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User: jrumney

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Comments · 6,163

  1. Re:Don't knock the Amiga on Amiga Community Collaborates On Restorative Gel To Brighten Your Old Plastic · · Score: 1

    The software on the Amiga, on the other hand, was modularized. Want PNG support? Install a PNG-IFF filter and all apps that read and write bitmap images using the standard OS APIs can now read and write PNG. OpenDoc promised the same thing in the early 1990s, but never materialised, so we are still stuck with OS designs in all the major OS's that force you to deal with file formats directly.

  2. Simple Solution on Google Dev Phone 1 Banned From Paid Apps · · Score: 1

    So don't buy them - get them from your favorite torrent tracker instead. What else would Google expect? I mean they are supposed to be tech savvy, right? Not like the suits at Microsoft and the creative types at Apple who might make this mistake accidentally because they thought it would be good for business, or make their brand seem more hip.

  3. Re:China and India on Designer Babies · · Score: 1

    It seems Gattaca was a documentary. When will it become socially unacceptable to irresponsibly have a natural baby, potentially introducing bad genes into the human gene pool?

  4. Re:Authors or Book Sellers: Which do you like more on Authors Guild President Wants To End Royalty-Free TTS On Kindle · · Score: 1

    If you add information to the ebook, you are creating a derivative work.

  5. Re:Ethernet on $100 Linux Wall-Wart Now Available · · Score: 1

    Are you kidding? Not enough CPU power? 1.2 GHz is enough for me to do raytracing!

    1.2GHz on an ARM9 based processor without floating point? This is coming from Marvell, so I assume they are using a CPU from their own PXA3x0 line. For general webserving, it will be ample, maybe even as a media server if the speed of USB drives doesn't let it down. But I think raytracing will be a bit beyond its capabilities.

  6. Re:Restoring the balance on EU Commissioner Wants Standard For Mobile Phone Connectors · · Score: 2, Informative

    In Japan the networks have forced standard connectors on the manufacturers. There are 4 types of connector available in Japan (which is really annoying when you travel there and forget your charger) - NTT Docomo/Softbank 3G, Softbank 2G, KDDI 3G and KDDI 2G. It means that every convenience store can offer mobile phone charging points as part of its service, because the number of connectors is vastly reduced compared with the manufacturer and year specific connectors found elsewhere.

  7. Re:I'm tired of subscription-based service on Internet Killed the Satellite Radio Star · · Score: 1

    So what is your lifetime subscription worth when they announce bankruptcy tomorrow? And if they are taken over by a new company, who decides to create a new class of "premium" channel which your lifetime subscription does not cover, and slowly migrate all but a few mainstream stations to the new premium class?

  8. Re:Correlation is not causation on Court Rules Autism Not Caused By Childhood Vaccine · · Score: 1

    It depends on how many opt out, and whether they combined with the people in whom the vaccine fails is still below the threshold for preventing herd immunity.

  9. Re:How did microsoft get around the embargo? on Cuba Launches Own Linux Variation · · Score: 5, Informative

    The embargo stared in February 1962, 8 months before the Cuban missile crisis.

  10. Re:seat math.... on The Flying Giant Is 40 Years Old · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd pay it in a heart beat.

    Of course, you'd have to ensure all airlines did it, or else no one would. So, let's require 40" seat pitch for all airlines.

    If you're so confident that other like minded people would pay it in a heart beat, then why would you have to ensure that all airlines did it?

  11. Re:Luxury on The Flying Giant Is 40 Years Old · · Score: 1

    I've had a similar experience on a 747 back in the days when there was no other option for long distance flights (~12 hours), so airlines used to fly 747-400s half empty. Nowadays there are smaller options for less busy long distance routes (777, A330, A340) so it is rare to get more than a single spare seat that you have to share with the stranger in the other aisle.

  12. Re:woopee on Microsoft Agrees To License ActiveSync To Google · · Score: 3, Informative

    Alternately, use SyncML, which is already available on a large number of non-Microsoft handsets with plugins available for Windows Mobile, Outlook, Exchange and other non-compliant software.

  13. Re:No reason to on Universal Power Adapter Struggling For Support · · Score: 1

    My phone only trickle charges off USB, and once the battery is past about 75% used, it won't charge fast enough to compensate for its usage (and if you try switching it off to get it charged, it switches itself back on again because it detected a USB connection and wants to know what mode to use, so there doesn't seem to be a way around it).

  14. Re:Deja vu on US Digital TV Switchover Delayed Until June · · Score: 1

    17 Feb is so close now, I doubt any network that is ready for the switch is going to put it off, it will cost them money to change their plans at such short notice. If the bill is supposed to help consumers, then it would have to have forced a delay. The only purpose for this bill that I can think of is that some networks are not going to make the deadline and have lobbied for an extension.

  15. Re:Who carries their US passport in the US? on Hackers Clone Passports In Driveby RFID Heist · · Score: 1

    Dammit, you've just ensured that next time I'm a little early to pick someone up from the airport, I'll be moved on from the nearby gas station's carpark by Homeland Security officers and forced to pay the exhorbitant rates for short term airport parking instead.

  16. Re:Makes you wonder on US Becomes Top Wind Producer; Solar Next · · Score: 1

    It would be more fair to calculate per inhabitant, not per square meter.

    Or as a percentage of overall energy use. The US is the worlds largest consumer of energy, so it shouldn't be surprising to see it becoming the world's largest producer of clean energy.

  17. Exchange rate? on Retailer Planning Laptops With Intel Core i7 Chips · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...is planning to ship a 12-pound laptop with Intel's Core i7 chip...The 17" notebook's price, not yet announced, will certainly be in excess of $5,000.

    I know the dollar has taken a hammering lately, but its not really that bad yet is it?

  18. Re:Not entirely useless on Google Search Flagging Everything As Potentially Harmful · · Score: 1

    It doesn't seem to be flagging the video or news searches (or groups, but these aren't linked from the main search). It is flagging the image search as seen here.

  19. Re:Is this surprising? on UK Proposes Broadband Expansion, Plus a Music and Film Tax · · Score: 1

    The BBC is funded that way so that it doesn't have to carry advertising, which means advertisers cannot effectively blackmail it into ignoring certain topics. It also ensures that non-commercially viable minority views can be represented. What the record companies are asking for is a tax so they can make more money doing more of the same thing that is already bringing them substantial financial returns (with growth reported yet again for 2008) - and only the big commercial record companies would get a look in, resulting in minority interests being further suppressed. The result is the complete opposite of what BBC provides.

  20. Re:This Glastnost thing ain't gonna work on Google and Friends Release Net Neutrality Measuring Tools · · Score: 1

    You're not missing out on much - this is what it says when it doesn't throw an exception:

    Another client is currently being served, your test will begin within 22635 seconds

  21. Re:Define slowing on Google and Friends Release Net Neutrality Measuring Tools · · Score: 1

    Maybe things are different in the US. When I first got ADSL, it cost me GBP25 per month for 512k down/256k up uncapped. When my ISP introduced 2M down/512k up plans with tiered capping, I initially stuck with my old 512k plan because it was going to cost GBP40 per month to get an uncapped 2M connection. Then one day I discovered the usage meter buried in their control panel and saw that I was well under the cap for a GBP20 2M connection. Today I get 6Mbps down/600k at GBP18 per month and still only use half the bandwidth I'm capped at, and for really light users there are plans starting at about GBP12 per month (or even less from some of the more oversubscribed ISPs). So for many users, the price has gotten cheaper. Only the heaviest users have seen price rises as tiered caps have become more widespread.

  22. Re:Unfortunately, activism isn't always good on Social Networking Spurs Activism Against Repression · · Score: 1

    There was an interesting interview with a Hamas leader on Al Jazeera not long ago. Essentially, he said that the leaders know that violence won't lead anywhere. The reason the violence keeps going is because the common people on both sides keep calling for it, and leaders who don't acquiesce are thrown out.

    I'm not sure how true that is. Hamas were elected more for the humanitarian work they were doing in schools and hospitals and because of corruption inside Fatah than for the terror attacks that their military wing conducts on Israel.

  23. Re:Freedom of the press? on Indymedia Server Seized By UK Police, Again · · Score: 1

    Its not illegal to NOT keep IP logs ( yet ), but it does seem not doing so means your server can be pulled at anytime.

    Would you really expect any different? The reason for not keeping logs is explicitly to thwart valid law-enforcement requests. If you're going to be antagonistic towards the police, of course they are going to return the favor and insist on going through the server's hard drive bit by bit to verify your claim that there are no logs every time they need to see them.

  24. Re:Your freedom stops when you hit my nose on Indymedia Server Seized By UK Police, Again · · Score: 1

    This organization is ALSO unpleasant and violent, but the U.S. still allows its website to exist

    The SHAC website has not been taken down by the UK police. An Indymedia mirror has, probably because the police wanted to check for themselves the claim that Indymedia does not keep logs, rather than trust the site's operators, who are likely sympathetic to SHAC and might be inclined to help cover up the source of the criminal harassment that the police are investigating.

  25. Re:Maybe it's just me on Bickering Blocks US Mobile Phone Payments · · Score: 1

    The cellphone/camera is only 3 megapixel...OK for some uses; but not as good as my Canon point-and-shoot.

    A 3 megapixel cellphone camera is probably good enough for anyone who measures the quality of a camera in megapixels.