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User: Phreakiture

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Comments · 1,309

  1. Re:Wow. on Contents of Leaked HBGary Emails Reveal Wrongdoing · · Score: 1

    Yes, Mr. The Plague.

  2. Re:Innovative on Two-way Radio Breakthrough To Double Wi-Fi Speeds · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, dial-up modems don't matter much at this time (save for some corner cases), but I'll take it on anyway . . .

    The phone line does, actually, have 112kb/s of bandwidth, but it is divided by the telephone network to go in opposite directions. 56k in, 56k out. At the trunk level, they actually travel over separate wire pairs (i.e. if you were to get a DS0 or a T-1 or higher, you have a transmit pair and a receive pair).

    As for the notion that modems do this trick already, it is completely true. There are two main differences between a modem and a radio, though. First is that the modem can reasonably expect that, under normal conditions, the signal level of what it is receiving from the other end will not change much, and that its required transmit power will not change at all. Second is that the signalling going on in a modem is all at particularly low frequencies (4kHz and down) versus those going on via wireless which will be between one and 10 orders of magnitude higher in frequency, which is a tad more difficult to operate on.

    Let me take that last point and expand on it a little. It is completely reasonable to take a modulated signal of a few kHz up to maybe a few tens of MHz, sample it digitally, push it through a DSP, slap some math on it, and get some sort of accurate filtering to take place. In dealing with higher frequencies, this is far more difficult, and achieving this, I believe, is the breakthrough.

  3. Re:O tempora o mores on Teacher Suspended Over Blog About Students · · Score: 2

    Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur, quod si hoc comprehendere scis, nimium eruditionis habes,

    ...or so they say.

  4. Re:Does this mean everyone will have broadband? on FCC Moves To Convert Phone Fund To Broadband Fund · · Score: 1

    I'm in an urban area myself (and prefer it), but I grew up in the country.

    It is a rule of country life, that if you live out there, you either own a generator or you know how to do without power for a week once in a while. . . . wood stove, hand pump, etc. Unlike an urban area, you also need to use electricity (or a hand pump) to pump your own water, and your heat and hot water is likely oil-fired (no natural gas service) and electricity is needed to pump oil (it needs to be pressurized) into these heaters.

    Interestingly enough, the rules of my past have imposed themselves on my present, and I do own a generator, and have a transfer switch for it, so when the lights do go out (more often and longer here than where you live, by the sound of it), they don't stay that way. It gets a few hours of actual usage every year.

  5. Re:This layout sucks on Ancient Puzzle Gets New Lease on 'Geomagical' Life · · Score: 1

    Looks fine in Firefox.

    That said, I think it could be argued that sites are getting too complex, causing them to take too long to load and very prone to misrendering.

  6. Re:Yay! on The Case of Apple's Mystery Screw · · Score: 3, Informative

    Correct. Latin would be something like "quitilobular" (lobe being one of those cases where Latin took a word from Greek -- lobos -> lobus)

    However, composite graco-latin words are not unheard of . . . automobile, for instance, might rather be suimobile or autokineticon, were it to be a pure construct, something that was brought to my attention here on /. when I criticized the word "pentavirate".

  7. Re:Well done, Gearbox on Duke Nukem Forever Release Date Revealed · · Score: 2

    "When slashdotters all date hot girls." There, that wasn't so hard, was it?

    Done it. Got photos to prove it.

  8. Re:Availability has decreased drastically on Sony Closing 18M CD/Month Plant · · Score: 1

    Hard drive space is cheap. I use FLAC.

  9. Re:The eco-friendliness of downloads. on Sony Closing 18M CD/Month Plant · · Score: 1

    I predict that they will be sought after, much like vinyl records are today, and with much the same rationale. The difference is, this time they'll be right.

    Don't get me wrong: I love vinyl records, but I like them for being vinyl records. I don't make any specious claim that they sound better.

    I do, however claim that, with the exception of some FLAC downloads, CDs sound better than digital downloads. Of course, the real question is whether or not it matters, or if MP3 and other lossy codecs are "good enough". It's up to the end user to make that call.

  10. Re:The eco-friendliness of downloads. on Sony Closing 18M CD/Month Plant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    required to play these "digital" downloads

    I'm not sure this is the most effective use of condescending quote marks. Usually when you use those, it is to imply that the thing in quotes is false, not that the thing in quotes is true elsewhere also.

  11. Re:sternobread on Disempowering the Singular Sysadmin? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Run sudo su - and have at it.

    The solution here is to follow a reasonable security protocol in writing the sudoers file. Specifically, the default action is to prohibit. Permitted actions are then whitelisted. On a high-security system, no entry should allow a user to sudo su -. Problem solved.

    Incidentally, I see no point in locking down users who have physical access to the DC.

  12. Re:Thoughts? on Tron: Legacy · · Score: 1

    Really? So anyone could start a thread, subject to moderation?

  13. Harry Harrison on Julian Assange's Online Dating Profile Leaked · · Score: 1

    Minor point: Harry Harrison is American, not British.

  14. Re:Okay that's some funny shit on Anonymous Now Attacking Corporate Fax Machines · · Score: 1

    It is likely that any FAX machine owned by Amazon, etc. doesn't hit paper, hence using heavy quantities of black will not do much. No ink or toner will get used, and a mostly black page will compress a cleanly as a mostly white page, hence not really doing anything beyond the normal bandwidth requirements of the FAX machine.

    A more effective way to DOS a fax is to send a white noise pattern, while the sending machine is configured to handshake at a low baud rate (9600 or less). The purpose behind the low baud rate is obvious; the white noise pattern will confound the compression algorithm used (which is optimized toward large numbers of consecutive white pixels followed by chunks of consecutive black pixels), thus grossly increasing the bandwidth per page required by the machines. You can then impose whatever content you want onto the white noise pattern by altering the threshold selectively when converting your white-noise pattern from greyscale (fax has a 1-bit colour depth).

  15. Re:Everyone has skeletons. on Corporations Hiring Hooky Hunters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So the PI uses the honey trap on you, you flirt with this new woman and now the PI gives that information to your boss. If you piss off your boss you can lose both your career and your marriage? Tell me how this can be avoided.

    You could try being faithful to your wife . . . .

    As much as I hate the canard about "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide", there is a valid corollary: "If you've done nothing wrong, you won't get caught".

  16. Re:Lets get the facts straight :-) on Judge Berates Prosecutors In Xbox Modding Trial · · Score: 2

    Let me beef up the car-mod analogy a tad.

    Example the first: a car modded to run over different terrain. Examples: someone local to me, with a love of VW Beetles, put a VW Beetle body on a Jeep CJ Chassis, and called it a "Veep". It's every bit a 4X4 as the Jeep was, and also every bit as street-legal, but now he has something that is truly unique.

    Example the second: a car modded to run on a different fuel. Examples: Propane, natural gas, vegetable oil, wood, electricity. Some of these are available as factory-original, but I have seen all of these done as home-brew.

    Example the third: a vehicle modded to make it more energy efficient and/or less polluting. Example: Late-80's VW Westfalia van fitted with a late-90's Subaru engine, making it more efficient, capable of passing emissions tests, and able to climb a hill without slowing down.

    My point in all of this is that not all car modifications are for purposes of exceeding the speed limit, or for breaking any other law, and some are even altruistic.

  17. Re:Tall statement on New Programming Language Weaves Security Into Code · · Score: 1

    Even if it works perfectly, it will stop only a small subset of insecure code. For example, this tool would do absolutely zilch to stop the attack like FireSheep on Facebook.

    I was also thinking that they chose the wrong target. The low-hanging fruit would be to make a PHP-, Perl- or VB-like language, rather than a Java-like one, because, like it or not, PHP, Perl and VB are how most websites are implemented.

  18. Re:Bluetooth is gone eh? on Wi-Fi Direct Gets Real With Product Certification · · Score: 1

    . . . never really caught on outside of phones.

    Small example, but how about Wii controllers?

  19. Re:Jobs is babbling. on Steve Jobs Lashes Out At Android · · Score: 1

    Have you ever been to a Wegmans? I don't want any other supermarkets...

    Ah, but how would you know that if you'd never set foot in a Tops or a Bell's?

    And what do you do if Wegman's stops carrying what you want?

    Don't get me wrong; I love Wegman's. I wish they had them where I live, because Price Chopper and Hannaford would have to up their game. Still, Wegman's is not perfect, and neither is the Apple App Store. Until it is, there must be alternatives.

  20. Re:No on Antenna Arrays Could Replace Satellite TV Dishes · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yes, and no.

    The old satellites did use a longer wavelength, it is true. In both cases, however, the parabolic reflector in use is several orders of magnitude larger than any dimensions dictated by the wavelength. The only tuned element (which is where wavelength comes into play) is found at the narrow end of the feedhorn, up in the LNB.

    The new ones are smaller because digital signalling has replaced analogue, in turn making error correction possible and sufficient for 99% of the time, and by the fact that the newer satellites put out a more powerful signal.

  21. Re:No on Antenna Arrays Could Replace Satellite TV Dishes · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Which explains why the small dishes now do similar things that the old big ones did?

    Your attribution of this effect is wrong.

    The old 2m-3m satellite dishes were for receiving analogue signals. By going digital, it is far easier to detect and sufficiently correct for using a very weak signal. That gets the dish size down to about 1m. The other 50cm difference in size is due to the newer satellites using a higher power output.

  22. Re:This is impractical on Senate Votes To Turn Down Volume On TV Commercials · · Score: 1

    This can be done by defining standards.

    For example, if we define the standard as -20dBFS as the overall RMS for the sum of all audio channels (LFE Included!) of any programming segment, and then define a programming segment as (a) the duration of any given commercial message or (b) the contiguous programming between commercial breaks, then it doesn't matter if you are watching action or drama; all will be normalized to a common volume level.

    Some latitude may be granted for live programming, so that it isn't required to use heavy-handed dynamic range compression to get this result. Of course, we then have to define live programming as any programming where a recording of the entire segment isn't available prior to air-time. Just because it was recorded in front of a live audience doesn't make it live programming. The live exception is to make allowance for real-time circumstances. This exception might apply to parades, news coverage, etc.

    But my point is this: It isn't technically difficult. Broadcasters just don't want to. It is another example of how allowing industry to regulate itself doesn't work.

  23. Re:So sad, but it's time on Blockbuster Files For Bankruptcy · · Score: 1

    I recognize how convenient and better services like Netflix and Gamefly are, but there's just something about going into a dusty old video store and browsing the shelves that convenience will never replace.

    Well . . it was kind of fun, to be sure, but they don't much have what I want to watch, and Netflix does. I've have literally watched every Anime title that they have at the local Blockbuster.

  24. Re:Yep on Why Broadband Prices Haven't Decreased · · Score: 1

    Yes, Rochester's situation is pretty rough. A friend of mine who lives out there asked me to explain to him a few times why FiOS can't be had out there (for those not in Rochester, this is because Verizon is not the IBOC) when I could get it where I am in Schenectady. Schenectady is undeniably a smaller city.

  25. Re:Obvious on UVB-76 Broadcasts New Voice Message · · Score: 1

    I think they're just fucking with our heads.