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User: tpwch

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Comments · 75

  1. Re:How? on Senate Trying To Slip Internet Kill Switch Past Us · · Score: 1

    Explosives to cut off the international cables?

  2. Re:Nokia USA: N900? Oops sorry, 404. on Real-Time, Detailed Face Tracking On a Nokia N900 · · Score: 1

    No its not discountinued, the model isn't even a year old. Plenty of stores around here (Sweden) has it.

  3. Re:Mod parent up! on Real-Time, Detailed Face Tracking On a Nokia N900 · · Score: 1

    Nokia has in fact stated that this is more of a research project currently. According to what they posted years ago they plan generation 5 of the device to be ready for mass usage by everyone. The 770 being gen 1, N800 gen 2, not sure if N810 is gen 3 or just counts as a "2.5" since it was just a few small improvments over N800, which makes N900 either gen 3 or gen 4. That doesn't mean that the N900 isn't worth getting however, its an amazing device.

  4. Re:N900 without phone? on Real-Time, Detailed Face Tracking On a Nokia N900 · · Score: 1

    I have an N800 and I think its the best thing I ever bought. I use it for hours every day and have for almost 3 years. I'm just sad that its battery is starting to die and I can't afford to replace it at the moment.

    I don't see why you couldn't get a N900 and just not use the phone feature. Unless you live somewhere where you have to buy a phone plan to buy a phone (read: The U.S., the only country I know where you can't buy all phones separately without a subscription from any phone stores. And even there you might be able to import one without a subscription.).

  5. Re:Debian? on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 1

    Whoops, I meant experimental, not unstable.

  6. Re:Debian? on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 1

    Must have been quite a while ago then. I don't remember kde 4.0 ever being in unstable, the debian kde devs maintained a separate repository with the kde 4 packages before they got added to unstable:

    http://qt-kde.debian.net/

  7. Re:Debian? on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 1

    Well, report the bug then. =)

    I've run unstable for years without any major problems. But then I know how to fix problems I encounter, and I don't run gnome or kde =P

  8. Re:Debian? on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 3, Informative

    Most of the time when ubuntu needs to update a package they first check if debian has an updated version, and most of the time it has. And if you compare the package count of the distros debians is higher. It happens, but is pretty rare, that ubuntu adds some package that debian doesn't have for some reason. You've probably come across a few of those. You shouldn't be running experimental. Things that gets put in experimental are things that are known to be very likely to break stuff. Its mean for debian developers and people who want to help test things and report bugs only. And even they don't install all of experimental, just the packages they want to test. Chances are you didn't run experimental unless you know a lot about how the package system works, as you have to specifically specify that you want stuff from experimental when you install or update a package, just adding it to the repos doesn't do it. Its pretty unlikely that you got a system working with no problems if you really did install all of experimental.

  9. Re:Debian? on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 4, Informative

    Compared to a few years ago, yes, debian is a lot more up to date. I'd recommend running testing, or unstable if you know what you're doing. Stable doesn't get updated after release except for critical fixes like security updates (which is the way its supposed to be, so you can throw it on a server and not have to worry about a future update breaking things), but debians testing and unstable quality is higher than the stable of most distros.

  10. Re:sweet! on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thats not exactly true. A lot of stuff Ubuntu does/fixes gets sent back to Debian. Its a mutual relationship that they both benefit from. The same is true for many other debian-based distributions. And hey, its open source, the people who makes Debian want others to reap their benefits.

  11. Re:Took long enough _ on Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Frozen · · Score: 5, Informative

    Debians policy is always that fixing problems takes priority over release schedules. They don't release a half-finished product. They'll wait years if its required to get things the way they want it.

  12. Re:Make the switch from Dual Booting on Wine 1.2 Released · · Score: 1

    Vent has worked in wine for years. I'm using it right now. You just need to download the audio codec since that doesn't come with vent. Just google for msgsm32.acm and put that file in the system32 folder in your wine installation. Getting push-to-talk takes a bit more work, but its doable, just google and you'll find it.

  13. Re:How many KiloCalories if you burn a human? on DARPA To Turn Humans Into Batteries · · Score: 3, Informative

    Its a pretty easy calculation. According to google an average non-overweight human is about 15% fat and 18% protein (the protein number varies a bit depending on the source, but lets use 18% for this calculation).

    A gram of fat is 9 kcal and a gram of protein is 4 kcal for a person. Not sure if there is anything else in the human body that would store energy, the carbohydate amount is small enough that its neglegible.

    So a person weighing 75 kilos would have 155 250 kcal in his body. I imagine that when burning that however a lot of the energy would be lost to evaporating the water in the human body.

  14. Re:More details and downloadable archive on Claimed Proof That UNIX Code Was Copied Into Linux · · Score: 1

    Interesting. I just figured that it was because i was short for iterator, and if you needed more than one you went with the next letter. Maybe thats part of it as well. I've just always done it since the example code I first looked at when I learned my first language did it that way.

  15. Re:What a wasted opportunity on A Genetically Engineered Fly That Can Smell Light · · Score: 1

    Which is why I wrote that they should insert another favorable gene as well, to increase the chances of those individuals genes being spread.

  16. Re:What a wasted opportunity on A Genetically Engineered Fly That Can Smell Light · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well think about it. How many generations does it take for a favorable gene to spread trough the population? Give the flies another favorable gene as well as the smell gene, then set them loose to make babies. I read somewhere that it takes 3000-5000 years for humans, but fly generations are much shorter, so maybe we could reap the advantages in our lifetime.

  17. Re:it's not the justice... on Swedish Court Rules ISP Must Reveal OpenBitTorrent Operator's Identity · · Score: 1

    Yeah well at least we don't have to pay millions if we're guilty. There is no such thing as punitive damages paid to the opposing party here, only actual damages that can be proved. Also if you're sentenced to a fine (which would be the most likely sentence for a file sharer) that fine is based on how much income you have, its never so much that it'll drive you bankrupt for the next 50 years. You might be sentenced to pay, for example, 30 days of your income after taxes.

  18. Re:it's not the justice... on Swedish Court Rules ISP Must Reveal OpenBitTorrent Operator's Identity · · Score: 1

    Don't assume that because it works that way where you are it works that way everywhere. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense in Sweden, it is supposed to be enforced by the regular police.

  19. tools I found useful on Adding Some Spice To *nix Shell Scripts · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here are some random things I find useful, related to user interaction (mostly becuase it notifies the user):

    Oven timer:
    sleep $((20*60)); xmessage "Dinner is done"

    Quick macro for automating some repetitive task in a program:
    xdotool type "something"; xdotool key Return; xdotool mousemove $x $y; xdotool click 1; (and so on)

    Copying a file to/from the clipboard (can also copy from /topipe, so the output of any command). Faster than opening a text editor:
    xclip -in file

    Notifying me when some specific thing changed on a website:
    CHECKLINE="$(curl -s http://somewebsite.org/somepage.html | grep "currently undergoing maintenence")"
    while true; do
        sleep 120
        [ -z "$CHECKLINE" ] && xmessage "somewebsite is open again" && exit
    done

    Or just checking for changes in general (I use this for notifying me when something changed when tracking something I ordered, so I know the minute the package is ready to get picked up at the post office):
    while true; do
        OLD_MD5=${MD5}
        CONTENT=$(elinks -dump 1 -dump-charset iso-8859-1 "http://someurl.com/track?id=someid")
        MD5=$(echo -n $CONTENT | md5sum -)

        [ "${MD5}" != "${OLD_MD5}" ] && {
            xmessage "$(printf "New action: :\n\n${CONTENT}")"
        }
        sleep 120
    done

    If you don't want to interrupt what you're doing with a pop-up you can pipe it to osd_cat instead to have the text appear over whatever program you're currently working with. Adding a few beep; beep; beep; beep; is also a good way to get your attention if you're not paying 100% attention to your computer all the time.

  20. Re:That's a great price! on Largest Sodium Sulfur Battery Powers a Texas Town · · Score: 1

    Thats not entirely accurate since it can be charged and discharged multiple times. Apperantly thousands of times according to a comment earlier. So the price in your example goes down by a few factors.

  21. Re:Belt of Stability on Six Atoms of Element 117 Produced · · Score: 1

    Even if we can't use it for practical purposes we can still use it to learn a lot about how the universe works.

  22. Re:Time for GM to dump all European brands on GM Is Selling Saab To Spyker Cars · · Score: 1

    Where in my post did I say SAAB? If you look at the parent to my post you'll see that we were discussing brands GM have bought in Europe in general, not SAAB in particular.

  23. Re:Time for GM to dump all European brands on GM Is Selling Saab To Spyker Cars · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thats really the fault of GM. They were profitable when GM bought them. GM has introduced an insane amount of restrictions and bad design choices that they forced the european brands to use. SAAB employees has been complaining about this for many years.

  24. Re:The main details are missing on GM Is Selling Saab To Spyker Cars · · Score: 1

    The swedish goverment has guaranteed the loan already, it was announced in swedish media about 12 hours ago.

  25. Re:Standalone Systems will just be enhanced on Nokia To Make GPS Navigation Free On Smartphones · · Score: 1

    1 and 4: Its clear that we don't live in the same part of the world. 2: Who said anything about following instructions blindly? You don't have to turn into an idiot just because you have a GPS. And instructions could be made simple. They could say "follow the road that leads towards X" and you look at the signs and take that turn, or continue forwards, or switch lanes or whatever the signs indicate. 3: There is an easy way to see the streets around you. Its called looking out the window. Disclaimer: I don't have a driverce licence, and not much experience driving.