Comment Football (Score 1) 235
Did anyone else notice that they used a football as their central "pod" for the ship in the article's graphic? It looks like a bad copy/paste job involving circa 1998 Bryce 3D, MS Paint, and a TI-83.
Comment XFCE Convert (Score 4, Insightful) 818
I couldn't agree more. I first moved to XFCE when I was looking for a lighter window manager on an older computer. This was about a year ago, and I haven't looked back. Everything just works, and failing that, is fairly simple to configure. No godawful semi-maintained nigh-mandatory extensions lists, no configurator-cum-registry, no fighting with dozens of default helper services. It's just... functional. Is that too much to ask?
Submission + - Diablo 3 Servers Hacked 1
Hyppy writes: Hundreds (thousands) of users have reportedly been hacked simultaneously this weekend, less than a week after Diablo 3 was released. Dozens of threads on the official Diablo 3 forums created over the past 48 hours have been censored by Blizzard customer service officials. Interestingly enough, many players have Blizzard's SecurID-styled Authenticator on their accounts, bringing into question both Blizzard's security and that of the Authenticators.
Comment Re:Not making money = wasting money (Score 3, Insightful) 141
I have a few too many business degrees and miscellaneous related credentials, so I have some clue what I'm talking about.
The GP is right on this one. Technical and other professional workers are generally to be left to their own devices. Micromanagement is only to be used on those with little experience and job knowledge, or specific cases of a problem employee. This has been thoroughly studied and well-known in the (educated) business community for decades.
The GP is right on this one. Technical and other professional workers are generally to be left to their own devices. Micromanagement is only to be used on those with little experience and job knowledge, or specific cases of a problem employee. This has been thoroughly studied and well-known in the (educated) business community for decades.
Comment Re:As a business owner (Score 1) 714
Sexual orientation: pedophile.
Wow, you seriously just went for that, didn't you? Take it a step further. Don't hire men, because they're all alcoholics and rapists.
Comment Re:93 million accounts? (Score 1) 68
Wow 50 million PS3s? Increase that by another 50% and it's getting close to the number of Blackberry subscribers...
Which is, what, about 1.5% of cell phones?
Comment Re:Can't you just..... (Score 1) 475
You forgot the person that was electrocuted in Edison's new "Electric Chair" as the final demonstration of the "evil" of AC power. Yeah, it took him like 8 minutes to die as he was slowly cooking from the inside and screaming like a banshee.
Comment Re:What proof do you have? (Score 1) 545
If the software was never publicly published, it wasn't really open source software to begin with. You release early and you release often, also for these sort of things.
He released it to himself. I wonder if that is enough? If so, there are some strange implications for anyone coding for a living. Want to have rights to continue using your code? Add an open source license to it, even if the employer removes it later. Somehow, I think that there may be a reason this won't work.
Comment Re:Apparently (Score 1) 149
The poster probably saw the chart, as they seem to have actually read the article in addition to merely glancing at a picture on the last page. Right below that graph:
But under the best of conditions, hard drives typically top out at 3% by the fifth year. Suffice it to say, the researchers at CMRR are adamant that today's SSDs aren't an order of magnitude more reliable than hard drives.
So you're quoting that SSDs are not 10x more reliable than HDDs. That doesn't exactly prove a point that HDDs are more reliable.
Comment Re:Not as surprising as it should be (Score 1) 103
You have obviously not come across the special breed of divalopers that we like to call Updatus Avoidus. Above and beyond the lovable characteristics of your run-of-the-mill divaloper, the Updatus Avoidus can be identified by it's shrill cries that often sound like "Don't patch! *squaaaak* My code will break! *squaaaaak*"
Comment Re:Not as surprising as it should be (Score 2) 103
Lately we've also been finding out that many major websites are storing passwords as plain text and are untested against SQL injection. So it's unsurprising that they're also unpatched.
Web servers need to be actively watched, maintained and scanned for vulnerabilities. Just because it's a LAMP server doesn't mean it's rock-solid. The fire-and-forget philosophy does not apply.
The problem is generally far beyond the necessary LAMP or IIS patching: The vulnerabilities you describe are flaws in the site's design and code. You can't patch a stupid divaloper.
Comment Re:I was "all in" for a bit (Score 1) 538
Walking away is an option in the implementation phase, sure. If something doesn't work right, you can just pull back and do something else.
The problem is when you get beyond implementation, and the vendor has your data by the naughty bits. You can't just "walk" without walking away from all your data. You think you have an SLA that allows you to walk away with your data? Take a look and see if it defines EXACTLY which format they export it in. Chances are, you've agreed to get a few TB of incomprehensible junk if you break contract.
The problem is when you get beyond implementation, and the vendor has your data by the naughty bits. You can't just "walk" without walking away from all your data. You think you have an SLA that allows you to walk away with your data? Take a look and see if it defines EXACTLY which format they export it in. Chances are, you've agreed to get a few TB of incomprehensible junk if you break contract.
Comment Re:Of course (Score 1) 538
The problem is that the "employer can't fire you for not doing something illegal" protections are really quite pathetic, especially in at-will states. At best, you can expect to win a couple month's pay after the 2-year court battle and attorney's fees. At worst, you're out the cost of attorneys' fees for both sides, and get nothing to show for it but a spot on the local IT blacklist.
Regardless of the law, the choice is still between a) do what you're told and b) hope you can make your mortgage without a job.
Regardless of the law, the choice is still between a) do what you're told and b) hope you can make your mortgage without a job.
Comment Re:Of course (Score 1) 538
Rejoice, IT people! KingMotley has discovered that there are unlimited opportunities for employment in every job market. If you're not lazy, there are sufficiently-compensating IT jobs for every specialty available ANYWHERE!
Parochial jackass.
Parochial jackass.
Comment Re:Duh (Score 0) 538
Or, it's a set of clustered servers that provide abstracted and elastic resources to guest applications and services.
The more I read your contributions to this story, the more it's becoming apparent that you're either a troll or a shill.
The more I read your contributions to this story, the more it's becoming apparent that you're either a troll or a shill.
