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User: PsychicX

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  1. Tinfoil time on Revelations On the French Big Brother · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's almost as if every country of note is running massive internet surveillance programs, is aware of everybody else's program, and is only using the leaks as an excuse to publicly complain about something everyone knows everyone else is doing.

    Nah, that would just be paranoid.

  2. From experience on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Sell an Algorithm To Venture Capitalists? · · Score: 1

    I have talked to VCs a number of times. Always wound up finding other funding in the end, but got a lot of perspective on what VCs are looking for and how they anticipate getting it.

    Number one: a VC expects 5x-10x return on investment. That return is typically from selling to another company (which may itself be a VC). It may also be from revenue but VCs these days are less interested in active revenue. They want to sell the company and move on.
    Number two: They don't care so much about the actual technology. It's important to have good demos etc, but it's kind of a tertiary concern. VCs are investing, first and foremost, in people who they think will get it done. Not just on the tech side, but on the business side.
    Number three: The more you talk about the tech's details, the worse it gets. Focus on why this makes sense to consumers at a high level. Focus on why YOU are special. Not the algorithm. YOU.
    Number four: It is enormously helpful to have important industry people to vouch for you. Find filmmakers or producers or somebody who are successful with recognized achievements, and have them write mini-recommendations for the tech.

    As engineers, it is very tempting to try and explain to a VC why your algorithm is so much more clever than what's out there. Do not bother. That's not what capital is about.

  3. Re:What a specimen on Xen-Based Secure OS Qubes Hits 1.0 · · Score: 1

    In all seriousness, it is nice to see that a perfectly normal looking woman (ie not "ugly" or "manly" as is often the norm for acceptability into male-dominated circles) is also a brilliant hacker and presumably successful businesswoman. Wait, not nice -- fantastic. Amazing. Wonderful.

  4. Re:Delete more on Ask Slashdot: Best On-Site Backup Plan? · · Score: 1

    I'm doing DSLR video work, and my camera is recording 700 MB of data per minute. (Hacked GH2 at high bitrates. Ouch!) Still not sure how I want to deal with the massive amount of data coming in, most of which is trashed in edit.

  5. Re:Storing locally will cost you more, not less... on Ask Slashdot: Best On-Site Backup Plan? · · Score: 1

    Your point is good, but your mistake was quoting Ken Rockwell.

  6. A cost of one trillion dollars? on Engineer Thinks We Could Build a Real Starship Enterprise In 20 Years · · Score: 1

    That's going to be one really, really big Kickstarter project.

  7. Re:Useful for audiophile pirates, though on Music Pirates Won't Rush To iCloud For Forgiveness · · Score: 1

    They totally could. If you bought a two mile span of it.

  8. He's forgotten what made Star Wars good on Lack of Technology Puts Star Wars Series On Hold · · Score: 1

    This is coming from a man who put together A New Hope on a shoestring budget fighting against all the odds. Now he can't put together a decent TV show at a decent budget? Come on. People don't watch Star Wars for the insane production values.

  9. Re:Yawn on Upscaling Retro 8-Bit Pixel Art To Vector Graphics · · Score: 1

    Spoke too soon, the paper has an hq4x comparison. The results are really, really good -- it actually manages to do a better job than hq4x on Super Mario World.

  10. Re:Yawn on Upscaling Retro 8-Bit Pixel Art To Vector Graphics · · Score: 2

    You can't understand the difference between SCALING and VECTORIZING? Really? Scaling algorithms increase the number of pixels, but you're fundamentally still dealing with a raster image. A vectorized drawing is a whole different beast.

    That said, I would like to compare the final results against a best of breed scalar like hq4x for the same final output resolution.

  11. Re:And we care why? on Confirmed: Microsoft Says It Will Open Source VB 6 · · Score: 1

    As someone who is heavily involved in the Microsoft world -- does anyone care? Seriously, I did some great work with VB6 back in the day, but it was already struggling for any vague relevance by 2003. What possible appeal does the source code hold, apart from historical curiosity and amusement at what is probably a hilarious codebase? This doesn't help any Microsoft-houses, who have long since been forced to bail on VB6 -- and the stragglers are technical incompetents who can't get anything out of this.

    In 2003, I could see how this would've been supremely useful (if arguably dangerous in any number of ways). Now, it just doesn't make any sense at all.

  12. Re:Surely... on Miguel De Icaza Forms New Mono Company: Xamarin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a matter of unnecessary Slashdot editorializing, promotion of stupid viewpoints by stupid people. Free Software, amongst other things, exists to promote choice amongst developers and users both. So why is losing effective development choices productive? It isn't. But because there's a vague connection to Microsoft here, it must be evil and be destroyed. Especially now with Java in Oracle hands, what does this accomplish? It's like these people never got out of college and think their professors' dedication to C and a UNIX variant is the only legitimate viewpoint.

  13. The problem is not locked vs unlocked on Why Unlocked Phones Don't Work In the US · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's popular to talk about why 'unlocked' phones, but I would wager that the vast majority of unlocked phone buyers do not care that the phone is unlocked. It's irrelevant. We're not planning to switch networks. It's the contract that is the problem. Locked phones are fine as long as they're off contract. And off contract is exactly where cell companies don't want their customers to be.

  14. Re:what about servers? on The State of Linux IO Scheduling For the Desktop? · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Funny how the miraculous solution to every problem anyone has with Linux is always just about to go in with the next version. Sure the current one sucks, but we promise the next one is totally different! Sigh.

  15. Re:Dead? on Benoit Mandelbrot Dies At 85 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He was at our graduation ceremony this past May (Hopkins 10) getting an honorary degree, in fact.

  16. Re:Consider color balance, sub-pixel anti-aliasing on Why Are We Losing Vertical Pixels? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What monitor type are you using? Remember that most PC monitors are TN type, which have terrible vertical viewing angles. You don't normally notice vertical angles -- until you turn it sideways and discover massive color shifts. IPS screens (Dell has a whole line now) are vastly better.

  17. Re:Must burn. on Freetype Lands In... Microsoft Office? · · Score: 1

    Which is part of the Entertainment and Devices divison of MS, for some crazy reason.

  18. Re:How? on Cambered Tires Can Improve Fuel Economy · · Score: 1

    Many "normal" cars that are meant to be even vaguely sporty or fun to drive run a degree or two of negative camber as well. It's pretty much vital for reasonable cornering.

  19. Re:CK12.org - Probability and Stastics - nice book on Sun Founders' Push For Open Source Education · · Score: 1

    Classic Sun style move. There are plenty of open source textbook efforts out there. Instead of contributing to them, start a new effort, pull a bunch of media hype, and generally sabotage everyone else without even acknowledging them -- all while providing mediocre results. Sun did it for twenty years and I guess it's a McNealy signature.

  20. Re:It's the principle of the thing and more. on Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod · · Score: 1

    This tech is already in the Xbox 360, and has been from the day it launched. It's used slightly differently, mainly to prevent firmware downgrades. But it seems likely that hardware fuses are quietly tripped when you mod the console so that MS can do their mass bannings. So claims that users will accidentally trip it are perhaps far-fetched.

  21. Re:Not for me on Google Tests Multiple Account Login · · Score: 1

    I have a Google account and a Google Apps account. The extent to which these two work varies, with Google Docs failing miserably about a third of the time. It gets supremely confused by this and invariably tries to access Apps with my public Google account.

  22. Re:None of this would've happened... on Steve Jobs Weighs In On iPhone Programming Language Mandate · · Score: 1

    Now imagine Ballmer looked at these awful apps like iTunes degrading his platform, and announced all Windows apps must be in C++ or C#.

  23. Re:Not going to read it on Confessions of an Internet "Shock Jock" · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm shocked, shocked to find out people are writing tech columns just for page views.

  24. Re:if vista/win7 really do support this correctly. on Linux Not Quite Ready For New 4K-Sector Drives · · Score: 1

    Yep, right until the NEXT feature comes out that breaks the OS that says it can handle the truth. Now you need TWO "don't lie to me" commands. Repeat ad infinitum.

  25. Re:How un-news worthy is this? on Jeremy Allison Calls Microsoft Dangerous Elephant · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I think this might actually be the literal definition of FUD. We could just go over to UrbanDictionary and add an entry with a link back to this story.