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User: raymorris

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  1. It IS to blame, but so what? on US War Machine Downsizing? · · Score: 1

    Let's pretend that the social security act wasn't "to blame". So what, it's still completely screwed.
    We know how many 50 year old people we have. Therefore, we know how many 70 year old people we'll have in twenty years, and we know we're screwed.

    If you insist on talking about blame, the social security program was based on the premise that you could send trillions of dollars to Washington and they wouldn't spend it. Does that really sound like a good idea? That's like saying I left my new car, with the engine running, on MLK and it's not my fault that it got stolen. I suppose MORALLY I wouldn't be in the wrong, but any idiot knows what happens to a new car left unattended in crackville, and to money that's sent to Washington.

  2. interesting. Perfect analog only 10 giga inches on New Release of DICE, the CPU-Less Arcade Game Emulator, Adds Four Games · · Score: 1

    That's interesting. It got me thinking, I'd expect old analog devices to have much higher latency than modern XGhz CPUs. Analog devices do take time of course - witness your CFLs, which take 200 ms to start to turn on, several seconds to reach full brightness, and several minutes to turn off completely.

    Even if the analog device itself were perfect, it takes time for the electrical signals to travel from one compotent to another. If the components are two inches apart, signals can travel that two inches at no more than 5 Ghz theoretical maximum. The speed of light / electricity is 10 giga inches per second in copper.

  3. Obama, Gore, Nelson and those other damn republica on Why Is US Broadband So Slow? · · Score: 1

    I thought Florida voted for Al Gore?
    That awful "red state" you lived in definitely elected Obama TWICE, voting liberal even after his first term demonstrated how effective he is. Of their two senators, one is Democrat. Damn red states.

  4. The government of North Korea is efficient. on Why Is US Broadband So Slow? · · Score: 1

    > you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Government.

    I simply have a clue as to how the US government was designed to work. The North Korea government is efficient - lil Kim makes a decision, issues the order, and it gets done. The US government is DESIGNED to be the exact opposite of that. It's supposed to be be fair, open, and accountable. So to make a major decision, a legislator in one house proposes a bill. The bill is referred to committee, where studies are ordered and hearing are held. A few months later, it goes to the full house. If we're lucky, it's approved by that house and sent over to the other house before the year ends. A similar process is repeated in the other house. If it's passed in the other house, then it's time for conference committee, then it needs to be passed by both houses again. Eventually it makes it's way to the agency responsible for implementing it, who puts out a Request for Proposals, etc.. A year or so later work can begin, with various reports being done constantly for that transparency we want. The reporting and compliance costs mean that it bids for a government job are about twice as much as the same job for a private client. Looking at jobs my company might have bid, for example, my city wanted a $35,000 IT job done. For the first round of being considered, there was 35 pages of paperwork. Round two would have been another 60 pages. To have a better chance of getting the contract, I'd probably have needed to hire my wife as an executive because she's female and black. For a private purchaser, the same job would have been set up with a few phone calls.

    I'm glad there's so much extra overhead in government to seek fairness, openness, etc. The government has the power to simply take your house, kick you off so they can sell the land to a developer to build a mall. Because the government has so much power, we want to build in processes that encourage fairness, transparency, etc. It damn sure slows things down and makes it more expensive to get stuff done, though. I think it's a good trade-off - I'm willing to pay twice as much for a FAIR court system as opposed to an EFFICIENT court system. The extra overhead

  5. historically inaccurate on Why Is US Broadband So Slow? · · Score: 1

    You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Electricity, for example. Started by government? No, governments were fairly late entrants. The first electric utility was and Calder and Barnet, in Godalming. Several of the earliest electric networks were run by Edison.

    Roads are most often built by governments these days, at a cost of about $1 million / mile. I get to see them allot, sitting in gridlock we paid millions for. Eventually I get home and turn on my lights, powered by cheap, reliable power provided by a corporation. I walk over to my computer and get on the internet. My internet is never gridlocked like the government roads are.

  6. NYC govt web site says otherwise, maps franchise on Why Is US Broadband So Slow? · · Score: 2

    The New York City web site says that's incorrect. According to the city government, they grant franchises to specific companies to serve specific parts of the city. Here's the map of authorized service areas:

      http://www.nyc.gov/html/doitt/...

  7. govt enforces the monopoly. Want govt monopoly? on Why Is US Broadband So Slow? · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's governments that enforce the current monopolies and dualopies, what they call a "franchise".

    Do you really want government "competing", keeping ie Google fiber out while they offer up government service that works as well as Congress does, with DMV style customer service, and healthcare.gov quality? The way government would "compete" would be to simply deny permits to any company offering a better service that what government bureaucrats and theirlobbyist friends throw together.

    The only large-scale success of modern broadband in the US lately has been Google Fiber. They go where local governments have decided to get the heck out of the way, often after wasting huge amounts of taxpayer money on failed attempts to have an ISP run by politicians.

  8. $10/month = 70,000 returns per day on Slashdot Asks: Do You Label Your Tech Gear, and If So, How? · · Score: 1

    A $10 / month Amerinoc hosting account for their web site will include MySQL. If that MySql allows finders to query just one item per second, that's tens of thousands of queries per day. Their PHP script then emails the registered owner. I don't see anything here that requires more than a few dollars per month, so leaving the service up until subscriptions run out shouldn't be a problem.

    I'm assuming they don't get a large volume of phone calls every day for some reason.

  9. lacking answers here, ask roadie on a band forum on Slashdot Asks: Do You Label Your Tech Gear, and If So, How? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The first several replies here aren't too useful. If that continues, ask band roadies on an appropriate forum. The band I used to do lights for did up to three shows per weekend, so there was plenty of opportunity for an expensive cable to end up in the wrong person's case and that sort of thing.

    Something as simple as a stripe of blue paint on ALL of your gear will really help avoid accidents. For intentional theft, if you want the pawn shop to _maybe_ notice it, engraving is probably the only way to go.

  10. for school, either programming or foreign language on The Neuroscience of Computer Programming · · Score: 1

    I use several programming languages, and I can read about 3 human languages. While there are some similarities, I'd say the two things are quite different. However, that doesn't settle the question of what should be taught in school.

    I've gone back to school. I'm getting a degree from WGU. For my degree, I could take either American history or sociology. By giving me the choice, the school isn't implying that history and sociology are the same thing. They are saying that either one will improve my education. I see foreign language and programming the same way. Learning either creates a more well-rounded and employable student. I see it as "take either foreign language or programming, not just basket weaving and bird watching".

  11. work telephones have always had the same on Microsoft Lync Server Gathers Employee Data Just Like NSA · · Score: 1

    > And the root problem here is that (thanks, FCC) email is *still* not considered a communication the way POTS or USmail is. ...
    > they'd go to jail. Same goes for voice comms. But e-mail somehow magically belongs to the owners

    When you use the company's telephone network, the same information is logged. Since virtually all systems do so, there's a standard data format they use, called CDR (call detail record). This has been the case for at least 40 years. You need logs to debug problems in the system, for capacity planning, etc. Does the company need to place an order now to have more lines to the outside world installed two months from now? The admin queries the logs to find out. Why is the company suddenly spending so much money on international calls? Again, they query the logs. If you send packages or letters using the company's FedEx account they have records of that too. They need to know how their money is being spent.

  12. Can see how own network, messaging is being used!? on Microsoft Lync Server Gathers Employee Data Just Like NSA · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm shocked and amazed. A company running their own messaging server on their own network can see how it's being used?!
    Next you'll tell me that my company's email administrator can see email I send at work, through the server they administer.

  13. it CAN cost a lot to move data cross country. who on ISP Fights Causing Netflix Packet Drops · · Score: 1

    > it can't possibly cost them anything.

    A server in New York wants to stream data to a user in California. Someone has to pay for a nationwide fiber network to move the traffic. Both Cogent and Verizon have presence in New York and California. Who carries the packets from New York to California? Very often, that's what peering disputes come down to.

      In general, neither party wants to carry the traffic across the country. Cogent wants to instantly hand the traffic to Verizon right there in the same building where they got the traffic from Netflix, so they don't have to carry the packets more than 100 meters. That's reasonable to them - they are delivering the packets to the company they are addressed to. Verizon would want to receive California packets in California. When Cogent is charging Netflix for transit, it's reasonable for Verizon to ask Cogent to provide that transit to California. Both have reasonable positions. They'll negotiate a mutually acceptable arrangement after first staking out their starting positions.

  14. willful blindness makes it hard to see, huh? on White House Takes Steps Against Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    > You have no idea what you're talking about.

    Then you're trying so hard to defend stupid that you've made yourself dense.
    According to your link, US citizens send $2.9 trillion to Washington, who sends $500 billion to states, who send $100 billion back to the same localities it came from.

    If that seems like a good idea to you, I've got something you'll love. I'm sure you'll get excited about this. You send me$1,000 and I'll send $250 of it to my wife, who will send $100 to you! Yay, you get $100! I'll pm my address to you.

  15. sell is the key word. Cogent not paying Verizon on ISP Fights Causing Netflix Packet Drops · · Score: 3, Informative

    They SELL connections to their customers. Cogent isn't paying Verizon. The peering they're talking about is an even trade with neither company paying the other. When it ceases to be an even trade, it's time for negotiations.

  16. Are you talking about just softening it with heat? on Fishing Line As Artificial "Muscle" · · Score: 1

    How did you reheat the fly to 220C while casting? And why?

    You're not referring to just softening the plastic to shape it, are you? That's not what the article is talking about. The article is talking about setting it up so that it moves back and forth based on temperature. You heat it up, it shortens. When you stop applying heat it lengthens.

  17. that, and FCC control of food advertising, etc on White House Takes Steps Against Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    School lunches are a big part, yes. Also her proposals include things like having the FCC limit advertising of foods that the government considers to be suboptimal choices. There's a lot of food related stuff, more food related than exercise related.

    Personally , I think the local school should serve healthy food. I'm glad that decades ago the FDA started putting out guidance, suggestions, that assist local school districts with healthy menu planning. I don't see any need for local citizens to pay $10,000 in taxes to Washington, who takes their cut before sending $7,000 to the state, who takes their cut before sending $5,000 back to the local area. Federal bureaucracy to buy lunch is just silly.

    It's also the local dieticians who are best able to work with local needs and tastes. Here in Texas, kids will eat burritos, they won't eat fish and chips. I bet in Massachusetts it's the other way around. Federal bureaucrats making more menu decisions for local schools isn't going to work too well, I don't think.

  18. Was kidding, but no. "Actionable federal govt food on White House Takes Steps Against Patent Trolls · · Score: 2

    I was joking obviously, but no, that's simply incorrect. She outlines her agenda in a document about 20 pages long entitled "summary of recommendations". You'll notice the word "food" appears four times as often as the word "exercise". In fact, she mentions "screen time" as often as she mentions exercise.

    Her agenda items include "the federal government should pursue actionable items [to create] food boards ... set food policy". Whether you agree with her or not, her stated mission is to have the federal government decide what you eat and what you don't, see to it that you eat healthly food. Maybe that's what Washington should be doing, maybe it's not. It's absolutely what Mrs. Obama is seeking to have Washington do. Go read her web site.

  19. yeah anyone who can, won't for 300€ on Why Your Online Impersonation of a 16-year Old Girl Won't Last Long · · Score: 2

    Three hundred euro? The contest sparks my interest, but 300 is about what it would take to get me to fill out the entry form. To develop an effective NEW algorithm, code it, and test it in HOPES of winning the prize? Maybe for 300,000, maybe. 3,000,000 would be more like it.

    I've developed exactly two truly innovative products. One I sold over $1 million worth, the other still provides $3,000 / month in net income . Why would I, or anyone skilled and innovative, touch this for 300 euro?

  20. True. solve problems with same level of thinking? on White House Takes Steps Against Patent Trolls · · Score: 2

    I can't decide if that's a great point or off the mark.

    The patent office bureaucracy has approved a bunch of bad patents.Improving
      that bureaucratic process may well improve the results. On the other hand:

    We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.
    Albert Einstein

    Perhaps a bold, strong new leader at the patent office who did a lot of new things, including soliciting public comment, could make a big difference. Someone like Robert Gates, for example, could probably greatly improve things without any fundamental changes to the underlying law. Just ACTUALLY deny patents where there is prior art, etc.

  21. isn't Michelle outlawing those? on White House Takes Steps Against Patent Trolls · · Score: -1, Troll

    That would be rather inconsistent. Isn't the first lady's big thing getting sweets banned?

  22. ps similar new still 1/2 cost of tape robot on A Primer on Data Backup for Small- to Medium-Sized Companies (Video) · · Score: 1

    I meant to say, something like that, a SuperMicro chassis with SAS expander backplane, does of course cost a lot more if you don't buy on eBay. A new one from Provantage is around $700 or so. Still, compared to a $3,500 tape library ...

    That's not say tapes don't have their place. Tape was good enough to back up my grandpa's data in 1954 and it's still good enough, sometimes. Other times, large capacity disks really do make more sense.

  23. SGI jbods are half that, used on A Primer on Data Backup for Small- to Medium-Sized Companies (Video) · · Score: 1

    It's one of the SGI units. Used, they sell for half that, so I misspoke. The storage SERVERS, with motherboard and processor, are $350. So for $700 you can get the backup controller server with 16 bays plus two more 16 bay jbods to daisy chain to it. Not bad for backup. That's not what I'd use for my main enterprise storage SAN, but for backup yeah it works real well.

    That is without the disks themselves, of course. Starting with four or six 3TB drives in RAID 10, you get 150-200 MB/s actual for several hundred dollars, then add spindles as needed.

  24. Does not HelloWorld.asm OS guarantee cycle count? on BSD Real-Time Operating System NuttX Makes Its 100th Release: NuttX 6.33 · · Score: 1

    > This is impossible to flatly guarantee ... no RTOS is going to assure that.

    Does that include a "trivial" RTOS, or are you speaking only of an RTOS of significantly complexity? It would seem that on an MCU, the very simplest OS, the "HelloWorld.asm" of operating systems, would absolutely run each of its functions in the exact same number of cycles, every single time. On a Z80, for example, INC always takes exactly one cycle, and ADD take two cycles, every time.

    On a Core processor it would be much less consistent due to pipelining, out-of-order execution, etc., but these little MCUs don't do any of that, do they?
    Some of the little bit of MCU code I've written has been fairly sensitive to timing and I've figured that 4 cycles is 4 cycles, every time. Have I been doing it wrong?

  25. Pro sports misconception. Pay not that great. on Are Bankers Paid Too Much? Are Technology CEOs? · · Score: 1

    Also, those pro sports salaries in the headlines create some misconceptions. You see a headline about a $30 million contract and think pro athletes are fabulously wealthy. In reality, that $30 million is the maximum that the best player is eligible to earn over three years, which is half of their career.

    Taking the NFL as an example, players work very hard for several years trying to get into the pros. For the few who make it, the average salary is $1.9 million, but the average career is only six years. That's $5.4 million for their career. A lot of tech workers will make a lot more than that in their career. Especially so if they worked as hard during high school and college as the kids who become pro athletes do, waking up two hours early to work out (or study) and then staying after school for practice, etc.

    It's a good job, don't get me wrong, but it's not as obscenely lucrative as a glance at the headlines might make it appear. Hollywood, on the other hand, is incredibly lucrative for the very top talent, if they stay on top for many years. If 20 million people are entertained enough by having you on a show that it's worth 5 cents per week for them, that's $1 million per week of entertainment value.