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User: toddestan

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  1. Re:Increased probability of HDD failure on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Harddrives are mechanical devices, and are wearing out anytime they are powered up and running. While I'm sure that a drive does get stressed a bit more when it is turned on, I can guarantee you that a drive that runs for 40-50 hours a week is going to last longer than a drive that runs 168 hours a week.

    There are also other benefits. A harddrive that has motors or bearings that are starting to fail can be caught when they have trouble spinning up and be replaced before they totally fail, preventing data loss. Furthermore, if a head crash occurs when no one is around (during the night or the weekend), having the the heads banging and grinding against the platters for hours or days is really going to hamper any recovery efforts.

  2. Re:Common wisdom on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I find that powering on a system is an excellent time to catch things that are starting to fail. I'd much rather catch the harddisk when it's starting to have issues spinning up and replace it then, as opposed to finding out the harddrive is a brick when I try to start up a computer that was just shut down after months of being on. It's been a long time since I've lost any data on a harddisk that was regularly powered down. Furthermore, I've also found that drives that are only run a few hours a day outlast drives that are run 24/7 anyway.

  3. Re:We power down at weekends on Do Any Companies Power Down at Night? · · Score: 1

    Windows XP can install updates automatically whenever the computer is shut down. Why don't you just push the updates out and let them be installed when the employee leaves for the evening?

  4. Re:Bush Screws Up Everything He Touches on Asteroid Missions May Replace Lunar Base Plans · · Score: 1

    Manned asteroid missions have little if anything to do with asteroid deflection strategies. If you want to keep the Earth safe from big nasty dinosaur-killers, you spend money on tracking every Earth crossing Asteroid in the sky, not on sending people to 1 or 2 of them.

    It's not totally useless. For example, a possible strategy to deal with an astroid headed towards Earth might be to land on it and strategically plant explosives on it to break it up. It could prove helpful if we've already praticed landing men on an asteroid if the time comes for that.

  5. Re:Swapping batteries, not replacing is the point on MacBook Air's Battery is Actually Easy to Replace · · Score: 1

    It's fine for 100mbit networks, but if you're used to the gigabit speeds found on most other laptops nowadays, you'll be disappointed.

  6. Re:Mod parent up on MacBook Air's Battery is Actually Easy to Replace · · Score: 1

    I'll add that I bet that a third party will make an outboard battery you can jack into the power plug, ending all arguments.

    And will promptly be sued of out existance by Apple for violating their patents on the Magsafe connectors.

  7. Re:Not a problem on a Mac on MacBook Air's Battery is Actually Easy to Replace · · Score: 1

    I don't know about the newer ones, but the older PPC laptops, having to unplug it from the wall and yank the battery was not an uncommon occurance.

  8. Re:Keep waiting on MacBook Air's Battery is Actually Easy to Replace · · Score: 2, Informative

    I see it mostly for the people who plan on using their laptop sitting at their desk almost all of the time, but still want the capability to grab it and go if they need to. It would also make a great system for LAN parties and such.

  9. Re:SIgned ints for cash on World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31 · · Score: 1

    The original Master of Orion (where you had stacks of ships) would roll over past 32,767 and result in negative numbers of ships. I forget if that one only affected the computer players or not. Another bug along the same lines was when maintance costs for your fleet would roll over and therefore the ships would be making you money instead of costing you money.

  10. Re:SIgned ints for cash on World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31 · · Score: 1

    SimCity 2000 had this bug as well. By ruining your credit at the beginning of the game (through a joke cheat that gave you a shitty loan) you could get it to the point where the game offers you loans with negative interest.
    Each year, you have to repay your interest... which is money they give you. Nice.


    Furthermore, if you let the game run for a while after using those cheats you would eventually get to $2,147,483,647 at which point you would go to negative with the result that you usually got thrown out of town.

  11. Re:God Recycles on New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory — Evolution Not Random · · Score: 1

    I mean it must have taken awhile to design millions of organisms, He must have recycled ideas somewhere

    Took a while? I was under the impression that it took him less than week.

  12. Re:Context on New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory — Evolution Not Random · · Score: 1

    Take, for example, the "fact" that the United States should not have removed Saddam Hussein from power.

    Here's some context for you:

    1. Saddam was not a threat to the US, was not even an imminent threat and did not have the claimed WMD.
    2. The costs of doing so both in dollars and lives
    3. The loss in standing in the international community from "going it alone"
    4. That it would generate even more hatred towards the US is the middle east, which if anything helps the terrorists
    5. That it throw Iraq into choas, which helps the terrorists
    6. That it would divert military resources away from real threats
    7. That the US had no real plan for the post-Saddam Iraq
    etc.

    It's not like I haven't heard these arguments for the past several years already, and many of them date back before the invasion.

    Liberals do not think. Therefore they are not human.

    And you appear to be yet another idiot Republican that plugs their ears and covers their eyes whenever they see or hear something that doesn't agree with their ass-backwards viewpoints. No wonder you've never heard any "context". Either that, or you're a troll, or both I suppose.

  13. Re:The lack of good head less desktop and a $1500 on What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple · · Score: 1

    That's great and all, but the Mini is Apple's only desktop computer for under $1000, so it is forced to compete in other market segments where it fairs very poorly in terms of price and the features it offers.

  14. Re:greed on What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As far as I can tell, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and Apple charging for software upgrades don't have anything to do with each other. Which makes sense, as it seems plenty of other companies seem to be able to distribute software upgrades for free. So unless you can point out exactly why Apple must charge $20 for this upgrade, I'm going to have to call BS.

  15. Re:Lack of acknowledgment of my market segment on What Bugs Apple Fans About Apple · · Score: 1

    I don't see it as a nitch, it's just that we've gotten to the point that for most people, even a computer that's several years old is perfectly adequate for their needs. People like their desktops, it's just that their 3-4 year old computer is still chugging along and they see no reason to replace it. It would be the same for laptops, except that laptops get abused and break, so the demand for laptops hasn't fallen off like it has for desktops.

  16. Re:Megan's Law should apply to all dangerous crimi on Proposed CA Bill Would Create Domestic Offender Database · · Score: 1

    It's a nice idea, but how does one decide whether or not someone is currently dangerous? Assuming that you could do this reliably, then why even bother with lists as opposed to keeping the dangerous criminals seperated from the rest of society until they are no longer dangerous?

    That's my problem with these lists, either someone is too dangerous to be let back into society, in which case they shouldn't be on a list and instead in some kind of institution or jail, or they have served their time and are no longer dangerous, and thus should be able to live their lives without the stigma of being on some list.

  17. Re:So just start a ... on The World Wide Computer, Monopolies and Control · · Score: 1

    Where would you get the hardware if the general purpose computer went away? You'd be fine for a while using stockpiles of existing hardware, of course, but I really don't see many of today's computers lasting more than a couple of decades without suffering problems from capacitors drying out, harddrives seizing, tin whiskers, plastic parts degrading, and things like that.

  18. Re:Any electricians in the house? Bad wiring! on New Dell Laptops Give Users a Literal Shock · · Score: 1

    He's right though. US outlets have the nuetral prong wider than the hot prong, and a lot of devices have their plugs keyed so they'll only go in one way, and thus seem to assume that the wide prong will thus always be hooked to nuetal. If someone wires the outlet backwards, the device will generally still work (perhaps not if it's sitting on a grounded surface, or is grounded through another cable for something like a TV), but you could get shocked when you touch the casing.

  19. Re:Wait a second on Microsoft to Spy on Employees · · Score: 1

    How do you treat people who have poor credit scores because they simply don't have a history of taking out credit?

  20. Re:No ethernet port, no optical drive on Apple Announces MacBook Air · · Score: 1

    Which then ties up your only USB port.

  21. Re:Compared to the MacBook: on Apple Announces MacBook Air · · Score: 1

    Last I checked you can't squeeze 5 hours out of a MacBook. With some extreme power saving measures you might be able to top 4.5h, but at that point you'd be afraid to even squint at the dimly lit screen.

    Likewise, I fully expect that the actual battery life of the Macbook Air is going to be less than what Apple claims, as usual.

  22. Re:"Integrated Battery" on Apple Announces MacBook Air · · Score: 1

    If you have to carry a purse full of accessories, then what's the point of getting an ultrathin laptop? Might as well get the regular laptop with everything you need built in.

  23. Re:WTF? on Apple Announces MacBook Air · · Score: 1

    They all require power, some more than others (and undoubtably some of the no-names lie about how much power they really draw in an attempt to make them work on some unpowered hubs). I've found they are pretty hit and miss when it comes to plugging them into USB keyboards.

  24. Re:Turn off UPNP on Most Home Routers Vulnerable to Flash UPnP Attack · · Score: 1

    I have a router PC too, in my case it runs m0n0wall on an old PIII (way overkill). I would figure there would be a lot of people like us around here. My firewall doesn't even support UPnP, so no worries there.

  25. Re:No, acetylene! on Helium Crisis Approaching · · Score: 1

    Actually, you can also Darwin yourself if you somehow make it so that you can't reproduce. Killing yourself isn't required, though it's the easiest way to go about removing yourself from the gene pool.