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Comment Re:I believe it because.. (Score 1) 291

I have been discriminated against a few times because I choose to be childless.

Do you really choose to be childless or can you just not find anyone who will put up with you long enough to have a child together?

Though you may have been joking, this kind of response is an example of what he was talking about.

Comment Re:Trade secrets, not patents (Score 1) 148

Actually, all the sodas, even common ones like Coke and Pepsi, use real sugar when their market is Mexican people. Even soda sold in Mexican food stores in the US sell the real sugar version. They don't like the HFCS, so the companies make what will sell better. I don't know why us US Americans have such a weak will that we have to buy what they give us whether it tastes good or not. Brainwashing perhaps?

They sell Mountain Dew Throwback, which uses real sugar instead of HFCS. I actually don't like the taste of it. It tastes flat to me, like it was normal Mountain Dew that's been left open for a few days.

That's just my opinion though.

Comment Re:A win? (Score 1) 328

Replying to myself, but here's what it is like where I live:

http://waterone.org/your-water...

Block 1: $3.76/1,000 gallons
Block 2: $5.02/1,000 gallons

Block 1 rate is applied to usage up to and including 125% of the average winter consumption (AWC) used for billing. Block 2 rate is applied to all usage in excess of 125% of the AWC used for billing.

http://www.jocogov.org/dept/wa...

Residential customers are billed bi-monthly and charges are determined by multiplying the average winter water usage by the volume rate and adding the customer service charge

So, my waste water bill is based solely on my winter usage. My water bill charges me extra for any usage above 125% of my average winter usage.

When I first moved into my house (during the summer), my waste water bill was based on the 'average' winter usage for the neighborhood, since they did not have historic winter usage data for me. I live alone, so they were charging me 3-5x my actual usage. I had to call them and request that they use my actual usage, instead of the average for the neighborhood. I'm sure they could have very easily ran that check without my calling, but I think they were hoping I wouldn't complain about my sewage bill being 3x my water bill :).

Comment Re:A win? (Score 1) 328

They do that where I live, too. They use your winter water usage as a baseline on the assumption that you aren't watering your lawn or washing your car during the winter months. During the summer months any usage over your average winter usage is charged at a higher rate, on the assumption that this extra usage is being used for things such as watering the lawn or washing your car.

Comment Re:not developed by a responsible team? (Score 4, Informative) 301

Even if OpenSSL is using system's malloc, with all its mitigation features, the bug still works. The attacker just has to be more careful, lest he should read freed() and unmapped memory, and so cause a crash and (supposedly) leave some kind of meaningful trail.

You got it exactly right. He's complaining that because they provided their own malloc() wrapper that the read of freed() memory is NOT causing a crash. If they had used the system malloc() then there would be crashes, the issues would be detected, and they would have been fixed.

Comment Re:On the bright side (Score 1) 144

It says right there in your Wikipedia article:

The term "begging the question" originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of Latin petitio principii "assuming the initial point". In modern vernacular usage, "to beg the question" more frequently is used to mean "to raise the question" (as in "This begs the question of whether ") or "to dodge the question".

It does go on to say that authorities deem such usage to be mistaken or unclear, but I don't know if I'd say he was incorrect. Language evolves.

Submission + - Slashdot Beta Woes 16

s.petry writes: What is a Slashdot and why the Beta might destroy it?

Slashdot has been around, well, a very long time. Longer than any of it's competators, but not as long as IIRC. Slashdot was a very much one of the first true social media web sites.

On Slashdot, you could create a handle or ID. Something personal, but not too personal, unless you wanted it to be. But it was not required either. We know each other by our handles, we have watched each other grow as people. We may have even taken pot shots at each other in threads. Unless of course you are anonymous, but often we can guess who that really is.

One of Slashdot's first motto's was "News for Nerds" that Matters. I have no idea when that was removed. I have not always scoured the boards here daily, life can get too busy for that. That excuses my ignorance in a way. I guess someone thought it politically incorrect, but most of us "Nerds" enjoyed it. We are proud of who we are, and what we know. Often we use that pride and knowledge to make someone else look bad. That is how we get our digs in, and we enjoy that part of us too. We don't punch people, we belittle them. It's who we are!

What made Slashdot unique were a few things. What you will note here is "who" has been responsible for the success of Slashdot. Hint, it has never been a just the company taking care of the servers and software.

— First, the user base submitted stories that "they" thought mattered. It was not a corporate feed. Sure, stories were submitted about companies. The latest break through from AMD and Intel, various stories regarding the graphic card wars, my compiler is better than your compiler, and yes your scripting language stinks! Microsoft IIS has brought us all a few laughs and lots of flame wars to boot. Still, we not only read about the products but get to my second point.

— User comments. This is the primary why we have been coming here for as long as we have, many of us for decades. We provide alternative opinions or back what was given in the article. This aspect not only makes the "News" interesting, but often leads to other news and information sharing. It's not always positive, but this is the nature of allowing commentary. It also brings out the third point.

— Moderation. Moderation has been done by the community for a very long time. It took lots of trial and error to get a working system. As with any public system it's imperfect, but it's been successful. People can choose to view poorly modded comments, but don't have to. As with posting anonymous versus with our own handle it's an option that allows us to personalize the way we see and read what's on the site. And as a reward for submitting something worth reading, you might get a mod point of your own to use as a reward for someone else.

Why we dislike Beta and what is being pushed, and why this will result in the end of an era if it becomes forced on the community.

1. Bulky graphics. We get that Dice and Slashdot need revenue. I have Karma good enough to disable advertisements, but have never kept this setting on. I realize that Slashdot/Dice make money with this. That said, the ads sit away from my news and out of the way. I can get there if I want it (but nobody has ever gotten a penny from me clicking an ad... nobody!), but it's not forced into my face or news feed.

2. Low text area. I like having enough on my screen to keep me busy without constant scrolling. Slashdot currently has the correct ratio of text to screen. This ratio has never been complained about, yet Beta reduces the usable text area by at least 1/2 and no option for changing the behavior. I hate reading Slashdot on mobile devices because I can't stand scrolling constantly.

3. JavaScript. We all know the risks of JS, and many of us disable it. We also have an option of reading in Lync or non-standard browsers that many of us toy with for both personal and professional reasons. This flexibility is gone in Beta, and we are forced to allow JS to run. If you don't know the risks of allowing JS to run, you probably don't read much on Slashdot. Those that allow JS do so accepting the risk (which is admittedly low on a well known site).

4. Ordering/Sorting/Referencing. Each entry currently gets tagged with a unique thread ID. This allows linking to the exact post in a thread, not just the top of the thread. In Beta this is gone. It could be that the site decided to simply hide the post ID or it was removed. Either way, going to specific posts is something that is used very commonly by the community.

5. Eye candy. Most of us are not here for "eye candy" and many have allergic reactions to eye candy. Slashdot has a good mix currently. It's not as simple as the site starting with a r-e-d-i-t, which is good. That site has a reputation that keeps many of us away, and their format matches my attitude of them (s-i-m-p-l-e-t-o-n). At the same time, it's not like watching some other "news" sites with so much scrolling crap I can't read an article without getting a headache. The wasted space in beta for big bulky borders, sure smells like eye candy. Nothing buzzes or scrolls yet, but we can sense what's coming in a patch later.

The thing is, the community cares about Slashdot. We come here because we care. We submit stories because of that, we vote because of that, we moderate because of that, and we comment because of that. At the same time we realize that without the community Slashdot loses most of its value. We respect that we don't host the servers, backup the databases, or patch the servers. Slashdot/Dice provide the services needed for Slashdot.

It's a give give relationship, and we each get something in return. Slashdot gets tons of Search hits and lots of web traffic. We get a place to learn, teach, and occasionally vent.

Look, if you want to change default color scheme or make pre-made palettes for us to choose from, we would probably be okay with that. If you want to take away our ability to block ads by Karma, or move the ads to the left side of my browser window, I would be okay with those things too.

If you want to make drastic changes to how the site works, this is a different story all together. The reason so many are against Beta is that it breaks some of the fundamental parts of what makes Slashdot work.

User input until recently has not been acknowledged. The acknowledgment we have received is not from the people that are making the decision to push Beta live. We told people Beta was broken, what it lacked, and we were rather surprised to get a warning that Beta would be live despite what we told people. People are already making plans to leave, which means that Slashdot could fade away very soon.

Whether this was the goal for Dice or not remains to be seen. If it is, it's been nice knowing you but I won't be back. A partnership only works when there is mutual respect between the parties. A word of caution, us Nerds have good memories and lots of knowledge. The loss of Slashdot impacts all of Dice holdings, not just Slashdot. I boycott everything a company holds, not just the product group that did me wrong.

If that was not the goal of Dice, you should quickly begin communicating with the user base. What are the plans are to fix what Beta has broken? Why is Beta being pushed live with things broken? A "Sorry we have not been communicating!", and perhaps even a "Thank you" to the user base for helping make Slashdot a success for so many years.

Submission + - User Backlash at Slashdot Beta Site (slashdot.org) 3

hduff writes: Look at almost any current Slashdot story and see loyal, long-time members rail against the new site design, willing to burn precious karma points to post off-topic rants against the new design and it being forced on users by the Dice Overlords. Discussion has begun to create an alternate site.

Submission + - Boycott Beta 2

An anonymous reader writes: On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.

Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system.

If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.

We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott

Moderators — only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors — only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] — Vote up the Fuck Beta stories

Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention.

Captcha: fuckbeta

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757125&cid=46169357
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757125&cid=46169451
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4757045&cid=46168351
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4756947&cid=46167453

Comment Re:Key theft != cracking encryption (Score 2) 268

Note the basic misunderstanding embedded in that last sentence: Turned off != Hibernated.

While this tool might help you break into a computer you found hibernated, or running while locked, it won't do any good if the power cord is yanked, or the encryption software was intelligently written to only store its key an some volatile memory.

I'm pretty sure that modern hibernate simply stores necessary information from RAM into a file on disk, and shuts off the computer. Then, on boot, it checks if this file exists, and if so attempts to resume from it. So, there is no difference between "off" and "hibernating." The boot sequence will just check if there is a file to resume from.

So, you still need to find a computer that has the volume mounted (either running, in 'sleep' mode with power still being supplied, or from a hibernate file on the disk)

Comment Re:ODB II Readers are cheap (Score 1) 233

If you have a smartphone, you don't even have to spend near $60. Just check ebay for ELM327. Here's one that I got for $13 shipped:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310371228800&ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160#ht_4937wt_922

then, download Torque on your Android phone (I hear that iPhones don't allow this kind of Bluetooth pairing, but I don't have any personal experience), pair it to the Bluetooth module, and you have a $13 OBD-II reader. You can read stats from your car, you can read check engine codes (Torque gives you a text description, and supplies a link to search the web), and clear the check engine light. IMHO, for $13 everyone should keep one of these in their glove box. It's worth it to me if I save one trip to the auto store to get the free reading/clear code just to know that my gas cap was loose.

Quick note: I bought 2 of these from the link above. They both worked great, but they both have the same Bluetooth ID. It may have issues if you try using multiple of them in close proximity. But you get what you pay for ;) It may be an unregistered Bluetooth device, but it works for my uses.

Comment Linksys E3000 (Score 3, Informative) 334

I've been very happy with TomatoUSB on the E3000. Only $60 refurb, or $70 new from NewEgg ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124419 ). Simultaneous 2.4/5GHZ g/n, USB port for NAS/Printer, 64MB RAM, gigabit switch. Only has 8MB flash though, if you were planning on storing lots of programs on it (you would want to put those on a USB flash drive anyway, so I don't think internal flash really matters)

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