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User: MachineShedFred

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  1. I would like to know what I get out of a 'smart' TV for the extra cost and terrible interface provided, that I can't do better with a AppleTV / ChromeCast / Amazon FireTV stick, which can be swapped out as new technologies emerge.

    I'm very glad that I have a TV that I purchased right before the whole 'smart' TV thing started happening, which only tries to be a large display that accepts HDMI signals. That way, I don't have to have it exposed to a menagerie of flaws and failures due to firmware that is never updated.

  2. I'm probably just jaded - whenever a company makes an all-in-one mini anything, they usually get it mostly right, but do one or two stupid things that absolutely aggravate.

    But there's no reason to think that you're going to have to hack around in the kernel to get it to go.

  3. My guess is that because it's using Sky Lake generation cores, it's likely to also be using Sky Lake generation chipsets and devices. So, it would follow that any Linux distribution that works properly on a Sky Lake desktop / laptop would also work on one of these.

    That doesn't mean it won't be a huge ass pain to get it going.

  4. Re:Oh, well, that's okay then on Seismic Data From North Korea Suggest a Repeat of 2013 Nuclear Test · · Score: 1

    Creating a nuclear yield, given having the materials to do the job handy really isn't that tough of an exercise now that it's been done, if you can do math.

    Making a device that can do that small enough and rugged enough to attach it to a missile and deliver it somewhere (accurately), and still have it function when it reaches it's destination, is a completely different story.

  5. Re:Can this entry be any more click bait? on Enterprise Datacenter Hardware Assumptions May Be In For a Shakeup (acm.org) · · Score: 1

    You're not kidding about the supercomputer in a cracker jack box. The average iPhone now has as much or more compute power as a Cray Y-MP from the early 90s.

  6. Re:Can this entry be any more click bait? on Enterprise Datacenter Hardware Assumptions May Be In For a Shakeup (acm.org) · · Score: 1

    or "this one weird trick"

    Don't forget about the one weird trick.

  7. Re:Wrong, I don't on The Swift Programming Language's Most Commonly Rejected Changes (github.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you're inviting the old-school anti-IDE folk to come and chime in now.

    I use an IDE, and it indents for me 90% of the time, because it understands the language and auto-indents another tab stop when a curly brace and carriage return is input, or begin / end, etc.

    I almost never use the tab key when coding, because I, like you, have a smarter tool to do that inane task for me.

  8. C++ is a toy language. That's a new one.

  9. Re: French programming on The Swift Programming Language's Most Commonly Rejected Changes (github.com) · · Score: 1

    My current job is helping a team to replace a 3rd party billing provider which still uses 4D databases.

    You can imagine why we are firing them.

  10. The linked article mentions both tritium injection, as well as the use of timing and "external neutron initiators" are the mechanisms used.

  11. You're probably right when it comes to North Korea, but it's worth mentioning that players in the nuclear weapons game have had variable yield devices for some time now. The US B-61 bomb could be set for 0.3kt to a maximum of 80kt with a dial by the ground operator who loads it into the bomber.

    There's basically no way that North Korea would have a device that sophisticated on their first spin of the wheel though.

  12. Yeah, no.

    They might have achieved a "boosted" fission device, which can be measured by looking at the overall yield of the device as well as products left behind after detonation to confirm if any fusion happened at all. The US was able to do this relatively shortly after the original Manhattan project (the USSR also did this) but there was a lot of added complexity for very little yield increase.

    The real 'hydrogen bomb' came about from Stanislaus Ulam postulating that you could use the radiation from a fission explosion to compress a fusion fuel load in order to initiate fusion. This idea was quickly picked up on by Edward Teller, and a team was formed to explore it consisting of scientists at Los Alamos and Princeton University. This is how all 'hydrogen bombs' work, though modern designs are a bit more clever than the first experimental devices of the early 1950s that used cryogenic deuterium gas and liquid tritium that needs to be changed out after it half-lifes away; in favor of using lithium-6 deuteride as the fusion fuel, which breaks down into 2T + D during the explosion, which then fuses into He-4 + an extra neutron and releasing ~17MeV worth of energy at the same time.

    If you'd like to read about the many challenges that the original team faced, as well as a pretty good explanation of how it works, I suggest going to one of the physicists involved in the original project: http://www.amazon.com/Building...

  13. Re:I hope they all die in a fire on Coin Teams With MasterCard In Wearable Payments Push (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    Especially since the use of said device makes it so that a coin is never involved.

  14. Re:Is this a Joke? on Coin Teams With MasterCard In Wearable Payments Push (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    By integrating Coin's "technology" you can make your "wearable" as useful for contactless payment as your two year old smartphone with NFC. As in, your device can have multiple payment card infos on it, you pick one, and then do a Jedi wave. Just like you can with basically an Android or iPhone since 2014.

    Yay?

  15. Re:Here is a better idea... on Coin Teams With MasterCard In Wearable Payments Push (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    Exactly why I cancelled my preorder - when they delayed it to be a month before all the retailers were supposed to have EMV readers installed at the point of sale, and Coin didn't yet support EMV, it showed that they weren't keeping up. Then, when they reduced the number of available units in their 'beta' due to manufacturing issues, it reinforced it.

    I wasn't going to pay that kind of money to get something already obsolete, months late. Nice try, but learn to execute.

  16. Re:What happens when firmware gets old? on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    I don't know why it would need a firmware update other than bug fixes. It's not like they'll have to update it if Facebook changes an API, and if it does require some external API then it's a completely useless piece of shit.

    The world has had microcontroller-based systems that never get updated for decades.

  17. Re:Really? on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    It is a requirement for anyone "in the business" of selling guns.

    What that means is anyone's guess, and that's likely what this administration wants to redefine. If they do it right, they shouldn't have any problem from anyone that isn't a frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic.

    Example: I have a handgun that I'd like to sell to my friend, because I'm not likely to use it anymore. He has expressed interest in buying it in the past. He is not a convicted felon, and already owns firearms, some legally purchased from a FFL dealer where a background check has already been performed. Do I have to go get some license and fill out a phone book worth of paperwork to do this under the new rules? If I do, then the new rules are complete shit, and I'm just going to keep the gun.

  18. Re:Passing more laws won't change criminals... on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because every single motorcycle rider drives 180 in traffic. All of them.

    Who's the asshole again?

  19. Re:Looking for ideas - what's the answer? on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, leaders who actually would compromise and attempt to solve the issues get shouted down in the primary process. Due to the hard-lean necessary to get the nomination, the candidate will ultimately be unpalatable to the moderates and independents. See: Mitt Romney. Actually fairly moderate, but had to eat every right-wing quote during the general election that came out of his mouth during the primaries in order to get the nomination over some of the real nutbags.

    Until something drastic changes, I'm afraid it's all partisan hackery from here out.

  20. Re:Looking for ideas - what's the answer? on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, except that directly goes against the Bill of Rights. And, the 'deterrence' factor of extreme punishment has never been shown to be worth a hill of beans, because someone who is looking to murder isn't thinking rationally about it. There is only a few possibilities: they think they won't get caught, therefore the punishment doesn't matter; they aren't thinking at all because they are acting on pure emotion, therefore the punishment doesn't have a deterrent effect; or they are involved in organized crime / gang violence where the consequences for NOT doing it is far less dainty and civilized than anything the government will do, and far more rapid.

    This is why capital punishment has had almost no effect on lowering crime rates.

  21. Re:Arm the first responders... on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    If someone wants to do damage, they will do damage. Take away guns, and they mix fertilizer with diesel (two things you can't do much more to restrict) to make a bomb. Take away ammonium nitrate fertilizer, and someone that is serious enough will just synthesize it themselves with off-the-shelf household chemicals.

    A lot of people also forget that it doesn't take a whole lot to make a crude firearm out of some pipe and a few springs. No law will ever prevent a criminal from doing crime - they are criminals.

  22. Re:This is controversial? on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Good to see that your Canadian smugness goes unchecked even in the face of actual facts.

    The President basically just said that he's directing law enforcement to actually enforce the laws that have been on the books since 1998. Without redefining who is "in the business" of selling guns to something prohibitively stupid, this was a press conference for the sake of having a press conference.

    Here's a little exercise for you: try to go to a gun show and buy a gun from anyone without getting a background check done. Unless you are buying from some guy who is liquidating an inherited collection at his first and last gun show, you're going to get checked.

  23. Re:Legislating from the oval office on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    And the short term result will be another explosion in gun sales. One could make an argument that Obama is the best gun salesman in modern history due to all this nonsense.

  24. Re:NOT far enough on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because clearly the criminal that is planning to use a gun for murder is going to worry about the charge from possession of a firearm in your magical fairy world where 20% of the Bill of Rights gets repealed.

  25. Re:RF? on Obama Orders Feds To Study Smart Gun Technology (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    What's wrong with trigger locks, is that they aren't used enough.

    I say that as an owner of two handguns, so I'm not some gun control shill.