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User: geighaus

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Comments · 58

  1. Back in 2006 on Wikimedia Trying P2P Video Distribution · · Score: 1

    I wrote my master thesis on a similar solution. I made a Python-based standalone implementation of the protocol and a simulator for it with everything happening on a single local machine. No nodes or no internet traffic. Kind of lame, but hey I got my degree :) Never bothered to do a proper implementation suitable for the real world use, as I got bored to tears by the time the thesis was done. Glad to see this something like this happening for real.

  2. Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual on Shouldn't Every Developer Understand English? · · Score: 1

    Ah, those weasel words. Considered by whom? Is there any research done in this area? Finnish is not my native language and after having lived here in Finland for 13 years, I am pretty fluent in it. I haven't found it any more difficult that any other foreign languages I have experience with. Different yes, but more difficult hardly. And for your information Chinese too consider their language to be the most difficult to master and so do Russians. I guess the difficulty of a language is a part of the national pride found in many cultures.

    English is not easy at all. A myriad of exceptions, completely weird pronunciation rules (again with tons of exceptions), 15 or so tenses - these factors alone make English far from trivial. The only case for simplicity of English I can think of off the top of my head is its ubiquity. In most Western cultures you cannot avoid English, it is everywhere. And if you encounter a language on a daily basis, of course it makes it easy for you.

  3. Re:Bailout Bandwagon on Governments Preparing To Bail Out DRAM Makers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The dollar got stronger, because everyone is busy paying back their loans denominated in dollars. This creates a temporary demand for dollar. But rest assured with injections of trillions of newly-created dollars into the economy, little of the value dollar has left will be disintegrated. Correct me if I am wrong.

  4. Re:Obligitory on Review of Amazon's DRM-Less Music Download Store · · Score: 0

    This is true only for public trackers. There are excellent private trackers, which carry almost anything you can think of. One, for example, carries over 100000 music torrents now (all are high quality).

  5. Re:Copy or not on Apple, Cisco Settle iPhone Trademark Lawsuit · · Score: 0

    From the top of my head

    - Sidebar
    - Desktop search
    Here is a review of Longhorn alpha from 2002. http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/longhorn_alpha .asp

  6. Re:Copy or not on Apple, Cisco Settle iPhone Trademark Lawsuit · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Still mac enthusiasts call Vista an OSX clone forgetting that many Vista features appeared in the alpha versions of Vista way before they made it to OSX. Don't you love double standards.

  7. Installed it a month ago on Windows Vista Launches To Mixed Reactions · · Score: 2, Informative

    - GUI is beautiful. OSX pales in comparison. - UI has been revamped with all those subtle improvements. Liking it. There are a couple of bugs / annoyances (like disappearing folder view after deleting an item), but overall it is a great improvement over XP. - While some effects (taskbar window preview) are of a novelty value, they serve no real purpose and do not improve your productivity. - Same applies for the Alt-Tab windows preview. Nice, but I prefer the version with program icons. - Some changes are not so nice and confuse the hell out of me (like the redesigned network connections). - Pirating it is a pain in arse. Possible, but you have to go through hoops to get it working. Don't think it is unpiratable as MS claims. More like Vista is employing the security by obscurity principle here (considering the level of complexity and clutter of the OS). - Aero performance is ok on AMD x2 3800 with 1gb of memory and a nvidia 6 something graphic controller. - UAC is way too annoying. Had to turn it off on the - Got hit by spyware (something that never happened in XP with no antivirus installed). What's even worse I had no idea how to defend against it. Wiping all the spyware from the hdd, it just kept finding a way into my computer. As the result, had to reinstall the whole thing altogether. Now seems to be working fine. - Built-in firewall is too confusing and gives a green light to the OS components (god knows what communication takes place between my computer and microsoft). 3rd party firewalls for XP do not work under Vista. - Boot manager got screwed several times with no apparent reason. - Ultimate Edition extras are not worth it. Overall, I like the feel of Vista, but it makes an impression of a raw product. Oh and I absolutely have no idea why it takes 7.3GB of diskspace.

  8. Re:1/3 of the market is huge on Interest in Embedded Linux Remains Low · · Score: 1

    Err, 1/3? More like one fifth of the market. Still not bad, but nowhere near one third.

  9. warning, apple fanboys attack on Songbird Flies Today · · Score: 1

    More than 100 comments are already posted and the general opinion is that this piece. I guess if someone would release an open-source alternative of WMP, everyone would rave about it. Or wait a second, does not everyone and their dog love WMP Classic? What's wrong with Songbird then? The fact it competes with the beloved Apple? Come on, isn't that the choice is all about? Providing alternatives, free speech, modifying source for own needs, providing extensions and stuff like that? Where is the cheer then? For the record, I think iTunes is a bloated piece of crap. It is slow (comparing to Winamp), unmanagable (I prefer to organize my music myself, thank you), completely useless if you don't maintain id3 tags (I don't), annoyingly intrusivee (no, I do not have an iPod and there is no need to install ipodservice everytime I boot my computer). I've never understood much hyped smart playlists and I prefer to manage the music collection on my portable player by hand through a standard file manager and sane filenames skipping all the proprietary shit. Not to mention the famous iTunes synchonization is not practical, when you have more music than the size of your mp3 player. Even WMP is better in comparison to iTunes, even though I think WMP is crap as well. At least it does not put completely random stuff to Windows/CurrentVersion/Run. Granted I haven't tried the Mac version and I hear it is much better than the Windows equivalent, but that's my experience with the Windows version. Songbird, on the other hand, whilst being a blatant iTunes clone, seems to be ok'ish far. Integration with relevant web service (not just sponsored crap) is a big plus. Oh, and it is great to see stores like Beatport there (it seems to demand a flash plugin installed separately, but hopefully it will be fixed). Don't think I'll switch to it in the near future, but I am glad something like this exists.

  10. Re:So, when I on Cybercrime More Lucrative Than Drugs · · Score: 2, Insightful

    a high possibility of chemical addiction or overdose ok, let's take a brief look on schedule I

    MDMA, MDA, TMA, DMT, LSD, Psilocybin, Mescaline, DOET, 2CB, THC, DOB and many many others - none of these substances produce a chemical dependency. Nor it is trivial to get OD'ed on those substances. Furthermore, harm of many psychedelics and empathogens (MDMA would be the most well-known example) is not proved despite extensive research. Makes you think when you compare them to alcohol and tobacco.

    Now let's consider alcohol and tobacco. Overdosing on alcohol is very very common (something that you see every weekend if you go out). Another thing that alcohol is an integral part of our culture, so nobody freaks when they see an overdose. Physical dependency to alcohol is well documented and not something rare too.
    Nicotine overdose is very rare indeed, at least when smoked. But if you try any other administration route, you'd find that it is quite easy to get OD'ed on it. I take it nothing needs to be said on addiction potential of nicotine.

    The original motives for prohibition are sketchy. The benefits of marijuana, for example, were publicized before WW2, but still it got prohibited shortly after the war was over. According to one version, prohibition of coke, opium, marijuana and later psychedelics in 60s was used as a means of race and social oppression. I have no information backing up or discarding this version, but considering the racistic sentiments in the US in the first half of the 20th century, it is not something to completely discard.
    GHB prohibition is interesting as well. Despite numerous scientific publications on medical use of GHB, it was placed in Schedule I. Quite an interesting coincidence is that GHB prohibition happened at the same time as new sleep-aid drugs hit the market in the US. Makes you think again.. Also it should be noted that no overdoses on GHB are documented in 80s despite the widespread use.

    Those were just examples. If you take a closer look on the whole drug-prohibition policy, it hardly is beneficial for anyone except the state and companies which are in the drug-figthing business. Hopefully this helps.

    PS: Amounts of coke in the original Coca Cola were miniscule and cocaine does not produce a physical dependency no matter how much you abuse it. Sugar and caffeine is probably more addictive than amounts of cocaine that were found in the original coke. You should know your subject better.

  11. Re:tobacco still sucks - canabis on Safe Cigarettes? · · Score: 1

    Try Damiana, it has pleasant taste, as well as is easy on your lungs. Not to mention, slight relaxing/aphrodisiac properties.

  12. actual paper on Cannabinoids Induce Brain Cell Growth? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actual paper can be found here.

  13. Is this news? on Google Launches Scholar Beta · · Score: 3, Informative

    The service has been around at least for a year. What exactly has been added to it now?

  14. Double strandards? on Adobe Blasts Nikon's Closed File Format · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is ironic that Adobe mocks Nikon for their closed file format, while they are guilty of suing a person who reverse-engineered their precious format in the past. It would be fun if Adobe try to reverse-engineer their format and Nikon would respond by throwing one of their engineers into jail.

  15. the birth of electronic music? not quite on The Birth of Electronic Music · · Score: 2, Informative

    Leo Theremin is often cited as a godfather of electronic music. He was responsible for creating for one of the earliest electronic instruments back in 1917.

    You can read about him here

  16. Re:OpenOffice.org on Microsoft Office Formats Not Really Being Opened · · Score: 2

    i had to reinstall the software for a friend of mine after his system became unusable because a lot of installed junk. I could not bothered locating a warez version of MS office for him, so I just installed Open Office and told him that it was equally good. He still uses it and seems to be completely satisfied with it (apart from once when he had to rewrite a document, incorrectly imported by openoffice from RTF format, just a night before the deadline). My main grief with OpenOffice is its interface. While all the functionality I need is there, I cannot stand its interface. It just seems to be ugly and dated. Hopefully 2.0 will make an improvement on this front.

  17. Re:a bunch of marketing speak on Bill Gates Proclaims End of Passwords · · Score: 1

    they are from secure though. secure enough for casual end-user, but hardly for mission critical operations. two-tier security sounds fine, but getting rid of passwords completely would be a bad move.

  18. a bunch of marketing speak on Bill Gates Proclaims End of Passwords · · Score: 1

    and no details about its security. have they not learnt anything from pay-TV industry, which opted for security by obscurity in their smart card design and as results suffered from consequences? I have a feeling this whole thing will go terribly wrong.

  19. Re:Newbie Skype questions? on Siemens Sells Skype Adapters For Wireless Phones · · Score: 2, Informative

    Kazaa was originally developed to be free of any spyware/adware. Only after it got bought by Charman Networks, they had started bundling a bunch of crap with it. If my memory serves me, the original Kazaa developers got pissed off at it, quit the company and founded Skype. So there you go. Skype is free from any malware for the time being. Hopefully it stays this way in the future.

  20. Not a big deal on pcHDTV Card Available, Legal for Now · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am pretty sure you will be able to purchase an "illegal" card from Europe or Asia after the broadcast flag law steps in force. It's not like we live in pre-Internet days after all..

    Besides, look at DVD players. There are plenty of players on the market, which ignore regional settings despite DMCA and other bullshit regulations.

  21. Re:GPS? on Nokia Announces 7710 PDA/GPS/Internet Phone · · Score: 1

    Yes, it is Nokia's rebranded Opera. I've played with this phone for a bit, and web surfing experience is very pleasant.

  22. the phone is not that new on Nokia Smart Phone Recognizes Handwriting · · Score: 5, Informative

    It was supposed to come out last summer, but since the phone was so ugly, they decided to postpone it. Now they changed the form factor a bit and from the picture they have in the article, it looks better. I wonder if they've got rid of side-talking. Nice features though: big screen with VGA resolution, Opera browser, video and audio playback, text processing and spreadsheets (not sure about the latter though), touch screen etc etc Cannot say that hand writing is any better than just "pressing" the buttons on the screen, as you have to write only a single letter at one time and pattern recoginition is far from perfect. But it is a nice feature nonetheless.

  23. Re:One my calc teacher showed me on Greatest Equations Ever · · Score: 1

    in the same vein cos x / cot x = cos / cot = s/t = v (which is the formula of velocity)

  24. w00t on E-Voting Problems Are Mostly User Error, Says ITAA · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Another *AA on the block (insert an "i, for one, welcome.." joke here)!! Any bets on how long until they start suing people? :D

  25. Re:Pete Said... on LotR: RotK Extended Edition Preview Available · · Score: 4, Informative

    How come Amazon.com have got it listed then? Will be released on December 14th according to them.