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User: vipw

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  1. Re:Plz read the article on Hard Drive of the Future: Ram Drive · · Score: 1

    While I'm sure you'd just cram the drive up your ass, almost all other computer users would actually have it controlled through a PCI bus what with it actually being a pci card and all.

  2. Re:Ever think of FTP? on Good POP3 Server for Huge Mailboxes? · · Score: 1

    using that client is about impossible...

    Has anyone ever used a worse ftp client then the one microsoft bundles? It's even worse than the telnet client.

  3. Re:Uhh... on Integrated 3D Graphics Motherboard Round-Up · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The Geforce2 mx and Geforce4 mx are nearly identical. There was a bit of concern at the time of the Geforce4 mx release as to why it was given the number 4. There was never a geforce3 mx, and the geforce 3 performed far stronger than the Geforce4 mx. A geforce 4mx card does have a pretty good edge though, the memory controller is way faster than the nforce's, since the nforce uses shared memory. It also runs at a higher core clock frequency. It's not exactly orders of magnitude better though.

    The bulk of card sales is in the low end market which integrated video can compete with nicely. Integrated video platforms make quite a bit of economic sense if they come with an AGP slot for a future upgrade. The nforce especially looks promising, all your drivers can be from 1 source, and from a company that has an excellent track record with drivers (except on linux/bsd, where the record isn't near as impressive). But if I were to build my parents a computer, it would be nforce/nforce2 based: Decent video, excellent sound and networking, only 2 driver packages, moderate price, and excellent upgrade path.

    Integrated video speed not as bad a situation as a lot of people imagine it to be; integration keeps getting better also.

  4. no dude, bad conversions on Electric Car Capable of 180mph · · Score: 1

    A weight of 2980kg is 6556 lbs.

    A honda civic 4 door sedan weighs 1142kg (2513 lbs). This guy is 2.6 times heavier than that honda. The classic SUV, Ford Explorer, clocks in at 80% of this electric car's weight with 2364kg (5200 lbs).

    So the electric car definitely has some mass to it. But for being the size of a limo it still doesn't do too badly.

  5. Re:seal the doors on Mac OS in a Lab · · Score: 1

    I just had another thought. I suppose you could upgrade the systems to OS X instead.

  6. seal the doors on Mac OS in a Lab · · Score: 1, Funny

    Seal the doors and any windows and then fill the room with concrete from a heating vent in the ceiling.

  7. Re:Gee, I wonder... (some facts straightened) on Internet Filters - Libertarianism is Hate Speech? · · Score: 2

    Ah, thanks for getting the newspaper name. I thought that was pretty odd to have the same name as al-jazeera, but I just assumed it must be arabic for "the post" or something pretty generic.

    I don't see the problem with attributing this to the Saudi state, they are the ones who took on the role of censors.

    I don't know exactly which thought crimes are considered hate speech, but when it comes to politics open discussion is usually a good thing. I guess the generally accepted definition of hate speech is vocalizing an opinion that is seen as immoral or dangerous by the majority. Opinions and morals change, and having open forums for discussing ideas that may currently be seen as dangerous creates a way to evaluate the future of ideas.

    Imagine a country where most of the citizens believe in a God that created species as we know them. Now imagine that saying evolution exists is a personal assault on people's personal beliefs and is considered a hate crime. In this imagined environment, you would find it nearly impossible to do scientific research into the mechanisms of evolution. I don't think this example is excessively contrived, to call out a strictly dogmatic religion as imbecilic and to call it's followers misguided simpletons could quite likely be considered hate speech. Here's a fun homework assignment, try that above example with the USA and the Roman Catholic religion.

  8. Re:Gee, I wonder... on Internet Filters - Libertarianism is Hate Speech? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the heading of the story that you speak of:

    A columnist from the state-controlled Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah recently re-asserted the claim that Jews use human blood in baked goods when preparing for holiday celebrations, according to a translation of the column by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, an independent, nonprofit organization that analyzes the media of the Middle East.

    The story was about a Saudi newspaper article. The opinion of jews held by the arabic countries is actually pretty important, as you may be aware, israel is mostly jewish and is locked in a cultural, economic, and sometimes military struggle with it's arabic and islamic neighbors.

    Anyway, I read through the posts curious as to what the hell you were talking about, and the major discussion was about the importance of the newspaper and the validity of the translation. And then the discussion shifted to sausages and hot dogs. The mention of the allegation of jewish involvement in the 9/11 attacks was to highlight another case of xenophobia.

    Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension and read whole sentances instead of just the smaller phrases.

  9. Re:Better do those calculations carefully on Battery-Powered Plane Taxis, Set To Fly Soon · · Score: 2

    Are you joking?

    Batteries, much like a fuel tank, drain. And it's just as easy to rip a hole in the tank or feed tubes as to disrupt the electronics going to a battery of batteries.

    Compare the mechanical complexity of electric and combustion motors. I would expect an electric plane to be much more mechanically reliable than a internal combustion or jet engine aircraft.

    BTW, unpowered landings in these small and slow airplanes are actually pretty safe, it's mostly depends on ability to find appropriate terrain.

  10. Re:Go for fun learning -- it's your last chance on What is the Value of a Second Major? · · Score: 1

    An employer isn't going to look at GPA unless you're fresh from school. A double major is something that will always be noticable on a resume though.

    You're right though about differing your majors more. Many will see CS & Math and think "yay, another social misfit" For leadership positions having one soft subject and one hard subject shows someone who can view problems from multiple perspectives, and leads the reviewer to assume you'll be able to deal with a variety of people and ideas. Having CS and math will make you look like a better nerd instead of making you look competent in other business areas.

    And if you honestly see univerisity as a vital place of learning, you should learn to read books or even the web.

  11. a reason on Run Mac OS X Under Linux · · Score: 1

    I use maconlinux for quicktime and divx. Sometimes I use it to run Internet Explorer. Now that I have a Windows workstation I only use maconlinux when I'm too lazy to get out of bed to use my worstation instead of my tibook.

  12. Re:The Inevitability of Resource Wars on Ford Pulls The Plug on Electric Cars · · Score: 1
    Most US electricity is generated from domestic coal followed by nuclear and then hydroelectric. As far as I know, the US has the largest and most accessable coal deposits in the world. (If someone knows a good comparison of this please reply.)


    The US's imported crude and refined petroleum are almost entirely for automobiles, although the waste product from the crude is used for plastics.


    The US does have many known yet undeveloped oil fields as strategic reserves. Removing the dependance on gasoline, petroleum diesel, and heating oil would make supplying the other petroleum needs use about 1/10 the currently used crude oil.
    Here's a breakdown of how much crude oil is needed for different market segments:
    D.O.E

    The thing a lot of people are seeing is that biodiesel is an extremely likely candidate for making the transition away from foreign oil. Electricity generation needs aren't even an issue here. But your exactly right, electric car supporters just turn a blind eye to the cars being impractical and search someone out to blame the failures on. One last thing, battary should be spelled battery.

  13. Re:A nice stiff $500 fine would be good. on NYC Law Aims To Ban Cell Phones In Theatres · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Perhaps petition the venue to create a cellphone policy and permanently ban offenders. There are better ways of accomplishing your goals than having the obnoxious oppressed by the police.

  14. Re:PS/2? on Carmack Expounds on Doom III · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure he meant the old IBM system. Slashdot made that mistake with a headline earlier today.

  15. Re:Are acronyms (or Star Trek) your life? on Crusher Crushed from Nemesis · · Score: 1

    on the same note... what the fuck does your nick stand for?

  16. Re:False Information on Intel Inside For Apple? · · Score: 1

    Comparing microprossors to other microprocessors seems like an excellent idea to me. They equate to the same thing much more than a microprocessor and a toaster for instance.

  17. Re:I don't get it. on Randomizing Survey Answers For Accuracy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't give out real data because I don't feel a need to at all.
    I find it takes a lot less time to fill in crap data than real data, what really pisses me off is places that correllate the state you select with the zip code. Places like that seem to be deliberately positioning themselves AGAINST me, so I intentionally fill it with erroneous data because they have become my adversary in the case of this page.

    Filling in webforms doesn't become an issue of trust until I actually need them to have these data; in which case I try to be careful with who I give my credit card number, but don't care all that much about the rest.

    I think the only reason people give out real data when presented with pointless web forms (ala NYT) is that they are unsure if it will operate properly if they enter the wrong information. I assume a goodly percentage of truthful answers come from a demographic that never intentionally fills erroneous answers into web forms; people who aren't very interested in where limitations exist in these computers that they just happen to use.

  18. Re:Please consider the fact... on Warcraft III Gone Gold · · Score: 1

    that's an obvious case to go trample on the rights of bnetd authors, any business inconvenience is obviously something that can be sued away. I hear nike has a pretty good case against Ford and GM also.

    Software that runs on computers can pirate media, and hollywood is trying to force computer makers to "fix" that problem. Computer makers, rightly, are resisting. Litigation created to forcefully build an environment in which your products can sell is a horrible abuse of law. Law owes a much larger debt to justice than commerce.

  19. Insure++ on Bounds Checking for Open Source Code? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Insure++ is heavenly, I don't know how long it's been since you've used it, but it detects almost all errors. I think most open source people who use it have their company buy it for them though; it is very expensive. It does very good bounds checking for both reading and writing, but it's real amazing help is in tracking down bad or dangling pointers.

    It also does very detailed tracking of memory leaks, but can get a little confused when you store the last referencing pointer in a hashtable.

    I think other than its somewhat clunky UI, price is the big killer. it takes a pretty fast machine to be able to use it much and it has a large up front cost, plus maintainence(upgrades and support) fee. It's really too bad they don't have a program in place with someone like sourceforge to let people use Insure++ on the test machines because that would not only be great advertising for them, but also could really help the open source developers too.

  20. Re:that's it? on Let Nature Solves NP-Complete Problem · · Score: 3, Funny

    i'd like to think technology can do more than make maps for tourists. :)

  21. that's it? on Let Nature Solves NP-Complete Problem · · Score: 1

    that 5 sentence blurb was the whole article? Seems like a fascinating solution to a problem, surely someone could have written another 3 or 4 sentences.

    no mention of how this could apply to programmable MEMS or anything, and this is EE Times, odd.

  22. Re:CEO Salaries on The Almighty Buck · · Score: 2

    that's a very stupid and bullheaded thing to say.

    salary is a great reward for production, and production is a good thing to encourage.

  23. Re:What about other BIOS'es? on Do BIOS Upgrades Really Matter? · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    yeah, when i last flashed my hardware at someone the cops hauled me away for the night. ;)

  24. Re:Did you google? on ESound Client Implementation for MS Windows? · · Score: 1

    what you need is a windows sound device driver that can stream to an esd server, but that is hard. i wouldn't expect anyone to write one of those for you anytime soon.

    one good solution would be to have a dvd player that outputs sound as dts (i don't think that's available in any laptop) to the same reciever your esd server computer is plugged into.

  25. Re:Land speed record on New Internet2 Land Speed Record · · Score: 1

    i think you got the descriptors messed up there, should be 3.3M mph and 5.4M km/h.

    but the calculations seem good if you assume the distance traveled was roughly half the circumference of the earth.