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User: AchilleTalon

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Comments · 1,772

  1. Re:in other news... on U.S. IT jobs Down 400K Since 2001 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Of course, however there is such things like towers of files stacked in a unordered manner with clerks who just don't want to look at them, who can blame them?

    When your country is having 1 billion citizen and you need to enter the modern age in order to keep the economy moving, one day or another, you don't have much choice to star at these much manual, slow, useless tasks. And I think the fact you expericenced this bureaucracy in US and Canada, as you said, just mean you don't really know what I am talking about. It has nothing to do with Western progress, as you call it with a bit of disdain.

  2. Re:in other news... on U.S. IT jobs Down 400K Since 2001 · · Score: 1
    That's good news, since if it's booming, there will be a very strong pressure for modernisation in many human activity spheres. Did you ever seen what the Indian bureaucracy is looking like? Have you ever seen a pile of paper document in folders stacked from floor to ceil? Have you ever heard about people waiting 6 months for the clerk to find the proper file, which in fact was actually found in the crack left by two desks placed side-by-side?

    So, what do you think will be the effort to computerized India? I believe they just don't have enough staff to do it themselves.

  3. Irrelevant question on Linux-only POWER5 server From IBM · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I think asking if it will boot OS/X is just like asking: Yes, but will it boot Windows XP?

    It is just irrelevant to the marketing initiative and the goal of IBM. Why the hell should IBM cares about the PowerPC on the desktop when Apple is already providing a solution? Go and buy Apple!

    IBM is just unrolling the red carpet for Linux to enter enterprise data-centers in some of the most skeptical and demanding industries.

    The most interesting feature is the virtualization engine on the four processors model. Given what it is costing to some banking customers per server on the floor, while some are idle most of the time and only justified because they need a "separated box for security reasons", this single feature will sell the box by tons. And I know a customer who would benefit right away from this to replace about 50 servers by two or three of these. And two-third of these servers are Sun boxes. IBM is likely to get the integration project using their virtualization engine, they will lost some money on the maintenance since the remaining third is IBM boxes, but they will get fresh new cash for the new boxes, the project and kick-out Sun. Anything else they could wish to have?

  4. Re:The one and only real knock against VOIP... on VoIP 911 Emergency Service: Problems and Fixes · · Score: 1
    In 1998, there was a huge ice storm in my location. =any high voltage power lines were broken as many pylons collapsed and crashed down. There was a black-out for many days and the phone service was down most of the time. The telco is having battery backups dissiminated at some strategic locations, so, the service was working when the batteries were charged. Land mobile units were responsible to recharge the batteries on a best effort schedule.

    This to say your POTS requires electricity and depending if the CO is affected or not by a blackout, if it's having generators or not, if they are in good condition or not (usually they are not meant to run non-stop for many days) you will have or not a working phone service.

  5. Re:Charts on Cooking for Engineers · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seriously, cooking has become really a scientific field studied at some universities. The reason I didn't mentionned it at start is I just don't remember the details. But I think a chemist at La Sorbonne a few others around the world, including one in Montreal (but may be it's a physicist) started studying and teaching cooking from the scientific point of view. Apparently, some well know Chef's are seriously consulting them. Among other astonished accomplishements, they found the exact ideal temperature and humidity to cook an egg. That's not a joke! The egg white is not liquid, nor solid. Something like this strange mix called liquid-solid.

    All this to say this engineering book about cooking is just a cook book about cooking and not real science.

  6. Re:Charts on Cooking for Engineers · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Well, seems engineers are easy to impress. And these pizza eaters just don't know cooking is an art, not a science. So, even if you have a good structure to support the ingredients, turning it into a real chef d'oeuvre need more than finite element analysis.

    I'd rather than like to see a cooking book from a chemist. These guys knows the difference between concrete and whipped cream.

  7. Re:Who funded this ? on An Introduction to IPv6 · · Score: 1

    Anyone writing white on black cannot be trusted. Serious guys are writing black on white. Who ignore typographic rules and ergonomy should be ignored.

  8. Temperature handling... on Your Car Is Reading Your Email · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I wonder how this thing will handle winter temperature here. It is not unusual to have some days and nights the mercury going -25 C and even -30 C.

    And what about closed windows during an extra-hot summer day with the mercury going 40 C? Passive cooling is likely to not work at all.

  9. Re:6.8 or 6.7 on X.org X11 Server Release 6.8 · · Score: 1
    6.8. However, seems /. staff has taken seriously various complains from the last days about the fact some news, even if for nerds, were no longer news. So, on this one, they decided to annonce it before X.org itself!

    I am not kidding at all, if you try: http://freedesktop.org/~xorg/X11R6.8.0, you will get a short message about the annoncement not already made at current time, but due later today and be redirected to the X.org site at http://www.x.org

    So, Cowboy Neal finally waked up after this lazy summer...

  10. Re:Wtf? on Jet-Powered Wheelchair · · Score: 1

    His last words were: "Steve-O is a whiiiiimmmmpp!!!!"

  11. Re:Funny, but sickening on IOCCC Winners Announced · · Score: 1

    You forgot to say we should never drink beer, even if it's free!

  12. Re:Oh, patients... on Hardware That Literally Doesn't Stink? · · Score: 2, Funny
    I can testify it. I am sleeping with my cat and I have no allergy at all. The conclusion is obvious, cats are not responsible for humans sratching themselves. However, my cat is often scratching a itch...

  13. Do they really want... on Attracting Women Into Computer Science · · Score: 1
    to ship all those women overseas?

  14. If I am deaf... on Canadian Music Industry Drills Dentists · · Score: 1
    am I untitled for a refund?

    Do this practice target also audiologists offices?

    At a rebate rate?

  15. Re:Not the same on Canadian Music Industry Drills Dentists · · Score: 1
    There is already Greek restaurants where you can bring your wine bottle.

    This will mark the advent of dentist's clinics where you can bring your own music...

  16. Re:It's my first week! on How Would You Handle a $1,000,000 Coding Error? · · Score: 1
    Well, pretty simple to answer:

    YGWPF!

    You Got What You Paid For!

    Seriously, if this mistake worth a million dollars, they should have taken much more care about this program, testing, etc. But, may be they just tried to cash-in at minimal expenses and they didn't care about their customers. So, shareholders should take the blame to hire such a bozo to drive this company.

  17. Re:Evolve on Software Usability As A Technical Problem · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Do you really mean you'd like to see and use a GUI designed by Picasso?

    When contemplating a paint or sculpture from Picasso, you may be there and think for minutes trying to understand what Picasso was thinking while doing this paint/sculpture.

    So, I don't really think you really mean artists, but rather than designers. That's not quite the same.

  18. Re:Oh yeah? on Japanese Schoolchildren to be Tagged with RFID · · Score: 4, Funny
    You are cheating. He says something that seems 20 years ahead, not pure fiction.

  19. Re:2K or not 2K on Mozilla/Firefox Bug Allows Arbitrary Program Execution · · Score: 2, Informative
    RTFA to the end.

    It explains the exploit is working with a specific syntax to invoke the program execution and it clearly mentionned the similar behavior for execution exists on W2K, but the syntax is different. Conclusion: The exploit exist only on WXP.

  20. Re:The New York Times on Moore's facts... on Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion · · Score: 1
    Sorry, but I am outside the borders of the USA and I don't think the Emperor has no clothes.

    As I already tried to explain few thread above, Michael Moore is missing the whole point: Oil.

    World oil reserves are going down. Dependancy on Persian Gulf oil is going up. It is now 25% of the USA oil that is coming from the Persian Gulf countries, in 5 little years it will be 50%. How would you judge you president for turning into oil agreements with guys like Saddam Hussein (which may mean close his eyes on some evil things, provide him with more arms, may be provide him with military intelligence in exchange of oil necessary for the USA economy)? There is no other way than trying to establish some form of democracy in some of the countries in the Middle-East hoping the thing will have some children.

    BTW, I really hate Bush when he is talking about abortion and gays rights. I don't share many of its convinctions. However, on the Iraq subject I think he doesn't really have choices if you still think it's USA President duties to ensure proper supplies of oil for the USA economy to continue to perform. Of course, he won't close the deals, but he must create favorable conditions for trading and commerce to take place.

  21. What a documentary should be? on Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As many pointed, I don't believe a documentary is just a collection of facts presented in a given sequence to lead people showing it to conclude what the author wants them to conclude. So, Farenheit 9/11 is not a documentary given it just do that: Cut and paste from already widely published material and present it out of context into a given sequence to make people conclude what the author wants them to conclude, given his political agenda. We call that just plain propaganda. Propaganda is not about using false facts, its about presenting true facts out of context, without care to digging further and make some reflection about them, presenting ups and downs and initiate some real reflection.

    So, Moore fails to initiate real reflection about what really matters.

    First, this is really a petrolum war. Given past posts on /. about the gas crisis and the growing dependancy of America and the Western world on the Persian Gulf oil (25% today to 50% in about 5 years for USA).

    It fails to present the real issue to us: The oil embargo on Iraq cannot just continue as it was before the war. Not only Iraqii were penalized by it, but also Western world was penalized since oil dependancy is shifting swiftly to the Persian Gulf. So, would you remove the embargo on Iraqian oil with a guy like Saddam Hussein at the commands of the country?

    Since the embargo program was a failure because some corruption exists within the UN administrators of the program (and this is under investigation by UN itself right now, but don't count on Moore to let you know more about this) and Saddam was able to manage to sell more oil than he was supposed to and keep the money instead of buying food for the Iraqis, he was able to stay at the commands of the nation with the help of some UN insiders. It is not impossible at all that some opposing countries were just trying to get a commercial advantage on Iraq oil with the cooperation of Saddam Hussein knowing how much they can sell back this oil to the America.

    On his side, bin Laden is just trying to control oil exportation from Persian Gulf countries using the Al-Qaeda terrorism organization. So, he is just trying to break the distribution channels everywhere in the Persian Gulf countries. Democracy is surely his number one ennemy. It is much more easier to make an agreement with half a dozen dictators or war lords than with a democratic country.

    At my sense, Michael Moore is just a clown with his so-called documentary movie Farenheit 9/11.

    BTW, since some of you have raised the issue about the other Palme d'or winner documentary from Jacques-Yves Cousteau, just keep in mind at the time Slient World was produced it was a real technical advance in the cinematography art to be able to produce an underwater movie. This, itself, justify the Palme d'or. Nothing like that in Moore's movie.

  22. Bad design on Matsushita Designed Sleep Room · · Score: 1
    ... seems someone has sleep on his design, no anti-snoring device included for the price. At least, I hope sound insulation is outstanding.

  23. ... unlimited ... on phpstack - A TCP/IP Stack and Web Server in PHP · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "... to support an unlimited number of simultaneous TCP ..."
    Hey! Wake up, we are on /. and anyone here knows there is nothing unlimited in the universe, but human stupidity.

  24. Cows on-line on WiFi Gone Wild · · Score: 1
    There is a company here producing many devices for the farmers and specifically their cows. One of the devices detect when a cow is about to deliver and using a WiFi AP forward the alert to the farmer who no longer need to sleep in the barn when a cow is about to deliver.

    I believe this is the real Freshmeat.net.

  25. Re:Wait a minute... on Royal Bank of Canada Software Upgrade Goes Awry · · Score: 4, Funny
    Of course, but it's in canadian dollars!