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User: petermgreen

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Comments · 10,783

  1. Re:Apple LED Cinema Display on Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes · · Score: 1

    One thing I don't get is given apples descision to use propietry display connectors why didn't they put a couple of USB signal pins in there. It would have had negligable effect on the connector size and would have cut a cable from setups like this.

  2. Re:Sometimes CEOs are really worth the billions. on Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes · · Score: 1

    Indeed a GOOD CEO is worth a LOT to a company, a BAD CEO can destroy much of the companies value in a fairly short time.

    IMO a good CEO is one who has the ability to push back against the short termism that runs rampant in the stockmarket and lead the company in a direction that will make good profits in the long term.

  3. Re:17" Macbook on Apple Intros 17" Unibody MBP, DRM-Free iTunes · · Score: 1

    It all depends whether that is 8 hours idle, 8 hours under max load or somewhere in between (and if so where in between)

  4. Re:Internet Killed the TV Star on DTV Coupon Program Out of Money · · Score: 1

    Your scenario seems pretty unlikely to me. Anyone who can afford broadband will be able to afford a converter box easilly and I bet anyone who enjoys TV and does't have cable (remember a lot of people with broadband will get cable TV with it and so wont be affected by this) will get one.

    Sure they would rather get uncle sam to pay for thier converter box but I bet when push comes to shove they will pay for it themselves.

  5. Re:Why is the government even subsidizing this? on DTV Coupon Program Out of Money · · Score: 1

    Indeed and remember the widescreen con. Two bars of what is on most TV programs fluff (since they need to make the picture look complete when cropped to 4:3) AND a lower screen area for a given diagonal.

    That means you need to add quite a few inches to get a screen that is the same effective size. Afaict (from visual experiance not calculated) a 28 inch widescreen LCD is roughly the same height as a 22 inch or so CRT.

    And other than tiny portables CRTS and non-widescreen LCDs seem to be rapidly dissapearing from the market.

    Having said that all that with converter boxes easilly availible people saying they need a new TV because of the digital switchover are liers. Converter boxes are a lot cheaper than a new TV (at least they are here in the UK and I get the impression they are in the US too)

    A bigger issue is recording equipment. Recording equipment without built in digitial tuners is a PITA to use for timer recording of digital programs,

  6. Re:Market forces = backward compatible on DTV Coupon Program Out of Money · · Score: 1

    OTOH transmission capacity is expensive.

    Here in the uk sky pushed all thier customers onto a completely new digital system to save transmission capacity long before terrestrial and cable users were pushed onto digital.

    Sure it was expensive giving away and installing all those free "minidishes and digiboxes" (I dunno why they decided to replace the dishes as well as the boxes but they did) but given the cost of all that sat capacity they decided it was worth it.

    It seems the US government has done a similar calculation. Afaict the converter boxes they are giving away to placate the "poor" will be more than paid for by selling off the spectrum used for analog TV.

  7. Re:Why is the government even subsidizing this? on DTV Coupon Program Out of Money · · Score: 1

    Afaict at least in the UKit is perfectly legal to drive and sell secondhand imported cars that are driven from the opposite side. I dunno if it is legal to sell them new or not but I suspect it is.

    Are there any statistics on whether people driving such cars have a higher or lower accident rate than those driving cars with the drivers seat on the correct side?

  8. Re:Web site/forum hacking is a problem on Do Twitter Phishing Scams Herald the End of Microblogs? · · Score: 1

    Now a problem occurs when I am a home user and my neighbor's IP address is ranked badly and I happen to be in that range
    If you think it's bad now just wait until your ISP forces you behind an ISP level nat to free up space for more lucrative customers.

  9. Re:Don't think this is a big deal on Do Twitter Phishing Scams Herald the End of Microblogs? · · Score: 1

    On a side note, it'd be nice that when you notice that you are not logged in to Slashdot after writing a comment and click the 'log in' button on the comment box that it allowed you to log in without losing your comment
    Yeah, that can be pretty annoying, lukilly (at least for firefox users) there is an easy workaround. Middle click the login button and login in the new tab. You can then return to the original tab (closing the new one if you wish) and finish posting your comment.

  10. Re:Probably Not A Widespread Issue on The Exact Cause of the Zune Meltdown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Different RTC chips measure time in different ways. This particular one used time of day and a day count afaict. Some however give you a time broken down into hours,minuites,seconds,days,months and years.

    So if the API was designed arround the latter style of RTC chip the hardware vendor would have to write code to convert to the format the API expects and when writing driver code you generally can't just go and call your regular libraries.

  11. Re:Regardless of whatever code in it is faulty on The Exact Cause of the Zune Meltdown · · Score: 1

    That assumes you are programming in an environment where you have that luxury.

  12. Re:Git momentum on Perl Migrates To the Git Version Control System · · Score: 4, Informative

    Roughly

    Linus was very resistant to version control at all and could always find a reason (or excuse) not to use each version control system that came along.

    Eventually someone decided to listen to every demand from linus and create a vcs that met all of them. The catch was it was not FOSS and the gratis version had some pretty obnoxious terms. Things reached a head after someone at OSDL reverse engineered the protocol and linus was basically forced to either scrap bitkeeper or quit his job at OSDL.

    However the period with bitkeeper had convinced linus that version control was a good idea. But all the alternatives he could find were either too centralised or too slow. So he hacked together git.

  13. Re:About rebuilds on 32bit Win7 Vs. Vista Vs. XP · · Score: 1

    Everything including the kernel version, etc. stays the same across version updates, except for patched bugs. The previous modules keep working because the situation is exactly the same as before.
    Unfortunately this is not the case, some security fixes end up changing the module abi (or at least debian thinks they do and I tend to trust the debian kernel team on such matters). Of course some modules may still work if manually copied across but there is no gaurantee.

  14. Re:tunnelbroker.net on IPv4 Address Use In 2008 · · Score: 1

    BTs seems to have disapeared...........

    There are quite a few but afaict most of them can't be used from behind a nat and the one I know of that can ( freenet6 ) is pretty sucky (at least for a user in the UK since freenet6 has thier POP in the US).

  15. Re:It probably won't last another 4 years on Microsoft Issues Workaround For Zune Freeze · · Score: 1

    but mom and pop won't even be able to scratch the surface of their eight core, eight gig RAM system with just office apps and email
    Never underestimate the power of bloatware..........

  16. Re:Still making 32 bit? on 32bit Win7 Vs. Vista Vs. XP · · Score: 1

    Some of us would like to actually be able to use 4GB or more of ram.

    current desktop 32 bit versions of windows will only support 4GB of address space (XP RTM and SP1 supported more but MS disabled the functionality in SP2 allegedly due to driver compatibility issues).

    How much usable ram that translates to depends on how much address space other stuff uses. Afaict most people end up with 3.GB but I have a friend whose machine ends up with only 2.5GB of usable ram under 64 bit XP.

  17. Re:Still making 32 bit? on 32bit Win7 Vs. Vista Vs. XP · · Score: 1

    Linux can handle 32-bit applications on 64-bit OSes. Surely MS can do the same?
    To some extent they can. The problem comes when an app relies on a custom driver (either because it really deals with hardware, to help it enforce it's drm, to provide drive mappings or whatever). 64 bit versions of both windows and linux need 64 bit drivers.

    For example it is only recently that a netware client has appeared for 64 bit windows and it seems they still don't support 64 bit XP. And it looks like my first generation MPLAB ICD2 will never be supported on 64 bit windows.

    MS also decided not to put the effort in to support win16 apps (rumour has it MS created code to do this but didn't release it due to bugs, wine seems to have no problem running win16 apps on 64 bit linux) which until recently a lot of applications either were or used for some support function (installers etc).

  18. Re:0.027% on IPv4 Address Use In 2008 · · Score: 1

    Even assuming that all of these were allocated in 64-bit subnets (fairly common), that's still 5*10**15 subnets. Which is a hugely ridiculous amount,
    True, but your assumptions seem to have little to do with reality. The registries don't allocate /64s they allocate /32s which are than suballocated by ISPs (usually as a /64 , a /48 or sometimes something in between)

    If you actually follow the source of that number you find the following statement.

    IPv6 address space given out: 143645.78 /32s in 3090 blocks out of 536870912 possible /32s in the currently defined global unicast space (2000::/3) = 0.027%

    Those numbers seem belivable to me. IIRC most allocations are /32 but a few isps have somehow got allocated much bigger blocks to allow them to use 6to4rd (which is incrediablly wastefull of address space).

  19. Re:there's plenty of address space on IPv4 Address Use In 2008 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The current situation with most residential ISPs is that each customer gets one public IP. This is typically terminated on a NAT router (either combined with the modem or as a seperate device). In this situation you can port forward because YOU CONTROL THE NAT.

    When (not if) IPV4 addresses run out I strongly suspect the first thing the ISPs will do is force residential customers to either pay more or go behind an ISP LEVEL NAT (in some countries afaict they are already doing so). By doing this they will free up adresses for more lucrative customers. Since this nat is shared between multiple customers the customers will almost certainly not control the nat and will therefore not be able to set up port forwards.

  20. Re:there's plenty of address space on IPv4 Address Use In 2008 · · Score: 1

    Both will be very expensive, and why would any company in thier right mind want to give up scare addresses (and right now they can't legally sell them though that may change)

    I suspect that when IPV4 addresses do finally run out ISPs will force residential users behind nat and re-use their addresses for more lucrative customers.

  21. Re:So many addresses... so why can't I get one? on IPv4 Address Use In 2008 · · Score: 1

    As an end user you get your block of IPV6 addresses from whoever provides you with IPV6 connectivity.

  22. Re:minor clarification on Windows 7 Leaked To Pirates By Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    MS refuses to enable more than 4GB of address space through PAE on current 32 bit desktop editions

  23. Re:I guess thats one way to get Beta Testers on Windows 7 Leaked To Pirates By Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    Another problem is going beyond 3.something (or lower if you have a high end graphics card or shitty motherboard that can't manage the memory map decently, I have a friend who only gets 2.5) gig of ram is a PITA.

    MS refuses to enable more than 4GB through PAE on current 32 bit desktop editions (they claim this is due to driver issues, I dunno how much truth in that) and lots of people rely on drivers or software that simply won't work on 64 bit.

    If vista is needing near 2 to run decently and the user gets the 32 bit version (either because they need it or because the OEM doesn't want the hassle of supporting 64 bit) that doesn't leave much for heavy applications.

  24. Re:Open your mouth about security in an airport on Overzealous AirTran Boots 9 Passengers Off · · Score: 1

    IIRC someone did some statistical research and came to the conclusion that the back was generally safer than the front.

    However afaict there are relatively few airplane crashes with both fatalities and survivors.

  25. Re:Wow! on How Sony's Development of the Cell Processor Benefited Microsoft · · Score: 1

    There are still people who believe the PS3 has a chance of coming anywhere other than last place in the current generation console face-off?
    It depends on which market you are taking about. Afaict in the US the xbox is generally winning both in terms of sales so far and in terms of current sales levels but things are better for sony in some other parts of the world.

    I've also noticed the xbox 360 price has dropped hugely while the wii and PS3 haven't dropped much at all. It seems to me that the only real advantage MS has in the market is that they are prepared to sell thier console as an extreme loss leader.

    Combine that with the hardware quality issues and it looks like keeping second place is going to be an expensive job for MS.