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User: Zantetsuken

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  1. Re:Very interesting on Activating Vista Enterprise Using a Spoofed Server · · Score: 1

    I would think it would depend on what level of the organization the OS is for - the secretaries for the lower end might end up with the crappy Dell machines (which in a year or so will be loaded with Vista) that get bought every year or 2 just to use up the budget (so it doesn't get cut from not using it). However, on the higher, more secure, secret, etc end I've no doubt as you said that the code has been looked over down to the binary level of each character in the source, and the binary level in compiled code, etc, etc...

    At that point, wouldn't it be easier to use an open-source unix-type system (unix, linux, bsd) and customize the code to high-heaven?

  2. Re:Not for home use... on IEEE Sets Sights on 100G Ethernet · · Score: 1

    where do you work? a map-making company or professional high-res (REALLY high) photography?

  3. Re:I am impressed on Review of New Xandros 4.1 Professional Linux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The way I see it is like this: what will the rest of the world using Windows ver:Whatever go to if Microsoft goes in the deep end/bites the dust - suddenly the only people making anything for Windows are the 3rd party application and gaming industry. That means no more security updates - leaving 90% of the average computer using world vulnerable to spyware, viruses, and script-kiddies "You've been H4XX0R3D!11!!??!"

    *IF* such a case were to happen, and beings that Apple with their Mac OS-X runs only on Mac hardware (which costs a bundle compared to normal PC hardware), and that I don't see everybody running out to buy a Mac ("But this computer worked fine, now I need a Mac?") I would say OS-X is kinda out of the question the way things are.

    Since OSX is out of the picture now as an OS to convert to, that leaves Linux and BSD variants. Out of the 2, I would think that Linux would be more likely for 2 big reasons. 1: more people currently use Linux than BSD as far as I know right now. 2: even among people that aren't at all geeky (and don't want to be), I can bet you more people have at least heard of Linux running on servers and whatnot - and even if they haven't heard of Linux, mention it and they'll go "What the heck is that?" - whereas if you try to tell them about BSD, I can see a person saying something like "BSD? What is that, the new name for LSD/Acid?"

    Now that we've for sure narrowed it down to Linux, people will want to know which distro is most compatible with their Windows apps (you actually expected people to realize there are OSS alternatives?) which distribution is most user-friendly (not even having to user CLI - ever, because it has a front-end application to manipulate configuration files with check-boxes and radio buttons), and which distro works best out of the box (mp3, mpg, etc playback) which I would include with user-friendly.

    And from the way I see it - *THAT* is why (or at least partly why) there is continually a search for a Linux competitor to WindowsXP and Vista (or whatever version is out or coming out).

  4. Novell developed OOo? I thought that was Sun... on Novell "Forking" OpenOffice.org · · Score: 2, Informative

    Novell developed OOo? This is news to me - I thought it was Sun (Microsystems) that open-sourced their Star-Office suite (so that now Star-Office is a commercialized version of OOo). What in the name of Java did I miss here? I don't think I mis-read any of the literature on OOo - and another thing, if Sun made Java which is supposedly a crap language anymore (by /. anyway - not that I know, I'm not a programmer), and OOo is full of Java - wouldn't it be full of Java because Sun wants to keep Java in *something* so they can say that Java isn't dead? (again, not that I'm saying Java is in fact dead, but like I said, it sounds like most /.ers wish it was)

  5. Re:Teh Interwebs on Another NASA Hacker Indicted · · Score: 1
    When I read articles like this one, it makes me wonder what classification of information was compromised. I highly doubt it's DoD Secret or greater and if it's less than that, the damage caused by this information landing in the wrong hands is probably minimal, though disconcerting.
    So quite possibly, its just more fud from an anti-US government "news-service" (I think it was zdnet)...
  6. Re:'Targeting Firefox Users'? on Yahoo Pushing IE7 On Firefox Users · · Score: 1

    Well, I was going to post it in my own original thread since I hadn't seen it yet - that they want people to download and use IE7 so that the next time they visit yahoo they get all of yahoo's crap-ware installed. But this is the first post on this page that has said anything about the sponsored IE7 download pre-including the crap...

  7. Re:Waitaminute... on Civil UAVs Still A Distant Prospect · · Score: 1

    it took me a while to figure out what you were saying with the "Hitchcock" part - aside from killing Little Billy, that would be pretty damned funny to watch

  8. Re:Waitaminute... on Civil UAVs Still A Distant Prospect · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm no radio communications expert, but couldn't an autopilot software be written so that in this case of it going out of range, it would perform the 180 as you say, and then possible hunt for the origin of the radio frequency its on by where the stronger signal is, and be at least a bit more precise in returning to the ground transmission antenna instead of just making a 180 when you could be 45 degrees in a different direction?

  9. Re:Excellent! on Psiphon Now Available For Download · · Score: 1

    It kinda sucks the parent posted AC, because in my opinion, he should be in mod-point heaven.

    Yes, you certainly do have the right to free speech - but not when it infringes on other people's rights and physical safety. If you still disagree, how would you like it if you or one of your family or friends works as an under-cover police officer, and I went and blabbed my mouth off as to what they do, their name, city, etc - resulting in them being found on the bottom of a riverbed. Its fairly close to the same thing - somebody starts shouting out "Hey, we have troops moving into this city to quell guerilla fighters!" What do you think will happen? Either the guerillas will know to wait and ambush, or to simply leave the day before and it takes another 2 weeks to find this group carrying RPG's around the middle east...

  10. How many Windows users have heard of Vista? on John Dvorak On Vista's Launch · · Score: 1

    While I definitely agree /. needs to stop posting Dvorak's crap, this does bring up a good point.

    The summary says "there seems to be no excitement level at all" - I think that for the average Joe, its not so much that they aren't looking forward to Vista as they don't even have a clue it's out there. Although MS has Vista allover there website(s) (and others - example, nVidia) and even looks like they are redesigning almost all of their sites to have the Vista styling - they haven't marketed it for dog-crap to the average Joe (as in on TV, magazines, website ads, etc)...

    Personally, I hate what Vista looks like it will be released as - but I would prefer responses not be about "OSX is better", "Linux is better", or "XP is crap and needs replaced" - I want to examine the marketing/PR aspect of Vista here and just how little of MS's marketing war-machine they have(n't) put behind getting the average Joe to realize what his PC is likely to run in the next year or 2...

  11. Re:GNOME usability has several elements on Birmingham To Buy More, Not Less Open Source · · Score: 1

    I disagree with a *LOT* of your "hiding config options" arguement: for example, KDE can display a panel perfectly fine using a reduced portion of the screen, and even aligned to left, center, or right. Now why can't GNOME do that?

    Maybe its because I want most of the panel and desktop settings *exactly* the way I want them, or maybe its because of using Windows since at least 96' or so and being used to having to use dialog boxes with tons of options which you only find out what they do by playing with them - and so I actually prefer the cluttered dialog box setup. It's actually easier for me to only have one dialog box to open and switch tabs for different settings, whereas GNOME it seems like there is a different dialog box or front-end you have to run just for each setting for display and screen-saver.

  12. Re:Mac OS X is still more secure, BY FAR. on Apple Releases 31 Security Fixes · · Score: 1

    the problem I see with even this is simple. most users are simply dumb and/or lazy enough to not take the time to read the alert and simply click "yes" to every dialog box they see. so basically they get one that says (literally) "Do you want to turn your machine into a spam-sending zombie and steal your credit-card info?" [...] user clicks "yes" simply because they want to get back to reading their AOL or other crap email inbox, or go back to reading about Paris Hilton and whatever's going on in some foreign country or other...

  13. Re:Biological heating effects? on Acoustic Levitation Works On Small Animals · · Score: 1

    I'm by no means a physics professor, but I think the devices and mechanisms they are using are much more powerful than what is basically sonar (the kind used for checking unborn kids and looking for fish underwater on a boat)...

  14. Re:Not details, but strong suspicions. on BitTorrent Partners with TV and Movie Companies · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But what the gp said, is basically that since the technical side of BitTorrent (and other P2P) works by everybody having the same data to distribute. Now take into account that you can't lock/unlock something without storing the key in the file (how do you know they used the right password if you don't even have the right one?). This means that the binary and/or meta-data in the file would be different for each and every purchase, and so since everybody has different data, it can't be redistributed.

    The only other way (that I can see) to circumvent this by including the key in the purchased movie file(s) would be to put a few thousand keys in - but then you've opened up the inevitability of people extracting the license keys - making this type of system including a few thousand keys useful for only a short period of time, after which it works against what they want it to do.

    The closest solution I can see that would work would be to bloat the crap outta the Mainline BitTorrent client (and any other that wants to be legally compatible with this) and add video encoding/re-encoding capabilities - download the movie after purchasing your license, then wait an hour or 2 for the computer to re-encode the movie with the DRM and key that you purchased. The problem I see with this is people stopping the movie from being re-encoded and DRM'ed, and then having a movie from a legal service (except for breaching the terms of EULA by stopping DRM'ing) without any DRM on it - and oh yeah, I don't see people wanting to waste an hour or more waiting for their computer to put limitations on something...

  15. Re:But wait ... on Army Game Proves U.S. Can't Lose · · Score: 1

    which is what the first half of my comment was for - about the cluster bombs...

  16. Re:But wait ... on Army Game Proves U.S. Can't Lose · · Score: 1

    or as far as tank's go, you could just use clustered munitions. as for cities - fire-bombing the living-crap out of a city with incendiary bombs works, its what the allies did in WW2 - the practice of fire-bombing residential cities has been banned by international treaty since, though iirc, the US doesn't pay attention to this in its military strategy...

  17. Re:But wait ... on Army Game Proves U.S. Can't Lose · · Score: 1

    thinking of it that way - that the US would take the defense role, I've got to ask - have you played Namco's Ace Combat 5/zero on PS2? In it, there is a fictional country much like Nazi-Germany towards the latter half of WW2, which decides that it would rather drop nuke's on it's own soil to keep the rest of the fictional allied world from taking the last core part of their country.

    I brought it up wondering the possibility of the US nuking its own border-states (land border and coastal states) and receding inland as an absolute last ditch effort to keep from being invaded on land (or at least make a land invasion harder)... The thing that really sucks about any such possibility of a decision by a psychotic US military or political leader, is I'm in one of those land-border-states...

  18. Re:But wait ... on Army Game Proves U.S. Can't Lose · · Score: 1

    and even more so since the US practically designed and upheld military defenses from the USSR and Warsaw nations for the past 50 years or so. As you said, I don't see us attacking our friends either, but I also don't doubt that if for example some European nation decided to try a Nazi-Germany style blitz, the US wouldn't hesitate for a moment to use those tanks, A10's, F15's, B1's, B2's, B52's, etc stationed all over Europe for protection during the Cold War on whichever idiotic rogue nation got the brilliant idea of trying a blitz with the US on the other side...

  19. Re:But wait ... on Army Game Proves U.S. Can't Lose · · Score: 1

    I'm not eliminating the possibility that he is in fact the mid-20 something guy in his parent's basement - but perhaps, just *maybe* he's still in high school, or only a year or so past high school graduation and getting settled into college (or hell even community college) life???

    I'm not trying to flame at anybody here, but it just seems the general thing on /. that anytime somebody has the 5 or 10 minutes and the imagination to make that kind of post, they get automatically assumed to be 30+ living in their parent's basement...

  20. Re:Dynamic quests system for a MMORPG on Piercing the Veil On Bioware's MMOG · · Score: 1
    I can't remember which recent RPG or some type of MMO that it was had an NPC AI kinda like this - and they saw instances of 2 farmers (obviously with a set task of farming), and only 1 with a pitchfork (whatever farm tool the NPC required). It ended up one of the farmers killed the other for the tool...

    Ok, I got off my arse and looked in Wikipedia - it was Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion's originally slated NPC AI engine "Radiant AI".
    One character was given a rake and the goal "rake leaves"; another was given a broom and the goal "sweep paths," and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them killed the other so he could get the proper item.

    In one test, after a guard became hungry and left his post in search of food, the other guards followed to arrest him. The town people looted the town shops, due to lack of guards.
    Apparently it was such a pain to try and balance the goals and schedules, they ended up just using scheduled NPC AI for the actual release of the game...
  21. Re:Reboots / downloads for re-installs... on Why Vista Took So Long · · Score: 1

    I would think the manufacturers can't do it mostly because the machine will sit in a warehouse and on shelves for at least a month or 2 after being manufactured and the OS installed - so either they need to run the update software at the warehouse before shipping it out or do so at the retail outlet (Apple store, Best Buy, Comp USA, wherever the average joe is going to buy a Mac at) - and since most retail stores such as Best Buy and Comp USA aren't going to spend the time/man-hours/bandwidth/money to update every Mac in stock once or twice a month (especially when Mac sales are going to be comparatively dwarfed by PC sales in most retail stores), I don't see it really being effective to even think that they would do so...

  22. Re:The answer is simple - OpenSSH on Fedora Linux · · Score: 1

    I beg to differ - SSH and OpenSSH are network protocols, useful yes, but Fedora and RHEL are entire operating systems. While its true that a good part of the work is done by other parties such as primary kernel development, GNOME and KDE, etc, etc - but then again that's true of pretty much all Linux distro's, so I would consider it something of a moot point. While I'll admit I haven't been into Linux for very long, and I'm a mere end-desktop user - nowhere near having my own distro or even helping with one - but what I see Red Hat and the Fedora team doing is this:

    Red Hat made a solid enterprise class distro, and then made it open to public development - thus giving them free R&D. While some people might see it as that and *only* that, I would have to think they are purposely limiting their view on the matter - it's not just Red Hat getting free R&D for the next version of RHEL - it's the public community getting a free enterprise class Linux distro, along with the chance to use what can effectively be considered a training tool for using RHEL in a corporate environment. This means that if some huge bank uses RHEL for whatever, you can for the most part train for the basics on Fedora, which IMHO sure as hell beats having to go pay for a RHEL license for the year of courses you take in college for server admin. This being so, I would say the entry cost (that you spend to learn) for that bank position is much lower, thus being open to more people - and also possibly people that are more technically competent, maybe some of the people that can now apply for the position are Gentoo or Debian guru's...

    //End rant on distro's and business model...

  23. Re:Did you see CmdrTaco's review of the Zune? on Critical Review of the Zune · · Score: 1

    that and about 6 or 7 years of the buzzword "mp3" - yes mp3 was and still is a buzzword. Remember back when Napster was still piracy? IIRC, thats around when the mp3 format became REALLY big, and the buzzword continues today with any music player on the market - people say "mp3 player" and assume a flash memory device or hard-drive device such as the higher end players (iPod, Creative Zen, Archos, etc). So since it took this long to get everybody's grandparents to at least have heard the term "mp3" why would they introduce a new one when the sales on the current buzzword products are doing so good?

    aside from that, yes iirc Samsung or one of the other big brands was fined for not paying licensing to Fraunhaufer-whatever or other it is.

  24. Re:Fallout 1 and/or 2 on The Last Games You'd Play? · · Score: 1

    Those games truly kicked ass. I'll admit I was the type to save and reload (if I didn't get a high damage critical hit) for pretty much every shot towards the end of the game(s) - but in my defense, that was just about one of the only ways to get through that part of the game... Also, did anybody else experience MASSIVE game crashing bugs towards the end - you know, kinda like the game didn't want you to finish?

    There's nothing more fun than to shoot somebody's ribcage out or turn them into a blackened/fried skeleton with an electro-pulse rifle. Longlive the PiPboy!

  25. Re:This would be a fun project on NASA Playing With Unreal Engine For Virtual World · · Score: 1

    yes, because we all know nobody would then use that to have a free (beer) unreal engine...