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  1. On for one-fourth of the week on PC Shipments Return To Growth In the US (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    That said, if you're a business running 500+ PCs that users leave powered on 24/7, it is extremely cost effective to

    As I understand it, the common case is that each PC is used only by one full-time employee, without different employees sharing it on different shifts. Does leaving the PCs on for only one-fourth of the week (42 hours on, 126 hours hibernating) change the math any?

  2. Use motherboard sales on PC Shipments Return To Growth In the US (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Does it count computer parts? Perhaps people who build their own are such an insignificant %, but I really wonder what they use to count it.

    If I were trying to count desktop PCs built from parts, I'd use motherboard sales as a proxy. As for laptops built from parts, I see no evidence that barebooks are anything but "an insignificant %".

    Perhaps Windows activations?

    Counting motherboards would at least be consistent with product activation in recent versions of Windows, which uses the motherboard's identity to determine whether someone attempted to transfer an Windows license to a different computer.

  3. Re:It makes sense on PC Shipments Return To Growth In the US (theverge.com) · · Score: 2

    That and more people have discovered that they're willing to settle for relatively simple point-and-click games not dependent on reflexes. These run well on tablets, phones, or otherwise outdated PCs.

  4. Re:Smaller market, too. on PC Shipments Return To Growth In the US (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Business, tech-oriented people, the self-employed, creatives, and so on will continue to buy full-fledged computing hardware and to upgrade it over time

    Unless the sticker shock of having to upgrade from a tablet to "full-fledged computing hardware" is discouraging people from becoming "tech-oriented", "self-employed", or "creatives" in the first place. Consider the example of a high school student given programming homework. Is such a student expected to sell his tablet and buy a laptop, as exomondo recommended?

  5. They do if you pay employees' cell bills on PC Shipments Return To Growth In the US (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Our company is increasingly getting work done in the cloud.

    That's great provided you're willing to pay your employees' cellular data bills so that they can VNC or RDP into your application server while away from a desk. Otherwise, your users will have to stick to Chrome apps specifically designed for offline use. If you have programmers, for example, Google's in-browser NaCl IDE is no perfect substitute for Linux- or Windows-based IDEs. Google warns: "to develop a substantial application for Native Client / Portable Native Client, we recommend you use the Native Client SDK" which is designed for Windows, macOS, and X11/Linux.

  6. Cap plague on PC Shipments Return To Growth In the US (theverge.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    The implication is that people are having to replace PCs due to capacitor plague. Between 1999 and 2003, some Taiwanese electronics manufacturers shipped electrolytic capacitors based on a faulty formula misappropriated from Rubycon, which caused the capacitors to fail much earlier than intended. By 2007, most affected devices should have already failed.

  7. Re:If you make it hard on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    if I'm on a console, you just don't have the same selection.

    And this goes double for mods, which extend the replay value of moddable PC games immensely. Without moddability in Half-Life, would there even have been a Counter-Strike? And without Counter-Strike and TFC, would Half-Life have sold as well as it did?

  8. Re:Those 3 things differ 0 between console and PC on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Thank you for the correction on Xbox 360.

    But the point remains: Any TV or hardcore console from nearly the past decade has an HDMI port. And so will virtually any PC graphics card you can buy nowadays, even if it's on a DVI connector (use a DVI-D to HDMI cable).

  9. PCMR isn't always high end on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 2

    PCMR doesn't mean high end. The PCMR subreddit's wiki lists a few recommended entry-level and midrange gaming PC builds. "The Crusher" beats the Athlon 5150-equivalent in the PS4.

  10. Re:Larger MCU for existing devices? on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    I apologize for failing to anticipate the specific direction of generalization you had in mind. Could you clarify?

  11. Re:Easy solution. on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Stop playing the latest video games. Only play 4 year old stuff.

    That reminds me of xkcd #606 "Cutting Edge". As the comic implies, this means you'll also be five years behind on discussing story events in these games. And as the title text implies, you're likely to run into matchmaking servers that have been permanently shut off.

  12. Re:... Negative only on Intellect on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    And what if this PC happens to be a laptop? I'd really like to see how someone turns a cheap dell laptop to a gaming machine with 400 dollars.

    I think with a laptop, you wait for when you would replace it anyway, such as after the replacement battery no longer holds a charge. Then you just get any new laptop that doesn't use a netbook processor. Intel Ivy Bridge or later can run many games tolerably, but you might need Skylake for the newest ones. Most new AAA games are based on engines designed for consoles with the equivalent of an Athlon 5150 anyway.

  13. Re:"Unreasonable" amount of disposable income? on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    The "$0-$25,000" line in the table under "RECOMMENDED CARS BY INCOME (TASTES MAY DIFFER)" looks sad for someone entering the workforce for the first time. Unless you live in a city with public transit that runs 7 days a week, or unless you live in a city with several food service or retail businesses that don't care if you aren't available for a shift on Sunday (such as Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby), you're likely to end up with no way to get to and from work safely during heavy rain.

  14. Side effect of iOS or Linux port on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Do current games get released for Mac these days?

    Sometimes you'll see a port to macOS as a side effect of a port to SteamOS or iOS, as both macOS and X11/Linux (of which SteamOS is a distribution) can use OpenGL, and iOS shares a lot of API plumbing with macOS. And if a game is made with Unreal Engine or Unity, it's just a matter of checking macOS in the build options.

  15. Those 3 things differ 0 between console and PC on PC Gaming Is Still Way Too Hard (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Meanwhile, that $200 console is going to need a $500-$1000(or more) big-screen TV

    PCs and consoles use the same monitor nowadays: HDMI, which is DVI with digital audio stuffed in the blanking periods. Xbox 360 was the first major console to switch to HDMI, followed by PlayStation 3 a year later and Wii U a generation later. Get an HDMI switch and plug your PC and console into it.

    if you want some l33t controllers that give you an edge in the game, that's gonna set you back at least $100 more - per controller.

    Why more than one? Do they wear out easily? Besides, you might still need a l33t mouse and l33t keyboard.

    Of course, bad-assed headphone/mic set is de rigueûr, and that's gonna set you back from $35 to $100 extra or more

    Likewise for PC.

  16. Re:Larger MCU for existing devices? on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    You can update 8 bit MCU based devices in the field?

    Yes, so long as field update was designed into the device. What do you think Game Paks for the Nintendo Entertainment System were? And with the chipset in NES clones long having been condensed down to an SOC, it could be thought of as a microcontroller.

    More seriously, there's an adapter board for the NES called Hi-Def NES, designed by Kevin Horton. It ships as part of the Analogue Nt console or as a solder-in kit for a front- or top-loading NES. It contains an FPGA with two jobs: translating the NES's pixel output into an HDMI bitstream with a lag of less than 1 ms and running the on-screen display for adjusting the picture. The OSD's logic runs on a 65C02-clone core, and both the 65C02 and its program are part of the firmware that the FPGA loads when the system is powered on. And this firmware can be flashed by running a program on an NES flash cart.

  17. Re:What's Johnson's super PAC? on Kentucky Anonymous Member Indicted Three Years After FBI Raid (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the pointers to PurplePAC and Matt Kibbe's AlternativePAC. I plan to check them out this week and give if they appear worthy, though it appears AlternativePAC doesn't have its own website yet.

    As for ethics, I look to the GNU project's use of copyleft, a class of licenses that uses copyright to protect the rights of users. If for-profit interests can hire someone "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" or to exercise "the freedom of speech" on their behalf, then in theory, so can the public. IEO PACs supporting a Libertarian would pervert the perversion in a similar manner.

  18. What's Johnson's super PAC? on Kentucky Anonymous Member Indicted Three Years After FBI Raid (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Then say it to those people that he is failing to reach. What IEO PAC supports him?

  19. Why use an MCU in a synesthetic vibrator on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    Do you mean using ambient volume as a trigger, with some means of gain control to make activation independent of overall playback volume? This would perform very poorly, as it would react to room noises and react to noises in the soundtrack that aren't in sync with the action.

    Better performing options need an MCU. One is for the video to encode vibrator instructions in audio steganography, which would need a DSP to extract. Another, as used in Teddy Ruxpin toys, is to encode timing on a separately transmitted channel. For a vibrator, this would probably be RF of some sort, such as Bluetooth.

  20. Re:Brands get hacked because Twitter can't TOTP/U2 on Yahoo and Twitter CEOs Have Their Twitter Accounts Compromised · · Score: 1

    The differences between the two are that Google is more likely to allow landlines, and Google is more likely to allow authentication on multiple accounts per phone number.

  21. Re:Politically correct master race on Antivirus Software Is 'Increasingly Useless' and May Make Your Computer Less Safe (www.cbc.ca) · · Score: 1

    SIP is a driver whitelist and a lock on system directories analogous to Trusted Solaris or SELinux. At the high level, it doesn't block user mode execution of compiled source code or of executables obtained from third parties. (That's Gatekeeper, which can be turned off.) At the low level, it doesn't block the owner from turning it off in recovery console (which an article by Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson admits that 5 percent of users may have a good reason to do) or from installing another operating system. A console blocks all four of these.

  22. The preferred form for making modifications on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    I think they're talking about projects whose source code is in assembly language, where a work's "source code" is defined as "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it" (GPLv2, GPLv3). That is, something like the Pently audio player (which uses a preprocessor written in Python but is otherwise in 6502 assembly) or the video games RHDE: Furniture Fight and Nova the Squirrel .

  23. Re:Compiling toothbrush code with GCC on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    Without an MCU, how would an iBrator vary its rate in sync with the porno you're watching?

  24. Re:Assembly for what processor architecture? on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    For a 6502 renaissance, look no further than the dozens of new NES games released in the past few years.

  25. Why Unicode was cut from /. (5:erocS) on TIOBE's Language-Popularity Index Sees A New Top 10 Language: Assembly (tiobe.com) · · Score: 1

    Say, when were we supposed to get unicode support?

    As soon as it's possible to prevent all current and future directionality override control characters from fuccing with the layout.