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User: lostchicken

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Comments · 524

  1. GaAsFET on Future Computers · · Score: 1

    Come on, if we want silicon replacements, Gallium/Arsenic fully doped (using doping agents ONLY, without any base) transistors are already here, although I don't know how good they'd be for computing, but they are really great for radio.

  2. I'm very sorry for what I'm about to do... on X-45 Makes Debut Flight · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How'd you like a Beowulf cluster of these?

    Oh, wait, wrong obligatory post.
    *groan*

  3. Re:Opera? on A First Look at Netscape 7 · · Score: 2

    This menu will pop-up with an F12 (at least in Opera 6).
    I use it quite often, whenever someone makes a link (ahem, cnn.com) that must be popped up.

    Opera is only browser that comes close to being what I want.

  4. Re:OFMG I thought it could never happen... on Google Experiments · · Score: 1

    Google already gets /.ed whenever any site gets /.ed.

    The primary server goes down, and for the rest of the day, we just hammer Google's cache. They must really love that...

  5. Password Expiration on Passwords May Be Weakest Link · · Score: 1

    The network where my father works (Netware at a hospital) forces a password change every 2 months. That worked for the first few months, but after 10 or so passwords, people started forgetting them.

    To fix this, the users resorted to an even more dangerous solution. Now, most, if not all of the consoles have at least 1 valid username/password combo written on a Post-It(tm) Note on the side of the monitor. There are plenty of terminals in dark, back areas, where a determined cracker could sit, setting up a backdoor.

    If we make passwords harder to guess, they will be easier to forget, and users will, in all cases, write them down. A password easily found is worse than do password at all.

  6. We can't be hypocrites... on Pop-Under Ads Patented · · Score: 1

    If we want to say that software patents are bad, ALL software patents must be denounced.

    It's this kind of fickle opinions that make the opinions of Joe Slashdot seem crazy to the common man. We MUST always have an idea of right and wrong, and promote them, even if they do not serve our own interests.

  7. Shakespeare or why this just won't work. on This Place is Not a Place of Honor · · Score: 2

    William Shakespeare's headstone reads "cursed be he who moves my bones" (or something like that).

    His bones were moved. People laugh at his warnings, and in about 400 years, we won't be able to say ANYTHING to scare off anyone.

    Our words will just seem silly.

  8. Pressed Holography on This Place is Not a Place of Honor · · Score: 1

    With the advent of photoresist, holograms can be made using nothing but steel, they are pressed.

    I don't know how long these things would last, but a danger sign in glorious 3D is much more likely to be understood than a stick figure.

    One can also make a hologram as a moving 2d picture, instead of a static 3d one. Perhaps a picture of the dump pulsating waves and a guy's guts spilling out might get someone's attention.

  9. Re:the big Q going back home on HP/COMPAQ Publishes OS/product Roadmap · · Score: 2

    HP said that they wanted to "protect" well known brands, i.e. Compaq, but they blew that one with Agilent.

    Everyone in the scientific community knows the name Hewlett-Packard, and it is printed on 1 out of every 5 high-end devices in a physics lab.

    If H-P really liked names, I would still be able to but an Hewlett-Packard brand caesium time base.

  10. Actually, not that novel. on Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements · · Score: 2

    I know a guy who sells very-high-end digicams.

    The "large-format" camera is a modular system. There is a camera body which holds everything together, a lens (you can figure that one out for yourself) and a back. The back holds the film, or whatever, at a certain spot. The lens focuses the image on the plane where the back is holding the film, and *click*, it exposes the film.

    This was designed so the photographer could have a Poloroid back for instant previews, one back with 100 ASA film for slow exposures and so on. With the advent of digital systems, the large format system was a goldmine because the shutter, body and lens were already there. All that had to be developed was the back.

    There were (and still are) two types of backs. One has a HUGE ccd there, and is designed for moving subjects. They use low quality CCDs (because the're so big) and they were very expensive.

    The other type was much cheaper, and worked like this guy's gadget, by moving a 1 column CCD across the focal plane. One only had to match the resolution in the short axis with a CCD, and then move the CCD with a servo. It would (obviously) only work with a still scene.

  11. Re:Who's to blame? on The Magic Box Hoax · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Inventors make their livings breaking physical limitations. The 1903 Wright Flyer, the Bell X-1, ADSL, DOCSIS all are things designed to skirt around physical limitations.

    I remember someone proposing illuminating lines with an x-ray maser, in an attempt get very high speed transfer. It exceeded the limitations of the wire by not using it. The wire only contained the data.

    If I had "done my research" I would know I can't get 40gHz signals down an Aluminum wire, but waveguides work just fine.

    If we listen to all limitations, we won't get anywhere. You just have to ask how something works.

  12. File Formats and Programs on Will Flash Be Taken Off The Shelf? · · Score: 1

    We haven't used the original WWW app for some time, yet HTML isn't dead.

    Flash will be the same way.

  13. Whole System Testing on Debug your Code, or Else! · · Score: 1

    Many of these bugs on long range probes and other stuff could be prevented with whole system debugging.

    Just test your software in situ, meaning that you take your final code, running in your final product (like the entire spacecraft, ready to be loaded), with all the sensors and comm links, and you just falsify sensor data. For example, you could heat a temperature probe, and put a pressure sensor in a compressor. The system thinks it's getting real data, and if the thing mis-converts something, it'll do it on the ground before launch. This tests EVERYTHING from cables to interfaces.

  14. GPL on Debug your Code, or Else! · · Score: 2, Insightful

    GPL raises this to new levels of concern. You can never know where your code will be used. It might just find itself in an cruise missile.

  15. Using Google to Calculate Public Opinion on Using Google to Calculate Web Decay · · Score: 1

    Has anyone written a script to try to figure out if a text message is a positive one or a flame? Shouldn't be too hard (you'd toss out A LOT of 'unknowns').

    If someone has, you could graph the ratio of positive/negative posts to USENET for a set of keywords over time.

    One could also graph the total volume. That would be much easier.

  16. The TV Tax on Microsoft Eyes UK Digital TV Provider · · Score: 0, Troll

    In England, there really is a monopoly on TV.

    The BBC, the state-owned station, collects a tax on ANYONE using a colour TV. That cost is higher for digital TV.

    The BBC has said they have systems to detect RF emmissions from PAL sets, so they drive down streets, checking houses without TV licences to see if they have a set. With such a monopoly in place, many Brits don't want to pay for something else. Would you buy a satellite dish if you had to keep paying for cable?

    The UK has already lost one satellite company, and I don't see MSFT really able to save this one.

  17. Re:ShowShifter on ReplayTV Switches To Subscription Model For New Unit · · Score: 1

    Sure.

    You can, by double clicking on the title ba (at the top, where it says "ShowShifter"), cause the app to go into a window, Always-on-Top (or not, an option), as well as titlebar-less window. (also optional)

    The interface is really bad, though. It can be changed through skins.

  18. ShowShifter on ReplayTV Switches To Subscription Model For New Unit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Computer based PVRs are looking better and better.

    Try out ShowShifter.

  19. Un-resisted motion on Review of Hands Free Mouse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why?!?!
    People have tried to make "button-less keyboards" and mice before, and they don't work, because pushing a button, or a mouse is actually easier than moving nothing.
    Try this. Hold your hands apart, and as fast as you can, move one to the other. Try to get very close, but don't hit them. When you stop your hands, do it abruptly, without slowing down. Repeat.
    Now try it with your hand on something smooth, sliding on a desk. (like a mouse). This simulates the action of moving a mouse cursor to a target on screen.
    While this device is used for the head, not hands, the principle is the same. Resistance may make the quantity of a motion harder, it does make control easier.

    Humans have been manipulating things with their hands for ages. That is what they are for. Why should we go against nature?

  20. Backward Compatability of X on XFree86 10 Years Old · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Will we be able to say the same about Perl in a few years?

    If I understand the idea behind Perl 6 right, it won't quite run Perl 5 unless you compile the P5 code and decompile it to P6. If this happened to XFree86, wouldn't we see it as a stain on its history?

    Let's try to make sure we can run this announcement (backward compat for 10 years) for all our projects.

  21. Not just a Disney idea. on Vegas: Monorails v. Gridlock · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not only is this an idea used by Disney, the trains themselves are Disney Engineering Mk.IV. class monorails. They were designed and built by Disney.

    Disney replaced the Mk.IVs with Bombardier built Mk.VIs (The Mk.Vs are at DisneyLand). The new trains are inferior according to the drivers, but the trains had been aquired already. They are, in all fairness, more roomy to the passengers. Disney then sold the old Mk.IVs, still in perfect condition, to the city of Las Vegas.

    So, when you are riding on a train between hotels, you are most likely riding the same train you might have riden 10 years ago at Walt Disney World.

  22. Chick Tracks on Apple Deals with Devil, Communists · · Score: 1

    I'll be waiting for the day when I get a Jack Chick tract telling me how all good Christians use Windows, the OS of God.

  23. Let's Show Him Our Appreciation on Kazaa Lite: spyware-free version · · Score: 1

    Congrats, sir!

    To celebrate, why don't you just hop over to the US and we'll let you explain how you did it at a conference ;-)

  24. Noise. Both kinds. on Spark Gaps and Ultra Wide Band Data Transmission · · Score: 1

    The popping sound would drive me mad...
    Also, try this experiment. Get an electric drill with a trigger switch wo| a detent (physical click) at the start of the trigger's throw.
    Hold it up to a radio (AM), and quickly pull the trigger, from full-off, to full-on. The radio will start popping.
    Now imagine this on a sensitive, microwave array, listening for 300mW 20km away, instead of your 50,000 watt station.

  25. Transfer Speed on What Turns You Off About Evaluation Software? · · Score: 1

    Are these people who didn't FINISH downloading?

    If you have slow[ish] servers, I know I'd abort the download if it'd take me more than a few minutes.

    The way I see it, if a company can't support everyone at their web site, the probably don't have the resources to support all their customers after the sale.