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User: zach297

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  1. Re:a big round of thanks to that outside contracto on Microsoft Takes Responsibility For GPL Violation · · Score: 1

    Unless they did it intentionally, in which case they got to make an open-source app on Microsoft's dime.

  2. Re:Only useful for non-free applications on Ryan Gordon Wants To Bring Universal Binaries To Linux · · Score: 1

    But then you need a fat binary for your little installation program.

    The installation program could be written as a cross-platform script interpreted by a native program. Better to maintain one cross-platform program if it means you don't have to for the others.

  3. Re:Sabotage? on Sneaky Microsoft Add-On Put Firefox Users At Risk · · Score: 1

    Because people that use Firefox probably have heard about this patch and realize it is Microsoft's doing, thereby shifting the blame correctly to Microsoft.

  4. Re:Nonsense. on EFF Warns TI Not To Harass Calculator Hobbyists · · Score: -1, Troll

    I think you misspelled, "I'm too stupid to properly spell check a sentence."

  5. Re:No different than Hard Drive advertising on Legal Group Says Unlimited Broadband Promotes Piracy · · Score: 1

    Unless you fill it with movies which are easily 100 times as large as MP3s.

  6. Re:Huh? on Encryption? What Encryption? · · Score: 1

    To prevent them from finding the usb stick you could memorize the code to the encryption program and simply retype it everytime you want to use your data instead of making the usb stick.

  7. Too Broad on Illinois Bans Social Network Use By Sex Offenders · · Score: 1

    The only problem with this law is the definition of sex offender. As many others have said, you can become a sex offender by public urination, or sexting, or having sex when you are 18 and you partner is 16. For them, being banned from social networks is not a just punishment. It has absolutely nothing to do with the crime. Banning social networks makes more sense for sex offenders with a history preying on others, especially through the internet. This law seems overly broad and they should make it apply to only a subset of sex offenders.

  8. Re:Limits? on Sensor To Monitor TV Watchers Demoed At Cable Labs · · Score: 1

    Of course, even if it gets that bad, I suspect it'd be defeated with something like duct tape.

    Or putting it inside an A/V cabinet.

  9. Re:The logical next step... on Garbage Collection Algorithms Coming For SSDs · · Score: 4, Informative

    Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Programming . Clearing out an entire block is different than a write. Writing to an SSD is only possible by setting the value to 0. So when I save something to the SSD it is really only writing down the 0's of my file and just leaving the 1's alone. This is not the destructive part of using flash. The part that uses up actual write cycles is clearing a block back to 1's. This is explained in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Erasing .

    Taking from your list of actions: Pick a random block:
    1. GC comes along, swoops up block, eliminates junk by flashing entire block into 1's (awhile later)
    2. OS requires write, swoops up block, writes only the 0's from the file leaving everything else untouched.

    In this manner each step does half of the writing amounting to one write when combined. This is exactly how all SSDs work. The major difference announced in the article is that they are separating the two steps.

    Normally this is impossible because the SSD doesn't know if something can be cleared until the OS is trying to overwrite it. This makes writes take longer. The new firmware hopes to make writes faster by moving the first step into the idle time of the drive (by figuring out when a overwritten block is unused) sort of like how you can set up a download to only run when your not using the internet connection. It allows for more efficient use of time that the drive would otherwise be doing nothing with.

  10. Re:The logical next step... on Garbage Collection Algorithms Coming For SSDs · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the summary: "This isn't a concern on fresh, new SSDs, but over time, as files are written, moved, deleted, or replaced, many blocks are a left holding what is essentially orphaned or garbage data, and their long-term performance degrades because of it." The are talking about clearing sectors of garbage data that is no longer in use. It would have to be done anyways before the sector can be reused. The new firmware is simply doing that time consuming step early while it is in idle. The actual number of write cycles is not changing.

  11. Re:"Ideas" should not be patentable on Apple Patent To Safeguard 911 Cellphone Calls · · Score: 1
    Theo what is a way for iPhone owners to use their phones in emergency situations on a low battery. The how is

    to disable "'non-essential hardware components' and applications on the phone, reduce power to the screen and potentially reduce the phone's processor speed. It also would make it harder to disconnect the call and enable 'emergency phrase buttons' on the phone."

    Sounds non obvious enough to me.

  12. Re:Mod Parent Up Please! :) on Solution For College's Bad Network Policy? · · Score: 1

    The great thing about virtualization is that the trojans required by the school won't know to look beyond the virtualization because they can't tell the difference between real and fake hardware.

  13. Re:Ballmer threatens to pull out? on Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US · · Score: 2, Funny

    Only on Slashdot would this be modded +5 Insightful.

    Only on Slashdot would this be modded +3 Informative.

  14. Re:I'm disappointed on Valve Explains Quick Left 4 Dead Sequel · · Score: 1

    The do this so used gamers have to pay for the full game. Because you cannot buy used DLCs the used gamers have to pay the publisher to get them. Now the publisher gets money from used games. They only release them on the Xbox because it has a much larger used game market than the PC. I agree that it sucks, but it works.

  15. Re:Shouldn't happen..... on US DTV Patent Royalties Are $24–$40 · · Score: 1

    That would be fine if the TV manufacturer had a choice. If the manufacturer wants to make TVs they have no choice but to pay. They can't make their own standard or leave it out as that would be illegal. In this case the designer doesn't deserve to profit. He is legally required to profit.

  16. Re:the open sourcing of law enforcement hardware? on What Should Be In a Technology Bill of Rights? · · Score: 1

    More likely the police will be forced to use technology that is already open source.

  17. Re:Step back a bit... on Portables Without Cameras? · · Score: 1

    It's hard to believe that it's (much) more dangerous as a slashing implement than most of the other keys on the same keychain.

    From the wikipedia article on the P-38:

    Samuel R. Delany mentions in his memoirs that women in his era (the late 1950s and early 1960s) often carried a P-38 to rip the necks of muggers or rapists.

  18. Re:True AI on Looking To Spammers To Solve Hard AI Problems · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That brings up a good point. When AI is good enough to get past CAPTCHA it will hopefully be good enough to filter out the spam.

  19. Re:End of an era? on Swedish Museum Puts Pirate Bay Server On Display · · Score: 2, Informative

    Really? I have expirenced the exact opposite. I can upload at about 60 KBytes/s but my downloads are extremely slow unless I limit the uploads to around 20 KBytes/s. Maybe there is some part of torrents that I am mistaken about.

  20. Re:It is not the range or 0-60 perf, stupid on Tesla Roadster Runs For 241 Miles In E-Rally · · Score: 1

    How about equipping parking garages with outlets?

  21. Re:Net Benefit? on Violent Video Games Can Improve Vision · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You'll also have to have the player's avatar explode if they took a few extra milliseconds.

  22. Re:Easy to defeat on 3D-Based CAPTCHAs Become a Reality · · Score: 1

    Another idea would be to have a model with multiple poses that would drastically change the silhouette.

  23. Re:Where do they store 4.5TB off site on Internet Archive Gets 4.5PB Data Center Upgrade · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd suggest also using stone slabs. Water can do serious damage to paper, and don't get me started on fire hazards. Good old Stone Slabs resist both of those really well. I'm not sure what the write speed is, however, so you'll probably need to hire many stonecutters to work in parallel.

    A math problem. My favorite. I don't know much about stone cutters but lets assume they can write one bit every 2 seconds. Thats 1 byte in 16 seconds. The internet archive is (4.5 x 1,125,899,906,842,624) 5,066,549,580,791,808 (5 quadrillion) bytes. That works out to 81,064,793,292,668,928 (81 quadrillion) seconds or about 2,570,547,732 (2.5 billion) years. That is far to long for their stringent 2 month backup cycle. They would need 15,423,286,395 (15.4 billion) stone cutters to keep schedule assuming they had unlimited stone. Last time I checked there were only between 6 and 7 billion people with only a small fraction of them being stone cutters. That leaves but one solution. Force the web developers to become stone cutters. This would not only increase the work force but also reduce the amount needed to backup because fewer people will be making more web pages to backup.

  24. Re:At least this is better than the legal system on AT&T Has Begun Issuing RIAA Takedown Notices · · Score: 1

    The only problem with that is that ISPs are businesses that can choose to serve or not serve whatever customers they wish for whatever reason.

  25. Bioshock on Spider Bite Allows Man To Walk Again · · Score: 1

    Anyone who has played Bioshock knows were this is headed. Just replace spider with slug.