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User: El

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  1. Smartcard? on A Universal Roaming Profile? · · Score: 2

    Wasn't this proposed several years ago, that everybody carry around a Smartcard with your security information and desktop environment? Unforunately, smartcard readers don't seem to have become ubiquitous in all computing devices. Still think it's a good idea, though. Functionally equivalent to the tiny USB disk drives, but smaller/cheaper/less memory.

  2. Words can't hurt? on WorldCom Forced To Block Questionable Sites · · Score: 3, Informative
    Words themselves never hurt, are never dangerous.

    So if I call you up and tell you I'm coming to your house to kill you, when do you call the police? a) Immediately b) After I get to your house c) After I enter your house d) After I kill you


    Fact is, words DO hurt, if the words constitute a credible threat of violence. That's why we have laws against phone harrasment. You say you were just excercising your free speech rights by repeatedly calling me up a 4AM??? I don't think so, and the law will put you in jail for doing so. You say you should be able to call up random women and talk dirty to them, you're just excercising your free speech rights? Again, the law disagrees with you, and you will go to jail. Sorry, but there is no such thing as an "absolute" right -- even your right to life is forfeited if you demonstrate you are enough of a danger to others.

  3. This is old news on Self-Cleaning Glass · · Score: 2

    This was announced last year here

  4. Mozart on "Squishy" DRM? · · Score: 2

    I beleive Mozart died broke, as he got paid very little for each composition.

  5. Re:Hawking on Physics Books for the Novice? · · Score: 2

    The Universe in a Nutshell, also by Hawking, has prettier pictures. All in all it's a slightly better book, although I found it annoyingly non-technical.

  6. What does "Linux support" mean? on Printer Makers' Ploys · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just about every network printer now supports LPR, which is a lousy protocol but is the defacto Unix "standard." What more do you want -- CUPS support?

  7. HP's business model on Bruce Perens Canned by HP · · Score: 2
    1) Piss off Hewlett & Packard's descendants, and all remaining advocates of "The HP way"


    2) Piss off Dell "we refuse to sell Dell our printers"


    3) Piss off the Open Source community and guarantee that nobody will use an HP box for a Linux server.


    4> ???


    5) Profit!


    This will go down in history as just another small footnote on the road to HP's filing for bankruptcy. Sort of sad, but the old HP we all used to love is dead already.

  8. Method to their madness? on MS Exec: 'Our products just aren't engineered for security' · · Score: 2
    M$ Marketing droid 1: Nobody's upgrading from Win2K to XP. What can we do?


    M$ Marketing droid 2: I know, let's admit that Win2K is full of security holes we don't have a clue how to fix! That will force everybody to upgrade!


    Can I possibly be the only person to have noticed that Microsoft only admits to a problem in their software when they are try to sell you an upgrade to a newer release of that software?

  9. Re:My only question... on Palm Offers Refund to m130 Owners · · Score: 2

    Dithering a color with itself doesn't produce a different color. That eliminates 4096 colors right there. Dithering most colors with black or white doesn't produce a color that couldn't be got from a darker or brighter shade of that color. That gets you a few more colors (about 2744?). Not sure how they got that exact number.

  10. For the record on Palm Offers Refund to m130 Owners · · Score: 2

    I beleive the lie that got Palm in trouble was that it claimed the M130 had "16 bit color" when in fact it has 12 bit color. Dithering has never counted in the past when discussing the number of bitplanes, and it shouldn't really count when discussing the number of colors -- especially on a display with so few pixels. A CGA display is STILL 2-bit color, even if you dither the pixels!

  11. Private is better on Public vs. Private Sector? · · Score: 2
    1) Public sector is inherently cyclical -- every time there's an election, funding changes.


    2) Public sector jobs are subject to the whims of the voter. A few years back, EVERY California state employee got an across the board pay cut. (I think it was 10%).


    3) There are little or no metrics to measure performance of public sector. Combined with employee unions, this means everybody gets the same raises, regardless of competence.


    Bottom line: If you are competent, you'll do better in the private sector. If you are incompetent, you'll do better in the public sector.


    A few years ago at a job fair, the recruiter for the state of Oregon came out of her booth and tried to drag me back to apply for a job. "Wouldn't you like to work for the state?" she asked. "I'd love to, but I'd have to take a 50% pay cut to do so!" I replied. This was literally true, since at the time I was making twice as much as a contractor as the state was willing to pay me.

  12. Re:Can anyone explain the one interesting point on First Commercial Moon Mission Approved · · Score: 2
    In some of the photos, the camera's crosshair is *partially behind* the scene. How is that possible unless the photos were airbrushed?

    Light refracts off a sharp edge (like a crosshair, fer instance) if there is enough light photon scattering can overload the film and cause the crosshair to appear white. I'm willing to bet that the areas the crosshair is "behind" are the brightest areas, aren't they?

  13. Trailblazer? on First Commercial Moon Mission Approved · · Score: 2
    I take it this mission is being sponsored by Paul Allen to promote his basketball team? Is that what they mean by "commercial"... an event sponsored just for advertising?


    An an unrelated topic, who else would like to see them send Lance Bass into space, and NOT BRING HIM BACK?

  14. Can't imaging this working very well... on Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon? · · Score: 2

    To be truly effective, wouldn't all the emitters have to be pointed directly at the observer, and all the detectors pointed exactly in the opposite direction? I don't think "cloak" is the right word for this; it obviously needs to be fixed, not flexible. Also, isn't there a lot of "prior art" on this in old SciFi stories?

  15. What's the definition of "robot"? on Robotic Photographer · · Score: 2
    Apparently they've already sent 1 robot into caves into Afgahnistan with a payload that included a live weapon.

    Actually, that was more of a remotely piloted vehicle or a drone, wasn't it? Although the Dod has done some research in autonomous vehicles, a remote controlled mechanical man is a lot more usefull for killing people. We need a different term to use for autonomous, self-controlled mechanica then we use for glorified RC cars on steroids; unfortunately common usage seems to refer to both as "robots". Wouldn't "Robot Wars" be a lot more cool if there wasn't a geek with a joystick actually controling the action?

  16. Re:Airbag? I believe this is the wrong word. on Air Bags for Planetary Defense · · Score: 2

    More like a big baseball mitt, actually.

  17. Re:Kids, try this at home! on Air Bags for Planetary Defense · · Score: 2

    Asteroid's are NOT hot. They're out in space, they tend to be a few degrees above absolute zero (ok, so there is some solar heating of the surface). By the time that sucker heats due to friction in the atmosphere, it's WAY to late to deflect it!

  18. Nukes. on Air Bags for Planetary Defense · · Score: 2

    Nukes would tend to uncontrolably break the object up into smaller pieces; chances are some of these pieces would still strike Earth, even if the original object was going to miss. Granted, I'd rather be hit by a few 100 meter rocks than 1 big 1000 meter rock, but it's still not a satisfactory solution. Now, if you could split the object in a controllable fashion, like a diamond cutter splitting a diamond, it would be useful. Problem is, we know very little about the internal makeup of asteroids, never having been inside one.

  19. Easily misunderstood on Air Bags for Planetary Defense · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The problem the author is trying to solve is: How do you get a grip on an asteroid for long enough for your rocket motors to change it's path without causing the asteroid to break up. He's suggesting using a giant pillow between engine and asteroid to destribute the force.

    This is the wrong problem, in my opion; he assumes you've got massive amount of rocket fuel to wast. What we really need to do is figure out how to take some of the mass of the asteroid and accelerate it, using this as the reactant to change the path. Sort of like installing a rail gun on the asteroid, and firing off bits of asteriod like b-b's to get the asteroid to move in the opposite direction.

  20. WILL be as good?!? on Venezuela Goes Open Source · · Score: 2
    Eventually (like within a few years) Linux will be as good as Windows, as well as compatible with it thanks to the efforts of the wine/samba/OpenOffice/NTFS crews.


    Can somebody point out the areas where Linux isn't yet as good as Windows? Granted, you can't run as many Windows Apps on Linux as you can on Windows, but then different versions of Windows have the same problem. IMHO, 2002 will go down in history as the year Linux ease of use surpassed that of Windows. What else do we still need to fix?

  21. Yes on Do Long Work Hours Affect Code Quality? · · Score: 2
    My personal rule of thumb is that any time over 12 hours in a day is non-productive -- you are likely to screw up more than you fix. I worked 80-hour weeks when I was younger, and I don't think anybody can do that for very long (more than a month or two) without getting physically ill. Now, of course, the point is moot; as a contractor, I get paid by the hour, so I WANT to work long hours. Unfortunately, now they refuse to let me work more than 40 hours a week.

    I think you should tell your employer "Poor planning on your behalf does not constitute an emergency on my behalf." Unless you str getting significant stock options and/or comp time for those long hours, I'd start sending out resumes. You can force people to work long hours, but you can't force them to put out a quality product. Plus, the industry is full of stories of teams who busted their butts to get a product out the door, only to be told their services were no longer needed once the product shipped...

  22. discovery != access on Apple Plans To Release Rendezvous As Open Source · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just because you can find my address in the phone book, it does't make it any easier to break into my house. Rendevous doesn't ship any actual code around, so what's to carry the virus? About the worst that can happen is multiple machines come up with the same address -- but a malicious node on your network could make that happen WITHOUT Rendevous.

  23. Very beneficial to Apple on Apple Plans To Release Rendezvous As Open Source · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple is in the business of selling clients. If all the vendors of servers (yes, your network printer is a server) adopt this technology, then they can sell more clients. It's that simple -- make it easy for everybody to implement Rendevous, and you make more money. This is different from Micro$oft's business model, which calls for controlling both the client and the server, so they don't make it easy to implement ANYTHING that's compatible with their software.

  24. NOW you tell me! on Apple Plans To Release Rendezvous As Open Source · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Gee thanks Apple... after I've already gone a implemented Zeroconf myself! Just to think I could have just waited and stolen your code...

    But seriously, Sharp has already embedded this technology in thier printers, so it's not just Epson, HP, and Lexmark that will be supporting this standard.

  25. Re:surround sound AUDIO? on Burn a DVD-AC3 Compatible CD-R · · Score: 2
    Echoes don't exactly improve the sound.


    You've obviously never listen to Bach performed on an organ in a good cathedral. I beleive some Jazz musicians also recorded some tracks in a cathedral because of the great acoustics. In some case, echos DO greatly improve the sound, especially if the music was written for that kind of environment in the first place. Oh, and by the way, ask an audio technician what REVERB is, and why they frequently add it to music...