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  1. Re:But is the data actually transmitted anywhere? on Android Dev Demonstrates CarrierIQ Phone Logging Software On Video · · Score: 1

    Go to CarrierIQ's site. All these questions are answered.

  2. Re:Wow on Obama To Veto Anti-Net-Neutrality Legislation · · Score: 1

    The GOP is "retreating to the right", because they are approaching primaries, and each prospective candidate needs to appeal to the GOP base. As soon as the primaries are over, focus will shift, and the GOP candidate will curb the rhetoric in an attempt to appeal to a broader voter base. It's how it goes every election, on both sides.

  3. Re:Old school on The 8-Bit Computer That's Been Built By Hand · · Score: 1

    To be fair, that's not exactly comparing apples and apples. You didn't actually MAKE the 6502 itself, which is much closer to what he's done here. That said, yes, plenty of others have done this.

  4. Are the ROMs downloaded on the fly? on Licensed C64 Emulator Rejected From App Store · · Score: 2, Informative

    Look - here's the relevant part of the agreement:

    "3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

    Particularly this part:
    "No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application"

    Does the emulator allow users to download ROMs over the internet? If so, then there's a problem. If not - ie. there are a number of licensed ROMs embedded in the application, then there should be no problem. Simple. He just needs to release each game-pack as a self-contained app - that's all.

  5. Mr. Show on NASA To Trigger Massive Explosion On the Moon In Search of Ice · · Score: 1

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI

    "Lookout Moon, America's gonna getcha -
    gonna go kaboom - was nice to have met ya -
    'cos ya don't mess around with God's America!"

  6. I love this stuff on Developer Creates DIY 8-Bit CPU · · Score: 1

    Some time ago (nearly 10 years - wow!) I made a microcontroller-based homebrew MP3 player: http://codepuppies.com/~ben/sens/pic/mp3 . My big mess of wires was a tiny fraction of the size of his, and it caused me enough headaches - tracking down signal noise, random glitches, etc... Hats off to this guy.

    I'd also recommend this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine to anyone who finds the Wired article of interest. It doesn't get too technical, but it describes the trials and tribulations of bringing a new machine to life, initially on wire-wrap boards - as well as some of the politics involved in a corporate environment.

  7. Re:It's still essentially 8-bit. on GIMP 2.6 Released · · Score: 2

    The difference between 8-bit and 12-bit when working with DSLRs is actually pretty significant. You can pull a surprising amount of detail out of underexposed regions with 4096 shades that would otherwise be lost with 256.

    Rounding errors (generally banding artifacts) will also be much quicker to appear with lower bit depths. If you're going to support 16 bits per channel, one may as well go all the way and support higher bit-depths too.

  8. Re:Does flash do live streaming? on Linux Not Supported For Democratic Convention Video · · Score: 3, Informative

    Flash certainly can do live streaming. In fact, the APIs for streaming vs. on-demand are very similar.

  9. Badly written on Best Platform For Hobbyist Mobile Development? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This piece reads more like a stream-of-consciousness than a carefully prepared technical article - maybe it's not meant to be considered as such. The author doesn't event attempt to justify a number of his assertions - in fact most of them seem to be based on some kind of vague "feeling" rather than concrete data or research.

  10. Why? on 10 Web Operating Systems Reviewed · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can see one reason for a Web OS, and that's that it makes it easy to access your desktop from anywhere. However, from a technological point of view, the web browser has to be pretty much the worst choice of interface - the only compelling reason for using it is that it's ubiquitous.

    Browsers were never meant to do this sort of thing - AJAX is a hack that's hard to get working 100% reliably across all browsers at the best of times - just look at the hoops one has to jump through to get the back-button working properly, not to mention handling the differences between Firefox and IE. Why on earth would you want to base an entire desktop on such a shaky foundation?

    (Bearing in mind that 74% of all statistics are made up on the spot...) I suspect that 99% of internet users access the internet from the same machine (or at most 2 machines) 99% of the time. The cost in increased bandwidth, sluggish response, lack of high-bandwidth media support seems to me a heavy price to pay for portability. Even if we do decide that it's worthwhile, there are technologically better ways to do it.

  11. Re:You can do this with TCP too... on How Skype Punches Holes in Firewalls · · Score: 1

    Surely this assumes that you know ahead of time what the external (masqueraded) TCP port number on the client will be?
    If the client's firewall uses the same TCP port as the internal client, then you're ok, but there's absolutely no guarantee of that.

  12. Not at all new on How Skype Punches Holes in Firewalls · · Score: 1

    This is really ancient stuff. I worked extensively on NAT traversal in 2000, and even that it wasn't a terribly original notion. The article also glosses over many of the numerous subtle differences between off-the-shelf routers/NAT devices - there are far more accurate and informative articles available.

  13. Sounds a lot like "Supermodel Shootout" on Full Body Dance Dance Revolution · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sounds a lot like "Supermodel Shootout" from Indie Game Jam 2. Exactly like it, in fact.

    http://www.indiegamejam.com/ seems to be down at the moment, but there's an article at http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Special+Feature s&article_no=1745&page=3.

  14. Re:Smelly Nerds with Time to Kill... on TiVo to Go Released · · Score: 1

    Hey now... I'm not *that* smelly.

  15. Smug MythTV User on TiVo to Go Released · · Score: 1

    Awwww... that's nice. Tivo users can finally do something MythTV users have been able to do forever. Actually, with a MythTV "frontend" installed on any computer in my house, I can watch recorded programs, extract video, or even watch live TV over the ethernet.

  16. OK - now lets see how long it takes to get fixed! on IE Shines On Broken Code · · Score: 1

    Every sizeable project is likely to have bugs - fact of life. What's going to be really telling is seeing how long these problems take to get fixed as compared to the average MSIE exploit.

  17. Re:One Simple Defense on Maybe Software Patents Won't Kill FOSS After All · · Score: 1

    [i]There are probably concepts that don't require source code to demonstrate, but most code-level innovations that geeks are worried about do.[/i]
    I disagree. Any algorithm can be described in plain english. Most algorithmic patents are described in pseudocode.

  18. Related question... on Linux Laptop w/ 3.5" Disk, USB, and No Hard Drive? · · Score: 2, Interesting


    I have an ancient laptop with a broken keyboard. The HD/FD are both fine, as are the PCMCIA slots. No CDROM.

    What I would like to do is boot a single-diskette that contains enough code to fire up the PCMCIA networking, and either ENBD or something like it.

    That way, I could mount the HD in the laptop as a remote block device, and copy an OS across.

    Any ideas?

  19. Why don't we (ab)use the patent system? on McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent · · Score: 1

    What if some OSS-friendly organization (EFF, FSF) were to start offering a patent-filing service?

    Open-Source/Free-Software developers are some of the most innovative people on the planet. Can you imagine what would happen if some OSS organization (with the inventor's permission, naturally) were to start filing patents on promising OSS inovations? The terms of the patent would naturally not require a licensing fee as long as the software incorporating it is itself free.

    OSS developers are getting shafted by the patent office. While patent reform is clearly the most desirable solution, why aren't we fighting back by using their own weapons against them?

  20. Re:Different? on Announcing Cooperative Linux · · Score: 4, Informative

    My understanding (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm mistaken!) is that cygwin provides a set of Win32 libraries that provide reimplementations of Linux functions that are necessary for a Linux app to run. Essentially, Cygwin is a platform that your app can be ported to (generally by simply recompiling), that happens to run under Windows.

    What we're talking about with coLinux is the ability to run native Linux binaries as is with no need for recompilation.

  21. MOD PARENT UP on Mars Express Confirms Water on Mars · · Score: 0

    I was about to post the same link - glad I didn't. Jeez.

  22. Another reason why I love my MythTV on The State of Automated Commercial Skipping · · Score: 4, Informative

    MythTV also has this feature built in.

    I cannot emphasize just how cool this project is - it has all the features you'd expect from a modern DVR, and many more besides. It's open-source and immensely configurable. For example:

    I also decided I'd like to be able to transfer recorded programs to my machine at work and watch them there, so I hacked up a little script to re-encode them at 100kbps, and added a "Watch Now" link to the MythWeb HTML web interface.

    The other day my wife was complaining that the fonts on the screen were too small, so I tweaked the XML configuration file to bump them up a bit.

    Thanks to LIRC, I can pretty much use any remote I like to control the box. I'm using an ancient, spare TV remote right now, and I can map the buttons whichever way I like.

    It'll also optionally rip DVDs and CDs, enabling you to play them from the hard drive. It will also play pretty much any video file you have (through MPlayer). If I want to show the wife a movie trailer that I've downloaded from the internet, I just copy it over to the MythTV box, and she can watch it on the television.

    Let's see you do all *that* with a Tivo!

  23. Re:Minor Mistake on Linus Blasts SCO's Header Claims · · Score: 1

    The macro doesn't modify x, but consider what happens when you call (for instance) isdigit(fgetc(stream)). The macro, as is, will result in 2 characters being read from the file, instead of just one.

  24. Re:The one pitfall for homebrew PVRs... on Building A Low-Budget TiVo Substitute? · · Score: 1

    I soldered up a simple one from the LIRC website, but I believe there are commercial implementations available.

  25. Why I love my MythTV on Building A Low-Budget TiVo Substitute? · · Score: 4, Informative

    It took a bit of work to get going, and I probably spent a total of about $500-$600.

    BUT!

    There is no subscription fee - TV listings are downloaded via XMLTV.
    I can store CDs and DVDs on the HD.
    I can run multiple front-ends, enabling me to watch TV/recordings on another machine on the network.
    I can update recording settings through a very friendly HTTP interface.
    I can extract and re-encode recorded shows.

    In addition, people have written lots of groovy addons, including:
    A MAME frontend
    A CallerID module (when the phone rings, callerid information is displayed onscreen!)
    A weather report module

    The possibilities are endless.