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User: headLITE

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  1. Re:Eh on Comparing Today's Computers To 1995's · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The only reason you can run the same OS is that the x64 architecture supports emulation of the old 32 bit x86 architecture which supports emulation of the 16 bit architecture that came before it. Maybe you didn't notice these jumps, but they were there. There's another jump just happening, the move from magnetic hard disks to solid state disks. That's again one you don't notice unless you know about the technical difference, but it's still a pretty big difference. And yes we have more RAM, and yes that's even an example of something that's essentially still very similar to 1995 RAM, but even then, miniaturization is kind of a big deal. The chips may still work in the same way but there were huge advances in the technology that is used to produce them, which are hidden from most normal users. The basic idea of how a computer works is still the same, of course, but then, that hasn't changed in almost a century. And it probably won't change anytime soon - the next big change is probably the move to smaller, portable devices that require even less inside knowledge to operate. Maybe, ten years from now, you'll look at your phone and say "why this is so different from the computers we used to have to put up with- finally they changed something!" because the package looks different, but the overall architecture will still be the same.

  2. Re:world's first? maybe not on Paris Launches World's First Electric Car Share Program · · Score: 1

    There is a car sharing program in the city I live in (in Germany) that has electric cars. Maybe it doesn't count because I don't think they have electric-only cars, but they do have plug-in hybrids i.e. cars that can be charged from external sources and will run on electrical power for the first 20 km or so.

  3. Re:Shot themselves in the foot on Oracle Removes Java Signatures, Breaking Webstart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you have an HR webstart app that loads libraries from random servers on the internet, you probably deserve what you get...

  4. Re:Bottom line: People are stupid on Siemens To Exit Nuclear Power Business · · Score: 1

    Siemens think they can, and in the light of recent political decisions in Germany, they see an opportunity for Siemens to make some money off non-fission power plants that *will* have to be built. What's so hard to grasp about this, it's almost like everybody here thinks Siemens want to get out of the fission business because they have concerns about the viability of nuclear power... they're a business, they'll do what makes them money, and right now fission doesn't fit the bill for a German company.

  5. Re:only 15k people? on Smartphones Can't Cure Acne, FTC Rules · · Score: 1

    It's quite possible to build a device that can help with acne and isn't really much larger than a smartphone. Acne bacteria (and a number of other organisms that are responsible for other types of skin irritation) can be killed with UV light. You just need a bigger light. For someone who doesn't know the technical details and/or how much light it actually takes to see a measurable difference, it's not an unreasonable assumption that a company that sells a product with the claim that it can do enough to help with their acne isn't actually lying, especially not when they're citing dermatologists.

  6. Steam policy on account bans on AMD Accidentally Leaks 1.7 Million DiRT 3 Keys · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5406-WFZC-5519


    There is a Zero-Tolerance policy for any violations of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and Online Code of Conduct. All accounts in a user's possession for any of the following activities will be suspended:
    Piracy or Hacking

    This includes using an unauthorized ("hacked") Steam client to access Steam, attempting to register fake CD Keys or attempting to register a CD Key which has been published on the internet.

  7. Re:I hate kids like this! on 13-Year-Old Uses Fibonacci Sequence For Solar Power Breakthrough · · Score: 1

    Right; I did have to go outside every once in a while for my astronomy habit.

  8. Re:"How can we discover 'the new' in an age when on How Does GPS Change Us? · · Score: 1

    The kind of access to maps is different. Also, more things are mapped.

    Almost all my portable gadgets have GPS these days. I can pull out my phone, tablet, or my actual old GPS receiver with openstreetmap data on it, and instanty see where I am, where I can go, how to do that fast, and what places of interest are nearby. Some of the digital maps (especially everything based on openstreetmap) are very flexible regarding modes of travel I want to choose; I can use the same map for fast car routes, scenic bike routes, or just general walking around. The possibility to find my way to wherever I want to go very quickly alone has drastically changed how I approach visits to places I haven't been to before - no more studying maps before leaving the hotel room. I can look up nearby bus and tram stops and see upcoming trains; I don't even have to look at the map at the stop I decide to go to because my phone can tell me the same thing plus what trains I actually need to take to get to my destination and how long it'll take me to get there. There is an app that will find geographically close wikipedia articles and tell me not only what places I should visit, but also why, and what happened to them during recorded history and which well-known persons were born in the vicinity. There is an app that will find nearby restaurants and give me up-to-date ratings for them, tell me when they're open and what kind of food they serve at what prices; I can filter by type of food which is handy when you're on a specific diet like I am. There is an app that will let me find nearby stores and browse their digitized paper catalog. There is an app that lets me scan bar codes on items in stores and can tell me how much cheaper I can get it elsewhere. There is an app that will tell me what the codified ingredients in products I can buy in a supermarket really are, how they are made, and whether they can cause allergies. I can instantly find out what alternatives to the product exist, and where I can get them nearby (although I don't know an app for that, but there's always the web).

    The only thing that is missing is accessing this information via video glasses and some sort of hidden input device and then I'll call myself a full blown cyborg. This is hardly the same thing as paper maps. It's not even close. It just happens that some of the information is presented in a visually similar style.

  9. Licensing? on Ask Slashdot: What OS For a Donated Computer? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would install Ubuntu or some other free operating system. Main reason being licensing, with Ubuntu they'll get a current operating system and future updates and I don't have to worry about whether the XP license was part of a family pack and I can't even give it away, or whether it's an OEM license that prevents them from modifying the hardware, etc.

  10. Re:The German know how bad abuse can be. on Germany Says Facebook's Facial Recognition Is Illegal · · Score: 1

    Don't forget that this discussion, in Germany, is decades old because the police keep bringing it up as something that could help them find terrorists :) Detecting faces is fairly new, but e.g. there's been extensive discussion of automatic detection of car license plates on the Autobahn. Just implementing it is not going to go well after more than 40 years of discussion, no matter who does it and why and how it's presented...

  11. Re:GO GERMANS on Germany Says Facebook's Facial Recognition Is Illegal · · Score: 1

    Facebook has a subsidiary in Germany and if they want to keep that and do business there, they will have to adhere to German laws.

  12. Re:GO GERMANS on Germany Says Facebook's Facial Recognition Is Illegal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    English-speaking folks learned of the existence of Bavaria when it was called Bavaria or something phonetically similar. Baden-Württemberg was formed after WWII so it was never called something else. Saxony-Anhalt is an interesting case. Saxony is derived from the old Latin name Saxonia, while Anhalt is not old enough to have a Latin name. When Saxony-Anhalt was created after WWII with the German name Sachsen-Anhalt, English speakers used the existing English name of Saxony but the Anhalt part wasn't translated.

    For the same reason, Germans are called Germans in English while modern-day Germans using the same word (Germannen) would be talking about members of the Germanic tribes from two thousand years ago. The German name for modern-day Germans (Deutsche) is only a few hundred years old; at the time people started using it to refer to what ended up to be Germany (Deutschland), English already had a name for the people living in the general direction of where Germany is located.

  13. Re:Different needs. on Nintendo Slashes Profit Forecast and 3DS Price · · Score: 1

    You can buy a Fling joystick for any phone with a capacitive touch screen.

  14. Re:My opinion on Nintendo Slashes Profit Forecast and 3DS Price · · Score: 1

    Stereo displays have this effect when you don't look at them at the right angle and distance. Your eyes will each see the wrong channel and you won't be able to make sense of what you see. I worked with stereo displays a few years back, some people even claimed they were unable to position themselves correctly in front of the display because they had to look at it to be able to align. I own a 3DS and I found that it's very easy to hold it too close to the eyes; looking from the side doesn't work at all of course. It's a bit annoying that they chose to include software that has you swing the device around and move while holding it, doens't make it easier.

  15. Re:Fuck Oracle! on Sun CEO Explicitly Endorsed Java's Use In Android · · Score: 2

    OpenSolaris was still Solaris... not too different from Solaris 10 with a GNU userland. Comparisons are still valid as far as administration goes.

  16. Re:Noise? on Microsoft Suggests Heating Homes With "Data Furnaces" · · Score: 1

    You still need hot water in the summer. My current electric heater can't do folding@home while heating up my water so they may be on to something there.

  17. Re:Cave? on Amazon, Google Cave To Apple, Drop In-App Buttons · · Score: 1

    They took a lesson learned from iOS and brought the app store to the Mac, including the policy that allows installation on multiple devices. Then they dramatically slashed prices for their own software that they sell through the app store. What's so bad about that?

  18. Re:Hell on Can Minecraft Change the Gaming Industry? · · Score: 1

    Why do you feel that the game has to guide the player? I've played many pen&paper RPG sessions where another player guided the group and the actual game was only used as a framework that provided the rules and colourful sketches of monsters you could encounter in dungeons.

    The same used to be true for MUDs and MUSHes and so on where you could likewise reconfigure the environment. Minecraft reminds me a lot of the MUSHes of old except the graphical interface is easier to use.

  19. Re:I'm unconvinced... on Can Minecraft Change the Gaming Industry? · · Score: 1

    Ironically, you can craft books and bookshelves in Minecraft. The books' only purpose is being an ingredient in the bookshelf recipe, and the bookshelf is full of coloured rectangles that you can't take out.

  20. Re:Game? on Can Minecraft Change the Gaming Industry? · · Score: 1

    Minecraft has rules. They limit how you move around in the world, what blocks you can mine/dig and how, what items you can create and how, when the sun goes up on the virtual sky and what happens then, how often you have to hit a pig with a shovel to get bacon and so on. It also has goals, although the ones that the game sets (achievements like "build a better pickaxe") are not particularly interesting; it does however have the potential for players to come up with their own goals ("build a huge castle") that supplement those the game provides. What it doesn't have is an end, but I would disagree with the notion that games are characterised by having a definite end. Many board games only end when all players agree they have nothing to do (consecutive passes clauses or similar), but if that is enough to satisfy your end constraint, it also works for Minecraft.

    Note, if you don't pay, you will not see most of this, so you might wrongfully classify Minecraft as a toy based on the free "classic" version which is indeed closer to a box of legos than a game.

  21. Re:Journalism on EVE Online Players Rage, Protest Over Microtransactions · · Score: 1

    If you put it in numbers, about a year ago or so CCP announced that they'd probably not spend a lot of time for the following 18 months. Around one hundred cancelled subscriptions were counted on the official forums. The number of subs EVE actually lost at that time, according to mmodata: 40.000.

    This time the forum count is above 2000.

  22. Re:One-time pads on Court Rules Passwords+Secret Questions=Secure eBanking · · Score: 1

    My bank just force upgraded me to a card reader. I didn't expect banks elsewhere to actively try and avoid security...

  23. Re:You kids get off my lawn! on Computer De-Evolution: Awesome Features We've Lost · · Score: 1

    That must be it. Every modern computer can map RAM and IO anywhere in your address space but you normally don't work with this directly. TSRs are nothing more than daemons; there's only a tiny difference that the daemon is visible as a process when it's there - but that's better than hiding. There are many ways to make unixoid OSes pipe command output to a pager automatically, either when you press enter or maybe some separate key combo, but we no longer need it because we can scroll back. Many editors have modes for binary files or executables. And so on.

    They just don't know these things anymore because it's just tiny things in a vast sea of knowledge they would need to acquire in order to understand a modern computer as well as you could grok a C64 after spending a year on learning it.

  24. Re:But still no more desktops on After a Lull, Sun Server Business Grows Under Oracle · · Score: 1

    Depends. I need to write code that works on SPARC so it would make sense for me :P

  25. Re:Yawn on Upscaling Retro 8-Bit Pixel Art To Vector Graphics · · Score: 1

    The paper actually mentions them, compares how they work and describes what was improved.