mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Gondolas Could Be the Next Great Urban Transportation Device
mseebach2's comments
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Gondolas Could Be the Next Great Urban Transportation Device
The way the "trapped" situation is solved for large Ferris wheels is a secondary spool of cable that you can attach to a truck and propel the system for long enough to evacuate it. That strikes me as applicable here.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Leaping Brain's "Virtually Uncrackable" DRM is just an XOR with "RANDOM_STRING"
I think the distinction is between software and hardware DRM. DirecTV controls the entire hardware chain. This means they can do various proper encryption schemes (public/pre-shared key etc) that are actually near impossible to crack and make it really, really hard to obtain the key by making the key write-only in the crypto-chip.
In a pure software solution, you control the hardware, and any hiding of the key is subject to reverse engineering the software.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: "Your criticisms are completely wrong": Stallman on software patents
Well, Ubuntu's unwavering pragmatism in getting GNU/Linux on the desk- and laptops of reasonably regular people has had a big impact.
But being right (even very right) in the 80s and 90s doesn't make you automatically right forever after; I found his assertion that you should starve rather than write or run a single line of unfree code[1] to be wrong and very counterproductive to spreading free and open source software.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Homeland Security spent $430M on radios its employees don’t know how to use
The conspiracy theories generally hold that 9/11 wasn't perpetrated by "terrorists", regardless of their benefactors. E.g. WTC towers were brought down by explosives, not planes crashing into them, Pentagon was hit by a missile, not a plane.
The simplest and most plausible theory is simply that Bush and Cheney knew, but didn't do anything because they needed the attack to go into Iraq. Even then, at least tens of people in the White House and upper echelons of US intelligence would have known and would have known that they could have stopped this by making a few phone calls. Even 12 years later, not one of them has regretted his complicity in killing thousands of civilians and spilled the beans to a reporter.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out
Wouldn't it be a factor that On2 isn't/wasn't in the search space at all? Only after the Google acquisition did duck.com come to be associated with search, and then only by virtue of Google redirecting it to their main page.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Prince William photos accidentally reveal RAF password
There is a certain chance that this is not, in fact, an example of bad password management. This service ("MilFlip") could be an internal service on an internal, secure network (the kind of networks that, if someone was to penetrate it, you have bigger fish to fry than keeping them out of "MilFlip") that just doesn't have a good way of turning passwords off - and, to be "secure", requires a non-simple password.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Elon Musk and the Hyperloop
You can never avoid this, but take an approach like ZipCar:
http://www.zipcar.com/how/faqs/how-are-cars-cleaned
In almost two years of being a ZipCar client, I've never had any issues. Yes, the occasional coke can or candy wrapper left behind, but never a mess that I thought to be unreasonable.
If it turns out to be a bigger problem, install a camera that takes a shot when you take possession of the car, and when you relinquish it. Charge the renters credit card for messiness.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv
Despite the fact that nominally conservative parties implement such policies does not make those policies 'conservative' in any meaningful political-history/ideological sense. Just like Obama renewing the Patriot Act doesn't make it liberal legislation.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv
In what ways do you consider Sweden a conservative country? It is very socially liberal and while it's finances are run mostly sanely, it has a huge re-distributive welfare state.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: On Being a Junior Developer
You can be arrogant if you're brilliant - not the other way around. As a junior engineer (in the 'not much experience', not 'pay grade' sense), you're probably not brilliant enough to be arrogant.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: On Being a Junior Developer
I don't agree with your comments about arrogance. You can be right and strongly opinionated without being arrogant. Junior or senior -- making anyone, boss or not, look bad anywhere, but especially in front of a client is a perfect way of finding yourself at the business end of some pretty nasty social dynamics.
Practice voicing your opinion and arguing for it in a way that isn't confrontational. 9 out of 10 times, it's as simple as acknowledging the other person: "I see where you're going with this, it's a good way to solve A, B and C. But when we get to D, I fear X will bite us in the tail - Y can avoid that.". This also avoids the stinging embarrassment of being arrogant and later being proven wrong.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: On Being a Junior Developer
It bears mentioning that you obviously have a shitty boss and that you should leave at the earliest possibility.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Elon Musk and the Hyperloop
Ah, I was thinking of a Gatling gun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_cannon), not a rail gun. The concept of rotary tubes seemed to mesh with OP's vision.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Elon Musk and the Hyperloop
"Rail gun" could illustrate the way carriages are added to and remove from the loop.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
I meant anti-discrimination as the law that keeps the GP from being fired for admitting he's gay.
As for the number of Brits being religious, I think it's easy to conclude that more than 35% of Brits celebrate Christmas. Given the origin of the poll, I would not be surprised if the question was phrased very narrowly.
It's not discriminatory to celebrate Christmas by default if your company is in a culture that predominantly observe Christmas. It would be discriminatory to make special arrangement for time off on Christmas, but not accommodating seasonal holiday requests from Muslims on Eid and Hindus on Diwali.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: German council ditching OpenOffice to go back to Microsoft
Since then, the city noticed that it has been far from ideal to use only OpenOffice for digital correspondence. Microsoft Office for instance is the standard for external communication, the council said.
Well, ur doin it wrong. There are vastly superior alternatives to the workflow I think this implies (e-mailing attached documents around).
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: Mumbai girl arrested for Facebook post
Most of the negatives you mention are perhaps styled in the language of religion, but they're underpinned by deeper causes.
The Middle East isn't solely a religious conflict, it's very much an ethnic one as well. Oppressive countries are oppressive, they're not liberal countries that just happened to read in a book that they should kill and maim those that worship in the wrong way. Closely knit groups (families, societies) are going to sanction deviators regardless of religion.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
That's not political correctness, that's anti-discrimination.
Political correctness is "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending non-Christians. It's idiotic because for those not celebrating Christmas, indeed those that might be offended by mentions of Christmas, there is no season to celebrate. Don't send them a card. "Seasons greetings" is not "culture neutral", it's a code for Christmas. Pretending people are too stupid to figure out why suddenly people are eager to wish them a particular great third week of December is very offensive, IMO.
mseebach2 | 13 years ago | on: BritRuby cancelled due to a lack of racial and gender diversity
> Hate speech and anti-discrimination laws have drastically improved the lives of millions of people in the UK.
Cause and effect, dude. This happened in the same time frame in virtually every single developed country on earth with different ways of approaching the issue. Chances are that being more tolerant was simply just an idea whose time had come.
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I think I've read about a train being build through a city somewhere, where it'd pass close by residential buildings, but only briefly. This was solved by installing "Smart glass" so they windows are obscured temporarily when going past the buildings.