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Comment Re:Lazy people (Score 1) 294

by drkstr1 (#47061919) Attached to: Fixing the Pain of Programming
Nope. I'm going to have to agree with nurb on this one. I use to always accept the fact that "I just suck at sports," until I got into martial arts. Turns out I just didn't have any _interest_ in sports, and so never bothered becoming any good at them. One can't be the best at everything of course, but you really can choose what you want to be good at, and your determination will have a much greater factor in your success than raw talent (as I read here in a /. article awhile back).

Comment Re:Too late. (Score 1) 138

by drkstr1 (#46956231) Attached to: The Struggle To Ban Killer Robots

So would that include something like a Terramax UGV (http://oshkoshdefense.com/technology-1/unmanned-ground-vehicle/) coupled with a Boomerang anti sniper system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_%28countermeasure%29)?

This would give a military the ability to send an unmanned vehicle into almost any terrain (rural or urban), which could respond instantly to shots fired at it with its own deadly return fire. And, considering the hell that Marines faced in Helmand with IEDs and snipers while slogging through muddy fields, wouldn't this present a far better option (particularly for the Marines and their families)?

+2 Informative

Comment Re:So much for Net Neutrality. (Score 3, Insightful) 56

by drkstr1 (#46781365) Attached to: Tor Blacklisting Exit Nodes Vulnerable To Heartbleed

I guess you don't count the fact that the US Federal government is spending billions of dollars to try to repair some of the damage from Snowden's theft and leaks as detrimental. You'll be helping to pay for that since you live in the US. No doubt GCHQ will be paying some bills as well.

There has certainly been other fallout from that, but apparently we can count on you to never go looking for it.

Wait, that argument isn't logical. What is the government spending billions of dollars trying to repair some of the damage if there are no detrimental affects from the leaks (which you confirmed in your rebuttal)? Sounds to me like they are spending billions of dollars covering up the mess they themselves created. Maybe they should just stop doing that. Problem solved.

Comment Re:The numbers game. (Score 1) 199

Instead of directly managing and funding research, the government could provide tax breaks for companies who hire programmers that contribute to open source (presumably on projects beneficial to said company). They could also provide funding in the form of grants to orgs that create new and useful software, of which society as a whole benefits from.

Comment Re:Better idea (Score 1) 174

by drkstr1 (#45020807) Attached to: Dead Drops P2P File Sharing Spreads Around Globe

Wow, someone that can say "Raspberry Pi" but can't google "file permissions on linux" or umask.

Nice snark there rtard. If a user has permission to "edit" a directory, this includes both editing and deleting files owned by the same user. File permissions or umask will not help you there. I suppose you could rig the system to create a new user for every mac address that connects, but that could be easily circumvented. Im sure it's possible someone, just not as easy as googling how filer permissions work.

Comment Re:Applets only (Score 1) 282

by drkstr1 (#44966391) Attached to: Will New Red-Text Warnings Kill Casual Use of Java?

Java as an idea was great....write a program that compiles once and the binary can run on anything.

<rant> Java as an implementation has failed miserably for just the reason mentioned by the parent. I have encountered too many apps that won't run unless a specific version of the VM is available.

Then there is Tomcat, evil software container...I have lost too many hours of my life trying to keep that beast happy....just today I got an email from a colleague who wants to restart tomcat weekly because something is causing it to leak file descriptors. More than 1024 files open at the same time...I could probably figure it out, but that would again be more hours lost to java. </rant>

You just have crappy Java developers, it has nothing to do with Tomcat. The same thing would happen to any "always on" Java program that loads leaky external code. Don't feel bad, most of the Java code I've seen is total crap. You usually just don't notice it because of the short life-cycle of the process, unlike Tomcat.

Comment Re:Seriously? Did no one see this coming? (Score 2) 125

by drkstr1 (#44966237) Attached to: Malware Now Hiding In Graphics Cards

Measures could have been taken... but then again, what better way for the NSA and other government spies to infiltrate a computer independent of an operating system than this? Seriously.

Perhaps this?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/23/intel_stuns_world_with_wakeon3g/

NSA already have a hidden 3G enabled backdoor straight in to your CPU and can even power up computers remotely and provide power to HDDs and access them remotely.

It even has it's own OS within the chip so your OS of choice doesn't matter

You say it as if fact, but you must have missed this line in the article: "No evidence is offered for the assertions detailed above."

Submission + - Programmers' Most Hated Languages - And How To Avoid Them (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: If you work in programming for any length of time, you will sooner or later be forced to work with a language that, whether due to odd syntax, too much (or too little) flexibility, poor debugging capabilities or any number of other reasons, makes you pull your hair out. Of course, some languages are easier to avoid than others. If Visual Basic is your I-can't-stand-it language you can simply not work at any company with Windows applications created before 2008. But if Perl's myriad ways of doing things (and hence near=unreadability) turn you off, maybe you should just give up on programming altogether.

Comment Re:So... no separation between system and userspac (Score 1) 335

by drkstr1 (#44880417) Attached to: New Operating System Seeks To Replace Linux In the Cloud

You get access to the configuration which can then relay any incoming data to some outside target.

IANASA (systems administrator)... but why would this matter? Presumably the host OS would restrict the ports this thing can use. A compromised app on Linux with access to the world on some port could relay any incoming data to an outside target as well... right?

True, but it seems like Linux would have a better separation between the running process and a usable system environment, making that kind of attack more difficult. I'm sure these guys would have thought of that though. It really all just depends what is accessible from the root process. Sounds like fun.

Submission + - Why iTunes Radio Could Take Down Pandora

Submitted by cagraham
cagraham writes: Pandora has been the standard for internet radio since it launched in 2000, and just announced the appointment of new CEO Brian McAndrews. They claim they're not worried about Apple, but iTunes' massive user base (575 million), content deals, and cheaper pricing options should give them legitimate reason for concern. Can Pandora survive iTunes Radio? Do a-la-carte options like Spotify make any internet radio service irrelevant?

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