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User: xiando

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  1. Re: Lost me at LTE on Qualcomm, Microsoft Announce Snapdragon 835 PCs With Gigabit LTE (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    They lost me too with their "always connected to LTE". My 10" tablet does have a SIM card slot, so does my 6.5" phablet which I use as a small tablet. I don't have a SIM in either of those and I don't see the point. It's not like I use a laptop or a 10" tablet while I'm walking around outside. Cafe's have WIFI, trains have WIFI, buses have WIFI, I've got WIFI at home and every place I visit has WIFI.

    I know Qualcomm is all about LTE always and everywhere (I've seen their presentations, I didn't get it then and I still don't). What, exactly, is the big advantage of using LTE if you have WIFI available? One transmits a very short distance and the other will transmit to something that's pretty far away.

    I guess some will buy a device without WIFI but to me that's like trying to sell me a device without other essentials like a SD card slot and a headphone jack. I know some buy devices like that but to me it's like trying to sell me a car without a trunk because who needs that?

  2. Battery is too small on (almost) all the laptops on Study Shows Laptop Batteries Often Don't Last As Long As They Say (digitaltrends.com) · · Score: 1

    I have a 10" tablet. I can use that thing for hours and hours every day for a week without having to charge it. It's not a laptop, but it does have a nice bright 10" IPS screen (which is way better than that TN joke on my laptop). Both my laptops last about two hours or just enough to view a full movie on battery if I'm on a train or something like that. All the laptops seem to have real battery life of 2 (most common) to 4 hours (rare). I've read this Macbook thing has 10 hours, perhaps that's true and if it is then good for those who have one. Generally 2 hours of Screen On Time is very little. It's possible to leave your home without dragging a phone or tablet charger along but there's little to no point in bringing a laptop without the power brick. It's possible to do much, much better. A bigger battery would be a good start. You can detach the battery on some laptops (essential feature, btw). Both of my batteries are really small and light. It's no wonder they don't last that long. I'd personally take the weight and size of a real battery and have an actual mobile device. Current laptops are just "mobile" in the sense that you can move them from power outlet to power outlet.

  3. I see it as pretty obvious that x86/x86-64 CPUs stalled out because Intel decided to milk the market due to the lack of competition (from AMD). Look at Intels offerings in the Xeon E7 Family for examples of exactly why I say this is obvious. It's not like chips that are far better than what is currently offered to average consumers do not exist, they do - they are just priced outrageously.

    If AMD delivers with Ryzen and offers something with a good IPC and lots of cores at half the price of Intel then perhaps they will lower their prices on some of their low-end chips.

    My guess is what will really force them to finally innovate a bit will be pressure from ARM. Hardware x264 and x265 video decoding and x264 video encoding has been standard in ARM chips for years. Intel just got x264 decoding. They don't have 265 decoding and they don't have any hardware video encoding. I could go on but my point is that Intel has fallen way behind because they figured they didn't have competition.

  4. Re: No SATA and no RAM expandability on Intel Core I7-7700K Kaby Lake Review By Ars Technica: Is the Desktop CPU Dead? (arstechnica.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    SATA could be fixed. The CPU doesn't support SATA but it does have limited PCI-express so motherboards could just add controller chip. The RAM limit can't be solved that easily, most ARM chips are made with mobile phones in mind and they are generally limited to 4GB or something like that, the most I've seen is 6GB. Motherboard makers just solder on the max amount supported.

    I do love that these small boards have neat things that desktop computers just don't have, like 4k camera support and hardware x264 video encoding. How many laptops are sold with anything beyond a garbage 720p camera? You can probably count them on one hand if they even exist.

  5. Re: ARM Processors coming to Desktops? on Intel Core I7-7700K Kaby Lake Review By Ars Technica: Is the Desktop CPU Dead? (arstechnica.co.uk) · · Score: 2

    Yes, they are absolutely coming to .. servers and laptops and eventually desktops. Remember, all we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the GNU World Order (Many think David Rockefeller said "New World Order" but GNU is actually pronounced new).

    Today we have something called ReactOS which is an Android distribution for x86/x86-64 computers. I have an older laptop that I put Fedora and ReactOS on in dual-boot and this let me do something interesting: Benchmark Android on said laptop using the same benchmarking software you'd use on any Android device. Guess what, that AMD E1-6010 CPU is weaker than my current cellphone.

    Many people will naturally protest that running win32 software on ARM will be painfully slow. While this is true it's also irrelevant for most people. You don't need win32 to browse websites or post on SpyBook.

  6. Re: The most important step IS backwards on Specs of Qualcomm's First ARM Processor Capable of Running Windows 10 Leaks (mspoweruser.com) · · Score: 1

    ..and it's always been _the_ most important part of Windows. Backward- compatibility which allows all the existing programs to work is exactly why Windows remains widely used today. If Windows 10 only allowed those "universal applications" applications made for it then it would probably have close to zero users and installations.

    Windows RT ran on ARM and it was an epic failure because you couldn't run software made for Windows XP or Windows 7 or other older Windows platforms on it. Now Microsoft is trying again, this time allowing you to run win32 software on the ARM version of their OS. It probably won't be a big success but it does have a chance this time around.

  7. Re: "Improvements" on Firefox 49 Arrives With Improvements (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 2

    They haven't taken away Addons from us - yet. The ironic thing is that half my addons just restore functionality that was previously built-in but was taken away.

  8. ..what happens when they don't ship it overseas on A Shocking Amount of E-Waste Recycling Is a Complete Sham (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    I live in a small town in a typical modern fascist dictatorship with an illusion of freedom in the northern of the fascist union (EU). The local newspapers announced that a new Recycling Plant(TM) would be opening in our little town. This was apparently huge local news because start-up that employed more than five people.

    The news articles detailed how this Recycling Plant(TM) would Recycle old mobile phones and computer equipment.

    The CEO explained: There are small amounts of gold and other metals in all electronics. We will burn the electronics we receive up to slightly above the melting points for the metals we are interested in (primarily gold?) and harvest them.

    I still wonder how the word "recycle" could possibly apply.

    Here are some figures to consider: 1000 kilograms of cell phones can yield around 280 grams of gold, around 140 grams of platinum and palladium, and 140 kilograms of copper. That means that there is a lot of "stuff" that's just burned and not recycled.

    The local "recycling" plant didn't make it. They lasted less than a year before going under.

  9. JAMA study authors don't even lift on Activity Trackers May Undermine Weight Loss Efforts, Says Study (sciencedaily.com) · · Score: 2

    If you want to look better then there's one proven solution which works and has proven itself throughout the centuries since ancient Greece: Lifting weights. Can some "tracker" on your arm measure how much you lift? No, obviously not. These idiotic devices also supposedly track your calorie intake. If you lift and reduce your intake then you won't gain muscle and look like a skeleton. In summery, these devices are useless and those who buy them are wasting money they should be spending on gym memberships and protein rich food. Fatties should get off their asses and lift, not waste money on idiotic technology.

  10. Re: Slashdot effect on The Future of Firefox is Chrome (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 2

    This is offtopic for the subject but yes, I know the Slashdot effect. I had a website with around 1000 daily visitors. That was .. it. Then I got 2 million hits in a 14 hour period. Thank you Slashdot. Amazingly the webserver getting overloaded was not the big problem, back then the providers "Bandwith limit exceeded" error is what made the site go away.

  11. WordPress and Joomla on Researchers Help Shut Down Spam Botnet That Enslaved 4,000 Linux Machines (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Now why am I not shocked these two pieces of spaghetti code were used as an attack vector? It's always important to lock down and isolate each /vhost/ but these who really exemplify why that is so important. Specially WordPress has been one huge security disaster after another.

  12. UFO == Unidentified Flying Object on Clinton Campaign Chair: 'The American People Can Handle The Truth' On UFOs (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    UFOs exist and there are plenty of them - depending on your ability to identify flying objects. Is it flying? Yes? Can you identify it? No? Then it's the UFO. I served at several military airports and I've seen plenty.
    br>The declassification time for military aircraft is typically 10-20 years. There will obviously be a whole lot of UFOs flying around...

  13. Why the DELAY? Why NOW, a YEAR later? on Putin Says Panama Papers Part of US Plot to Weaken Russia (go.com) · · Score: 0

    One little question you all may want to ask yourselves is: Why did the CIA .. I mean the ICIJ ... uhm whatsthedifference .. release these documents When They Did? It important to notice that IT TOOK ONE YEAR AND ONE MONTH from the point in time where they received the documents to the point in the they actually published some minor pieces (It's interesting to note that they will not be publishing the entire dataset). Why the timing?

  14. 2FA will not protect you against social enginering on Anywhere Computing Makes 2FA Insecure On iOS and Android (thestack.com) · · Score: 2

    Years ago I sold some Bitcoins for a minor amounts on Localbitcoins. 2 years later I learned that someone paid using funds from some kind of hi-jacked back account when the criminal Swedish policemen Peter Fromén and Jan-Olof Berglund broke into my home and stole all my computer hardware and other electronics and some random papers and a few (luckily empty) Bitcoin paper wallets.

    From what I gather some scammer hi-jacked some Facebook page and used that to make the mark type in a code which appeared on the banks login page into a hardware 2FA device and tell the scammer what numbers appeared on the device.

    I eventually got my hardware back but I never saw the papers or the Bitcoin wallets they stole back, they didn't even register that as "confiscated" evidence (I put "confiscated" in quotes because they broke numerous laws required for something to actually be confiscated and they admitted this to the oversight body JO but that's alright because they said all their crimes were "mistakes").

    An important lesson one can learn from this is that even hardware 2FA solutions will not protect complete idiots from giving their credentials away and it will also not protect you from having gave crimes committed against you by the police as a consequence. (another lesson is that you should never accept a bank transfer as payment: it may come back and bite you years later).

  15. I don't trust this and simply wonder WHY? on WhatsApp Enables End-To-End Encryption For All Forms of Communications By Default · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps they really are implementing secure end-to-end but from their previous actions this announcement makes me suspect that something else which is actually secure is becoming so popular that an "approved" "secure" (but not really) needs to be pushed out to the ignorant masses.

    Show me the source code and I will consider trusting that this is secure. I am not going to just take their word for it because they have proved that it means nothing time and time again.

  16. that feel when no girlfriend on Tech Firms Have An Obsession With 'Female' Digital Servants (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    If you can't get one - MAKE ONE. Given the amount of men who work for these companies and the type they typically are... this result isn't shocking.

  17. NIRP is the real reason TBP want to ban cash NOW on Austrian Minister Calls For a Constitutional Right To Pay In Cash · · Score: 1

    Cash is the ultimate roadblock for a long-term Negative Interest Rate Policy.

    If the price of storing your value in a bank is 5% of the stored value per year then you will likely reject that "service" - unless you do not have a choice. This is the real reason the fascist union is pushing for the eventual total removal of cash. They can't just announce a ban of cash without a real risk of protests and even riots. This is why it's done in small steps.

  18. Show me HOW, kthanks. Perhaps I'd even pay a LOT on YouTube and the Modern Mad Scientist (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    The "free energy" devices on YoTub are all videos of some guy showing some "invention" from one side and various totally unverifiable random claims about the device. What I would like to see is a step by step video. This is what we are going to show you how to build. This is how it will work. This is what parts you need. This is how you build it. This is how you maintain it. Good luck and if you like or product then please donate.

    Are there ANY videos like that on YouTube? No, there's not (please, please do correct me if I am wrong!). There is probably a reason for that.

  19. Re: "child porn" laws are somewhat absurd on FBI "Took Over World's Biggest Child Porn Website" (telegraph.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    The "age of consent" is different in various countries so some of you will not understand how absurd this is .. but here is the situation:

    - You can legally have sex with anyone who is 15 years or older (this varies by country).
    - You can legally take a picture or record a video of anyone who is nude/doing something even remotely sexual if they are 18 years or older. It is a serious crime to take such a picture of anyone who is not 18 years old.

    So.. you can get a girlfriend when you're 15 and have sex with her for years and when she's a month from her 18th birthday she sends you a naughty picture and someone finds out and now you're in jail and a sexual offender.

    Is this very logical?

  20. Re:Compared to Celeron 430? on Intel Compute Stick Updated With Cherry Trail Atom, Tested (hothardware.com) · · Score: 1

    > Just last week, a friend gave me an old PC which he had used as a BSD file server. It has a Celeron 430, 1.8 GHz. I threw in 4 gigs of DDR2 and an old 128 gigs Kingston SSD.

    1) The PC-on-a-USB-stick does not have the SATA connectors
    2) The PC-on-a-USB-stick stick does not let you add PCI-e cards.

    And that is why you can't use a PC-on-a-stick or more importantly an ARM device as a home firewall or NAS server and so on. The Celeron 430 is likely preferable for a whole lot of use-cases.

    The advantage of the USB stick are obvious, though: It uses a whole lot less power.

  21. Re: So much for smart devices.. on Intel Compute Stick Updated With Cherry Trail Atom, Tested (hothardware.com) · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I completely agree with those who say that a (big) display with a lot of connectors (no "smart" crap, no speakers, no nothing but a display) is preferable. I never bought a television and enjoy not having one. I have been saying that some big corporation should simple and affordable 40" or even bigger computer monitors/"TV" for years since there obviously is a market. But what do they do? Add more crap to their propaganda devices.

    Putting OSes which wont be supported in a few years and apps which are there just for advertising the current generation of TVs into a device which easily lasts 5-10 years in nothing but planned obsolescence.

    I tell you: Utterly Stupid and Easily Compromised Things is just the beginning of a long line of horrible problems. This is a fitting way to describe any "smart TV" older than 2 years and it even applies to new ones: They are not smart as Android or Entertainment devices and they never really were: The hardware they put into TVs to make them "smart" is usually worse than a $30 android tv box off e-pray.

    My main concern with this is not televisions. It's the cars and other things like that. I've noticed that new cars now come with all sort of "smart" technology which can not be easily replaced. Cars used to have this standard hole where you'd put your car stereo. This had the interesting side-effect of car stereos becoming a very popular thing to steal. That aside, it was a good thing: There was a time where you could just buy basically any stereo and put it in any car. THIS is what I want for the "smart televisions" and the "smart refrigerators" and cars and everything. If you car/tv/whatever is 3 years old and your "smart" thing is slow then just rip it out and put a new one in and done. Will they give us such a standard? No way, not unless the big corporations are forced to buy some bigger over-national corporation like the EU.

  22. Re: Price of a TV vs a Monitor _depends_ on Intel Compute Stick Updated With Cherry Trail Atom, Tested (hothardware.com) · · Score: 1

    There is a state mandated "television license" attached to TVs sold in my country (and most other countries in the fascist union, I'm not sure there is a EU country without this?). I know this is true in the UK. This gives actual computer monitors somewhat of an competitive edge over TVs if you do not already have a TV (and already have to pay the propaganda license you're likely never using). I can basically buy a TV and be forced to pay the regime for nothing or just use computer monitors and "save" enough money to buy a fancy new one each year. The choice seems obvious.

  23. Who needs a phone number anyway on Are Phone Numbers Doomed To Die? (fortune.com) · · Score: 1

    It's been years since just about everyone stopped using phone numbers for anything so I do see them going away - but not in 2016. People over 60 still "call" and do use "telephone numbers" to do that and they are not all going to die in 2016. Phone numbers will probably be around a decade or two, they will not go away in 2016, they will just become increasingly irrelevant.

    One thing that is kind of funny: They appear to be trying. Even my old mother switched to VOIP like 5 years ago because the idea of paying by the minute for calling someone became totally absurd the moment the Internet came around. Now I see "mobile phone companies" offer "plans" where you get free calls and free SMS and some amount of data for a fixed amount of cash per month. Telephone numbers could actually get a comeback! I say could, though, because it's not likely. Nobody I know has been using numbers to call anyone for years and I don't think they will start now.

  24. Re:Permanently disabling? on The Ups and Downs of AMD (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    If I were AMD, I'd devote effort and resources to GCC development. (Maybe they have?)

    It really doesn't matter much when most people use this Windows thing and guess what they use to compile that and nearly all the software for it.. As for GCC, that thing usually supports new AMD CPUs/APUs before they are released.

  25. Re:Permanently disabling? on The Ups and Downs of AMD (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    Your story must be so true, it is just just so very hard for Intel to check what instructions are actually present and optimize based on that not the CPU ID. It must be totally impossible to do this.. except that GCC does this just fine.

    There is a reason why GNU/Linux users have favored AMD processors and there is a reason CPU benchmarks give somewhat different results with GCC code vs Intel compiler code.