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User: RollingThunder

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Comments · 1,137

  1. Re:Mod the parent down on Preventing Epidemics with STEM · · Score: 1

    You're not a patriot or a redneck. You're a moron.

  2. Re:Airflow? on Hard Drive Cooling for 10 Cents · · Score: 2, Informative

    Uhh... yes, yes you do.

    The CPU fan takes surrounding air, blowing it down towards the CPU and forcing it through the vanes of the heat sink.

    Push or pull, the main point in drive cooling is to move around the air so that hot pockets don't form around them, and the hot air is more likely to be vented by the case fans.

  3. Re:A suggestion on Paul Graham on PR · · Score: 2

    Actually, unless I've gone blind, you can't filter out by topic anymore. Just by the much larger "Sections".

    I know you used to be able to, I filtered out Anime once (and seemingly I STILL filter out anime, as I never see the stories but I occasionaly see the icon at the top).

  4. Re:Holy Hell! on Sony Online To Sell Virtual Property · · Score: 1

    While the change in sugars was part of the New Coke/Coke Classic deal, I understood that another part was shortage of a specific herb that grows only in conjunction with the coca plant.

    Shortage meaning "the plant species has been wiped out by constant herbicide sprays by CIA planes", that is.

    The story seems half fanciful, but half believable. I'd google around for it but work calls.

  5. Re:Question on Ameritrade Customer Data Lost · · Score: 1

    It's not highly unlikely.

    At my workplace, one of our backup clients requires encryption to be used, and it's simply a checkmark in the Netbackup config. The data is encrypted both across the wire and on the tape.

    Do most of them use this? No. Most of them don't need to, though.

  6. Re:What about older hardware! on Kernel Changes Draw Concern · · Score: 1

    or

    c) doesn't care about their bash prompt, many people don't

  7. Re:High cheese factor on Revenge of the Sith TV Spots Revealed · · Score: 1

    I would agree 100% as well - but I don't think that given his current actions (Jar Jar, all-digital Yoda, etc) that Lucas thinks that anymore.

    Since he calls the shots, and has an affinity for the all-digital, then it's not logical to say he doesn't create more decidedly unhuman aliens simply because he'd have to use digital effects to do so.

  8. Re:High cheese factor on Revenge of the Sith TV Spots Revealed · · Score: 1

    This is Lucas we're talking about.

    The nonhumanity of CGI actors is not a blocking point for him.

  9. Re:DNS practices --- CHANGE THE !@#$%^& serial on Providers Ignoring DNS TTL? · · Score: 1

    The TTL operates entirely around the serial number.

    The DNS server that has cached the value knows three things - it has a cached value good until time X, with serial number 12345, and the record is Y.abc.com=Z.

    When the TTL gets close (halfway, I believe is the standard), the caching server asks what the current serial nuber is. This is more efficient than asking per record, because per the spec, you can't change records without changing the serial number. No serial change, no change to recache.

  10. Re:wow.. on The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir · · Score: 4, Informative

    Card catalogs, in conjunction with the encyclopedia to help you figure out what kind of things you should be looking for.

    Jot down a half dozen promising looking titles, go grab said books, skim their indicies or tables of contents. Winnow it down to what looks promising and start reading.

    There's still a hell of a lot out there that's not in Google, it's kind of sad/scary the way that it's becoming unknown if it's not in Google.

    That being said, I wouldn't go back for all the m oney in the world. Better to go forward, to get better and more comprehensive indexes.

  11. Re:In other words... on The Philanthropic Arm of Google · · Score: 1

    I thought that was the case as well - I know that a long time ago I filtered out Anime because it was starting to become Animedot, but I'll be damned if I can find it in the preferences now.

    Sure, you can block out overall sections (YRO, Linux, Apache, etc) but not topics... not unless I've gone blind.

  12. Re:IT'S NOT A WEEK AT /. WITHOUT THIS STORY! on America's Not So Up to Speed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lower standard of living? Interesting assertion.

    What's your prime metric? Percentage of encarcerated adults? Deaths due to firearms? Bankruptcy due to medical expenses?

  13. Re:A few points on Microsoft Releases Public Beta of Data Protection · · Score: 1

    True, but you're talking about a very limited window.

    The usual place for a broken mirror backup is in an OS upgrade, I've found.

    You break the mirror, apply the patches to one half, and test. If things went down shit creek, you re-sync with the old mirror as primary. If it's fine, you re-sync with the new mirror as primary.

    That's an outage window of about two hours.

    In addition, you also use full mksysb's or OS level backups so you can still do a bare metal restore if things went really screwball... but since you never proceed with any warnings extant from EITHER part of the mirror, that's exceedingly rare, and it beats the crap out of taking the entire system down for a naked backup.

  14. Re:A few points on Microsoft Releases Public Beta of Data Protection · · Score: 2, Informative

    You've never heard of using broken mirrors, I take it?

    Zero downtime. Instant backup for a change. Sure, you need RAID-1 for it, but disk is cheap compared to the data on it.

    Also, various products have quite capable open file managers. We use Veritas Netbackup at my workplace, and it's excellent, cross platform and high performance.

  15. Re:Memo received on Online Freedom of Speech Act Introduced in House · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Threads like this really need "-1, Asshole having a bad hair day" moderation option.

  16. Re:I was reading the it... on New York Computerizes its Subway System · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Skytrain in Vancouver BC is completely automated, and it works well.

    The doors have "pinch" sensors, and while people can use them to get the door to re-open, it only re-opens three times until the system flags a central operator. Usually people start yelling after the second time.

    In emergencies, there's a panic strip and a comm system, and cameras.

    There are control panels, but they're only used when something bizarre has happened on the track and manual routing is needed.

  17. Re:Literal bugs on Keyboards are Havens for Super Bugs · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yup. I once worked in a "historical" building that was infested with roaches.

    One of them laid an egg sac in the keys, and the next morning when I started to type, dozens of baby roaches boiled out of the keyboard.

    I threw that one out the window.

  18. Re:The problem with Google-like solutions: on Google Adds Satellite Imagery to Maps · · Score: 1

    That's fine for line maps - not so fine for flipping over to the satellite view.

  19. Re:Of course it's not on U.S. to Require Passport To Re-Enter Country · · Score: 1

    My general experience of recent years...

    "Place of residence?"
    "How long were you in the US?"
    "What was the purpose of your visit?"
    "Anything to declare?"

    That's accurate as of February, this year.

  20. Re:Whats all the fuss about? on Verisign Recommended to Keep .com & .net · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is NOT a trivial correction, either.

    The GP makes it sound like it affected only web access. This was certainly not the case.

    As an example, all sorts of DNS based tests around if a sending domain really existed started failing, removing one of the spam-blocker's methods of determining if a message is legit (IE: reject from unknown domains).

    NXDOMAIN is in the spec for a reason, and Verisign hardly even got their hand slapped for breaking it.

  21. Re:Fantasy and reality on Senator Clinton Slams GTA · · Score: 1

    If that's the study I think it is, I still feel it's flawed.

    They tested the kids play WITHOUT video games AFTER taking them away.

    It completely overlooks the fact that the kids are going to be pissed off that you took their videogames away, and made them do something less fun!

  22. Re:No Games at Launch... on PSP Reception Lukewarm in US? · · Score: 1

    I agree - the thing that is still keeping me from buying one is that up here in Canada, Future Shop is the easiest place to get it at, and all the combos include some fricking sports game.

    Why can't I just get the damn thing a la carte?
    - PSP (NO 32MB stick)
    - carrying case, headphones
    - antiscratch applique
    - 512MB stick
    and a decent, non-sports game

  23. Re:Ultraportable Email on Ultaportable Apps: Take Your Thumbware Anywhere · · Score: 1

    It does have a "plain HTML" interface now, too.

  24. Re:Its the weight that concerns me. on World's First Fuel-Cell Motorcycle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, but if you're ever in a highway accident on that Vespa, there won't be enough left of you to put in a taco.

    The situation is hardly better if on a motorcycle.

  25. Re:Homeopathy. on 13 Things That Do Not Make Sense · · Score: 5, Informative

    I thought the homeopathic test was performed on white blood cells in a solution - not in a body, leaving no possibility for the mind to affect it.