Slashdot Mirror


User: jmauro

jmauro's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,035
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,035

  1. Re:Everybody hates it on EU Parliament Votes To End Daylight Savings (dw.com) · · Score: 1

    Just contact your reps and let them know you prefer permanent standard time then. It doesn't really matter which just stop changing the time ever 6 to 8 months.

  2. Re: A clear as mud ... on Native American Tribe Can't Be a 'Sovereign' Shield During Patent Review, Says Court (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's more akin to if Australia owned a patent not an individual Australian. According to US law, a tribe has the same standing as a whole other country, hence the sovereign part of sovereign immunity.

    It was sort a Hail Mary though by the pharmaceutical company, since state colleges fall under the same doctrine as they are legally part of the state government, and it's already been ruled that that isn't any sort of shield for reviewing the status of their patents. This just confirms that the same things applies to other countries and tribes as well as individual states.

    Also, patents, copyrights, and trademarks are not recognized internationally anyway, you have to file in each jurisdiction. There are some exceptions like the EU countries, but buy and large they're jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

  3. Re:And it will be for a long time on Netflix's DVD Rental Business Is Still Profitable (fortune.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    Considering it's 10% of the total profit, on like 0.01% of the total revenue it's not exactly a worthless endeavor. Not exciting sure, but not really "chicken shit" totally ignorable.

  4. Re:Bitcoin futures? LOL on Launch of Bitcoin Futures Trading Crashes CBOE Site (thestreet.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

    - John Maynard Keynes

  5. The iPhone has a BCM4774 chip to handle the GPS. It's a low power GPS chip.

    There has been a specific GPS chip since the iPhone 3G.

  6. My guess is that the hand-held GPS had a larger, more sensitive, frequency specific antenna than your phone does. As such it needs a much smaller (or even no amp) to receive the GPS radio signals.

  7. Re:Baloney on Public Service Announcement: You Should Not Force Quit Apps on iOS (daringfireball.net) · · Score: 4, Informative

    The calculations aren't processor intensive, they're really quite easy. The battery drain is from the radio receivers, which are amped up to distinguish the really weak GPS signal from all the noise with the really small antennas built into the phone.

  8. Re:So many things wrong on University of California's Outsourcing Is Wrong, Says US Lawmaker (computerworld.com) · · Score: 2

    How many bills did Rep Lofgren introduce/vote for that would have increased the IT budget for the UC system?

    None, but to be fair, Lofgren is the congresswoman for California's 19th at the federal level and the UC budget and funding are decided at the California state level. So it's not her job to do so.

  9. It was less technical reasons and more that they were arguing with IBM over chip pricing/manufacturing quantities and Intel swooped in and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

  10. The PowerPC\Power ISA merged when the POWER4 was released in 2001, so the intent was always for the PowerPC variant to die off at that point. If Apple continued down the PowerPC route instead of the switch to x86/x64 they'd likely be using one the POWER chips instead of a custom PowerPC.

    The resulting POWER ISA is still going strong and IBM currently licenses the design to a number of different companies including Tundra Semiconductor, HCL Enterprise, Culturecom, P.A. Semi, Sony, Honeywell, Toshiba and Cray.

  11. Not really on Ask Slashdot: Is It Time To Shrink the Ethernet Connector? · · Score: 1

    The biggest issue with space a distribution cabinet is the cabling, not the connectors. Having a smaller connector doesn't make the underlying cabling smaller which will likely result in zero saved space

  12. Re:Yes on Ask Slashdot: Is It Time To Shrink the Ethernet Connector? · · Score: 2

    Straight through would actually make the signal-to-noise much worse than the current standard. The current standards T568A and T568B has the split pair separate to act as a grounding plane between the transmit and receive connectors cabling to stop the cross talk since the wires aren't twisted in the connector. A straight through would just expose those pairs to the cross-talk and make the signal worse, especially at speeds higher than 1G.

  13. It's not in range. The Cheasapeake is a little over a 28 miles from DC from the closest point at Shady Side, MD. Max range of an Iowa class gun battery is 20 miles. The best it could do is shell Largo, MD.

  14. Other fun fact, both the Potomac and the Anacostia are to shallow for a battleship or really anything with any fire power. A small and unloaded destroyer can make it at high-high tide via towing. But then it would have no fuel or armament to actually you know fire.

    The shallow draft is why the Navy Yard in DC never really built ships like the original intention for the yard.

  15. Re:Looks like a case of poor research on Lawsuit Filed Over Domain Name Registered 16 Years Before Plaintiff's Use · · Score: 1

    Trademark holder did a poor job researching his trademark and finds prior use in a domain name now attempts to abuse anti cyber squatting laws to grab domain.

    I would argue that they did. Unfortunately the current law and case law give favor to a trademark holder, in this case Office Space Solutions, to get control of a domain name. They saw a domain name\trademark that wasn't being used filed the trademark, used it a bit, offered to buy it, and then went after the domain name using the tools created to break cybersquatters. It's a pretty standard method now a days to get control of a little used domain even if the owner doesn't want to sell at a reasonable* price.

    I don't think it's right, but that's how the process works now a days.

    *This is very subjective by the way. Reasonable for one isn't necessarily reasonable for another.

  16. Re:Password updating on Survey: 2/3 of Public Sector Workers Wouldn't Report a Security Breach · · Score: 1

    If you leave the organization forced-password change means after a set time 60-90 days you cannot log in anymore if someone didn't properly close your accounts and same for the shared account passwords.

    Yes, if companies had proper HR-to-IT checkout procedures and shared accounts went away this wouldn't be an issue and your passwords could stay the same, but sadly, the password change is the best approximation most places have to functioning procedures.

  17. Re: Good on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 2

    Except you know they do lend.

    If it was just a money transfer they might have a case they are not a bank, but even then there are regulations on money transfer systems that PayPal tried to say didn't apply to them.

  18. Re:Not forced... on Uber Forced Out of Kansas · · Score: 1

    It would require them to say that the drivers are employees and not independent contractors to self-insure. Once they say the drivers are employees in Kansas could then be used in all the other jurisdictions in the US that are pressing the issue.

    Making them employees would shift the risk from the drivers onto Uber, which would be catastrophic to Uber's business model.

    They could also form an insurance arm and sell insurance, but they couldn't force their drivers to buy it (since they are independent contractors) and it would open them up to a whole host of other regulatory issues.

  19. Re:Fast track on University Overrules Professor Who Failed Entire Management Class · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The "coming entitlement generation" has been on its way since at least the late 1980s when it was supposedly my cohort...and probably much, much longer.

    Those articles started to appear in the 1880's. Every upcoming generation has been described as some sort of variant of entitled, lazy or "me first". It's the "get off my lawn" version of a newspaper editorial.

  20. Re: No more bailout on Free-As-In-Beer Electricity In Greece? · · Score: 1

    They aren't running up more debt. They've had a primary surplus since 2013, the problem is in the ECB/Euro system they have no way of reducing the external debt (i.e. let the relative value of your currency drop) to bring thier flows in sync with where they should be.

    The only thing that will relieve them is for Northern Europe to increase thier inflation or to have the debts forgiven. That isn't politically possible due to internal politics in Germany, France, etc. So they're forcing the issue to end the "beatings will continue until moral improves" that is currently foisted upon them.

  21. Re:No more bailout on Free-As-In-Beer Electricity In Greece? · · Score: 1

    No one nation will ever get ejected from the EU or the Euro. Most of the elites see the EU as the moderating force to prevent war in Europe from ever happening again. The prospect of nations warring rather than suing each other in The Hague is enough to keep everyone in, even if some members are anti social from time to time.

  22. Re:The Cuban Miracle on Free-As-In-Beer Electricity In Greece? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Taiwan under Chang Kai-Shek, Indonesia under Suharto, Portugal under Salazar, Spain under Franco, most of South and Central America from the late 60's to the early 90's, the list goes on. Hell, even present day Russia and China would fall under that category depending on how you want to slice the apple.

    Dictatorships don't really proclude any economic system.

  23. Re:Who eats doughnuts with the doughnut men? on Police Organization Wants Cop-Spotting Dropped From Waze App · · Score: 1

    Auto accident deaths number about 33,000 per year in the U.S. Not only is it not a leading cause of death, it doesn't even make the top 10. Hell, more people are accidently poisoned each year (38,000) then die in car accidents.

  24. Re:Private Links != Paid Priority on Comcast Kisses-Up To Obama, Publicly Agrees On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    If that was the case, why did Comcast and Verizon fight putting the OpenConnect Netflix system directly on their network avoiding the peering entirely?

    It would of gotten rid of any of the peering issues and allowed faster service for everyone. Netflix offered to pay for the entire install and support as well so it would of cost Comcast and Verizon nothing, other than the right to shake down Netflix and the other peering services.

    Also L3 offered to pay for the peering upgrades as needed, but both of them would rather try to shake down Netflix then you know actually solve the problem.

     

  25. Re:A beach can disappear very quickly on We Are Running Out of Sand · · Score: 1

    No on the other island. It's dredged from just off shore. At one time it was shipped in from California, but that ended a while a go.