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  1. Re:re AT&T on Man Emails AT&T's CEO, Gets Threatened With C&D Order · · Score: 1

    When ma Bell got split up, Bell labs got stuck under Western Electric (AT&T's manufacturing arm) under the name "AT&T technologies", which was still under what was left of AT&T.
    In the mid 90's this got spun off to "Lucent Technologies", so it was then independent.

    Then about 5 years ago It got bought out by the French telco "Alcatel", becoming "Alcatel-Lucent".

    Transistors, UNIX and C. What more can a guy ask for.

  2. Re:re AT&T on Man Emails AT&T's CEO, Gets Threatened With C&D Order · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The phones were leased, not free. You didn't own it at all. That's why they were built like brick shithouses and only changed design a couple times in a century.

  3. Re:Duverger's law on CSIRO Sues US Carriers Over Wi-Fi Patent · · Score: 1

    Move to proportional representation, obviously. Plurality is broken, horribly.

  4. Re:Step 1 on 10 Tips For Boosting Network Performance · · Score: 1

    I tend to do my best thinking in the middle of the night.

  5. I don't care what the ancients say. on Reproducing an Ancient New World Beer · · Score: 0

    Chocolate and chilli peppers do _NOT_ fucking belong in beer.

    Water, barley, hops, a little yeast. That's it.

  6. Re:SSD's? no. on Flash Destroyer Tests Limit of Solid State Storage · · Score: 1

    Is scaled up EEPROM kosher, then?

  7. Re:SSD's? no. on Flash Destroyer Tests Limit of Solid State Storage · · Score: 1

    IIC EEPROMs are always too small for BIOS, I'm not sure what the biggest ones are, but they're quite small, maybe 2 or 4kB being the largest size.

    They're generally used for menial stuff, For example... serial numbers on things, last operating mode (so battery powered devices can save states when power is removed), DIMMs all have them so that the machine knows what speed / config the RAM is (a PC's SMBUS is essentially I2C, there are slight differences but most things are identical and compatible).

    The bus itself is rather slow, but can handle a whole bunch of devices, and only requires two wires.

    BIOS is either stored on parallel bus (E)(E)PROM - The amount of E's depends on generation, OLD stuff was PROM (one time writable) or EPROM (rewritable, but requires UV to erase), starting around pentium era things went to EEPROM (electrically erasable). Modern boards seem to use SPI EEPROMs (this is also a serial bus like IIC, but dumber (no addressing) and it can be spooled up a lot faster). Some fairly recent boards still use parallel chips though.

  8. Re:Interesting! on Flash Destroyer Tests Limit of Solid State Storage · · Score: 1

    That's assuming that every data write is immediately read back and compared to the written value... I don't believe that's standard procedure?

    Although perhaps the SSD controller compares buffer to write val, and if it fails, marks the sector bad and writes it somewhere else, transparent to the OS. They must have something like that...

  9. Re:Sounds like a feature on iPhone's PIN-Based Security Transparent To Ubuntu · · Score: 1

    or (even worse), setting the PIN also sets some sort of "politely ignore the data you could easily access" flag, that iTunes obeys and the third-party implementations don't.

    This would be my guess.

    I suppose Apple didn't expect to see a third party implementation developed, so they took the cheapo obscurity route. They should probably quit betting against hackers, especially if they want fascist control of "their" devices... That just gives people incentive.

  10. Re:20 years away? on Titanium Oxide For High-Density Optical Storage · · Score: 1

    The phone on the end of my desk has a dial on it. Even though the old electromechanical switching equipment got kicked out of central offices decades ago, the new electronic switches still support pulse dialing. (The robotic "press 1 for ... " doesn't however).

    I don't think many CDs or CD players will work that long after they're obsoleted, though. The phones from the ma Bell days were built like brick shithouses, because they were leased. You could bludgeon an intruder with one, and you would still be able to call the police afterward.

    There are a bunch of computing anachronisms, I doubt that will change. For example - "core dump", the first one that comes to mind.

  11. Re:Its because there's no money in it on Glaxo Open Sources Malaria Drug Search Data · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This was my thought as well, give it away because good PR is worth more than the drugs would be worth.

    Nevertheless, I still think it's a positive decision. Would be nice if we could get an open sourced drug for cancer or heart disease by the time I need it, though. (cancer and heart disease being the top two killers in the developed world, and all).

  12. Re:Back in 1973... on Where Were You When PLATO Was Born? · · Score: 1

    Solid state was already in high gear by '73, although I suppose most people still had older tube or hybrid sets at the time.

    PS - You can only electrocute yourself once. I've been shocked a few too many times though, myself :)

  13. Re:Speed? on Global "Last Mile" Performance Stats Going Public · · Score: 1

    Canada is just as bad. I have 15/1 ( which is actually 512k on a good day, mind you). The next option is 25/2, and I doubt they see the 2Mbps either (not to mention that it's $100/mo).

    I'd trade it for 5/5 in an instant - but there isn't even an option for this. To get symmetrical UL you need to go on a several hundred dollar per month "business" plan.

    I live in a city, not the bloody boondocks. This is the 21st century. $50/mo should give me 100/10.

    Don't even get me started on mobile internet. All the telecoms need a stiff backhand if we're ever going to leave the cave-era.

  14. Re:How much damage done to HP image? on HP Explains Why Printer Ink Is So Expensive · · Score: 1

    The first thing I think of when I think of "HP" is test equipment, which they no longer make. They spun the test equipment business off as "Agilent"... The stuff is legendary, built like a brick shithouse (although it costs as much as one, too). Second is a toss-up between calculators and servers.

    I don't tend to think of their consumer PCs and peripherals these days as "hp" at all. Certainly an entirely different mindset during development vs. the test equipment. Generic plastic junk.

  15. Re:ban one company at random on Nine Chip Makers Fined $400M In EU For Price Fixing · · Score: 1

    How would you plan on enforcing that? Customs officials opening every stick of RAM, prebuilt computer, cell phone, router, set top box, et al, and determining if the device in question has Brand X DRAM?

    Seems entirely impossible to me, with the majority of electronics being manufactured outside the US.

  16. Re:400M goes to who? on Nine Chip Makers Fined $400M In EU For Price Fixing · · Score: 1

    I can kind of see your point, but what do you suggest? That we don't punish companies for collusion?

    Any of the manufacturers that weren't in on the price fixing should be able to undercut the cheats that have to recoup their $400M fine. - Not that I can think of a RAM manufacturer that isn't in this list, off the top of my head... I suppose collusion works best when everyone is in on it, eh?

  17. Re:Tagged "beastie" on OpenBSD 4.7 Released · · Score: 1

    openBSD used to have the beastie until 2.x, I think.

    I've got a shirt with him and "openBSD" on it :-)

    I still think the "greasy cop" mascot from 2.5 was the best though. picture

  18. Re:catalytic converters produce more emissions on National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax · · Score: 1

    Oxidizing unburnt fuel is only one of the three tasks a catalyst has in a car.

    An engine running lean will always put out nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, which the cat will reduce to nitrogen and oxygen.
    An engine running rich will always put out CO, which a catalyst oxidizes to CO2.

    No way around it. There's no operating point where the engine puts out no CO or NOx. The catalyst is most effective with a slightly rich mixture.

    Your lean mix is going to dump way more NOx, and reduce the efficiency of the catalyst to reduce it.

  19. Re:$380? on Asus Budget Ultraportable Notebook Sold Sans OS · · Score: 1

    I've got an old thinkpad X41 and it has pretty decent life, I'd presume the newer ones are better yet. Of course, they aren't cheap.

  20. Re:Got my CD in the mail a few days ago on OpenBSD 4.7 Released · · Score: 1

    Cool. I've got an AVR32 (not ARM or MIPS, something completely different) powered board that I've played with a bit, similar idea I suppose. Although I don't believe there is an openbsd port for it... I should pick up something ARM sometime, here..

    I've got a sort of hate for the gpio subsystem in linux, and I've never played with the one in openBSD - I'll have to look into that.

    Luckily the board I have in mind has a full PC/104 bus (essentially ISA, with a different connector), so I can inb/outb to my heart's content. It's a via C3 thing, roughly the size of a 3.5" hdd.

  21. Re:Got my CD in the mail a few days ago on OpenBSD 4.7 Released · · Score: 1

    I've done some work with AVR's, and they're great. But I want to be able to SSH into this thing and see what's going on from work :)

    (this is a low power centaur board anyways, I think it uses 15w full tilt..)

  22. Re:Got my CD in the mail a few days ago on OpenBSD 4.7 Released · · Score: 1

    I'll bring the sparkling apple beverage.

    I've got a couple openBSD boxes myself. One is on httpd duty, the other doesn't do much, just sort of general purpose - I'm planning on making this one into some sort of automatics control for the house (turn the lights on, report temperature, I don't know, a bunch of lame stuff like this).

  23. Re:Just incredible! on NASA Finds Cause of Voyager 2 Glitch · · Score: 1

    Writing was well past on the wall for tubes by 1977. TV's were almost all solid state by the mid 70's, with the exception of the GE "portacolor" sets, which somehow managed to be made into the 80's. (No idea how / why they kept them that way. I suppose GE had a massive glut of associated parts).
    Radios and stereos would have been SS for a decade already, for the most part (couple stragglers here too).

    The latest production, normal, sort of consumer type tubes, (ie. not 100kW radio station tubes) made here that I've come across were all army/navy labeled stuff, dating to the mid 1980s. I figure the tube manufacturers made one last order for the feds (for servicing existing army equipment) before they sold off or scrapped the tooling entirely.

    The soviets were making all sorts of standard receiving tubes right until the dissolution of the USSR. Now the Russians and Chinese only make stuff that goes in guitar & hi-fi amps, and a select few amateur radio types. Probably a hundred variations on twenty or so models, these days.

    Unrelated to tubes, but related to voyager...
    To think that the bizarre RCA "COSMAC" 1802 was just hot off the presses, and too new to get on this boat. (think Galileo had 'em though).

    Although you'd think 1802s would have been horribly outdated by then (late 80s), but they *still* make the bloody things, 34 years later. I wonder what a brand new ancient rad-hard cpu costs.

  24. Re:Yes... on Firefox Is Lagging Behind, Its Co-Founder Says · · Score: 1

    When the program is smaller than one jpeg in your browser's cache, does it really matter? xeyes is minuscule. I don't think it's even 50kB.

  25. Definitely not renegade on Firefox Is Lagging Behind, Its Co-Founder Says · · Score: 1

    Not exactly lightweight anymore either, and some parts of it are a bit long in the tooth...

    But nothing else has the sort of configurability that it has, so I won't be going anywhere else any time soon.
    I love my add-ons to death. Using a browser without them is borderline unusable.