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User: Cal+Paterson

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  1. Geek Culture on Ask Steve Wozniak Anything · · Score: 2

    Do you think that geek culture is different today than it was in the past? How have things changed?

  2. Re:4000000? on UK Gov't Lost Personal Data On 4M People In One Year · · Score: 1

    Your sugestion basically makes government liable (because they will have to pay to enforce all that stuff), which is better, but it just indirectly makes the taxpayer liable.

    The best answer is to attach some simple value to someone's simple private personal data - say £5000, and to be adjusted for inflation in future. Upon loss of their data, the victim must be paid out that amount, along with any future losses of income/monies that they are liable for "on the balance of probabilities".

    The liability approach makes sure that private data starts to be taken seriously. It's also very consistent with what is easy for civil courts to prosecute, and avoids any government beauraucracy.

  3. Re:Old fashioned way on Open-Source College Textbooks Gaining Mindshare · · Score: 1

    You classes expect you to draw on the textbook and turn the textbook in? Given that many people want to resell their textbook, or buy a textbook, this in insipid.

    Apparently you've never used a pencil.

  4. Re:Many a foolish man has crossed Houghton Mifflin on Open-Source College Textbooks Gaining Mindshare · · Score: 1

    I find this hard to believe. I live in the UK and we use textbooks just fine, though perhaps we use less. The professor has to actually have a better knowledge than the author for this to be beneficial.

    Even so, if non-english Universities do without textbooks, it is very possibly related to the fact that there is often a small pool of university textbooks written in non-english languages. At least, in Computer Science, this can be a problem.

    Perhaps the UK isn't really Europe though.

  5. Re:A simple explanation for ISVs: on Linux Foundation Promises LSB4 · · Score: 1

    I think the LSB is pretty good too. My original post is not especially directed at it. It's at people who release software who think it is good enough simply to make it compatible.

  6. Re:YouTube on Ogg Theora In Firefox, With Wikimedia Support · · Score: 2, Informative

    Adblock cannot filter flash ads, else I wouldn't have seen the youtube advert. Is it really so hard to convince people that "Yes, there are youtube adverts" and "Yes, there really are youtube adverts"?

  7. A simple explanation for ISVs: on Linux Foundation Promises LSB4 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    If you want to write for distro foo, you release the source code and get to work collaborating with distro foo. Someone will package your program, and you'll be fine.

    If you don't release source code, you can expect endless pain, and I hope that doesn't change.

  8. Re:YouTube on Ogg Theora In Firefox, With Wikimedia Support · · Score: 1
  9. Re:YouTube on Ogg Theora In Firefox, With Wikimedia Support · · Score: -1

    Obviously you're not watching the videos then, because that's where they are.

  10. Re:How many employees do they have? on Cuil Proves the Bubble Is Back · · Score: 1

    They have circa 30 employees. I'm not convinced about the grave seriousness of these perks. It could be one of the costs of employment of ex-Google staff.

  11. Re:Doubtful on WB Took Pains To "Delay" Pirating of Dark Knight · · Score: 1

    RTFA; people who pirate movies can circulate bad news faster, creating an adverse effect on the opening weekend.

  12. Re:A right-wing movie on Delivering 8K VFX Shots For the Dark Knight · · Score: 1

    Not if you want to pigeon hole it somewhere into the simplistic left-right spectrum! DUH

  13. Re:A right-wing movie on Delivering 8K VFX Shots For the Dark Knight · · Score: 1

    He won't get anything useful out of him because the guy is mentally ill, not because torture is ineffective.

    No, Batman in that scene actually states that Dent should stop because he is supposed to be "a white light" for gotham, and that if anyone saw this situation all the previous good work would be undone. They actually have an argument, and Batman notes in passing that the guy is from Arkham Asylum, and he wouldn't be useful anyway.

  14. Re:python on How To Encourage a Young Teen To Learn Programming? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hmmm...as someone learning Smalltalk at the moment, I cannot agree with this post. Smalltalk itself is actually relatively straightforward, but actually learning OOP is very difficult indeed. There are tough, abstract concepts here, and OOP has a higher barrier to entry than functional languages (which I learned first) or proceedural languages.

    Additionally, there is only one book currently suitable for learning Smalltalk (Squeak by Example), and while it's a good book and not exceedingly hard, it would assume to much of someone who doesn't already know how to program. There might be a text I don't know of, though.

  15. Re:Sodium cooling on Liquid Metal CPU Heatsink Beats Water Cooling · · Score: 3, Informative

    Some supercomputers already use liquid metal to supercool them (and, AFAIK, have done for a while). I believe it's normally some kind of gallium alloy, but I'm not chemist enough to say more than that.

  16. Re:Square brackets on To Stet Or Not To Stet, That Is the Question · · Score: 1

    It isn't rude. I use it all the time to cut irrelevant sections of a quotation.

  17. Re:or Windows Specific. on Fallout From the Fall of CAPTCHAs · · Score: 1

    I'm trying to work out how what you said related to my question. Does it?

  18. Re:Anyone usinging specialised tests? on Fallout From the Fall of CAPTCHAs · · Score: 1

    Here is an example; present an image, and have the human enter a word to describe it (eg "Truck")

    This one isn't directly defeatable with optical character recognition, but it is possible to defeat it in some of the other general attacks people use against CAPTCHAs, such as convincing some other human to solve the problem for you, like making answering the challenge some kind of requisite for free pornography.

    There is still some value in this technique though: it slows down an attack. There are other techniques, but a lot of the ones I have seen depend on how you structure your web site.

  19. Re:or Windows Specific. on Fallout From the Fall of CAPTCHAs · · Score: 1

    Are CAPTCHAs frequently windows-specific?

    I've never seen a case where it hasn't been javascript and an image. I suppose it's possible to do the same thing with a Java applet, or, I suppose, Flash. However, neither of those are especially windows specific, and Java is FOSS now, and Flash can sometimes be done with FOSS. What about a CAPTCHA could be windows specific?

  20. Re:still skeptical on Sun Spokesman Says "We Screwed Up On Open Source" · · Score: 1

    I like it, have just switched. Thank you for pointing it out.

  21. Re:2001-2002? on Sun Spokesman Says "We Screwed Up On Open Source" · · Score: 1

    Well, it appears that most of them do have the same fiscal year. Supposedly it is most normal in the USA to run from October to October.

  22. Re:How many open source advocates... on What Does It Mean To Be an Open Source Author? · · Score: 1

    There may be a few ideologues who believe it's morally wrong for any F/OSS company to make a profit
    I know there are a few, but I have no idea where that comes from. RMS thinks profit is important.

    That said, if you don't use FOSS because of ethics, I don't think we'd find much to agree on. I do use FOSS because of ethics.
  23. Re:What's the point? on Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) Now GPL · · Score: 1

    Linus was bullheaded about the licence originally, but he isn't being bullheaded now. He can't change the kernel to be GPLv3 compatible after the fact.

  24. Re:Next Question... on Sun's Java Will Be Free This Year · · Score: 1

    What he said is still correct. Even with PAE, x86 can be a PITA.

  25. Re:68% is unfavourable? on Atari Tries To Supress Bad Reviews, Claims Piracy · · Score: 1

    No, I don't think it does. Since I don't hate films that are difficult to classify, they are only excluded from the second category.