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User: NullSolaris

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  1. I might get more, not less. on Where Have All the Gadgets Gone? · · Score: 1

    I tried consolidating everything into my phone -- gaming, music, light computing, etc. But, the battery life is shit [and I'd be up a creek if I couldn't actually use it for its primary function of calling people if the battery was dead], so I now carry around 4-5 devices: phone, PSP, 3DS, MP3 player, and if I'm going to class that day my netbook. Each gets its use, even the standalone MP3 player thanks to it's 24hr or so battery life, which none of my other devices can compete with, and yes I'm often away from a power source long enough that I'd need that.

    Compare 5 years ago [this list is valid for back in 2005 as well, only difference is that I had a different iPod model then] when I had a non-smartphone, an iPod [which I don't have simply because the HDD died and I never bothered trying to replace it], a DS [which got replaced by my 3DS, and the DS's screen got cracked], and that was it. 3 devices. And going back a little further, I had only a Palm m100 and a Game Boy Advance.

    I'm likely to get more devices rather than fewer, even as their feature-sets converge -- all of my 5 current portable devices play MP3s, 4 of them can play games [all but the standalone MP3 player], 3 can do computing tasks [homebrew enabled PSP, phone, netbook], etc.
    Hell, I'm probably going to get an e-ink based reader soon [much nicer to read on than a bright screen], I might get a tablet for things that my phone is too small for and my netbook is too clunky to just pull out for, etc. And the game consoles in my list will likely stay there or increase [for games/systems that can't be emulated, games that are exclusive to a system, etc]. If something neat comes out for it and I have the coin to spend [probably not, haha], I'd probably get a Vita too.

    If the phone had 20 hours of active battery life though, I'd be a lot more tempted to drop some of the other devices. But with enough pockets, it's not terribly inconvenient to have all these things on your person, larger stuff would get stuffed in the backpack.

    And last but not least, even these generalized devices still fill a niche for me. In my case, the netbook is for running normal PC programs on, the phone makes calls and has 3G internet, the PSP plays Wipeout and whatnot, the 3DS plays Pokemon and whatnot, the MP3 player plays music and lasts all day doing so, etc.
    If I took more pictures ever, I'd definitely carry a standalone camera since the phone camera sucks and the 3DS camera is the worst possible thing that still captures an image.

  2. 10in models sucked, but 11in ones were great on Does 2012 Mark the End of the Netbook? · · Score: 1

    I got an 11inch Acer Aspier One for use at university. It's really nice, small, and surprisingly nimble. Unlike the 10inch models I see my friends with, that chug and chop while playing Youtube videos, mine does pretty well on day-to-day stuff. I subject it to the same kind of things I would my old 850MHz PIII laptop, and it performs a little better than that, so I'm fine. Sure, it's not a screamer of a machine, but it works fine and was $270. Absolutely fantastic. If you need lots of power, you aren't going to be spending so little.

  3. Touch typing and two thumbs. on Weak Typing — the Lost Art of the Keyboard · · Score: 1

    I can type without looking on both a normal keyboard, and on my Blackberry. Honestly, I always thought this was pretty common, especially since I picked it up simply by virtue of how much time I spend on the computer. I had typing classes in school, yes, but I looked right at the keyboard during them. :P Also, a bit of a slow news day here, huh?

  4. Re:Luckily... on A Baseball Hat That Reads Your Mind · · Score: 1
  5. Re:How Much Really? on Microsoft Loses Appeal of "Vista-Capable" Lawsuit · · Score: 1

    >>I don't think it's fair to expect people today to remember how XP ran in 2001 when it was released.

    If you want to remember...

    Back then, when XP was released, XP had reasonable requirements. Granted, performance sucked with only 128MB of RAM, but 128 more MB made it run like a rocket. Hell, 64MB more RAM made it run a lot better. Vista performance (was, most Vista boxes I've seen have started to suck less) terrible, but thankfully, this is improving. I have 2 friends with Vista boxes they got recently, and Vista runs pretty fast on them. Copying is slow as hell though, and I see a preparing to copy window for extended periods of time now. (70MB copied)

    tl;dr: Win XP sys. reqs. weren't that bad when it was released, Vista sys. reqs. are too high for the machines they're being shipped on, but this is getting better.

  6. Re:TAXES, TAXEs TAXES on Is Open Source the Answer To Giving? · · Score: 1

    The F in FOSS in practice tends to mean both Free (libre) and free (beer). Minus a very small amount of projects (e.x. Linux XP). PS: If this was worded awkwardly, it is because I am tired.

  7. Re:still horrifically slow, its even worse than be on Freenet Version 0.7 Release Candidate 1 Available · · Score: 1

    This was my same reaction: Slow as fuck (think AOL at peak on Saturday), EATS RAM and HDD space, and uses relatively complicated FF hacks (Freenet should just use a modified version of FF, and keep it separate. FF doesn't like the profile thing... and considering the size of Freenet, I thought it would do just that -- or even be like Tor, which had an addon that set up everything for it with the push of a button and turned it off just the same)

    I thought that this would be promising, but 0.7 is not close to even half of what I thought.

    Also, it seemed to have 50%+ of the stranger nodes it connected to be busy, which meant that this connection was not getting any faster any time soon.
    Granted, there aren't that many users really yet, so this is [relatively] acceptable.

    However, mod parent troll, he seems to want to bash Java in, for no good reason.

  8. Re:I got Rick Rolled on Geeky April Fools' Day Prank Roundup · · Score: 1

    Have you ever seen what most rickroll links are to? They go to Youtube, and videos are identified by a string of gibberish. EX: "http://youtube.com/watch?v=BqKTERHPSps" (modified so it doesn't work.) You can't tell if the video is that cool one of that guy who does tricks, or that one with Rick Astley, until the video comes up. Also, you are right, it really is a lame prank. The old prank used to be a link to hello.jpg (goatse)

  9. Re:Safari on Firefox 3 Performance Gets a Boost · · Score: 1

    How is this flamebait? Please, mod parent up. Firefox is genuinely slow with Javascript.

  10. Re:New Marketing Strategy on Microsoft Says Not All Ad Clicks Are Created Equal · · Score: 1

    That media player -- it's called Songbird

  11. Re:INNOVATION is the killer app on Hostile ta Vista, Baby · · Score: 1

    STOP TRYING TO MAKE LINUX BE WINDOWS!!! People already have Windows, they don't need a replacement. That's why they don't switch. The "replacement Windows" idea was already tried: it was called OS/2 Warp for Windows, and we know what happened there. (Never heard of it? Bingo.)
    The only difference is that Linux is free (usually as in beer, always as in freedom), and could actually stand a chance, compared to OS/2, which you had to pay for, and OS/2 was still better than Windows. PS: I'm not being hostile to Windows, Linux or OS/2.
  12. Re:DNS hijacking on Time-Warner Planning AOL Split · · Score: 1

    There is a way to turn this off according to Verizon, I can't remember where the directions are though.

  13. Re:"Miniature supercomputers"? on Cellphone App Developed that Could Allow For 'Pocket Supercomputers' · · Score: 1

    Umm... bad analogy. TVs only display the pictures. A TV studio sends them. Your TV doesn't send video, does it?

  14. Re:Why don't they just standardize on OpenGL... on Valve Says Choice to Make DX10 Vista-Only Hurt PC Gaming · · Score: 1

    Some older machines have graphics cards that seem to HATE OpenGL with a passion (40-60fps for DirectX, 10-20fps for OpenGL). Granted, expecting a brand new game to run (well) on a machine made 3 years ago isn't realistic, but still, that's one reason that DirectX still is used.

  15. Re:The kind of car that can get 100 mpg on X Prize For a 100-MPG Car · · Score: 1

    The only remarkable thing is that more people don't seem to know about this. That's why they're even giving an X-Prize for cars like that, only in a slightly higher bracket of efficiency. This will really boost public knowledge about these kind of cars.