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  1. Re:Dear Slashdot on Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Find Resources On Programming For Palm OS 5? · · Score: 1

    So then add a short USB cable. If you're building something for production, then make a custom board. Beagle Bone is a fine product to have fun with.

  2. Re:Dear Slashdot on Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Find Resources On Programming For Palm OS 5? · · Score: 1

    Also, look at the beagle bone. These are about $50 and they come with analog i/o and digital i/o, but unlike a micro controller, they run a full operating system (linux). Lots of fun!

  3. What about... on Smoking Mothers May Alter the DNA of Their Children · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What about smokers who abstain from smoking during pregnancy but otherwise chain smoke through life?

  4. Re:Lots of people... on Lots Of People Really Want Slideout-Keyboard Phones: Where Are They? · · Score: 1

    Capacitive screens work fine with standard lab gloves. We have two types of gloves here in the lab, and both work good with iPhones and iPads.

    Having said that, if you have gloves on, you probably shouldn't be contaminating the phone and/or your finger tips.

  5. Re:File with the FCC on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    And then hire some cisco-approved "experts" to recommend you the latest configuratable ipv6 fancy-pants 100Gig routers for each classroom. They will give fancy "the future is here" 3D presentations to the principal and board, and make sure you loose every last dime that could have purchased time with real educators and industry experts to actually help educate.

  6. Re:I still can't for the life of me on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    You can "enterprise-deploy" iOS devices and then sign your own apps. That's what large institutions do.

    The real question, android fanboys, is, WHY A FREAKING TABLET AT ALL?

  7. Re:I still can't for the life of me on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    Well, just sayin', maybe kids would be naturally curious about other things too?

    Like, I dunno, science and math? Reading interesting books? Dropping eggs off the side of a building in various contraptions? Shooting rubber bands in a contest? Observing the weather each day? Planting stuff? Estimating quantities of items? Playing musical instruments? Drawing? Making things out of scraps of material? Exploring mathematics without a calculator and a test?

    Oh, right, this stuff isn't digital, doesn't cost enough money, and requires additional effort form the teacher other than watching kids play on ipads while they play on facebook themselves.

  8. Re:Completly Blindsided. on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    And now they want to become an ISP? Hmm...

    Teach kids stuff: fail
    Deploy iPads: fail ...
    Become ISP? FAIL

  9. Re:I still can't for the life of me on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    Why does it have to be a tablet? How about hiring a scientist or an engineer to come to each class room for a few hours a week. Guarantee you'd get your mileage there.

    Given how these will be used, I doubt there will be much difference except for the cost. Either way it is a complete waste.

  10. Re:Expensive? on How One School District Handled Rolling Out 20,000 iPads · · Score: 1

    You've got this exactly correct. Educate. Don't waste our money, time, and most importantly, our students' childhood on a "device."

    I guarantee you that if I were educating students with a chalkboard I could do better than a moron with the latest iPad. Or google tablet or whatever.

    Let's get better teachers and better materials, not more technology.

    "Oh, but our kids won't learn how to use Office XYZ and Windows F" Big deal. They can pick that up pretty quick any time. Let's get them THINKING and LEARNING first.

  11. Re:It's kind of telling that... on Point-of-Sale System Bought On eBay Yields Treasure Trove of Private Data · · Score: 1

    I hear that system is a real POS.

  12. Re:LibreSSL cannot be different by being the same on LibreSSL PRNG Vulnerability Patched · · Score: 2

    It's not an edge case. The random number generator should not be seeded only by a PID.

    Hello Theo, the 1970s called, they want their random number generator back...

  13. Re:'Vulnerability" is rubbish. on LibreSSL PRNG Vulnerability Patched · · Score: 1

    Or a bad developer that assumes the PRNG is "good".

  14. Re:This is not how you inspire confidence on LibreSSL PRNG Vulnerability Patched · · Score: 2

    It's not a minor flaw. Getting the same PID causes the same random numbers to return, that is a major flaw and something I would not have expected from an OpenSSL fork.

    They might as well have written it in bash(ie, RANDOM=$$, seeds the random number generator with the current PID), this is ridiculous. It should be HARD to get the same random number twice.

    It's a good thing nobody uses this yet.

  15. Re:Inside the PC case? Forget it on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    A standard PC power supply is extremely noisy. So are the regulators near the CPU. Computer power supplies do not have real noise requirements because a digital system like a computer will be essentially uneffected by noise until it reaches extreme amounts.

    Any PSU can pick up noise from the mains, it is the good PSUs that deal with it properly.

  16. Re:The difference isn't the card. on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    See here's the thing. You changed something in you system and you think it "sounds better" and your wife agrees.

    Well, what about it was better? Did you change it back to see if the change reverted? Did you then test your perceived changes with any kind of quantitative testing equipment?

    What you have recounted thus far is about as reliable as those commercials on TV for the "gambler's charm" where they have a person say they "felt much luckier" with it. And this is a typical audiophile recount.

    I once knew one of these folks that paid $500 for a standard IEC power cable for their preamplifier. I reminded them that the wiring in the wall of the apartment was shit, but he insisted he could "feel" the difference, though it was not describable in any way past that.

  17. Re:... and acoustic treatment on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    There are differences, it's not all smoke an mirrors.

    The first time I really noticed a low-quality external converter was when I purchased a replacement from brand X. Their new converter did not sound right to me at all. A few minutes with the scope showed me why, slew rate was so bad it couldn't pass a 1khz square wave without significant slewing.

    A client of mine had another box from this company, using it as a microphone input. The analog circuitry was very very bad. Once you got the mic up to the appropriate gain level (for close-up speaking), the noise floor came up to maybe -30dBfs or so. This is one of the cheaper units, around $200.

    I have recorded in studios with "the best of the best" in recording gear. There is a lot of pseudo-engineering and trickery around many devices, but there definitely are a lot of shitty intro-level ADCs and DACs. Mandy of these intro-level devices are basically what is inside your PC, including cheap chinese-made switching power supplies near the analog i/o, maximum-compactness PCB layout, etc.

    I won't argue about "gold monster cable" or similar smoke, but with these external "sound card boxes" there definitely are differences. Some are noticeable, some only in specific situations would bother anyone, and some are just marketing.

  18. Re:Inside the PC case? Forget it on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    How much latency are we talking?

  19. Re:The difference isn't the card. on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    I'll bite.

    The cables do not make a difference. Considering the level of thermal noise and the difference between, say, 30 AWG wire and 16 AWG "monster cable" (we're talking about low-level shielded cable, right), the monster cable "difference" is below thermal noise.

    If you are "hearing" the difference with better cables, you are most likely hearing the money and not the electrons. Not to say that there aren't such a thing as sub-par cables, but monster cable vs OEM pc cable, for consumer-line-level, please...

    Prove me wrong, I dare you.

  20. Inside the PC case? Forget it on Ode To Sound Blaster: Are Discrete Audio Cards Still Worth the Investment? · · Score: 1

    If you really want low noise (perhaps you dislike noise or are planning to amplify the sound to very loud levels), you do not want a sound card inside a PC case powered by a PCI bus. Forget it.

    Look for something that runs over USB with its own power supply. Or get an external DAC that takes SPDIF or TOSLINK from a motherboard -- motherboard digital outputs are just fine of course.

    If you are really (or ever did) considering plopping down hundreds for a PCI sound card.... sorry, you bought in to the marketing.

  21. What if he forgot it? on UK Computing Student Jailed After Failing To Hand Over Crypto Keys · · Score: 2

    I'm not saying this is likely, but what if he forgot the passphrase? This was two years ago after all.

    Who's to say if he has actually forgotten it or just doesn't want to supply it?

    (Haven't read the article of course, so maybe they covered this...)

  22. Re:wifi on FAA's Ruling On Smartphones During Takeoff Has Had Little Impact · · Score: 1

    While I agree that the fees are extreme compared to, say, one entire month of real broadband at home, paying $10 for wifi actually is small compared with hundreds of dollars already spent to fly.

    Still too much though, I agree!

  23. Re:How did she get these figures? on Cable Boxes Are the 2nd Biggest Energy Users In Many Homes · · Score: 2

    The point of the article was that these boxes consume almost as much energy as a washing machine. That is definitely wrong. The article did not measure power consumption of either device. 500 watts is not how much current a DVR of any type consumes. I have a computer here at home that has 14 Xeon cores and a high-end graphics card. It doesn't even consume 500 watts, and yes, I measured it.

    The article is a typical alarmist article with a misleading title.

    Big energy consumers in homes: Electric dryers (1-2kw), lighting (1kw for a home), electric water heaters (1kw), electric ovens (1-2kw), coffee machines (800W-1kw), toasters/toaster ovens (500w), Vacuum cleaners (500W-1k), Hair dryer (500W), TVs of any type (200W-500W), computers (100W-800W), air conditioning (1-5kw). Each of these devices uses easily 10-50 times as much as a cable box/DVR. Only some of these devices are left on all day or for a significant portion of a day, but they all consume more than a STB/DVR.

  24. Re:500 Watts for master/slave power relay, likely on Cable Boxes Are the 2nd Biggest Energy Users In Many Homes · · Score: 1

    I read the article. It does not explain the 500 watt rating. It doesn't even say what was consuming the 500 watts. Nowhere was any device actually tested scientifically. Someone just read the labels and panicked.

  25. Re:Here's an idea... on Cable Boxes Are the 2nd Biggest Energy Users In Many Homes · · Score: 2

    There is no mention of the actual device model or any details for the 500 w cable box. I think it's a complete lie. 50 watts is pretty good for a modern digital cable box imo.