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User: sfbanutt

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Comments · 65

  1. Class of 1982 on Ask Slashdot: What Were You Taught About Computers In High School? · · Score: 1

    I graduated in 1982, that was the year they replaced the time share terminals with Commodore Pets. The year prior we spent learning FORTRAN, we were now able to move into the brave new world of BASIC. One fun thing about the time share terminals, they used acoustic couplers and dial up, if you stood in the corner of the room and whistled the correct note, you could disconnect all the terminals in the room simultaneously. Of course, you then had to run for your life...

  2. Re:Less is More! Anyone with me? on Ask Slashdot: Why Aren't You Running KDE? · · Score: 1

    I like i3 for much the same reasons. It's fast,efficient and doesn't chew up a bunch of screen real estate, which is important on a netbook.

  3. Re:Portable phones too. on Baby Monitors Killing Urban Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    Or just pick up a 900 MHz baby monitor, that's what we did. They are a bit difficult to find though.

  4. Re:Just another reason to not support DRM on Lose Your Amazon Account and Your Kindle Dies · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, not even that's true. It's perfectly possible, and not even terribly difficult, to put non-DRM content onto a Kindle. Fictionwise will tell you how to do it, as will Baen books. Basically, losing his Amazon account just made it difficult (but not impossible) to put DRM'ed books on the Kindle. I'm not sure that's a minus..

  5. Re:Strangled in the crib, or earlier on Academics To Predict Next Twitter and Its Pitfalls · · Score: 1

    Tweets would be limited to 80 characters or less instead of 140...

  6. Re:Second that! on Smart Spam Filtering For Forums and Blogs? · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just noticed a handy Akismet stats link in the latest version. I've been running Akismet since October 2006, in that time there have been 26,575 comments on my blog, of which 26,302 were spam(!). It missed 25 spam comments that had to be manually moderated and passed 273 legit comments. There have been no false positives. Personally, I think that's a pretty darn good record.

  7. Re:Second that! on Smart Spam Filtering For Forums and Blogs? · · Score: 1

    Hmm.. I've run akismet for a couple of years now and have never had a false positive. It's missed a few spams, but never marked a legit post as spam.

  8. Re:Because they're not Apple on Is Anyone Buying T-Mobile's Googlephone? · · Score: 1

    Storage shouldn't be a problem. It has a microSD slot and you can pick up a 16Gb card for about $20 US if you shop around a bit. Just because it comes with a 1Gb card doesn't mean you're limited to that size...

  9. Re:I don't see a problem here... on The Return Of The Pop-Up Ad · · Score: 3, Informative

    That one's easy. Use adblock to block everything from fastclick.net. I don't get any popups or ads when I go there...

  10. My Birthday on Monday, January 24th to be Worst Day of the Year · · Score: 1

    Given that it's my birthday, I rather think it's a fine day...

  11. Re:The real question is... on Both Tea And No Tea - Updated Hitchhiker's Game · · Score: 1

    Peril sensitive sunglasses (cut out of black construction paper). I still have them, the microscopic space fleet and the original box. I just don't have the original disk anymore...

  12. Re:Really sad on Sony's "iPod killer" Fails to Draw Blood · · Score: 1

    I was this close to buying a top of the line Clie a year ago, but I held off when I learned that Sony had intentionally crippled the mini-PCMCIA socket on the device so that it couldn't be used for compact flash cards, which would have been an obvious application for it.

    Just so you know, there's a 3rd party driver out there that lets you use the clie CF slot with memory cards and modems now. It works pretty well, although some of the Sony software doesn't like to work off of CF (go figure..)

  13. Re:I doubt it. on Nuclear 'Asteroids' Due In A Few Hundred Years · · Score: 1

    If we can't clean this stuff up in a couple hundred years, we deserve to have it falling on our heads...

  14. Re:2.6 breaks KVM support AND LVM too on Configuring the 2.6 Linux Kernel · · Score: 1

    Actually, the problem is you have to upgrade to LVM2. Once you do that, LVM works just fine. Be sure to include device mapper in your kernel config and you should be ok. LVM 2 is back compatible with LVM 1, so that's not an issue.

  15. Re:Highest density? on The Amazing Properties of Aerogel · · Score: 1

    DU is also almost non-radioactive. Your skin is enough to stop most (if not all) of the radiation emitted by DU and a sheet of paper will stop the rest. That's why it's called 'depleted'. Yes, it has a long half-life, but that's because it's barely radioactive (in general, the half-life of an element is inversely proportional to it's radioactivity). The biggest threat from DU (other than being hit by it) is from heavy metals poisoning, the same as, oh, I don't know, lead?

  16. Re:Guaranteed? on Commercials Come To The Net (After This Word) · · Score: 1

    Better yet, use Dillo... no frames, no javascript, no java, no flash. Really fast and does a reasonable job of rendering almost every page i visit.

  17. Does it really matter? on Local News Anchor Feels Pain from Afar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean really, does it?

  18. Re:Considering trying out Linux on Kernel 2.6.1 Released · · Score: 1

    If you're talking about a trumobile wireless nic, you're probably out of luck if it's broadcom based. Unless things have changed recently, there is no linux support for broadcom based wireless nics (Broadcom won't release the info needed).

  19. Re:spammers paradise on San Francisco's Got Free Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    San Francisco is only about 49 square miles (roughly 7 miles by 7 miles)

  20. MagicGate on Replace Your Music....Again · · Score: 1

    Does anybody actually buy MagicGate memory sticks? My clie nx70 can use them, but I don't see any point to them. As implied in the article, they cost more and do less than a regular memory stick.

  21. Re:Where's the energy saving? on The World's Fastest Electric Car · · Score: 1

    Depending on the type of hybrid, there are two ways it can improve efficiency. In a 'serial' hybrid, the IC (internal combustion) engine runs pretty much at constant speed and charges batteries. The actual motive power is provided by an electric motor (which is often used as a generator during braking, which also charges the battery. This is called regenerative braking). Because IC engines are most efficient at a constant RPM, you can tune the whole setup to run the IC engine at it's most efficient while charging the batteries. I believe the Honda Insight is this type of hybrid.

    The other type of hybrid is called a 'parallel' hybrid. In this type of hybrid, the IC engine turns the wheel, but is relatively underpowered. It has enough oomph to keep the car moving at a fixed speed, but typically can't accelerate at more than a snails pace. It also charges a (smaller) set of batteries. The electric motor in this case is used to provide the extra horsepower need for acceleration and starting out from a stop. It could also be used for regenerative braking, but I don't believe this is typically the case. I think that the Toyota Prius is this type of hybrid.

    I may have the Prius and Insight confused. I know that one is a serial hybrid and the other a parallel, but can't remember which is which (and don't feel like googling for it at the moment).

    In the case of a pure electric car, it's a matter of scale. You can produce electric power more efficiently on a large scale than a small scale. Thus, a large power plant is considerably more efficient than the little generator in your garage for emergencies. It's also easier to control pollution for a large plant than for many small ones.

  22. Re:Ignorance on Toshiba Pushes Safe, Small Nuclear Reactor Design · · Score: 1

    Why would you think that? At least with nuclear waste, you know where all the pollution is. With the waste from combustion, it's scattered to the four winds and spread over a vast area. Besides, it's likely that the 'waste' from a reactor will be useful for something in the future, especially since you know where it all is.

  23. I cancelled last month on EMusic Acquired, Halting Unlimited Downloads · · Score: 1

    I finally got fed up and cancelled after they couldn't get a working linux download manager after 3 months. It was a nice service when all it required was a web browser, but the more they mucked about with it, the worse it got.

  24. Re:Cancel subscription link on EMusic Acquired, Halting Unlimited Downloads · · Score: 1

    You can't redownload it, but the files you've already downloaded don't expire or anything.

  25. Linux Internet Archives on Historic Linux File Archive Created · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I actually have a 6 CD set from Yggdrasilof the 'Linux Internet Archives Winter 1996'. That's about the time when things were starting to become usable by mere mortals.