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User: Slothrop

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  1. Refresh Rate? on Light-Emitting Polymer Displays · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't seem to find anything about what kind of refresh speeds they can get from this, or energy consumption. Has anyone seen any current figures released by these people?

    Regardless of how cool this could be, it'll be a dud unless it makes laptops last longer and has at least equal moving image quality compared with LCD screens.

  2. Re:Mozilla conclusion? f6 = alt-d !!! on Joel On The Economics of Open Source · · Score: 1

    Also, don't forget that Spolsky has written books on usability. He isn't being biased here, just realistic. Pragmatism over idealism seems to be the motto of his whole site(which contains a lot of interesting stuff to read). I'm sure that he knows that there are ways to do what he wants to do other than the way that he's used to doing it, but as he states over and over, the average user want's all applications to work like those that they're used to using. Read the sections of his book that are online, and I think that you'll have a better idea of what he's trying to say there.

  3. One nice thing... on Open Source Limitations? · · Score: 1

    that is often overlooked is the experience that you get. While it may not be as impressive to some people as '2 years at shite software designing toilet interface widgets', I think that being able to list significant contributions to a real and complicated OS software project is a real plus on a resume to a clued in employer, assuming that your code is good.

    Basically, what I mean is that instead of academic projects, you're out there in a competitive environment coding for real, and that makes the difference for a lot of people. There are many things about software development, or just plain hacking that you just don't get until you've been thrown headfirst into a large codbase and asked to contribute.

  4. What? on Review: Dogtown and Z-Boys · · Score: 1

    I'm sick of hearing this line from punk-rawkers. The 'we're still non-commerical' line is a steaming pile of bullshit. Co-opted nearly from the beginning and never as controversial as it would like, the whole 'punk' movement was getting whiny and old ages ago. I'm completely confused as to why anyone still give and credence to the whole thing.

  5. Holy Fire on The Next Generation · · Score: 1

    For an interesting, and slightly more realistic look at what tomorrow's tech a social environments might be like, pick up a copy of Bruce Sterling's 'Holy Fire'. A great read, and a fairly strong book overall. Mainly focuses on life extension, but there are a lot of interesting little slice of life looks at the day after tomorrow.

  6. Re:China Mieville's Perdido Street Station on This Year's Hugo Nominees Chosen · · Score: 1

    I'm not really a fantasy fan, but this one was one of the books that I really enojyed last year. High style and one or two interesting characters. I'd disagree with invention, though. There's not a whole lot that's really new here, but a lot of well done systhesis. Which isn't bad. After all, I'd say that Gene Wolfe primarily deals in synthesis, and he's one of my favorites. A caveat, though: this book gets lost and confused at the ending, and basically falls flat. That said, it's an overall enjoyable read, so I'd recommend it.

  7. Re:Sterling's projects: lotsa talk, little walk on Doctorow and Sterling Cyber-Riffing at SXSW · · Score: 1

    Well, he is a novelist. He's a professional talker. I guess that it isn't his fault that there isn't all that much doing. Although he does do a better job at inspiring action on the Viridian Design mailing list.

  8. I'd highlight the hobbyist uses.... on NOA to Sue for Flash Advance Linkers · · Score: 1

    if you're planning to take this one to court. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that this product has a number of uses apart from just making illegal copies of games. It's annoying that nintendo has a total lock on development for their systems, which make the hobbyist completely unable to work on programming games or apps for their products because they can't afford the horrificly expensive developers kits. It may not get you off, but it would be an interesting angle to pursue. Make them look like the bad guy, because they are.

  9. New trend in /. posting? on Peek-a-Boo(ty) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    'Look! Neal Stephenson was right in !' He's not that great people, nor all that presicent. Most of the science in the Diamond Age was bad or ill-concieved, and even the media system is somewhat mangled and unworkable. It involves a really major paradigm shift that he never bothers to explain. That said, I like most of his books, except for the constant and irritating moralizing that he's doing more and more with each book. The Diamond age is stuffed to the ears with 'magic', not tech, so I wish that people would stop crowing that the man is right all the time. He's basically a conservative commentator that writes Sci-Fi. That doesn't make him bad, but it also doesn't make him a futurologist (which wouldn't make him nessecarily more correct anyway, looking at some of the lastest stories here.).

  10. Re:Seti At Home on Towards an Internet-Scale Operating System · · Score: 1

    Not really, since they're suggesting payment. SETI@home would be more like a charity in this scheme. They would lose out to people who need big processing power and storage space and are willing to pay for it.

  11. Cable Modems should not be the focus here.... on Cringley On Bandwidth-Expanding Modulation Technology · · Score: 1

    because they're utterly irrelevant, as many posters have well pointed out. The real question is: can this or something like it be easily applied to the optical backbones that have already been run. Otherwise, long distance band is still going to be the primary cost to the ISPs and no one will pay any less, even if we do get this 'upgraded' service. This is great locally and all, and I guess that TV watchers should be happy, but cable data to the home won't go down till long distance bandwidth gets cheaper.

  12. Re:From an owner of a Qube. on Gateway Linux Microserver · · Score: 1

    I've been looking at both of the pages, and I can't seem to find any hard info on what processor that these things are using. Can you, as an owner, or someone else who knows, enlighten me on the subject? Just how powerful are these things?

  13. Re:Who cares about consoles on Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? · · Score: 1

    Well, there is the built-in USB and FireWire (or I-Port) stuff. I'm sure that if you can use the USB subsystem on a PC for networking (not sure how well it works, but I've seen solutions for it), then I'm sure some wizard will find a way to network these puppies.
    The only problem that I see with them is that I can't find any hard specs on the processor, so all that I'm hearing sounds like a lot of hype, and the fact that the bus and the IO are likely slow (oh, and don't forget that it won't have all that much memory, from what I've heard).
    So, in my opinion, things could go either way, but I'm really doubtful about this one. If sony has invented the be all and end all of graphics chips, then why don't I see the big rendering machine folks beating down their doors? When I hear of a partnership between SGi and Sony Electronics, then I'll start to credit the hype a bit more.

  14. ok.... on Total Recall Weapon Scanner a Reality · · Score: 1

    I really don't think that you should be taping anyone without their permission. I know that if I found out that you were wearing a tape recorder, and had been recording, I'd be terribly angry.