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User: Bing+Tsher+E

Bing+Tsher+E's activity in the archive.

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  1. Re:When Will Politicians Wake Up? on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 1

    but I cannot believe that anyone in the current administration has any misconceptions that they are not destroying the country for their own short term gains.

    At least you're willing to admit it's a belief system.

    I, on the other hand, don't have that hard a time believing there are people out there believing in nutty conspiracy theories that 'the other side' is out to just ruin the whole world.

    You need to get out, see more of life, and quit talking to your narrow circle of friends who all think the same way as you do. Go bowling or something. (yes, I know, 'dumb proletarian bowling' and you're an intellectual....)

  2. Re:wrong question on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 2, Funny

    What do you do when the all-electronic system says that more votes were cast than the number of registered voters in the precinct?

    In Massachusetts I am sure you just wink at Ted Kennedy.

  3. Re:Diebold lobbied slashdot... on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 1

    You know, that's an excellent idea. And I am sure that there is a USB port just hanging out in the open on these machines and they're configured to boot anything plugged into the port.

    Come on....

  4. Re:Diebold lobbied slashdot... on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 1

    What you're really saying is you're mad this isn't algore's second term, right?

  5. Re:Diebold lobbied slashdot... on Worst Ever Security Flaw in Diebold Voting Machine · · Score: 1

    Your number is a bit low. It's more likely Democracy ended when the people running the country stopped being called "Statesmen" and became "Politicians".

    True, but he was mainly saying 'democracy ended when the candidate *he* voted for didn't win.' He's a Democrat, you see.

  6. Re:My first HD on 50th Anniversary of the First Hard Drive · · Score: 1

    He means that he predicts it would still work, if he chased down a controller card to interface it to a system. I, on the other hand, have machines with drives of that age and earlier installed in systems that I could switch on.

    There is somewhat of a shortage of ST-506 interface drives these days, and hopefully someday his will go to somebody who can use it.

  7. Re:Why bother? on Options for 'Fixing' A Pirated Copy of Windows · · Score: 1

    You should probably try to find a copy of Henry David Thoreau's book 'Civil Disobedience' before we proceed in this conversation.

  8. Re:...and when was the first hard drive crash? on 50th Anniversary of the First Hard Drive · · Score: 1

    Windows 1.02 runs nicely on an old 'lunchbox' portable. Find a Compaq Portable III if you can.

  9. Re:Let me kick this off on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 2, Funny

    Our dog hates birds and squirrels.

  10. Re:...and when was the first hard drive crash? on 50th Anniversary of the First Hard Drive · · Score: 1

    When Bill Gates first introduced Windows, it was small enough to run off floppy disks. I know, because I ran it for a few purposes back then.

  11. Re:Let me kick this off on Stem Cells - The Hope and the Hype · · Score: 1

    Okay, you've kicked off the 'hate Bush.... whatever' thread.

  12. Re:Why bother? on Options for 'Fixing' A Pirated Copy of Windows · · Score: 1

    Civil disobedience involves explicitly disobeying a law that you diagree with in such a fashion that you are arrested. It has nothing to do with secretly 'cracking' a piece of software and quietly making use of it. Now, if you want to crack your Windows CD and then sit in the main lobby of the Microsoft Building in Redmond running Windows on your notebook computer wearing a t-shirt that reads 'my copy is illegal' and face the consequences, that would be different.

  13. Re:Why bother? on Options for 'Fixing' A Pirated Copy of Windows · · Score: 1

    If copyrights are shortened to five years, that means all that good source code from Linux as it existed in 2001 is now free, correct? I can start from a 2001 version of Linux, or any GPL'd software and fork it, adding my extensions, and release it withouth source code.

    That's what you're talking about, right?

  14. Re:corrupt locat and state governments?! on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    Indeed. There is a need for national reform. It can start with broad-based cutbacks in the power government has to allocate money for expensive projects. There is a level of 'infrastructure' that the government can and should provide, but then there is a point where the government needs to just be cut out and removed.

    Reforms like the intitiative in congress right now to remove 'earmarking' from bills is a big step forward in this regard. Tax reform and tax elimination ("cut off the bureaucrats air supply") is another. And a bright shining light should be aimed at any government/business/trade-union interaction. There's simply no excuse for Government/Union or Government/Corporate graft and influence peddling.

    'Everybody is doing it' is indeed the case. Shut down the whole operation.

  15. Re:Better idea: Generic graphics interface on Could Graphics Drivers be Included on the Card? · · Score: 1

    display-related functions to the GPU (including that eMail client or browser)

    Better yet, set up email servers on all the functional modules of your computer. Implement ethernet on everything. Then when you hit a key on the keyboard, the email client on your 'keyboard interface module' would send an email message to it's server, which would forward it to the email server on your CPU module. The CPU module would then send email to it's email server which would forward it to the email server on the 'display interface module.' Instead of needing a big expensive box to house your CPU, you could have a bunch of little boxes all plugged into your ethernet hub.

    If you were in a setting where you didn't want a noisy hard drive or CPU module near you, you could relocate those modules in, say Des Moine, Iowa, and sit comfortably at your desk in Cleveland and utilize them.

    The possibilities for spammers alone make this method shockingly attractive.

    I definitely don't want another 'mere' API or library, either. The world should be my oyster.

  16. Re:TI / Apple had this on Could Graphics Drivers be Included on the Card? · · Score: 1

    That's called a 'BIOS extension' and many ISA cards that plug into the IBM-PC had it going back to the beginning. There was a list of 'starting addresses' that the main BIOS was supposed to scan for a signature byte, and if the signature was there the BIOS would jump to the ROM on the add-in card. The ROM on the addin card thus became an extension to the BIOS on the motherboard.

    All graphics cards use this, and tons of other cards have going back to the advent of the IBM-PC.

  17. Re:Handspring already does this on Could Graphics Drivers be Included on the Card? · · Score: 1

    When I plugged my first Western-Digital 8-bit hard drive controller card into my PC-XT clone motherboard, it similary installed the software automatically (BIOS extension, maaaan). And that was back in the 80's.

  18. Re:Another way to open drivers on Could Graphics Drivers be Included on the Card? · · Score: 1

    I only had to go to the first link your provided to see the problem.

    I don't run Linux. Where is the ATI NetBSD page? ...and your point was?

  19. Re:Another way to open drivers on Could Graphics Drivers be Included on the Card? · · Score: 1

    Sure. And then I can sue the hardware makers when they don't release a version of their drivers that will run under NetBSD on a StrongARM-based ATC motherboard like the Chalice CATS.

    Oh, and I'll move on, then, to demanding drivers for Windows NT for my PPC system (actually an IBM RS/6000 'bastard-stepchild') that runs NT 4.0 on a PREP motherboard (which has PCI slots).

    Your justification for a lawsuit is 'if it plugs in, we should be able to sue if it doesn't work' correct??

  20. Re:MS won't play ball... on Could Graphics Drivers be Included on the Card? · · Score: 1

    I bought Microsoft BRAND USB Speakers in about 1998.

    They still work just fine. It was nice back-in-the-day to not have to screw around at all with having a sound card, and it's still quite nice. Every version of Windows has recognized it immediately after an install, and some of the fancier versions of Linux do as well.

    Microsoft was well aware of USB just as soon as Apple was. However, they don't control the hardware scene the way Apple can control it's little corner of the hardware scene.

    To be frank, 'USB' in it's earliest retail setting was just something that 'plumped up' the tiny half aisle of Macintosh-related hardware/software in most computer stores.

  21. Re:A good idea with flawed execution on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    The second problem is that by the mid-seventies, as engineers had digested thirty years of highway building, their legs were cut out from under them by grass roots activists, environmentalists, and politicians who decided not building any more highways was the best thing. This "NIMBY" attitude

    That isn't accurately called a 'NIMBY' attitude. NIMBY is when local people in an area refuse to consider a needed change because of how it directly impacts their local area. What you describe is an ideology of No-Growth-Is-Good whose proponents believe in 'pinching off growth' by denying needed transportation infrastructure improvements. These people believe in a different method ('public' transportation) and feel they can coerce other people into behaving the way they want them to by forcing things. It's profoundly undemocratic elitist thinking. Quite popular with intellectuals and other members of the ruling class.

  22. Re:QA's failure more likely on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    It is unbelivable depressing sometimes to work at a firm where there are rows and rows of 'engineers' up on second floor, their backs sloped over their keyboard, peering up at 3-D renderings of 'parts' that they seldom, if ever, handle in real life. Down on first floor the 'test lab' deals with the mess created in China with the parts the 'CAD-pilots' generate drawings for. In the model shop, the whizz of the dremel tool can be heard as hapless technicians and 'coop students' rework the mess the 'engineers' have created. And the CAD-pilots sit up in their cubes oblivious to it all, twirling 3-D renderings around listlessly with their mouse pointer and waiting for 4:30 to come around so they can head out to the parking lot.

    'To Engineer' was never meant to signify poking around with a mouse on a Nintendo-on-steroids computer system.

  23. Re:QA's failure more likely on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    Epoxy is NOT a magic bullet where you just super glue the stuff together and it's automaticaly invincible.

    Epoxy and 'Super Glue' are completely different materials, applied in completely different ways. Your shorthand mixing of the two together in your comment shows ignorance.

    But there's no need to continue to use 50 year old construction techiniques that require huge amounts of manpower and multiple rework just because some guys on the ground refuse to update their work practices.

    Certainly not. There are other, much more valid reasons to 'use 50 year old construction techniques' such as that they are proven reliable and have a 50-200 year history of reliability. No amount of handwaving or 'old=bad' 'new=good' cheering erases that.

    You sound like one of those guys who latches on an idea (i.e. 'everything should be digital') and won't listen to experience or tradition in any instance. Thank goodness in most cases there are more experienced people involved to slap down the eager puppies.

  24. Re:corrupt locat and state governments?! on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    Massachusetts is one of the 'bluest of the blue' states. It has very strong relations between 'organized labor' and the political structure. It is properly known as having one of the most graft-ridden bureaucracies.

    It's an 'old' state with musty, aged halls of government. All sorts of creepy growths develop within such structures.

    The whole place needs to be flushed out with some rigorous reform measures. Unfortunately that would probably mean tearing the whole bureaucracy down and rebuilding from scratch. Which won't ever happen.

    It's important to call a spade a spade, however, and not mince words about "honorable politicians serving the people's will" or similar nonsense.

  25. Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... on Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? · · Score: 1

    Sometimes only three words are needed to 'blow away' a bunch of quibbling. Management forging engineering documents is illegal. On a much more serious level than 'jaywalking' is illegal.

    It's hard not to characterize some of you as a pack of trolls chipping away at any reasonable point being made in the discussion.

    My cynical side knows that there's probably a snippy little response one of you can make to this comment.