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User: Coward+Anonymous

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  1. LTE is the kicker on Apple Unveils New iPad · · Score: 1

    The retina display makes the iPad a perfect media consumption device.
    Apple's app ecosystem (iLife + iWork + Camera Connection Kit) make the iPad a fitting computing device for 80% of the public.
    LTE allows that 80% to not need to buy anything else for their computing needs - no dedicated internet service with associated modems, no WiFi access point, etc.

    Five minutes after purchasing an LTE iPad you have a fully functioning broadband internet connected computing device which is all most people need.

  2. Did it produce anything? on The Destruction of Iraq's Once-Great Universities · · Score: 0

    Did this "great university system" produce anything except for some U.S bashing fodder for this author. Things like research, publications or anything of an academic nature?

    I'd bet nobody here on /. can point to more than a couple Iraqi university academic papers. I'd be genuinely surprised if anyone could point to one.

  3. Facebook's motto from the filing on Facebook Reportedly Filing $5 Billion IPO Today · · Score: 1

    The funniest part of their filing is the motto at the very top of their connected globe:

    "To make the world more open and connected"

    Let's pretend we stand for the exact opposite of what we do and people will bite.

  4. You are fine on Ask Slashdot: Transitioning From 'Hacker' To 'Engineer'? · · Score: 1

    The dirty little secret nobody admits to is that what you described as 'hacking' is software engineering in the real world. Software development is a black art which all the methodologies in the world will never reduce to a simple recipe guaranteed to produce better code.

    The only difference between software 'hacking' and software 'engineering' is the amount of testing.

  5. Re:secrecy is why rhombus-tech was set up on Rockbox Developers Talk Open Source Firmware · · Score: 1

    I recognize the letters LKCL anywhere. DCE/RPC over SMB and LKCL are etched in my brain even though I probably last looked at it 7-8 years ago. Thank you for that one.

  6. Re:the 16 scientists are not climatologists on Don't Worry About Global Warming, Say 16 Scientists in the WSJ · · Score: 1

    Citation. I've often wondered about this and could never find good data for any of it. Can you provide a citation?

  7. Re:Bah. This was the correct decision. on US Supreme Court Upholds Removal of Works From Public Domain · · Score: 1

    Kind of like how slavery is not unconstitutional. SCOTUS is usually on the wrong side of history because of this very narrow interpretation of its duties.

  8. Re:Dumb on Tizen Source Code Released · · Score: 1

    True, Apple does use a mix of C and Obj-C.
    The 3 companies were brought up as a rainbow of outcomes. Palm the failure with a brain dead design (web in a box), Google with a successful-because-it's-free platform that is nonetheless a chronic under performer because of the chosen design (Java with pseudo web concepts mixed in) and Apple which is executing better than anyone with a solid design (C/C++/Obj-C with what is essentially a PC development platform).

  9. Dumb on Tizen Source Code Released · · Score: 1

    Hasn't WebOS pretty much proven that using HTML+CSS+Javascript+web tech du jour) is a brain dead idea?
    It's a horrible development paradigm that sort of works for the web because there is no other viable option given the constraints of the web. It's idiotic to force a hideous development model born of (web) constraints that do not apply in the target application (an embedded device).

    C/C++ is where it's at. Palm, Google and Apple have proven that the so called benefits of using HTML+friends, or Java for that matter - lots of web developers, "safer" than unmanaged code - at the expense of app performance and quality are irrelevant when sufficient amounts of money flow in to developers.

  10. Re:The Curse of the Rounded Rectangle on Vizio Plans To Undercut The Market For All-In-One PCs · · Score: 0

    Well... Can you point to a single TV that Vizio produces with a rounded rectangle outline?

    I'm not of the belief that using a rounded rectangle design automatically means you are ripping off Apple but your rhetorical question is laughably off the mark.

  11. Re:Windows 7 on Same Platform Made Stuxnet, Duqu; Others Lurk · · Score: 0

    "Umm.. no. The article you mention doesn't "recognize that Unix does it the right way". It says that doing it that way is slow, which I completely agree."
    That's one way to view it. Another way to view is that Unix designers went for a consistent and predictable design while NTFS designers chose a "surprising" design that continues to surprise developers to this day for a performance benefit that is of dubious value. Surprising designs are typically not good designs.

  12. Re:Windows 7 on Same Platform Made Stuxnet, Duqu; Others Lurk · · Score: 1

    You've been influenced by old new thing. It's well written and I enjoy reading it but after a while it becomes clear there is too much rationalizing of poor design decisions and sloppy implementations. A recent example is the recent entry about NTFS file sizes. While recognizing that Unix does it the right way very early in the post, the rest of the post goes on to rationalize the confusing, dumb design decision in NTFS influenced by a perceived performance problem that hasn't been relevant for at least a decade.

    Stuxnet took advantage of really sloppy bugs. You can rationalize each and every one of them like you just did, but taken as a whole, there are too many of these rationalized sloppy bugs in Windows constantly creeping up. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

  13. Re:Gee, maybe U.S. shouldn't try to steal oil on Tensions Over Hormuz Raise Ugly Possibilities For War · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yup Iranian democracy in the same way Egyptian democracy is unfolding in Egypt. The same kind of democracy that exists in venezuela and in Russia too. Iran's democracy in the 50's is a figment of the modern left's sordid imagination.

  14. Beginning of the end of Boxee on Boxee 1.5 Will Be the Last Supported Desktop Version · · Score: 1

    The primary reason Boxee is dropping PC support is because they are not getting much traction there. Not on the PC and likely not much anywhere else outside of /.

  15. Re:Iran never called for Israel's destruction on Israeli Spyware Sold To Iran · · Score: 1

    I'm amazed every time the Ahmadinejad apologentsia brings up this ridiculous "he didn't literally say it" defense. It's so moronic it beggars belief.
    Ahmadinejad spoke in Farsi. Why is it a surprise that when translating from one language to another and, more importantly, from one culture to another that the literal translation will not be the same?
    The people most qualified to understand the culturally relevant meaning of his words, the official Iranian translation service, had no problem understanding his intent and they translated it accordingly. Oops.
    This defense is the equivalent of literally translating a phrase like "I hope you kick the bucket" to Arabic and telling your Arab soccer opponent that it just means you want him to lose the soccer game.

  16. Re:Too late? on Go Daddy Reverses Course On SOPA · · Score: 1

    Ditto. Too late.

  17. Re:Prior art on Apple Patents Using Apps During Calls · · Score: 1

    General app multitasking has nothing to do with the topic. You could press the home button on your phone during a call long before multitasking was introduced in iOS.

  18. Re:Prior art on Apple Patents Using Apps During Calls · · Score: 1

    Your Nokia N900 was released in late 2009. Not clear how it comes close to mid-2007, early 2008.

    Windows Mobile 6.0 did not support anything like this: http://pocketpccentral.net/pdfs/T-Mobile_Dash_User_Manual_WM6.pdf

    The Samsung R450 is irrelevant as it is a tricked out phone interface that does not bring you back to the home screen to pretty much do whatever you want which is clearly what the patent is about.

  19. Re:Prior art on Apple Patents Using Apps During Calls · · Score: 1

    Actually, you've been doing it since 2008 which is when BlackBerry introduced the feature (in a rather limited and braindead way). http://us.blackberry.com/ataglance/networks/WiFiCellularWhitepaper.pdf

  20. Who will pay for maintenance after the retrofit? on Google Founder Offer $33M For Use of NASA Airship Hangar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Will this end up being another government subsidy for people who don't need it or will there be a real lease involved?

  21. Good for him on Aerospace Corp Pays $2.5m To Settle Rogue Software Dev Case · · Score: 2

    "He allegedly ran the scheme from 2003 until 2008... Hunter died in August 2010 of natural causes while under criminal investigation, Daniels said. He was 56."

    He was having fun while he could. We should all take note as we might not be around tomorrow.

  22. The plane's nick name on Iranian TV Shows Downed US Drone · · Score: 1

    I hereby christen it Francis Gary Powers

    Instead of a human being, the enemy is left with boasting of taking possession of an artifact that is nearly indistinguishable from magic to them (e.g. the military stooge playing with a flap on the wing). Contrary to the common "America in decline" narrative all signs seem to be that this technologically driven military disparity is only increasing. Stealth drones, naval rail guns, hypersonic 1 hour global strike cruise missiles, round the corner explosive "assault rifles" and the list goes on - all very real weapons that are either deployed or nearing realization with no real counterparts anywhere else.

    The Russians have been out of the game for 30 years at least and the Chinese are nowhere near developing these kinds of weapons (they have yet to field an aircraft carrier which could arguably become obsolete with an introduction of a viable railgun equipped destroyer, their much vaunted stealth craft is probably more show than reality (look at the engine exhaust on it), etc., etc.).

  23. Re:Back button is not a mistake on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 Outruns Apple's A5 In First Benchmarks · · Score: 1

    How do you get to the camera roll from the single photo?

  24. Re:Back button is not a mistake on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 Outruns Apple's A5 In First Benchmarks · · Score: 1

    I'll ignore the ad hominem and bile, Mr. Hater.

    Instead I'll fully explain the camera/camera roll switching problem for your edification.
    In the camera app, take a photo. Now how do you review your photo?
    You tap the camera roll icon and it drops you in the list of all your photos. You then scroll around, looking for your photos and you tap it to bring it up.

    That UI is broken and I have heard Android phone users complain about it bitterly.

    99% of the time, a user switches to the camera roll from the camera to view the last photo/s taken, not to review the whole roll (pick up any Point and Shoot or DSLR, or take a picture of any 4 year old, if you insist on disagreeing with this point). So why does Android drop you in the camera roll instead of the last photo taken like every other camera in the world?

    If the camera dropped you directly into the last photo, there were would be two possible 'backs', back to the camera or back to the roll. But the back button enforces back to the camera so the result would be inconsistent with the Gallery app, confusing and useless since a user expects and often does want to move between the last photo and the other photos in the roll. Google's solution was to drop the user into the camera roll so the back button works consistently and as expected. The usability of the end result, however, is pretty bad.

  25. Re:You know why Apple's winning? It's not about sp on NVIDIA's Tegra 3 Outruns Apple's A5 In First Benchmarks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The back button is a design mistake. Having a dedicated back button does not fit all scenarios and leads to ambiguous choices the user can't resolve without having to tap it to see what happens or suboptimal app behavior. A good example is Android's camera camera roll switching which is/was (I haven't looked at ICS) fundamentally broken and not user friendly. Stepping back a bit and thinking about it, it's pretty clear the culprit is the back button and the UI flow that it forces.