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Re:yes but... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-20 16:45 · Score: 0 · on Linux 3.4 Released

Last time I checked, "Linux" had plenty of games.

Re:The Big Problem with Software Patents is... by Ragingguppy · 2012-05-20 16:38 · Score: 1 · on Software Patents Good For Open Source?

http://www.google.com/patents?id=ZUUNAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA4&dq=Jury+selection+Mock+Trials&hl=en&sa=X&ei=b8K5T6vsK5TJiQLG_aj4Bg&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Jury%20selection%20Mock%20Trials&f=false

If you talk to a lawyer and he says that software patents and patents on business processes are a good thing. Show them this. I bet you they will change their minds.

Re:A week? by Compaqt · 2012-05-20 15:49 · Score: 4, Insightful · on Who's Pirating Game of Thrones, and Why?

>I really wonder how many shows would be produced if people could pay for individual series on the equivalent of Pay Per View, but at a more reasonable price.

Good question. A lot of people also wonder why they always cancel the good shows.

Some observations:
1. The "good shows" are the ones that are truly interesting and different. They're not the dime-a-dozen reality shows or sitcom set in an apartment building.
2. Because of #1, they gain a passionate following.
3. But the networks play around with the shows, moving them from slot to slot. People don't know when they're on, they miss them, ratings go down.
4. They're canceled.

By contrast, if people were paying $1 directly for a show, that'd be, say $2 mil or so per episode, enough to produce most shows. Maybe $2 for a show with EFX.

Re:Where are the products ARM? by hairyfeet · 2012-05-20 12:45 · Score: 1 · on ARM, Intel Battle Heats Up

If you are in the EU you have your answer, the VAT kills you. Here in the states i paid $350 for my EEE 1215B new and that was with an added 8Gb of RAM and a nice carrying case for the unit. Now that was pre flood but they still sell for $440 and that is for the HP that beats my EEE in most benches. You are talking 12 inch so its easy to carry, less than 3 pounds, able to hold between 4Gb and 8Gb of RAM, and at least for the EEE I can get between 6 and 7 hours stock, longer if I use Brazos tweaker to lower the idle a little.

And finally as for those benches...were they compiled with the intel compiler? do they even list what compiler they used? if not its worthless as its well known intel compilers cripple the code if you run it on AMD chips. If you take a Via (the only chip that can change the CPUID) and change the CPUID from centaur hauls to genuine Intel them gasp! The chip magically gains 30% on the benches. this is why I completely ignore benches because its quack.exe all over again. What matters is real world usage and I can tell you the E350 does every job I can throw at it quite well, I've even used it for editing multitrack audio recordings in the practice room and never had a bit of struggle, nor has it struggled when i play some L4D or GTA:VC. For real world usage its a really great chip.

Re:Everybody Draw Mohammed Day by Doc+Ruby · 2012-05-20 11:54 · Score: 1 · on Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over 'Blasphemous' Images

Really? "Death penalty for child porn" is a very common reaction when someone is busted for it. Look at any discussion thread in any news site that reports someone even accused of a child porn crime, even without conviction, even if not producing the porn (and so directly exploiting a child). I searched for "child pornography" discussion in Google news, and one of the first results that had comments called for "ball peen justice", which is death for child pornography. Possession, not production. It's very common.

Re:A shrinking market by bmo · 2012-05-20 08:26 · Score: 5, Interesting · on Programming — Now Starting In Elementary School

And the United States is doomed

We are, unless things drastically change in politics and the boards of corporations. This is a matter of facts on the ground. It's not open to debate. It's happening.

we should all lay down and slowly starve.

We won't have any choice if things don't change.

We have been handing technology, as a society, to the Chinese for decades now, with the delusional belief that all the high-end stuff will still happen here. I believe it started with Voc-Ed being a place to dump the "dummy" students. This is how I believe we lost the skills to make anything here - that we systematically decided that making anything = sweatshop and if you were smart, you didn't go into manufacturing, ever. We denigrated actual work for decades and anyone who worked in a factory making anything was therefore just some dumb monkey. And you can replace monkeys on one side of the planet with monkeys from another side. That's the thinking that got us here.^1

But transferring the manufacturing base over to China makes it inconvenient for the engineering and software to happen here, so guess where it's going to move.

Go ahead, guess.

Engineers and scientists are already moving to Shanghai.

Unless we stop the haemorrhaging and start building up our own manufacturing base here encouraging students to go into STEM without learning Chinese is a joke and a half.

But I don't see that happening any time soon.

--
BMO

Postscript: I was looking at a Popular Mechanics from the 1950s and there was articles that went on for pages on how to use a shaper and a tip on how to turn a taper using ball bearings instead of ordinary conical centers , and it was just *there* as if machining was a skill that many people had. You don't publish an article in a popular magazine where you deliberate write over the heads over your readers or write something they don't care about. It was expected that the readers of the 1954 Popular Mechanics^2 would find this stuff applicable. Today you would *never* find such an article in a mainstream magazine such as that.

Footnotes:

1. The war on work: http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

The first half goes on about castrating sheep. But that's the set-up for the second half, so watch the whole thing.

2. http://books.google.com/books?id=Nt8DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA126&dq=1954%20Popular%20Mechanics&pg=PA234#v=onepage&q&f=true

Transcending to a Newer Way Of Thinking by Paul+Fernhout · 2012-05-20 01:08 · Score: 2 · on Sidestepping Tactical Nuclear Weapons Limits With Strategic Bombs

"The problem is that there are hostile, sometimes crazy, nations that have nuclear weapons"

Like the USA? :-) If not today, maybe after the next election? What about a country that has institutionalized torture, that has about a quarter of its population food insecure, that is becoming completely dependent on other countries for consumer goods, and that is blowing up people around the world with killer robots, is sane?

You may be unable to see the forest of my point for the trees of your strategic reply, perhaps because you are caught up in short-term thinking about the rationality of military planning (each point making sense by itself) while missing the overall increasing systematic risk? That is the kind of thinking that lead to the recent global economic crisis --- every local economic decision making sense locally, but then the whole house of cards collapsing as the system collectively passes some phase change boundary (like heated water starting to turn into steam). Like pollution, increasing systemic risk is an externality often unaccounted for in local decision making (whether economically or militarily).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is based on rationality at all levels of the system (except that the whole approach is crazy for reasons I mention below). You just said there are crazy people out there. So MAD will not work. It can not keep working indefinitely for exactly the reasons you mention ("hostile, sometimes crazy"). Seriously, why should a crazy leader of either North Korea or the USA not just start nuking other countries because they think they are on some mission from god or something and everyone else is to terrified to stop them? Example:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa
"George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month."

Another source from before Bush's election:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html
"''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.'' "

You're also ignoring the bigger issue is that WMDs is no longer purely a national problem. Like has happened so many times before, the technologies like nuclear weapons, designer plagues, nanotech, cyberwarfare, or killer robots, that once were only in the control of big countries are going to eventually filter down to the average small country or even small group or individual. Our entire military doctrine is out-of-sync with emerging 21st century realities.

Or, as George Orwell said:
http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/george-orwell
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, is possible to carry this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

An essay I wrote on that general issue:
"Problems of the MAD doctrine, their consequences, and positive alternatives"
http://groups.google.com/group/virgle/browse_thread/thread/6b18338b6b947931
"The policy of "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD) wi

Re: Obligatory by Jappus · 2012-05-19 21:18 · Score: 1 · on Aero Glass UI No More On Windows 8

Correct link for non-german speakers:
https://www.google.com/search?q=intel+medfield

Copy+Paste gives you great power, but with great power... :)

Re:Agreed, Greenpeace doesn't deserve credit by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-19 05:23 · Score: 1 · on Apple Commits To 100% Renewable Energy Sources for NC Data Center

People don't make a fuss about Google because Google has always been transparent about their dedication to clean energy, and has been recognized many times for it. They're even making giant investments in renewables. http://www.google.com/green/energy/

Meanwhile, Apple has been as opaque as possible regarding their environmental effects, only opening up about it when they think it'll affect their bottom line.

Gains of productivity increases by Compaqt · 2012-05-19 04:58 · Score: 1 · on HP To Cut 30,000 Jobs

By the way, 30 years ago is when the US went off the gold standard and the Fed got the opportunity to "print" money and give it to their friends on Wall Street.

How the Fed Favors the 1%

Re:Well let me be the first to say... by drinkypoo · 2012-05-19 00:31 · Score: 1 · on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50%

1980s diesel is quite bad for your lungs compared to 1980s gasoline, I will grant.

[citation needed]

That's an incredibly stupid thing to say. Not only has it been shown (and we have discussed on slashdot) that gassers emit more soot than was previously believed and we now also know that soot is exceptionally dangerous. But what you apparently don't know is that gasoline emissions control was for shit in the 1980s, or that gasoline soot is the worst soot, with small particle sizes, and high quantities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons actually linked to the soot. So you've got more unburned hydrocarbons and you've got smaller particles which are harder for the lungs to filter.

Meanwhile, the 80s is when fuel injection began to proliferate, with many vehicles retaining carburetion into the early nineties before the improved emissions standards made this essentially impossible. Mixture control just doesn't respond quickly enough from a carburetor. So a lot of these vehicles are even still carbureted.

Finally, diesel used to be sulphured and now they use other additives which are actually more toxic. Unburned diesel is actually more dangerous today than it was twenty years ago. Gasoline is safer in some places because MTBE has been outlawed, though; they're using ethanol, so it's not only safer but it's also cleaner.

3 tons of gas vs. a hundred pounds of batteries?! by spage · 2012-05-18 20:36 · Score: 1 · on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50%

Anti-hybrid articles full of crocodile tears over the pollution from batteries and rare earth are just hand-waving drivel. Most transportation lifecycle analyses just take the weight of a car; the Prius weighs the same 1.5 tons as other midsize cars. So cue fact-free diatribes about dirty rare earth and nickel mining, complete with pictures of Sudbury from 40 years ago.

But here's where you need to apply common sense. The 100 pounds of recyclable NiMH batteries (including about 20 pounds of nickel) and ?? pounds of rare earth for magnets and electronics in a hybrid probably *do* involve more pollution pound-for-pound than all the other crap that goes into making a conventional car. But over 120,000 miles they result in 3 tons less gasoline getting burned compared with the 35 mpg TDI for which diesel fanbois have such a hard-on (here's the math). Every one of those 6,000 pounds of gasoline saved would have been dirty and polluting to produce, spill, and refine, and they all wound up in the atmosphere.

A little clarification by Quillem · 2012-05-18 19:17 · Score: 5, Informative · on India Lurches Toward Internet Censorship

The Indian courts have not explicitly blocked file sharing sites. All they have provided is a generic order to stop the copyright infringement. The company Copyright Labs which is looking to stop the piracy of its films, maintain that they provided the ISPs with a list of specific URLs that were to be blocked. The ISPs have apparently decided (40 days after the blocks were requested) to block entire domains rather than individual URLs. One of these parties is liable for damages for the blanket blocks.

The courts haven't necessarily done anything wrong here besides being ingenuous.

Re:Reversion to mean? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-18 17:00 · Score: 0 · on Wozniak's Original System Description of the Apple ][

IMHO, a binary object file should be an AST and native OS loaders should do the final stage of compiling as they load. On a modern machine AST binaries can be both smaller and loaded into memory faster than a native object file binary, as shown with Slim Binaries on the Oberon system. Such a system would naturally allow drivers to be paired with hardware since it would be system agnostic as long as the system followed a few simple rules.

Re:Tim Cook's first big fuckup. by _xeno_ · 2012-05-18 15:38 · Score: 0 · on With Mountain Lion's iCloud Integration, Apple Strengthens the Garden Wall

Well, then it's Mountain Lion (the version being discussed) that removes it, not Lion. But in any case, it's being removed, and you simply won't be able to run X11 apps on Mac OS X any more. I could have sworn this was covered on Slashdot, but apparently it wasn't, since I can't find it here. But it was reported in plenty of other places.

Re:The patent by Dcnjoe60 · 2012-05-18 10:57 · Score: 5, Interesting · on Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices

Here's the patent in question:

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-ELAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,370,566

The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile device in accordance with one aspect of the present invention provides a property in the object which is indicative of whether the meeting request has already been transmitted. In this way, other devices which encounter the meeting request are capable of identifying it as a unique meeting request, and of determining whether the meeting request has already been transmitted, in order to alleviate the problem of duplicate meeting request transmissions.

Is that really patentable? Assigning a unique ID to a meeting request to alleviate duplicate requests? How can that not be obvious to someone "skilled in the art"?

Is there any other solution that's more obvious? "Hey Joe, I keep getting duplicate meeting requests from your Palm Pilot. Oh noooooos! Hey, I know, I'll send each meeting request in a different color, then if you get two purple ones you'll know it's a dupe".

Better yet, it is so vague that probably every laptop and table is also in violation of it, well every laptop and tablet not running Windows (ie Apple). My old palm pilot is also probably in violation, too.

The patent by hawguy · 2012-05-18 10:52 · Score: 5, Informative · on Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices

Here's the patent in question:

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-ELAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,370,566

The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile device in accordance with one aspect of the present invention provides a property in the object which is indicative of whether the meeting request has already been transmitted. In this way, other devices which encounter the meeting request are capable of identifying it as a unique meeting request, and of determining whether the meeting request has already been transmitted, in order to alleviate the problem of duplicate meeting request transmissions.

Is that really patentable? Assigning a unique ID to a meeting request to alleviate duplicate requests? How can that not be obvious to someone "skilled in the art"?

Is there any other solution that's more obvious? "Hey Joe, I keep getting duplicate meeting requests from your Palm Pilot. Oh noooooos! Hey, I know, I'll send each meeting request in a different color, then if you get two purple ones you'll know it's a dupe".

off The Man! by Thud457 · 2012-05-18 08:49 · Score: 1 · on HP To Cut 30,000 Jobs

...200% more productive.

All of which goes to executive compensation and maybe dividends for shareholders. The worker gets none of the benefit of added productivity.

It's been that way for at least 30 years, where have you been?

Gotta kill Bulverism first by Oloryn · 2012-05-18 04:06 · Score: 3, Insightful · on Geeks In the Public Forum?

Good luck getting an evidence-based culture developed in the face of the entrenched Bulverism of modern political discourse. Even more generally, we don't argue over the issues at hand, we argue over why the other side shouldn't be listened to (and Bulverism is just one tool in that arsenal). Not even the geeks or the scientists are immune. If you really want to move to an evidence-based culture, you're going to first have to pull people's focus off of defeating the opposition, and onto actually investigating the truth or falsity of particular issues. As C. S. Lewis put it "Until Bulverism is crushed, reason can play no effective part in human affairs". There's your assignment. Get to it.

Calcucorn!! by LanMan04 · 2012-05-18 02:52 · Score: 1 · on 'Inexact' Chips Save Power By Fudging the Math

This device has already been invented by a certain Tom Peters. I present: THE CALCUCORN:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7064178994016272127

(skip to 7:15)

Translation by Compaqt · 2012-05-18 01:38 · Score: 5, Insightful · on U.S. Imposes Tariffs On Chinese Solar Cells

When US subsidize solar, it good.

When China subsidize solar, it bad.

Re:What's missing? by JWSmythe · 2012-05-17 20:28 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Iran Threatens Legal Action Against Google For Not Labeling Gulf 'Persian'

hehe. Someone labeled it again. :) Well, I'll explain how to do it without the marker. It'll still work this way.

Go to http://maps.google.com/

Search "Persian Gulf"

In the middle of the gulf, right click, and select "Directions To Here"

You'll now have a green marker in the middle of the water. Click on it. It'll say something like

Address: 27.362011, 50.886841 Save to map more

Click on "More" and then click "Edit History"

Someone made the gulf a polygon back in 2009. You'll see it in the history. :) You can do this almost anywhere in the gulf, I'd think. I just aimed for the middle.

The Arabian Gulf also has a marker, but it's just off of Kuwait. It's been there since 2009, and there is some discussion on the fact it should be the entire gulf, not just a coastal area.

Re:Sue them! by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:20 · Score: 1 · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

Indeed, like Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011). Glik got $170,000 from Boston over this kind of police abuse. Similar lawsuits are underway in New Hampshire against cops from the Town of Weare; New Hampshire is part of the First Circuit, so we can guess how these cases will go. :)

Re:Sue them! by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:20 · Score: 1 · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

Indeed, like Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011). Glik got $170,000 from Boston over this kind of police abuse. Similar lawsuits are underway in New Hampshire against cops from the Town of Weare; New Hampshire is part of the First Circuit, so we can guess how these cases will go. :)

Re:It Won't Really End Until... by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:16 · Score: 4, Informative · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

The police harassment of photographers won't really end until either:
1) A settlement over this costs a city a Whole Lot of Money (>$100,000.00 + all lawyer fees).

How's $170,000 sound? :)

See Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011). Glik got a $170,000 settlement out of the Boston police. In New Hampshire, there are several people who were similarly abused by police and now have similar lawsuits underway. The First Circuit covers New Hampshire, so I think you can guess how these cases will go.

Re:It Won't Really End Until... by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:16 · Score: 4, Informative · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

The police harassment of photographers won't really end until either:
1) A settlement over this costs a city a Whole Lot of Money (>$100,000.00 + all lawyer fees).

How's $170,000 sound? :)

See Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011). Glik got a $170,000 settlement out of the Boston police. In New Hampshire, there are several people who were similarly abused by police and now have similar lawsuits underway. The First Circuit covers New Hampshire, so I think you can guess how these cases will go.

Re:Why delete the recordings? by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

(The rare reason: It violates the privacy of a citizen who is involved.)

Yup. This was always the excuse they'd bring up when we in New Hampshire were fighting this issue legislatively. Domestic violence cases, child victims, whatever emotional bullshit they could throw up to keep the wiretapping law here usable as a weapon to prevent people from recording police abuse---which is how they always use it here.

Fortunately there was recently a very positive U.S. District Court ruling, Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), which overrules all of this and makes legislative attempts to fix the problem a moot point.

Re:Why delete the recordings? by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

(The rare reason: It violates the privacy of a citizen who is involved.)

Yup. This was always the excuse they'd bring up when we in New Hampshire were fighting this issue legislatively. Domestic violence cases, child victims, whatever emotional bullshit they could throw up to keep the wiretapping law here usable as a weapon to prevent people from recording police abuse---which is how they always use it here.

Fortunately there was recently a very positive U.S. District Court ruling, Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), which overrules all of this and makes legislative attempts to fix the problem a moot point.

Re:Why delete the recordings? by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

(The rare reason: It violates the privacy of a citizen who is involved.)

Yup. This was always the excuse they'd bring up when we in New Hampshire were fighting this issue legislatively. Domestic violence cases, child victims, whatever emotional bullshit they could throw up to keep the wiretapping law here usable as a weapon to prevent people from recording police abuse---which is how they always use it here.

Fortunately there was recently a very positive U.S. District Court ruling, Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), which overrules all of this and makes legislative attempts to fix the problem a moot point.

Re:Why delete the recordings? by J'raxis · 2012-05-17 15:02 · Score: 4, Informative · on US Justice Dept Defends Right To Record Police

(The rare reason: It violates the privacy of a citizen who is involved.)

Yup. This was always the excuse they'd bring up when we in New Hampshire were fighting this issue legislatively. Domestic violence cases, child victims, whatever emotional bullshit they could throw up to keep the wiretapping law here usable as a weapon to prevent people from recording police abuse---which is how they always use it here.

Fortunately there was recently a very positive U.S. District Court ruling, Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), which overrules all of this and makes legislative attempts to fix the problem a moot point.

Re:8.8.8.8 by JWSmythe · 2012-05-17 14:47 · Score: 2 · on Paul Vixie: 100,000 DSL Modems May Lose Their DNS On July 9

Are you sure it's Google, and not your local provider? Botched routing tables can do that. What is your other DNS server? Is it a temporary issue? Is it only with a1.phobos.apple.com? Anycast should get a response back from the fastest server to respond.

I'll guess that you're in Australia, since I noticed the .au router you crossed. It doesn't look like Google has a datacenter there yet. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a presence in locations that are not official "Google Datacenters" though.

http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/index.html

The list could very likely be incomplete also. I know they had a presence in 111 8th Ave, New York, NY, and bought the whole building a couple years ago. That's not on the list at all. With the carriers that had a presence there, I'd seriously doubt they'd gut it and make it just office space.

It's working perfectly for me, and everyone that I've had switch over to it because their residential provider DNS is too slow.

# nslookup a1.phobos.apple.com 8.8.8.8 Server: 8.8.8.8 Address: 8.8.8.8#53

Non-authoritative answer: a1.phobos.apple.com canonical name = a1.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net. a1.phobos.apple.com.edgesuite.net canonical name = a1.da1.akamai.net. Name: a1.da1.akamai.net Address: 208.44.23.112 Name: a1.da1.akamai.net Address: 208.44.23.98

# traceroute 208.44.23.112 traceroute to 208.44.23.112 (208.44.23.112), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets [SNIP] 4 0.xe-7-3-0.BR3.ATL4.ALTER.NET (152.63.5.129) 17.254 ms 17.248 ms 17.286 ms 5 204.255.168.222 (204.255.168.222) 16.425 ms 16.438 ms 16.407 ms 6 atx-edge-03.inet.qwest.net (205.171.21.50) 17.285 ms 17.430 ms 17.311 ms 7 208-44-23-112.dia.static.qwest.net (208.44.23.112) 20.176 ms 20.341 ms 20.287 ms

# traceroute 208.44.23.98 traceroute to 208.44.23.98 (208.44.23.98), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets [SNIP] 4 0.xe-7-3-0.BR3.ATL4.ALTER.NET (152.63.5.129) 17.287 ms 17.359 ms 17.344 ms 5 204.255.168.222 (204.255.168.222) 16.476 ms 16.440 ms 16.429 ms 6 atx-edge-03.inet.qwest.net (205.171.21.50) 51.325 ms 48.945 ms 17.179 ms 7 208-44-23-98.dia.static.qwest.net (208.44.23.98) 17.560 ms 17.553 ms 17.620 ms

# traceroute a1.phobos.apple.com traceroute to a1.phobos.apple.com (23.67.53.75), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets [SNIP] 4 0.xe-3-0-2.XL3.MIA4.ALTER.NET (152.63.4.9) 10.664 ms 10.733 ms 10.718 ms 5 0.xe-11-0-0.XL1.MIA19.ALTER.NET (152.63.85.74) 11.683 ms 11.671 ms 11.654 ms 6 0.xe-10-1-0.GW1.MIA19.ALTER.NET (152.63.81.10) 9.971 ms 10.009 ms 10.081 ms 7 akamai.customer.alter.net (63.65.188.50) 11.995 ms 11.985 ms 12.045 ms 8 a23-67-53-75.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com (23.67.53.75) 10.153 ms 10.355 ms 10.355 ms

Google DNS resolved to Atlanta, which I believe is the closest Google datacenter, roughly 450 miles away and about 17.5ms.

Locally (my own DNS server on the same machine I tested from), resolved to Miami, which isn't the closest Akamai site, but may be the closest Apple mirror. That's roughly 280 miles and 10.3ms.

Using your own resolver is always an excellent choice, and will provide the best results for your location. For those who don't even know how to log into their router, much less run their own DNS server, Google's public DNS is fine.

Only public posts? by Centurix · 2012-05-17 11:51 · Score: 2 · on Online Loneliness At Google+

There's your problem. If your G+ stream seems like a ghost town it's because you only have your Facebook friends in your circles.

In G+ you add people with specific INTERESTS to your circles. That way when you read your stream, you get posts from people with the same INTEREST.

The links below are to shared circles. Add these circles to your profile, your stream will jump into life.

General Geek Circle
More General Geek Circle
Interesting Folks Circle
Video Game Industry Circle
List of Circles