Slashdot Mirror


User: halber_mensch

halber_mensch's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
376
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 376

  1. I had a Roomba once... on What's Next For iRobot? · · Score: 1

    and it was lovely to come home each day to a pristine floor with no kruft or dog hair on it.Then one day my dog shat on the floor while the roomba was "cleaning". You can picture what the result was.

  2. Re:No, it isn't misleading on Nexus Q Stretches "Made in USA" Label · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes, even with shit that's made in China you can claim the oil required for the plastics came from Iran or wherever the fuck.

    Quite obviously the heavy elements in the chemical compounds were not created by fusing lighter elements in a lab in Mountain View. Those lying bastards, "made in the USA" my ass. More like "made in the collapse of RX J185635-3754."

  3. Passwords are for philistines on The Optimum Attack Rate For SSH Bruteforce? Once Every Ten Seconds · · Score: 5, Informative

    RSA keypair auth, disable password auth, bruteforcers irrelevant.

  4. Re:It's the business model on Samsung Reconsidering Android 4.0 On the Galaxy S · · Score: 1

    Carriers don't want you to buy a new phone

    Are you serious? Of course they do, they want you to buy a new phone every two years so you'll sign a new contract to get the subsidized price, thereby guaranteeing their profitability for a further two years each iteration. The manufacturers also want to be able to keep turning over more merchandise - that's the sole source of profit in the chain for them. Apple can be somewhat immune to these influences because the device is merely a gateway to iTunes and the App Store, which provide the consistent revenue. Apple would be pretty happy to know you've upgraded every phone along the line, but then they wouldn't be devastated if you didn't because you're still buying apps and music through them. But Samsung gets nothing from Google's market profits, their only hope each year is to put out The Next Big Awesome Android Phone at such a significant cost that customers will sign their contracts, carriers will subsidize the costs of the phones to keep the manufacturers providing new hotness to lure in more subsidized contract upgrades, and the whole circus will keep on running.

  5. Re:My 3 step process on Ask Slashdot: Clever Cable Management? · · Score: 1

    -2 if this guy peed on it, dude

  6. Re:Meanwhile in line... on Baby's First TSA Patdown · · Score: 1

    but it's a whole lot less people than 9/11. 9/11 wasn't a bomb threat. apples to oranges.

    And yet again, therein lies the rub. Can you _really_ ascertain if someone is going to attempt to hijack a plane by putting them through a scanner looking for metal and explosives, or patting them down in line? No. the only thing these scanners are screening are things, things which are just as useful when applied in line approaching the scanners as when applied inside a plane. If someone is going to hijack a plane these days, it's because they've figured out a way to socially engineer themselves into the cockpit, not because they sneaked a box knife on board.

  7. Re:It's still different on If App Store's Trademark Is Generic, So Is Windows' · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "App Store" by itself is inherently generic. It literally just means "place where apps are sold." Trademarking it is as ridiculous as trademarking "shoe store" or "electronics store." Windows, used in the context of a computer product, is not generic. Rather, it's a specific, well-known product.

    "Window" is a graphical user environment concept, predating MS Windows by a good many years. X Windows predates Microsoft Windows by one year. Microsoft trademarking the term "Windows" forced the X Consortium to change the name to "X Window System". Pot, kettle, dark color, etc.

  8. Re:Most spam actually in January on Spammers 'Gearing Up' Botnets For Holiday Rush · · Score: 1

    I get most spam in January, when some group sends me snail telling me I have to give them lots of my money, and then this is followed up by emails from special "services" that tell me they can help pay the extortion for only $49.99 or some bullshit.

    Snarky tax humor never gets old, does it?

  9. Re:In the End... on Why Microsoft? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Um, no. No. A million times no. Microsoft's is losing their grip on all of their endeavors, and you can smell the fear and loathing. It's a juggernaut built on the backs of broken promises and stolen dreams, with an army of giddy fanboys clamoring for their turn to be chewed up and spit out by the machine. No thank you, I'd rather spend my days contented with a decent salary that pays the bills and affords some luxury, and a career that affords me the opportunity to solve interesting problems and leaves my soul intact for myself and my family.

  10. Re:Random? on The Binary Code In Canada's Gov-Gen Coat of Arms · · Score: 1

    Maybe instead it's 11 3 bit rasters with 0,0 at the bottom left corner:

    _ Z Z
    _ Z _
    Z Z Z
    Z _ _
    _ Z _
    _ _ Z
    Z Z Z
    _ Z _
    Z Z _

    sort of looks like a dollar to me. meh.

  11. Re:Just a simple mixup ... on Australian Politician Caught Viewing Porn · · Score: 1

    Or he might have been research men's facail hair fashion and misspelled 'goatees'

  12. Obligatory on Lawyer Smokes Pages From the Koran and Bible · · Score: 2, Funny

    Holy smokes!

  13. the downside on The State of Household Robots · · Score: 4, Funny

    I had a roomba, and I was on top of the world. I had a robotic servant dutifully cleaning my floors so I didn't have to. Then my dog shit on the floor, and the roomba dutifully 'cleaned' the floor, smearing the shit all over the house and crudding up its brushes, gears, and wheels. I don't have a roomba anymore.

  14. Yes. Just like with music players. on Microsoft Should Dump Middlemen, Build Own Phones · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'd love to see this. When they decided to get into the music player market they made a brown turd, thought of how to make the word "Tune" edgier and came up with "Zune". Maybe they can shoot themselves in the foot all over again in the phone market with another brown turd with the same awesome marketing skill. "What do we do on a phone?" "I think we talk!" "Ok, let's change the first letter and make it sound hip and edgy!" "Yeah, let's call it the Zalk!" "Oh man, I'd want to buy a Zalk!" "Oh me too!" "Watch out iPhone! The Zalk is the next new hip thing!"

  15. mod parent up... on Apple Launches New Magical Trackpad, 12 Core Macs · · Score: 2, Funny

    so he can do a unit test

  16. 'critical thinking and creationism' on Louisiana, Intelligent Design, and Science Classes · · Score: 1

    If that's not the oxymoron of the year...

  17. Re:TFA contains a horrible pic on George Lucas C&Ds 'Lightsaber Laser' · · Score: 1

    While I think this is heavy handed of Lucasfilm Ltd, I looked up the actual product on their website. The pic in TFA is rather close up and doesn't truly show how close this laser resembles a lightsaber. Check out the other pics here: http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/Spyder_III_Pro_Arctic_Series-96-37.html

    As much as I hate to admit it, it does look way too similar to a lightsaber.

    I dunno, it sort of looks like a flashlight to me. And lightsabers look like flashlights too. That's why twelve year olds have been having "lightsaber battles" with flashlights for the past 30 years. Just because they both look like the same duck doesn't mean the first aper has been aped. You can take just about any cylindrically shaped object with a few surface projections and say it looks like a lightsaber hilt, because the lightsaber hilt is vague and simple. It would be one thing if they were marking these thinks as "Space Battle Light Blazers" or something even remotely close to any Lucasfilm owned trademarks, but as it is marketed as the spyder III pro arctic laser this is just ridiculous trolling. Kingman Group would, however, have a better shot at suing over use of the name Spyder.

  18. Re:Better space stations going a bit farther on NASA Unveils Sweeping New Programs For Next 5 Years · · Score: 1

    Like a fully operational battle station?

    A fully armed and operational battle station, I think.

  19. Re:FAIL on NASA Unveils Sweeping New Programs For Next 5 Years · · Score: 1

    You know why Apollo worked? We set goals and a date, and the figuring out took care of itself.

    I suspect it worked because the government considered it important enough to pay for.

    Yeah, we had to beat those commies to the moon, or panic would ensue. Now if only Al-Qaeda would start up a space program, then we'd on the moon tomorrow. With JDAMs and M1As.

  20. Re:What has gone wrong with the world? on Switzerland Passes Violent Games Ban · · Score: 1

    Modern Warfare 2 sold 6.4million copies in the first week in the US and UK alone and yet there weren't 6.4million new mass murders on the streets.

    To play the devil's advocate, if there were 6.3 million new mass murders then it would be ok too? How do you know that the number of murders didn't significantly increase, or that the number of murders won't increase due to the effects of this game on young minds once they grow up? You're lack of scientific evidence is worse than that on the other side of the argument, with the difference that they actually have done studies (however flawed) and you have not, your pulling conclusions from your anus.

    Even if that were the case, you've got to at least try to show causality. cum hoc ergo propter hoc . 6.4 million copies of a violent game may be sold, and 6.3 million new murderers may appear at the same time, but that does not imply anything about causality. The numbers themselves don't even suggest a relationship between the individuals that are murderers and the purchasers of the video game, nor do the two bits of information constitute the entire scenario. 6.3 million people might have also had diarrhea in the same time span. 6.3 million people might have eaten a big mac at McDonald's. 6.3 million people might have stubbed their toes on the coffee table. 6.3 million people might have been laid off work and went nuts over it. It could just as well be that 6.3 million people joined a cult that required murder for initiation. Or maybe only 2 million of them joined the cult and 4.3 million had road rage. The argument also assumes several false dichotomies - that all the game players are killers or that all are not, that the game is the sole cause for murderous behavior or is not to any degree, etc. Bad logic is the fundamental building block of crime prevention law, and contributes heavily to its failure.

  21. Re:I'll go ahead and be first on Filming For The Hobbit Begins In July · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, there's a difference between making a modern adaptation of Shakespeare, or even a whole other thing INSPIRED by Shakespeare, and writing "Hamlet 2: The Revenge of the Prince!"

    Yeah, the difference is Hamlet 2 has way more pyrotechnics. And Elizabeth Shue.

  22. Re:Suicide? on Accidental Wii Suicide · · Score: 1

    A gun isn't intended to do anything but push a projectile out of a barrel. If they were actively designed to be murder machines, the engineer responsible should be taken out and shot, because they have failed miserably.

    I am in general in agreement with your post, but that statement is ironically funny on so many levels!

  23. Re:How did a 3-year old pull the trigger? on Accidental Wii Suicide · · Score: 1

    Why?

    There is no reason why a three year old couldn't pull the trigger on a modern automatic pistol with a round chambered.

    If it were a SA trigger with the hammer cocked, I would agree. But if this is in fact a Sigma series as suspected it is a DAO handgun with a 9.1lb trigger. That's quite a feat in my opinion for a three year old girl to successfully pull that trigger. I dunno, maybe she propped it up on the floor and leaned all her weight on it. But the situation seems horribly awry to me.

  24. Re:Why BSD? on PC-BSD 8.0 Release Focuses On Desktop Use · · Score: 1

    Why we need the BSD kernel for desktop? While the Linux kernel has the best hardware support coverage among all open source kernels, I am curious what's the reasons behind to pick BSD for a desktop oriented distro.

    The only thing worse than a loaded question is one that is loaded with an unsubstantiated claim. Even if your assumption were true, the number of hardware drivers a kernel has available for it is a very naive metric for its usefulness.

  25. Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out on Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change · · Score: 1

    It doesn't matter if the earth's climate is changing because of man or not.

    Nonsense. It matters because it also affects how much a REDUCTION in man-made CO2 levels will affect the climate. The golden question that nobody is asking is "How much will the effects of reductions in man-made CO2 emissions be worth to us?", which requires the answers to both "How much will man-made CO2 reductions affect the climate?" AND "How much is reducing changes to the climate worth to us?" Until you can answer both, you won't know whether the benefit is greater than the cost. And since the policy choices on the table involve the US bearing a disproportionate amount of the global cost, it's downright game-theoretically stupid to do it unless we have to.

    Ok. Next time you find yourself barreling towards a head-on collision in your car I'd expect you to use the same logic. You don't know that braking will necessarily save you from being killed, and it's just too damn much work if the other driver won't do it too. So just resign yourself to flying through your windshield at highway speed. Those of us that want to survive as a species will accept the loss of your carbon footprint and carry on with our lives.