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User: Intron

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Comments · 2,179

  1. Re:why childish? on IceWeasel — Why Closed Source Wins · · Score: 1

    Whereas foxes are considered sly and sneaky, see the difference?

  2. Re:it's bad either way on IceWeasel — Why Closed Source Wins · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except that the Mozilla developers work on what they want to do, not what you want them to do. Take a look at bug 33654 - TEXTAREA incorrectly applying ROWS= and COLS=. This was reported in 2000 (yes, 6 years ago) and makes forms not line up properly. If you were to fix this, you couldn't technically distribute your fixed version, because the firefox license prohibits it. Hence, iceWeasel.

  3. Re:Err on IceWeasel — Why Closed Source Wins · · Score: 1

    "The Mozilla trademarks include, among others, the names Mozilla®, mozilla.org®, Firefox®, Thunderbird(TM), Bugzilla(TM), Camino®, Sunbird(TM) and Seamonkey(TM), as well as the Mozilla logo, Firefox logo, Thunderbird logo and the red lizard logo."

    The policy says that if you change it, you can't use their name or logos, so I would guess new agent.

  4. Re:Taught not trained on Hans Reiser Arrested On Suspicion of Murder · · Score: 1

    Object permanence is learned fairly early; before speech. One experiment you can try with a child of 2.5 is to show them a glass of water in a tall cup. Then pour the water into a short wide cup. Even though they see you pour the water, they think there was more water in the tall cup then the short one.

  5. Re:Paper is for old people on Deprecating the Datacenter? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the response but you're still a jerk.

  6. Re:Paper is for old people on Deprecating the Datacenter? · · Score: 1

    Silly me. I didn't realize that Google Maps could only be printed on paper before starting the trip. Since I have a laptop with an internet connection via my cell phone, I thought I could use Google in my car.

    Also, if I wanted to subscribe to a locater service, I could use the GPS built into my cell phone. I've never seen the need to carry around another piece of electronic crap, tho. PDAs suck.

  7. Re:Downgrade while you still can... on New Copy Protection to Make Playing DVDs on a PC Difficult · · Score: 1

    A nasty letter! That should have them quaking in their Armani suits. Next, threaten them with the comfy chair.

    I take DRM-encrusted crap back to the store and return it. Tell them it didn't work. Best Buy will take back anything provided you give them all of your personal information.

  8. Re:Paper is for old people on Deprecating the Datacenter? · · Score: 1

    Great. Where can I get a GPS that will display a 5" x 5" map plus directions in color for free? Oh, and it should also offer a toolkit for it's API so I can add my own software like Google maps does.

  9. Re:Paper is for old people on Deprecating the Datacenter? · · Score: 1

    Oh come on, mods. I'm 50+ and thought it was funny as hell.

  10. Re: The IP Address on One Last Spamhaus Warning Before The End · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe spamhaus.cuisinewiki.com doesn't appeal to them.

    Anyway, this is a good case for control of registration and domain names not being US-based. A court in Illinois should not be able to affect a legitimate .org domain. It's only because PIR (the .org registrar) is a US company that they can try to do this. If we were using a distributed naming system, not based on a single set of TLD servers, then this couldn't happen.

    "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -- Gilmore

    What's wrong with a little anarchy? I'm sure if the suggestion were sent around, spamhaus.org would remain in DNS and e360.com and any associated businesses could be made to disappear.

  11. Re:files? on Billions of Planets In Milky Way? · · Score: 1

    Read the whole sentence. It won't be around until 2013, so clearly it filed for an extension!

    Oooh. That reminds me. Oct 15th is coming up.

  12. Re:From the link ... on GMail and Sourceforge E-mail Bouncing Saga · · Score: 1

    Other way round. SF sends the mail to Gmail with a From address that isn't in the SF domain. Before accepting it, Gmail does a sender verify by starting a mail command to SF with the address in the From. SF says it doesn't accept mail for that user. Gmail then refuses the first mail.

    Nothing in an RFC says that a mail sender has to also accept mail with that same address. SF does correctly accept bounce messages, which are addressed to "<>"

  13. Re:It's an apt comparison. on Why Software Sucks · · Score: 1

    This is fun.

    Next I'm going to compare software design review meetings to being in Abu Ghraib.

  14. Re:How much did Steve Jobs pay to bribe MS execs? on Vista to Include Stepped up Anti-Piracy Measures · · Score: 1

    The more interesting case will be when it is used for monitoring life-support equipment, fire alarms, large machinery, etc. Cause it's not like anyone setting up a PC ever makes any mistakes.

  15. Re:"Moon is a Harsh Mistress" anybody?? on Magnetic Ring Could Launch Satellites, Weapons · · Score: 2, Insightful

    5 gees for 3 minutes would give you 8820 m/s, plenty of speed for LEO and be sustainable for a person.

    You would need 1/2 * 5 * 9.8 * 180^2 = 800 km of track

    Of course, a hybrid approach using a rocket assist after launch could make the track shorter.

  16. Re:Evil on Magnetic Ring Could Launch Satellites, Weapons · · Score: 1

    Why do they have an ramp at the end? Wouldn't it make more sense to build the ring on an angle? Then you just turn off the juice and let the projectile go.

  17. Re:The interface is the product on Intel Accused of Being an "Open Source Fraud" · · Score: 1

    In US courts, Intel would present sealed evidence so there would be no public disclosure of what's in the blobs. Anyway, I can tell you. The blob contains code which runs on the internal processor core in the chip. Incorporated in there is not just the chip interface, but also licensed IP, bug workarounds and hacks for slightly better performance. Some of the source they can't make public, or don't want to. Their choice.

    Not clear to me why they care about distribution of the binary. Maybe they just don't want the support calls.

  18. Re:What about TIFF? on The GIF Format is Finally Patent-Free · · Score: 2, Informative

    Same patent is for LZW in gif and TIFF.

  19. Re:Not possible on Is Code Verification Finally Good Enough? · · Score: 1

    Your example 1 - if the verifier checks to make sure the passed argument is an l-value, then the compiler should be able to make the same check, which is what I said.

    Your example 2 - of course it's easy to check if the result is sorted. That's called QA, not verification. Verification would be proving that the quicksort routine sorts the array for all possible inputs. Proving that it implements quicksort and not a sort that has slightly worse performance is an even harder problem.

    So no, you did not disprove what I said.

  20. Not possible on Is Code Verification Finally Good Enough? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem with any verification tool is that it can't know what you expect the program to do unless you tell it. Why should this be any more correct than the program itself? In other words, if you can write a description of what the program should do that is more accurate than the program, then that description should replace the source code.

  21. Re:The Sad Fact of the Matter on Group Fights Politicizing Science and Engineering · · Score: 1

    In 1968, George Wallace ran on the American Independent Party to stop desegregation and carried 5 Southern states - getting 46 electoral votes. He forced some discussion of issues on the two main candidates, Humphrey and Nixon, particularly on States' Rights. The election would likely have turned out differently if the Vietnam War had not forced out Lyndon Johnson, who had more appeal in the South than Nixon.

  22. Re:76 too many cores? on Intel Pledges 80 Core Processor in 5 Years · · Score: 1

    Graphics, real time video editing - like deblurring or removing shaking, cracking DRM. Lots of uses for 80 cores.

  23. Re:Noo noo noo noo on Charge in 5 minutes, Drive 500 miles? · · Score: 1

    It's Groundhog Day!!!!

  24. Re:tinfoil hat... or is it? on Natural Language Processing for State Security · · Score: 1

    BEGIN EXTRACT

    RATE -> "incompetant political appointees" -2
    RATE -> "support for the current adminsitration" +3
    RATE -> "innocent people at GITMO" -5
    RATE -> "public attention and review" -3
    RATE -> "successful prosecutions" -3
    RATE -> "perversions of justice" -4

    TOTAL -> -14

    SET WATCH -> rtb61

  25. Re: Census Bureau Loses Hundreds of Laptops on Census Bureau Loses Hundreds of Laptops · · Score: 1

    According to FCW, security features included "Requiring a password" and "Storing census survey data in a complex format requiring specialized software to view".

    So unless those hackers have access to obscure hacking devices like Knoppix disks and hex editors, the data is totally secure.

    I feel safer already.