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User: Culture20

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Comments · 9,596

  1. Only if XP dies a hard death next April on XP's End Will Do More For PC Sales Than Win 8, Says HP Exec · · Score: 1

    Updates might be done, but it won't drive sales until all the computers stop working. That will be accelerated by the lack of security updates, but not as quickly as one might think; people suffer through malware a lot.

  2. Re:Theft of Service! on Sharing HBO Go Accounts Could Result In Prison · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, potentially dangerous actions like aggressive driving are just fines (and maybe loss of license). Sometimes just Warnings. A prison sentence for account sharing is insane. If the person is using it to actually pirate shows (copying them to DVD and reselling them; the *real* definition of media piracy), then they should get prison time for that one, not this one (should still be a fine, and not a [value of TV watched times ten thousand] style of fine either).

  3. Re:Meta data - traffic analysis on What Can You Find Out From Metadata? · · Score: 2

    And they still don't care if you and your D&D buddies are going to meet Saturday night.

    Until someone decides to query the database for patterns that match D&D groups (tight group of virtually all male members who tend not to contact anyone else and who regularly meet in their moms' basements. If it's because the official thinks the pattern is a terrorist pattern, something ad has happened. If it's because the official thinks that the movie Mazesand Monsters was a documentary, and it's a civic duty to destroy D&D gamers personally, then something worse has happened. "But they can only query with proper approval from the secret judicial panel." Yeah, the panel that if given a semi-reasonable false story will rubber stamp it? So essentially this database is always one mediocre lie away from egregious misuse... Not a good system in my estimation. The database is too juicy a target. I'm betting it gets misused constantly (just like Snowden suggests).

  4. Re:one thing seemingly missed on What Can You Find Out From Metadata? · · Score: 1

    [from_number, to_number, date, time, duration, primary tower, secondary tower, tertiary tower, triangulated lat/long, all SMS, etc.]

    FTFY. You know Verizon at least keeps tower metadata related to each call because they need it to "prove" out-of-network calls for extra billing, but also because they want the data themselves.

  5. BadNews everyone! on Google: BadNews Malware Wasn't Really Bad, After All · · Score: 1

    Malware wasn't really bad after all. Oh, my, yes. Plus I'm still in my pajamas.

  6. Re:no one is "listening" on What Can You Find Out From Metadata? · · Score: 1

    They also say over and over that the metadata is just a phone bill; but it also has all the tower connections (and probably ping speeds thus triangulation).

  7. Re:wow on NSA WhistleBlower Outs Himself · · Score: 1

    Edward Snowden is a US patriot

    Great, now that "patriot" is associated with his name hell be subject to greater scrutiny from the IRS. As if he didn't have enough problems with the CIA drones et al.

  8. Inform your old boss/client on Ask Slashdot: What To Do When Another Dev Steals Your Work and Adds Their Name? · · Score: 1

    If this guy regularly replaces records of authorship with his name, he might not have an actual portfolio. If he's in his honeymoon stage with the company, they might fire him for misrepresenting himself during the hiring process.

  9. "Removed my name as the author" apparently his name was in the source originally.

  10. Re:Switched at Birth on Pixel-Peeping Gaming's Close Cousins · · Score: 2

    Are you suggesting that Super Mario Brothers 1 made sense?

  11. Re:Yeah... about that influence on Gaming Roots: MUD and the Birth of MMOs · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I would possess town guards to make them say things like "move along" or yell "pay your taxes on time". It's pretty hard to keep track of players without teleporting to them constantly because they'll often use scripted commands to move from location to location.

  12. Reminicing about MUDs on Gaming Roots: MUD and the Birth of MMOs · · Score: 1

    I still fondly remember a dikumud I played back in the late 90's (Ancalagon). I discovered an item duplication bug due to the server's slow writes of the player save data and the death traps (a special room that caused instant-death, delete all items, and return to menu). If you saved your character just before entering a death trap, and dropped all your items, then walk into the death trap, the server would dutifully delete your items in RAM (nothing), but then the save-write process would finally take place and your character would have all its pre-drop items upon reentering the game. Walk back to your pile of items, repeat. I had a bag of holding with sooo many diamonds. I just role-played from that point on. Didn't see the point in beating up monsters for treasure if I had an infinite supply.

  13. I was about to suggest openjdk on Oracle Discontinues Free Java Time Zone Updates · · Score: 1

    I was about to suggest openjdk, but there's no telling what jre your customers will use unless you bundle the jre in (and you make your program update the jre).

  14. Re:Why? on When Will My Computer Understand Me? · · Score: 2

    Dave's not here man!
    You thought I was going to make a HAL quote, didn't you?

  15. When will it understand you? on When Will My Computer Understand Me? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When computer scientist guys understand what it means to understand. Go read some epistemology books. You'll understand.

  16. Re: That doesn't fix anything on Microsoft Confirms Xbox One's Phone Home Requirement, Game Resale Rules · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Inkscape is free and already as good as Illustrator.

    I like to advocate FOSS solutions too, but I like to tell the truth while I do so. Illustrator is better than Inkscape, but Inkscape is good enough.

  17. Re:Sin, Repent & Do Petenance on The Amish Are Getting Fracked · · Score: 1

    Faithful Amish would not treat Jesus' blood like a credit card.

  18. Re:*cough* bullshit *cough* on Microsoft Confirms Xbox One's Phone Home Requirement, Game Resale Rules · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "When Xbox One is on and you're simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded." They also say data gathered during normal use won't leave the console without your explicit permission.

    "Explicit permission" defined as signing any EULA associated with XBOX One.

  19. Re:First on NHTSA and DOT Want Your Car To Be Able To Disable Your Cellphone Functions · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They managed because the kids weren't confined to child seats until they're 13yo (or whatever the new ridiculous age is). On long trips, we'd climb over seats, make faces from the rear-facing trundle seat, read books, play with toys, and sleep laying fully down with only a lap belt (the rear seats had only lap belts).

  20. Re:Right here haters.. step right up.. here I am on The NSA: Never Not Watching · · Score: 1

    Things have not changed. They have only gotten worse.

    Pick one.

    Or neither.

  21. Re:There goes another Swiss Army knife on TSA Decides Against Allowing Small Knives On Aircraft · · Score: 2

    You put an expensive, fragile item in checked luggage?

  22. Re:Not the monitoring, it's the ACTION that matter on U.N. Realizes Internet Surveillance Chills Free Speech · · Score: 2

    It doesn't matter how much or who monitors you. What matters is what actions are taken from the monitoring - if any.

    What matters is what actions could be taken from the monitoring, because eventually some government somewhere will try to step over the line and take those actions.

  23. Re:Why do people online get so bent out of shape w on Footage Reveals Drone Aircraft Nearly Downed Passenger Plane in 2004 · · Score: 1

    What if you employer had the opinion that the term "Raise" meant "decrease in real world purchasing power".

    Given the percentages that most people get vs. inflation, that's exactly what the employers mean.

  24. Re:Crime isn't what concerns me on Watching the Police: Will Two-Way Surveillance Reduce Crime? · · Score: 1

    Now that every teenager is an amateur journalist, they forget too quickly the notion of journalistic integrity, in the pursuit of likes and views.

    Now that every teenager is an amateur journalist, the professional media forget too quickly the notion of journalistic integrity, in the pursuit of likes and views.
    FTFY

  25. Re:The ONLY Way this should work is... on Watching the Police: Will Two-Way Surveillance Reduce Crime? · · Score: 1

    Randomize that 30 seconds up to several hours or just leave the recording on at all times, otherwise you'll have cops counting to 30-mississippi before turning on their cameras after doing something naughty. Better yet, have dispatch or a third party turn their cameras on.