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User: toddestan

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  1. Re:It seems ironic... on Ballmer Scorns Apple As a $500 Logo · · Score: 1

    Well, one of the things that probably worries corporate users is that upgradability is synonymous with repairability. The new iMacs are simply a pain in the ass to take apart and work on. Corporations prefer computers that are fast and easy to fix, so when they break they can get them back up and running quickly without wasting the IT departments time. You'll notice that most corporate PCs are built with this in mind (screwless designs, quick-releases, things like that). This is the complete opposite of the iMac, which is part of the reason they are shunned.

  2. Re:It seems ironic... on Ballmer Scorns Apple As a $500 Logo · · Score: 1

    Maybe they've improved them then, but I played with a wired Mighty Mouse right after they came out, and found it to be the most poorly designed and frustrating 2-button mouse I'd ever used.

  3. Re:You're doing it wrong on Ballmer Scorns Apple As a $500 Logo · · Score: 1

    I've got PC hardware that old I still use, that still works flawlessly. I'm sure it cost less than the G3 (I'm guessing here, I got them second-hand), which would make them cheaper than the Mac. Being able to more easily upgrade and repair them also helps.

  4. Re:Is anyone surprised? on Taxpayers Fund AIG Lawsuit Against US · · Score: 1

    It's still the corporate equilivent of an individual who lives paycheck to paycheck. In other words, not financially healthly.

  5. Re:Suprise? on Phenom IIs, Core I7-920 Win Out In Value Analysis · · Score: 1

    Actually, it's probably a bad idea to buy anything Intel at the moment if you care about upgradability. Intel has already announced plans to create a new, lower pin socket for the desktop version of the Core i7 processors, and yet another new socket with more pins for the server-class hardware. There really isn't room for three sockets here, and being in the middle, I see the role that LGA-1366 plays being squeezed at both ends, with the result that it will get absorbed into the other sockets. As for LGA-775, I don't see much new coming out for it on the high end, though I suppose you could alway start out with a budget processor today knowing that you could drop in a Core 2 Quad at a later date. If you can wait, I would wait for the lower-pin desktop version of Core i7 (Core i5?) and buy one of those as it will probably be around a while.

  6. Re:IT'S NOT THE MUSIC on 17 Million People Stopped Buying CDs In 2008 · · Score: 1

    One thing you might want to consider is that the mastering of today's music is simply terrible when compared to the music of years past, thanks to the loudness war. This isn't a subjective thing like "I hate disco", it's something you can look at and can see by opening the waveforms in a program like Audacity. That's why I have a hard time liking most new mainstream stuff coming from the RIAA nowadays - it's not that the music itself is bad, it's just due to all the clipping and lack of dynamic range, I simply find listening to it unpleasant.

  7. Re:Not really, no. on AnandTech Gives the Skinny On Recent SSD Offerings · · Score: 1

    Is there really any reason you can't simply have the OS automatically "zero" the space used by any file that is deleted? This kind of thing can already done as a security measure as it is for spinning disks. The only problem with that I could see is that eventually if the drive gets really fragmented, you'll eventually reach a point where every block will have some pages containing data so you'll still have to do the erase and rewrite business to write a file.

  8. Re:SSDs get slower the more you use them on AnandTech Gives the Skinny On Recent SSD Offerings · · Score: 1

    It may not be a big deal. All you would have to do is create your encrypted partition that's slightly smaller than the entire disk (say, 1-2GB less). That way, you'll always have empty blocks available for writing files to, and due to the way the drive works, these empty blocks will essentially move around randomly on the drive as you make writes to it. Of course, this is assuming that the drive doesn't automatically do that for you, as the article mentions that some drives keep a few % worth of blocks around as extra for this specific reason.

  9. Re:Drives on The 100 Degree Data Center · · Score: 1

    Some drive, such as the 10K and faster ones, do run pretty hot and will last longer the extra cooling. But the standard desktop drive is more or less designed to be inside a standard case with no special cooling other than the regular airflow through the case.

  10. Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system on The 100 Degree Data Center · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because I'm always having to deal with saturated brine. I can't tell you how many times I've gone out driving in sub-zero temperatures and nearly skidded on all that saturated brine ice.

    In northern climates, it's common to put salt on the roads to prevent ice from forming by lowering the freezing point of water. Can you quickly tell me at approximately what temperature will that no longer be effective?

  11. Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system on The 100 Degree Data Center · · Score: 1

    I would say that if one was tasked to come up with a temperature scale to describe the weather, they might decide it would intuitive to have a the common range of temperatures be a nice round number, like 100 degrees. It would then follow that 0 degrees would be the coldest common temperture, and 100 degrees would be the hottest common temperature. And you would have just re-invented the Fahrenheit scale.

    With Celcius, the 0 point is at a nice place, as the approximate point where water freezes is a good anchor, even if it means you have to deal with negative temperature values for a good part of the year. However, the 100 degree point anchored at where water boils is somewhat useless. About 55C is the point where something is hot enough where you can't hold your finger against it for more than a couple of seconds. Anything more is simply too damn hot, from a human sensorly standpoint.

  12. Re:Were nerds here... use the f'ing metric system on The 100 Degree Data Center · · Score: 1

    It's not that hard. If you have your thermostat where you spend a lot of time set to the same temperature for a while, and the humidity stays relatively constant (like in the winter), you'll notice when it gets slightly warmer and cooler. I can tell when my furnance is about to kick in, which is roughly 1/2 a degree C below where it shuts off. Now that the weather is getting warmer, I can also tell when the temperature rises above where I have it set a bit.

    However, if you walk me into a random room, I'll probably have trouble nailing the temperature down to within 5 degrees F or so.

  13. Re:if they do that on Intel Threatens To Revoke AMD's x86 License · · Score: 1

    They lost backwards compatibility with anything about 5 years or older at the time of the switch, as Classic never made it to Intel.

  14. Re:1/8" stereo plug that doesn't fail after 6 mont on How $1,500 Headphones Are Made · · Score: 1

    Buy a cheap 3.5mm extension cable. Since the end you plug the headphones is free to move, it won't get stressed as much. If the extension cable starts acting up, just replace it.

  15. Re:Is throttling really cheaper? on Morality of Throttling a Local ISP? · · Score: 1

    How would that happen? How would the router know it is Bittorrent traffic?

    Lets see, customer opens up a bunch of encrypted connections to a bunch of random IPs that belong to either other home internet users or perhaps a college, and starts to send and recieve lots of data? Sure, there's no way to know it's bittorrent for sure, but you can probably guess fairly reliably when someone opens their torrent client without actually inspecting any of the data.

  16. Re:Precious Snowflakes on Narcissistic College Graduates In the Workplace? · · Score: 1

    Most major colleges I know about have one. Here's an example:
    http://www.career.umn.edu/

    When I was in college, I found them more useful for things like the job fairs they organized rather than for things like guidance, which is best obtained from someone working in the field you'd like to go into.

  17. Re:Missiles reach SPACE you know. on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 1

    I would assume that they would probably paint it something like sky blue, so it will tend to blend in. It's not going to be something like the Goodyear blimp, which is something that tries to get noticed. If anything, it probably be the easiest to spot either in the evening twilight right after sunset, or in the early morning right before the sunrise, where it will appear as a very brightly lit dot in the sky.

  18. Re:From across the pond on March 14th Officially Becomes National Pi Day · · Score: 1

    That can be ambigious too if you're not familiar with the way the military writes the date. As in, do you mean 2009-03-14 or 2014-03-09?

  19. Re:Amps and Pre-amps on iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice · · Score: 1

    Your amplifier isn't restricted to what it will try to amplify - it will accept any signal you put into it. Also, it's an analog device. So no, that isn't DRM related at all.

  20. Re:Headphones on iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice · · Score: 1

    And no, "here, it's $45 and 50% bigger than the shuffle" doesn't count.

    You do realize that the only reason the Shuffle is so small is because they stripped every possible feature out of it? Screens and buttons do take up space, you know.

  21. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. on iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice · · Score: 1

    That's exactly what he's talking about when he mention the Apple apologists. So, what part of putting a special chip in the headphones to prevent unauthorized devices is not DRM?

  22. Re:Richardson on Federal CIO Kundra Takes Leave of Absence After Woes · · Score: 1

    It seems to be more like they were willing to destroy America in order to save it. Things like destroying civil liberties to root out terrorists, using torture to gather intelligence, premptively attacking those that could threaten the US in the future, stuff like that. On the surface, it seemed that they meant well but were misguided in both their actions and the targets of their actions. Beneath that, it seemed they were just grabbing and abusing power for their own ends, using national security as a cover for their actions.

  23. Re:And a $1000 PC next year will outperform it on What Does a $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway? · · Score: 1

    The Opteron 8360 SE is a quad core server chip at 2.5Ghz, each core with 512kb of L2 cache, and has a 2MB L3 cache. It's also a year old. I would like to see what system you can build for $1000 today that can outperform four of those puppies.

  24. Re:I inherited a $10,000 PC in 1999... on What Does a $16,000+ PC Look Like, Anyway? · · Score: 1

    There's no way you played WoW on a dual 333Mhz, which would be a P2 and not all that impressive for 1999. Did you mean 933Mhz by chance?

  25. Re:Moral of the Story - DON'T STEAL on Libel Suits OK Even If Libel Is Truthful · · Score: 1

    I suspect you are flirting with my girlfriend and accuse you of theft. I even plant evidence in your car and you are convicted. Welcome to the end of your life.

    You might want to be careful, as I'm going to guess that vigilantism is also okay in his world.