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User: bluefoxlucid

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  1. Re:A la carte cables on FCC Approving Pay-As-You-Go Internet Plans · · Score: 1

    The thing with "hundreds of channels" in broadcast is you have ONE PIPE. Six thousand people are a matter of six thousand runs of cable off the nearest hub. The hub gets one stream to it.

    With unicast IP traffic, however, you have 300 people accessing the same YouTube video. You cache the YouTube video so you don't have to pay your upstream provider. Then you down-link the same video 300 times to the hub, and out once to each user from there. Unless you're a Tier 1 telco, you're leasing the local lines, and overloading them.

    The biggest problem here is, of course, "unlimited" internet worked great at the 128k level. With 50 megs of downstream every fucking second, though, economy of scale fails. This wasn't a problem because you generally got as much as continuous 128k/s overall...

    ... then we decided to replace broadcast television with unicast IP streaming.

  2. Re:Burn, maybe not... on President Obama On Mythbusters Tonight · · Score: 1

    The distance doesn't matter: make it a segment of a larger sphere (i.e. a smaller arc angle) and the focal point moves further away.

    Have you ever shined a light on a block of polished copper? Lap that stuff well enough ....

    Moving targets are hard, but with enough energy this isn't an issue. Sails ignite quite quick.

  3. Re:Burn, maybe not... on President Obama On Mythbusters Tonight · · Score: 0

    Mythbusters is the biggest load of absolute horse shit ever, though. They make one or two failed attempts and rather than saying, "Well, maybe we're incompetent," they declare something proven impossible. Once they did a gunpowder engine... with a hopper hooked to a piston, tied to a bow and arrow. It didn't work. The hopper jammed. MYTH: BUSTED. .... uh, how about fixing your fucking stupid hopper design? I did in 30 seconds.

    As for their current "busted" myth, it's well known you can take a 1 foot wide parabolic reflector (curved mirror) and point it at shit and set fire to it in about 4 seconds when you have a clear view of the sun. Less well known, but obvious, some guy had a site about his "SOLAR DEATHRAY!!!!!!!" that he used to melt lots of shit... 127 flat 1cm square mirrors set up on a curved surface to make ... well... a rough approximation of a parabolic reflector.

    Get 500 mirrors set up right, reflecting the sun from a huge area to one point, even if they're a meter across, and you'll concentrate ... okay, a meter? 1,334 kW x 500. That's over half a megawatt of power, kid, though in a 1 square meter area; obviously more smaller mirrors will put the same amount of power in a smaller area. A parabolic reflector doesn't need to be so large because it'll focus all that energy smoothly on one tiny point... so instead of half a megawatt, you have half a kilowatt on something the size of a pinhead instead of 1000 times more on something ten million times bigger. BOOM, FIRE!

  4. Re:/scoff on Dr. Who's Sonic Screwdriver Exists · · Score: 1

    Professor Drinkkoolade.

  5. Re:Open Source mouth; insert foot on Ex-Sun CEO Warns Oracle of Death By Open Source · · Score: 1

    In fact, the decline of Sun could be viewed as specific evidence that there was a lack of understanding about Open Source on his part.

    But he admits that, doesn't he?

    "That's the message," McNealy tells us. "You gotta strike a proper balance between sharing and building the community and then monetizing the work that you do... I think we got the donate part right, I don't think we got the monetize part right.'

    Now, if you can share your insight on how to build a multi-billion-dollar-company, please do...

    That's the thing: we CAN share our insight on how to build a multi-billion-dollar-company, but we don't have the business experience to do it right. It's like how I can tell you how to make an awesome house; but I probably don't have the architectural and engineering background to make it actually hold together in one piece. The actual building is hard.

    These high-level CEOs know how to make the house nice and stable. What they don't understand is we don't want tiny rooms all dumping into the same open foyer. They live in giant mansions and spend 99% of their lives in a hotel room; they don't understand family life, but they aim to build for families.

    It's the low-level IT workers that look around and say, "Huh, my manager wants X, and I can't technologically supply it with Y. Y has a feature that claims to do X, but it's shoddy and broken even though they say it's 'forward-thinking' and have a lot of nice shit in there...." The CEOs just go, "We made a product with a feature bullet list. Let's make the product move."

    Do you see it?

    This CEO is talking entirely about business strategy. He didn't understand the open source business strategy because he didn't understand what people would buy if we gave them the product for free. He didn't send anyone in to work in these places as contractors, or to act as free consultants, to do the learning that he can't. Nobody went, "Oh, you want to what? Yeah solaris can... oh... oh... yeah that doesn't work that well..." Nobody went, "You're having support troubles with this? Hmm. Well I'll see if I can get some contacts off the engineering team to help.... (hey Darryl, we could probably sell engineering services)." None of that ever happened, yet he tries to figure out what he did wrong with his strategy....

  6. Re:Business vs Open Source on Ex-Sun CEO Warns Oracle of Death By Open Source · · Score: 1

    Problem was nobody would buy Star Office and nobody would buy Java. They bought support for Java sometimes... who the hell am I kidding? I've never seen anyone, from megacorporations to the Government, pay one dime for Java.

  7. Re:Microsoft doesn't need ads on Microsoft Adds 'Do Not Track' Option For IE9 · · Score: 1

    - WebDAV

    The first thing your security team will tell you is "remove this shit as fast as you can."

    - TWAIN (DynamicSoft started supporting chrome, but installation must be manual)

    Isn't that the scanner infrastructure? I've never heard of this in IE.

    - Digital signing

    What does this have to do with browsers?

    - No enterprise policies in chrome (you can't prevent users from saving files or restricting content)

    Smokescreen, but managers like to feel good. As for restricting content, proxy servers are the only way. It's notable our proxy server blocks anything but IE and Firefox, yet I make SRWare Iron jump around the restrictions by pretending it's Firefox. Run as a portable app.

    - Problems with NTLM credentials

    Yes, that's annoying when using Sharepoint, which is shitty in all respects. Their "wiki" is even more primitive than Geocities was in 1995. Sharepoint et al don't work well at all in anything but IE either, for reasons I can't understand. I've been tempted to have Firefox and Chrome UA spoof to see what happens.

  8. Re:Microsoft doesn't need ads on Microsoft Adds 'Do Not Track' Option For IE9 · · Score: 1

    Why is Microsoft even warring over IE? There is nothing keeping people on IE9 except that it doesn't run IE6 content properly; these people won't migrate to Firefox or Chrome for the same reason; and IE9 is essentially a continued run towards "Standards Compliance" that sounds nice and fancy and the next-big-thing but ultimately turns IE into a non-bargaining-chip for Microsoft. They'd have been better off telling users to go with Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, or just shipping IE as a Webkit/V8 browser instead of Trident, or maybe just Chromium with enhanced Microsoft features and de-googlization. Then they can still badge it "Microsoft" for self-promotion but get away from the whole "war" (read: economic drain) thing, since programmers would do a ton less work and thus have time to work on other shit.

  9. Re:Everyone has skeletons. on Corporations Hiring Hooky Hunters · · Score: 1

    In money there is power,

    I speak 15 different languages! I can up and move to japan and have a job in 3 days! JUST FOR THAT!

  10. Re:Now you see why I warned Slashdot about vigilan on Corporations Hiring Hooky Hunters · · Score: 1

    Ruin marriages and friendships? Are you taking the controversial stance on PIs finding out you're screwing your wife's coworker?

  11. Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... on Wikileaks Founder Arrested In London · · Score: 1, Insightful

    That is exactly what Americans think equality means: he can but I can't, that's not fair. He can afford food but I can't, somebody should give me money for food... sounds good, right? Same with Section 8 and HUD housing, Welfare (it was a big deal when we changed "Welfare" here from "indefinite" to "2 years, then you get a job or you can go to hell"), the like.

    In America, we have grants: if you're black, you can go to college for free; not eligible if you're not black. These are "minority" grants and they are because "minorities are disadvantaged" (being black somehow makes you inherently a lesser person, apparently... stupider or something? I dunno, some colleges lower enrollment standards for "minorities"). This seems AMAZINGLY retarded to me, not just because we are giving hand-outs to the "less advantaged," but also because we're assuming black == less advantaged somehow.

    Women are another such minority. They cry for special treatment... well, no, not really. Certain ORGANIZATIONS cry for special treatment for women; I'd imagine 99% of women find this embarrassing and would like NOW and the like to shut up.

    The poor make up our base model. It's the start of the sob story, the people who life has treated unfairly, who we're somehow responsible for even though they're not responsible for themselves. Some will try and fail, and it's just unfair; many will just ride the gravy train when they figure out we'll just give them free shit.

    Life isn't fair; if you don't like it, then make one of the corner beggars do your yard work and give them a hot meal and let 'em sleep in your shed for a night, with blankets. If our society was actually concerned with people enough to let them earn their living in increments rather than just complaining about getting the dirty street rats out of our sight, we might all be better off. At the very least, people would have some personal care about those around them and some respect for hard work. They might also lose some funny ideas about all this shit.

  12. Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... on Wikileaks Founder Arrested In London · · Score: 2

    Yes but there is a test. They give you a 75kg sack and say "carry this shit down some stairs and out of the building." If you struggle instead of hurling the thing up on your shoulder and jogging out of the building, you fail.

  13. Re:Sorry, no "dirty tricks" campaign here... on Wikileaks Founder Arrested In London · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Fuck equality for all; equality for equals is better. The idea of "equality for all" leads to the brain-damaged ideal of seeking out anyone different and giving them special treatment, whether they're poor or a woman or black or whatever. Bad luck, laziness, or whatever happen; too fucking bad.

    Our "equality" standards should be held to a matter of looking down: you can't discriminate against someone because he's black or she's a woman, but you can damn well do so because they're unfit for purpose (say, female firefighters.. hey if you're the hulk-bitch go for it, but if you can't carry an unconscious man out of a burning building then we don't need you).

    We shouldn't look at people and go, "Oh, they're disadvantaged, so we should make things easier for them than other people to even the playing field..." ... doesn't work that way. Don't allow women to be firefighters because they're women and it's not fair that we reject most of them; reject them, except the ones that can carry people from burning buildings.

    And we've seen NOW talk about how women should be allowed to be firefighters anyway, so yeah they can't handle "real" equality (i.e. equality for equals; they want someone not equal to the task to have equal "right" to perform the task).

  14. Not facebook? on Apple Impasse With Magazines Over Subscriber Data · · Score: 1

    What, Apple doesn't want to come under the same fire as Facebook?

  15. Re:Music Industry on Apple Impasse With Magazines Over Subscriber Data · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, they should totally sell your personal information for profit.

  16. Re:now about that only on T-Mobile thing... on Google Launches Nexus S Phone In UK and US · · Score: 1

    Yes this was T-Mobile.

  17. Re:now about that only on T-Mobile thing... on Google Launches Nexus S Phone In UK and US · · Score: 1

    Special price for my Motorola Cliq was 2 year contract at $80/mo instead of $60/mo for a $300 phone I got for $50, with 24 x $20 == $480 of contract fee == $530. It's $5/mo for phone insurance with a $170 deductible as well. For a $300 phone. Some discount.

  18. Re:I just wish Diaspora was finished on Facebook Rolls Out Redesigned Profile Pages · · Score: 1

    Diaspora is not "controlled" by anyone but people don't really realize that gathering information through a distributed network is not so hard. Your friends run programs or web browser bars that nip at the info, etc.

  19. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 1

    Non-sentient things can be manipulated. They don't reflect introspectively on their own nature; they do what they're programmed to from input they're given. Sentience is what enables people to stop and go, "Wait, what the hell? I just realized..." purely because there's no other input. Even animals get bored.

  20. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 1

    there is no "you" or "me" in a static context, just like it's not possible to separate space and time. Who you are is constantly changing, with every modification of the synapses in your brain. Just as your mind underwent a major change when you almost fell, switching off from my organic brain into an electronic would result in the same sort of context switch, but I would still feel like "I" was "me".

    Think about it this way: I make an identical clone copy of you, entire quantum state, every impulse in your brain, every atom, everything identical.

    Now we have two of you.

    You say if I killed the first one, YOU would still live because the second one IS you. Okay. Keep that thought in your mind now.

    Now, you're standing here, and over there I've made a copy. Which are you going to prefer: I jab a salted ice pick under the copy's fingernails, or under yours? Which is going to hurt? Which are you going to be scared of?

  21. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 1

    You're taking this whole thing from an externalized perspective; but what about internalized? What if I did destroy the original organic copy? Would you wake up with an electronic brain? Or would an electronic brain that thinks it's you wake up elsewhere?

    The essential question is, from your perspective, what is the difference between me shooting you in the head versus me copying you and THEN shooting you in the head? Sure, everyone else will see the copy and interact with it like you; yes, the copy will behave exactly like you; but you don't experience anyone else's life, and you won't experience the copy's.

    That brings us back to the question of what consciousness is.

  22. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 2

    The nature of illusion is that it needs somebody to fool. Think about this for a second.

  23. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 1

    Many people have made this argument now. I recall a story about a god who had a giant ship. In restoring it, workers removed one plank at a time, replacing with a fresh piece of wood. Eventually every single board was replaced. The issue raised was that we basically built a new ship, and in fact could assemble the old pieces back into a copy. Which is the copy?

  24. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They always say our forefathers would vomit up a lung if they saw what we did to their country. Times were better back then, even with the government handing bibles out in schools and children getting their asses beat by teachers.

    Japan had a much different society and instead of naturally degrading they've seen our 20th century garbage FORCED on them. It'd be like if we found something identical to post-revolution America and forced modern american democracy on it, with the sleezy politicians and disney megacorporations. 1804 would be the year of the frontier, 1805 the year of everyone wanting to die to avert this horrible future.

    Japan's bullshit largely revolved around the Shogun effectively owning the people in their domain as property. The Meiji restoration eliminated that, dropped in other political issues; however the culture was always the same.

    Look at America and you'll see a culture of people scraping by to survive; they may be rich, but they're always caught up in making more money, getting laid, watching TV, buying shiny things. Japanese culture always had a deep-seated focus on personal philosophy: even under oppression and famine, even facing certain death, people wanted to maintain their honor. A Japanese murder conflict would inflict an immensely painful fatal wound on himself at his execution, and then be beheaded; an American murder convict will escape at first chance, and of course we've argued hanging and electrocution are "Cruel" for child rapist-murderers and instead inject them with an unbelievable amount of ANESTHETICS so they die feeling GOOOOOOOD.

    Americans are shocked by the idea of seppuku: it seems barbaric to us. But think about it for a minute. They expected someone who committed treason or murder or any given capital crime to not just be executed, but to inflict a painful and fatal wound on themselves. If they didn't, they'd behead them anyway--quick, relatively painless, less fear involved (self-inflicted wounds are scary as HELL; you can dissociate yourself a lot more from your impending execution). They still executed them, but they'd consider the social debt paid and honor restored after seppuku. This was important.

    Imagine living through that. You get to see the social change where everyone stops meditating and thinking about life and honor and what it means to be a warrior and the nature of beauty... and instead starts screaming and clapping at anything shiny, buying their food from vending machines (fast food!), and dressing in unbelievably gaudy crap.

    How do you think that'd feel?

  25. Re:Artificial Brains? on A Mind Made From Memristors · · Score: 0

    Women pass out from porn and strong emotion. They moan so much because the part of their brain that handles physical pleasure is being overloaded.