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User: amorsen

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  1. Re:Patent-encumbered standards are stupid on ITU Approves H.264 Video Standard Successor H.265 · · Score: 1

    I don't have anything to add to what I wrote above. No one has defined a metric that can meaningfully distinguish between to video codecs to 3 significant digits.

  2. Re:Energy sucking plasma? on Ask Slashdot: Where Are the E-Ink Dashboards? · · Score: 1

    Don't believe manufacturer's claims for energy use. Especially not if you are using the display for things that aren't regular home TV-viewing. A TV used during working hours will typically need its brightness set quite high, and that can use quite a bit extra power. It will also wear the display out faster, but often you can buy 3 regular TV's for the price of one display made for business use. Even if it does wear out after 2 years, prices will have come down and quality improved.

  3. Re:Patent-encumbered standards are stupid on ITU Approves H.264 Video Standard Successor H.265 · · Score: 1

    Anyone who believes they can describe the efficiency difference between two video codecs as one percentage with 3 significant digits needs their head examined.

  4. Re:It would be fair... on Unlocking New Mobile Phones Becomes Illegal In the US Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    Actually, though, unlocking to avoid roaming charges is no different than having a second phone, there is no financial harm to the original company. You aren't using their network while you are roaming.

    The original company still gets a good part of the extortionate charges. So there is certainly financial "harm" done to them if you refuse to be robbed.

    And pretty much the whole point of the DMCA is to prevent you from doing what you want to things you own.

  5. Re:LOL on Peugeot Citroen To Introduce Compressed Air Hybrid By 2016 · · Score: 2

    The stupid thing is that nobody in the UK buys fuel by the gallon. It is always sold by the liter.

    Also, the signs on the motorway that say "2/3 mile" are placed exactly 1km from the exit, they are just labelled wrong.

  6. Re:same as before, use Cat5 on What the FCC's Wi-Fi Expansion Means For You · · Score: 1

    Power over fiber is lucky to do 1W currently. I have not seen any PoE-devices which can make do with 1W.

  7. Re:same as before, use Cat5 on What the FCC's Wi-Fi Expansion Means For You · · Score: 1

    If cost is no object, I'd use fiber myself. It is unlikely you will *ever* out grow the wiring if you pull fiber... Eventually, even Cat6e is going to be obsolete, but fiber will never really go away.

    Two problems with that: Are you going single mode or multi mode? And how do you do power over fiber?

    By all means, pull a few pairs of fiber while you're at it, but do not skimp on the copper.

  8. Re:Why would it matter if it were hashed? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 1

    If the MAC address is personally identifiable, then a straight hash of it is too.

  9. Re:Why does this matter? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 2

    There is no maybe about it, tracking is the primary reason for loyalty cards. The other reason is that people love "points"; they will often go for points valued at 1% of the purchase rather than pick a competing brand which is 10% cheaper...

  10. Re:Do wifi devices broadcast always? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 1

    (how else do you automatically connect to non-broadcast SSID networks?)

    I was hoping the answer was "you don't automatically connect to non-broadcast SSID". Non-broadcast SSID is a cruel joke.

    It is handy to try & connect to unencrypted wifi networks automatically, so you get a message that wifi is available.

    You can tell that a wifi network is unencrypted straight from the SSID broadcast, no need to connect.

  11. Re:Why would it matter if it were hashed? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 1

    (Not to be a pedant, but it's "pretense" by the way.)

    British vs. American English. I try to stick with British, but I am not always successful.

    Oxford Dictionaries entry for pretence

  12. Re:How are they getting the MAC address? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 1

    Indeed, this really confuses me as well.

    If I am connected to a wireless network they can track me, but I rarely bring my home wireless router shopping with me. Do unassociated devices really send out "hey there!"-packets from time to time, and if so, why do they do that and how can I make them stop?

    I had a play around with airodump-ng for a few minutes, but I only detected one unassociated device and that one seemed to be attempting to associate to a nearby SSID.

  13. Re:Why does this matter? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 1

    I would have thought they'd already be doing this with credit card details since forever anyway, and getting much more informative data to mine as a result.

    Most credit card companies do not allow merchants to hang on to credit card details except for subscriptions.

  14. Re:Why would it matter if it were hashed? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't a hashed MAC address going to be the same every time? Seems like it would be easy to match the phone to a person if they made a couple credit card purchases on separate trips into a store.

    Correct, hashing does not do anything useful here except keep up the pretence. Well it prevents multiple-vendor networks from combining logs from different vendors, but I bet all monitoring devices from a single vendor use the same hash.

  15. Do wifi devices broadcast always? on Have a Wi-Fi-Enabled Phone? Stores Are Tracking You · · Score: 1

    Why do wifi devices broadcast anything when they are not in range of a known SSID? That seems a bit pointless to me.

    Bluetooth tracking like this is very common, because Bluetooth needs to constantly announce its existence so that paired devices know that they must respond. Wifi access points need to broadcast for almost the same reason. But why do regular non-AP non-peer-mode wifi devices broadcast anything? They ought to be silent until they find something to speak to.

  16. Re:Not NetBSD on You've Got 25 Years Until UNIX Time Overflows · · Score: 2

    In the 64-bit ABI, a long is 64-bits

    Not true for Windows. On Windows you need a long long to get the native integer size on 64-bit processors. A pointer on Windows 64-bit does not fit in a long.

    On the bright side, Windows does not use the "offset from 1970" method of storing time. Whether the Windows method is better is debatable, but it certainly has no Y2k38 problem.

  17. Re:Two questions on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 1

    Thank you very much for the praise.

    Yes it would be nice to keep the albedo low in the arctic regions, but at least a dark area there is a one-off cost (it doesn't get worse once it is black) and you need a huge area to reflect a decent amount of sunlight due to the low light angles in the arctics.

    I am personally more worried about the methane stored up there and the methane hydrates on the sea floor, but I just found an article that seems quite reassuring on that front.

  18. Re:Doomsday clock on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know the Tea Party movement does not want the government to spend money. However, they are not acting on that. They are not asking Republicans to promise to cut expenditures or even to not add new ones. Instead they are demanding that Republicans promise to never increase taxes.

    Tea Party is all about leaving the bill to the future generation.

  19. Re:Doomsday clock on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 1

    Go somewhere else with your dead prophets. This world has real problems to solve.

  20. Re:Two questions on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 1

    It is impolite of you to put words into my mouth. It is already enough for me, I do not need scientific certainty. I always wear my seatbelt even though the risk of me dying from not wearing it is way below 0.1% over my life time. I believe that climate change has more than a 0.1% chance of destroying civilization and possibly eradicating humans entirely, and it is my firm belief that we should stop net CO2 emissions entirely within 10 years.

    We are not 100% certain that all ocean life will die. Whether the risk is 0.1% or 50% or 99.9% I am not sure, but houses do not have a 0.1% risk of falling down. Ferries do not have a 0.1% risk of sinking. Planes do not have a 0.1% risk of crashing.

    So should we accept a 0.1% risk of dooming the oceans? Certainly not.

    Now stop picking on those who are already on your side.

  21. Re:Two questions on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 1

    Weather is not climate. Local cloud seeding is not geoengineering.

  22. Re:Doomsday clock on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bullshit. Entitlement reform would require little or no tax increases to reduce our debt. Typical bleeding heart crap.

    Show me a proposal without tax increases that would not cut deeply into the things that Republicans cannot afford to cut, like Medicare/Medicaid for retirees or defense. It has to be something you can get the average rural white American on board with.

  23. Re:Doomsday clock on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 2

    If you imagine that the debt can be addressed by increasing taxes, then you have no conception of the scale of the problem.

    Read what I wrote. The debt problem cannot be addressed without increasing taxes. Obviously spending cuts are necessary too, they may in fact end up doing most of the job, but they cannot stand alone. The Tea Party has effectively prevented reaching a solution, and therefore they are for piling on debt without end.

  24. Re:Two questions on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 3, Informative

    We do not know for sure that ocean life is doomed because of increasing CO2 levels. It is a plausible theory and past extinction events certainly provide reason to worry, but it is not a scientific certainty. Also note that the ocean is not yet close to turning acid, it is going from quite alkaline to somewhat less alkaline.

    As to the geoengineering question, I would think it rather obvious why we are not doing it. It is not necessary yet, and playing with the climate is risky. It would be nicer to stop playing with the climate (stop net CO2 emissions) instead of adding even more uncertainty.

    I bet that deliberate geoengineering with measurable effects will happen, perhaps even within 10 years. Once it becomes clear that CO2 emissions are not stopping quickly enough, it will be necessary and people will demand it.

  25. Re:Doomsday clock on The World Remains Five Minutes From Midnight · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Obviously you have no idea at all what the Tea Party is all about. Piling on debt without end is not long-term thinking.

    Piling on debt without end is what the Tea Party is all about. The Tea Party movement has made many Republicans promise to never raise taxes. There are no realistic options to balance the US budget or repay the debt without raising taxes at all for anyone.