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User: CrazyD

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Comments · 34

  1. Re:Generate your own 'fake' logs on Bill Would Require ISPs, Wi-Fi Users To Keep Logs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    >Last time I checked, the government can't suddenly force everybody to pay money for something.

    Like digital TV converter boxes?

  2. Re:I take offense! on Causes of Death Linked To Weight · · Score: 2, Funny

    Imagine how fat you'd be if you didn't smoke!

  3. Re:ClawHammer? on AMD focuses efforts on Palomino core · · Score: 1
    SledgeHammer will be the server version of AMD's X86-64 processor.

    ClawHammer will be more marketed towards workstations and desktops.

  4. Re:Yay! No obsolesence! on Broadcasting HDTV On Analog Bands · · Score: 1
    ...saving millions of people the unnecessary expense of buying a new $3,000 TV

    Here's what I don't get. If you're paying $50 a month for cable, then in five years... you've paid $3000 in cable. I expect any TV I buy to last at least five years.

    Now why would you pay $3000 for the TV programming if you're only going to watch it on a crappy $300 TV?
    -cd

  5. Re:WTF!! on Election Wrapping Up · · Score: 1
    No kidding. As this point, Bush has a popular vote lead in Michigan and Florida, but the networks have called both of those states for Gore.

    It's obvious that the media is doing their best to keep the electoral vote tight for higher ratings.

  6. Re:Bang goes my PIII upgrade on Pentium 4 Delayed · · Score: 1
    Damn the FX chipset for the Pentium II!

    Does anyone remember that debacle? Intel planned to release both their PII and the LX chipset simulataneously, but (suprise) ran into chipset delays. The PII was released about three months before the LX chipset. So Intel took the aging FX chipset from the Pentium Pro, and slapped it on their Pentium II motherboard (PD440FX). No AGP slot, No DIMMS (uses 72-pin SIMMS instead). A pentium II 233 cost about $650, and the motherboard was about $270. Three months later they were completely obseleted by the LX chipset for the PII. Even worse, to upgrade motherboards from FX to LX, you would have to buy all new RAM and videocards. Sucks hard!

    That is still my main computer, but all my l33t friends laugh because I don't have any AGP mojo.

  7. Audrey II on Sneak Peak: 3Com's New Audrey · · Score: 2

    I just hope, for 3Com's sake, that they never release an "Audrey II".
    I think that if 3Com entered the flesh-eating plant business, their image would suffer immensly.

  8. A lower quality OS on Would You Pay $1000 For Windows? · · Score: 1
    I'm still laughing from the comment in the essay that we should not break up Microsoft, because it would surely result in a lower quality OS.

    And I could've sworn that Windows could only get better...

    Seriously though, if Microsoft is broken up, then that should be sufficient impetus to the OpCo to start producing higher quality software, as they will no longer be able to count on being bouyed by the Applications side of things.

  9. Re:hemmm.... on Get Off The Grid: GE Announces Home Fuel Cells · · Score: 1
    Well, GE's spec's for this say that it can pump out 7kW continously. This is not quite 13 horsepower.

    You can't even power your Geo Metro with this :)

  10. Re:I'll be back on Computer Makes Robot Offspring · · Score: 1

    August 29, 1997

  11. Re:CD's into space on SETI Results By Scientific American · · Score: 1
    Here is the "talking meat" story. It's really quite hilarious, and first appeared in Omni in 1991.

    http://www.ozemail.com.au/~polsonhr/meat.html

  12. Re:Question on Baby Black Hole With Big Appetite · · Score: 1

    Black holes actually have two measurable properties. One of them is mass, but the other is angular momentum.

  13. Re:Wow... I think we need to rethink here... on Baby Black Hole With Big Appetite · · Score: 1
    You are quite correct; an "event horizon" actually is a sphere, extending the same radius in all directions.

    The pictures that are often drawn to represent a black hole are misleading. Indeed, due to the very nature of the event horizon, we absolutely cannot see anything inside it because light cannot escape. I think the funnel shape is often used to represent how space-time is curved or broken inside a black hole.

    If the world were two dimensional, it might be realistic to depict a black hole as a funnel. Imagine a rubber sheet stretched taut, and a pebble placed on top of it. The deformation caused by the pebble is similar to the deformation a mass causes on space-time in 3-space, but there is no way to really draw this.

  14. Re:Questions.. on Baby Black Hole With Big Appetite · · Score: 2

    Black holes do get "stronger" as they accumulate more mass. However, Stephen Hawking has shown that black holes also radiate energy. This implies that black holes, if not "fed" with mass, will disappear given time.

  15. Re:Wow... I think we need to rethink here... on Baby Black Hole With Big Appetite · · Score: 2
    Actually, you are mistaken. A black hole has a definite, measurable mass. If it had infinite mass, it would have infinite energy and infinite gravity, and such a thing cannot exist in our universe.

    IIRC correctly, black holes instead have infinite density. This is not a contradiction, because the actual size of a black hole is zero (not the size of the event horizon, but the size of the actual black hole).

  16. Re:Silly physicists... on Physicists Find More Precise Gravity Number · · Score: 1
    Thats actually not too far off, at least in university level classes.

    When taking a rather complicated astrophysics class, we commonly approximated pi as 1, and pi^2 as 10. Honestly, even if we used exact constants, many times the physical model we were using was so unrealistic that we'd be lucky if we our answer was within an order of magnitude.

  17. Re:great but LILO still needs...an enema on New LILO Breaks 1024-Cyl Limit · · Score: 1
    MILO for the Alpha is kind of neat, with at least some bells and some whistles. But it suffers from the same issue you mentioned above, that is, "The problem (with) this is that you have to get the 2nd stage loader out of the way for the kernel to come into memory.".

    If I recall correctly, MILO doesn't even bother itself with this and just grabs about a meg and a half of memory and refuses to let go, come hell or reboot.

  18. Re:Satellite Killer on Mysterious Cold War Spacecraft Designs! · · Score: 2

    I dont have a link to the satellite killer you are talking about, but... from this link here, it looks like China either does, or will have soon the same capability.
    Scary.

  19. Re:Why napster has made the RIAA piss its pants... on The New World of Gnutella · · Score: 1
    Ok, so MP3s come along. Now i can listen to my favorite songs whenever I want, no commercials. No: the recording companies aren't loosing money from me downloading mp3s - I wouldn't have bought any cds anyway and I don't distribute. I don't see anything wrong with this whatsoever.

    You do realize that this argument has no merit. Imagine the same arguement pertaining to different goods.

    Ok, so automobiles come along. Now I can go wherever I want, no more hitching up my horses. No: the automobile industry isn't loosing money from me stealing someone elses car - I wouldn't have bought a auto anyway and I don't let anyone else drive it. I don't see anything wrong with this whatsoever.

    I'm as much for free information as the next guy, but even evil music conglomerates have rights.

  20. Re:memory limit on Alpha? on Test Drive Debian at Compaq · · Score: 1
    Suse has a memory patch for the Alpha to extend addressability to 2TB. Okay, so its not quite the full 64-bit memory space, but still.

    Read the press release here.
    http://www.suse.de/en/news/PressReleases/Terabyte_ en.html

  21. Re:US$990? What's Intel trying to do? on Intel Introduces 1 GHz Chips · · Score: 1

    If it were a completely competitive market, Intel would never be able to supply enough 1Ghz chips to satisfy demand at $990 each.
    But its not. Intel can, does, and will discriminate buyers on other basii than price. In fact, I think you can only get any of these 1Ghz chips if your name is Dell.

  22. NERVA on Bigger Rockets For 'Heavy' Lifting · · Score: 4
    Nuclear Rocket Page
    http://www.roadrunner.com/~mrpbar/rocket.html

    Basically, as an alternative to chemical rockets, we were developing a nuclear rocket called NERVA.
    By the time the project was terminated, their prototypes were giving about 850 seconds of specific impulse, and the engineers believed it wouldnt be too difficult to raise that to about 1200. The theoretical maximum for chemical rockets, however, is something like 400 seconds of specific impulse. If the project hadn't been canned, it is quite possible that our rockets would be three times as efficient as they are today.

    The downside was that if a rocket failed during launch, it would be pretty catastrophic. But, as was already mentioned, rockets like this would be great for interplanetary travel.

  23. Re:Hmmn... on Compaq to Build Alpha Supercomputer · · Score: 1

    Actually you don't have to live with Tru64 unix. There are several linux distributions for the alpha architecture. RedHat has one, as does SUSE and Debian, I believe.
    I'm actually running RH6.1 on an Alpha, and am very pleased with it, overall.

  24. local calls in the US on Free Internet Access for Hamburgers · · Score: 1

    In my area of the US, local phone calls are not free but just extremely inexpensive. A few years ago I remember hearing that all calls under five miles cost a flat rate of five cents, no matter how long you talked. This is almost certainly inaccurate information, but yes, local calls in the US cost money (just a small amount). People act like the local calls are free though, because their cost is often inconsequential. Nothing like in Europe, where it sounds like they make you pay out the ear.
    (note: this is not a europe hating sentiment, just an observation) :)

  25. Re:Interesting economic model on Free Internet Access for Hamburgers · · Score: 1
    I did read the announcement. Unfortunately I read a translation as I'm not fluent in German.
    I based much of my comments off of my translation, which read

    "Thus it receives the exclusive right to structure under the name "hamburg.de", a commercial platform open for the economy in Hamburg and to marked out. Further the city will make contents available of the public administration of the society exclusively."

    This quote made me believe that the city has pretty much full control over the free-internet-access thing, and that the government is therefore competing against other local ISPs.
    It could be the case that the translation is lousy, or I just plain missed something in the text. In which case, I apologize for spreading misinformation.