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User: phorm

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  1. What's next on Could Tizen Be the Next Android? · · Score: 1

    Maybe Samsung will partner with ATI/AMD :-)

  2. Re:Hang on WTF? on Japanese Nobel Laureate Blasts His Country's Treatment of Inventors · · Score: 1

    I can somewhat agree with this. Certainly if you invent something extremely valuable that's directly tied to your work at a company, then that's what you were (already) paid to do.

    However, why do often we treat salespersons with a golden spoon - offering bonuses and perks - while treating intellectuals like grunts. I'm not saying that they should buy the guy a mansion, but if somebody makes or saves your company a few million (or billion, even) bucks, perhaps a bonus and a little extra would be in order.

  3. Stuxnet on FBI Seeks To Legally Hack You If You're Connected To TOR Or a VPN · · Score: 1

    Supposedly, so were the centrifuges targeted by Stuxnet.

  4. Getting insurance isn't the problem on Google Thinks the Insurance Industry May Be Ripe For Disruption · · Score: 5, Informative

    Getting insurance isn't the problem.
    Getting companies to honor it, is.
    Given how difficult it is to track down support from Google for support on some of their current offerings, I'm not sure insurance will be much of an improvement in customer experience.

  5. Re:Doubt it on Windows 10: Can Microsoft Get It Right This Time? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, for previous versions of windows it was "the first thing I do with a new PC is install fresh without all the add-on bloatware/spyware"
    With win8+, more bloat is built in

    Then again, the first thing I do after installing KDE on Linux is to disable Nepomuk and Akonadi... for similar performance reasons.

  6. Re:I hope not on Windows 10: Can Microsoft Get It Right This Time? · · Score: 1

    Since we live in the land of monopolied "Dominate and crush", we'll never know, as it actively prevents some alternatives from ever gaining growth.

    Honestly, for my work stuff though I'd at the very least like to see something like a self-hosted Google-Docs combined with versioning instead of the aweful sharepoint we use.

  7. Current path on Obama: Gov't Shouldn't Be Hampered By Encrypted Communications · · Score: 1

    If the government continues along the current path, your daughters WILL be growing up in a fascist dicatorship!

  8. Order of typing on Steam For Linux Bug Wipes Out All of a User's Files · · Score: 1

    It's why I really prefer
        rm [path] -rf

    Linux allows this, but the last BSD I used required me to put the arguments before the path
        rm -rf [path]

    Why is this bad? Well, if accidentally tap enter or something akin to that while partway through typing a path, say goodbye to anything that's along the way!

  9. Re:Breaking old cards on AMD Catalyst Is the Broken Wheel For Linux Gaming · · Score: 1

    Oh there's nothing wrong with the card that would require "baking" etc, it's purely a driver issue. They fixed a brightness-button issue and in turn something sets the backlight to 0 on my model.

  10. Breaking old cards on AMD Catalyst Is the Broken Wheel For Linux Gaming · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of the reasons why I will probably not buy an ATI/AMD (for graphics), is that support for older hardware is pretty terrible. I have an Asus laptop which worked *beautifully* in both Windows/Linux.
    Apparently, some people (not me) had issues with brightness control not working on the fglrx driver. AMD fixes that, and on my laptop (and others, according to Google) the backlight breaks. As soon as X initializes my backlight goes dark. In a bright room I can barely see that X otherwise started successfully and is displaying a login window.. It's been over a year. I've seen lots of chatter on fixes for the brightness-control button, but pretty much zip about the broken backlight.

    I can use the Radeon driver so that X will work, but video is choppy and since I'm working on actually developing GL code, it's pretty much useless for that. So... core i7 processor, lots of RAM, decently powerful GPU, and a farked video driver that renders the whole thing useless.

    I had actually been migrating more towards AMD from nVidia since their graphics drivers had shown promise since ATI was acquired, but frankly the nightmare of bug-support is pushing me back towards nVidia. It especially sucks for a laptop since I can't exactly replace the GPU on what it otherwise fully functional hardware.

    Currently I'm picking at firegl_public.c and related modules attempting to merge the 13.25 driver with the 8.960 driver (I've been told that reverting to the older driver will allow the backlight to work, but in my case it won't compile under DKMS).

    To any AMD Linux driver devs listening: I would be happy to work with you on this. Hell, I can ship you the damn laptop for a few months if you believe that would help develop a driver that works again.

  11. Re:Prepare for more on Belgian Raid Kills 2, Said To Avert "Major Terrorist Attacks" · · Score: 1

    So has the Westboro Baptist lopped off anyone's head because they were the wrong version of Christianity

    Honestly, given the actions of the WBC, I'm surprised nobody has tried to off their leaders/members.

  12. Migration on Ask Slashdot: Migrating a Router From Linux To *BSD? · · Score: 2

    You don't even need to blow away the Linux partition. Just install to a 4GB USB stick and set that to be the first boot-device.

  13. Rubles on Bitcoin Volatility Puts Miners Under Pressure · · Score: 1

    Quick, time to exchange my Bitcoins for Rubles and stock in Blackberry... oh wait.
    Or maybe Canadian dollars... oh wait.

    Like regular currencies or stocks, pseudo-currencies are also volatile.

  14. Re:"and they may be bought for their assets." on Radio Shack Reported To Be Ready for Bankruptcy Filing · · Score: 1

    Sure there is. A very short distance from where I am right now, there's a electronics hobby-shop that carries more than the rat-shack has in years. They seem to survive well enough by supplying parts to businesses as well as consumers, and offering repair services, etc. I don't live in a large city, but when I last did there were many such places.
    You might not be able to get the part for $0.10, but if you're in a hurry the markup isn't too obscene, and if it is, well... then you've still got the option of online. The internet has just killed "20 days to order in our vastly overpriced kit", because now you can just direct-order the same online cheaper and sometimes faster.

  15. Professional VS expert on There's a Problem In the Silk Road Trial: the Jury Doesn't Get the Internet · · Score: 1

    Indeed. I am a Linux "professional". I am not an "expert", though some may call me that.
    This is because I personally understand that while I know a lot about Linux and specifically about the systems I administer, there is so much more I don't know. Much of that is "stuff you don't need to know... until you do (which is unlikely, but possible)".

    Whenever somebody in IT calls himself/herself an expert, I cringe, because there's *always* so much more you can learn. Hell, people are learning new tricks about systems they've been tending to for decades, especially when it comes to interaction with other systems.

  16. Indeed, I've heard professionals in many industries call each other idiots, state that something is not possible, etc simply because they lacked a small bit of knowledge about a given situation/exception. Would you want to be tried by somebody who knows how "system X" works in an optimal situation, but doesn't take into account environmental circumstances?

  17. This is actually a fairly reasonable request. There can be a big difference between

    I'm going to kill that guy
    VS
    I'm going to kill that guy :-)

    Even with the emoticon, a lot of context can still be lost, but they can help a bit.

  18. Re:Network appliance on Tiny Fanless Mini-PC Runs Linux Or Windows On Quad-core AMD SoC · · Score: 1

    Computer stick. Cute as a small computer. Useless as a firewall/router (what ethernet)?

  19. Re:Network appliance on Tiny Fanless Mini-PC Runs Linux Or Windows On Quad-core AMD SoC · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that was the part that turned me off too. It's not such a big deal for an internet firewall though. Even a realtek card can manage that in most cases.

  20. Network appliance on Tiny Fanless Mini-PC Runs Linux Or Windows On Quad-core AMD SoC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Depending on how well the ethernet interface performs, this looks like it would make a decent little network appliance (PFsense, etc). Of course with the R2 graphics, it's probably good for more than that, but since Via seemed to slow down on their stuff I've had issues finding good mini-boards for firewalls etc (not enough interfaces on a Pi, which is also a bit slow).

    It looks like the 6200T also has some AES acceleration, but I wonder if there's anything like Via's padlock (which was quite nice for VPN's or SSL tunnels).

  21. Re:rubbish on Man Saves Wife's Sight By 3D Printing Her Tumor · · Score: 1

    or he went to a pretend hospital staffed by retards.

    Yes, because hospital stuff are never overworked, hurried, etc. They never make rush decisions, or screw up results. Never...

    Says the AC, whose personal medical training probably involved a CPR course once 5-6 years ago...

  22. Time VS knowledge on UK Computing Teachers Concerned That Pupils Know More Than Them · · Score: 1

    When I was a sysadmin in school districts, my concern wasn't that the kids know more than me (in general), but rather that they had a whole lot more time on their hands to find the little things I hadn't thought of, new exploits, etc.

    My former co-worker setup network drives using NFS. Since the computers were bootloader-locked and the etherboot network was MAC-restricted he thought it was good enough. He wasn't very happy when I demonstrated my point with a pink "pony" background during his demo, but he still insisted "the kids will never figure that out."

    When I think of the stuff we did in HS, it sometimes still amazes me. Rudimentary knowledge, lots of time for research and experimentation. Admins and teachers alike, beware!

  23. Souvenirs on Chinese Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around the Moon · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure a lot of the souvenirs left behind would be desirable.

  24. Windows Update on Microsoft Ends Mainstream Support For Windows 7 · · Score: 1

    The changes to Control Panel and especially "Windows Update"
    I truly miss the little tray icon and window indicating my status of updates. Now I have to slide out the side bar, go into an obscure submenu, and deal with a crappy full-screen interface to check on what should essentially be a background task.

  25. Re:Malware on How To Hijack Your Own Windows System With Bundled Downloads · · Score: 4, Informative

    I classify adware/junkware as malware, as - at the very least - the extra use of resources (memory, disk) is a drain on the PC. Even browser toolbars tend to reduce the performance of a computer.