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User: fhmiv

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  1. Looks like a great first computer to me on OLPC Launches Buy One, Give One Free Program · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm buying one for my 3-year-old. I can see several advantages to this approach over other laptops. First, I can give her a rugged computer that actually works, something she will surely like as she sees her mom and I using our laptops all the time, and kids learn a lot by imitation. Second, I can continue teaching her about philanthropy - we bought one for her and one for someone else who could use one but can't afford it. Third, to counter the arguments about the US educational system ignoring the OLPC, education begins in the home.

    As a programmer, I look forward to seeing the software efforts that are built atop this platform. There's plenty of room for free educational software for kids and this looks like a good platform for it. Surely someone will port the platform stack to a standard Linux distro, and then any software you write for this, you can run on your PC you bought at Wal-Mart.

    Cheers, Frank

  2. Re:He notes in the blog that his company does not on Apple Safari On Windows Broken On First Day · · Score: 1

    Actually, he WAS trying to find holes in their software. His professed profession is Security Researcher.

  3. Re:Cheating in video games on When Is a Con Not a Con? · · Score: 1

    The claim in the article was that the player could exchange the in-game money for US dollars. You're right, though, there is no case for the IRS to pursue unless the player exchanges the in-game currency for some legal tender.

  4. Re:Cheating in video games on When Is a Con Not a Con? · · Score: 2, Insightful
    You're probably right about the first claim --- it isn't interesting that someone "cheated" in an online game and amassed an in-game fortune. However, the second claim IS interesting. These ISK's can be exchanged for legal tender, and in the USA, that is called Income and is subject to taxation.

    Law enforcement and the IRS would be uninterested in me stealing $500 worth of Monopoly money because there is no exchange for Monopoly money to US Dollars or any other legal tender. This issue could be different. Consider someone who exchanges US dollars for casino chips to play poker, wins a bunch more chips, and then exchanges their casino chips for US dollars. According to the IRS, they owe taxes on their winnings/earnings. I think Dentara Rask's take in the game could be classified like gambling winnings.

  5. Coffee is too individual to be canned on Self-Heating Coffee Cans Recalled · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I don't like my coffee very sweet, so Wolfgang and Starbuck's pre-packaged coffee beverages, cold or hot, don't appeal to me.
    I did try a few of Puck's self-heating latte beverages when they first came to satisfy my curiosity. One of the pack of four failed to heat, but luckily for me, none of them exploded or meltied their packaging.
    It's spiffy to be able to heat your own coffee in such a small package, but when you seal up pre-mixed coffee in a can or a more complicated contraption like this one, you lose one of coffee's primary advantages as a beverage --- it is an excellent platform for customization.

    I'd rather go without than drink a coffee beverage brewed or mixed to appeal to some marketeer's average consumer taste buds. If I wanted a sweet, pre-mixed beverage, I'd drink a soda.

  6. Open Standards for latency, resiliency, and range on 802.11n Spec Still In The Air · · Score: 1
    I believe in Open Standards so I will wait at least until the standard is approved before buying anything new.

    Also, I've been using computer networking wireless technologies since before the 802.11 standards, starting with the old CISCO Aeronet stuff in the mid to late 1990's. I do appreciate improved throughput up to my current router's 802.11g 52 Mbps, but before I spent any more money on new wireless networking gear, I would need some assurances of improved latency, resiliency to interference or placement effects, and range.

    I understand some of this comes down to equipment choice, for example my metal-caged powerbook doesn't get very good reception, while my desktop with its external antenna does much better, and I understand I can use repeaters or buy better antennas, but it doesn't take a lot of fiddling with a wireless network to improve its performance characteristics to make me just want to plug in.

  7. Re:Finally. on ESRB Changes Oblivion's Rating to 'Mature' · · Score: 1
    I like Oblivion, a lot. It's a really fun game. I think it's too graphically violent for my young daughter to see.

    I also think it's a questionable decision we as a society seem to be making, where violence is acceptable but sexuality is not. That to me is VERY weird.

    -F.

  8. Gaming on Apple Officially Releases Beta Dual Boot Loader · · Score: 1

    This sounds great, but I'm far more interested in verification of which games work in this environment from those who have tried it. At the moment, I'm interested in Oblivion and Call of Duty 2. Anyone installed and played these under Boot Camp? How's it look and how fast?

  9. Re:Tracker refuses on NASA BlueMarble: Next Generation · · Score: 1
    Based on the size of the Blue Marble archive offered up at Geotorrent.org, I am pretty sure it is an older version than the ones being announced in this article, and also at lower resolution. Just for comparison, the 500m resolution imagery can be downloaded as one big file per image type, or you can nab sections at a time, where the earth is divided in to 16 areas. The area I'm trying to download, C1, is 407.5 MB.

    I am also having trouble with the tracker refusing my connections. Please post if you find working torrents for the 500m resolution imagery!

  10. Interesting topics covered, but not aptly titled on What Business Can Learn from Open Source · · Score: 1

    This article isn't about what business can learn from Open Source, it's about how blogging and Open Source are similar, and how cool the author things they are.

  11. Re:Replacing? on Inkscape 0.42: The Ultimate Answer · · Score: 1
    The editors DID link to the website of the program, however, being /., they chose to link to the screenshots page rather than the front page. Inkscape's homepage clearly states in the title that it is an "Open Source Scalable Vector Graphics Editor."

    Whether that means anything to your amateur graphics file editor is another question entirely. You can often accomplish many of the same results with either a raster or a vector editor, so especially in many light-usage cases, it really comes down to preference. I like having access to both tools.

  12. Who did what to whom? was Re:RCA Lyra on The BlackBerry Infringing on Other Technologies? · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I don't think the issue is that Blackberry tried to patent anything, it's that they may use technology that others have already patented, i.e. they may infringe on those other patents.

    You don't have to attempt to patent a technology in order to be liable for infringing on a patent on the same technology.

  13. Re:Deployment license, development license, or bot on WebObjects Now Free With Tiger · · Score: 4, Informative

    I managed to answer some of my questions by looking at http://www.apple.com/webobjects/. Tiger Client includes a development license for WebObjects. Tiger Server includes a deployment license.

  14. Deployment license, development license, or both on WebObjects Now Free With Tiger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A few questions that are unanswered by the article and Apple's store. Does Mac OS X client include a deployment license? What about Mac OS X server? What about deployment licenses for other platforms, like Solaris or Linux? I think a fair number of existing WebObjects deployments are on platforms other than Mac OS X.

  15. Re:faster, how? on Rail Guns Closer to Reality · · Score: 1

    RTFA. From the second paragraph of the short article: "The Z Machine is now able to propel small plates at 34 kilometers a second, faster than the 30 kilometers per second that Earth travels through space in its orbit about the Sun. That's 50 times faster than a rifle bullet, and three times the velocity needed to escape Earth's gravitational field."

  16. Re:"you're fired" on IBM Gives SCO the Works · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also, being laid off (or "made redundant" as it is called in the UK) is NOT the same as being fired. Being fired is having your employment terminated for cause; it is supposed to be your fault and tends to reflect poorly on your individual job performance. Being laid off means the business can no longer support your position, and it does not tend to reflect poorly on your individual job performance.

  17. Re:One bathroom in the whole building on Inside Look at Pixar HQ · · Score: 1

    At NeXT's buildings in Redwood City, there were only one set of bathrooms in each building.

  18. Follow-on work on More on Newly Broken SHA-1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The concern is not so much that the method described in this break is feasible on today's hardware, or even that this method will get cheaper and cheaper as hardware gets faster. The BIG concern is that this method provides insight in to the SHA-1 in general, and will be used by others to come up with more efficient breaks or more egregious flaws.

  19. Re:"Proprietary" on Profiting from Open Source Software · · Score: 1

    Seems to me that the value-added closed-source stuff on top is often the user interface. Sure, it may not do much computational heavy lifting, but if it were easy to develop good interfaces, you would see more good user interfaces on Open Source software. To relate it to the story, I use Snort, and sorting through the alerts on a busy network can be time-consuming, even with the Open Source add-on tools you can use. If I were protecting an important network, a proprietary data correlation system and pretty front-end for Snort would be worth considering against the other commercial offerings in the application space.

  20. Re:yet again on US Army Scraps Comanche Helicopter · · Score: 1

    Paladin is an old program, started in 1963 I believe. The cancelled artillery program you are referring to is probably Crusader.

  21. Media mirrors politics? on The Internet, Media and Politics · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Two interesting articles which show the television news media in an unfavorable light:

    Fox News vs CNN This gives the news networks the appearance of political in-fighting, just like several of the democratic presidential candidates.

    No exhaustive analysis to see here! Move along!

    The second article quotes CBS pres Andrew Heyward, "Cable thrives on repetition and, let's be kind, exhaustive analysis, which has to constantly be freshened." Saying ANY of the news networks engage in "exhaustive analysis" is indeed charitable. They replay and replay without ever showing much success in giving context to the newsworthy items they cover. Almost any clip can be made to look wonderful or ridiculous if taken out of context.

    The value of the Internet as news media is you can get the context you need to make sense of the news clips. Good print media is also useful for that, but it's often frustrating to wait for your weekly delivery of the Economist.

    ANY media gains an advantage when the editors can help provide unbiased reporting AND context for the events they cover. The trick is finding editors you can trust.

  22. Re:Most readable font..according to Google on US Govt Makes Times New Roman 14 Official Font · · Score: 2, Informative
    Not to pick nits, but Times New Roman is a "serif" font, which means it has the little horizontal bars at the tops and bottoms of the letters. "Sans serif" fonts lack those little bars, which makes sense if you think about the name.

    Serif fonts have been found to be more readable in printed material.

  23. Re:Study on US Govt Makes Times New Roman 14 Official Font · · Score: 1

    Why, yes. Try this:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=font+readability&ie =UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

  24. Re:Also in the news: $1300 to PayPal on Wikipedia Reaches 200,000 Articles · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Charitable organizations often use the term "efficiency" for the return on their fundraising investments.

    95.5% profit to the "charity" is phenomenaly high effciency. When charitable organizations hold large fund-raising events, they are often very lucky to get even 50% efficiency for their efforts.

    Often, a "charity" or non-profit will pay another organization to do their fundraising for them. They will sign a contract that includes an administrative fee, in either dollar or percentage terms, that is taken off the top.

    I've been involved in a few fundraising efforts and have never seen anything more organized or larger-scale than a bake sale with that high an efficiency.

  25. Re:Seems to me pretty stupid too on Rings Digital Dailies Circled Globe via iPod · · Score: 1
    Of course, seein' the usual "even a fart smells sweet if it's got the Apple logo" crowd on Slashdot, maybe it's worthy of Slashdot after all.

    As an Apple shareholder, I think if Steve can put chrome on farts and sell them at a profit, more power to him!