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User: Cederic

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  1. Re:Community resistance on Tackling Open Source's Gender Issues · · Score: 1

    I just recently figured out when someone asks, "How are things going?" or "How are you doing?" They don't give a rat's behind about how things are going.

    I hit my mid 30s before I realised that. I still get it wrong when tired/stressed, but I'm better at lying now.

  2. Re:Community resistance on Tackling Open Source's Gender Issues · · Score: 1

    You're talking to the wrong women. I've met many women who are quite excited by technical talk from intelligent, educated men. I've dated a few of them, and married one of them.

    I've tried online dating. Women go, "Oh, you're in IT" and switch off.
    I was chatting while dancing on Sunday. She asked that I do, expressed surprise that it wasn't IT and said "Most single men coming dancing do IT" and lumped them into one big fat stereotype. (I was very well behaved and didn't point out that the single women tend to be single mothers with teaching jobs).

    There is definitely a desire amongst women to find men that aren't in IT. Being intelligent, witty, well paid, articulate, charming and physically fit frankly isn't enough.

  3. Re:Community resistance on Tackling Open Source's Gender Issues · · Score: 1

    - motherhood is optional, and many men are fathers
    - being a wife is no less fulltime than being a husband. it's also optional
    - men work full time too
    - being more social is an advantage in open source

    So all in all, your proposed reasons why women don't have time are full of shit. Let me counter with some equally sexist bullshit
    - men are too busy earning the income so their partners can sit at home playing with the kids all day instead of going out and earning their fair share
    - women can have a child against the will of their partner then leave him, yet force him to fund their entire lifestyle, freeing them from the burden of work
    - women have far more time off work "ill" than men, which gives them far more time to indulge in the trivial pursuits that guys engage in

    Sure, people are different. And trust me, my issues with my gender are nothing compared to society's issues with my gender. None of which changes the fact that if they wanted to do open source development, there's nothing that would prevent women from going right ahead and getting on with it.

  4. Re:And they wonder why people pirate on Ubisoft Has Windows-Style Hardware-Based DRM For Games · · Score: 1

    When I buy an online game, I'm paying with that purchase price for access to the online services.

    If I sell that game second-hand, why shouldn't that access to those online services be part of that sale? It's the same game, with the same online capability.

    The developers gain a game sale, and need to support online services for a single game copy. Who uses that game copy is fucking irrelevant.

    Publishers destroying the used game market through nefarious means (and I'm including locking games to Steam accounts here) is one reason I've stopped buying games on release. I wait for the price of a new game to drop to second-hand game price levels before I buy. So I don't pay any more, but the developers are now missing out on the original purchase revenue.

    Fuck 'em. It's an expensive world out there and I have limited funds.

  5. Re:And they wonder why people pirate on Ubisoft Has Windows-Style Hardware-Based DRM For Games · · Score: 1

    I don't own Dragon Age 2 because my Steam installation of Dragon Age: Origins continually and repeatedly failed to connect to the authentication server that would enable the DLC (that I got as part of the 'Ultimate Edition').

    Although I eventually completed the game (literally weeks later than I should, due to periods of being unable to play it) I refuse to pay good money to repeat that experience, no matter how great the game might be.

  6. Re:And they wonder why people pirate on Ubisoft Has Windows-Style Hardware-Based DRM For Games · · Score: 1

    Sure, but even after changing all that shit, it's still the same PC, with the same copy of Windows on it.

  7. Re:What if they put a time release on each 'count' on Ubisoft Has Windows-Style Hardware-Based DRM For Games · · Score: 1

    You think it's unreasonable for me to replace my laptop and upgrade my desktop in a six month window? All by itself that would make the game unplayable on at least one of those devices.

    I think it's unreasonable to constrain my use of easily replicable software that I've purchased in such an arbitrary, punitive, unnecessary and above all pointless manner.

    So I'm not going to buy it. Ubisoft and EA have both already lost revenue from me due to their DRM policies, and will fail to gain further revenue if they persist in refusing to let legitimate customers access the games they've paid for.

  8. Re:And be a criminal on Ubisoft Has Windows-Style Hardware-Based DRM For Games · · Score: 1

    Morally I feel the need to reward people that make my life better. With games developers that tends to be through financial means.

    So if I acquire a game and enjoy it and play it a lot then I'm going to buy it.

    If I can't buy and run a game because some fuckwit broke it with DRM, that fuckwit deserves none of my cash - but I just wont play it, I wont pirate it. I've got too many games bought in Steam sales that I haven't played yet to spend time downloading and playing hacked games.

  9. Re:Go into management first... on Ask Slashdot: Changing Career From OLTP To OLAP Dev · · Score: 1

    So close to the truth.

    Some of us skipped the whole management piece though :)

  10. Re:Need advice on Ask Slashdot: Changing Career From OLTP To OLAP Dev · · Score: 1

    Given the way Oracle are buggering up Java, I'd be sorely tempted to find out what IBM consider their strategic language of choice.

    It may indeed be Java, but I know at least one dev house is switching to Ruby, HTML5/Javascript is guaranteed income these days and C or C++ will continue to get you jobs for some time to come.

    Or do what I did and get promoted. I get to draw pictures on whiteboards and let other people do the hard work :)

  11. Re:So they pissed on the enemy on The New Transparency of War and Lethality of Hatred · · Score: 1

    2 - In wars, this is how it works. People die. Hopefully the enemy. All of them.

    You're doing it wrong.

    The idea of a war is to win. It's much quicker (and cheaper) if you don't have to kill everyone first.

  12. Re:Bogus premise on The New Transparency of War and Lethality of Hatred · · Score: 1

    That's very much not the case. In WWII partisan attacks against Germany led to entire villages being razed, their inhabitants killed.

    Whether the partisans or their families were victims or not, the actions against the general populace were indeed reprisals.

    Hell, have a read of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice and tell me that there's zero opportunity for reprisals.

  13. Re:Bogus premise on The New Transparency of War and Lethality of Hatred · · Score: 1

    Nothing justifies murdering more than 3000 people by flying planes into skyscrapers

    Although, the raw artistry involved and the resultant TV pictures do come close.

    Admit it, you and 3 billion other people will remember those images until you die. That's got to be worth something.

    Anyway.. when civilians are already dying, when there is no parity of military forces, asymmetric warfare is the only option. Military targets have value, but the purpose of war is to impose your will (cf. Clausewitz). Civilian deaths have a far higher impact than military ones and will evoke a far stronger response.

    You could argue that the response was an invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of the regime there; the counter argument is that this has merely boosted anti-American feeling in the region, thus granting yet greater support for the cause behind the initial attacks.

    Certainly the attack on the WTC has led to a massive decline in quality of life for the American people. That by itself could be deemed a major success, and quoted as justification for what was a relatively cheap and easy operation.

    All in, the impact from those 3000 deaths is higher than the impact from any one of a dozen nights during WWII in which far more civilians died due to indiscriminate bombing.

  14. Re:Bogus premise on The New Transparency of War and Lethality of Hatred · · Score: 1

    Ah, you're thinking conventionally. Why target individual cities if the goal is the destruction of all life on the planet?

    Those 8000 warheads spread between 2-10 specific locations could easily disrupt tectonic patterns and leverage existing gravitational tensions to cause far more damage than target population centers.

    Whether it'd be enough to shift the earth's orbit, drawing in the destructive power of having a Moon collide is doubtful, but extermination of all life would likely need a new orbit that intersects the sun anyway so I guess life will continue. Somehow.

  15. Re:that will tieup the courts and jury trials on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    I didn't say it was a fair situation, but claiming not to know a specific point of law does not prevent you being found guilty of transgressing it.

    With a good judge it will be taken in mitigation when determining an appropriate response.

  16. Re:Not just lack of proof, lack of any crime at al on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    Not strictly. A second trial can be sought if there is "new and compelling evidence".

    At the minimum it would force the US to provide compelling evidence of a crime - something the current extradition treaty omits.

  17. Re:Well. this will be a first... on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    Politicians will tell you that a judicial review has ruled that the treaty is balanced.

    That's sufficiently cut and dried that I'm not going to waste my time debating the finer details. Frankly the treaty (bad as it is) has never been the issue, it's the attitude of the Government that's the issue and that's what I'm trying to change.

  18. Re:Not just lack of proof, lack of any crime at al on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 2

    I just had a thought. Can't someone bring a private prosecution against him, and as a result protect him from extradition due to double-jeopardy laws?

    Obviously the CPS could step in, take over then stop the private prosecution, but they'd really struggle to justify a public-interest argument on that one.

    I think I need to speak to a lawyer, I'm willing to put some cash into establishing a useful precedent.

  19. Re:Except this isn't an extraditable offence. on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    I did too, but unfortunately he thought I had issues with the reciprocal nature of the extradition treaty rather than the need for British citizens to be held to account by British law and not that of other nations.

  20. Re:Well. this will be a first... on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 0

    Citation needed, I do believe.

    Do your own fucking googling, but for what it's worth, he's right.

  21. Re:Well. this will be a first... on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 2

    The reciprocality is not the biggest issue here.

    A UK citizen being prosecuted for failing to comply with another country's laws while in the UK is the issue.

    As I suggested to my MP, next we'll have British citizens being extradited for insulting the King of Thailand or supporting Falun Gong.

    The law needs clarifying, and that clarification has to limit the exposure of the British people to British law, not to every stupid fucking law every stupid fucking country on the planet decides to proclaim.

  22. Re:Well. this will be a first... on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 2

    Violating a website's policies may mean you're accessing their web server without permission.

    That's illegal in the UK under the Computer Misuse Act.

    I don't think anybody's ever been charged on those grounds but the British Government would happily ship their citizens out to face corrupt legal systems in other countries for that exact reason - Gary McKinnon's facing extradition precisely for alleged unauthorised access to US computers.

    Sure, he wasn't merely accessing a website, but the applicable UK law is the same one.

  23. Re:This was a Magistrates' Court on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 1

    That's exactly my issue with it too. If he's broken UK law, then the UK justice system can deal with him. If he hasn't then why is some other country's law applicable.

  24. Re:that will tieup the courts and jury trials on US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing · · Score: 5, Informative

    Frankly the law in the UK is irrelevant. If he's broken it he should be charged and given a fair trial.

    If he hasn't broken it then he shouldn't be persecuted.

    I continue to completely fail to understand why the UK government thinks that operating a website from the UK, hosted in the UK, run by someone in the UK should come under US law and be a cause for extradition.

    Ignorance of the law is no defence, but apparently this now extends to ignorance of the law of 217 countries.

    It's utterly out of fucking order and sadly when I wrote to my MP he completely failed to get the point and replied with a comment on the fairness of the extradition treaty, and not the jurisdiction of the law alleged to have been transgressed. I'd write to him again but frankly he's a cunt. Yes Ken Clarke, I mean you. You're a cunt.

  25. Re:Fraud prevention on Do Companies Punish Workers Who Take Vacations? · · Score: 1

    Agreed completely - the stupidity isn't a comment on intelligence, it's a comment on the naivity to assume they wont get caught.

    Sometimes they wont, but in general, any repeated internal fraud gets detected.

    I think the harder ones to detect are third party invoicing frauds, where verifying the validity of purchase orders, invoices, receipts and goods/services received provides a massive range of opportunities to the nefariously inclined.

    Of course, someone's reading this from their villa in Barbados with a quiet internal smirk knowing that they got away with it. Bastard.