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User: petermgreen

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  1. Re:It says: 256MB RAM... on Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released · · Score: 1

    And I think the vast majority ship with a gig or more now.
    Afaict the majority ship with exactly a gig. Few ship with more than a gig because that makes them ineligible for "XP home ULCPC" which is a lot cheaper than "vista buisness downgraded to XP pro" (afaict this is just a restriction of the agreement between the OEMs and MS and it is perfectly acceptable for the end user to upgrade such netbooks to 2GB but IANAL)

    win7 starter allows up to 2GB (and since it's a proper edition I suspect the limit will be enforced this time) it remains to be seen how long win7 will take to replace XP on netbooks and whether when it does 2GB will become standard on them.

  2. Re:It says: 256MB RAM... on Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released · · Score: 1

    meh netbooks are generally shipping with 1GB of ram as standard and I bet they would be shipping with 2GB if it wasn't for microsoft's rules on XP home ULCPC.

  3. Re:It's JVC's VHS-C versus Sony's Video8 again on ARM Stealthily Rising As a Low-End Contender · · Score: 1

    XP itself is perfectly usable on 1024x600 (the most common netbook resoloution afaict), heck with the classic theme it's interface is much the same as windows 9x and I ran that at 640x480 for a while until I could afford a new monitor.

    The problem is app vendors became used to the minimum common screen resoloution being 1024x768 and developed apps based on that assumption, a couple of offenders that immediately spring to mind are iTunes and the lego mindstorms nxt software. There isn't really a whole lot MS can do about this.

    This was one of the reasons I waited and splashed out the extra cash to get a HP mini 5101 with a 10 inch 1366x768 screen.

  4. Re:MAME on ARM in Debian on ARM Stealthily Rising As a Low-End Contender · · Score: 1

    It's internal, there is a mini-usb connector on the side which has a USB to serial and JTAG converter chip behind it.

  5. Re:That bad, eh? on Tesla Roadster Breaks Distance Record For Electric Car · · Score: 1

    Just don't enjoy it too much. Way too many Roadsters have been totaled already. Often from people having too much fun with that accelerator pedal. ;)
    Do you have any stats on that and how it compares to other sports cars?

  6. Re:To be fair? on Tesla Roadster Breaks Distance Record For Electric Car · · Score: 1

    I don't have Tesla, but I do have the car it's built on, it's a light weight sports car
    IIRC the tesla roadster is quite a bit heavier and therefore has quite a bit worse cornering than the elise.

    At least thats what top gear found when they had them out on the track together.

  7. Re:pushed? not a big deal? on Lost Northwest Pilots Were Trying Out New Software · · Score: 1

    2) 110 miles in a jet? really? big detour? How long does it take a jet to travel 110 miles? This extended the flight what, a whole 15 minutes counting backtrack time? For a jet that's like a bus driver missing an exit and having to drive another 4 miles to the next cloverleaf and do a 180. Though it probably had a few more exaggerated side-effects, like passengers missing connecting flights (which happens too much anyway even when planes are on time) plus the cost of a few hundred pounds of fuel. But still, seems like its being overblown.
    IIRC There was a crash where the pilots accidently disengaged the autopilot while arguing over a lightbulb.

  8. Re:Luck not shot down on Lost Northwest Pilots Were Trying Out New Software · · Score: 1

    It's not quite an airliner but there was an incident not long ago where a private pilot who had only flown small single engined planes before successfully landed a buisness jet after the pilot who was supposed to be flying the plane died in flight.

    He did have quite a bit of help over the radio though.

  9. Re:unilkely on Laptop Fires On Airplanes · · Score: 1

    grr wrong again it should have said much slower train or car

  10. Re:unilkely on Laptop Fires On Airplanes · · Score: 1

    that should have said a much slower tran of car.

  11. Re:unilkely on Laptop Fires On Airplanes · · Score: 1

    if there were no airlines there would be no TSA.
    The thing is even with all the BS flying is still by far the fastest way to travel nontrivial distances. Especially in the USA where your passenger train services suck things are a bit better in europe but still if I want to go from my home near manchester in the UK to almost anywhere in continental europe it will be much quicker to fly. Hell it would probablly be quicker to fly if I wanted to go to Southampton at the right time of day (unfortunately last time I went there weren't any planes leaving at the right time of day).

    What the TSA does applies equally to all airlines so other than taking a much slower plane or car or an expensive private plane there isn't much option.

  12. Re:I'll be too sick to surf on Internet Probably Couldn't Handle a Flu Pandemic · · Score: 1

    Ok so what about when you've recovered somewhat but you are still under quarantine and not allowed to leave the house?

    Or what about when someone in your family is sick and the whole household is under quarantine and not allowed to leave the house?

    Or what if there is a major outbreak at your workplace and everyone is quarantined at home until they can find out who does and doesn't have it?

  13. Re:Bandwidth problems on Internet Probably Couldn't Handle a Flu Pandemic · · Score: 1

    No that is not the real problem, that problem could be avoided by ignoring requests for high priority from customers that were detected as abusing it.

    The real problem is that making packet scheduling decisions on a per user basis means the congested node needs to track a lot of state. Further unless some parts of the network are very overbuilt compared to others it may be hard to predict the location of the congested node.

  14. Re:Go to your room and no video games! on Internet Probably Couldn't Handle a Flu Pandemic · · Score: 1

    Maybe you just haven't reached the relavent stage in your recovery yet.

    I dunno about you but often when I am ill there is a phase of recovery where I don't yet feel well enough to leave the house or do something as intellectually demanding as programming but I want to do something less boring than watching TV.

    With swine flu there is also the possibility of being quarantined under government rules even though you either haven't had it yourself (afaict they quanrantine whole households) or the symptoms have gone.

  15. continuation on Amazon Cloud Adds Hosted MySQL · · Score: 1

    what you are going to do long term.

  16. Re:First sale doctrine on Film Studios May Block DVD Rentals For One Month · · Score: 1

    Afaict they can in the US (I don't think they can here in the UK but i'm not positive) and from what i've read here it sounds like one rental only providers is already doing just that.

    The problem with playing hardball like that though is that many rental providers also sell DVDs so they need to keep on good terms with the movie studios or have the entire sales side and possibly a big chunk of the profitability of the rental side wiped out.

  17. Re:Will anyone care? on Film Studios May Block DVD Rentals For One Month · · Score: 1

    The thing is the longer you wait between release of a peice of entertainment media and watching it the more chance someone will reveal the ending to you which kinda spoils the suspense. This is especially true if the peice of entertainment is popular among those you interact with (and barely true at all if noone you interact with cares about it).

  18. Re:Showing their cards at last on Amazon Cloud Adds Hosted MySQL · · Score: 1

    It's not very clear from their post but they seem to be comparing the purchase cost of their own hard drives and the enclosures to go with them (plus the cost of hosting them for a year but that is small compared to what they are spending on the drives) to the rental cost of S3 storage.

    While I can see that makes some sense for a company in a fast growth phase when they stop growing those S3 bills are going to keep on coming while the hard drives and thier enclosures will keep on going for years. Also while he called "xserve raid enclosures" dirt cheap the ones I see listed on apples site are anything but cheap.

  19. Re:Showing their cards at last on Amazon Cloud Adds Hosted MySQL · · Score: 1

    At least for the moment, it is much cheaper to buy these resources from amazon, than to pay to build up a datacenter to start with 1 or 2 machines, but be able to scale up to millions. That would have such a huge up front cost that it is not even an option for most small businesses.
    The compromise solution is to co-locate your hardware. Afaict provided your needs are gradually and predictably increasing this is cheaper than buying your CPU time on demand from a cloud provider and there is a relatively easy upgrade path from servers in a shared rack to racks to cages and so on.

    Personally I think things like S3 are mostly useful as a contingency plan for adding a lot of capacity in a hurry while you work out

  20. Re:So it's $70 a year.... on Low-Power Home Linux Server? · · Score: 1

    But at an average of 6c / kWh
    When looking at the cost of electricity consumption with a view to deciding if it's worth saving it you should be looking at not the average cost but the marginal cost.

  21. Re:Laptop on Low-Power Home Linux Server? · · Score: 1

    One thing to watch for is that some laptops use the keyboard as a vent (on my macbook it's basically the only vent) so running them closed isn't always a good idea.

  22. Re:If you want something that works like an Apple. on Psystar's Rebel EFI Hackintosh Tool Reviewed, Found Wanting · · Score: 1

    I imagine Apple aren't too worried, because when you think about it in simple terms, if you want to buy something like an Apple, there is a very good company in Cupertino that makes Apples, happens to be called Apples, and has very nice Apple Stores that you can go into to buy them, talk to other people who like Apples, get advice and technical support, and things are quite simple.
    The thing is apple just do not sell ordinary desktops, the choice of apple desktops is a SFF machine built with laptop parts and no expansion room, an all-in-one again with no expansion room, a very expensive workstation. Worse that very expensive workstation needs workstation ram and special graphics cards (more expense).

    The rich and/or those who can convince the boss to pay will just bite the bullet and buy a mac pro.

    The not so rich have the choice between buying or building a hackintosh or putting up with a machine that doesn't really meet thier demands.

  23. Re:Apple should be concerned... on Psystar's Rebel EFI Hackintosh Tool Reviewed, Found Wanting · · Score: 1

    even the macs that can take graphics card upgrades (the mac pro, the xserve and if you can find the right cards which are like hens teeth some of the imacs) macs are very fussy about graphics cards. You need a mac specific firmware on the card and iirc there are some compatibility issues between versions (I think it depends on whether the mac is 32-bit EFI or 64-bit EFI but i'm not positive)

  24. Re:The problem... on Psystar's Rebel EFI Hackintosh Tool Reviewed, Found Wanting · · Score: 1

    Windows locks you into x86 based computers.
    There is an itanium version though only for the server editions which pushes up the pricetag.

    but still there are two major vendors of x86 based processors and another one making low power but also low performance ones. Also afaict there is nothign in the windows license that prevents running it in emulation.

  25. Re:Or, if we are about the open source, on Psystar's Rebel EFI Hackintosh Tool Reviewed, Found Wanting · · Score: 1

    The thing is apple know that there is a sizable block of people who use the lack of such a tower as justification to thier bosses to get a mac pro.

    Also apple doesn't like to be too directly comparable to regular PCs, that way it is harder for customers to see thier higher markups.