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User: WalkingBear

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  1. The real difference is that at the end of the year, with MS, you still have closed software being managed by a mediocre admin and are pretty much limited to what the vendor wrote in the software and what your admin can find on google.

    With the second option, you've still spent $60k, but you started with a much higher level of base competence and things usually go up from there. At the end of the year you have many more options and much more flexibility in what you're capable of, IT wise and business wise, with that higher level of competence.

    I'd much rather, and when it's been my decision to make have always, put my money in people rather than software licenses. If I need to solve a problem "right now!", then I'm likely to buy a solution that solves that problem "right now!" but even then with an eye towards what problems will that solution allow me to solve later.

  2. Makes sense..` on Judge Rules Sniffing Open Wi-Fi Networks Is Not Wiretapping · · Score: 1

    Using an unencrypted, open wifi connection is the 2012 equivalent of using morse code over shortwave or other open broadcast. You have specifically configured your wifi transceivers to forgo encryption and created a public broadcast station.

  3. Re:If this article... on Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History · · Score: 1

    Ah, you see, but the article has made no statement about the importance of either company, but only the relative valuation of the market capitalization of various companies. No social or political value judgements, only the monetary price of the outstanding shares of the companies.

  4. Re:Is this only for tablets on Microsoft: Windows 8 To RTM In August · · Score: 1

    "icloud, etc all runs on azure anyway."

    Citation please? I find it difficult to imagine in what universe Apple would use a half-finished, poorly marketed and mediocre system like Azure for their cloud offerings.

  5. Re:I wonder on Emacs 24.1 Released · · Score: 1

    yum install emacs

    time emacs -nw -Q --eval "(kill-emacs)"

    real 0m0.123s
    user 0m0.043s
    sys 0m0.011s

  6. Re:A small ray of hope on Federal Court Rejects NDAA's Indefinite Detention, Issues Injunction · · Score: 1

    Tuttle? that you?

  7. Re:I don't see the point on Foxconn CEO Fuels iTV Rumors · · Score: 1

    I'd love to have a TV with the resolution of the current iPad3. Though I'd prefer to have a 50" panel with the same pixel *density* as the iPad3. :)

  8. Re:Call it the Microsoft method on Adobe Introduces the Paid Security Fix · · Score: 2

    Check your sources again. $50 / mos for the entire Adobe CS6 suite. All the packages.

  9. Re:Downloading? on NY Ruling Distinguishes Downloading, Viewing Child Pornography · · Score: 1

    The ruling states that you, basically, have to take deliberate actions to save the image to your hard drive. Merely viewing a page in your browser without further actions on your part to "procure" the image (ie.. save it to a folder on your system, rather than just the browser cache) is what the court is speaking to.

    Metaphor time: Having someone park a stolen car in front of your house is like viewing a page (#chan?) with CP on it without specifically looking for it. Going out and pulling that car into your garage and closing the garage door would be like saving the image to your hard drive for later perusal and enjoyment.

  10. Re:Precision on Dell Designing Developer Oriented Laptop · · Score: 1

    Why would web developers need an 'extremely thin' version? What's this obsession with super thin laptops? Has the fashion industry invaded our IT departments or something?

  11. Re:It's not the software, it's the hardware on Dell Designing Developer Oriented Laptop · · Score: 1

    We had a discussion at work about a tech refresh coming down the pipe. Rumor mill was pointing toward all the admins/engs/archs/devs getting shiny new dell ultrabooks.. 13 inch, super light, super thin, "sexy".

    The unanimous and loud "Noooooooo!!!!" would have made Lucas proud.

    I specced a Dell "portable workstation" with 1920x1080, 15inch matte screen, quad core, 8gb ram, ssd, professional discreet graphics card for about the same price as the 1366x768 13inch, 4gb (max), dual core wafer thin model. Yeah, it's 7lbs vs. 2lb, but it has a usably fast cpu, decent screen real estate, etc.

    It's not "stylish" unless you define style as "doing your job on time with a kick ass powerful machine that doesnt' get in your way" as being stylish.

  12. Re:The metrosexual web designer cliche' on Dell Designing Developer Oriented Laptop · · Score: 1

    They're aiming at the right market, ie.. Macbook pro using IT and design professionals, developers, etc.. However, their marketing is a bit skewed in that they still equate mac purchasers as those interested in 'style' over function.

    I won't go into all the reasons I use a macbook pro for my day-to-day work computer, and have for the last 5+ years. Suffice it to say, though, that it has nothing whatsoever to do with 'stylish' and everything to do with power and flexibility and appropriateness to the environments I work in.

  13. Re:the point, exactly? on Hypersonic Test Aircraft Peeled Apart After 3 Minutes of Sustained Mach 20 Speed · · Score: 1

    To advance the materials and manufacturing science needed to build a craft that can withstand those forces. Then take that knowledge and apply it to similar problems in other domains. Temperatures, vibration, torsion, flight control, sensor integration and attitude correction (catastrophic failure of a passenger plane?), computerized models of all of the above, etc.. etc.. etc..

    At no time does any high tech study like this, especially at the very edge of known science ever apply to only a single problem domain.

    Look at the history of transistor and how it developed. Pay especial attention to the studies that led to the processes that allowed that first transistor. Not many of them were in the computational power field.

  14. Re:Thieves among thieves on Meet the Hackers Who Get Rich Selling Spies Zero-Day Exploits · · Score: 1

    Of course they sell to Iran, China, et al.. And the CIA and MI5 *help* them with the code they write, especially the code they sell to others. Backdoors in the backdoors.

  15. Re:obligatory... on Mastering Engineer Explains Types of Compression, Effects On Today's Music · · Score: 1

    I prefer to encase the entire drive in lucite. That way the bits are immutable. No loss.

  16. Re:Emulator download? on Try Your Programming Skills In Space: DARPA Satellite Programming Challenge · · Score: 1

    So... about normal for the tech industry then.. Carry on.

  17. Re:Security is about what you're securing. on How To Sneak In To a Security Conference · · Score: 2

    Good point. If you wanted a security conference that secure, don't make it a conference. Just gather at a local bar and take over the back half of the place. Sometimes the best places to have private conversations is in a crowd.

  18. Re:Body language is an effective tool on How To Sneak In To a Security Conference · · Score: 1

    And a lanyard with something that loooks like an employee id badge. Even better if the lanyard is from oen of the local media outlets or newspapers. You can usually pick up a handful when they sponsor charity events and such.

    The camera, good size lens and lens hood are good too. Also, make sure you practice with the gear so you really do look like you know what you're doing.

    Hesitation will get you caught every time. Focus on what you're doing, be professionally courteous, but act and assume you're going to get the shot. And 9 times out of 10, you will.

  19. Damn, wish I had some mod points. Upvote!

    ps. does the name Grant Boucher mean anything to you?

  20. Unless there was some monetary benefit to rendering at resolutions higher than your target media, no FX team is going to spend the additional cycles on merely resolution when they could be spending that time, assuming they had it, on more complex effects.

    Now if they'd kept / archived the original scene and asset data, they'd be 80% of the way to re-rendering the shots as needed at 1080p.

    For instance, some of the beauty pass shots on the Enterprise would render at damned near real time on modern hardware and a modern render engine.

  21. Sounds like the twinkle you saw was more likely from compression artifacting than intentional effects by the FX crew.

    Single pixel, high contrast points will flicker like mad when compressed. Hell, they flicker even straight out of the renderer at times.

  22. Re:Optics on Nokia Puts 41MPixel Camera In a (Symbian) Phone · · Score: 1

    I routinely print up to 17x24 with images from my Nikon D50 (6mp). A touch of sharpening, some smart blur, and, if needed, a touch up here and there and even printing at 75-100 pix/inch gives you a great photo.

  23. Re:Optics on Nokia Puts 41MPixel Camera In a (Symbian) Phone · · Score: 1

    Look at the photo of the caribiner. Look closely along the inner line of the caribiner and the rock. You'll see a bit of.. mushiness.. or blurred noise there. That's an artifact of the supersampling and processing being used to get the 38mpx sized images out of a censor that is physically lower resolution than that.

    There are noise artifacts all over the images, and anywhere you get a sharp contrast in color or tone, you'll get that noise.

    It's a *fantastic* image for a camera phone. The optics on Nokia's phones have always been top notch, as have their censors (the n95 notwithstanding) and LED flashes. It's the OS on the phone that has always been their week spot.

    But if I can spend $600 for a reasonably capable phone with optics and censor of this level, I"ll count it a bargain.

  24. Re:Optics on Nokia Puts 41MPixel Camera In a (Symbian) Phone · · Score: 1

    Kodak's failures had nothing to do with what optics they used or didn't use.

  25. Re:Killer apps? on DNA Nanorobot Halts Growth of Cancer Cells · · Score: 2

    The book "The White Plague" by Frank Herbert already has something similar to this. Scientist sees his family killed by an IRA bomb in Ireland, goes nuts and creates a plague that targets only Irish women. Spreads and kills most females worldwide. Kind of a scary book.