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User: idunham

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  1. Re:Nice summary on Jury Finds Google Guilty of Standards-Essential Patents Abuse Against MS · · Score: 4, Informative

    That would be a problem... ...if $4 billion weren't an initial offer that MS never bothered making a counter offer on.

  2. Misleading or false. on Jury Finds Google Guilty of Standards-Essential Patents Abuse Against MS · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Motorola requested royalties up to $4 billion, sure.
    But "demanded" does not reflect that this was their initial offer.
    Standard practice for licensing is
    1-owner offers to license for $x
    2-potential licensee offers to pay $y
    3-owner lowers price
    4-potential licensee raises offer
    5-haggle over what is covered and what it's worth
    The impression given is that this was after step 5.
    It actually was after step 1; Microsoft sued before they made a counter-offer.

  3. Re:Sqlite will be awesome on Ask Slashdot: Speeding Up Personal Anti-Spam Filters? · · Score: 1

    Agreed.
    egrep -F is the same as fgrep, and it uses fixed strings.
    If he says "patterns", it's obviously egrep or grep, probably egrep -f.
    egrep -f patterns -lr maildir is likely to be faster, because of startup costs.

  4. Re:Clinging to the boat anchor on Nvidia CEO: We Are Working On Next Generation Surface · · Score: 1

    Here's what I'm referring to, from AMD's press release:

    Seattle

    "Seattle" will be the industry's only 64-bit ARM-based server SoC from a proven server processor supplier. "Seattle" is an 8- and then 16-core CPU based on the ARM Cortex-A57 core and is expected to run at or greater than 2 GHz. The "Seattle" processor is expected to offer 2-4X the performance of AMD's recently announced AMD Opteron X-Series processor with significant improvement in compute-per-watt. It will deliver 128GB DRAM support, extensive offload engines for better power efficiency and reduced CPU loading, server caliber encryption, and compression and legacy networking including integrated 10GbE. It will be the first processor from AMD to integrate AMD's advanced Freedom(TM) Fabric for dense compute systems directly onto the chip. AMD plans to sample "Seattle" in the first quarter of 2014 with production in the second half of the year.

    Note that this is a FULL processor plus peripherals, not a coprocessor. I don't see any resemblance between this and what you describe.

  5. Re:Clinging to the boat anchor on Nvidia CEO: We Are Working On Next Generation Surface · · Score: 1

    The consoles use a Jaguar core, which is an x86-based chip; and there's an A5 (fairly low-end 32-bit Cortex) included as a coprocessor. So far you are correct, and I've known about it.

    But you are completely wrong about the chip I mentioned.
    It's a _pure_ ARM chip not a co-processor, and it's an A57, which is currently ARM's top "aarch64" (64-bit ARM) processor.

    By the way, could you point me at the Intel chips that you referred to?

  6. Re:Clinging to the boat anchor on Nvidia CEO: We Are Working On Next Generation Surface · · Score: 1

    You look at what AMD and Intel have cooking and you can see where the wind is blowing, AMD already has a fanless APU that maxes at 6w with all sectors of the chip maxed out, IRL it uses less than 3w under typical loads and that gives you a dual core APU with a Radeon chip capable of running 1080P over HDMI, and Intel has Haswell and the new Atom is supposedly down to a couple of watts under load and less than 1w in "functional standby" where it can still receive messages and calls.

    The simple fact is ARM just doesn't scale well and no matter how many millions Samsung and Nvidia sink into it they just can't fix this fundamental flaw.

    Odd that AMD is making an ARMv8 server chip next year then.
    I'm talking about the Opteron "Seattle", which is supposed to be based on the A57, with SeaMicro Freedom chips on board.

  7. Re:I don't know, has he? on With Microsoft Office on Android, Has Linus Torvalds Won? · · Score: 1

    You haven't been paying attention, have you?

    The Debian kfreebsd-gnu port has been available for a while.

  8. Re:Voting on amendment to defund the NSA on Congress Voting On Amendment to Defund NSA Domestic Spying Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    Looking at Nugent's proposal:

    At the end of the bill (before the short title), add the
      following:
    SEC. ll. None of funds made available by this Act
    may be used by the National Security Agency to--

                (1) conduct an acquisition pursuant to section
      702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of
      1978 for the purpose of targeting a United States
      person; or

                (2) acquire, monitor, or store the contents (as
      such term is defined in section 2510(8) of title 18,
      United States Code) of any electronic communication
      of a United States person from a provider of
      electronic communication services to the public pursuant
      to section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

    Would someone mind explaining where the hole is?
    Oh. Nevermind, it's "(8) âoecontentsâ, when used with respect to any wire, oral, or electronic communication, includes any information concerning the substance, purport, or meaning of that communication;"
    In other words, the subject line in an email is part of the contents-but not the fact that you emailed or called So-and-So.

  9. Re:Umm... WHAT is this? on EOMA-68 Based KDE Vivaldi Tablet Engineering Boards Ship · · Score: 3, Informative

    I mean... I get that its some type of "CPU card"... or something, and built on the PCMCIA form factor... but ...WHAT is this for? is it a prototyping board, is it meant to micro server clusterable, is it meant for home media pc?

    Yes.
    It's the main guts of a computer, stuck in something the size of a PCMCIA card, and you can stick that in whatever hardware project you want.
    Prototyping board is one (probably the most obvious) potential use.
    But that's partly because it's useable for so many uses.

  10. Re:Linus management technique works on Kernel Dev Tells Linus Torvalds To Stop Using Abusive Language · · Score: 1

    Completely toxic?
    No. Every time that I've seen something about Torvalds swearing at someone, it was someone who
    (1) Broke something
    (2) Had the breakage pointed out (not always by Linus)
    AND
    (3) Still insisted that their broken change was the right thing.

    If there isn't someone answering those who actively defend garbage, how do you expect to avoid the end result being garbage?

  11. Re:Torvalds being foul-mouthed again? News at 11. on Kernel Dev Tells Linus Torvalds To Stop Using Abusive Language · · Score: 1

    Over his garage, last I knew.

  12. Re:Oh grow up on Whistleblowing IT Director Fired By FL State Attorney · · Score: 1

    Having just completed my research class a few months ago, I happen to still remember what a median is. You found the right definition, but somehow you still managed to botch it up-it means exactly what you're saying it doesn't.

    The "higher half" and "lower half" are the higher and lower halves of the data. In other words, take the middle value in a sorted list.
    Half of the values are above, half are below. There's your median.
    In your list, that's 4.5 (the average of the 4 that takes 8th, and the 5 that's in 9th of 16 values).

  13. Re:Man the FL state attornies just want to fuck up on Whistleblowing IT Director Fired By FL State Attorney · · Score: 1

    +1 informative. I'd mod you up if I hadn't already spent all my mod points on the other thread...

  14. Re:Man the FL state attornies just want to fuck up on Whistleblowing IT Director Fired By FL State Attorney · · Score: 1

    Despite agreeing with you, I have to respond to one point:
    Zimmerman's defense cannot stand on what he did not know or have reason to believe.
    His own behavior may be informative as to whether his own claims are believable.

    But I'll agree that it seemed more like a kangaroo court that the media and politicians tried to ram through.

  15. Re:Conversion to foot on Mount Everest Gets 4G Connectivity · · Score: 1

    I thought that at first, but then I noticed he said "...5200 meters is..."

  16. Re:How big a deal is this? on Oracle Quietly Switches BerkeleyDB To AGPL · · Score: 1

    Debian doesn't change things like this until all the license compatibility issues are solved. In this case, that's a whole lot of software to go through.

  17. Re:Wait.. let me get this straight... on Oracle Quietly Switches BerkeleyDB To AGPL · · Score: 1

    It's only "compatible" because GPL3 (and not GPL2, note!) explicitly allows combining GPL3 software with AGPL.

  18. Re:Yawn, another fork on Oracle Quietly Switches BerkeleyDB To AGPL · · Score: 1
    Picture this:
    You throw a Python script that uses BDB on your server, which happens to use a source-based distro.
    You update BDB, and this requires a small patch.

    Now, you are obligated to distribute source to BDB and Python.
    No, I'm not kidding: that's how I read the AGPL.

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html:

    A secondary benefit of defending all users' freedom is that improvements made in alternate versions of the program, if they receive widespread use, become available for other developers to incorporate. Many developers of free software are heartened and encouraged by the resulting cooperation. However, in the case of software used on network servers, this result may fail to come about. The GNU General Public License permits making a modified version and letting the public access it on a server without ever releasing its source code to the public.

    The GNU Affero General Public License is designed specifically to ensure that, in such cases, the modified source code becomes available to the community. It requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version.

  19. Re:already done by someone else better on Low-Cost Micromachine Writes Calligraphy With Atoms · · Score: 1

    From the fine article:

    The micromachines don't cost much to make, Bishop says. The scientists order the polysilicon plates from a commercial foundry at low cost and then use a focused ion beam to pierce the nanosized holes in the plates. The micromachines are so cheap, Bishop says, that the team can experiment with one, throw it out, and "go get another clean one--for a dollar or two."

    Also news is that it can draw shapes with holes.

  20. I don't think the smell is that bad-it's not a complaint at Chico State's organic dairy, where they use garlic for that reason.

  21. Missing the point! on Employers Switching From Payroll Checks To Prepaid Cards With Fees · · Score: 1

    Well, duh. Of course the union isn't the employer. They're a group whose purpose is to represent, and negotiate on behalf of, the *EMPLOYEES*. So, why shouldn't the employees be allowed to negotiate certain aspects of others employment agreements through a group founded for that very purpose?

    There, FTFY.

    A contract about the terms of hiring workers is NOT negotiated by the one hired, if it's negotiated by a union. So why should I be bound by a contract that I had no say in to participate in an organization even if it promotes positions that I disagree with?

    Freedom of association is an important right, and it's a good reason to allow unions. Similarly, the right of petition is important.
    But does that mean that a union should be able to effectively block the right of all employees to be unassociated (without which freedom of association is meaningless), or to force them to petition in favor of a cause which they don't support?

    And don't say "You're free to go work elsewhere, so your freedoms aren't infringed."
    Would you say that if someone were fired or not hired for being an atheist? What the immediate cause was that the other employees didn't like that attribute?

  22. Re:why? on Firefox 23 Makes JavaScript Obligatory · · Score: 1

    I didn't mean to recommend it for everyone.

  23. Re:why? on Firefox 23 Makes JavaScript Obligatory · · Score: 2

    These days, NoScript can handle blocking Flash.

    Some websites have a way of using crappy javascript that takes several minutes to load and pegs the processor on an Atom N270-based netbook.

    As far as Adblock goes... I'll just edit /etc/hosts.

  24. Re:Linux is obsolete. HURD is coming on Linux 3.10 Officially Released · · Score: 2

    Yea, sure, EMACS is a great OS.

    It just lacks a decent editor. :!duck :x

  25. Re:Nvidia drivers on Linux 3.10 Officially Released · · Score: 1

    Agreed.
    HD3200 works splendid with Mesa 7.11 or later (GL 3.1 currently), and that's a few years old. Anything new enough before "GCN" (the new architecture that the upper-end HD7000 chips use) has GL 3.1, though GCN is still at 2.1 plus GLSL 1.3 (the version for GL 3.0).
    HD5xxx up through HD8xxx currently have hardware VDPAU via UVD on Mesa.
    HD4xxx and up to GCN have better OpenCL support via clover than any other FOSS driver.
    Power management just got added, and it works.
    Fedora 19 has good enough support to use six monitors with an HD7970, and WebGL works.

    To the parent of the parent, the Naughts called--they want their drivers back.