theinquirer.net · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Another article by Jelloman · 2006-01-10 08:44 · Score: 1 · on MacWorld Keynote Announces x86 iMac & Laptop

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28890

Check out the last sentence before they fix it:

Apple's cher price was up sharply to over $81 on the news.

I thought everything on iTunes was 99 cents but I guess the market will pay $81 for Cher.

More interesting story: Another Dell rumour!! by edxwelch · 2006-01-10 06:30 · Score: 1 · on AMD Releases Dual-Core FX-60 Processor

Nevermind the FX60, there is a far more interesting story:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28889
Anyone like to partake in some pointless speculation weither the new Dell rumour has any substance or not?

Justice for managers vs. justice for kids by msbsod · 2006-01-07 09:34 · Score: 1 · on Sony to Settle Spyware Suit with Downloads?

So, Sony managers get away with unauthorized sabotage of an countless computers, while a kid is being charged with a felony for bringing down a school computer system? Talk about justice.

Patience Grasshoppa by Jherek+Carnelian · 2006-01-06 22:28 · Score: 3, Informative · on Value (Price/Quality) for Computer Upgrades?

Here:

ATI X1300 and X1600
Nvidia 6800

Just wait a few more weeks and they will be on the market.

Patience Grasshoppa by Jherek+Carnelian · 2006-01-06 22:28 · Score: 3, Informative · on Value (Price/Quality) for Computer Upgrades?

Here:

ATI X1300 and X1600
Nvidia 6800

Just wait a few more weeks and they will be on the market.

Peer review of "many eyes" should've caught this by I'm+Don+Giovanni · 2006-01-06 15:23 · Score: 2, Insightful · on WINE Still Vulnerable to WMF Exploit

What's amusing about this is that many of you guys that blasted Microsoft for designing this flaw into the WMF api are now defending the Wine devs with, "Well, they had to implement the whole api, so it's not their fault!!"

But the facts are that the original design was made pre-Win3.0, long before the rise of the internet as we know it today. It's not surprising that the design flaw arose in that environment, and the design was used to deal with the hodge-podge of various printer behaviors from those days. And I don't particularly blame the actual handful of Wine devs that implemented the "whole API" and therefore inherited this design flaw.

But I do place blame on the OSS community.
Allow me to quote from Engaging with The Open Source Community:

Another piece of Open Source philosophy is characterized as "many eyes make all bugs shallow." The continual review process used by Open Source communities produces a "many eyes" effect of massively parallel peer review that has been demonstrated to produce very high quality oversight of the software development process and products. Constant, repetitive peer review, coupled with a release schedule tied to objective software quality rather than marketing deadlines, consistently results in Open Source software quality orders of magnitude higher than that of commercial releases of similar software.

This flaw was staring the OSS community right in the face for all this time, yet the OSS community failed to find it. Of course, I'm being too hard on the OSS community. I wouldn't expect that community to find this problem. But nor should you. The "many eyes" claim is a canard because in truth very few people not involved in the actual development of a particular piece of code actually examine that code for flaws, and even fewer can identify a flaw even if it's staring them in the face as clearly as this one.

Hardware update? by Mercano · 2006-01-04 05:13 · Score: 1 · on 10 Million Nintendo DS Units Sold Since Launch

Back in November, the Inquirer et al. ran a story that hinted at an upcoming hardware revamp for the DS. I've been putting off getting the system since. (Osborn syndrome) Anyone heard anything since?

Re:That depends. by jank1887 · 2006-01-04 01:45 · Score: 1 · on 1" Hard Drives in Cellphones on the Rise

Wow, an AC that didn't follow the link, and felt the need to comment ignorantly anyway. Allow me to elucidate:

The article he quoted (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28647) is titled:

"Solid state DDR drive goes into prototype"

and in the picture, the device is labeled "DDRdrive X1"

and it looks like 4 RAM chips in a custom board. Main page with the picture HERE.

so, I think someone might have said something about DDR.

Re:For those of us without speakers... by artson · 2006-01-03 15:55 · Score: 1 · on Going Deep Inside Vista's Kernel Architecture

"Hey guys, I'm deaf. Been wondering about this for a long time, is there any kind of open source voice recognition package I could pipe audio through and get some kind of recognizable text?

Two things: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18420 IBM to open source speech recognition, and.. http://freespeech.sourceforge.net/ Open Mind Speech project. Nothing concrete, but there's source code available.

Re:That depends. by Dogers · 2006-01-03 02:10 · Score: 1 · on 1" Hard Drives in Cellphones on the Rise

RAID5 could be good with these puppies, they're weeny!

Sort of review here (it's in a USB enclosure: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28642

But what I really like the look of is this solid state "drive": http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28647
Seems to be lacking a battery though..?! Nice idea all the same :)

Re:That depends. by Dogers · 2006-01-03 02:10 · Score: 1 · on 1" Hard Drives in Cellphones on the Rise

RAID5 could be good with these puppies, they're weeny!

Sort of review here (it's in a USB enclosure: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28642

But what I really like the look of is this solid state "drive": http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28647
Seems to be lacking a battery though..?! Nice idea all the same :)

AMD Fanboy Reality Distortion by Animaniac · 2005-12-30 19:37 · Score: 5, Informative · on Intel's New Slogan Clarified

Disclaimer: I don't particularly care if AMD or Intel has the best technology. I know Slashdot is all about going with the groupthink, but what is with all these AMD fanboys and their awful wordplay on "Leap Ahead"? Have any of you even read one word about what this new marketing campaign is designed to announce and promote? Read up on the technology behind Intel's 2006 chips, namely Yonah, Merom and Conroe. The facts don't lie. By perofrmance per watt and even by absolute performance, despite sticking with 32-bit technology, Intel is going to trounce AMD in 2006 in both mobile, desktop, and server markets. Intel is announcing completely redesigned processors, and essentally all AMD is going to do is push the clockrate of their current designs. Here are some links to back up these claims. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2627 http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2648 http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28602 http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28624

AMD Fanboy Reality Distortion by Animaniac · 2005-12-30 19:37 · Score: 5, Informative · on Intel's New Slogan Clarified

Disclaimer: I don't particularly care if AMD or Intel has the best technology. I know Slashdot is all about going with the groupthink, but what is with all these AMD fanboys and their awful wordplay on "Leap Ahead"? Have any of you even read one word about what this new marketing campaign is designed to announce and promote? Read up on the technology behind Intel's 2006 chips, namely Yonah, Merom and Conroe. The facts don't lie. By perofrmance per watt and even by absolute performance, despite sticking with 32-bit technology, Intel is going to trounce AMD in 2006 in both mobile, desktop, and server markets. Intel is announcing completely redesigned processors, and essentally all AMD is going to do is push the clockrate of their current designs. Here are some links to back up these claims. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2627 http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2648 http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28602 http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28624

Re:Just to make it perfect... by NutscrapeSucks · 2005-12-27 11:13 · Score: 1 · on Blu-Ray Facing Delays Caused by DRM Squabbling

It gets coverage on The Inq: Samsung screwed Rambus using price fixing, so look through their archives.

> the next fad in startups, get some IP in a standard, wait a few years and profit

Or, form a cartel, and steal ideas from startups. Frankly, as long as I don't have to buy super expensive RAM, I don't give a damn.

Re:There are at least 11 by apoc06 · 2005-12-23 05:29 · Score: 1 · on 11 Design Mistakes of the Xbox 360

actually, i know where he is coming from. its basically some marketing FUD that J Allard, majornelson and microsoft PR were spouting off trying to impress people with the power of the x360. it was immediately following launch i think. i cant find the link i read it from so...

[update! found it]
http://theinquirer.net/?article=27249

basically he was saying that "none of the launch games even use more than one of the cores of the x360, so imagine the power of our box when developers get up to speed with their multithreaded programming". i read it as FUD and kinda ignored it, based upon a) the inquirers' rep and b) microsofts habit of denying rumors that they started or pushing the fallout over to their competitors. apparently its going to bite them in the longrun if they dont ante up to those comments. apparently they were way off the mark as more and more developers can now speak up and reveal details surrounding the games that are no longer top secret.

Re:Hard Drive Voodoo? by Belisarivs · 2005-12-21 04:32 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Seagate buys Maxtor for $1.9B

That really isn't fair to Western Digital. A few years ago, when all the IDE manufacturers were reducing their warranty period to one year for consumer drives, it was Western Digital that came out with their "Special Edition" drives, all of which came with three-year warranties. These drives ran like a champ. Since then they have dropped the "Special Edition" label, and almost all of their high-end drives come with a three-year warranty.

Back in those days, I bought 4 Maxtor drives, and all of them have failed (One of the main reasons for my move to Western Digital). As it's been said in other posts, anecdotal evidence really isn't much of an indicator for hard drives. I think most of the HD community simply put out crap back around 2002, but have since upped the quality.

Re:swap your loyalty cards... by TangoCharlie · 2005-12-14 02:54 · Score: 1 · on Ruby on Rails 1.0 Released

[...]yet it's too much to expect of yourself to do some of your own legwork and investigation?

Yes, it is.

The whole point of new sites such as slashdot.org, The Register, The Inquirer, etc... is that they should provide enough info to get you to bother to follow the links through to the real info....

If slashdot announces that a new version of vim on steroids has been released, then it might be interesting to know what exactly vim was. At the very least the FA which the article points to should say what it is all about.

I know I could have simply typed "Ruby on Rails" into google and found out exactly what it was... the whole point is that's exactly what I had to do.

Re:He's served his purpose by ivanmarsh · 2005-12-13 11:18 · Score: 5, Informative · on Diebold CEO Resigns Under Cloud

The voting machines that were tested post election consistantly made "mistakes" in favor of republicans... and now there's a Diebold insider that confirms those reports.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28174
http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/19/172 7222&tid=172&tid=103&tid=219
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_insider__all eges_company_plagued_1206.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/09/23/bev_h arris/index_np.html

Anything else I can do for you?

Web Based by EBFoxbat · 2005-12-12 08:52 · Score: 1 · on This Text Message Will Self Destruct

Um... I didn't RTFA or all the comments. what I have read is that is web-based and independent of handsets http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28293

Re:I don't think it stands alone ... by eldavojohn · 2005-12-12 08:32 · Score: 1 · on ATI X1800 CrossFire Cards Reviewed

As it is now, they're almost impossible to find already.

This is very true. However, it seems to be because the demand is so high. Why would they halt production with a demand like that unless they're preparing another card with equal stats or possibly easier to manufacture?

Well... by heli0 · 2005-12-12 08:29 · Score: 1 · on ATI X1800 CrossFire Cards Reviewed

"Further, if the latest rumors about the 7800GTX 512MB are true..."

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28227
"[Nvidia's next-gen card] is expected in early February and Nvidia is already playing with these cards."

So it would suprise anyone that they would discontinue the old card when they launch a new high-end card? Why is that a 'rumor', it is common sense.

Best Buy by Kadin2048 · 2005-12-12 06:56 · Score: 1 · on Cameras Online? How The Shysters Work

You really should have called or written to their corporate HQ about that.

That's the second thing I've heard recently about Best Buy managers being totally out of line. I think that their district or regional managers are definitely cutting the store managers too much slack, or not giving them enough oversight. The thing I heard more recently was some very shift practices regarding xBox360 "bundles" -- they were advertising the straight-up price for the console in the flyers, but if you went into the store, the employees had been instructed not to sell them except as part of bundles with many expensive, high-profit add-ons. Eventually people got annoyed enough that they called corporate, which said that the 'bundles only' thing was BS (as they should, since it amounts to false advertising and creation of a clear bait-and-switch). However some people still ran into problems when they tried to return all the bundled add-ons; some stores were refusing the returns.

Here's an Inquirer article about it, I think I originally heard about it from my local (dead tree) paper:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28056

The thing smacks to me of some store managers basically going rogue and violating company policy in order to get their numbers up by the end of the year. I've talked to some people at BB and they have sales goals for high-margin stuff (especially service plans / extended warranties) and add-ons, and they thought this would be a great way to stick people for them. However the corporate side is guilty also, for creating the incentive structure that's so warped in the first place. How about some oversight?

More bloggers than blog readers by PhotoBoy · 2005-12-07 11:31 · Score: 2 · on Bloggers the Tech World's New Elite?

I was amused to read this study made in Germany which shows that more people keep blogs than read them!

Re:gabbo Gabbo GABBO! by KDR_11k · 2005-12-07 05:07 · Score: 1 · on Miyamoto Hints At Second Revolution Secret

The only claim I made is that the DS sales got a huge boost from Nintendogs (which sells out as fast as the Labrador & Friends version ships). The data is very clear on that in Japan, press releases say the same is true for North America and Europe.

There's no reliable data on the PSP or DS for NA (NPD stopped the public release of these figures), there are quite detailled graphs for Japan, though:

In hardware sales, there was again little change, with the Nintendo DS enjoying a 40.72 percent market share with 48,342 unit sales. The PSP was next with a 26.18 percent market share and 31,078 unit sales http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?st ory=7231
complete chart: http://www.codepoetsolutions.com/myth/dsvspsp.html

Re:Microsoft's Reply by mjkelly · 2005-12-07 02:41 · Score: 1 · on South Korea Fines Microsoft $32 Million

I just saw this reply over on google news. I didnt see anyone list it so here it is http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28194