allow anyone and everyone to use it. As previously noted, you have, by default, chosen to control access by DHCP, which will give access to anyone with the proper equipment who asks. You have, effectively, chosen, through inaction, to give other people access to your network. In fact, expressly given them authorization, because you have chosen a method of authorization.

    I'm going to modify my analogy. Its like leaving you stereo on the sidewalk and then labeling the guy who picks it up a thief for taking your shit.

    instead of making bullshit laws protecting the stupid, why dont we make laws requiring the default settings to have WEP enabled? How simple would that be? Or, I shudder to mention it, maybe even remove the option of a non-pworded WAP entirely, or at least have to work at it to not use a password? Computers work that way now, why shouldnt routers?

  5. Re:Open doors on Man Arrested for Using Open Wireless Network · · Score: 4, Funny

    how about Chevy? They built the car that let him troll around looking for a network. They I mean, they provided the means by which he kept his nefarious activities cloaked (sortof)

    isnt there some kind of patriot act violation there?

  6. Re:I'm sorry... on Man Convicted For Hacking Xbox · · Score: 1

    I believe the legal question at issue is whether or not it is legal to mod the system in such a way as to remove the copyright protections hard-wired onto the boards. I'm sure that someone might just go do a test case, modding their box to allow foreign games to play, possibly by using the same hardware that allows it in foreign-xbox's, but keeps the copyright protection intact, and see what happens. ... also, since they dont really make money on the consoles, but the games, they really only *actually* care about the console modding insofar as it impacts their game sales. Modding a console with 80 pirated games really fucks over their profit margin pretty good. Modding a console to play games legally purchased from different countries doesnt. So while you SHOULD be able to do it, life doesnt work our like that.

  7. Re:Safety first means safety last? on Britain to Pilot GPS Speed Governors · · Score: 1

    well, plus, in my state, at least, its legal to go 10 or 15 mph over the limit when passing someone in the oncoming lane. might make it pretty dangerous to pass that asshole who goes 15 mph under the limit then speeds up when you try to pass him.

  8. Re:Let the E-Wars begin! on France Will Be Home To Fusion Plant · · Score: 1

    "...kinda like building thousands of giant wind turbines in the middle of the countryside, eh? Even the technology Greenpeace *likes* would require lots of diesel to construct."

    True, they do require a lot of diesel to construct. Drastically less, however than even a traditional coal or oil or gas-turbine powerplant. There is no such thing as a free ride. The benefit of turbines over other types of power generation is that each turbine is relatively inexpensive, and each is independent of its bretheren. Once the first one is up, its up and spinning, well, maybe they do them in tens, but you get my drift. It is a modular design that maximizes power generation. Like everythign else, however, its no silver bullet. Sometimes, the wind doesnt blow

    Incidentally, if you really wanted to be snarky AND knowing what you were talking about at the same time, you would have brought up photo-voltaics. They take as many as 10 or 15 years of use to recoup their energy costs, and are made through some pretty intensly toxic industrial processes. But, if we're gonna drive around on the back of a gasoline engine, I see no reason why we shouldnt have solar panels on every roof...

  9. Re:Let the E-Wars begin! on France Will Be Home To Fusion Plant · · Score: 1

    heh, there is that...

    I think that the more one believes we're all fucked, the more likely one is to act like a twit to those who dont realize it yet.

    It would, of course, be a better use of their time and ours if they busied themselves protesting fission power, which on the merits of uranium mining alone, massively environmentally detrimental. But of course, if they used their time wisely, I suppose they wouldn't have been labled a fringe group...

  10. Re:Let the E-Wars begin! on France Will Be Home To Fusion Plant · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fun tho it is to bash on greenpeace, you might want to consider a couple things.

    First, they have a good point. If you've read more than simply the greenpeace soundbite, you'd know that the overall position is that this represents merely another in a chain of expensive energy projects that will not be operational many years. This reactor should be online in 2015, but the project was begun in 1988: that date should be considered with a few grains of salt. Meanwhile, conservative governments, like the Bush Emperium, get to spout about how they're pursuing clean alternatives, like fusion, instead of doing anything about future shortages now by starting a program of active conservation.

    Second, though the reaction itself is indeed emissions-free, you must consider the energy budget of the entire process. This includes but is not limited to: the fabrication of the plant itself and all of its component parts, transportation of all of its component parts to the plant's location, etc. All of which are unlikely to be done with clean energy, as most are highly energy intensive industrial processes, or likely to be done using large diesel trucks. Additionally there is the question of the massive amount of energy necessary to start the fusion reaction, which is unlikely (at first anyways) to be a part of the theoretically self-sustaining nature of a fusion reactor.

    This is not to say the thing shouldnt be built, it should. We just shouldnt have the illusion that its helping out with any of our energy needs any time during the first half of the century.

    While I have no love for eco-nuts, it is pretty silly to ignore everything, just because you're enamored with the technology they've dissed.

  11. Re:Another Thought: Amtrak & Japanese Technolo on Japan Tests New Bullet Train · · Score: 1

    You're clearly with the terrorists. I'm calling Homeland Security

  12. Re:PodBuddy vs TransPod on No PodBuddy for iPod lovers · · Score: 1

    After having done a bit of reading about the DVForge guy, its clear he's not filing suit because he's a massively sketchy scammer. Look at the DLO webside, and you'll see the TransPod, which looks like it might actually work as an arm-based ipod holder/charger. In comparison, the PodBuddy looks pretty weak, like its standing up on a cord, not an arm, and like its been drawn in photoshop, rather than actually built, even a prototype.

    The DLO folks didnt want the PodBuddy, because they already have a similar product. that was apparently there first. and that, to my admittedly untrained eye, looks far superior.

  13. Re:Dupe by association on Digital Clock as Thin as Paper · · Score: 1

    and wasnt there a story about the paper oled film they're using a few months ago on /.?

  14. Re:I Guess The Children Did Work on Terrorist Link to Copyright Piracy Alleged · · Score: 1

    well, except that #'s 11, 13, 14, and 18, are blatant examples of quasi-veiled attacks on the jews, who, according to hitler, were the profiteers making nothing but unearned income, putting it in trusts, ruining national industry to the injury of the common welfare.

    this again is merely power-politics, and an example of fascism. Nationalism drove the Nazi platform, the socialist element was simply a means of arranging a top-down power structure for the organization of a socialist structure more convenient to the transition to pure fascism.

    # 15 would of course be an example of how much hitler cared for Germany's patriotic ageing pensioners...

  15. Re:No free pr0n on Airport Screeners could see X-rated X-rays · · Score: 1

    informative? I'm sure someone so riddled with latent chauvenism as to protest the naked viewing of His Women before himself will certainly be over-joyed knowing that some dyke gets to slobber over his women rather than some otherwise upstanding straight male pervert... just sayin... honestly, why the fuck does it matter what sex the peeping tom is, its still someone looking at you naked before you can board a plane. Ok, i just wrote and then deleted a rather long rant that I decided was innaproptirate. I just cannot believe that it has come down to either getting patted down or techno-strip-searched before getting on a plane seriously. Fuck that in the ear. "freedom train, coming through, step aside, you to fattie!" Bender Bending Rodriegez

  16. Re:Hmm... on Another Star Wars Prequel? · · Score: 2

    I'm sure I cant be the only one who's intrigued at this...

    He's EXPLICITLY saying that he wont be at the reins for it if it happens. how money is that?

    If he stayed and produced the special effects and wrote the storyline (you know, the parts he's good at) and left directing and screenwriting up to someone who was actually good at it, hell, it could be a pretty sweet movie.

    Young-er yoda leading the charge to eradicate as-yet un specified dark jedi-type people? sounds like it could be really fun, possibly a good film, even.

    now, feel free to flame away because I broke /. policy of disliking on principle all lucas projects, real or hypothetical, post Empire.

  17. Re:P2P and guns on MPAA Blames BitTorrent for Star Wars Distribution · · Score: 1

    I hate the way in which this idea has been coopeted by the MPAA, its so fucking retarded.

    Guns are designed for one purpose and one purpose alone. Punching large holes in things. Things that usually are alive. Alive things that have a tendency to be human.

    When a gun is banned, and the majority of guns that people want to get banned are designed specifically for the easy or fast killing of many humans, or the accurate killing from afar of individual humans. Multipurpose guns such as shotguns and hunting rifles are legal for that reason-- they're multipurpose.

    BitTorrent is a brilliant tool for the distribution of large files. Files that in no way must be copyrighted. Non-copyrighted files that in no way must be the concern of MPAA. It is by definition not concerned with the type of file it distributes, and as such falls entirely outside the range of comparison to the gun-control debate.

    Show me a p2p technology that has no other purpose than the download of COPYRIGHTED movie files, and COPYRIGHTED movie files *only* then I'll join you in haranguing its supportors with the guns dont kill people people kill people line.

    on a slight tangent, isnt it also stupid to say that guns kill people? bullets kill people, everyone knows that.

  18. Re:Microsoft in five years on Google Might Disappear in Five Years · · Score: 1

    Um... so we agree that google making an OS is a silly idea, yes?

    And regarding your little anecdote about M$ and Netscape, that pretty much proves my point. M$ has the clout and capital to just decide its going to be a competitor in pretty much anything it wants. Not to become the best in it, but a competitor certainly. It doesnt need to innovate the same way other companies do, it simply needs to appear like its innovating. Which is really what everybody else does anyways, they can just buy their way in more quickly.

    Netscape didnt necessarily not innovate fast enough, they just couldnt bundle their browser with their ubiquitous OS thereby forcing everyone to use it, at first at least.

  19. Re:Microsoft in five years on Google Might Disappear in Five Years · · Score: 2, Insightful

    bullshit
    I mean, I like to bash on M$ as much as the next slashdotter, but give me a fucking break.

    M$ is far to entrenched in the majority of the general populace's computing for it to become another IBM any time soon.

    Nobody's going to go about ditching M$ as long as it still has a 80 or whatever % share of the market.

    As long as Linux remains seemingly abscure to the general populace, and top of the line macs remain expensive, (and yes, I know all the arguments about cost of ownership vs price tag, whatever, sticker shock has more impact and we ALL know it) people will continue to buy PCs and they will continue to put windows on them.

    WE know longhorn sucks, but we also knew that XP sucked...

    All this competing with Google is simply desired expansion into evolving new business areas. M$ could sit on its hands, update those products it already makes and be just fine.

    Google OS? are you kidding? what exactly makes you think they're taking that route? Has yahoo? Is ask.com going to join forces with MapQuest and FAndango and try to challenge OS X?

  20. Re:Learn some f***ing geography on The Horror Of British Telecom · · Score: 1

    um... well, you've been given a wildly inacurate appelation in a different language, welcome to the club. other members include virtually every other country in the world. Isnt is silly that we call Germany Germany instead of Deutschland?

  21. Re:Poor article on The Horror Of British Telecom · · Score: 1

    *snort* cellphone culture in North America is pitiful at best.

    people here seem content if they're able to download the latest Crap-Ass top 40 ring-tone mp3 and take grainy pictures of themselves to pester everyone else with.

  22. Re:Poor article on The Horror Of British Telecom · · Score: 1

    "You have clearly never taken Stats 101" indeed I havent. could you possibly explain what the hell you're talking about in single syllable words and as simple sentence structure as you can manage? "Meaning what? They don't exist?" meaning that I've never had a phone line fault. meaning that if I was in the middle of an administrative snafu with my broadband, learning that there was a physical problem with my phone line would piss me the fuck off. Meaning that the author of the parent comment was WAAAYYY out of line calling the author of a xenophobe for being surprised at having a messed up phone line at the same time as his trials with the broadband. maybe if you'd taken the time to read the parent and the rest of my comment this would have sunken in, but then again, maybe you just wanted a cheap zing bashing on someone as an anonymous coward, you anonymous coward.

  23. Re:Poor article on The Horror Of British Telecom · · Score: 1

    perhaps i should have been more specific, rather than offhand and silly.

    i've never had a "fault" with my phone line.
    I've never know anyone who has had a fault with a phone line.
    i've never heard faults with phone lines discussed as if they were a matter of course.

    When my phone company has fucked things up in the past it usually involved them screwing me out of money, rather than the fairly simple task of doing their fucking job and running the telephones well.

    btw, nice job on the condescension, but I was merely trying to point out that to one who has never experienced a given situation, said situation is sure to be a novel experience.
    do feel free to continue mindlessly blathering sarcastic insults regarding my maturity and intelligence, however.

  24. Re:Poor article on The Horror Of British Telecom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    well...I've never had a phone line fault...

    Besides the whole BT system sounds not so much quaint as uselessly fucked up. Why are you choosing to read criticism of such an assbackwards system as xenophobia against the brittish? If he wanted to do that, he could have just refered to the people he dealt with at the various isp's as being limp-wristed tea-sucking limeys--but he didnt. In fact there were no negative imprecations against britain at all apart from what he saw as the rather neolitic broadband situation, which seemed pretty well justified. In fact he started out by making sure that it was understood that he happened to like the place and that his was not a typical UglyAmerican tirade against a foreign country for not being america.
    I think you're reaching a bit
    chill

  25. Re:outdated on Rejected Scientific Paper Recycled as an Ad · · Score: 1

    I would add that most scientific journals ARE also published over the net... if you know what you're talking about...