Posts by sisk

That, AC, is a pretty brainless accusation. When you've got an economy that's not doing very well you don't take hundreds of millions of dollars from that economy and give it to a different economy. That's just stupid, unless of course you're trying to hurt the economy that's already ailing.

Re: Let the whining

I'd like to know a bit more about what vulnerabilities were exploited to get it installed...

Usually Linux malware gets out (in the rare instance that it does actually get out) through compromised repositories, though that doesn't seem to be the case here since it only infected one host.

Re: Science

Really its still no nearer being a viable power source

With the death of Bussard it's actually further off than it was a few years ago. From looking over his data (the portion thats available to the public that is -- most of it is owned by the US Navy) I firmly believe that had he had the funding he needed the first large scale fusion reactor would be running today. It fills me with a great sense of loss that the powers that be at the time decided to spend the money on a war on the other side of the planet instead.

Re: Doubts

Technically the information wouldn't reach us at all until we slowed down to subluminal speeds. Even as fast at .9c is fast enough that everything we see would be very distorted. At 1c everything would be complete whiteout. Faster than that and sight becomes completely useless. When we slowed down again is when we'd perceive things. So in essence if we got up to say 1.5c and took a quick jaunt out to Pluto and back at that speed and then slowed down and perceived what was happening 2 hours and 40 minutes ago* would it not be accurate to describe the experience as travelling in time?

*Yes, I actually did the math, though I make no guarantee that I did it right.

Re: Sigh

I reckon someone was coming close to finally revealing PJ's identity

I'm fairly certain PJ's identity was known to the wrong people (AKA the US government) already. The NSA has been collecting emails for years and identifying the person behind Groklaw would have no doubt been high on their list of priorities (right behind identifying terrorists I'm sure). If you were pulling gratuitous legal shenanigans wouldn't you make sure you knew who the popular blogger putting legal proceedings into layman's terms for the world was?

Re: Someone get SciFi Channel on the phone!

It is a nice word but in Australia we just use the standard meteorological description; "tropical cyclone".

Accurate terminology? I think you're asking for way too much. This is a SyFy Original Movie we're talking about. No matter where in the world they set it the'll call it a hurricane because that's what it's called in America (or, possibly, because the budget is too small to bother paying anyone to tell them what the things are called down under).

I suspect they did that the same way that Masterlock did their famous "We shot it and it still works" video. Basically if you fire enough rounds into fresh devices eventually one of them is going to get hit in just the right place to survive the punishment. In Masterlock's video it took something like 150 takes according to a locksmith I know. I wonder how many disk arrays HP destroyed in the name of marketing.

An article I read a while back (ok, several years back) claimed that if the Czar Bomba had been built to it's original, 100mt specifications the climate change it caused would have been catastrophic. Mind you, I never looked into the credentials of the author and the tone of the article was "OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM....er....something".

Re: @Sisk

She's married to a computer tech. Do you really think I'd let her ignorantly run as admin given that I'm the one who has to fix it when her machine gets messed up?

Actually CM is (or was, as of CM10, when it was still just a popular open source project and the last time I updated) a very high quality product. It's certainly better than any stock ROM I've ever used, and that's even with an unofficial beta build at the time (yeah, I probably should probably update my tablet again at some point, but CM10 beta works well enough that I've felt no particular need to do so). My phone also runs CM, though it's on CM9, the latest 'official' build for it about a year ago (last time I checked).

As for your commentary on open source, allow me, as a paid developer by day and 'programmer of unknown skill level' donating code by night, to point out that the internet runs on open source code. Most enterprise routers run a Linux kernel. As does a huge chunk of the global DNS system. As does the engine computer in your car, if it's new enough to have one. And your smart TV. And most likely your ISP's systems. And your toaster. And your dead badger. (Ok, I'm joking with those last two.) My point is that it's a proven approach to programming. CM may not be your cup of tea, but don't blame the approach they took when they put it together.

I think you might be one of their customers if you truly believe that. Either that or you're just sadly out of touch with the real world.

But that's beside the point. Cannabis tends to be the domain of low level gangbangers who don't have the connections to get the harder stuff. You can grow it VERY easily and safely (one friend of mine -- clean for over a decade, in case you're wondering -- used to grow his in a dresser drawer when he was in high school), so it has an extremely low barrier to entry. If you legalize it you instantly put half the drug dealers out of business simply because they don't have the connections to get harder to obtain drugs.

The whole 'gateway drug' thing defies both common sense and statistical facts. If there were any truth to it there would be far more crack addicts running around California than there were 15 years ago (before they started handing out cannabis prescriptions for headaches). Instead the statistics show very little change, and that little bit is actually negative.

Re: Word Perfect largely has itself to blame for it's demise

But vi is user friendly, fast, consistent and powerful. I am serious.

Fast, consistent, and powerful, yes, but if you're calling vi user friendly and being serious then you and I have very different definitions of "user friendly". To me the term implies that an average user could fire up the software and start using it immediately with an acceptable level of proficiency. With vi even geeks have to RTFM, usually more than once, before they can use it with any kind of success. That's not user friendly, even if it is a dang good program.

Re: What it will take to kill this and what should be able to do

I live in the boonies and had a homemade antenna (about $5 worth of parts: a few wire hangers, a board, some screws, and cheap transformer I got at Wal-Mart [yes, Wal-Mart]) that could pick up all my local channels plus a couple that I didn't know existed before. I don't have it anymore because I had to switch to an ISP that won't give me cable internet without cable TV when I moved, but I can tell you it worked way better than the $50 amplified antenna I had before I built it. Also, I just had it nailed to the wall behind my TV, not 30 feet in the air. Give it a shot.

http://makezine.com/projects/digital-tv-coat-hanger-antenna/

Re: He does have a point

While I agree that DRM is an evil best avoided at all costs we sadly don't have that option. Until the movie industry wises up to the pointlessness and collateral damage of DRM (like the music industry apparently has, judging from the number of sites where you can buy DRM-free MP3s these days) we're stuck with it. That being the case Berners-Lee is right. Put it in the hands of programmers and geeks as a standard in HTML. That gives Netflix (and other streaming services currently locked into Silverlight because of the need for DRM) the ability to use a standards based streaming solution and reach more customers, and it gives us, the users, the ability to set our systems up however we want and not lose the ability to access our streaming video service.

Correct. Because that is the case. The number of times the DRM has caused an issue is so low as to be non-existent. Certainly for film, TV and paper media.

Tell that to all the people who can't use streaming video services because they don't have the right operating system. Or to the people who want to import games or movies they can't get in their home country and are willing to pay for them, but can't because they're region locked. Or to the people who can't get HD on some of their movies even though their system supports it because they have the wrong monitor.

If you cannot afford the thing, don't consume the thing. Price is no excuse for theft.>

I never said it was. My point is that things are more expensive because the producers are spending money on DRM which doesn't work.

Which is why new locks are being made (even though the current ones are well beyond your example).

You clearly don't know much about locks, but whatever. The illustration was just that: an illustration. And, given that most locks are pretty lousy at keeping someone who really wants in out, a pretty fitting one. For instance, I actually know a guy who's taken to leaving his car unlocked because it's less expensive than replacing windows for the umpteenth time (disclaimer: when he told me this I did wonder where the heck he was parking, but the analogy stands).

How about you start calling it what it is. It removes cash from the pocket of the creator - it is theft. End of.

It does no such thing. Most infringement doesn't prevent a sale because the person infringing wouldn't or couldn't have paid for the content even if they couldn't get it free. There's no lost sale 90% of the time and thus no lost profit and certainly the content owner has the same amount of money they had before. Hence why I say it's not theft but a different crime all together. Call it what it is: copyright infringement.

Oh, I see your logic now. So when someone figures out a way to rob something (say a bank), it's perfectly OK in your sick little world for them to go ahead and commit that crime.

I didn't say that, but let's go with your bank robbing analogy. DRM is the equivalent of strip searching everyone who comes into the bank. The person conducting the search isn't going to be able to stop the guy coming in to rob the bank because the robber will just shoot them and rob the bank anyway. The strip search is both invasive and ineffective and will chase off legitimate customers. This is what DRM is like.

The first step to effectively preventing copyright infringement is, and always will be, to convince people that it is wrong. DRM can't do that.

You probably don't work in the creative arts, but maybe you work in IT. Maybe even in software (which shares a lot in common with the creative arts). How would you feel when you lose your job when the company you work for folds due to people stealing your software? How will you feel then?

I am a web developer and have had my graphics and layouts ripped off more than once. I also found a poem I had written published and attributed to someone else once (the fact that it was actually published was more of a shock than seeing someone else's name on it). I know EXACTLY how it feels to be on that side of the issue, most likely better than you do.

When that happens, come back here and tell me how "OK" it is for people to steal your hard work. Until that does happen - keep your ill-informed and clueless yap shut.

How about you try actually READING what I'm writing instead of stupidly assuming that anti-DRM equates pro-piracy? Did I ever, anywhere, imply that copyright infringement was 'OK'? Here, let me answer myself for you: no, I didn't. DRM is expensive, invasive, and ineffective, which all adds up to it being counter productive to its own goal. That doesn't make copyright infringement 'OK', it just makes DRM schemes a bad idea.

Re: No problem at all putting your own code on iPhone

Get yourself a Mac, pay some money to Apple

And there's the problem I have with Apple's way of doing things. Why should I have to buy another computer or pay Apple even more money to run code written by me on my phone? For that matter why should I have to pay them to be able to hand out my binaries to my friends or family or coworkers?

I don't mind paying into an app store (though I still think 30% for a digital store is highway robbery), but paying extra just to be able to run my own code or distribute it myself? That's freaking ridiculous.

Re: Get it right

We in the U.S. are about half a century behind nearly every developed society on the planet with regard to healthcare. The Republican party is a coalition of about seven "one donkey" shows. They draw in the Religious Right, paranoid firearms advocates and others with empty promises of action that never appears -- all the while vigorously protecting their only real agenda: "Help the rich get richer by any and all means."

A very one sided way of thinking there. And pretty much wrong to.

Don't misunderstand: I'm as scornful of the Republicans as I am of the Democrats. Neither party has our best interests at heart. The left puts on a good show, but they're just as guilty of some of the things you're accusing Republicans of as the Republicans are. If you pay attention you'll notice that no matter how hard things get for the rest of us the leaders of the Democratic party are still getting richer. Everyone in DC, with the possible exception of the (possibly insane) Pauls have hidden agendas. I call the Pauls possible exceptions because they, unlike others there, seem to tell their views whether it pisses off everyone in the room or not, so I find it slightly more believable that they're being truthful.

Accusing me of having a 'tiny cold black heart' on the basis that you happen to disagree with me is stupid. I won't beat around the bush there. Make you point with facts, not insults. And this is ONE issue. Commenting on it doesn't mean I focus on it. I come down on the side of the left or the right pretty evenly if you look at the whole spectrum of issues, hence why I say I'm a moderate.

Re: What about the Waste-Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor?

A shame that. Until they come up with a better way to deal with their waste than burying it I consider nuclear power no better than fossil fuels with regards to pollution. Now cost is a different story (and the difference will grow as the fossil fuels get harder to find), but nuclear energy is far from clean at the moment.