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User: neomunk

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  1. Re:I care more about this than net neutrality on Congressmen Send Letters, Hope For Net Neutrality Fades · · Score: 1

    Q: How many people with rifles does it take to down one B2 bomber?
    A: Every last one of them, and the McGovernment won't be as kind about letting the citizenry pretend to be able to defend itself anymore.

  2. Re:I care more about this than net neutrality on Congressmen Send Letters, Hope For Net Neutrality Fades · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't think as many people were opposed to it as made to appear on Big Media infotainment outlets.

    Polls showed differing numbers, depending on how the questions were asked (even more deviant than normal) and the big "NO" polls were asking in a more or less roundabout way about a government takeover of healthcare, which Obamacare is most certainly not, so the Democrats went for it.

    The people that are screaming about government taking over healthcare are/were already going to vote against Democrats out of ideology, it's why they so readily believe the lie that anything this President or this Congress has done so far is "socialist" or even more hilarious "communist".

    Personally, I think Obamacare is a joke, but for pretty much the exact opposite reasons that people were railing against it. It's uber-capitalism (well, uber-modern-capitalism anyway, we all know it's different than Adam Smith's vision) in an area where I believe a more social touch is needed.

  3. Re:Protect Those Morons ... for some reason on Tabnapping Scams Around the Corner? · · Score: 1

    Personally, I think the jury remains out on whether intelligence of the kind humans possess represents an evolutionary advantage in the long term.

    Not if you take the phrase "long term" and extrapolate what that really means. I think that human intelligence is/will be needed if higher life is to survive on any real "long term". It would help greatly in surviving a truly catastrophic (read: apocalyptic) natural disaster, and is utterly required for the species to survive something on the order of Earth's destruction.

    Maybe it's not that beneficial to mid-term survival (or at least not PERSONALLY beneficial, the benefits of intelligence being mostly shared with the community at large) but in an actual long-haul look at survivability, I think it's the ONLY beneficial mutation that will matter.

    This is assuming, of course, that sea turtles don't become space turtles before the evolutionary make-or-break event comes to pass.

  4. Re:Ridiculous on Researcher Discovers ATM Hack, Gets Silenced · · Score: 1

    The argument being made isn't that people should get hacked, so this should be released. The argument being made is that by withholding this information corporate complacency will allow whoever is ALREADY using this exploit to continue to do so (as it has for the past 8 months). Your argument falls down from the point of view that releasing the information will force the company to promptly issue a fix for the vulnerability. In fact, your point of view is only valid if the company cannot or will not patch the exploit. Security through obscurity is a joke, plain and simple, trying to strengthen security via ARTIFICIAL obscurity is just plain desperate. If you really care about your accounts, push for fixes not whitewashes.

    So, I say, for the sake of protecting the customer, this should be released.

  5. Re:OS patches? on Revisiting the Five-Minute Rule · · Score: 1

    Well, yeah, sometimes. You'll NEVER engineer perfection, but you can do your best to make the ease-of-use / ease-of-misuse comparison as unbalanced as possible.

    There isn't a PERFECT solution to any social problem, but much like requiring keys for cars, there are steps you can take to mitigate the issue, maybe not to nonexistence, but it's better than nothing. Imagine being able to tell the stereotypical PC-ignorant grandmother that she can click on whatever she wants to out there in the web, but to never touch that switch without instructions from you (or your patch-Tuesday checking robomailer). It wouldn't be perfect, there would still be viruses, but I'd be willing to bet that we also wouldn't have botnets competing for "world's biggest supercomputer" status.

  6. Re:OS patches? on Revisiting the Five-Minute Rule · · Score: 1

    You can't see a way to make flipping a hardware switch feasible, just because it's a home PC? Not even by putting the toggle within reach of the user behind a little door or something? C'mon, think!

  7. Re:Too much detail on Prof. Nesson Ordered To Show Cause · · Score: 1

    *raises hand*

    I'm a 6 digit UID with an old 5 digit UID floating around somewhere, in the 40ks IIRC, back from when I used to live in Ypsilanti. Some theme on The Reaper (my BBS handle back in the day) or Mister Grimm or something like that... good times, good times.

  8. Re:Funny but wrong on Microsoft Warns of New Video ActiveX Vulnerability · · Score: 1

    Then those people should read the source, or ask/hire someone they DO trust to do it for them.

  9. Re:Colour me surprised on Goldman Sachs Trading Source Code In the Wild? · · Score: 5, Funny

    Linux isn't GOOD by nature. It's not BAD either.

    It's like The Force, you see. All around us, binding our processes behind the scenes in ways it takes an enlightened eye to perceive. There is always Linux prodding along the information swirls and eddies that make up our modern lives, unconcerned with the nature or usage of said information.

    Windows is like The Force too, except I've never heard a Windows acolyte preach any path other than the quicker, easier, more seductive one...

  10. Re:OS patches? on Revisiting the Five-Minute Rule · · Score: 1

    Presumably by the tech flipping a hardware rw/ro switch on the drive after proper isolation conditions are met.

    Yes it's a pain, but much like dentistry it's a preventative pain that spreads a small controlled annoyance over a planned schedule as opposed to a big problem cropping up all at once unexpectedly (and usually at the worst possible time).

  11. Re:They can't stand free trade? on 100 Million Used Games Traded Each Year In the US · · Score: 1

    Hey kid, check out how well DRM does it's job and then come back and let us know new job you want to grow up and make money doing some day.

    And seriously now, just because YOU hope to make money doing something some day none of us are obligated to change our lives in any way to accommodate you. Come to think of it, with the "okay, you exercised your rights, now face my wrath!" attitude you ARE going into the right profession... Look into record company exec and movie producer too.

  12. Re:Real Money vs. Wishful Thinking on The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software · · Score: 1

    Now you're just shilling, and you're doing it with that "edgy" attitude that indicates you watched too much powerpuffgirls as a child.

    It's cool, I won't get in the way of your little crusade to take on facts while wielding your mighty ability to use the word fail as a noun. You can make up all the personal anecdotes you'd like about your uber-cheap uber-skillful programming, I'm just going to wander back over into the real world, where the malware problem is almost exclusively a Windows issue.

    Have fun with your "more productive" tools, and if you keep sprinkling that mixture of fairydust and powdered unicorn-horn your Windows installations will be secure forever.

  13. Re:correct on In Canada, No Expectation of Privacy On the Net · · Score: 3, Funny

    You do realize that you come off sounding like a guy in a pedobear suit when you say it like that, right?

  14. Re:You cannot use viruses/bugs as an example of co on The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm very curious as to whether that shop you mentioned fits within Microsoft's "TCO" calculations. I'd be willing to be that the company you're talking about goes far above and beyond what Microsoft says an outfit of that size and function should cost. Yes, it is possible to secure a Windows working environment, but as soon as you do you start to find that the other arguments Microsoft relies upon begin falling down. As soon as you start to build effective security your system starts to get harder to maintain compatibility, it starts to get more expensive to hire/train staff, and it starts being less user friendly.

    This is just my personal experience matched up to yours, and it's worth just as much (nearly nothing). You want to know the real truth of the matter? Step the anecdotes back for a second and look at things more generally. HOW much is spent per year by businesses in general (not your pet data point) cleaning up malware? HOW much business is lost before it can be cleaned up properly? These numbers are so obnoxiously larger than the 0 you're subtly suggesting that I find the "IQ of a sponge" comment amusingly ironic.

  15. Real Money vs. Wishful Thinking on The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but the savings you get from hiring inexpensive (read: incompetent) staff is being reflected in Microsoft's TCO calculations (represented by charging more for *nix admins). If you want to ignore the costs of malware, you're going to have to REDUCE the costs of malware, and that's going to increase the cost of staff, as they will need to be better trained, and thus, more expensive.

    Your arguments come across to me as someone who wants to do something they know has a significant chance of failing, but only count the successes when someone asks how well that something works. Malware is a real cost, and by that I mean costs real money. All the foot stomping in the world isn't going to pay these real costs, so counting how much it's going to cost (or at least estimating on past experiences) when planning your budget is the only rational way to do things. You might get away with proclaiming that malware costs just don't count in some Marketing department some where, but if you went to Accounting with that same line, they'd point and laugh at you.

  16. Re:Am I the only one on Google Mistook Jackson Searches For Net Attack · · Score: 1

    Oh, c'mon. Zombies would not be nearly as ubiquitous in modern culture without MJ's groundbreaking documentary on the subject.

  17. Re:another way to look at it on The Internet Helps Iran Silence Activists · · Score: 2, Funny

    Posting to undo accidental redundant mod...

    A first post that expresses an opinion other than letting us know the temperature of some urine, and I go and hit redundant of all things. Sorry.

  18. Re:Dumb question... on Intel Demos Wireless "Resonant" Recharging · · Score: 2, Interesting

    80% power efficiency.
     

  19. '-MY- party is the actual saviour!' and other lies on EFF and PK Reluctantly Drop Lawsuit For ACTA Info · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The party flag you're waving seems to have flapped in front of your eyes.

    One more time, for the slow kids... BOTH MAJOR U.S. PARTIES ARE CORRUPT. The Republicans are going to vote for this just as surely as the Democrats will. You and your "loyalist" (remember where we've used that word before, historically?) friends are just as slow on the uptake as the people who still think that Obama represents some kind of "change". Our only hope as a nation is to band together and shed ourselves of both infected limbs. Unfortunately the "my party is better than your party" games are apparently too fun, and will continue until we are inconsequential at best.

    I know you don't want to hear it, and you've got "but but but" trembling on your lips, but it's so obvious that people really have to WANT to believe in their party to avoid seeing the (very thinly veiled) truth. The simple fact is that, like the Democrats before you, hoping that YOUR party is going to come to the rescue is the utmost in childlike naivety. Hell, it was even oh-so-slightly understandable from the Democrats, because at least that party was PRETENDING they were going to change to course of the nation, no matter how transparent that lie was (voting records are more indicative than speeches), you Republicans have nothing to offer by way of rhetoric other than "the Democrats suck" and some vague and uneducated mumbling about communism.

    In short, stop the Republican trumpet call, it will do nothing but fail you, just as it failed you with Bush, just as the Democrats were failed by Obama and Clinton. The partisan squabbling does nothing other than to cement the control of those who don't give the slightest thought toward neither your wellbeing nor your freedom.

  20. Re:Get rid of our horrible tax system on Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US · · Score: 1

    I'm frankly tired of this strawman argument. What once again sounds like common sense coming from talking points memos falls apart at the slightest realistic glimpse.

    Here.

    I'll summarize because you're probably not going to read it.

    3 main points:

    1. The vast majority of subprime loans were originated by institutions not subject to CRA oversight.

    2. If you add up to the total value of all subprime loans, not just those in default, but all of them, the figure you get is about $1.5 trillion, an insignificant portion of the current crash's losses. Remember, that's all the loans, not the bad ones.

    3. (this is the point that shatters your argument) The rate of loan default in CRA-generated mortgages is much lower than the national average.

    Frankly, main street didn't have either the money or influence to pull off the activities you're trying to credit them with.

  21. Re:Get rid of our horrible tax system on Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know, cause the Republicans and George W Bush are evil.

    Or it might be because 30 years of supply-side greedfest has destroyed our economy... One of the two. Yeah, it's probably because they're evil though, because slashdotters are too stupid to notice something like economics but we all consult our priests and/or crystal balls daily.

    Nid ad hominem though, I really felt part of a group there for a second.

  22. Re:Nurse != Secretary on Hospital Turns Away Ambulances When Computers Go Down · · Score: 1

    I apologize for the rudeness (I was having a bad morning). I also concur with your conclusion.

  23. Re:Make 'em pay on Internet Tax Approved By Louisiana House · · Score: 1

    ...your statist dreams...

    [citation needed]

    Not everyone to the left of you is a Communist. I believe that society is a beneficial enough structure to support, that's only radical in the eyes of an extremist.

  24. Re:HAHAHA! on Internet Tax Approved By Louisiana House · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    You should vote outside of your bi-partisan system. It's not a wasted vote if everyone else realises this.

    That's what I keep telling people. Unfortunately most people have bought the "wasted vote" lie hook, line and sinker. Last election I managed to successfully convince quite a few people that their ideal candidate was either Cynthia McKinney(G), Bob Barr(L), Ron Paul(L masquerading as R) or Dennis Kucinich(G or S masquerading as D). Some even said they plan on voting for such, but later told me that they didn't want their vote to be wasted. Many were convinced that a vote for McKinney was a vote for McCain and a vote for Barr was a vote for Obama. Therein lies the crux of the matter. People SEE the feedback loop that keeps our duopoly in power, but their response to it is to feed it further, as not to miss the bandwagon.

    I myself ended up offering my vote up to the malignant gods of political maneuvering when I voted McKinney. I would rather have voted Kucinich, but I gave my vote to the Greens in order to strengthen a 3rd party. It wasn't all that bad though, as I believe I would have been pleased by a McKinney administration.

  25. Re:Make 'em pay on Internet Tax Approved By Louisiana House · · Score: 1, Troll

    Somalia is the answer to your wildest Libertarian dreams... Bon Voyage, and good luck.