Slashdot Mirror


User: jonsmirl

jonsmirl's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
474
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 474

  1. Blame cable on Alfred Poor Says HDTV Manufacturers are Hurting (Video) · · Score: 1

    I used to have TVs all over the house. Now I only have two. The reason for this is the $15/mth rental on the cable box that is needed at each TV. Over three or four years the cost of this box rental exceeds the cost of the TV.

  2. Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting on Most Drivers Would Hand Keys Over To Computer If It Meant Lower Insurance Rates · · Score: 1
  3. Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting on Most Drivers Would Hand Keys Over To Computer If It Meant Lower Insurance Rates · · Score: 1

    Only if the cars are running Windows.

  4. Re:Silicon Valley driven by military requirements on Republican Proposal Puts 'National Interest' Requirement On US Science Agency · · Score: 2

    I think this more about stopping funding of things like this:

    Dr. Li’s project will develop, implement and evaluate a venue-based alcohol and HIV risk reduction intervention center for establishment-based female sex workers in Guangxi, China. The sex trade is more prevalent in Guangxi, Dr. Li said, an area ranked third in the rate of HIV among provinces.

    http://prognosis.med.wayne.edu/article/grant-allows-research-to-study-link-between-alcohol-abuse-and-spread-of-hiv

    If you're going to study hookers, they have to be American hookers.

  5. Re:Aaron Seigo's retort on Mark Shuttleworth Complains About the 'Open Source Tea Party' · · Score: 1

    That would be fun to see. I still can't see any reason for the MIr split other than Canonical's contributor agreement which lets them sell the code. Does Canonical really think Redhat/Intel/etc are going to write code and then give it to Canonical so that they can resell it as closed source?

    But I would much rather have one fully working graphics system than four or five half working ones. Much more interesting would be to work towards a merger between Wayland and Surfaceflinger.

  6. Re:A FiOS on No FiOS In Boston? We'll Make an Ad Anyway · · Score: 2

    Ars wrote on this a while ago.

    Boston wants to apply a lot of taxes to FIOS and Verizon decided to pass on the deal.
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/07/boston-a-copper-hole-in-the-fiber-donut-demands-fios/

  7. Re:Why? on AMD Intentionally Added Artificial Limitations To Their HDMI Adapters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do you assume that AMD did this voluntarily? Much more likely that this is caused by some idiotic DRM requirement for for HDCP 'protected audio path' or working around some idiotic patent. Likely reason - a DRM requirement to stop people from plugging in devices that strip HDCP.

  8. Re:Trust Microsoft??? on Microsoft Reportedly Seeks To Put Windows Phone On Android Devices · · Score: 1

    They need the subsidize the extra 32GB of flash needed to hold Windows Phone too.

    Then we can delete WIndows Phone and use the 32GB flash.

  9. Re:Trust Microsoft??? on Microsoft Reportedly Seeks To Put Windows Phone On Android Devices · · Score: 1

    Just for fun Google should put those exact licensing terms Microsoft used against Toshiba into their Android license.

  10. Trust Microsoft??? on Microsoft Reportedly Seeks To Put Windows Phone On Android Devices · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My memory is fuzzy on this, but I believe Microsoft took Toshiba to court and made them stop dual booting Linux on their laptops about 20 years ago. At the time Toshiba owned a Linux distribution so they prevented Toshiba from shipping their own code.

    This is the same Microsoft that is extorting everyone over unnamed Android patent infringements.

    Why would you want to work with them? Every company that works with them ends up dead or wounded.

  11. Re:OpenWRT on Ask Slashdot: Best Open Source Project For a Router/Wi-Fi Access Point? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OpenWRT is the way to go. Just buy a new, cheap commercial router and replace the software with OpenWRT. Don't mess with the laptop. It chews too much AC power and the wifi is probably not as powerful as the radio in the commercial router. You can buy fine 2.4Ghz router hardware for $30.

    DDwrt is a mess, OpenWRT project organization is much better.

  12. Re:Ummm, ya on Jury Finds Google Guilty of Standards-Essential Patents Abuse Against MS · · Score: 1

    Microsoft shipped these products without first negotiating a RAND royalty rate. They just picked their own rate of 'zero' and shipped. Motorola then filed suit to force a negotiation and payment. Google has nothing to do with this, this all happened before Google bought Motorola. Of course Motorola was annoyed about having to file suit to get paid so they picked a high number.

  13. Re:Ummm, ya on Jury Finds Google Guilty of Standards-Essential Patents Abuse Against MS · · Score: 1

    Would it your change your opinion if you knew that Microsoft's interpretation of FRAND over these patents is for them to pay zero to Motorola for their use? And that's what started this lawsuit in the first place - so far they have paid nothing.

  14. Re:X.org forfeits agreement. IRS does job. News at on X.Org Foundation Loses 501(c)3 Non-Profit Status · · Score: 1

    I'm not an insider but I suspect this has to do with Oracle's acquisition of Sun. Sun used to take care of X.org. Now that Oracle has swallowed Sun a lot of things that Sun used to do have been cut. So X.org needs some new friend with a legal and tax department to keep everything in order. Groups of volunteer programmers are known not to be competent in these matters.

  15. Re:X.org forfeits agreement. IRS does job. News at on X.Org Foundation Loses 501(c)3 Non-Profit Status · · Score: 4, Informative

    X.org is not a company. It is is a group of volunteers, either individuals or corporate employees begin donated by their employers. The group writes and maintains the Xserver which is in use on almost every Linux desktop and many embedded systems. This code is given away for free to benefit all who use Linux.

    If that doesn't qualify as a 501(c)3 I don't know what would qualify. The group has no revenue, they rely on donations to function and everything they make is given away for free -- to anyone who asks with no restrictions other than some minor licensing terms. And the licensing terms are really minor, like give proper attribution to the authors of the code. The benefit from being a 501(c)3 does not accrue to X.org, the tax benefits goes to the companies donating to the organization since those donations are now tax deductible. Hopefully that means X.org will get more donations.

    I do agree that a few companies seem to be abusing 501(c)3 and open source. Those companies are making captive open source projects which basically only benefit themselves. But that's more of a marketing gimmick than a tax avoidance one. The resources being given to the captive 501(c)3 were deductible to the parent corporation anyway. So if the IRS dissolves these captive 501(c)3s they aren't going to get any more revenue. They'll just move where the deductions are being taken.

  16. Re:Does Realtek RTD1186 have a FPU on Rhombus Tech 2nd Revision A10 EOMA68 Card Working Samples · · Score: 1

    The A10 chips definitely have a FPU, I have one on my desk.
    Unclear if the Realtek RTD1186 has an FPU. Many MIPS cores don't have one.

  17. Does Realtek RTD1186 have a FPU on Rhombus Tech 2nd Revision A10 EOMA68 Card Working Samples · · Score: 1

    Not clear if Realtek RTD1186 has a FPU. It is possible to have those graphics co-processors and not have a FPU on the core. Missing FPU messes up games. This chip may be purpose built to implement something like a Roku or that Mele STB which makes it uninteresting except for those specific purposes.

  18. Re:Depends on the source on Can You Really Hear the Difference Between Lossless, Lossy Audio? · · Score: 1

    So if I had to chose, I'd always take 24b audio. 96K sampling makes some difference but not nearly as much as 24b does. Not sure if there is anything gained from 96K to 192K. Of course compression totally makes a mess of the few bits you have to work with in soft 16b passages.

    This problem impacts classical music the most. Other genres don't utilize as much dynamic range.

  19. Re:Depends on the source on Can You Really Hear the Difference Between Lossless, Lossy Audio? · · Score: 3, Informative

    When the music gets soft in 16b you have a lot of zeros in front of the number. So you effectively only have a three or four bit signal being fed into the DAC. This is fixed point math, not floating. With 24b you can put all of those zeros in the front and still have eight or more bits to feed into the DAC. This is even more beneficial when the amp implements power supply volume control. PSVC raises the effective noise floor the DAC has to deal with.

  20. Re:Obviously on We Should Be Allowed To Unlock Everything We Own · · Score: 2

    It is illegal to rob banks, but they still keep the money in a vault. Nothing is 100% secure amd every layer of security helps. Code signed embedded systems are pretty effective at keeping people from tampering with them.

  21. Re:Obviously on We Should Be Allowed To Unlock Everything We Own · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Should the owner of the casino gaming machines, ATM, utility meters be able to tamper with the devices after their accuracy has been verified by the manufacturer? Should the owner of a gas station have easy access to the software on his pumps so that he can modify the accuracy of metering with a button on his iPhone? How are you as a consumer ever going to detect that this is going on?

    Just because some entity owns a devices doesn't mean that society wants them tampering with it. There are a lot of measuring devices owned by entities that have a large incentive to tamper with their proper functioning. Locking the software does a great deal to stop these owners from tampering with the devices.

    If you make the rules such that everything you own has to be unlockable, you're just going to get big piles of EULA's saying that you don't really own the device instead you are indefinitely renting the use of it.

  22. Re:Obviously on We Should Be Allowed To Unlock Everything We Own · · Score: 1

    You'd need some kind of system for individually unlocking the devices. If you want your device unlocked you'd call up the manufacturer, agree to release them from liability for the device's function and then they'd give you the key to unlock the device. But as long as the manufacturer is being held liable for the function of the device it is reasonable for them to keep it locked.

    Note that this is far different than locking down consumer devices. Apple isn't making any guarantees to you about the performance of their product.

  23. Re:Obviously on We Should Be Allowed To Unlock Everything We Own · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Limit this 'obviously' to consumer goods. There are whole classes of embedded items that should not be unlocked - medical devices, utility meters, safety systems, casino games, ATMs, airplane navigation systems........ Anything that a third party is being held liable for it accuracy. You can't have it both ways - third party liability and unlocked devices.

  24. Cubieboard for IO Breakout on Raspberry Pi vs. Cheap Android Dongle: Embarrassment of (Cheap) Riches · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you need IO breakout get a $49 Cubieboard, http://cubieboard.org/

    Same ARM Cortex CPU/RAM/flash/HDMI as the Android sticks plus a 96 pin header including I2C, SPI, SATA, RGB/LVDS, CSI/TS, FM-IN, ADC, CVBS, VGA, SPDIF-OUT, R-TP..

  25. Re:compete instead of complain on Outrage At Microsoft Offshoring Tax In the UK, Google Caught Avoiding US Taxes · · Score: 1

    I agree, these taxes aren't really lost. They are instead paid by the shareholders via capital gains and dividend taxes. If you force the corporations to pay it you'll just see an offsetting decline in personal taxes collected. There's no magic here that will create billions in new tax revenue, best you can do is shift around where it is being paid.

    Corporations and not living entities, they are just some paperwork that organizes a group of shareholders to work together. But most people don't understand this and want to tax the corporations. It would be much simpler to eliminate the corporate income tax and pick up the same tax revenue by taxing the individual shareholders. Nobody is eliminating any taxation in this model, it is simply a change in the point where the tax is collected.