Slashdot Mirror


User: cnettel

cnettel's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,662
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,662

  1. Re:Wow on Mobile Processor Showdown · · Score: 1

    The x64 architecture on the other hand also offers a larger register file. This is more important in everyday applications, BUT the larger pointers increase memory usage and more importantly, it reduces the amount of "effective" data we can put in the cache.

  2. Re:Your history isn't quite right on Einstein's Theory Improved? · · Score: 1

    Except that the epicycles of Ptolemy were added to the system before there was any church in power. If you have any source indicating that Kepler's love for the Platonic bodies was imposed by the church, I would be happy to read it. The church maintained dogma, and a dodecahedron wouldn't make them happier.

  3. Re:Revoke SSL cert? on Phishing Site Using Valid SSL Certificates · · Score: 1

    I think it may be turned off by default for privacy reasons. The trail of all certs you verify could certainly qualify as a privacy issue, especially as it could be considered that the CA is a third-party in this, i.e, the user dosen't expect the CA to be told when and how you use your machine.

  4. Re:It can run quake3? Oh it must be teh 1337! on Nvidia Launches High Powered Mobile Graphics Chip · · Score: 1

    Can an Athlon x2 4800+ run Solitaire with ease if you try to downclock (and downvoltage) it enough to run in (frations of) a watt?

  5. Re:Good for PHBs, bad for maintaince programmers on Microsoft's C++/CLI Spec Has an Identity Crisis · · Score: 1
    Voilà: >?=, maybe handy, but certainly a proprietary g++ extension. (Last I heard, they considered deprecating it.) It's also been possible to write small "statements like expresions", like the following:
    int c = {int x = 42; if (rand() > x) x = 19; x};

    ...which will assign the end value of x to c, but it's CERTAINLY not standard C, or C++. Still, the GNU compilers allow it. There are also a lot of other details like modiyfing structurs with active iterators, that's not allowed by the standard. g++ and VC handles them differently and of course the newbies will claim they've found a bug in the STL in either of them when they try to port their own buggy code.

  6. Re:Hard to defend the trademark... on Red Cross Condemns Misuse of Emblem In Games · · Score: 1

    It doesn't seem too problematic if much of the actual need here is more in the area of acute traumas.

  7. Re:good step on Sun Urged to Give Up OpenOffice Control · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sun's main selling point has always been a platform, where the hardware and software together gives the client the (sense of an) advantage. This means that Sun may continue selling hardware, with software support just a selling point for that hardware. MS could of course turn to just rely on MSN and Xbox, but it would be a much more radical change than the Sun decision of opening up.

  8. Re:Sounds like IBM has solved the problem of cable on New High Speed Wireless Chipset from IBM · · Score: 1

    Not the monitor, unless you plan to place the video codec within that one. (Surely a dream for the media companies...)

  9. Re:Linux file & memory management shines on Understanding Memory Usage On Linux · · Score: 1
    Not completely true. They (MS) have actually detailed the scenarios that enable (marketspeak on) shared pages, and those that do not. The bottom line is that common libraries in the global assembly cache will almost always stay shared, and you can make sure that your own assemblies do, too, if you do not mess up the settings.

    This is somewhat similar to the fact that you can't share a relocated module between processes in the "native" world. If you customize the loading of an assembly too much, the actual pages won't stay the same and then it's obviously impossible to share them.

  10. Re:Lots of it, and really damned hot? on Scientists Expand Knowledge of Dark Matter · · Score: 1

    If something doesn't EMIT black body radiation (and doesn't absorb it), why would the temperature be related to the cosmological background radiation?

  11. Re:craigSlist on Craigslist to Start Charging for Some Listings · · Score: 1

    Now, it's only a matter of time before craiglist (without the s) is slashdotted. A +5 mod about a porn URL in the top comments of a posting. Oh, my... how will the server be able to bear the, ahem, load?

  12. Re:Not efficient? on Wasp Larvae Feed on Zombie Roaches · · Score: 1

    The current method of just fooling the inputs of the roach (and disabling the natural sensory functions) means that the wasp would need to know the way to the nest...

  13. Re:The world is a scary place... on Wasp Larvae Feed on Zombie Roaches · · Score: 1
    Nah, that shouldn't matter, as there is no immediate "knowledge" of the search space in the fungus. It's more a question of whether there is any feedback in the system. If the ant had some higher regulatory system that made it think "wow, that fungus made me like heights, maybe I should stop eating those and go see a doctor", or even maybe just some regulation "all I see is the sky, walk down again", it would get far harder.

    However, another (far more interesting) idea would be that some genetic material was actually exchanged between the fungus and an ant, at some point. That would be indicated by a high level of sequence-homology in other parts of the gene involved, than just the specific receptor site.

  14. Re:Just imagine how successful he could be on 30th Anniversary of Gates' Letter to HCC · · Score: 1

    'cause we all know how totally unsuccessful the various ports of MS BASIC to different platforms were. The hobbyists continued to use MS, and fact was that most microcomputers were sold to hobbyists. The Apple ][ made a few business inroads, but it basically took the IBM PC to get the business ball rolling.

  15. Re:30 Years Later, Bill Has His Answer on 30th Anniversary of Gates' Letter to HCC · · Score: 1
    That's still a whole decade later. At that point, Microsoft was in bed with IBM developing OS/2 and Windows 2 was out. Repeat after me: at the point when this letter was written, there was almost no serious microcomputer software, commercial OR free.

    Andy was into the academical word. Publishing stuff without getting paid for the publication itself is what you do in academia, most of the time. It would be a strange world indeed if all intellectual material was created in that way. Possibly (although I doubt it) not bad, but quite different from a free market.

  16. Re:Different Question on Centrino Duo, Buy or Wait? · · Score: 1

    Oh, and of course, these days, a Core is also possible. Centrino Duo is a Core Duo with Intel peripheral chips.

  17. Re:Different Question on Centrino Duo, Buy or Wait? · · Score: 1
    Centrino != Celeron. Centrino = Pentium M + Intel Wifi (+ Intel chipset, but that's almost a given).

    Please don't mod me down as redundant. With the parent being informative, this is needed.

  18. EU reasons? on No Anti-Virus in Vista · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Ok, it's probably a bit stupid to connect the dots just because they occur together in time, but might this be a preventive move to avoid further troubles with the EU commission (and possibly the U.S. DoJ) for leveraging the existing semi-monopoly into related markets?

    Firewalls, media players and other stuff is generally included in distros and the other commercial desktop OS (MacOS X) now. AV isn't. Therefore, it could seem intrusive by MS to include it. (On the other hand, we are all quite aware why noone else NEEDS to bundle that.)

  19. Dual core the culprit on Faulty Microsoft Driver Saps Intel Core Duo power · · Score: 1, Informative

    The Windows scheduler is different in single and dual core, or more specifically: single or multi CPU. This is quite understandable, as there are some optimizations possible for the synchronization objects if you know for a fact that there is only one real execution path. Synchronization in different forms is used A LOT in the NT kernel, as it's a piece of full reentrancy fetishism.

  20. Re:Accelerating Expansion of the Universe? on New Gravity Theory Dispenses with Dark Matter · · Score: 1

    Then you are wrong. Dark matter is generally believed to have normal, positive, mass. It's "dark" because it's not emitting light. What's more, it isn't absorbing light either (or so the theory goes). This means that the most obvious, measurable, effect would be the gravitational pull from that mass.

  21. Re:Uhh - Action at a Distance? on New Gravity Theory Dispenses with Dark Matter · · Score: 1
    Very strong forces (nuclear forces and electromagnetic) involve high-energy virtual particles, which can only travel short distances before "disappearing"... that's why those forces operate over short distances.

    Are you saying that the behavior of the electromagnetic force is not r-square (with reasonable dispute about the correct way to measure r, that is, observer-dependent)? Do you have any specific source to that?

  22. Re:My invisible friend on New Gravity Theory Dispenses with Dark Matter · · Score: 1

    You mean a scientific buddhist?

  23. Re:Why are they still building houses with oil hea on Sweden To Be Oil-Free By 2020 · · Score: 1
    It's like 50 % nuclear, a lot of the remainder is hydro, a little wind, and quite a few combined power/heating plants with domestic waste as fuel. Actual powerplants on fossile fuel are rather rare -- some backup systems, mainly, and certainly some heating plants with fossile fuel.

    OTOH, we are currently net importing from, among others, Denmark. As far as I know, they rely quite heavily on coal, so a margin increase/decrease in consumption will relate more to coal usage.

  24. Re:Monkeys?? on Three-Dimensional Structure of HIV Revealed · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Aren't most ID proponents (like even many old-fashin creationists) keen on the idea that some evolution is possible, microevolution or maybe even some new species, but that certain changes are too big "leaps" (the human eye being a popular example)?

    That's of course BS, but the interesting part for someone really believing in ID would of course be -- wouldn't the jump between easily infecting birds and easily infecting humans be such a leap? One way is of course to say "no, it's not a leap", but any other explanation, like intermixing with an existing human virus, would naturally also burst their little bubble on that ID would be needed to explain the variety of life at all.

  25. Re:Worthwhile?! on Google Agrees to Censor Results in China · · Score: 1
    Ahmed Rami (which the site clearly states it's related to) was convicted for hate speech in Sweden in the early 90s. Although a lot of the message on the radio station (the reason for the site name) was anti-Israel, quite a bit of it was purely antisemitic. I guess the foremost reason for bannin in France and Germany is the outright Holocaust denial. AFAIK, denial of that specific historical fact is a crime in Germany. I can't really say I blame them, considering the history. The repeated message that the U.S.A. is ruled by a "Jewish lobby" may seem like a general conspiracy theory thing, but it fits very well into "traditional" antisemitic beliefs.

    Let's be precise: Rahmi has not, at least not consistently, denied that Jews were killed by the Nazi regime. But if you cut the numbers by 9/10 or more and deny the most obvious atrocities, I still think it fits the definition of denial rather well.

    Finally, what you cited was in the left part of the header. The right part may give a slight hint of the content:

    Know Your enemy!
    --No time to waste. Act now!
    Tomorrow it will be too late
    What You Dont Know Can Kill You!

    And, incidently, this enemy does indeed seem to be a specific ethnic group.

    Disclaimer: I don't support censorship. This dosen't mean that I think all censorship is equally bad. From what I know of the German laws, it's not an odd coincident that this site is banned (if that's indeed true), it's rather close to the intended target, although not directly related to the Nazi movement; "just" apologethic towards it.