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User: Peter+Simpson

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  1. Re:Microsoft - why no AV in Windows install? on What Free Antivirus Do You Install On Windows? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do they make you download it?
    - it's to preserve their "partners'" (Symantec & company) market

    If MS was really, truly concerned about keeping malware off your PC, there'd be a free AV program installed when you got your PC, with automatic updates.
    But that would kill the market for independent AV software. And MS isn't really concerned about malware, except when it influences their profits. MS is certainly not concerned about the quality of your computing experience unless it involves you not purchasing any more MS products. // don't mind me, I run Linux, because I'm fed up with MS. // kids have switched to Apples for the same reason.

  2. 54. DG.COM on 25 Years of the .com gTLD · · Score: 1

    Yeah!

    Those were the good old days...before firewalls...when your desktop workstation has an external IP address.

  3. Re:Great.... on Hollow Spy Coins · · Score: 1

    You're wrong. It just needs to be a continuous conducting screen with openings less that 1/4 wavelength at the frequency of interest.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

  4. Re:This is amazingly deserved. on ACM Awards 2009 Turing Prize To Alto Creator Charles Thacker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seconded. Poor Xerox...they had so much and never used it.

    I saw a networked Star (Alto's child) in 1993 when I visited a friend at MIT. After seeing it, Windows 3.1 was quite a disappointment! All I wanted was a UNIX system. Luckily, Linus Torvalds did, too.

  5. Firefox + NoScript + Adblock Plus + FlashBlocker on Window Pain · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't recall the last time I have seen a pop-up ad with the above configuration. They literally aren't a problem for me. Oh, and I run Linux, so it doesn't matter anyway...the code won't execute.

  6. You can't always get what you want... on A Public Funded "Microsoft Shop?" · · Score: 1

    Comments like this (FTFA): " I no longer want to see comments promoting other Operating Systems" trigger my orneriness response.

    It's a hospital, not a software store. What operating system the employees chose to advocate has nothing to do with the operation of the place. If I worked there, I think I'd be likely to start carrying my lunch in one of these: http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=123
    and my coffee cup would be one of these: http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=203

  7. A disk, not a tax... on Microsoft VP Suggests 'Net Tax To Clean Computers · · Score: 1

    If people received a Windows install disk with their computer, they would be able to wipe and re-install the OS whenever it got too crudded up.

    Windows is full of security holes. Including free anti-virus (Windows Security Essentials), instead of making it a download, and making it harder to
    install malware without a user's knowledge, would go along way towards fixing a completely preventable problem.

    Windows' susceptibility to malware is solely Microsoft's fault, and well within their ability to remedy. *They* should be paying the tax, not their customers.

    Apple's OS X, Linux, BSD and Solaris seem not to have this huge malware problem.

  8. Why developers like serial ports more than USB on Will the Serial Console Ever Die? · · Score: 1

    Serial ports are cheap and easy to interface to, both from hardware and firmware perspectives.
    - a simple MAX3232 chip, four 0.1uF caps and you're done
    - read/write a byte every interrupt
    - messed up pinout doesn't harm the driver, just try again
    - three wire interface, symmetric

    USB requires more hardware, and a protocol stack (which you might have to pay for)
    - not all micros have room (or MIPS) for a USB stack
    - impedance control needed on the pair
    - host or device - you must choose or use OTG if supported on the micro

    I'll admit USB is faster and has more capability, but a small, low power embedded system might not be able to support USB, while it can handle serial just fine.
    *That's* why serial will never go away.

  9. Re:Interesting..... on 'Iceman' Gets 13 Years For 2nd Hacking Offense · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I couldn't get work," he wrote. In desperation, he turned again to cybercrime."

    Cry me a river.

    Try standing out in front of Lowe's or Home Depot on a Saturday morning. It seems to work for others.

    There's plenty of work for ex-cons who want to work. He just took the easy way.

  10. Comcast doesn't get it on Comcast Shoots For New Image, Rebranding As Xfinity · · Score: 1

    Called them a few weeks ago, to complain that, for the past two mornings, both my cable TV and internet were out. It had been single digit cold, and everything came back on when the sun warmed things up. They said they'd need to send a truck to my house. I told them I wouldn't be home, but they should probably just log the call and wait for my neighbors to complain before sending some one to my house. (I was reasonably sure the problem was not just mine, as my cable TV and internet come in on different cables, and service has been essentially uninterrupted for the 15 years I have lived in the house).

    The guy's answer was: "If you don't allow us to send a truck to your house, the call won't even go into the system"

    When I came home a few hours later, I saw a Comcast truck in my neighbor's driveway. No problems with either cable or internet since.

    Clueless...

  11. Color me skeptical on 1Gbps Optical Wireless Network Might Replace Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    At a former job, I worked with a bunch of guys who had tried to develop a free-space optical Token Ring network. Aside from the inadvisability of basin it on the Devil's own networking protocol, their biggest problems were multipath and low receiver signal level.

    They never got it truly working. I suspect these guys won't either. Signals bouncing off walls attenuate pretty quickly with each bounce and you end up needing a fairly large surface area detector.

  12. Plays for Sure! on DVD-CSS's Encryption Not Enough? Here Comes DECE · · Score: 5, Insightful

    “Consumers shouldn’t have to know what’s inside,” he said. “They should just know it will play.”

    Yeah. Except when it doesn't. No internet connection? No movie for you. Rights locker company hit by power failure? No movies for anyone.
    If I "buy" a movie, I expect it to play whenever and wherever I want to watch it...in an airplane, on a boat or in a cave; and without the requirement for internet connectivity or an external "permission" server. I'm fine with those constraints if I'm renting a movie online, but purchase, at a higher price, should mean reduced restrictions on transport and use, in addition to the rights to play multiple times.

    And let's not even think about the "oops, we have decided to discontinue this DRM scheme in favor of a new, incompatible one" scenario, which obsoletes your player and movie collection.

  13. The nice thing about POTS... on FCC Preparing Transition To VoIP Telephone Network · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...is that the user terminal (the phone) is totally passive - no power needed, it's a totally dumb terminal, and very robust (at least, if it's a Western Electric product!). The POTS system is the result of some careful design and decades of improvements to increase reliability. That's not to say that there aren't benefits to be had from VOIP, just that we should think carefully before deciding that everyone will be converted to VOIP.

    Disclaimer: In addition to my nifty 2.4G multiple handset cordless phones with built-in caller ID and voicemail, I have two POTS phones which work fine when the power goes out.

  14. 6 in 45 minutes outside Boston on Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks Early Tuesday Morning · · Score: 1

    The only clouds were on the horizon. Went out at 4 AM, saw two almost immediately and four more in the next 45 minutes, one of which left a short trail!

    I'm in the far outer suburbs of Boston, so lots of light pollution (including my damn neighbor's porch lights!) but plenty of stars out and a cool (36F), clear morning, with no wind. Very pleasant viewing. I played with my digital camera, got a nice shot of Orion, but didn't get any meteor photos.

  15. Re:They started buying companies on HP To Acquire 3com For $2.7 Billion · · Score: 1

    The switch I worked on was the CoreBuilder 9000...I think it was introduced (and cancelled) around 2002-3.

    The cards had custom Gigabit switch ICs - had a whole development team (12 people or so) just for that. Their new HP workstations were delivered the week after they were all RIFed...they sat around for a month until I mentioned to the director that they might be able to send them back to HP and get their money back, since the boxes hadn't even been opened.

  16. Re:Annoyance ads on Apple Patents "Enforceable" Ad Viewing On Devices · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I find that there is very little content that interests me enough to view a mandatory ad. I would imagine there's even less content for which I would waste my time answering a question before being able to view it.

    I predict most content "protected" by Apple's new mandatory ad system will go unwatched.

  17. They started buying companies on HP To Acquire 3com For $2.7 Billion · · Score: 5, Informative

    Started with them in Massachusetts in '93. They had some of the worst and most disorganized upper management ever. The guys doing corporate strategy must have been ADHD. They would buy a new (usually startup) company every year...some good, some bad. Kept the original management for a year, then, after all the developers and original management had gotten PO'd and left, bought another company and did the same thing. Year after year. I'm not sure what they got out of it.

    I was laid off after they'd spent several years developing a gigabit enterprise switch, sold the first few, then made s surprise announcement that they were leaving the enterprise business. You can imagine how their major customers, who'd started to build new infrastructure using these switches, took that news.

    They did give out great clothing, though. Still have a collection. Great co-workers, good projects, extremely poor corporate management.

  18. Re:The radio makes senes, but not the singer on Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everyone here is going to talk about how outrageous it is for a supermarket to be charged for playing the radio, but the fact of the matter is that they use the radio to create a pleasant environment for their customers, which makes it a tool of commerce.

    Well, at least it would be a tool, if it increased sales. The studies I found in a brief Google search indicate that both tempo and type of music can affect consumers' purchasing behavior and length of stay. However, the store was playing a radio, which gave them almost no control over the program material. A far better choice, if they're interested in using music to increase sales, would be a CD collection or subscription music service. A radio station, with its constant DJ chatter and advertising spots, isn't going to create much of an environment to enhance sales.

    (and, as others have said, the royalties have already been paid by the station)

  19. Royalties for radio broadcast music? No way! on Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, they don't play the radio to make a pleasant environment for their customers. They play the radio to make spending a day waiting on the general public go by a little quicker and to give them something to listen to while they stock shelves or install muffler systems, or whatever else they're doing.

    It's music being broadcast for all to hear. Why should the supermarket pay royalties and the guy in the car with his windows down not have to? If they're playing MUZAK or a CD, fine, they should be paying for that music, but paying for broadcast radio doesn't make sense.

    If you're not getting compensated fairly, talk to the radio stations playing your music, don't go after the people listening to it. It's *broadcast* -- thrown out over the airwaves for whoever wants it.

  20. Re:What's next? on Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties · · Score: 1

    The BBC article I read, said she was singing Rolling Stones songs...

  21. Re:timecube.com on 125 Years of Longitude 0 0' 00" At Greenwich · · Score: 1

    Nice use of color and nice variety of fonts. Particularly like the large characters, as it makes his message (whatever that is) hard to ignore.

    And the photo. Nice. It breaks up the text and personalizes the page, gives you the comforting feeling that there's a real
    "Dr Gene Ray, Cubic and Wisest Human" you could call up and speak to (not that most of us would choose to).

    The best part, IMHO, is the subtle humor at the end of the page - the link to page two.

    Definitely, as EdIII rates him, an 11. I might even go 12.

  22. Re:PC makers and not chipset vendors? on Apple, Others Hit With Lawsuit On Ethernet Patents · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My understanding about the licensing of patents like these, is that the chip manufacturer needs to have paid for the necessary licenses before making the chips. He sells subsidiary licenses with the chips (they're included in the cost of the parts), otherwise, no one would buy his parts. The patent holder usually goes after the chip manufacturer if there's a licensing issue.

    This has always been the way licensing has worked in the industry. I suspect this troll doesn't understand that. Unless there's a problem with a specific Asian manufacturer not being fully licensed...and all of those being sued use their parts.

  23. NPR weighed in on Mainstream Press "Cringes" At Win7 Launch Parties · · Score: 4, Informative

    Heard it on All Things Considered on the way home tonight. They played a clip from the "how to give a party" video. There were several comments about how MS's marketing dept had missed the target again.

  24. GPS satellites only transmit on Children's Watch Allows Parents To Track Their Kid · · Score: 1

    You can't "talk up" to a GPS satellite.

    Well, you can, but it would ignore you.

    The "satellite positioning system" or "satellite tracking system" is just a GPS receiver and (a guess here) and a cell phone (or some part of one)

  25. It's easier now. on 60 Years of Cryptography, 1949-2009 · · Score: 1

    I went last year. No guards, it's outside the gate. A very worthwhile visit if you're in the DC area.

    In addition to the Enigma and Cray, they have a US Navy Bombe (the Enigma key search machine), a NeXT cube, a USS Liberty memorial and a bunch of other neat stuff.

    And a gift shop. Don't forget your NSA logoware. You get an opaque blue shopping bag with nothing printed on it. The receipt is from the "Employee Welfare Fund" or some such. I got a kick (and an NSA coffee mug) out of that.