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User: qbwiz

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  1. This guy is a crank. on Quantum Computing Without Qubits · · Score: 4, Informative
  2. Re:Essential Features.. alpha support, lossless. on Next-Next Generation Video: Introducing Daala · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wikipedia claims that VP9 does/will support alpha channel

  3. Re:What's actually new here? on The New AI: Where Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence Meet · · Score: 1
  4. Re:At last on Boeing Employees To Man CST-100 Crew Capsule · · Score: 1

    But the SRBs have about 5 times the total thrust of the main engines, so the main engines become really helpful only after the SRBs give out. Therefore, they're more like a second stage, and like the second stages of the Saturn V or Atlas V (Centaur) should probably use LOX/LH2 to reduce mass and increase the mass ratio of the first stage.

  5. Re:FUCK YES! BROWSER EXPLOITS AT LOGIN! on Ubuntu 11.10 To Switch From GDM To LightDM · · Score: 1

    Chrome's port of WebKit can only work inside chrome; it's designed to be connected up to a shim which talks using IPC to a browser process, which handles a lot of the work. Chrome and its browser process are not designed to be embedded, so using that in LightDM won't work. LightDM would probably have to use the Gtk+ port, which shares a lot of code, but has to be built separately due to all the ifdefs.

  6. Re:Good on Taiwanese OEMs Consider ARM Products For Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    All x86_64 compilers ouput SSE, as x87 isn't supported in 64-bit mode.

  7. Re:Underwhelming achievement on Watson Wins Jeopardy Contest · · Score: 1

    Ken Jennings is getting $150000 (plus $150000 to his charity), while the producers of Jeopardy are getting a lot more viewers (and therefore a lot more advertising money).

  8. Re:What if what if what if on Michigan Governor Wants 'Open Source' Economic Model · · Score: 1

    What if those cash reserves were stored in local banks that gave out loans in good times?

    And in bad times, all those loans are called in and no one can get new loans. Sounds like a foolproof plan.

  9. First step in their process: on Using Cinnamon In the Production of Nanoparticles · · Score: 2

    Make cinnamon into a highly toxic chemical.

  10. Re:Uh...Probably gonna get his server creamed on Inventor Demonstrates Infinitely Variable Transmission · · Score: 1

    Thanks for giving us the formal analysis. It also states the point that has been mentioned: "The Control shaft (and associated mechanical elements) should be sized to this torque requirement accordingly - the Input and Control should be considered as parallel power paths rather than as 'power' and a 'control' elements respectively."

    There's a reason that that document includes a CVT in the design to power the "control", because the power that goes through the control is the same as the power through the input, so unless you have a convenient high-torque high-power variable-speed electric motor you might as well use the main power source. Of course, if you use an electric motor then it''s quite similar to a Prius, and if you use a CVT then it's pretty similar to the Torotrak, or some other IVTs.

    However, this device does have a new feature. There are two different control inputs with different properties, so by switching which one you're braking and which one you're controlling with the CVT you can either go in reverse or at top speed, but still with a CVT's output speed always being positive and less then the input speed. However, that makes it complex for no gain (you could just directly gear up the output of the CVT to do that), so it seems like the things that are new aren't good, and things that are good aren't new.

  11. Smart competitors on Unreleased OQO 2+ OLED Version Sells For $6,500 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sure they're just dying to get into that huge market that OQO failed to make any money in.

  12. Re:Okay. on The Universe As Hologram · · Score: 1

    Many theories posit that the universe is grainy, but the graininess there is so small that we can't measure it. The holographic universe theory has, as a possible consequence, that the graininess is much larger than otherwise, so that it can be (and has been) measured by experiment.

  13. Re:Synonymous? on MIT Moves Away From Massive Lecture Halls · · Score: 1

    My father went to state school in RI, and was recruited by Raytheon before he'd even graduated. He was working alongside graduates from all the Ivy Leagues, getting paid the same. It doesn't matter what the name on the diploma is, what matters is the effort you put in and the skills you provide for your employer. Save your money, avoid crippling student loan debt, and get those smaller class sizes anyways.

    The graduates working at Raytheon were the same, but, as you said, they were also being paid the same. Couldn't the smarter students get higher-paying/better jobs elsewhere?

  14. Re:nt on RIAA Sues 19-Year-Old Transplant Patient · · Score: 1

    then you are *INNOCENT* to start with, until the court finds you guilty.

    Whether you're innocent or guilty is a fact, irrespective of what and when the court decides. You don't become a murderer when the jury finds you guilty; you become a murderer when you murder someone. The fact that the legal system presumes someone is innocent before the trial is a completely separate matter.

  15. Re:This can't be good. on OpenGL 3.0 Released, Developers Furious · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are two basic problems with this:
    1) Direct3D is tied to Windows pretty well, so making it crossplatform would be difficult (your DX10 implementation may need to include a lot of Wine).
    2) You'll need the graphics vendors to support the API. With Intel and ATI opening up their specs, we're closer to having a way for the community to make up-to-date graphics drivers, but there's still the problem of NVIDIA. Without them, no one's going to try to write software with this new API, and it seems unlikely that they will ever be bothered to support some new API - remember that they're a member of the ARB, and they decided to go with this OpenGL spec.

  16. Re:Question on OpenGL 3.0 Released, Developers Furious · · Score: 4, Informative

    Cross-platform 3D is useful, but OpenGL stopped being cutting-edge many years ago. The model that it uses is falling farther and farther from the model that the hardware supports, and many new extensions and features are not supported on many platforms (particularly ATI). It has become increasingly difficult to write cutting-edge graphics software, and OpenGL 3 does little to fix that.

  17. Re:Certification crap on What Would It Take To Have Open CA Authorities? · · Score: 3, Informative

    First of all, what does this certification crap prevent?

    I go to randommalwaresite.com, I get a certificate for randommalwaresite.com!

    AFAIK, I believe it prevents man in the middle attacks from happening:

    You go to mybank.com, but you actually access randommalwareip, which gives you a phony certificate from mybank.com.

  18. Re:TCP Timeout on Why Do We Have To Restart Routers? · · Score: 1

    My 5GT never crashes just because it's session table (4000 sessions is it's maximum) is full. Sure, it drops sessions, but it keeps trucking on the ones it has in it's table.

    For all I know, the routers do the same thing. The problem is, whenever you try to visit a website or open any other new connection, that new connection will be dropped. Your internet connection is still useless, even if your router hasn't crashed.

  19. Re:Misstating the GPL argument I think on Linguistic Problems of GPL Advocacy · · Score: 4, Informative

    It has happened, although the case is slightly more complicated than that.

  20. Re:Exceptional Battery Life on Thinkpad X300 With SSD Performance Evaluation · · Score: 1

    Perhaps, but wouldn't it be great if laptops could have both high performance and long battery life, even if it couldn't have both at the same time? Sometimes I want to play games, and sometimes I want to use my computer for a long time a long distance from a power jack. It would be great if I could have one computer that does both well. It's obviously not possible to do that perfectly, but your belief (that one should care only about either performance or battery life, and not both) is not helpful.

  21. Re:Exceptional Battery Life on Thinkpad X300 With SSD Performance Evaluation · · Score: 1

    AMD (Hybrid Graphics) and NVIDIA (HybridPower) have been working on this, and AMD has already released chipsets that can do it. It's taken a long time for this to happen because few people would want to reboot their computer to switch graphics cards, and switching graphics cards on the fly can be relatively difficult.

  22. Re:Exceptional Battery Life on Thinkpad X300 With SSD Performance Evaluation · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is true to an extent, but there are trade-offs that can't be made when using the computer. You may be able to turn off sections of a chip, but not nearly with the level of detail that you can by not adding transistors at the beginning. Trying to convert a fast, out-of-order CPU with many pipeline stages into a slower, in-order CPU with fewer pipeline stages at runtime would be effectively impossible. Additionally, the way that the chips are manufactured affects their speed: for example, fast transistors generally have higher leakage currents, so you have to compromise between high clock speeds and low static power.

  23. Re:Screws to HDTV? Not exactly on Comcast Puts the Screws To HDTV · · Score: 1

    The interesting thing is that he says that they don't lower the quality of the channels that you can get OTA. They only lower the quality of channels that you can't get without going through them (or a competitor).

  24. Re:so what on GCC 4.3.0 Exposes a Kernel Bug · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course, the security holes will only be in programs that were compiled with GCC 4.3.0. It's not as if some unprivileged user could cause problems merely by compiling something with a new version of GCC, but it will still be a problem if a trusted person uses GCC 4.3.0 to compile and run a program which would become exploitable.

  25. Re:Nice! But... on All GeForce 8 Graphics Cards to Gain PhysX Support · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The 8800GTX has 8 groups of 16 stream processors, and they are the main graphics processors.