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User: Smurf

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  1. Re:What a stupid time to post this drivel on Apple Store Employees Soak Up the Atmosphere, But Not Much Cash · · Score: 1

    With US unemployment at a six month high [...]

    The US unemployment in March, April, and May was 8.2, 8.1, and 8.2% respectively. Although that is certainly way too high, is is by far not the highest in the last six months. In fact, it's the lowest since January 2009.

    Because those are the cooked U3 numbers that just forget about workers if they've been unemployed long enough. The more realistic - and honest - U6 unemployment rate has never dropped below 14% since Obama took office.

    The other fact usually left out of the storyline: anything less than 200,000 new jobs a month is an increase in the unemployment rate - because we need that many new jobs just to keep up with population increases.

    Wow, way to absolutely miss the point of my reply to brunes69. According to the site you linked to, the U6 unemployment rate in January 2009 was 14.2%. From February 2009 to Frebruary 2012 it was never bellow 14.9% (in fact it was never bellow 15.1% except in February 2012). In March, April, and May 2012 it was 14.5%, 14.5%, 14.8%.

    Therefore, what I said still holds true even if you use the U6 unemployment rate. What did I say? Oh yes:

    Although that is certainly way too high, is is by far not the highest in the last six months. In fact, it's the lowest since January 2009.

  2. Re:What a stupid time to post this drivel on Apple Store Employees Soak Up the Atmosphere, But Not Much Cash · · Score: 1

    With US unemployment at a six month high [...]

    Wait... what?

    The US unemployment in March, April, and May was 8.2, 8.1, and 8.2% respectively. Although that is certainly way too high, is is by far not the highest in the last six months. In fact, it's the lowest since January 2009.

  3. Re:Just like Nokia? on New Modeling Algorithms Bring More Detail to Google Earth's 3-D World · · Score: 2

    Nokia's maps are by C3 - a company that's been acquired by Nokia http://mynokiablog.com/2011/10/31/now-apple-owns-c3-the-folks-behind-nokia-maps-3d-what-happens-now/

    And of course you meant to say that C3 has been acquired by Apple , not Nokia.

  4. Re:terrible article on 350-Year-Old Newton's Puzzle Solved By 16-Year-Old · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's "Analytische lösung von zwei ungelösten fundamentalen Partikeldynamikproblemen" or, in English, "Analytical solution of two fundamental unsolved problems of particle dynamics".

    But that doesn't seem to be a paper published in a peer-review journal, but rather the title slide of a presentation he gave on March 1, presumably when when he received the Jugend Forscht ("Young Researchers") award.

    And the kid is Indian, not German (as long as we can tell from the article).

    And this is a problem in Physics, not in Mathematics. It shocks me that people get that mixed up.

    And the kid looks 30 years old, but I would never hold that against him.

  5. Re:The old result was a glitch in WolframAlpha on Apple Tells Siri To Stop Recommending Nokia · · Score: 5, Informative

    OK, here's an article describing with some more detail what happened.

  6. The old result was a glitch in WolframAlpha on Apple Tells Siri To Stop Recommending Nokia · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you look at the current results for "what is the best smartphone ever" in Wolfram Alpha you will find that they also changed the answer. Now it just gives you a list of five smartphones tied at 5 points of average score by Best Buy customers: HTC Trophy, iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, Lumia 900, HTC Rhyme, in that order.

    That's because Wolfram Alpha was indeed being embarrassed because it seemed like they were endorsing a particular phone by providing a lot of details about the first entry in the list (at the time the Lumina 900), but if you looked deeper the whole thing was bogus.

    Expand the list (press the "More" button four times) and you will find that there are actually 28 smartphones with average scores of 5 in the list! A couple of days back when Siri's comical response was revealed there were 13 tied in first place.

      And let's not forget that these scores are averages of a very small number of reviews (at this time 9 for the iPhone 4s and 5 for the Lumia 900; yesterday it was 2 for the 4s, 4 for the Lumia 900) making the whole measure even more worthless.

    (Apparently when they are tied the order in the list is decided by the number of reviews, thus the descent of the Lumia).

  7. Re:No ethernet... on Geekbench Confirms Ivy Bridge MacBook Pro and iMac · · Score: 1

    I looked at that one... you can't hook up more than one computer and you can't hook up anything that's not thunderbolt.

    That last one is a lie. If you had actually seen one of those Thunderbolt monitors you would have noticed that on its back there are three USB ports, one FireWire 800 port, one Ethernet port, and one Thunderbolt port for daisy-chainning. So when you get to work with your laptop you can use a single TB cable to hook it up to external USB/FireWire/TB disks, printers, keyboard+mouse, the gigabit network, and two or more external monitors (if your laptop supports them... MacBook Pros do), all running through the TB interface.

    If you're going to spend $1000 on a monitor, get the Dell which has more screen space (area and pixels), and allows hooking up 5 computers and switching between them.

    That's very cool. I couldn't find that monitor that allows "hooking up 5 computers" in Dell's website though, but I guess that's because they are not trying too hard to promote a very niche feature that can be obtained with fairly inexpensive gear like this or this.

  8. Re:and here is the proof for every even number on Goldbach Conjecture: Closer To Solved? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hereby prove that every even number is a sum of no more than six primes, one of those is 1.

    Psst, 1 isn't prime. Or composite. It's neither.

    True, but you can change the GP's proof to "every even number n (where n > 4) is a sum of no more than six primes, because m = n - 3 is an odd number".

  9. Re:malware on Apple Security Blunder Exposes Lion Login Passwords In Clear Text · · Score: 1

    For a multi-user system, some people might argue that the old FileVault provides marginally better security because it protects each account's data with separate encryption keyed to the user's password, which means that even if someone manages to find a way around the permissions model, your data is still protected except while you are logged in and the volume is mounted. Whether this outweighs the loss of encryption on the rest of the system (swap, etc.) is debatable, of course.

    If you are really concerned with security of your data in a multi-user system you will have the really sensitive data in an encrypted disk image (using Apple's Disk Utility or TrueCrypt or something similar) regardless of whether the whole disk, just your directory, or neither are encrypted. And that's precisely for the reasons you cite: you can't prevent the other users' accounts from getting compromised.

  10. Re:malware on Apple Security Blunder Exposes Lion Login Passwords In Clear Text · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oh yes, you're right. It sounds like it only impacts people who actually want / need security. So that's OK then.

    No, because the people who actually want/need security would have already turned off the legacy FileVault (i.e., the one that only encrypts the user's home directory leaving the system directory where the log file in question is located unprotected) and turned on the new FileVault which encrypts the whole disk, including all system directories. That was one of the few really compelling features of Lion.

    BTW, this is a Mac OS X 10.7.3-specific issue. It does not affect users of pre-Lion systems which only have the legacy FileVault option.

  11. Re:To all Syrian Activists on Syrian Government Uses Skype To Push Malware To Activists · · Score: 1

    In order for this not to happen again do the following:

    Stop using Windows and MacOSX.

    So you are saying that full disk encryption on Windows and Mac OS X has backdoors? Any link to back that up?

    Download and install Fedora F16.
    When installing, encrypt the harddrive with a really hard to break password.

    Now you are saying that Fedora has no backdoors. But the only way the Syrian activists will be sure is if they download the code, check it themselves, and compile everything, as it is pretty much impossible to know that the precompiled binaries haven't been tampered with. But the code for the relevant parts of Mac OS X is also available. In any case, the Syrian activists, being social activists and not hackers most likely lack the skills and the time to understand the code and to compile it themselves, nullifying the advantage.

    Install pidgin and off the record like this: 'yum install pidgin pidgin-otr'

    Pidgin? You mean the open source messaging client that also runs on Windows and Mac OS X?

    Generate keys and verify them before communicating.

    Yeah, cause we all know there is no SSH nor GPG for Mac OS X or for Windows. Oh, wait...

    And not using major OSes will keep you away from the most common exploits and trojans.

    Except that there is far more malware for Linux than for Mac OS X. (Why? Because Linux is widely used in servers that the "evil doers" specifically want to crack.)

    Also, try to use TOR, HTTPS-everywhere and other good tools.

    Again, tools available for Mac OS X and Windows.

  12. Re:Headline = Misleading on Feds Shut Down Tor-Using Narcotics Store · · Score: 1

    Oooh, I must apologize to you because in my sister post I accused you of having reading comprehension problems for reading the terrorists/bridge/dynamite phrase in a third way. You are right: that is another way of reading that phrase incorrectly.

    Now, that interpretation that you came up with is fairly irrelevant to the discussion because it doesn't match either of the interpretations of the headline for TFA. Furthermore, unlike the other incorrect interpretation yours is slightly grammatically incorrect, but I sometimes hear people talk like that.

    On the other hand, the point is not whether the original headline is correct or not, but that it is misleading because while bridges and dynamite cannot use each other it is reasonable to believe that the Feds would want to shut down Tor.

  13. Re:Headline = Misleading on Feds Shut Down Tor-Using Narcotics Store · · Score: 1

    Feds shut down Tor using narcotics store.

    Terrorists blow up bridge using dynamite sticks.

    So somehow we must understand the second one as "a group of terrorists blew up some dynamite sticks because those sticks were using a bridge"?

    Again, context. Obviously a bridge is inanimate and cannot use dynamite. As I said in a previous post, which is more logical, that the Feds shut down a narcotics site that was using Tor, or that the Feds used Tor to shut down a narcotics website?

    I'm sorry to appear rude, but you do have reading comprehension problems. You wrote "Obviously a bridge is inanimate and cannot use dynamite," but that is NOT one of the possible interpretations of the phrase I wrote.

    The correct interpretation is that the terrorists used the dynamite, and the incorrect interpretation is that the dynamite sticks used the bridge, not the other way around.

    My point is: you clearly seem to have reading comprehension problems, so it's no wonder that you don't find the original headline of the article misleading. BTW, they fixed it because, well, even the author thinks it's misleading!

  14. Re:Headline = Misleading on Feds Shut Down Tor-Using Narcotics Store · · Score: 1

    Feds shut down Tor using narcotics store.

    Terrorists blow up bridge using dynamite sticks.

    So somehow we must understand the second one as "a group of terrorists blew up some dynamite sticks because those sticks were using a bridge"?

  15. Re:Communication, Interrupted on IT Calls of Shame · · Score: 1

    Most e-mail clients will allow you to set a rule based on any header.

    In Outlook (at least for Mac), for example, you can "add a criterion" using a "Specific header" (last option from the pull-down menu). There you can say that the header is (I guess) X-Originating-Ip, and that it is or contains the IP address you identified.

    In Apple Mail you need to "Edit Header List..." and add the header you want to use (X-Originating-Ip?). Then you can specify rules using that criteria.

    I hope this helps!

  16. Re:So that's why they sold out in under 8 hours? on Third-Generation Apple TV Lands With a Thud · · Score: 1

    Pre orders sold out less than 8 hours after its announcement. Just because a few tech geeks can't twist the hardware to perform all their desires doesn't mean it still isn't a popular consumer good with a much larger buying public. You can't please everyone, and Apple runs a business so they please the largest buying group first.

    Yup. Hours after the announcement the shipping estimate for the Apple TV slipped from "Delivers on March 16" to "1-2 weeks".

  17. Re:So says the religious guy. on Santorum Calls Democrats 'Anti-Science' · · Score: 2

    The Bible says that one day God created x, and on one day God created y. It doesn't say how much time elapsed between those events, or how he did it.

    Yes it does. From Genesis 1:

    5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (...)
      8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (...)
      13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. (...)
    19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (...)
      23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. (...)
      31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

    And within those verses it's when he purportedly created all the stuff. Of course now you will say that those verses should not be taken literally. But then, if we are allowed to pick and choose what is meant to be literal in the Bible and what not... then we shouldn't be using it as conclusive explanations of concrete things!

    (BTW, the Bible does explain how God created some of the stuff. For example, in Genesis 2:21-24 it explicitly says how he created Eve.)

  18. Re:Fair Labor Assoc. == Apple Shill group on Fair Labor Association Finds Foxconn Factory "First Class," Says Labor Watchdog · · Score: 1

    So.. they first say that they're finding lots of issues, and then go on to conclude that conditions are great? In addition, they say the first thing BEFORE a presentation of preliminary findings to Foxconn management and the conclusion comes AFTER?

    You got it backwards.

    On February 15 they said that Foxconn's is a "first class" factory that is much better than many others in China, in particular garment factories.

    Then on February 17 (yesterday) they said that nevertheless they are finding "tons of issues" that need to be addressed.

  19. Re:iPhone 4 has an Audience chip too on A5 Mystery Solved (Why Siri Won't Run On iPhone 4) · · Score: 1

    There's been an Audience chip included in the iPhone 4 since June 2010. (...)
    It's true that the A4 chip doesn't have an Audience subprocessor in it but it doesn't mean that the iPhone 4 doesn't have the chip included somewhere else on its motherboard. The conclusion that the iPhone 4 can't do Siri is absolute garbage. The conclusion that the iPhone 4 can't do Siri technically because of this kind audio subprocessor is not being included in the iPhone 4's design needs to have their head examined and start doing some research. This entire thing is hogwash.

    From TFA:

    Audience has worked with Apple since 2008, and there is some Audience technology in the A4 chip, but it is a less advanced version than that available with the A5 packs. In particular, Audience on the A4 needs users to hold the phone up to their mouths when speaking to it. The iPhone 4S version allows for "more consistent voice and audio quality wherever the device is held and used".

    Thus the theory is that, in spite of the fact that Siri will work on the iPhone 4 as demonstrated in jailborken phones, the success of the voice recognition is lower in certain situations, like not having the microphone next to your mouth, or higher ambient noise. That would mean that the iPhone 4 users would have a crappier experience with Siri, giving the whole technology a bad name (especially since there were already tens of millions of iPhone 4 units in the market at the time the 4s was introduced).

    Apple doesn't want the bad publicity (remember the handwriting recognition of the Newton?), so they decided to introduce the technology exclusively on the 4s, with the added bonus of getting some of the iPhone 4 users to upgrade just for it. Well, at least that is the theory as explained by TFAs.

  20. Re:Good luck getting the protestors to support tha on Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions · · Score: 1

    Thanks, jholyhead.

  21. Re:NY Times FUD on Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions · · Score: 1

    18 suicides per million workers at Foxconn? OK, that's very sad, but the Chinese national average is 220 per million. More than 12X higher

    And in fact, the rate of suicides in the good old US of A in 2005 was 177 per million among males and 45 per million among females. That's in the USA! .

    (Do note that the WHO link shows the numbers in suicides per 100,000, not per million).

  22. Re:Good luck getting the protestors to support tha on Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions · · Score: 1

    Can you be a little more specific? I looked carefully throughout all seven pages of the NYT article but I couldn't find the part where it says that "other tech companies often pay these manufacturers more money to be spent on improving work conditions". (And no, I was not expecting to find that exact wording, but the same basic concept.)

  23. Re:Kodak's Future... on Kodak Sues HTC and Apple · · Score: 4, Informative

    1920*1080 which is the highest consumer resolution available is around 2MP

    Apple's Thunderbolt Display (and the 27" Cinema Display before it) is 2560x1440.
    Dell's 27" U2711 has the same resolution (I think they may be using the same panel), and the 30" U3011 is 2560x1600.

    2560*1600 which is the highest resolution available for individual displays in the market is around 4MP

    The Eizo RadiForce LS560W is 3840x2160. The RX840 is 4096x2160. And although most people would not want a monochrome monitor, you can get them all the way to at least 4096x2560, like the GX1030. And that is just sticking to Eizo monitors, I didn't check other high end brands.

    I get your point, but your numbers are quite off

  24. Re:Advice on What a Black Box Data Dump Looks Like · · Score: 2

    Here the maximum reward is $25k. Anyway, even if it is only $!, the main point is actually to win the claim, not the win some big amount. After that, the fact is that you are innocent, and they are guilty....

    Except that... your are guilty (of insurance fraud), remember?

    So, the first thing you should do after a car accident is to find and destroy its black box, so your insurance company would have no way to avoid paying the, what, insurance?

    You also seem to think that taking them to small claims court will somehow prevent them from taking you to court for insurance fraud. I don't know where you got such a weird idea.

  25. Re:McAfee on Fake Antivirus Scams Spread To Android · · Score: 2

    The only reference to McAfee in TFS is this: "According to McAfee, almost all new mobile malware now targets Android." It also contains the only link o a FA that mentions McAfee.

    Thus I deduce that in you opinion, the fact that McAfee made such an assertion is a classless act. That means that you think that McAfee is either lying or bending the truth to suit them best. Or, in other words, you have data than contradicts the last graph of TFA (i.e., the bar plot showing the distribution of malware among mobile platforms).

    I will give you the benefit of the doubt, so please feel free to link to that data. Because it's not classy at all to claim that other people are lying unless you have reason to believe that's the case.