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User: mikael

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  1. Re:Printers have RTC and CMOS battery? on Hidden Codes in Printers Cracked · · Score: 1

    It's not too difficult to include a small rechargable battery and a timer chip on the motherboard. But your postscript files include the time and date in the header:


    %!PS-Adobe-3.0
    %%Pages: (atend)
    %%BoundingBox: 53 35 563 763
    %%HiResBoundingBox: 53.200000 35.900000 562.500000 762.800000
    %%Creator: GNU Ghostscript 651 (pswrite)
    %%CreationDate: 2005/10/18 15:02:33
    %%DocumentData: Clean7Bit
    %%LanguageLevel: 2
    %%EndComments

  2. Re:Super Polish on Transparent Aluminum a Reality · · Score: 1

    And if you read a couple of bless scrolls of enchant armor, that will also reduce the amount of damage that any foe can inflict. But remember to wear a blindfold when entering Medusa's room.

  3. Re:Safety? on China Going Up and Coming Down · · Score: 1

    It's probably no difference from the danger of travelling in either a British train in Summer or on the London underground on the hottest day of Summer (8th June 2001).
    Temperature was around 40 degrees centigrade, and they were serving free bottles of water for people coming out of the train.

  4. Re:Not Sure How Big this Really I on PTO Eliminates "Technological Arts" Requirement · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's discussed in a bit more detail here. It looks like any business process can be patented, from plotting a basic graph on a whiteboard, to having TPS reports notched according to the future employment status of the employee.

  5. Simple stages on The exhaustion of IPv4 address space · · Score: 1

    Cisco may have some vested interest in driving up the IPv6-compatible router sales *cough*, but the bottom line is that the transtion will have to happen at some point in the near future.


    If they want this to happen, then it should be possible to do the transition in simple stages, rather than in one "Big Bang". Telephone services switched to digital, first by upgrading the trunk likes transparently to the user, then giving individual customers to the choice to switch from analog to digital.

    But from other comments, it seems like the cable-network supply companies are trying to maintain a monopoly on the supply of components.

  6. Re:god damnit on Big-Iron to Open Up for AMD · · Score: 2, Funny

    In my day, we used to toggle the OS and each program in bit by bit, remembering each opcode from memory. A keyboard was a musical instrument, a mouse was a type of vermin, and a terminal was where you attached the grounding wire of a lightning rod.

  7. Re:Some more pictures are here... on Toyota Develops New Plant Species · · Score: 1

    There is no goatse anywhere - they are just vehicles covered with green grass.
    Do a google search for "car green grass" and you will find the same pictures.

  8. Re:Anyone.. on Capitalizing on Melting Polar Ice · · Score: 1

    Just like the Indian/Pakistan fight over the Kashmir mountains - they stretch themselves to the limit fighting for ownership of the most inaccessible location in their continent, and then get wiped out when there's an earthquake.

  9. Re:reminds me of a simpson plot. on Capitalizing on Melting Polar Ice · · Score: 1
  10. Re:Chapter 11 is another option. on Should RISC OS be Open Sourced? · · Score: 1

    For news from the UK accounting system, try Accounting web. Membership is free, and there is a newsletter you can subscribe to.

    For a perspective from UK contractors, try Contractor UK and Shout 99.

  11. Re:Culture is the issue on National Academies on U.S. Science · · Score: 1

    I can vouch for this - in the final year of high school, we had visits from the professors of the different university departments (mathematics, accounting, sciences, management studies etc...).

    Of around 110 students who attended these presentations, 100 wanted to do accountancy (maximum pay for minimum work). The remaining 10 were interested in doing science, mainly because their parents were doctors/professors.

  12. Some more pictures are here... on Toyota Develops New Plant Species · · Score: 3, Funny
  13. Re:Not that we Shouldn't Use Pillows. on Pillows Dangerous for Your Health · · Score: 1

    To get rid of dust mites, there was one company that offered to nitrogen-freeze your bed and fabrics. They would seal the bed in plastic, then pump in chilled nitrogen - above absolute zero, but below -30C. Enough to kill off all the dust mites (and maybe the spores as well?).

  14. Re:Is that Prudent? on Italy To Build World's Longest Suspension Bridge · · Score: 1

    Is that any different from motorways in dense fog or snow blizzards? Impossible for helicopters to fly and tricky for emergency vehicles.

  15. Re:Aww... on Cross-Site Scripting Worm Floods MySpace · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bet he doesn't have over 1 million friends now.

  16. Re:$300M? on Samsung To Pay Out $300 Million In Anti-Trust Suit · · Score: 1

    That's true - I've been following the Rambus/Samsung/Hynix/Siemens/Micron Technology lawsuits battle over RDRAM/SDRAM memory (worth billions), and wonder if this battle will ever end (the latest installment seems to have Rambus suing Samsung).

  17. Re:$300M? on Samsung To Pay Out $300 Million In Anti-Trust Suit · · Score: 1

    Seems like these fines are just the cost of doing business. I'm sure that $300M is a lot less than their manufacturing charges, or even their advertising expenses.


    But it's still lost profits for their shareholders. According to their stock website, there are 148 million outstanding shares, and 22 million outstanding preferred shares, with an annual 2% dividend.

    From their website, their profits last year were 10,000 million US dollars, so 300 million is a good 3 percent of that. Given that shareholders will probably own shares in their hundreds if not thousands, that's enough to be felt by each shareholder.

  18. Re:Brave New World on EU Claims Internet Could Fall Apart Next Month · · Score: 1

    It's just showmanship. In the end they'll probably have some sort of compromise where there are a number of duplicate root domain servers, with one in each continent.

  19. Re:How should they reinvent the genre? on The Future of Videogame Aesthetics · · Score: 2, Informative

    There are othere genre's that don't involve killing - These include:

    1. Coordination games (Dance Dance Revolution)- but needed special hardware
    2. Team-sports games (Hockey, Soccer, Football, ...) - but still competitive
    3. God games (Sim-whatever)
    4. Puzzle games (Tetris variants)
    5. 3D Platform games (collecting coins/stars - Super Mario)
                            (although the use of bad characters made these killing games)
    7. Card/Board games (Poker, Blackjack)- but why play a machine when you can play against real people?
    8. Adventure (Leisure Suit Larry, SpaceQuest)
    9. Camera based games (EyeToy)
    10. Simulations (Flying, Racing)

    The tricky part is for each of these genre's to be a successful game, it has to be
    easy to learn to play, but requires a gradually increasing level of difficulty in order
    to keep the player interested . It really depends if the players want something that
    organises their time for them, or something that gives them the chance to do whatever
    they want to do. Pilot Wings 64, Super Mario 64, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time allowed you
    to do both. Some puzzles within each level had a time limit, or required you to compete
    against a virtual character, but at other times, you could explore the level at your own
    leisure and just enjoy the view.

  20. Re:What else can CS give us? on Bill Gates Is Coming To A College Near You · · Score: 1

    In just a short 100 years since people really started thinking seriously about computation, the whole science has progressed to the point that it is a well-understood field (well, maybe not to freshmen).

    Make that 200 years - Many concepts were introduced by mathematicians such as Euler, Fourier, and Laplace, to name but a few.

    A more detailed list

  21. Re:Blind Lake? on Distant Planet Imaging Project Gets More Funding · · Score: 1

    That would be "Blind Lake" by Robert Charles Wilson

  22. Re:Hmm, I wonder... on Microsoft Sees Future in IPTV · · Score: 1

    Between shows? Why else would they want to be able to play four video streams simultaneously?

  23. Re:Shockwave on Leonardo Da Vinci's Personal Notebook · · Score: 1

    If you visit the website, you can see they wanted to add various animation effects, including flicking to the previous and next pages, and having the paper around the wooden handles of a scroll appear to increase and decrease in diameter as the user moves through the document.

  24. Re:Efficiency of movement? on Autonomous RoboFish at the London Aquarium · · Score: 2, Informative

    There have been many studies, but like geese, fish also take advantage of swimming in groups:

    Scientists show how fish save energy by swimming in schools

    And there have been many studies into dolphin and whale motion.

    Hydrodynamic study into whale flippers

    The use of rotary motors only seems to occur at the bacterial level (flagella bacteria)

  25. Re:Tunaring Test on Autonomous RoboFish at the London Aquarium · · Score: 2, Informative

    A similar experiment was conducted at the Plymouth aquarium. They placed a robotic shark alongside
    real sharks.


      Two scientific papers are being proposed on the subject.
    Roboshark inventor Andrew Sneath said the sand tiger sharks at the aquarium had accepted their new companion.
    "They seem to quite enjoy it and seem intrigued by its presence.
    "They are accepting what he's doing and just letting him keep on swimming around," he said.
    Andrew will be making the most of the unique education opportunities offered by Roboshark's blend of robot with nature.

    He will be developing similar robot exhibits for other aquariums and science centres.