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  1. futureproof... on Australian Telstra Monopoly Dead · · Score: 1

    The NBN Co. spent $10b(?) dollars of Australias money to buy Telstra's current perfectly functional underground and cable/telephone network. They will own both the national fibre and copper networks, and in a few years they will rip up the copper network.

    It's a needless loss of a proven piece of infrastructure, instead the fibre should go out to places that aren't adequately serviced by copper; the fibre should coexist with the copper network. Once all of the rural/under-connected areas are connected, only then should duplication of the copper network begin

    I'm concerned that Australia is being mugged by Labor. I can't decide if Labor is doing it out of incompetence, malice, or for the gain of some private group.

    Whatever I thought of Malcolm Turnbull before (the opposition communications minister), he has proven himself to be the only politician competent on the issue, and I hope he succeeds in stopping Labor.

    They're stringing the fibre on telegraph poles (bushfires, storms) ... The first mass outage is going to cause a lot of pain.

  2. Re:Liberty Office Suite on OpenOffice.org Declares Independence From Oracle, Becomes LibreOffice · · Score: 1

    I agree that LibreOffice is lousy, it reminds me of 'Libra' feminine hygiene products.

    How about: 'Office Unlimited'.

  3. competing with the roaches on Australian Schools Go iPad-Crazy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Whenever stories like this crop up (notebooks in, paper out; turn everything into a game), the future of the next generation looks to be dumber, fatter, lazier, more demanding, less-attentive, and more commodity-like; loath-able yet not by their own fault. Basically: less fit to survive.

  4. add some electrons to those photons. on Intel's 50Gbps Light Peak Successor · · Score: 1

    For this optical interconnect to be as universal as USB, it must provide power + data. Given the size of an optical fibre, Light Peak is the best opportunity to unify data interconnects, from portable device to displays, networking and even internal PC interconnects
    I just hope they don't screw it up like usb with a dozen different connectors.
    On that note, there will be a new micro connector for USB3, which means another charger and more cables. I'm unsure that Intel will do Light Peak right by the consumer.

  5. multi-row on Firefox Tab Candy Alpha · · Score: 1

    I avoid the tab scrolling by using the tabmixplus extension and enabling multi-row so when the tab-bar is full a new tab bar starts below the first, and no tabs scrolling out of view.

  6. I hope it's better than BBB on Trailer For Blender Open Movie Sintel Ready · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Was I the only one who found Big Buck Bunny a bit perverse? From the title , which sounds like a porno, to the unappealing and grotesque characters, and even the plot.

    An obese, stern-looking rabbit with paradoxically dainty mannerisms. I would use the descriptors: unhealthy, sexually confused, weak, unpleasant, sure that can work as a character that the audience could learn to empathize with, but the plot is nowhere near that.

  7. Re:Call me conservative on Canadian Libraries Want $300,000 To Buy Games · · Score: 1

    +1

    Call me conservative also, but I think libraries should be places of knowledge. I think the intentions of the Toronto libraries are good, but 'getting kids through the door with video games' is IMO naive -- as in it doesn't work like that (from my experience).

    When pop CDs/DVDs were introduced at my local library, it slowly turned into a 'hang-out' space where chatter was ok because the librarians didn't want to confront or play the 'stickler librarian' role. Did it achieve the goal of getting non-readers into the library? Yes. Did they read anything? Nope. Did it make the library less conducive place for reading and studying? Yes.

    One thing that this idea reminds me of is 'kids sections' in libraries. The rationale is 'get 'em while there young', with colorful kids motifs and toys, the adults can put up with some squealing and crying in the library... The reality is that noisy uncontrolled kids shouldn't be anywhere near a library, they can get their Barney fix elsewhere.

    I hold the belief that books are the best communicators of information, as it requires active concentration and everything has to at least get parsed. I think a library should be about knowledge (incl. internet), and particular the best knowledge source the book, and since it is a place for reading, it goes hand in hand with reading for enjoyment, and therefore all books.

    Don't degrade the libraries, instead closely monitor children's reading in school so that any reading problems are caught early so that they can have the enjoyment and appreciation of books. But I guess that is more resource intensive, longer-term commitment to individuals and probably requires parental involvement.

  8. hello Nvidia GrillForce on Nvidia's GF100 Turns Into GeForce GTX 480 and 470 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's about time a product acknowledged my desktop grilling needs.

  9. Re:Sometimes? on Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe you should rethink that strategy, Ars?

    Paywall here we come!!!

  10. Re:Sometimes? on Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking · · Score: 1

    Maybe you should rethink that strategy, Ars?

    Paywall here we come!!!

  11. keep someone alive if they can recover on Lessons of a $618,616 Death · · Score: 1

    How about 'Keep a long-term poor prognosis patient alive with your own resources'. It's a tough approach, but keeping someone with a bad diagnosis alive when they would have died a long time ago is cruel and unnatural, and stretches the 'public healthcare' mission a bit too far.

  12. do they have any potential? on A Balanced Look At Cellphone Radiation · · Score: 1

    Does a micro-wave have ANY potential to break an atomic bond? If the answer is 'yes' then I think the simple conclusion would be that wireless radiation could cause cancer. Of course the next issue would be probability.

    On a different angle, microwaves produce heat in the absorbing material, and the warmer matter becomes the more likely atomic bonds are to break, so another simple (I'll stress simple) conclusion could be that microwaves increase the likelihood of cancer.

    Those two conclusions, however simple, would concern an average person. The next step of quantifying the risk takes a lot of research, with a lot of variables and equations and, and would be venerable to fudging from any vested interest (perhaps all of the contradicting papers over the years are evidence of that). I guess the most reputable answer only time will tell.

  13. Similar stuff from IBM on New Material Sets Stage For All-Optical Computing · · Score: 2, Interesting

    EETimes has "IBM Research claimed a keystone achievement in on-chip optical communications Wednesday (March 3), saying its 40-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) germanium avalanche photodetector completes what it calls the nanophotonic toolkit." (link) (A few days before announcing 2,500 layoffs, hmmm...)

    ...And the same news from Semiconductor Intl.

  14. same ol' bt audio on Bluetooth 4.0 To Reach Devices In Fourth Quarter · · Score: 3, Informative

    They need to improve the music streaming. Currently its decompress the audio > real time lossy recompression with worse codec > transmit and then finally decompress. It's less than ideal for audio quality and battery life. I think data transmission over te skin would be good for the task. My ears get warm and tender after 10 minutes from using a bt headset anyway, maybe I'm just allergic to it...

  15. Re:Maybe they'll grow up as well as old on Using Classical Music As a Form of Social Control · · Score: 1

    It is not the sort of thing that you require intense training to appreciate because it is all intellectual or something, and the actual sound is awful, it is simply nice to listen to.

    It does require some training or moderate understanding of classical instrumentation and arrangement to fully appreciate it. 'Intense' training isn't necessary by any means, but it does require some effort from the listener. Secondly, it has been shown that classical music demands the engagement of higher order functioning areas of the brain, which naturally a lot of youth don't have. It has also been shown to be the best music to study by.

    So it's not just about being 'cool', more like the small number of youth who appreciate it are 'uncool' to begin with. It's not snobbery either; older people are more inclined to be able to appreciate of it because of their mature brain structures, but it's not like everyone will find enjoyment in it after a certain age, I guess upbringing and even genetics would be factors also as to who might find captivation in classical music (I should add good classical music, as it certainly has its share of mediocre compositions).

  16. Anandtech 'Bench' compares ALL recent CPUs... on Today's Best CPUs Compared... To a Pentium 4 · · Score: 5, Informative

    And its constantly growing. check it out: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?b=2&c=1

  17. but what is the cause... on Students Failing Because of Poor Grammar · · Score: 1

    low education standards or mass-retardation?

  18. And only requires one small fusion reactor! on Using EMP To Punch Holes In Steel · · Score: 1

    to power the damn thing. Go Iter!

  19. EA is a battery hen publisher on Former Exec Says Electronic Arts "Is In the Wrong Business" · · Score: 1

    the developers are the hens and the eggs are the games

    Take Dragon Age: the hen had potential but the farmer didn't give it enough free range and the egg came out bland and clichéd. I won't bother fitting the NPC-ads in to the analogy (is there a mod to get rid of them?)

  20. I'll still buy it... on Duke Nukem Forever Not Dead? (Yes, This Again) · · Score: 1

    If only they'd get over their dev hell they could finally bank on their work. I'm sure other die-hard fans don't care too much about the graphics. If they are having another crack at it hopefully they can stop thinking that it has to be perfect. If they could just get duke back for a few hours I'll be satisfied with it. I'm sure they have some good duke one-liners after more than a decade.

  21. I saw a tv 'news' report on the n1 today... on Nexus One vs. Top 10 Phone Security Requirements · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ...I found it interesting that after the 2-second blurb by the anchor on channel 9 (aus) the only other commentary was from some standard and poors 'analyst' saying 'we are confident that the iphone is superior to the n1 in every way' followed by footage of the iphone. It seems they'll put any spin on for the right price.

  22. Re:Seriously? on Slovak Police Planted Explosives On Air Travelers · · Score: 1

    In Australia: screeners monitoring xray machines are regularly tested with false xray scans of prohibited items (guns, knives, grenades etc.). If they miss one they are fired on the spot.

  23. What I'd be interested to hear... on The Long Shadow of Y2K · · Score: 1

    I know the Y2K bug was real for many systems and I believe that catastrophes were provably averted, which it why it is now popularly perceived as a false alarm.

    To convince the naysayers we need a few real examples where the maintainers of some important system knew that their system would fail on Y2K with major real-world consequences without recoding. The articles don't mention any.

  24. Intel's ill-gotten-gains on Nvidia Waiting In the Wings In FTC-Intel Dispute · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Intel effectively defrauded AMD of many billions of dollars in revenue. Intel should be forced to return those ill-gotten-gains to AMD and THEN be fined.

    In the near future if AMD goes bankrupt (possible given their current uncertain situation) and Intel's unlawful actions could reasonably be considered to have led to the demise of their main competitor (AMD), Intel shouldn't be allowed to live with the benefits of their wrong-doing, namely a monopoly, and instead be forced to establish an equivalent competitor. The FTC may indeed be acting along these lines as Nvidia could possibly be a capable CPU producer.

  25. Too many choices overwhelms on How Europe's Mandated Browser Ballot Screen Works · · Score: 1

    Thats MS's desire. Its been shown that when people are overwhelmed with choices they go with what they know.