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User: Aphonia

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Comments · 55

  1. Networked Life: 20 Questions and Answers on Ask Slashdot: High-School Suitable Books On How Computers Affect Society? · · Score: 1

    Networked Life: 20 Questions and Answers is a new book by Mung Chiang at Princeton which picks a few major features of our modern technological society and explains them in some detail. Doesn't require math, very clearly written and also relatively cheap.

  2. Art? on The Geek Art Movement · · Score: 1

    This is just hipster crap - science because its cool or whatever (see maddox's recent discussion).

    Also, for the love of god, http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/using-namespace-std.html

    (in this case, I guess its OK, but can we stop putting that globally?)

  3. Re:Crores to USD on India Plans To Build Fastest Supercomputer By 2017 · · Score: 1

    Crore is a counting number i should say. 1 crore of something is 10 million of that something, not 1 crore INR = 10 million USD.

  4. Crores to USD on India Plans To Build Fastest Supercomputer By 2017 · · Score: 1

    1 crore is 10 million, so this comes out to be 875 million USD roughly.

    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/with-16-petaflops-and-1-6m-cores-doe-supercomputer-is-worlds-fastest/ says that livermore spent 250 mil on sequoia (which seems like a bit of a lowball to me, given the K computer's price at 1 billion), so throwing a lot more money at the problem would seem to give better performance.

  5. "Mil-spec" or Tough tech on Ask Slashdot: Keeping Personal Tech Cool In Extreme Heat? · · Score: 1

    Aside from cracking open a window, some tech is designed to withstand this sort of conditions.

    My Casio GZ'one Ravine 2 has (from casio's website):
    High Temperature MIL-STD 501.5 Procedure I 85C 96hrs
    Low Temperature MIL-STD 502.5 Procedure I -25C 96hrs

    among other things (theres also a Casio smartphone called the commando which has the same test results).

    Panasonic's stuff (Toughbooks) is also designed to deal with high temperatures: http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/why-heat-resistant-laptops.asp (140 F operating, 160 F non-operating)

    So on, so forth - you can find versions fo a lot of devices (for a price premium) designed to work or be left in rather high operating temperatures

  6. BMW Track Trainer on Stanford's Self Driving Car Tops 120mph On Racetrack · · Score: 2

    Isn't this roughly BMW's track trainer? http://www.autoblog.com/2007/12/11/bmw-330i-races-around-the-top-gear-track-without-a-driver/

    Seems like it did impressively well on the top gear test track, but a 330i is much slower than a TTS... (Clarkson does mention you can fit it to a M3 though)

  7. Data Deduplication on Ask Slashdot: Simple Way To Backup 24TB of Data Onto USB HDDs ? · · Score: 1

    USB seems inane and insane for that level of data. How redundant is this 24 tb of data as well? Running it through a data de duplicator (possibly to reduce storage requirements depending on the type of data) and then a tape drive or raid array may be a cheaper and more time effective option.

  8. Re:Am I the only one that finds this creepy? on Pills With Digestible Microchips Approved By US Drug Agency · · Score: 1

    Most medical doctors are MD's (or something similar), not PhD's. If your local PhD in philosophy is prescribing you pills, chances are you shouldn't take them.

  9. Re:Yawn on EA Outs Battlefield 4, Plans To Charge $70 For New Games · · Score: 1

    http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/11/why-do-videogames-cost-so-much/ is somewhat relevant - its not just the publisher's faults, its your government's faults as well.

  10. Re:don't buy into DRM on Valve Will Let Gamers Pick Games To Appear On Steam · · Score: 2

    if its on steam, chances are its better than the alternatives (origins, blizzard's always online thing, etc).

    Bioware had "leave the dvd in" if you played Dragon Age, but now that a lot of people are using laptops and dvd drives may be disappearing in the forseeable future (see: retina mbp, mb air), an online option is desirable. (they even were relatively reasonable on selling used copies - just that you wouldn't get some DLC which was desirable)

    Good luck with your not buying into DRM - its not going to wither away and die, because frankly, not enough people care. I'll still buy a good game so long as it works and isn't overly intrusive.

  11. Re:more like 7th largest automaker! on General Motors To Slash Outsourcing In IT Overhaul · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uh...: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry#Top_vehicle_manufacturing_groups_.3Cby_volume.3E (which does put Toyota #1 and GM #2)

    If you had bothered to read the article you copy-pasted that from, "Volkswagen has retained its place as the number one car company in the world, according to the Forbes Global 2000 companies survey.
    The report ranks the world’s biggest companies across an equal weighting of sales, profits, assets and market value. The result is a company ranking in order of size, with 66 countries represented in the mix." (http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-news/rankings-worlds-biggest-car-companies-20120420-1xc14.html)

    Think of the brands VW owns versus the brands that GM owns.

  12. Whats wrong with the Final Fantasy? on Review: Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Is Game Music Nostalgia At Its Best · · Score: 0

    Well, we have the zero punctuation take: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1569-Final-Fantasy-XIII

    FF13 was too linear and the battle system runs itself (auto battle everything)

  13. Maddox hit the nail on the head on How Huffington Post's Clever Traffic-Generation Machine Works · · Score: 1

    Its not just HuffPo, but other sites as well (see: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ranker_sucks)

  14. Tablets and Phones and You're Doing it Wrong on Ask Slashdot: Instead of a Laptop, a Tiny Computer and Projector? · · Score: 1

    A rooted android device or even an ipad + 3g (possibly rooted) would fulfil this with a keyboard case.

    Motorola atrix is also another option, but your main concern when traveling is room and you cant fit an ultralight laptop (thinkpad x series, macbook air, netbook, etc.) you probably need a bigger bag or to talk to other business travelers on how they're packing (cause you're doing it wrong)

  15. Really, Slashdot? on IBM's Ban on Dropbox and iCloud Highlights Cloud Security Issues · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Why is on front page slashdot when it just re-iterates a previous front page slashdot?

  16. Re:Slight correction on Adobe Introduces the Paid Security Fix · · Score: 2

    Also, Photoshop 6 has only been the stable release for 50 days according to Wiki - not exactly the time to upgrade if you're actually working with Photoshop...

  17. Re:flawed assumptions on Ask Slashdot: Why Aren't Schools Connected? · · Score: 1

    you don't want a million parents yelling at you for doing your job - especially the over achieving ones or the ones who put a lot of pressure on their kids; it would drastically ruin teacher esteem and what not. Everyone is held accountable to someone, but nobody should be perpetually held accountable to everyone; Besides, as a parent, you should be talking to your kid about school anyway at least sometimes - do it then (theres also parent-teacher conferences, and you can set up meetings with teachers as well, if you ask nicely in most cases).

  18. Overbearing Parents on Ask Slashdot: Why Aren't Schools Connected? · · Score: 1

    Theres already too much parental control over kids lives these days - giving the assignments to the kids and what not at least forces them to somewhat talk to their parents sometimes as well as some vestige over control over their education (ie. the kids will play around with it first - in this day and age, sending the homework directly to the parents or what not will end with quite a few of them just doing it and submitting it back).

    Not to mention that you're printing it out anyway and what not. Theres also the need to just develop the ability to do things without a computer (yes, slashdot, the world still exists) - try doing a college level math class on a computer, and your speed drops immensely for most people - typesetting is the last stage as it rightly should be.

  19. New macs get it free on Apple Releases Mac OS X Lion, Updates Air · · Score: 2

    There is a free download (that isn't exactly working) for those who purchased after June 6, 2011.
    http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/ [apple.com]

  20. Remember, If you buy June 6 onwards, on Ask Slashdot: Best Offline Storage Method For Large Archives? · · Score: 1

    There is a free download (that isn't exactly working) for those who purchased after June 6, 2011.
    http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/

  21. Apple is fine on DisplayPort-To-HDMI Cables May Be Recalled Over Licensing · · Score: 1

    From TFA: "The news will be a massive blow to the many companies who are making these cables, but the HDMI does point out that those cables with a DisplayPort socket on one side and an HDMI female receptacle on the other (essentially a dongle) are okay. This is because a licensed HDMI lead can slot into them."

    Monoprice and the adapters apple sell are fine. The cable may be more convenient, but in most cases, its a non issue id think.

  22. Summary on Why People Who Make Things Should Learn Chinese · · Score: 1

    the summary should probably read "I make the case in MAKE magazine". honestly, the case isnt very conclusive in the article, just really a story on how someone tried learning chinese.

  23. Virtualbox on Ask Slashdot: Easiest Linux Distro For a Newbie · · Score: 1

    Use virtualbox and fedora or ubuntu, two of the most common distributions around. Virtualbox (or vmware or parallels or whatever) is a smart choice - she can't fuck anything up during the installation, can easily try multiple installs and what not. Snapshots are cool too.

  24. Number of trials on Can Ubuntu Linux Consume Less Power Than Windows? · · Score: 1

    There are an awful lot of sharp peaks in power consumption - I'd like to know how many runs they averaged their points over (i'm guessing it was all a single run, but i cant find the data on this test). Also, no specific hardware drivers other than the graphics driver were installed is a non-representative case on windows, where most manufacturers provide extra drivers and what not to give more features/ different power consumption. And finally, these are awfully high end machines - why not test something a normal person would have (i.e. a netbook, a 300 dollar laptop from [insert office store here], a 500 dollar desktop from [insert office store here], etc.?)

  25. Re:Did they use the xfree ati / nv drivers or the on Can Ubuntu Linux Consume Less Power Than Windows? · · Score: 1

    it says these are the blob ones and the opensource ones give higher power usage on the first page.