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User: HuguesT

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  1. Re:Depressing News on Universal Big Bang Lithium Deficit Confirmed · · Score: 5, Funny

    We should not be polarized about it.

  2. Proper motivation on Google To Build Quantum Information Processors · · Score: 1

    It will be nice to see if Google's interests and motivations will yield interesting, more practical results, in this area.

  3. Re:Enterprise on You Got Your Windows In My Linux · · Score: 1

    man screen. Or man tmux if you prefer.

  4. Different kinds of servers on You Got Your Windows In My Linux · · Score: 1

    FreeBSD is great as a file server, web server, etc. ZFS is totally awesome and stable under freeBSD. It is making progress in Linux (I use it daily) but it is not quite there yet. On the other hand, a compute server or virtual hypervisor does not look too great right now in BSD, because of incomplete NUMA and lack of VM options. Also Linux is not monolithic and Init+runlevels is alive and well. Vote with your feet and choose a distro without systemd or at least init as an option. I'm sure Debian will keep init forever.

  5. Re:has ebola been weaponized? on Scientists Found the Origin of the Ebola Outbreak · · Score: 2

    It is unlikely Ebola has been weaponized. It makes sense to use a virus as a weapon if the attacker has some kind of effective defence against it, otherwise the disease may backfire. Right now Ebola is too dangerous for this.

  6. Re: Dangerous virus on Scientists Found the Origin of the Ebola Outbreak · · Score: 4, Informative

    It could be for complications. Influenza causes inflammation, which itself creates a happy medium for bacteria in the lungs. It is standard practice to give antibiotics in severe cases of influenza. This does not help against the virus but helps lowering the risk of reinfections. See there.

  7. Re:Baby steps on Hidden Obstacles For Google's Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 2

    Actually winning at chess vs humans is a solved problem. Driving on the road is harder, surprisingly.

  8. Re:can it get me home from the bar? on Hidden Obstacles For Google's Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 1

    Because that is not very safe at all.

  9. Re:can it get me home from the bar? on Hidden Obstacles For Google's Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 1

    Do they? How do you know? Citation required.

  10. Re:Sorry Valve has to cop it on Australian Consumer Watchdog Takes Valve To Court · · Score: 1

    Typical libertarian stance with no relation with reality whatsoever. If you have no consumer protection you pay more, simply because the seller can pull out any scam without consumer recourse. Plus the Americans do have effective consumer protection.

  11. Re:Cut the Russians Off on Russian Military Forces Have Now Invaded Ukraine · · Score: 1

    Let' all go and start WWIII. I think Putin is dangerous but not that crazy.

  12. Re:Cut the Russians Off on Russian Military Forces Have Now Invaded Ukraine · · Score: 1

    That is like so easy, right? Putin did not enter into a treaty with a government, but with a country. The country is still standing. This Ukrainian government has dissolved the parliament and is holding elections. Putin does not want to wait for the outcome, he already knows they are not going to be favourable to the Russian side.

  13. Re:My opinion on the matter. on Choose Your Side On the Linux Divide · · Score: 1

    Login services? Pretty special if you ask me.

  14. Re:My opinion on the matter. on Choose Your Side On the Linux Divide · · Score: 1

    A race condition that happens 0.1% of the time is not something you cannot deal with. Certainly not by replacing the init system with something flakier.

  15. Re:The init system on Choose Your Side On the Linux Divide · · Score: 1

    I like your analogy but don't view it in the same way. Some people think Michael Jackson was weird, disturbing, all apparences and no substance. Yet there is no denying that he had a lot of talent and many loved his music. Some of his songs are classics. Also, he is 100% human.

    In the same way, some people think that OSX is all apparences, no substance and not suited to anything serious. Yet many people love its polished interface and excellent hardware integration. Also it is 100% Unix and most open source software runs on it as well as under Linux.

  16. Re:Why not grid level storage? on Is Storage Necessary For Renewable Energy? · · Score: 1

    There is the problem of capacity and storage,

    According to the same web site you quote, a reasonably optimistic target is 20% PV, 20% wind by 2030. The rest (60%) must be provided by something else. I don't think coal or nuclear is quite dead yet (unfortunately).

  17. Re:Expert?? on Is Storage Necessary For Renewable Energy? · · Score: 1

    Very bad physicist then, then one who could not understand why lantern batteries wouldn't start his car. Any self-respecting physicist, even a theorist, knows about intensity and power.

  18. Re:Watson is not AI on New Watson-Style AI Called Viv Seeks To Be the First 'Global Brain' · · Score: 1

    A symphony is hard work, but many people can compose a song, not a very good one, mind you. Anybody can learn chess and even become reasonably proficient. Not grandmaster or anything, but decent. Basic algebra is taught to everybody in middle school, so I think you are a bit pessimistic.

  19. Re:Stupid on Apple's Diversity Numbers: 70% Male, 55% White · · Score: 1

    By the way I think the policy of Apple to staff their store with Apple employees is excellent for the brand. Others would set up a kind of franchise, which would be cheaper but probably not as effective.

  20. Re:Why not just use FreeBSD then? on Facebook Seeks Devs To Make Linux Network Stack As Good As FreeBSD's · · Score: 2

    May be multiple issues. Perhaps better OpenMP support ? maybe NUMA ? Maybe Linux has a better virtual machine infrastructure ? maybe hardware support.

  21. Re:This does pose the question: on Facebook Seeks Devs To Make Linux Network Stack As Good As FreeBSD's · · Score: 4, Informative

    I love FreeBSD, I support them financially every year, and I use it daily but it is not uniformly better than Linux. Hardware support, in particular, is very far behind. Two random examples:

    1- My NAS system does not recognise any USB storage when they are plugged in after boot (no hotplug). It does not support USB superspeed (USB 3.0) either (I have to boot in compatibility mode by disabling xHCI in the BIOS). This is a known issue with some Asus motherboards, still unfixed in 10.0
    2- FreeBSD does not install on some of my HP G6 servers. The kernel simply segfaults. I really wanted FreeBSD on this hardware, so I run it in a VM under Linux (using KVM). Has been running brilliantly for about 2 years now.

    Also security update in FreeBSD are really difficult. I haven't finished dealing with updating my ports since I moved from 9.2 to 9.3 last week.

    I have to say this though: when it runs, it runs really well.

  22. Re:Not deploying driverless cars kills people on UK To Allow Driverless Cars By January · · Score: 1

    That's a good point, however driverless cars are still being used in very controlled situations, and for the moment require a huge, expensive array of sensors coupled with fragile, powerful and expensive computers. Even if we wanted we could not replace a significant number of cars on the road with driverless ones. The problem is not some kind of legal or administrative red tape, the problem is to make the technology simple enough, robust enough and cheap enough that it comes by default on most new cars like electronic injection did a few years back. Then it is a problem of waiting for a number of years for these cars to replace the old ones on the road.

    This is still a ways off.

  23. Re:Complexity on Vint Cerf on Why Programmers Don't Join the ACM · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Actually, searching for "Reduction of inter-block artifact in DWT" should produce IEEE articles, most probably from the Transactions on Image Processing journal or Transactions on Signal Processing.

    And indeed they do. My technical searches always include at the very top the most relevant academic papers from scholar.google.com

    Blocking-artifact reduction in block-coded images using wavelet-based subband decomposition
    H Choi, T Kim - Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, , 2000 - ieeexplore.ieee.org

    Inter-frame wavelet transform coder for color video compression

    S Zafar, YQ Zhang - US Patent 5,495,292, 1996 - Google Patents

    Embedded image coding using zerotrees of wavelet coefficients
    JM Shapiro - Signal Processing, IEEE Transactions on, 1993 - ieeexplore.ieee.org

    Blocking artifact detection and reduction in compressed data
    GA Triantafyllidis, D Tzovaras - Circuits and Systems for , 2002 - ieeexplore.ieee.org

    Perhaps the solution is for you to make a Google Scholar profile and you will get those as well?

  24. Re:Appre on VP Biden Briefs US Governors On H-1B Visas, IT, and Coding · · Score: 2

    This is not so insightful.

    1- Foreigners who do come to America and then leave after a short period (a few years) do not take long-term jobs away from Americans. Clearly the jobs these undertake are like internships, post docs and other temp positions, these jobs are not meant as career jobs who would be of interest to an American.
    2- Foreigners who come to America, get some training and then leave are *good* for America. These people will know and like America, will speak english, will have a network of friends and people they know back in America. If they start companies, maybe these companies will be friendly to America as well: import stuff from there, rely on American technology, and whatnot. The importance of creating goodwill cannot be overestimated.

    How people who come on a H1B for a non-training job, and then stay by being sponsored for a green card, this is a different story. But notice that these people eventually become American. This has been a recognised way to extend the power and importance of the USA for a long time, because the best and brightest come to America to the detriment of the country they leave.

    In reality the job situation in the USA is not nearly as dire as some people make it, compared with most other countries around the world. What is not so nice is that unemployed people have it very tough, very quickly. Better not fall sick.

  25. Re:Cloudy, chance of rain on Dropbox Head Responds To Snowden Claims About Privacy · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Also the NSA doesn't even need warrants. How convenient for them that everyone is leaving these fine files in the same place for them to search...