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User: SammyIAm

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Comments · 56

  1. Re:Wait, wait, wait... on AFL-CIO and Big Content Advocate For SOPA · · Score: 1

    Yes, thank you. Somehow even Ted Stevens is coming off as significantly better informed about the Internet than these guys.

  2. Re:Fallacious on AFL-CIO and Big Content Advocate For SOPA · · Score: 1

    Agreed. Any Congress-critter that calls one of his constituents a "thief and scofflaw" should be outed (and consequently never voted for again). At least that's how it should work...

  3. In Other Words... on Galaxy Nexus Designed To Avoid Infringing Apple Patents · · Score: 1

    So let me get this straight. Samsung is designing a device that specifically doesn't infringe on another company's patents. And this is news? Isn't that generally the goal of patents (at least when they're not terribly broken like they are)?

    Also, they seem to have been ABLE to produce a phone that didn't rip off Apple's design (it looks pretty good actually), what was all this about "it's impossible not to make a phone exactly like Apple's" stuff that was floating around in their defense earlier?

  4. Re:That picture.. my eyes! Mindfcuk! on Browser Power Consumption Compared · · Score: 1

    Gah! Well now that you mention it, yes! And now I can't unsee it!

    Good thing I won't be reading the whole article =P

  5. Re:From the No-shit-sherlock department on Oxford Scientists Say Dogs Are Smarter Than Cats · · Score: 1

    You obviously never played catch, or three-flys-up as a kid. The point being, and I haven't read the article but this is what it sounds like they're going for, is that dogs are more social and do things like playing with their owners. Cats on the other hand just kinda do whatever they feel like without the capacity for as much social interaction.

  6. Re:Old on Extra-Galactic Planet Discovered In Milky Way · · Score: 1

    Excellent summary; I sadly have no mod points to give you, only kudos in the form of a comment.

  7. Don't Make Windows Work Harder on Can Windows, OS X and Fedora All Work Together? · · Score: 1

    From my experience working at a Windows/Mac school district and messing with linux in my spare time, I would say that it's generally easier to get Mac or Linux boxes to integrate into an existing Windows environment, than to try to get Windows to cooperate with non-Microsoft tools. Just my two cents.

  8. Re:Great. So? on Google Releases New Image Format Called WebP · · Score: 1

    Safari, Chrome, and IE 9 (sorta) support AAC, as does Flash. (http://diveintohtml5.org/video.html)

    That said, you bring up an excellent distinction that I'd missed; I was speaking more of formats in general as opposed to in web standards. With that in mind, I think you're probably right. Web standards do tend to have a way of just hanging around in the stone ages. I mean, look how long HTML4 has lasted. And look at the GIF format, still fairly popular after all these years.

    Doesn't mean we can't be optimistic though and hope that in the coming years the web can start to adopt some new, better standards.

  9. Re:Great. So? on Google Releases New Image Format Called WebP · · Score: 1

    While this is definitely true, Google might just have enough force to push WebP into common use. Look at mp4's: mp3 was the de facto standard for a while because "everything supports it and it's good enough". Apple comes along with this iTunes music store and starts pushing their mp4-wares and support for the format actually started to increase.

  10. Re:This would scare the hell out of me on Airbus Planning Transparent Planes · · Score: 1

    I'm totally with you on the distinction between heights / falling. The Sears Tower (or whatever it's called these days) was fine, and a wonderful sightseeing opportunity. The steps on Quarter Dome (on the way to Half Dome in Yosemite), were absolutely terrifying. Even Half Dome wasn't as bad since there were hand rails (cables) to hold onto.

  11. Re:iTunes bad, new iPods not much better on Flawed iTunes Stands Out Among Apple's Products · · Score: 1

    and has been for over a decade.

    And this is exactly why MP4 is a good idea. Also, I may be mistaken, but I believe everything on YouTube is stored as MP4.

  12. Re:Efficient? Better in any way? on Wireless Power Group Has 'Qi' Prototypes · · Score: 1

    Actually it seems more likely to become standardized. I mean, since there's no weird connectors to deal with, the only real variable would appear to be to be the frequency, and maybe the power. And Inductive-charger-mat manufacturers are going to want that standardized so their mat will work with the maximum number of devices.

    Also, for one device this is equally as easy. If I could put multiple devices on one mat, this is much more convenient than trying to fit a bunch of wall-warts onto a power strip to charge multiple devices.

    It's almost certainly going to be less efficient though, I agree with you there.

  13. Re:Falcons & falcons on Air Force Uses Falcons To Protect Falcons · · Score: 1

    I think generally for titles: "important" words are capitalized by convention, and non-important words are optionally capitalized. For Slashdot, it looks like the 'a' does not get capitalized, but 'To' does. Which is a little weird looking in stories like: Fun To Be Had With a 10 Foot Satellite Dish

  14. Re:how is this different from gtalk? on Google Voice Opens To All · · Score: 1

    Google Voice does indeed allow you to dial "traditional" phone numbers, as well a providing your account with a "traditional" phone number that people can reach you at.

  15. What a twist! on MA High School Forces All Students To Buy MacBooks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I signed up for my highschool's laptop program (completely voluntary) back in 2000. All students were required to provide their own laptops, and since the school was "PC-only", that's what students were told to buy. I ended up being probably one of maybe two students in the program who did have a Mac. Never had any trouble completing any assignments, and actually had it a little easier since some of the "security" measures they tried to implement were only Windows compatible, so I wasn't bothered by it.

    While I find it cool that a school has decided to be pro-Mac, I think it's unreasonable for the school to dictate exactly which computer students need to buy. I could understand if the school said "we only support Macintosh" and PC-laptopers had to troubleshoot their own problems. But there's no reason students shouldn't be able to use PC laptops at their own risk.

  16. Re:Sawtooth? Square? on Music By Natural Selection · · Score: 1

    Point taken. When I'd initially read that quote, I had (falsely) assumed that the music they had been creating was something VERY simple, like just a combination of single-frequency sine waves. However after finally being able to connect to the site, and listening to the samples, they appear to have created... well, sound. Like you said.

  17. Sawtooth? Square? on Music By Natural Selection · · Score: 1

    It depends to what level of detail you want to look at, but there are some other waveforms that at least have their own names. I mean, to some extent these can still technically be represented by sine waves, but generally seem to have their own characteristics.

  18. Guild Wars! on Revisiting the "Holy Trinity" of MMORPG Classes · · Score: 1
    Guild wars has been mentioned a little above, but I feel like the character classes definitely offer some of this cross-class, cross-trinity action. While the warrior would seem like the obvious choice for a tank, there are build for the other classes (especially the monk) that make them viable tanks. Likewise, most of the classes have a few options available for different types of damage (direct, AoE, etc).

    Part of what might be contributing to this though, is the dual-class nature of the game. Each character has a primary class, and a secondary class, and can pull from most of the skills from both classes.

  19. Re:Annoying factor bigger than geek factor on Student Orchestra Performs Music With iPhones · · Score: 1

    Agreed. I think it was more sound than music. There's a certain musical quality to it, sure. Just like there's music in the breeze and the ocean. But in this case it's just a lot more annoying.

  20. Whose Shingles? on Dow Chemical Rolling Out Solar Shingles Next Year · · Score: 1

    Why are they rolling my solar shingles? And who is this "our" that I'm apparently sharing my solar shingles with? Won't they be more effective if they're flat? Maybe I need to go read the article to learn more...

  21. Re:awesome on Melting Memory Chips In Mass Production · · Score: 1

    Thank you, I was trying to find what kind of temperatures we were talking about. I think 446C is unlikely, as you say, to be encountered without causing some other serious issues.

  22. How hot? on Melting Memory Chips In Mass Production · · Score: 1

    Does anyone know how hot we're actually talking to phase-change the material? I understand that the whole unit would probably get fairly warm during use, but on the scale of each bit, how much heat does it really take?

  23. Bombich Software on Large-Scale Mac Deployment? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I worked at a school district for some time with a significant Mac deployment. We used Mike Bombich's software extensively, and especially for deployment, his NetBoot utility.

    It does take a little bit of configuration on the server-side to start, but it looks like some other posters have already linked to tutorials for setting that up. MB has a utility to create a net-bootable-image that can used to image that machine with your choice of disk images (we had different images for different architectures, and different software packages), or can be automated to pick an image automatically.

    His NetBoot software also has the ability to run a shell script to complete configuration settings that may need to be done on a per-machine basis (setting the computer network name for example).

    For running updates, and modifying settings after the initial imaging, Apple's remote desktop is actually very useful. Although the feature set is limited, it DOES allow for the execution of shell commands from the Remote Desktop interface, which makes upgrading or changing settings on a large number of machines fairly easy.

  24. Re:Outrage on ASCAP Says Apple Should Pay For 30-sec. Song Samples · · Score: 2, Informative

    So angry that pronouns start to go missing! (Or ZekoMal is right)

  25. Re:Silly Putty? on The Orange Goo That Could Save Your Laptop · · Score: 1

    Ah good, I was hoping someone would make the Silly Putty link.