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User: Quantumstate

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  1. Re:So much for Windows 7 support on Firefox 3.7 Dropped In Favor of Feature Updates · · Score: 1

    The problem with this change is that it causes major issues for people like me who have a lot of tabs open. I currently have 29 open because I have been researching some maths stuff. I could close some of them if I wanted to but that involves effort and I would probably close one which I would need again. It is much easier to close them all at once when I have finished. Just think about 29 tab previews in the task bar, it would be horrible. Maybe for a lot of people who keep about 5 tabs open it is ok but for people who use more it makes things worse and regressions always need careful thought and testing.

  2. Re:What about my stress level on Antitrust Case Against RIAA Reinstated · · Score: 5, Informative

    "This video contains content from Vevo, who has decided to block it in your country. "

  3. Re:I hate flash video on Cliff Click's Crash Course In Modern Hardware · · Score: 1

    I use it and I find that it is buggy on my machine. I don't know about other people but mine random stops working from time to time and needs a browser restart.

  4. Re:Easiest Network config? on What To Expect From Windows 7 SP1 · · Score: 1

    Differentiating between the various work, public home is nice until you find that Windows 7 thinks your network is new every single time you boot the PC. Fortunately I'm primarily a Ubuntu user so it doesn't bother me too much. I am on a university network so it is probably slightly unusual though.

  5. Re:Here's Why on Microsoft Wants To Participate In SVG Development · · Score: 1

    Microsoft do care about developers. They would love to have more windows developers. They have put a lot of resources into .net and Visual Studio and they are pretty good. What they have problems with is the web where a developer makes a program and it works on Windows, OS X, Linux and a few other OS's. This is bad because it means that nobody needs Windows any more. A major problem Linux has is that a lot of software that people use does not work because it is Windows only and similarly with OS X.

  6. Re:Efficiency on Massive Solar Updraft Towers Planned For Arizona · · Score: 1

    A major factor in the efficiency is the height of the tower. A taller tower has lower air pressure and temperature at the top so with the same amount of heated air at ground level you get more energy. So it is best to spend money on one huge tower and put a big area of glass around it. Of course beyond a certain point the size gets too large and engineering problems increase the cost and difficulty at a much faster rate than the efficiency gain.

  7. Re:I plan on writing a post after I write the subj on Android Phone Demand Up 250%, iPhone Down · · Score: 1

    Nokia is missing from the list. They have a pretty big share of the market.

  8. Re:Worse than DRM on Jaron Lanier Rants Against the World of Web 2.0 · · Score: 1

    Hey how about we look at how much work people do and record it somewhere. Then we can gather up all of the money into a big pot and give everybody the right amount. Though trying to measure the amount of work is tricky. Maybe it would be better to just spread it around evenly?

  9. Re:Whining about folk-art webpages... on Jaron Lanier Rants Against the World of Web 2.0 · · Score: 0

    Irrelevant to the current discussion. The discussion is about how winding roads developed into straight roads. Since China and Rome were in different geographical areas winding Chinese roads did not develop into straight Roman roads.

  10. Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ on Chinese Pirates Launch Ubuntu That Looks Like XP · · Score: 1

    Why do you have a problem with Network Manager? With me in the options dialog there is a checkbox with "connect automatically" written next to it. If this is checked then I automatically get connected to the network when available. I am using Ubuntu 9.10.

  11. Re:Oh hell no. on Critics Call For NASA TV To "Liven Up" · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I was visited America I remember trying to watch an american football match replay/highlights. If I ignore the fact that it was 50% adverts cutting in every 3 minutes it was still utterly dreadful. It showed very short clips of bits of play so you had little idea of what was actually going on with some crazy overexcited presenter yelling for the entire thing. Baseball generally seemed much better, ignoring the advert breaks. In the UK, with a football (soccer) match, even if it is on a channel with advertising you only get adverts at half time and before and after the match so there are two 45 minute blocks of uninterrupted football with decent commentators in general.

  12. Re:and this is why the move to digital TV was wron on BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV · · Score: 1

    I would prefer that digital was used but instead of adding so many extra channels they could add some redundancy for those of us with poor reception. We ended up getting skys freeview option because our analog and digital reception was so bad.

  13. Re:make the license fee voluntary on BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV · · Score: 1

    Because they were given the option of paying the fine but chose not to and hene went to prison. As opposed to going to prison with no option of paying a fine. Also the court will set a reasonable payment scheme for the fine so people would be able to pay if they tried and can manage their finances.

  14. Re:Strange question on BBC's Plan To Kick Open Source Out of UK TV · · Score: 1

    Trying to watermark something in such a way that creates millions of unique keys which can survive transcoding into a lossy compression format without affecting the picture quality is pretty difficult. And this is even without considering that people may try and deliberately remove the watermark.

  15. Re:Well on Devices To Take Textbooks Beyond Text · · Score: 1

    Conversely at my university (UK) for Mathematics we have no set textbooks, a few textbooks are listed as possible reading material for each topic and these are available at the college library (there are about 30 colleges in the university) or the departmental library for unusual ones.

  16. Re:maybe not... on Palm Sued Over Palm Pre GPL Violation · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just look at PDFViewer.cpp. That is definitely not GPL. It states that the material in the file is the proprietary property of palm. So this provides evidence that they did break the GPL assuming this is part of the PDF viewer software.

  17. Re:JS needs threads on Trying To Bust JavaScript Out of the Browser · · Score: 1

    Try looking up web workers. It is pretty new but is is definitely implemented in Firefox 3.5 and the latest version of Chrome. I have not used them personally so I can't comment on how well they implement threading but the feature is there.

  18. Re:Wont do much good... on Air Cannon Ties Pirates In Knots · · Score: 1

    If you have a large cargo vessel then they don't need to be very accurate. I would argue that their RPG is unlikely to be able to punch a hole in the side of your ship.

  19. Re:Memory instead of platters...? on The Technology Behind Last.fm · · Score: 1

    I was assuming that they really were referring to memory. At 4mb per song you can hold 4000 songs in 16GB of ram which isn't a huge amount for a server. With 4000 songs per server for popular servers you shouldn't need to touch the disk so having fast SSD drives seems like a waste of money. I would put fast SSD drives for less popular songs since SSD is cheaper than ram in terms of storage capacity and then for very low popularity I would use hard disks if cost is that much of an issue.

  20. Re:Hello 'Likeness Theft' on Building 3D Models On the Fly With a Webcam · · Score: 1

    It is still very difficult to animate the model in a realistic way so you would need a bit more than this program. I can see it happening in combination with other footage which you could capture movement from then change the models to the celebrities.

  21. Re:The Death of Hollywood on Building 3D Models On the Fly With a Webcam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think the OP was implying that this new technique might be useful for making the graphics for these things. Since it has only just been created it would indeed be very surprising if open source games had used it to make great graphics already.

  22. Re:Extraordinary claims... on Engaging With Climate Skeptics · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I was hoping you were being sarcastic but then I saw you posted the original question. The data collection is not the likely cause for problems here. The size of an ice sheet in a satellite photo isn't somethign delicate oyu need to carefully get right in a lab.

    The real issue is whether the event is significant or whether chance just caused more ice to melt for whatever reason.

  23. Re:Interesting, yet exaggerated... on Dumbing Down Programming? · · Score: 1

    I decided to look at the php one properly. Their php code, which I had to type out manually because their pdf (2.3MB! for a single page) is used to contain a picture, doesn't work. There seem to be several bugs I fixed two then gave up since it was easier just to rewrite the damn thing. Secondly the php, even if it wasn't buggy, would produce different output to their revtalk code since the revtalk function returns a string of space separated words (I think, I can't run their code) whereas the php returns an associative array which they the concatenate into a comma separated string outside of the function.

    After a rewrite the php code was 16 lines after formatting with the same white space as their rev code (one empty line).

    http://pastebin.com/m152a1a0a

    I will admit that it is not very pretty code and I couldn't be bothered to comment it but I haven't used any tricks like sticking lots of functions onto one big line.

  24. Re:uuuh on Man Pleads Guilty To Selling Fake Chips To US Navy · · Score: 1

    I think the term would be "positive discrimination". At least that is what the government called it here in the UK. It sounds horribly similar to the kind of stuff which is in 1984.

  25. Re:Have a great trip! on Geek Travel To London From the US — Tips? · · Score: 1

    That is quite a long distance from London, with public transport you wouldn't get much of a day there. Shropshire is a very nice area though, there are nice hills, especially further west if you enjoy walking. I would recommend staying overnight if you do go.