Slashdot Mirror


User: BOFHelsinki

BOFHelsinki's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
267
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 267

  1. Re:Simple facts prove you're right. on Verizon's Challenge To the iPhone Confirmed · · Score: 1

    A 33 MHz 486 was several times faster than a 33 MHz 386.

    MHz is almost meaningless when comparing speed, even in CPUs that are very similar. Even somewhat technical people fail to realize this frequently.

    The old "Megahertz Myth Myth"... Sorry but you're wrong here. Between very dissimilar processors (like 386 and 486) the clockspeed figure doesn't tell you much, but among fairly similar architectures (like ARM11 and A8) it of course one of the major factors in performance. Very far from meaningless.

  2. Re:So let me get this straight on Microsoft Reportedly Poaching Apple Retail Staff · · Score: 1

    Businesses aren't around to make their direct competitors feel cuddly and warm.

    But they aren't around to destroy each other either. (Observing how many of them still tend to make a product or provide a service. You know, something of their own. Patent trolls aside perhaps.)

  3. Re:$3 Billion? on India's First Stealth Fighter To Fly In 4 Months · · Score: 1

    I had a hysterical fit of laughter.

    I hope that was a good thing...

  4. Re:Interesting stuff on India's First Stealth Fighter To Fly In 4 Months · · Score: 1

    You forget the excellent Russian missiles from the equation. USA has been playing catch-up with Vympel's R-73 (AA-11 Archer) and R-77 (AA-12 Adder or "Amraamski"). Cannon fight is a different story. It's all about maneuvering and while Su-30 has a slight edge over F-22, it boils down to pilot skill, and few if any can match USAF and USN training (just the sheer amount of flight hours to keep pilots in tip-top shape). "5th gen" doesn't cover that much aside stealth and command & communication.

    On aggregate, stealth might be the deciding factor, however. Some say it's somewhat more important for assault/interdiction missions than air superiority fights, but some argue the other way.

  5. "6th Gen"... on India's First Stealth Fighter To Fly In 4 Months · · Score: 1

    There's the possibility that 6th generation = UAV. They already fly armed missions. (But perhaps you'd need some "conventional" 5th gen planes for the odd mission where you really need a pilot present to make a judgment call.)

  6. Re:Dangerous Thinking on India's First Stealth Fighter To Fly In 4 Months · · Score: 1

    But where's the artillery gun to hurl them 100 miles?

    Better stick to old fashioned missiles, I say. ;)

  7. Re:Well... on Pi Calculated To Record 2.5 Trillion Digits · · Score: 1

    Just because nobody has detected a pattern doesn't mean there isn't one.

    I read the original as "Just because nobody has detected a patent doesn't mean there isn't one." The sad part is that I didn't even blink. :*(

  8. Re:Not in this case on Database Error Costs Social Security Victims $500M · · Score: 1

    We apparently wasted half a billion dollars to stop "dozens" of criminals from claiming benefits. Doesn't seem particularly cheap to me.

    The half a billion was back benefits, though, not wasted. The /. headline is really poor.

  9. Re:Obsession with 7 on POWER7 To Ship In First Half of 2010 · · Score: 1

    In IBM's case it's logical, though.

  10. Re:so, if Apple... on POWER7 To Ship In First Half of 2010 · · Score: 1

    The result is that the PS3 games aren't fully exploiting the hardware, and i suspect only a small handful ever will.

    That's what they said about the PS2 though... In the end, the learning curve translated into platform longevity, with next waves of games increasingly leveraging the hardware. Who really cares if the first games tap only a fraction of the potential?

    The difficulty gets exaggerated too. There is pretty good middleware available, also as FOSS. (See e.g. the CellPerformance forum at Beyond3D.com for pointers and discussion.) IBM has made a real effort with the developer support, unlike Sony was with PS2.

  11. Re:Poor Title on F-22 Raptor Cancelled · · Score: 1

    Especially when you consider it as a platform and take into account the most typical weapons out there (AIM-9 vs. R-73; the latter is clearly superior).

  12. Re:At any rate on Obama Photog Says "You're Both Wrong" To AP & Fairey · · Score: 1

    On second thought, still looking at that picture, I wouldn't mind.

  13. Re:At any rate on Obama Photog Says "You're Both Wrong" To AP & Fairey · · Score: 1

    It's progress that you know that Brazil is in Europe. You could have had them the other way around.

  14. Re:Rosetta Stones advertising is VERY abusive on Rosetta Stone Sues Google For Trademark Violation · · Score: 1

    "Abusive"?

  15. Re:Yes but it is a valid concern on Rosetta Stone Sues Google For Trademark Violation · · Score: 1

    I can see why this is a problem for you, but not why it is a problem for society in general. I mean, it's a problem for me, when competitors offer to do the same job better and for less, but that doesn't mean there should be a legal method for me to stifle competition. Your competitors have the right to advertise competing products to people and they have the right to reference your products by name. It's freedom of speech and it makes for more competitive markets. The solution is to stop trying to find a way to keep your customers from learning about competitors and start making your product better and cheaper.

    You missed the point. This case is more about identity theft, or phishing, than merely who bangs the drum loudest (while all mention competitors as they should be able to). RTFA?

    If I get a good rep for my product, I don't want willing customers who are seeking me to be directed to a competitor, who instead of making his product as good, relies on getting enough of passable crapola sold anyway, in the confusion. (Such a competitor also hurting my rep in the end, not just reducing business that wanted to come my way.)

  16. Re:Good work Sony on China Delays "Green Dam" Internet Filter · · Score: 1

    Well, Sony finally manages to get SOMETHING out on time. Too bad God of War 3 wasn't requested by an evil totalitarian regime to oppress its people.

    Please don't give Sony Marketing any ideas... "God of War 3, Kim Jong-un Special Evil Regime Edition!"

    The sad part is, I'd probably buy it.

  17. Re:Ridiculous on Madoff Sentenced To 150 Years · · Score: 1

    For some, Madoff might as well have held a gun to their head and pulled the trigger."

    Playing devil's advocate... He didn't hold a gun to the victims' heads and steal their money, he put up a scam where people participated. He wasn't a highway robber, he was a conman. Let's keep this clear.

    I mean, you make it sound like "scamming" actually forces people to come along. It doesn't. Didn't -- or couldn't -- the victims do any checking? Why did they invest money they obviously urgently needed for their own purposes? Madoff is definitely a criminal (and an immoral fucking bastard) but isn't there any -- even the smallest iota -- of fiscal responsibility with the people who decided to make money out of his offering? Any at all? I mean, every investment in immaterial goods is a risk, right?

    I guess I'll get flamed to the moon and back and modded down to hell for saying what I just did. I understand the human suffering that has resulted from this scam (I really am not an insensitive clod) but I object to how "the scam resulted in" gets equated to "he caused" suicides, fatal maltreatment, and children starving to death due to charities gone bankrupt.

    I guess I'm not making my point very clear because it's still a bit hazy for me too what it is I wanted to say... I just felt there was something to point out... Well, a possibly related anecdote: in Finland there was a public outrage when a multiple rapist got a lighter sentence than some embezzlers. The latter caused a lot of damage and indirectly a lot of suffering, but people saw that the act is just not anywhere near the same as raping. Regardless of the scale and end results of the financial crime.

    Madoff should have got life, not 150 years which is more than anybody has received for a murder in the USA. (There has been longer sentences but those have been combined out of serial crimes.) Life would be on par, not more than. Okay, I do welcome comments to show me what I got wrong here.

  18. Re:Well . . . . on You're (Probably) Not Going To Be a Pro Blogger · · Score: 1

    Do you know what humor is?
    Do you have a donkey's dildo up your ass?


    I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your ancillary services

  19. Re:That is your job. on Getting Beyond the Helldesk · · Score: 1

    10. This
    20. Goto 10

    30. COME FROM 10
    40. PLEASE
    50. Find a gubmint shop with mainframes and convince them that INTERCAL is close kin to COBOL
    60. Politely request a six digit salary for rare developer skill set

    (No really, a great post, uptownguy!)

  20. Re:First on DragonFly BSD 2.2 Released · · Score: 1

    Not by a long shot. All three kernels are vastly different.

  21. Re:If you're whining and Apple don't respond on Psystar Wins a Round Against Apple · · Score: 1

    Memory and Hard drives are generic. They are not iSATA or iSDRAM.

    Apple does have iSCSI. :P

  22. Re:Because when I think graphics, I think intel on Intel To Design PlayStation 4 GPU · · Score: 1

    Larrabee isn't exclusively for ray-tracing though, rather Intel's goal is to bring back the flexibility of software rendering -- on hardware that is actually up for the task. The initially planned 16-core Larrabee has better-than-GPU bitwise logic and branch handling, a 16-wide FP64 vector unit in every core, and a separate high-performance texture sampler block. While it's a good fit for ray-tracing, you are also quite free to implement deferred region based rasterising of shaded and textured polygons, sparse voxel octrees (St. Carmack), Renderman-style micropolys with unlimited shader programs, teapots as the geometry primitive with fractals as the only texture format, solid color vector graphics with 512X supersampling, whatever you want for your game engine. It's been somewhat a consensus lately that ray-tracing has scaling and performance challenges of its own, it's not the unquestionable Holy Grail as it has been held. (Not that you implied that.)

    Intel hasn't communicated a narrow-minded agenda and arguably their all-star Larrabee research/software team is too good for that too.

    Agree about Intel's dominating fabbing edge. However, while Nvidia is sailing troubled seas right now, ATI is on a roll (despite AMD).

    Off on a tangent: How I wish Intel had used their PowerVR license to implement Series 5 as their integrated graphics instead of saying "NIH!" and burdening the world with the hopeless GMA series.

    BTW, LArrabee might be good for the PS4 CPU as well, but Sony has too much invested in Cell (now with the FP64 versions and all) and the dev tools for it. So Cell + Larry is going to an interesting hybrid if it happens. :-)

  23. Re:Time to tighten our belts on IBM Hides the Bodies, Eyes US Government Billions · · Score: 1

    Just an anecdote in support of your post, back in the first oil crisis days when Chrysler went in deep financial trouble, Lee Iacocca had to fight tooth and nail for months to get Chrysler a Congress backing for a large consolidated loan that effectively saved them.

    They paid it back markedly ahead of the schedule.

    It's odd that good history like that doesn't count for the bankers. (But I don't know if something negative has happened since. I just read Iacocca's autobiography and actually ended up disliking him personally for his "making lots of money is everything" world view, but I can't help admiring many of his accomplishments at Ford and then Chrysler.)

  24. Re:What a scoop! on IBM Hides the Bodies, Eyes US Government Billions · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I want an aquapony too.

  25. Re:Failed to Finnish on Finnish Court Accepts E-Voting Result With 2% Lost · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually it was modded "Finny" but Slashdot got it only 98% correct, which we find perfectly acceptable.

    "Finland -- the democracy where 49% decide what the other 49% can do."