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User: Luckyo

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  1. Re:NIMBY... on As US Cleans Its Energy Mix, It Ships Coal Problems Overseas · · Score: 1

    Demagogy is the last refuge of one who does not want to admit himself being wrong. You're spltting hairs HARD here, considering:

    1. Thyroid cancer increase is only visible because thyroid cancer by itself is very rare. As a result, even an extremely small increase will show up on statistics.
    2. Thyroid cancer is one of the easiest ones to treat. Human beings do not need thyroid to survive, and can live a full life without it. This isn't not something like colon cancer or prostate/breast cancer that massively impact quality of life. You're downplaying the difference and up-playing the word "cancer" hoping that association will be with far worse types of cancer.

    A far bigger problem then minor increase of chance of getting one of the easiest to treat cancers is indeed massive loss of property which is essentially guaranteed. If you somehow actually think this is not true, you must be fabulously wealthy. To most people, there is no contest.

    Else we'd have a whole lot less people smoking and drinking, and price of property within a few tens of kilometers of any coal plant would be massively lower then of that far away from it. As normally operating coal plants increase risk of lung cancer, which is extremely lethal, by a far greater amount.

  2. Re:Why government? on Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple · · Score: 1

    Not entirely sure how they have been "abusing" those who colonialized them. Unless you believe that if anyone did anything bad to someone else, anyone else is fully within their rights to have revenge.

    In which case, I'm pretty damn afraid of being a white male. Because there must be half a world of people wanting to take revenge on me.

  3. Re:Why government? on Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple · · Score: 2

    1. You're buying corporate bullshit as the real thing. That makes you the very definition of "stupid".
    2. Vast majority of companies that manage to agree on significant tax breaks, legislation and so on in their home country do not go multinational. Even if they have to sell on a lot of markets. Good example of this is Nokia which sold pretty much world wide very successfully except for US/Canada/Japan, while never going multinational.
    Multinationals usually need to dodge relevant legislation or other rules. Good example of this is petrochemical industry that tends to pollute to the extreme. As a result it needs to avoid being held responsible as much as possible.
    3. On a final note a lot of US and EU-based companies were and are very successful in even in extremely closed and xenophobic country of Japan. They do this because they don't sell to consumers but B2B.

  4. Re:Why government? on Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple · · Score: 0

    About as much as it has done to pay for its transgressions world wide. And mind you, US is very much on that list, because transgressions are basically about "people of European origin during colonialist period" rather then any given state. US in fact was arguably the last to stop, or at least "hide" its active colonialism, as European powers collapsed after WW2, having to cede control over most of their colonies as well as ability to project power necessary for active colonialism.

    Nowadays colonialism isn't a state affair as much as corporate affair, and corporations are mostly "multinationals" as to empower them to not be bound by control of any single nation. Notably this particular form of colonialism has in fact evolved from US, as Old World colonialism traditionally had a far more centralized and controlled form.

    Regardless, we're talking about companies, which are the modern face of colonialism rather then the old state-based colonialism. Hence the Bhopal reference.

  5. Re:This tech has been feasible since the 1990s... on Should We Be Afraid of Google Glass? · · Score: 1

    Tech itself isn't the problem. Aggregation of data from many sources like that one is.

    Did you know that many governments including USA have a concept of "secret if aggregated", where single data points are not secret, but the large amount of these data points is secret because aggregated data is deemed dangerous?

    Such aggregation was not possible in 1990s, and unfeasible in 2000s. It has become possible and feasible only recently, and the issue now is how much of it should be allowed.

  6. Re:Why government? on Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wasn't talking about US. It's quite interesting that you inferred that particular country from the thread talking about companies.

    Western companies have long since evolved to be "multinational" to avoid being too vulnerable to influence of any single country.

  7. Re:Why government? on Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple · · Score: 4, Informative

    What, you think their Western counterparts are better?

    Reality is, these Chinese companies are learning FROM Western companies. And they're just starting, I'm fully expecting them to go full Bhopal on us eventually.

    And you know what? For what we did to them for last couple of centuries, it would hard as hell to argue that they're somehow worse then us and not appear both stupid and hypocritical at the same time.

  8. Re:In other news on Windfarm Sickness Spreads By Word of Mouth · · Score: 1

    Unnecessary. It's a known medical fact that people can actually get better by visiting a medical facility and seeing (as in observing) a person in white clothing that looks like a doctor.

    Self-suggestion is incredibly powerful and works both ways. It can cure and it can make sick.

  9. Re:In other news on Windfarm Sickness Spreads By Word of Mouth · · Score: 2

    Not stupid, influenced by their subconscious. Did you know that people get better just by visiting a hospital and seeing a doctor (but never getting an appointment with one)?

    Power of self-suggestion is a widely known phenomenon, and it's a two-way street.

  10. Re:Ah, the consequences of closed-source on Russian FSB Can Reportedly Tap Skype Calls · · Score: 2

    They're not caring all that much about medium sized crime syndicates that can afford to channel their stuff through TOR. There are different methods to get those.

    Spying on skype is about spying on big and small players who use it, such as large international conglomerates, as well as very small people who have no access to technical expertise necessary for TOR.

    You're essentially making the infamous wrench mistake in assuming that technological problems and solutions are the only ones that exist in the world of security, when they are but the small part of the whole.

  11. Re:First life form on Microbes Likely Abundant Hundreds of Meters Below Sea Floor · · Score: 1

    I don't think you understand how evolution works. The niche you mention does not exist, because predators exist in the same environment as you, and adapt alongside you.

    That is why no matter the environment change or occupied biological niche, as long as it's survivable there will be those harvesting energy and materials from environment and those harvesting energy and materials from those who can harvest it from environment. That is essentially one of the main rules guiding the evolution on the planet.

    This is why we're having more and more bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics that aren't lethal to humans. As we use more and more of such antibiotics, we're quickly changing the biological niche for bacteria that exist in humans. As a result, bacteria doesn't go away for long - instead it dies out for a short time to minimal amounts but quickly adapts (one hundred years is but a flash in terms of evolutionary process, the lake we're talking about is billions of years old) and continues to exist in hosts.

  12. Re:First life form on Microbes Likely Abundant Hundreds of Meters Below Sea Floor · · Score: 2

    Latter option is pretty unlikely. Even microbes have their predators and parasites (usually in form of various viruses), so they have an arms race for survival of the fittest not that different from one we have here on the surface. It's highly unlikely for any single life form to survive billions of years largely unchanged by this process, as at some point your predators and parasites would optimize themselves to the level where you will get either wiped out entirely or severely weakened so that competing life forms will occupy your biological niche.

  13. Re:Eh, that's it? on Samsung Unveils the Galaxy S4 · · Score: 1

    It's a widely known fact that apple's business model with phones works on bi-yearly cycle. This is supported by 2 year contracts that were originally mandated with iphone back when it came out, marketing, OS updateability (without major problems like lagging and user experience reduction), and other similar issues. Finally it is psychologically genius, having two releases ensures that every apple user gets his one year of "coolest" and one year of "cool, but not coolest anymore" envy buildup which makes him/her desire the newest not to become "stale" when second update wave arrives and his/her contract expires.

  14. Re:Good on Google Removing Ad-Blockers From Play · · Score: 1

    That is actually false. Google has been blocking software routinely from Play store for various reasons. It's just that these reasons have been generally far more lax then Apple's, and they still are.

  15. Re:Good on Google Removing Ad-Blockers From Play · · Score: 1

    That depends. One way of blocking ads is to simply block known advertising network servers. Vast majority of small app makers use a third party advertising network. I'm not sure if android has something equivalent to windows hosts file, but I imagine one way ad-blocker for applications would work is by routing all network traffic directed to the known ad network servers' addresses to 127.0.0.1.

    Other option is to firewall the application off the internet completely (if it doesn't need internet access to work).

    Encryption would do nothing to help against this.

  16. Re:Good on Google Removing Ad-Blockers From Play · · Score: 1

    But you are a techie, as you're reading a techie website. It's safe to assume that most if not all techies are in fact aware that there are ad blockers for android.

    Streisand effect is going to be pretty minimal in this case.

  17. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 1

    I can also testify that my mothers first gen atom chokes on web, but to a much lesser degree (about half less or so). I do not have experience with newer ones, but that atom was one generation before E-450 and of a lower clock rate.

    Finally, you may wish to re-read the thread. There were people claiming that:

    1. Modern CPUs are fast enough for all mundane everyday software to work smoothly even on slowest ones.
    2. E-350 has a good CPU.

    Both claims are false, which is what I was addressing. It would seriously suck if someone bought a brazos-based CPU after reading threads like these and getting an assumption that these two claims are true. I know I get a lot of information on "what kind of a chip I should get" from personal experience threads on techie forums like these.

    I also happen to completely agree with you that these are made for two completely different segments of the market. It should be pretty obvious from my first post, as I specifically point out that the only reason I bought an E-450 based lappy was because they have a great integrated GPU that allows me to play select games for a long time off battery. Brazos-based laptops are, or at least were in a league of their own in that category, and as far as I know the only intel-based notebooks that could claim similar battery life and performance cost about three times more and are generally much bulkier (as in they get something like nvidia ION and bigger battery to ensure that they can get extra battery life when ION is actually loaded to 100%).

  18. Re:Good on Google Removing Ad-Blockers From Play · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Being "open" in no way impacts google's way to block them. You can still load these blockers from any other android store if it chooses to make them available. That is the point of OS being "open".

    Google's point here is to obviously make them as invisible as possible to minimize users that block ads. Most people won't go around other android stores or internet sites searching for software, they're fairly happy with google play.

  19. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 1

    But that's the point why people like myself buy the low end APUs. Discreet video card means it won't run for long off battery while actually running games. APUs like E-450 enjoy long battery life while actually running games.

    Also, E-450 cannot decode realtime 1080p h264 high profile video on CPU without a lot of dropped frames. Not enough computing power. It can usually handle 720p unless it's Hi10P in software, in which case it may lag depending on video content (CPU will be taxed from about 80% and up with decoding thread).

    Obviously these problems don't exist when using the hardware decoding path, where GPU could probably decode 4k h.264 High profile video on the fly with properly optimized decoder. But when going with CPU intensive software path, you're SOL.

  20. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 1

    The grand parent (you) picked E-350, which is the same hardware as E-450 but runs on lower clock speed. You then proceeded to tell open lies about CPU performance. I debunked them as I happen to actually own the overclocked version of the CPU you used in your example, and my experiences with the system over the last year show all if your bullshit as being just that - bullshit.

    E-450 is a great choice if you want to play games on battery for a while, because it has a great integrated GPU. For energy it consumes, it's probably the best on the market. That's why I bought it.

    But CPU on the die is complete and utter trash. And the main reason why I bought it knowing this is because games I play are not CPU intensive. I was expecting it to lag on installers and even web browsing (though honestly not as much as it ended up lagging the machine). Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the machine regardless. But to try to sell any of the CPUs of the series based on the CPU is complete and utter bullshit - because CPU is utter trash. If things like interface response times, fluid web browsing, background updaters that don't cause interface lag and so on are a must, AMD's low power APUs are simply off the table. Because their CPU part of the package is so weak, it will cause all of the above.

    The bullshit about bulldozers has no place here either. E-450 is a dual core with no multi-threading or pseudo "one core is two cores" thing that bulldozer architecture has. It's an exceptionally weak CPU that is accompanied by an exceptionally powerful integrated GPU, which is what sells the package. To try to pretend that CPU is something other then utterly abysmal is to lie.

  21. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 1

    I care about as much about server performance when on my home machine as server admin cares about home machine performance when configuring his newest blade rack to do whatever it is they will be doing. Why should it be any different? We were talking about home machine use here, are you perhaps posting in the wrong thread?

  22. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 1

    Have you considered reading what you're replying to before going into knee-jerk "oh my god, he criticised the company I love" rant after reading the first sentence? I clearly stated in the third paragraph as to why I did not get intel for that notebook.

    P.S. E-450 chokes even on slashdot WITH "no ads" option ticked. Looking at >10 second pageloads as a norm on longer posts on firefox. Both cores going at 100% during load. Desktop first gen i5 load times are barely noticeable and are mostly about network - CPU isn't anywhere near maxed at any point during loading.

    In a way, it's funny and sad at the same time. Parent told a clear lie praising his favourite company's product and got upmodded to 3, I debunked it as I happened to own a factory overclocked version of CPU he used in his example and reality of my experiences with it is exact opposite of his claims and got downmodded to zero for doing so. Fanboyism at its finest. I suppose it's fitting that others followed the example.

  23. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 0

    I can testify that this is simply bullshit (as in a bold-faced lie). I have E-450 notebook sitting 2 meters away from me as of typing this, and CPU is so weak, I routinely observe it max itself out doing many mundane everyday tasks. Even browsing the web has noticeable hiccups on page loads that I do not see on this core i5 desktop where openhardwaremonitor shows both cores spike to and sit at 100% usage for a while as page is processed.

    I had similar issues with anything from libreoffice calc to even software installers and updaters max out CPU for a while on that laptop. I almost never see my desktop i5 maxed out. This is very noticeable because OS responsiveness remains on i5 doing the same things like updates, the software installations I run on both are very similar.

    That said I have no complaints about the notebook itself, it cost me 350 EUR about a year ago and the main reason I bought it was to be able to play games like LoL and SC2 on the go from the battery for several hours. It does that well with both games. Most intel-based notebooks either can't match the battery life or can't match the GPU performance or both.

    But CPU is definitely the weak part of the package.

  24. Re:AMD even still relevant? on AMD Unveils Elite A-Series APUs With Enhanced Performance, Improved Efficiency · · Score: 1

    Vast majority of the games do not even tax dual cores all that heavily, and quad cores are a massive overkill for all but a small handful of games. The optimizations a la BF3 are just unnecessary because most games have processes that just don't run well in parallel. And even BF3 doesn't scale all that well as cores increase past 4. Yours is a fringe case where you perform exactly one task on the fly that actually scales on more then a couple of CPU cores efficiently (video encoding). So his claim of "real world shit" stands. Vastly overwhelming majority of software that exists and will exist in near future does NOT scale well with core numbers. Of these the most popular exceptions are graphics renderers and video renderers that are typically optimized scale with GPU cores rather then CPU cores.

    On the other hand with AMD getting both PS4 and next XBOX as platforms that feature their APUs, this may change in a few years. But for now, essentially everyone but a small handful will enjoy far more performance on a CPU that has a few powerful cores then a CPU that has many weak ones.

  25. Re:Unappealing on Apple Bringing Second Lawsuit To Samsung, Won't Wait For Appeal · · Score: 1

    I do wish I had the money to buy "millions of apps and new songs and movies".

    Anyway, that probably accounted for about 1000 of top most wealthy people in the world. What about the rest of us?