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User: Jeprey

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Comments · 52

  1. Re:Libel potential on Dating Site Creates Profiles From Public Records · · Score: 2

    Not the non-member 3rd suing themselves - that's stupid. But rather by scraping from other sources and then claiming it represents a non-member 3rd party, if there are errors that cause damage it's most definitely actionable under common law libel/slander. The non-member 3rd can sue this firm. This firm has to be responsible for accuracy of their collated and created database. It's a derivative work on public information but they are adding to it by systematizing it into usable form for their members.

  2. Bizarrely Out-of-touch Discussion on Chinese Written Language To Dominate Internet · · Score: 1

    Does anyone have any critical reading skills anymore?

    The article says "written Chinese". Written Chinese for Mandarin and Cantonese and Fukien and etc. etc. is the same (in China). The exception is traditional used in Taiwan and Hong Kong but once you go beyond the subset of characters that is simplified Chinese, guess what, it's all traditional. And in many cases you can recognize the simplified if you already know the traditional as it's usually obviously and predictably simplified from the traditional form.

    And what do web sites use: written or spoken language? Oh yeah, written. So only written matters much for the web. This whole discussion about spoken Chinese being different is a bizarro Red Herring.

    And what does the article actually say? There will soon be more web pages in Chinese than in English, which given the population and economic power of China isn't even surprising or suspect as a claim.

    Does this mean that you will not find any (or even as many as today's) English language web pages? Of course not.

    It certainly might mean that you could in the near future miss something relevant or important that was only published in Chinese if you can't read Chinese. This happens today if you don't read English. This is simply true based on numbers.

    So it wouldn't be a bad idea for a (wàiguó rén) to (xué) some (Zhngguóhuà) if you want to be economically relevant in the future (/. only UTF-8 apparently?).

  3. Re:Saves up to 40% power savings? on Samsung '3D' Memory Coming, 50% Denser · · Score: 1

    Yes. It really does.

    The reason is that to get the signals off the chip you have to amplify them and then take the losses of having to line-charge the bond pads, bond wires, package traces, PCB traces, etc. This charging is simply done due to physical parasitic losses induced by shipping the data off-chip. Keeping it all on-chip avoids this and allows nA-uA currents to be used throughout rather than kicking things up to mA currents and then back down again.

    This, combined with jitter limits, is part of the reason for going to cores rather than increases GHz clock rates.

    The one caveat with 3D is that it probably won't work for microprocessors because too many devices are switching at any one time. This includes CPUs and GPUs. Memory is more "quiescent" in terms of duty cycle of any given transistor on-chip to it's a better candidate for 3D.

    As it is, the energy density (J/m^3) in a typical minimal geometry CMOS transistor is higher than the core of the Sun. This is a serious thermal issue, especially since >90% of thermal conduction is only through the silicon substrate. Another reason that SOI/SOS hasn't been nearly as successful as you might expect.

  4. Most US tech companies have become stupid on How Apple Had a Spectacular Year · · Score: 1

    I'm still "shocked" when apparently leading tech companies fastidiously try to preserve their cash-cows without giving a thought to continuing R&D to replace them. How MBA of them, but clearly they don't get tech. I've seen it happen so much in Silicon Valley in the last 15 years that I've come to realize I can pick winners and losers just using this as a diagnostic. This also is a death rattle of a tech firm when they start acting this way.

    It is always better to obsolete your own products than to have your competitors do it for you! You'd think the "why?" would be obvious but to spell it out: obsoleting yourself puts inevitable your market revenue decline in your hands rather than your competitors.

    In the case of Apple, which their most excellent sell-on-value and margin, this means they have control of that margin (and profits) to a far greater degree than their competitors who tend to be completely reactive in product development investments and choices. Being reactive means you are always a day late and dollar short.

  5. Recipes are NOT copyrightable!! on Cooks Source Magazine Apologizes — Sort Of · · Score: 1

    This is still nothing but a bunch of smoke. Recipes are not copyrightable! Never have been.

    http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

  6. Re:Only new to the clueless! on Hidden Debug Mode Found In AMD Processors · · Score: 1

    There's a marketing name and then there was the internal name commonly used. Same die! Really.

  7. Only new to the clueless! on Hidden Debug Mode Found In AMD Processors · · Score: 1

    Integrated circuits have had "stealth" debug/test modes since forever. Every single one made since the 1970s on with any complexity above that of a RAM has had these modes.

    When I worked for Intel I used these extensively to get "inside access" to the raw memory array for production line testing of EPROMs.

    The same types of modes are how the 486DX, 486SX and 486FX (FPU) all originated from the same, exact, single-design die. Basically you go into the test mode and blow a fuse that shut down the failing half of a DX to result in an SX or FX part. All the same exact die in all cases.

    The article author is way late to the party!

  8. Re:Hardware espionage on Hidden Debug Mode Found In AMD Processors · · Score: 1

    You'd have to be able to access the network the IC is operating on (if it is even connected to anything). So, not really if normal military security measures already common are taken. Backdoors imply communications channels existing because a backdoor is useless without one.

    There are other more nefarious things "they" could do. I could tell you but I've have to kill you.

  9. Re:Way to prove their point! on China Now Halting Shipments of Rare Earth Minerals To US · · Score: 1

    Extremely well said. This is exactly the situation.

  10. Re:Explain it to me.... on PayPal Withholding Indie Game Dev's €600,000 Account · · Score: 1

    The excuse is War on Terror, which just the lie to cover the truth. The reality is a desire to be able to detect and tax for VAT and income tax on every last dime that is transacted anywhere in the world.

  11. Re:This is why we vote Pirate on EU Surveillance Studies Disclosed By Pirate Party · · Score: 1

    False dichotomy. Presumption that the absence of authoritarian control is riotous chaos.

  12. Re:Should've kept him on HP Sues Hurd For Joining Oracle · · Score: 1

    The Delaware incorporation does matter in many cases but the California nexus of employment and the filing in California also does.

    Basically HP waded in and grabbed a tar-baby. It's going to be messy for them now. Very skittish, Toombs!

  13. Re:HP's trade secrets: on HP Sues Hurd For Joining Oracle · · Score: 1

    I was an employee of HP for 10 years and customer for 15 years prior. And sadly, seeing how the company has been destroyed from Bill and Dave had created, I'm also glad to be rid of them.

    I no longer buy HP products at all. For printers I buy Brother. For computers I buy Apple. Apple manufactures the physical quality of what HP used to be capable of but they also apply the same to the user experience which HP was always only rarely a hit and mostly a miss on.

  14. Re:50% right on Tech Sector Slow To Hire · · Score: 1

    It more dramatic that this.

    If a profession has the pace or size that even allows the creation of a certification, it's absolutely not a leading edge profession. Leading edge professions have everything change so fast that any attempt to create a certification standard ends up being obsolete before the first certificatee takes the first copy of the exam! Thus if there is a certification at all the chances are the profession and technology in question is trailing edge because it means bureaucracies in all their inefficiencies have caught up with the technology.

    Computers, generally, are a trailing edge technology. Leading or trailing edge is a direct reference to the technology adoption curve. Leading edge is where 0% to 50% to 100% of the market/population is willing to pay money for the technology. Computers, and specifically microprocessor-based or microcomputers, are trailing edge technology, as are all the supporting activities like IT. This is also why IT is so easily outsourceable! It's a trailing edge commodity service. The trailing edge is where products become commodities!

    Yes, Web 2.0 is a trailing edge technology - just a minor refinement of Web 1.0 without anything really all that radical added. Not even like new protocols to replace IP or stuff. Trailing edge. Get used to it.

  15. Still it's weird on They Finally Found Out We Like Our Computers · · Score: 1

    I guess some people anthropomorphize machines including computers. I never have and have never understood why it would be necessary or desireable. But I'm an engineer so I understand most machines down to their smallest components.

  16. It's not "nano"! on Nanoresonators Create Ultra-High-Res Displays · · Score: 1

    10 micron design rule is not "nano"-anything!! Nano means nanometer, 1000x smaller than 1 micrometer or micron. Marketing BS 100%

  17. DNA testing isn't what most think it is on How Statistics Can Foul the Meaning of DNA Evidence · · Score: 1

    Contrary to what the average lay-person imagines about DNA testing, it does not involve actually matching all of the DNA present or even most of it. Only a small bit of a person's entire genome is used. And then only statistically in comparison to some presumed statistical population reference.

    To put it in other terms, DNA testing is like identifying Dickens as the author of a suspect text by comparing the first word of each chapter to a reference that is the average first words of chapters of some, but not even most, of his known works which is combined with some other unknown and undetermined books written by other authors.

    Once you understand this, you quickly realize the margin for error is far bigger than typically presumed.

  18. Re:Analog Computers on Chips That Flow With Probabilities, Not Bits · · Score: 1

    This actually has future application because as we shrink geometries from here on out, the probability of trusting any given bit will be declining toward 50%. Ultimately the limit of computing will never be down to the atom or molecule (at room temperature anyway) but will be a bit higher but only with technologies like this.

  19. Re:Sure and maybe on NAB, RIAA May Seek Mandate For FM Radios In Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    Actually there's a story about some municipalities requiring someone walk in front of automobiles with flags to avoid frightening the horses. This FM radio mandate is just as stupid.

  20. Re:Consumer Focus or Consumer Manipulation? on NAB, RIAA May Seek Mandate For FM Radios In Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    Would that be the benefit concerts that have demonstrably done nothing to actually help their claimed causes.

    Sorry, you were being rhetorical. :-)

  21. Re:Consumer Focus or Consumer Manipulation? on NAB, RIAA May Seek Mandate For FM Radios In Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    I've already done most of this. I don't listen to any broadcast radio (AM or FM) at all - it's crap programming (the NAB's bailiwick, btw), it's all ads for crap I don't buy or would ever buy, it's obsolete, through and through. NAB is a walking zombie that doesn't yet realize it's already dead!!

    What's interesting is that 99% of my music play list is all non-American bands and most who don't associate with the big name record agencies like RIAA. They simply are more creative and interesting individually than the entire RIAA catalog of artists combined!

  22. No Value, Only Wasted Costs on NAB, RIAA May Seek Mandate For FM Radios In Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    I stopped listening to all AM and FM radio more than a decade ago because it's pure crap in terms of programming and pure advertisements over programming. There is zero reason to waste time with mandating FM radio. This only adds costs that do not provide value.

  23. Re:He would be right at home on slashdot on The Great Typo Hunt · · Score: 1

    I, for one, welcome our new grammar Nazi overlords!

  24. Re:Twitter Twaddle on Sifting Authorities From Celebrities On Twitter · · Score: 1

    Plenty of us have.

    I'm not sure what you do for living but frankly if you time for tweeting all the time, but what you do must be fairly lightweight stuff, uncompetitive and you must be pretty shallow. Academic? Or low-level line employee? Really hard kinds of work don't allow for the Twitter kind of luxury or openness of communication.

    Frankly what I do is none of these. My competitors gain far more from knowing what I do than my company or our customers. I work in high tech, but not the Web 2.0 faux tech, but with real hardware, firmware and software. It's no one's business how I spend my time other than those who pay me and only when working for them. Any other time, not even. Boundaries, son. Learn about them - live them.

  25. Peet's on Some LA Coffee Shops Are Taking Wi-Fi Off the Menu · · Score: 1

    Peet's gives you an hour only and then you need to buy something to get another ticket. Seems reasonable to me.