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User: Anne+Thwacks

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Comments · 5,048

  1. Re:Feature or bug? on Nokia Extorted For Millions Over Stolen Encryption Keys · · Score: 1
    Do device "owners" really want phones that "accept only applications approved by the company".

    No, and if this feature were dropped, a lot of us would want Symbian phones even now. This is the "feature" that killed Symbian. However, it was mandated by the carriers. It took Google to kill it, and Android gets stick daily for not having this "feature".

  2. Re:Programming language in 2 hours ? Yeah, right. on Ask Slashdot: Best Rapid Development Language To Learn Today? · · Score: 1
    You have never been able to learn a programming language in a couple of hours.

    You can learn Snobol (the original, not Snobol4) in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, you probably can't actually do anything useful with it, but that was not required by your original post!

  3. Re:Phase Change is the same but faster on Dell Exec Calls HP's New 'Machine' Architecture 'Laughable' · · Score: 1
    No they aren't. Memristors are a trivial change in how you implement a low-level feature. Its like whether you use polythene or polycarbonate for your capacitors.

    While I would be quite happy for Dell to burn in hell, taking i86 architecture with them, a new computer architecture is a completely different plot from new implementations of memory or a new software design. Memristors are not even content addressible memory - which have been done in silicon, and shown to make text searching and jump tables (case statements) thousands of times faster, but no one will buy. (NIH? risk averse management? Decisions taken by non-tech people, PHBs)

    History tells us that writing a new OS for new hardware is pretty much the best way to ensure your project fails. Do one of the other, not both.

  4. Re:Simple explanation: John Swanson is scared. on Dell Exec Calls HP's New 'Machine' Architecture 'Laughable' · · Score: 1
    What is needed to process large amounts of data is a massively parallel data-flow architecture - something resembling a hardware implementation of SQL. The ICL DAP is an early example. The Cell processors in your Playstation 3 are a half baked attempt at the same thing. You would probably still want a conventional processor to supervise it, and probably to compile the programs.

    It is not difficult to make one of these using conventional; silicon.

    It is hard as hell to get funding and sell it. If you actually want to make one, drop me an email (and several billion dollars). Yes, I have worked on this stuff before.

  5. Re:Old news, circa 2011 on Dell Exec Calls HP's New 'Machine' Architecture 'Laughable' · · Score: 3, Interesting
    once you get the NRE [non-recurring expense] out of the way

    The entire cost of electronics is the NRE: look at your $800 iPhone - raw materials inside:

    Three spoonfulls of oil to make the plastic bits.

    Two spoonfulls of sand to make the silicon bits (includes the glass screen and fibreglass PCBs).

    Not quite enough copper to make 2 inches of water pipe,

    Not quite enough steel to make a table knife or fork.

    Not much at all of quite a few other things

    Way more than 2,000,000 man-hours of highly paid engineers' design time (if you include time to design every single component, including bought-in CPU, graphics, etc- remember to descend recurssively into the design of every single bit of logic, power disttribution, analog bits). Of course most has been amortized over the past 50 years, Apple only pays for the top layer.

    If you start again from scratch, you might not need to go back to George Boole, or Aristotle, but you risk having to redevelop one hell of a lot.

    Perhaps you shold meet a few engineers and talk to them.

  6. Re: Screw this thin crap on Samsung Debuts Thin Galaxy Tab S With Super AMOLED 2560X1600 Display · · Score: 2

    "features" and "bugs" may be the same thing in Microsoft's world, but to the rest of us, they are completely different things.

  7. Thanks to Unity, Linux now has the same problem. Please can I have xfce on my SGS3!

  8. Re:The world... on Are the Glory Days of Analog Engineering Over? · · Score: 1

    if the job is unfilled for a month, most likely you are not offering enough pay. There's no shortage of engineers, just a shortage of ones who want piss-poor pay. (Although treating them badly in the workplace probably does not help).

  9. Re:A (hidden) communication channel is not an atta on The Computer Security Threat From Ultrasonic Networks · · Score: 1
    YOU cant install malware this way, but people who have machines which are already 99% malware can (but probably never will).

    You are correct - this is utter and complete nonsense. No uninfected computer is going to consider what comes into the mic channel as potentially sensible to execute, or, indeed do anything other than save it as audio data.

    If your computer is in the habit of executing WAV of MP3 files, or saving audio as .exe files, you are already more than truely and completely stuffed.

  10. Re:Interesting on Was Turing Test Legitimately Beaten, Or Just Cleverly Tricked? · · Score: 1

    So its true ... you are a chatbot!

  11. Re:but that's the problem with the turing test... on Was Turing Test Legitimately Beaten, Or Just Cleverly Tricked? · · Score: 1
    Surely a cop-out is a strong indicator of a human?

    Perhaps that should be politician.

    Maybe we should require politicians to pass a Turing test?

  12. Re:Awesome! on id Software's Original 'Softdisk' Games Open Sourced · · Score: 1

    Do Android phones support Apple ][ floppies? Where is Woz when you need him!

  13. Re:Need to be able to use without looking at it on Driver Study: People Want Fewer Embedded Apps, Just Essentials That Work Easily · · Score: 1

    I speak the Queen's standard English, and the result is very similar. I assume some specific American accent is required - but I perhaps it might need to be Korean.

  14. Why would a Bluetooth audio system need a jack?

    Because the Bluetooth stack is a piece of shit - you have evidently not tried using one of these!

  15. Re:Need to be able to use without looking at it on Driver Study: People Want Fewer Embedded Apps, Just Essentials That Work Easily · · Score: 1
    but idiots that will not be able to do so safely won't understand that fact, because they're idiots

    There is a substantial body of evidence that passengers are a bigger distraction than electronics. In particular, various studies reported children, teenagers, adults and old people as being sources of distraction.

    Clearly we need to ban people from cars

    its completely obvious once you think of it!

  16. Re:Not Anticipated on Parents Mobilize Against States' Student Data Mining · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    we need a popular meme to quote on the fact that you dont need government to employ contractors for things to go horribly wrong.

    How about:

    "All the evidence is that governments can make things go horribly wrong successfully without outside help - often for the same price or higher!"

    Thanks, I will take the credit myself!

  17. Re:Mmhmm on High Frequency Trading and Finance's Race To Irrelevance · · Score: 1
    The gambling-addicted nutjobs work for retirement funds and other long-term investors.

    and are allowed to get away with anything provided the outcome is priofitable for their bosses. When it turns sour, they are accused of being rogue traders (especially if from an ethnic minority).

    There's no reason to think technological progress must someday stop,

    Unfortunately, there is also no reason to suppose that the ease of a plague spreading will not also increase, or that the food and water supply and ability to distribute it will,

    If you stop believing the media and go and look for yourself, you will find food shortage was behind most wars (including WW1 and WW2).

  18. Re:Mmhmm on High Frequency Trading and Finance's Race To Irrelevance · · Score: 1
    HFT can be stopped by stamp duty - a very small tax on each trade. Essentially, it means the trade has to have economic significance before it is worthwhile.

    The UK had this until Tony Bliar stopped it - so his banking mates could stiff us all.

    The EU tried to bring it in Europe wide - but the banks threatened to use the UK and America instead and drive Europe under in retaliation. The maths says this is possible, so they backed down.

    In short, bribery and corruption wins again.

  19. Re:Other way around on Apple Says Many Users 'Bought an Android Phone By Mistake' · · Score: 1

    But does it run Linux?

  20. Re:White Moto X on Apple Says Many Users 'Bought an Android Phone By Mistake' · · Score: 1
    I think everybody knows what an iphone looks like. nobody wants a samsung iphone.

    I guess you live in the USA. Here in the UK, even long time iFans are switching to Samsung in big numbers. (Get your own stats - you would never believe mine anyway)

  21. Re:Other way around on Apple Says Many Users 'Bought an Android Phone By Mistake' · · Score: 1
    Windows Phone is no longer the "fastest growing" and is in fact stagnating.

    Possibly even "fastest stagnating".

  22. Re:Scotland? on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1
    Have you ever BEEN to Glasgow?

    Hint: Google "Rab C Nesbitt"

  23. WTF? on Tracking Tesla's Quiet Changes To the Model S · · Score: 4, Interesting
    These are changes to the options not the car. Surely all manufacturers do this (in most of the world, if not the USA).

    FIle under underwhelming slashvertisment?

    Mod -1: pointless

  24. Re:Sounds awesome except.... on Patent Troll Ordered To Pay For the Costs of Fighting a Bad Patent · · Score: 1

    I want the moose to pay!

  25. Re:They would silly not to... on NSA Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images · · Score: 1

    No: If you did not expect this, its time to hand in your geek card.