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User: xant

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Comments · 1,145

  1. You need more help on How Zombies Work · · Score: 1

    Try an Ask Slashdot.

  2. Support Jack Thompson! Buy GTA! on Jack Thompson Calls Cops on Penny-Arcade · · Score: 3, Funny

    Jack Thompson proposes a game in which a father kills innocent people related in some way to gaming, as revenge for his son's death. Someone actually made that game as a mod--and this is irony, if you missed it--to Grand Theft Auto.

    If JT wants anyone to play his game, and get vicarious revenge on the game industry, they have to purchase GTA to play it.

    Well, I don't own a copy yet. Guess I'll go get one.

    BTW, if your reply to this post defines "irony" for me, I'll fucking stab you. Damn, video games do make you violent!

  3. Source? on Why Microsoft Hates Blu-ray · · Score: 1

    Which departments? I suspect you're talking about the computer division, if only because DRM hurts the universality of the computer which might cut into computer sales. (This assumes Sony's computer department is behaving rationally. Clearly, that's not a sure bet.)

    And what's your source for this information?

  4. Python's way ahead of ya on Protothreads and Other Wicked C Tricks · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually, I don't know if this is exactly the same feature, but it sounds like it can be used that way. Check out the What's new in Python entry. This is currently implemented in Python CVS, to be available in Python 2.5.

    The actual Python Enhancement Proposal gives more detail and several badass use-cases.

  5. The creepy part of this story.. on Linus's Baby Comes of Age · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Torvalds has a baby. She's almost 5 now. How about we say "Linus' Software Comes of Age" instead. You perverts.

  6. hmm on Shuttleworth on Ubuntu's Direction and Intent · · Score: 1

    Sadly, a Fairy isn't technically an animal, so I don't think it'll be accepted. (I agree though. :-)

    I wonder if we could get Clumsy Clawshrimp accepted?

  7. It's a Wiki?? on Shuttleworth on Ubuntu's Direction and Intent · · Score: 0, Troll

    There's something strange about one of his FAQ answers. It's the one that goes:

    "Where can I find some hot Goat Sex in Ubuntu?"

    A: "Just go to http://..../"

    *shrug* he's a very open-minded individual, I guess.

  8. Re:Optimisim sells... on Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" · · Score: 1

    Evolution only protects you until you can make babies, then you're on your own.

    Actually, evolution protects you until you cease to be able to make babies. From the viewpoint of DNA, having a person who's healthy and reproductive until they're 70 is a huge adaptive advantage. 300 is even better.

  9. K.'s big mouth on Spider-Man 3 Villains: Sandman & Venom · · Score: 1

    Boy, she has a little trouble keeping her mouth shut, doesn't she? Course, she was wrong about that one, maybe she's wrong about this one too...

  10. Is this a fucking joke? on Windows Beat Unix, But it Won't Beat Linux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You do have to write a different version of your app for every version of Windows. OK, maybe it's not 6, but there are massive differences between Windows 98 and, say, Windows 2000. Windows XP represents another, albeit less disruptive, set of changes. Windows Vista will probably represent the biggest set of changes yet. Each of these is a development target, with its own QA requirements and so on.

    I've worked on software that had to be supported on HPUX, AIX, Solaris, and yes even SCO's crappy UNIX. There were notable differences and QA requirements, but the differences between the Windows branches are much more significant.

    Windows won for one reason. It was pretty, so you could trick people into learning how to use it. Well that, and people had windows computers at home, and they brought that skillset with them to job interviews.

    It can't beat Linux because Linux doesn't have stockholders to answer to. And it's losing share to Linux in direct proportion to the degree to which Linux is getting prettier.

  11. Future guy on IE More Secure Than Mozilla? · · Score: 1

    The 23rd century. He uses the builtin teleporter to come to your house and check your holographic photo ID.

  12. WOo double confirmation on MasterCard To Distribute RFID Credit Cards · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is pretty common in a lot of software systems. The thing is, the people who designed the system already built a confirmation into it, and then forgot. It's the signature.

    When I'm doing design, I always look for places where security requirements of the system have placed an automatic confirmation step, and eliminate any confirmations before that. If necessary, put a summary of what's about to happen in the same place that the security check takes place.

  13. How 'bout this on IE Flaw Puts Windows XP SP2 At Risk · · Score: 1

    It's not normal to get raped, but if you walk down the street in a bad neighborhood wearing a skimpy leather outfit and assless chaps (male or female), and a t-shirt over the top that says "I do anal", you takes yo chances.

    It's still the fault of the attackers, but come on. Put some damn pants on and use Firefox.

  14. Compare Also on Is The Firefox Honeymoon Over? · · Score: 1

    http://secunia.com/product/4227/

    "Less critical". There are 18 though.

  15. Camping on Missing Lab Mice Infected With Plague · · Score: 1

    I just went camping in Grover's Hot Springs, south of Lake Tahoe. There are signs everywhere warning you to beware, don't pet the squirrels. . . because they have plague! Well it seemed serious at the time. I didn't actually witness any plague-related deaths while we were there.

    It became kind of a joke, actually. The bear warnings were much more dire.

  16. Oops, no on Doctors Sue Patients for Online Complaints · · Score: 1

    From http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fact
          2.
                      a. Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed: Genetic engineering is now a fact. That Chaucer was a real person is an undisputed fact.
                      b. A real occurrence; an event: had to prove the facts of the case.
                      c. Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts.

    Emphasis mine. There are other nuances of the definition which suggest that a factual statement does not have to be true.

    Do please check the definition before you say anything is "by definition".

  17. Re:Politically Correct != Correct on Report Claims Men More Intelligent Than Women · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm reading most of the comments rated above a 2 (hey, it's a busy day) and I'm not seeing many that vilify the author. The problem is that the entire study is about a subject that is fundamentally misleading. IQ tests are not useful for anything except finding the gross impairments that are early signs of mental retardation. They do not measure anything to do with real world success, fitness, or worth of a person. They don't even measure "intelligence" as it's used in common parlance.

    Determining that men have higher IQs than women is as relevant as determining that black people drive faster than white people, based on the fact that their tires wear out faster. Even if the findings are accurate--and I have no reason to believe he doesn't understand how to do statistics, or run an unbiased experiment--the connection to the real question is just guesswork. In the former case, it's just a guess that studying pattern recognition and logic in the fashion that these tests do can lead us to the conclusion that intelligence is higher in men, and that's assuming one can even define intelligence meaningfully. Many factors make up intelligence as I understand it, and IQ tests examine only one, if even that. In the latter case, it's my own guess that there will be some correlation between driving speed and tire wear. But here again, many factors--road quality, distance from residence to place of employment, tire quality--will determine how fast tires wear out.

    Studies about IQ distract us from the real questions about why there are differences between people in intelligence, fitness, and success (I'll leave "worth" alone). I say put this effort into defining those things better and finding real tests for them.

  18. DAMMIT - link is wrong, see update on Lucene in Action · · Score: 1

    I typo'd the link above. This is the correct link. I hit preview about 4 times and didn't catch that.

    To make matters worse, there appears to be a copycat typosquatter site at the link I put in there. Oh well, if you get all your vital information from Slashdot you deserve what you get :P

  19. del.icio.us is better on Lucene in Action · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can combine the best of both worlds, bookmarks and search.

    I find bookmarks slow to navigate, and it's hard for me to remember my own hierarchy when I've got enough bookmarks to organize. The problems with search have been expanded on by others in this thread.

    So here's the solution: http://del.icio.us/.

    You can create, edit, tag, describe, and search your own personal bookmarks. When you've done that, the world can see your links too. Subscribing to an RSS feed of some tags you're interested in ("python" for me) gives you a constant stream of interesting links other people who are into Python found useful.

    If you're using Firefox, you'll probably want del.icio.us in your search box. Find that here . I find myself frequently using this when I'd normally use Google, when I know (or just suspect) that I've been somewhere before.

    What I've been doing for about a year now is keeping my actual in-browser bookmarks an unsorted flat list with just about 20 sites I visit on a regular basis. Webcomics, blogs that don't have RSS feeds already, and the like. Everything else goes into del.icio.us. All my other bookmarks were of one of these categories: links I visit only occasionally for reference, sites I intended to visit just once later when I have free time, or sites that I don't even know if I'll find useful until I go back and reread them. Now I don't have to clutter my browser with those; I throw them in del.icio.us. As a bonus, del.icio.us tells you how many other people have bookmarked the page. Number of times a link is being submitted is a good first-blush indication of whether the information there is really interesting or useful.

  20. Costo theft? on Retail Fraud on the Rise · · Score: 1

    Costco does most of its business in bulk items. A large amount of that stuff comes in much larger packaging than most of the stuff sold by, say, Walmart. Makes it hard to steal it, even as an employee. I think a lot of their lower theft rate is attributable purely to their particular merchandise.

    I imagine the employee theft rate is even lower at an RV lot, minimum wage or no :-)

  21. Re:RTA - It's good on Google Blacklists CNet Reporters · · Score: 1

    GP isn't claiming WalMart is good. Merely that they are consistent with a long-term policy instead of a short-term policy. Google's long-term policy doesn't bear much resemblance to WalMart's, and I think I can get behind the idea that they (Google) should stick with it, even as I hope WalMart headquarters is lasered into a glass puddle from orbit.

  22. Don't get your panties in a bunch, Paul on Windows Guru Calls For IE7 Boycott · · Score: 1

    Even webstandards.org doesn't seem to agree with him. This here news item on that site is pretty unambiguously cheerful about the things IE7 *is* fixing. As a web developer, I am too.

    So no, I won't stop using Firefox when IE7 comes out. But I damn well will develop for IE7. I may just forget to code for all those earlier versions.

  23. Why? on Pay-Per-Click Speculation Market Soaring · · Score: 1

    Why would a registrar ever do that? They make money on registrations. Someone is kindly doing them the favor of searching the domain-space for registrations that are worth some money, and then giving the registrar the money. That they return a few is just an operating cost, it's still mostly profit for the provider of the grace period.

  24. Where's Waldo? on 11-Nation Raid on Net Pirates · · Score: 1

    Sure. An 11-nation search to grab evil copyright infringers, we can do that. Osama? Can't find him. Why don't you try a Google Maps search.

  25. I hope this happens soon on Who Cares if Analog TV Goes Dark? · · Score: 1

    Our TV is not digital-ready. I'd frankly like nothing better than to stop paying the cable bill and turn the fucking thing off, but other people live in the house. The snow can't come soon enough for me. "Sorry hon, we just can't afford that digital TV and service. You know how the finances are."