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User: Chirs

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  1. assuming you mean SSDs, this exists already on Ask Slashdot: Is the Gap Between Data Access Speeds Widening Or Narrowing? · · Score: 1
  2. Re:Blaming American Engineers on Volkswagen CEO Issues Apology Over Emission-Cheating Software · · Score: 1

    Doesn't necessarily mean that it's upper management in Europe though...could be the management of the American design team.

    I'm very curious to see how this plays out. Wonder how much of the truth will come out.

  3. Re:Blaming American Engineers on Volkswagen CEO Issues Apology Over Emission-Cheating Software · · Score: 1

    It's not impossible that the team assigned to get it to pass US EPA testing could have done something like this without the knowledge of upper management.

    As someone with an engineering degree, I'm saddened that they would do something this shady. Professional Engineers are supposed to act ethically.

    And seriously...did they really think nobody would ever find out?

  4. The Prime Minister is technically the person most likely to command the confidence of the elected members of the House of Commons.

    *Usually* this is the leader of the party with the most seats, but not always.

    Totally agree that we need to rein in the power of the PMO, but that would require the members of the House of Commons to take back the power they've ceded to the office of the Prime Minister.

  5. a self-driving car that doesn't isn't worth much on Philosophical Differences In Autonomous Car Tech · · Score: 1

    If someone buys a "self-driving car", they're going to expect it to, you know, *drive itself*. If the driver has to be alert and attentive and ready to take over at all times then it sort of obviates the entire point of owning a "self-driving car".

    Now if the features are marketed as safety-assist capabilities (interval-keeping in cruise control, auto-braking to avoid obstacles, etc.) then that's a different story. In that model the driver is still expected to be in control, and the car just makes the driver safer.

    But I'd suggest that for many people a "self-driving car" is what they want. They'd like to tell the car where to go, and then read a book or sleep or watch a movie or something until they get there.

  6. sleep seems to work though on Microsoft Is Downloading Windows 10 Without Asking · · Score: 1

    I don't use hibernate on my linux machine, but it sleeps just fine. Most of the time that's sufficient.

  7. actually I do use it till it breaks on Why Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program Is a Bad Deal For Most · · Score: 1

    Phones are different than computers, yet people still try to apply the computer mentality to it. You don't just buy a smartphone and sit back and use it until it breaks.

    Actually, I do. I used a Blackberry Curve with the rollerball until it physically broke. I then got a free Android phone from my brother and used it till it broke. I have an HP Touchpad running CyanogenMod and I'm going to use it till it breaks. My current phone is a Moto G, and I fully expect to use it until it breaks.

    If the vendor abandons it, you reflash it with a community distro. Simple as that...

  8. headline isn't wrong on Why Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program Is a Bad Deal For Most · · Score: 2

    It's a good deal if:
    1) you upgrade every year
    2) you take out Apple Care

    For everyone else it's not a good deal.

  9. if you have to have the latest shiny it make sense on Why Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program Is a Bad Deal For Most · · Score: 1

    But for most people it doesn't, since most people don't really need a new top-end phone every year.

  10. buying makes sense if you hold onto it on Why Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program Is a Bad Deal For Most · · Score: 1

    Renting/leasing a phone (or a car) generally only makes sense if you have to have the new shiny all the time.

    It'll likely work out cheaper to buy a used high-end phone (or a new midrange one) and use it till it doesn't work anymore. The long-term ownership is where you save money by buying vs leasing.

  11. as always, depends what you need on Revisiting How Much RAM Is Enough Today For Desktop Computing · · Score: 1

    I've got a Dell Vostro that's pushing 5 years old. I paid $440 (Canadian) for it. It does everything I need it to, because it's main purpose in life is web browsing, email, word processing, and exporting streaming video via HDMI to my home theater.

    For that purpose any of the Mac lineup would be overkill.

    So sure, *at comparable specs* the Mac pricing is competetive. But many people just don't need those specs, and for those people a Mac is simply overpriced.

  12. Because they get to keep most of the money? on Finland Considers Minimum Income To Reform Welfare System · · Score: 1

    Most people are willing to work to improve their lives beyond the bare minimum necessities.

  13. nope on Finland Considers Minimum Income To Reform Welfare System · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a replacement for welfare, employment insurance, social assistance, old age security, etc.... Some fiscal conservatives are in favour of it because if nothing else it minimizes administrative overhead by combining everything into a single program.

    Also, it's usually set up so that there is always a benefit to working more. Claw-backs start at 50% and go down as income goes up. (As opposed to silly current welfare that initially doesn't let people keep any of the incremental additional money they make, leading people to not even bother trying.)

  14. didn't happen in Manitoba on Finland Considers Minimum Income To Reform Welfare System · · Score: 5, Informative

    Guaranteed minimum income was tried as a multi-year experiment in Dauphin, Manitoba (Canada) in the 1970s. From the wikipedia page for "mincome":

    "...only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidents of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse.[7] Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals.[8]"

  15. if you don't know your needs up front... on Ask Slashdot: Capacity Planning and Performance Management? · · Score: 1

    then cloud computing is pretty much aimed at you. (At least if your need is likely to be variable.)

    The whole point of the cloud is that you only pay for what you use. If your needs are wildly variable from one month (or day) to the next, it might make sense to rent time/storage/throughput via the cloud.

    If your needs generally only increase, and increase at a predictable pace, then it probably makes more sense to buy your own hardware.

  16. You sure? on New Video Shows Shot Down Drone Hovered For Only 22 Seconds · · Score: 1

    It was hovering over private property...which could be against the law in some jurisdictions.

  17. cut back on net carbs on Coca-Cola To Fund Research That Shifts Blame For Obesity Away From Bad Diets · · Score: 2

    Seriously. I went on Atkins about 10 years ago, *severely* cut back on bread/sugar/rice/pasta/cereal, and lost 50 lbs over a year or so with relatively little fuss. I ate lots of vegetables, with meat/cheese/eggs/cream/butter, etc. It tasted good, I wasn't hungry, and I satisfied sweets cravings with stuff sweetened with sucralose/stevia/sugar alcohols/etc.

  18. still disagree on Amid Agony, Scientists Discover World's First Venomous Frog · · Score: 1

    Arguably, "inject" generally implies a hollow tube through which the material is forced. This also means that a larger dose of the material can be forced into the wound since the material is under pressure. So syringe, snake fangs, mosquito proboscis, spider fangs, etc. are all hollow and "inject" would be appropriate.

    On the other hand, contact poisons (even on a barb or spin) would generally not be considered an "injection".

    If I coat a knife with poison and stab you with it, I'm not "injecting" the poison into you, you're basically absorbing the poison off the surface of the knife.

  19. virtualization on SDN Switches Not Hard To Compromise, Researcher Says · · Score: 1

    Cloud computing tied to networking leads to the need to reconfigure the network very flexibly and potentially frequently. This is where SDN comes in.

    Suppose you have a big beefy virtualization host. You run a bunch of VMs on it, some of which might themselves be acting as full-fledged routers pushing gigabits/sec of packets. (Yes, this is possible right now.) You want to have strict control over which VMs can talk to which other VMs, you want to control which virtual networks can connect to which physical networks (or possibly which vlans/vxlans on which physical networks). Now combine this with SR-IOV or PCI passthrough where a given physical ethernet device can be logically switched between different customers depending on which VM it's attached to at any given time.

  20. you might, actually on Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Caps Lock Key Still So Prominent On Keyboards? · · Score: 1

    Consider the following cases:
    1) You want to hot-swap your keyboards and have the adjustment carry over between keyboards.
    2) You want to switching between host terminals and virtual machines and have the adjustment carry over into the various VMs.
    3) You want the adjustment to affect the BIOS as well.
    4) Your keyboard is on a KVM switch and you want the change to affect multiple computers that may be running different OS's.

    In the above cases, it would be handy to have a physical "bump in the cable" adapter.

  21. the article said some Intel drives not affected on Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code · · Score: 1

    The linked article pointed out that five models of Samsung SSD were affected, three models of Intel SSD were not. So there were at least some drives that didn't seem to be affected by the bug. (Presumably just due to luck/usage-pattern/etc.)

  22. the 840 evo speed issues... on Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code · · Score: 1

    There were issues with the 840 EVO losing significant speed after it had been in use for a while. There was eventually (after much complaining from customers) a "fix" released that helped but didn't actually completely resolve the issue.

  23. a bit too harsh on Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code · · Score: 1

    Bugs happen. If you've got code that seems to work and then you investigate and it doesn't work on one particular brand of drive, it would be a reasonable suspicion that there is something funny with those drives.

    Given the fact that multiple Samsung drive models were failing but multiple Intel drive models were *not* failing under the same test (from the linked article), the developers could be forgiven in suspecting there was something wonky going on with the Samsung drives.

  24. fairly common to blacklist devices on Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code · · Score: 1

    hardware firmware is commonly buggy. Device drivers often have to work around buggy hardware, so blacklisting devices for various functionality is not at all unusual.

    If the code seems to work with other devices and breaks with a new device, then the first instinct is going to be to assume the new device is doing something wrong.

  25. don't remember any denial on Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code · · Score: 1

    More like an assumption that the bug was in the driver because they hadn't noticed issues on other drives.