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User: alienw

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Comments · 2,464

  1. Re:Yeah, Apple does that (Profit Margins) on Just What is a Custom Configured Server? · · Score: 1

    That only means Apple is a grossly inefficient company. 20% SG&A vs. 8% R&D? WTF?

  2. Re:complicated on Just What is a Custom Configured Server? · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Let's see... First, Apple charges huge markups on their hardware. Second, it's supposed to be a "friendly", and so on. Third, manufacturers with lots more hardware to sell and smaller margins, such as Dell, do not have such restrictive policies. Finally, Apple does NOT make it clear you are buying a custom-configured machine that is nto returnable. You can't just click and buy, it makes you select from a list of options, some of which have nothing to do with custom configuration.

  3. Re:I wish I had this two months ago on Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6 · · Score: 1

    I am not saying that no one should ever upgrade their kernel manually. I'm also not saying that you cannot rebuild the engine in your car (which would give you a much better knowledge of how car engines work). However, both tasks are quite difficult and average users should never have to perform them manually, unless they want to do it and are willing to risk breaking things.

  4. Re:I wish I had this two months ago on Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6 · · Score: 1

    A high learning curve does not make something non-user-friendly, especially when there are rewards for the high learning curve.

    That notion is absolutely preposterous. "User-friendly" automatically implies minimal learning curve. What you are describing is something that's "powerful". By your standard, anything that isn't badly engineered is user-friendly. WRONG.

    For example, assembly language is a powerful tool. However, I think few people would describe it as "user-friendly", even though learning it has its benefits. In fact, it is decidedly not user-friendly: it is very easy to introduce many errors into your code and it is very hard to write good programs in assembly. So your definition fails miserably.

  5. Re:Open-Source Watermarks? on Corbis, DMCA, And John Kerry Photos · · Score: 1

    You can subpoena a proxy's records very easily. Proxies are usually not intended for public use and if they allow it it's generally accidental. Even if the proxy is in another country, the administrator might give out the information necessary to prosecute an abuser.

  6. Re:I wish I had this two months ago on Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6 · · Score: 0

    First, it's not exactly a manual upgrade. Second, if you use debian, you have no right to bitch about Linux being difficult to use. It's not exactly the most user-friendly system around.

  7. Re:I wish I had this two months ago on Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Have you ever even installed Mandrake? The first thing it asks is if you want to install or upgrade the system.

  8. Re:Unlikely on Resurrecting Dead Harddrives? · · Score: 1

    Just because it spins doesn't mean it's not a mechanical failure. Electronics fail very rarely, and if the drive is recognized by the system they are probably fine. There could be any number of things wrong with the drive, such as the heads or the platters getting screwed up. I would suggest downloading a diagnostic from Maxtor's website, it should tell you what's wrong more accurately.

  9. Re:I wish I had this two months ago on Upgrading Your Current System To Kernel 2.6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many times have you manually upgraded the kernel in Windows? This is not something that should be done by normal users, period. If you need a newer kernel, install a newer distribution.

  10. Re:Unlikely on Resurrecting Dead Harddrives? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wrong on both counts. Cooling it and then reheating it back to room temperature causes small mechanical movements which could make the mechanism work a little longer (though it is not very likely).

    The electronics, of all things, won't give a flying crap -- every IC I have seen, including delicate DSPs and such, is rated to at least -40 degrees Celsius (datasheet for a TI DSP, commonly used in HDDs, look at page 130). Unless you immerse it in liquid nitrogen, it won't be a problem. I'd be more worried about water condensing on internal surfaces and such.

  11. Re:Give this a miss on One more G4 for the PowerBook? · · Score: -1, Troll

    I don't use windows, and I don't know VB. I am mostly a Linux user. I just think Windows is a better OS than MacOS X. Linux beats them both because it is free software and because it's infinitely customizable.

    Here is a short list of my reasons for not liking OS X. First, it's way too dumbed down - I don't think it's even possible to customize the user interface. You can't replace Aqua with something else, right?

    Second, it's tied to Apple hardware way too tightly and often doesn't work right with third-party hardware. I've personally dealt with a Firewire DVD burner that simply refused to work on OS X, and the dumbed-down, proprietary, mostly-undocumented operating system underneath was of little help in diagnosing the problem. OS X is OK when it works, but it's impossible to fix when it breaks.

  12. Re:Need the G5 on One more G4 for the PowerBook? · · Score: 0

    I sure hope you don't tell that to your boss when you get a job. It pisses me off when people in engineering and CS classes whine about having to learn to use a major OS, like Solaris or Linux. It isn't easy. If it was easy, you would be earning the minimum wage.

  13. Re:Ham Operators.... on Broadband Over Power Lines: Coming Soon? · · Score: 1

    You are a fucktard. Cellphones will NOT work in an emergency any more than regular phones will. Which is what the push-to-talk stuff actually is. They require cell towers, fiberoptics, and so on. Cellphones did not work very well in New York during the blackout.

    And yes, I value my ability to use a radio in an emergency more than someone else's ability to watch streaming gay porn.

  14. Re:BPL not shielded on Broadband Over Power Lines: Coming Soon? · · Score: 1

    Are you fucking retarded? Short of building a metal enclosure around high-voltage power lines, there is no way to shield powerlines. They are HIGH VOLTAGE lines for fuck's sake.

  15. Re:REALLY? on One more G4 for the PowerBook? · · Score: -1, Troll

    OS X does not hold a candle to Windows XP or Linux. Let's see, a half-assed BSD clone with an ugly GUI on top. Sounds like OS X.

    Sure, the defalult XP theme is ugly too, but at least it's completely customizable. Not to mention there's hundreds of times more useful applications. And it's just as stable.

  16. Re:Need the G5 on One more G4 for the PowerBook? · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    If your grad students are too stupid to learn how to use Windows, Solaris, Linux, or any other operating system, they should not be grad students. Period. The same applies to CS faculty.

  17. Re:I hear ya... on One more G4 for the PowerBook? · · Score: 1

    *When* apple releases the G5 in a laptop, there will be dozens of similar x86 ones out there.

  18. Re:Give this a miss on One more G4 for the PowerBook? · · Score: -1, Troll

    "Professional" applications? You wouldn't happen to be a JavaScript programmer, would you? You should consider switching to Visual Basic, I heard there's more demand.

    Also, I bet your friends can really process a lot of video with that 10 gig hard drive they have in their laptop.

  19. Re:not a big fan of regulation on FCC: VoIP Providers Must Provide 911 Services · · Score: 1

    It's not that way in my state, so no, it cannot be an FCC requirement.

  20. Re:regulation is a necessary good on FCC: VoIP Providers Must Provide 911 Services · · Score: 1

    I don't remember ever voting for things like that. You need to get a clue about how the government works. Now, I'm not opposed to the idea of mandating 911 or anything, but in the real world, nobody gives a fuck what "the voters" think. Most of them are too stupid to even know there are laws like that.

  21. Re:911 LOCATION, not just 911 and how will they kn on FCC: VoIP Providers Must Provide 911 Services · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    That's not how it works, you clueless fuck. Go fuck a goat or read the article or something.

  22. Re:free power on Electromagnetic Emission Art · · Score: 1

    If nothing's using it, it really isn't there.

    Well, it IS there, it's just that the energy is not being used by anything (except leakage currents due to capacitance and so on).

    Here's a cool experiment that will demonstrate this. Take a small DC motor (like from an R/C car), and connect the terminals together. You will find that it takes more effort to turn the motor than with the terminals open. That's because the pulsating EM field that's generated by the magnets inside the motor causes current to flow in the motor windings (which are connected to the terminals). So you basically are using the motor as a generator, and all of the electric current gets dissipated as heat. If you disconnect the jumper wire, the axis of the motor will spin freely because no current can flow between the terminals (all the energy goes to friction).

  23. Re:Will last about 1/2 hour... on An Ignition Interlock In Every Car? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    RTFA dammit. The law doesn't require them in all cars. It only requires them in all cars SOLD in New Mexico. So you can go to a neighboring state, get a car there, and use it -- perfectly legally -- in NM. Or you could remove the device from your own car, again perfectly legally.

  24. Re:Oh no... on Space Station Slowly Falling Apart? · · Score: 1

    Now, if there's a cordless screwdriver that doesn't deliver torque back onto the wielder, this is the solution.

    Never mind the fact that it violates Newton's third law...

  25. Re:Trimming the edges on 27 Central Banks Push Anti-Counterfeit Software · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This kind of technology has been present in most color copiers and such for a long time. Also, I fail to see how storing an image of a real bill presents a problem. What's more likely, however, is that the system detects patterns that the bill includes (i'm sure there is some nonrandom distribution of dots or lines or something). It probably also depends on the actual software. I have no experience with that stuff, just some ideas for how such a system could be implemented.