Slashdot Mirror


User: AJ+Mexico

AJ+Mexico's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
72
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 72

  1. Agree totally -- this is Apple going out of their way to fix something that is totally not their problem. My iPhone 6s was affected by this. The issue only happened a few times, and in each case recovered after letting the phone sit for a minute or two. I suspected that the iOS 11 update may have had something to do with this, but it was hard to tell since the repair had recently taken place. I'm very happy with Apple on this! They took care of their customers.

  2. Against it! Especially in Florida on Ask Slashdot: Where Do You Stand on Daylight Saving Time? · · Score: 2

    Unlike most of the US Eastern time zone, DST causes Floridians to have to get up in the dark. That's completely ridiculous. The whole premise of daylight saving time is that you have an extra hour of daylight in the morning, which Florida never had. Because Florida is the southernmost state in the Eastern time zone, and also because Florida is west of most of the Eastern time zone, 6:00 AM EDT is ALWAYS before sunrise everywhere in Florida. Florida needs DST about like we need snowplows. My first choice would be for the Florida legislature to exempt Florida from DST (which they can do). The rest of the country can do whatever. I'm also heartily sick of changing the time on like a dozen gadgets twice a year. I have seen one plan for year-round DST which I can support. It also re-aligned the time zones, putting Florida into the central time zone. This results in Florida staying at GMT +5, which is the same as EST now. For most of the country, DST might make a certain amount of sense -- in the summer. In the spring, fall or winter, it's just silly. The rationale that DST saves energy is probably obsolete -- especially in Florida. In the old days, the primary energy consumption was lights. Now it's air conditioners. When people come home early in the afternoon, it's hot, and they run the AC more. It's very likely DST is wasting energy. DST has picked up a weird constituancy over the years. Many people have never lived without it. A lot of people believe either literally or emotionally that DST is responsible for nice spring weather and longer summer days. Belive it or not, the days were as long, and the weather as nice without federal legislation.

  3. International Dark Sky Association on Town Turns Off the Lights To See the Stars · · Score: 4, Informative

    More info over at www.darksky.org . It costs a lot of money/oil to keep all those lights on. Is it worth it? Have your children seen the milky way?

  4. Sports worst feature of 3D Re:scam on Makers Keep Flogging 3D TV, Viewers Keep Shrugging · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Actually,sports is the worst programming for 3D. For previous technology advances, sports was obviously better. Sports looked great in color, and sports looked great in Hi-Def and that helped those technologies gain acceptance. Not so for sports in 3D. 3D works best when the "director" can carefully control the strength of the 3d effect, and keep it consistent throughout, as is done in (well-made) movies, and in video games, where everything can be calculated in advance. I watched one of the first (US) football games broadcast to theaters in 3D. It was a painful experience.

    While watching 3D, you can gradually get accustomed to the infra-ocular distance used to film the scene, which may differ from your view of the natural world. When adjacent scenes use different camera configurations, your mind takes time to make the adjustment to the new 3D perspective. This is one of the contributors to the headache effect.

    In sports, the action is unpredictable, and may move towards or away from the camera(s) unexpectedly. Cuts from one view to another are frequent. This causes the viewer to continually readjust to new 3d perspectives. IMHO, this problem is the unavoidable Achilles heel of 3d sports. Remember, this is technology-independent. It doesn't matter what kind of glasses are being used, or whether no glasses are used -- this problem still exists.

  5. Re:Goes for cameras too. on Why Your Dad's 30-Year-Old Stereo Sounds Better Than Yours · · Score: 1

    .. everyone is taking crappy pictures with crappy cell phone cameras. Why did we bother?? ...

    Maybe they *like* their photos that way. Hell, they're taking photos with (fairly decent, now) smart phone cameras and deliberately injecting the flaws you saw in 30-year old cheap film cameras using software like Retro-Camera and Instagram. The look of such photos is actually a novelty to kids who've always had their photos taken with DSLRs.

  6. Mobile Phone Voice Latency and HDTV Audio Latency on The Insidious Creep of Latency Hell · · Score: 1
    Latency is particularly annoying when you are trying to have a two-way conversation. Talking over a mobile phone adds 100s of milliseconds of latency. If both ends are mobile, the latency is double. This escapes most people's direct notice, but it causes those awkward moments when both parties start talking over each other, pause, and then do it again. This is a horrible amount of latency, and they virtually all do it. This is one of the reasons to still prefer a land line.

    Another unbelievable latency issue is HDTV. The audio often fails to be synchronized with the video. It is particularly annoying when the video is behind the audio. This happens frequently on all types of telecasts. I have spoken to a TV station engineer about this, and incredibly, there is no standard way to ensure that the audio and video of HDTV are in sync. Someone at the station can make an adjustment for a particular program, but the offset can be completely different in the next program.

    I see this often on direct reception via antenna. No telling what weird latency problems are added when the signal is transmitted through a cable or satellite system.

    HDTV in general has at least two or three seconds of latency compared to analog. When you're watching a "live" event, you're not.

    Individual TV receivers introduce varying latencies. If you have multiple TVs set to the same channel, you can see and hear this. That ought to be a published spec on TVs, as well as the other gadgets mentioned in the article.

  7. Any High Tech artifacts that last even 100 years? on New Heat Pump Will Last 10,000 Years · · Score: 1

    Our technical civilization won't really be "advanced" in my view unless we can and do make things that last a long, long time. What technology exists that is still working or workable after centuries or millenia? I think there are a few telescopes over 100 years old that are still in use. Pretty impressive. Older than that, and what?... Stone knives? I heard irrigation ditches and terraces have worked for 100s or thousands of years, but these are pretty static, and have required intensive labor to keep them operating. What *could* we make that would still be operable and interesting in, say 500 years?

  8. Longevity Award Re:PAF on Best Open Source Genealogy Software? · · Score: 2

    PAF aka Personal Ancestral File.
    Weirdly, this software, developed by a church, wins my award for the very BEST Macintosh software ever, in the category of Compatible With The Most Versions of Mac OS.

    Originally, this program cost money, but not very much. I bought it for the Mac 512 or thereabouts. It came on floppy disk, probably about 1985. Years later, when Macs had color, low and behold, the PAF screens were in color. They had followed the compatibility guidelines, and put in simple color years before anyone could see color on a Mac. The SAME version of software continued to work for decades, through major system and processor revisions that broke almost everything else. I think it finally stopped working with System X, (about 5 computers later, for me) when it wouldn't work under Classic for some reason.

    Pretty much everything else became incompatible once or more during that time, including Microsoft and Apple. Amazing!

  9. Re:Most embedded devices have a serial port on The iPhone Serial Port Hack · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How last century! What are we going to see next -- how to interface your iPhone to a paper tape reader/punch? Instead of this -- cut the cable, and get an RS-232 - to Bluetooth adapter, similar to this. They are cheaper than the parts for this hack. The iPhone is a wireless device.

  10. Re:From Chupacabras land on Mystery of the 'Chupacabra' May Be Solved · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Chupacabra" means different things to different people. Especially in Puerto Rico compared to the southwest USA and Mexico. In Mexico and the southwest we are talking about dog-like things. Puerto Rico had different ideas -- I think some of them were bipeds, and some were flying chupacabras.

  11. Re:Get a Sat Phone on Amateur Radio In the Backcountry? · · Score: 2, Informative

    (1) It is possible to rent a satellite phone, a lot of places. Why is the OP "waiting" for a satellite phone? They are not any more expensive than a lot of ham radios. The airtime charges are expensive, but presumably limited to important or emergency situations.
    (2) Remember that some personal locator beacons can be used to send a simple non-emergency message to a pre-defined email address. Usually "OK" and your lat/long coordinates. Would this solve your problem? Personal locator beacons are the greatest backcountry safety device to come along in years. Get one, and then do everything you can to make sure you never need to use it.
    (3) For hiker-to-hiker communications in the US, why not FRS/GMRS radios? These are cheaper than ham radios, and about as likely to give line-of-sight communications in the mountains. Licensing requirements are none (FRS) or trivial (GMRS).

  12. Re:Name on AI Astronomer Aids Effort To Analyze Galaxies · · Score: 1

    I dunno, BHA (Butt Hole Astronomer) did okay.

  13. Re:Seeing depth for the first time on Do You Have a Secret Immunity To 3D Movies? · · Score: 1

    when I first experienced depth perception, I first experienced depth perception I just about fell out of my chair. While I haven't investigated trying to correct the vision problem,

    Maybe you should. It used to be considered impossible for someone to acheive depth perception later in life if they didn't develop it as a child. This famous story is about a woman neuroscientist who did so: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5507789

  14. Re:Easy Not quite on US One Step Closer To Electric Grid Cyberguards · · Score: 2, Informative

    Disconnect those systems from the internet

    Remember, a lot of these are old school systems. I know that a lot of remote SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) equipment was never on the Internet. Why? Because it had a modem instead. The electric utilities upgrade their stuff at glacial speed. I bet a lot of that stuff is still out there, and still has a modem connected and has weak to no security.

  15. Or Jotti Re:Upload to virustotal.com on Best Resource For Identifying Legit Applications? · · Score: 2, Informative

    I agree, virustotal answers the original question of an online-resource to check a file. A similar scanning service is http://virusscan.jotti.org/. Remember, take the answers with a grain of salt. These are both multi-scanner services, in which the file is examined by multiple virus-scanning software packages.

  16. Running Very Lean Re:Same old snake oil on 50% Efficiency Boost From New Fuel Injection System · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's been known for a long time that engines will run very efficiently if you run them very lean. In TFA, you will see that's what these guys are doing. The problem is that the engine then runs very hot, and the thing wears out in short order, or you have to make it out of unobtanium. They are also using unusually high pressures and temperatures. In the fine print, you will see they still have some work to do on verifying that the engines will last very long under this treatment.

    So, yes, it will get great miles/gallon, but probably not very many miles/engine.

  17. Re:Related Questions on Suggestions For a Coax-To-Ethernet Solution? · · Score: 1

    Whatever cable types I chose, I would make sure to terminate them all in a single, central wiring panel or closet. So you can patch and mix and match later on if you change your mind about what room needs to be wired to what room.

  18. Charge $1? Re:Copyright or "cultural heritage"? on Mexico Wants Payment For Aztec Images · · Score: 1

    Humm, let's see... What if Egypt (or Mexico) charges $1 for each image of a pyramid, then ... All your one dollar bills are belong to us!

  19. Latency Re:Bad deal for AT&T on AT&T To Allow VoIP On iPhone · · Score: 1

    Dirty little secret: All cell phone carriers have high latency for voice. And it's double if both ends are cell phones. It's really annoying, and makes you talk over each other.
    Anecdotally: I had a cell phone conversation going simultaneously with a Skype video call from my desktop computer, and the audio via Skype was noticeably faster than the audio through the cell phone. I heard the other end first through Skype, and somewhat later via phone. (My end was Verizon.)

  20. Available Cartridges Re:The best laser printer is on Choosing a Personal Printer For the Long Haul · · Score: 2, Informative

    The joke translates: find one with readily available cartridges. :) If you have a little more volume, the issue becomes cost of consumables. Toner and drum cartridges are expensive, and often proprietary. Next printer, go to visit your local Cartridge World, or similar cartridge recycling vendor, and ask them: "What cartridges are cheapest, and most readily available, with no proprietary crap making them unrefillable?" Then, go buy the printer that uses them.

  21. Post files on internet on Thanks For the ... Eight-Track, Uncle Alex · · Score: 1

    If you want to preserve digital data, post it online. Give the files some whacky, unique keyword that she can search for when she is 17. Put the keyword in the box. Once stuff is on the net it never seems to die. Everybody's ancient USENET posts are still available. And somebody else is responsible for updating the storage medium occasionally.

  22. It is Happening Re:It's Not Global Warming! on One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night · · Score: 1
    It is already happening. The International Dark Sky Association http://www.darksky.org/ has been working for years to reduce wasteful lighting. Some locations have already adopted their model lighting ordinance.

    We are paying *lots* of money for oil to light up the sky at night (which helps no one). In the USA, this is mostly imported oil. So, in the current economy there will be a lot of pressure to stop wasting money and oil, and stop producing greenhouse gasses, etc.

  23. Re:Great interoperability on Mac OS X Users Vulnerable To Major Java Flaw · · Score: 3, Funny

    And the Java critics said total platform independence was impossible!

    Nonsense! For years Java apps have been producing platform-independent error messages on all platforms equally. Fortunately, the exploit will probably error out too!

  24. Simulator Dome on Worst Working Conditions You Had To Write Code In? · · Score: 1

    It wasn't me, but I visited General Dynamics, Ft. Worth, in the '80s. The engineers desks were crammed together in the open bay of a big hangar. We took a tour of the simulator dome, where F-16 simulations were in progress. We had to step over a guy crouching on the floor with his keyboard and emulator. He was trying to work inside this dome with simulated yanking and banking going on, complete with sound effects, while people stepped over him.

  25. Other Problems with Pthalates, especially in boys on Hints of a Link Between Autism and Vinyl Flooring · · Score: 1

    Leonard Sax's book Boys Adrift discusses potential impact on boy's normal development by Pthalates. The text is searchable on Google.