Slashdot Mirror


User: evanspw

evanspw's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
135
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 135

  1. New Planet on Ask Slashdot: Could We Deal With the End of Time Zones? · · Score: 2

    Ask yourself this. If tomorrow we (meaning "humanity") were to go colonize another earth-like planet someplace, and set up a bunch of settlements dotted all around the planet according to the local resource availability etc, do you think we'd also have a universal time reference that we'd all use all over this new planet? We'd probably align it to some natural cycle - for instance, the day as defined by an axial revolution determining sunlight/night-time distribution. Would this just be an initial convenience or would it persist past the colonization period for the rest of the time the planet is occupied?

  2. Re:Clear now: A common open CAD data structure nee on Autodesk + Instructables: For Makers? · · Score: 1

    Agreed, Draftsight is very good and the closest you'll come to an Autocad clone. I've found a few minor bugs but it's more than made up for that by being free.

    Autocad itself is a yawn. It's not getting better. Also, the vast army of middlemen you have to wade past to even buy a copy is depressing. There's something about the while experience that is pre-Internet, or like AutoDesk is in some alternative universe where the internet got made proprietary and stuck like sand in glue.

  3. Re:It's not a cost cutting thing on New Apple MacBook Pro Reviewed · · Score: 1

    Also, this is a transition machine. I'll wager it's the last MBP update where SSD isn't standard. They are testing the waters with Thunderbolt. Personally I think you'd be crazy to buy this without the SSD option. Adding your own is cheaper, but may be a problem with TRIM under 10.7 unless Apple change the fact that 10.7 will only support TRIM in the drives they install - which is a crap decision.

  4. Re:Can You Still Make a "Penis Panini" With Them on New Apple MacBook Pro Reviewed · · Score: 1

    You are dead right. The paste is way worse than the copper cooler or the copper block glued to the back to the CPU (which is actually mounted upside down inside it's little module). The paste is there because, owing to dust and other crap, if it wasn't there you'd have air voids between the CPU block and the cooler, and that's even worse. Ideally the past is about 50um thick, enough to envelope any crud.

  5. Re:Can You Still Make a "Penis Panini" With Them on New Apple MacBook Pro Reviewed · · Score: 1

    My 2010 Mac Mini happily sits at 82-82degC CPU doing video conversion for hours on end. No problems. Not a video card issue so can't compare to what you're doing. I don't really have anything to get the video card excited. The 2010 MBA is just superb thermally - not a problem at all. Fan kicks in watching (some) flash video or when I'm running CAE software on a windows VM, or video skype (just about the worst offender out there). My old 2006 C2D iMac never had a thermal problem, and it got thoroughly flogged. I've build numerous PCs from off-the-shelf components and getting the thermal design, at reasonable sound levels, is the hardest part of it and it's really hard. Apple get points for their thermal design, in my opinion.

  6. Re:No DVD on iPad 2 Rumored to be in Production · · Score: 1

    No, they want you to get content from an iTunes server, either your local one or something in the cloud. But there is absolutely nothing to stop you putting any video you want to in your own iTunes library (I am not a lawyer, but there may be some copyright issues in some jurisdictions).

    I'll be happy to see the end of plastic disks.

  7. YouseB on HP Unveils WebOS Tablet, Plans WebOS Computer · · Score: 0

    OMG! I'm not buying it if it doesn't have 8 USB ports!!! What are they smoking?!?!?

  8. Re:finding a good material is not the problem on Molybdenite As an Alternative To Silicon · · Score: 1

    I think it's because hole mobility in silicon isn't dreadful that p-channel devices are used. You don't actually need them to make logic. The Cray supercomputer was done with GaAs MESFETs, for instance. Logic is GaAs FETs is very fast, with depletion mode and enhancement mode devices working pretty well together to make any sort of gate you want. But off-state leakage limits gate density to much much less than can be achieved with silicon (it's not a lithographic limit - 20nm style gates are possible in GaAs too, it's just that there's no economic justification in spending the money required to do it). It's leaskge that kills you as you go higher density circuit, and SiOx (and the high-k substitutes at small feature size like hafnium oxide etc) that makes silicon compelling.

  9. Re:finding a good material is not the problem on Molybdenite As an Alternative To Silicon · · Score: 2

    Sing it, brother! I work in compound semiconductor designing RF chips. I know a lot of silicon guys and very few of them have any clue what makes silicon a damn useful semiconductor (namely, it's oxide). I can't think of another semiconductor that has anything like as nice an oxide as silicon, easy to grow, very effective insulator with decent breakdown. If any of the compound semiconductors had anything like as good a native oxide, there would be no silicon industry (silicon otherwise mediocre electron mobility and band-gap, though ok thermals).

  10. Obviously just facebook bullshit on Andreesen Offers New Browser 'Rockmelt' · · Score: 1

    to drive more eyeballs to facebook so those creeps that run it can sell your data to marketing droids.

    fuck off. stooges.

  11. Re:Your definition of movie may vary... on Torrent-Only Movie Denied IMDb Listing · · Score: 1, Informative

    For what it's worth, which isn't much, Denton was involved in the greatest piece of television in the history of the world, but it was in 1988 and mostly he's be farting through his mouth ever since.

    I refer of course to the Great Lubricated Goat Episode of Blah Blah Blah. It shall not be forgotten. I thought at the time, "Finally, television is going to be good", but it was not to be.

    Sigh.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubricated_Goat

  12. Re:No, it's iTunes. The UI is the biggest problem. on Flawed iTunes Stands Out Among Apple's Products · · Score: 1

    I agree whole-heartedly. I don't see what's wrong with the interface to iTunes. You're dealing with a moderately complicated data base of stuff, all sorts of stuff. There's always a tension between simplicity and functionality and iTunes gets it pretty much right as far as I can see.

    Also, contra much whinging in ./land, iTunes on windows 7 works fine. I have not had any problems with it at all. I run it on mac and windows, and while the windows version doesn't look windows-like, that's not an issue (I wish all windows software looked mac-like).

    Now if there was a linux version, Apple would rise inestimably in my opinion...

  13. Re:WD40 on AMD Hates Laptop Stickers As Much As You Do · · Score: 1

    that's acetone and acetone will etch PVC plastics quite nicely.

  14. Re:WD40 on AMD Hates Laptop Stickers As Much As You Do · · Score: 1

    Turps works for all glues used in labelling. Then you might want a little soapy water on a cloth to wipe away the turps ;)

  15. Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5 on Firefox 4 Will Be One Generation Ahead · · Score: 1

    What chrome needs is the the thing I like about firefox the most - mandating font usage. With firefox, I can tick a settings box and all pages will be rendered with the fonts I choose, not the often shitty fonts some web designer hack wants me to use. It is possible to get chrome to do this but it requires dicking around with style sheets and it's also not 100% effective (ditto for safari). While only firfox has this feature it will be my #1 browser.

  16. Re:Silent updates are not ideal. on Like Google's Chrome, Mozilla To Silently Update Firefox 4 · · Score: 1

    most of those can be set to manual update, or at least a notification that an update is ready to download. i know that's got it's downside too.

  17. Re:Afghan informers will be killed on WikiLeaks 'a Clear and Present Danger,' Says WaPo · · Score: 1

    You know that's complete bullshit, or are you so hopelessly in the ass of the right wing noise machine?

  18. Re:What about the insurance file? on WikiLeaks 'a Clear and Present Danger,' Says WaPo · · Score: 1

    Actually, it means he's got the primary qualifications for a job on Fox News! You seem to have a very odd view of how journalism works. Here's a clue: all journalists are pigs. It's deep, deep down in the culture and it won't be going away.

  19. Re:More Info & Dashboard on Global Warming 'Undeniable,' Report Says · · Score: 1

    With respect, can you quote an example of someone saying down with civilisation, etc? That sounds like the sort of hokey characterization that the denialists make of people who think global warming is man made. I have never met or even heard someone say that we must unravel civilisation as we know it back to something far far more simpler. A lot of technologies are massive net energy savers and require considerable infrastructure to maintain, so I don't see that being unwound.

  20. Re:US abuse on WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets · · Score: 1

    Not relevant. The period between the Roman subjugation of Hispania and the Reconquista was over 1000 years. The population changed radically in that time, with North African populations moving in from the south, and Visigoths (originally from parts of eastern Europe) moving in in very large numbers. As a rule, the present populations of the countries of Europe as we know them today (or for the last thousand years) are very different from the people who live in those lands in Roman times, owing to massive migration shifts from the third to the seventh centuires CE.

  21. Re:US abuse on WikiLeaks Publishes Afghan War Secrets · · Score: 5, Informative

    Took the Romans two centuries to pacify the Iberian peninsula (present day Spain and Portugal). And that was without outside meddling (after they took it from the Carthaginians).

  22. Re:In the real world on VP8 and H.264 Codecs Compared In Detail · · Score: 1

    Good.

  23. Re:different systems on Verizon iPhone Rumored For Early Next Year · · Score: 1

    Antenna positioning in all mobile phones is driven by the testing procedure used by the FCC to measure RF power coupled into a user's head.

  24. Re:I'd consider the families a little differently. on MINI-ITX and the Future of PC Case Design? · · Score: 1

    From memory BTX came out somewhat after micro-ATX, but never took off. None of the Taiwanese name-brand mobo makers went for it. It was meant to have better cool-ability (ie, air flow over the board and CPU). Don't most Dell designs use BTX or something very similar?

  25. Re:Great. :( on Steve Jobs To Keynote WWDC iPhone Announcement · · Score: 1

    "Race to the bottom" is specifically about the business of making and selling PCs. The profitability is getting slowly lower as more and more of the hardware is commodified and produced at near zero cost. Similarly, fixed location network services (cable, ADSL, etc) are also low margin in the rich world. PC manufacturers have a hard time convincing customers to upgrade anymore.

    For mobile devices, the hardware was long ago commodified, but the way in which profit is extracted from the whole device ecosystem is different, and, as you point out, also works well in the poor world. That's the key, and why service provision hasn't become a race to the bottom yet. There's still scope for expansion and innovation to keep prices high. For how long, I have no idea. But I think at least a decade while touch interface mobile devices up to A4 size mature.

    Why should Apple give a shit about anything except extracting profits from well off people? It's not as though they are going away any time soon.