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  1. Riiiiight. on Analysis Suggests Solar System Contains Massive Trans-Neptunian Objects · · Score: 2, Informative

    Our ability to discern planetary positions has largely been based on our understanding of orbital dynamics and looking for protuberances in the motions of known, directly observed objects that were naked eye observable. This technique has been used since the 16th century and led to discoveries of all Planets, Planetoids, various Asteroids, Comets, and Plutoids ever since without the need of direct imaging; just some very cool math...

  2. Re:Design failure on Lost Beagle2 Probe Found 'Intact' On Mars · · Score: 2

    Said probes are somewhat delicate and require various forms of when falling from a height of 401 million km, especially the final *heat shielding* for the height of 11km for it's fall through the Martian Atmosphere and heating to a temperature of 2,100 degrees C.

    Also, as 2,100 degrees C is considerably higher than the melting point of 1,410 degrees C of the silicon antenna used to communicate from Mars back to Earth, it is understandable why said antenna would need to be *inside* the heat shield rather than outside the heat shield. Just saying...

    (Oh, and Slashdot, learn how to display a Unicode degree () symbol appropriately!)

  3. Re:Makes sense. on Google Throws Microsoft Under Bus, Then Won't Patch Android Flaw · · Score: 1

    There's a huge difference between Apple's Minimum of 3 years OS Updates for Phones and the typical Android 18 Months if you chose the right model and the Manufacturer feels like being generous, which is itself very different from Microsoft's approach up until now of "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit."

  4. Re:Makes sense. on Google Throws Microsoft Under Bus, Then Won't Patch Android Flaw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Technically, Google *did* fix the flaw, in later versions of Android. They just didn't backport said fix to 4.3.

    However, as Manufacturers won't roll a new update off of said backport even if it did exist as they're incentivized to support phones that are under warranty and where possible sell new phones to customers, Carriers would drag their feet on approvals of said updates if they even authorized it at all as they're inclined to both avoid angry support calls from customers about "my phone is different" yet also sell new phones to get people under contract, money disappearing at all levels into the giant black hole of bureaucratic process, what does it really matter? It's a zero sum proposition.

  5. Re: Who gives a fuck on Chrome For OS X Catches Up With Safari's Emoji Support · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While it is absolutely the case that emoji has no place in certain text fields, as a web browser it is Chrome's responsibility to handle all valid and compliant UTF-8 symbols, including emoji symbols, within the application. Emoji are not some imaginary pseudo-symbol type or image format sent in-line. Where the symbol is seen, an image from a font will be displayed instead of a conventional character. As such, is it really that different than needing to support Cyrillic characters in text fields?

  6. Re: Typical on Microsoft Restricts Advanced Notification of Patch Tuesday Updates · · Score: 1

    It could also be an acknowledgement that newer business server environments where roll backs are more likely to be "painful" are typically run in sandboxes, be it through VMWare, Hyper-V or a handful of other tools. As such, a problematic roll-back is presently accomplished through snapshots. Where virtualization isn't employed, hopefully companies employ a prod/non-prod environment for their servers. And as far as workstations are concerned, Microsoft's default WSUS behavior has been to force manual whitelisting of updates for deployment, as such it is the responsibility of administration staff to test said updates as they would anything that they choose to push to machines that they are responsible for as to reduce the likelihood of having their whole organization sitting on their hands for a day or two while they scramble to fix. Microsoft's change while annoying for process compliance within organizations makes some sense in a round about way as it forces people to test before deployment into their networks under the guise of "ZOMFG SCARY!"

  7. Re: Competition on Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake? · · Score: 1

    First, the HTC Dream (Also known as the G1) was the first commercially available Android Device, and there are ROMs for it to run 4.4. HTC even provided Official ROMs up to 2.2 for the device for what it's worth, however they were not OTA Updates, instead requiring manual flashing, getting 1 year of OTA Updates, 18 months of Official Updates, and 6 years of Unofficial Updates. Simply by nature of the unofficial updates, this phone is the longest running, most supported mobile device ever sold.

    Second, The Motorola ROKR was a Rebranded Motorola E398, complete with all normal apps *AND* a Motorola written music app that was licensed to utilize FairPlay Protected Music Tracks, thereby making it's ability to function as an iPod seamlessly, unlike previous phones which were shipped by Motorola and other Manufacturers for that matter which were able to sync with Apple's iTunes or iSync Apps, but lacked the ability to play DRM Protected Tracks purchased through Apple's Music Store; only playing those that were ripped from CDs. It was not an *Apple* device. The iPhone 2G, Apple's 1st Mobile Phone received 3 years of Official software updates from Apple, pseudo-unofficial support with the official firmware for another year through firmware stitching to authorize the older model number, unofficial Android ports, and other OSes for good measure.

    Finally, Windows Phone 7 Was the 7th Major Windows Phone / Mobile Release, coming just after Windows Mobile 6.5. It had the standard WinCE Environment and Userland and the expected Major Release change of "add some APIs, and remove some APIs", but a new New UI. Previous Windows Phone/Mobile releases were tied to the same Major Revision just as we've seen to date in the marketplace; as such one could only receive Minor Revision updates.

    Your opinion on Microsoft's willingness to accept or afford ill will from their user base or the press is irrelevant. All Windows Phone 8 devices will be upgraded to run Windows Phone 10; it is a certainty because Microsoft has stated it several times. It is a change from their old style approach regarding WinCE/WinRT devices and committing to providing "long term support" to the platform as they do their Desktop offerings, as their competitors do, and as their customers have been clamoring for following their early adopters getting burnt with the 7->8 change.

  8. Re: Competition on Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake? · · Score: 1

    And by certain, you mean all that were on the market at the time of the WP8 reveal, when those users were happily running 7.5 and were finally stranded at 7.8, because the WP7 specs were notoriously specific mandating one specific processor, baseband, screen resolution, memory config and the like, and OEMs could change the case to suit their brands? Is that what you meant?

  9. Re: Get What You Pay For on In-Flight Service Gogo Uses Fake SSL Certificates To Throttle Streaming · · Score: 1

    Each *user* believes their use is important and essential to them. The idea that someone gets a better experience downloading updates just because their device is an Xbox versus a Playstation versus a SteamBox, versus a PC, versus someone trying to watch Netflix or YouTube, versus someone trying to Skype call someone else, versus someone trying to ScreenHero someone else or browse the web for that matter is irrelevant. Each person feels that their money entitles them to equal service to their neighbors who are paying the same amount for their service. Hence the rub. The idea that game consoles should get better service or prioritization because they're more latency sensitive than some other arbitrary use case shouldn't factor into the discussion as if a vendor is unable to meet said demand, it is their obligation to either adjust pricing to reduce customer utilization, ergo demand, or increase supply. Hence, why there is a discussion at all regarding Net Neutrality.

  10. Re: Look for what you can see. on The Search For Starivores, Intelligent Life That Could Eat the Sun · · Score: 1

    Comparitively, an early homenid lighting a match is closer to being accurate than said early homenid riding a dinosaur. One is sometime within 100k years of each other at the outside, the other after 65m years. Still a farce, but less so.

  11. Re:Any actual examples? on Tumblr Co-Founder: Apple's Software Is In a Nosedive · · Score: 1

    There's a huge difference between automatically pushing said update onto computers as a "your computer will reboot in 60 seconds" unless you press this button style update by nature of you being in the developer program and making an informed decision to be a part of extended, long term beta testing.

    Further, the idea that the *only* way to roll back from said forced update to a very, very broken, completely untested release is to wipe your computer and start over is not a good answer. And if you say "said release was tested, than someone should have caught the various logon issues in the form of "you can't type your password faster than 1 character per second", "you can't let your computer go to sleep", "you can't use a web browser", "you can't use spotlight", "you can't connect to an WPA1/2 Enterprise Network", ... All issues that were present for weeks if not a month plus that were met on the Developer Community as "We can't comment about the ongoing state of development, but if you feel that things are not proceeding to your satisfaction, please feel free to submit a bug report." which is immediately closed as a duplicate of another that you can not see or follow up on. And that complete lack of communication makes it difficult to decide whether one should waste a day or two backing up, wiping and reinstalling a workstation and getting it set back up how you like it when an update *may* be coming out a day or two later to address the "this is borderline unusable" problem that if it were any other company or a historic Apple for that matter would result in an update being pulled, or a rollback being posted!

    Beta Testing isn't the problem, *FORCED* Beta Testing is.

    And that's different from the rhetorical answer of "releases before they're finished", but actual outside the organization dog fooding.

  12. Re:Any actual examples? on Tumblr Co-Founder: Apple's Software Is In a Nosedive · · Score: 2

    Okay, I'll take the bait... The 10.10.2 developer preview... 3 separate updates spanning over a month and a half where one couldn't actually let their computer go to sleep, including simply *close the screen on a laptop* and then *open said laptop* without hard booting said machine as a regression was introduced preventing Wake from Sleep.

    Yes, it wasn't a *public* release, but it was however pushed automatically onto developers who didn't explicitly uncheck "Show Pre-Release Updates" following the 10.10 GM1 -> Final release, of which according to the forums many were stung by because they actually needed to *test* their software to find out what their users would be experiencing in the wild.

    Or how about rendering issues in same 10.10.2 developer preview that prevented apps like Safari, or Pages from being usable on Retina displays as one was unable to actually *read* said content within the windows?

    Or Removing API Calls in a Point release just because, breaking Chrome and a bunch of other apps, of which Apple's incessant "We'll never tell! You'll find out when it ships!" mentality means that stuff like said "APIs Disappearing" means that you never know for sure whether it's a bug that they'll sort out before the next update or whether they actually meant to remove a bunch of API Calls without telling a soul and it not appearing in a single doc that they're now gone and you should plan as such.

    The only "resolution" to these considerations is to back up your computer and re-install.

  13. Re: Balloons on How Galaxies Are Disappearing From Our Universe · · Score: 1

    The counterpoint is that all that mass, ergo gravity, existed 91 billion light years closer together just 13 billion years ago. As such, if such immense gravity was ultimately incapable of overcoming the "expansion problem" that you describe, how could a galaxy hope to with its much, much, much smaller mass by comparison?

    At the same point, whose to say that over the time scales we're talking about that galaxies, solar systems and everything *haven't* increased in size proportionally relative to the expansion of the universe, minus the drag coefficient of gravitational forces?

    There certainly is precedent for that, albeit ones with other quite plausible preeminent explanations, such as the gradual increase of orbital distance of our moon relative to the earth, the earth moving ever so slightly away from our sun year over year, and similar trends observed elsewhere within other orbital bodies within our solar system.

  14. Re:Shouldn't this be a civil case? on UK Arrest Over Xbox Live and Playstation Network Outages · · Score: 1

    How much was lost from cancellation of services because of the outage?

    Microsoft and Sony explicitly exempts refunds for their services. Someone *could* return their hardware purchases of course to their retailers. Xbox Live and Playstation Plus Subscriptions or games that were opened may very well not be accepted for return though.

    How much was spent for network and systems administrators to work on it, beyond their normal workload?

    Somewhere between $0 and $0. The benefit of having salaried employees in technical fields who are thereby exempt from overtime.

    Your other points certainly have discernible monetary impacts though that could be inferred from previous and later dates sales records and expenses.

  15. Re: Particularly since they are just toys on Is the Tablet Market In Outright Collapse? Data Suggests Yes · · Score: 1

    Some might argue that for most a home PC is also a toy as well. Considering the market share that XP still has, the idea that those devices could be replaced with commodity tablets that would let people do the same things they used to do and more. A PC is certainly able to do much more than a tablet, but when many spend their lives in a web browser Facebooking, Instagramming, and Pintresting until the sun sets, a tablet which likely is higher resolution, cheaper, and faster than their old computers without limiting them from doing the tasks to which they've become acustomed, they can start to look like a good choice.

  16. Market Saturation? on Is the Tablet Market In Outright Collapse? Data Suggests Yes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Couldn't it also be that Tablets are a question of reaching market saturation, and that they fall more into the PC life cycle rather than the Cell Phone life cycle of being replaced yearly? From my personal experience, everywhere I go, I see people with tablets that are a year or two old because they are "good enough", lack compelling reasons to upgrade and also are typically appear significantly more expensive than their cell phone counterparts as they are typically sold unsubsidized.

  17. Irony. on How Amazon's Ebook Subscriptions Are Changing the Writing Industry · · Score: -1

    Boo hoo. Go read "How Green Was My Valley."

  18. Re:Erh... I don't get it on What Northern Hemisphere Astronomers Are Missing From the Southern Hemisphere · · Score: 1

    I'm pretty sure that it doesn't work like that, however I can see how you might think it with a steady diet of Faux News.

  19. Re:What's the timecode? on Sony Accused of Pirating Music In "The Interview" · · Score: 4, Informative

    No idea where the song is in the movie, but I've just verified that it's listed in the credits at 1h51m10s. It's stated as her performance, by her production company. As such, if they didn't actually pay for the rights, that's an extremely baller move as it presents zero ambiguity that it was known as her work and the company they'd need to get the rights from by everyone involved.

  20. Secure & Android on Boeing and BlackBerry Making a Self-Destructing Phone · · Score: 1

    Misnomers?

  21. Re: Makes me wonder on NASA Study Proposes Airships, Cloud Cities For Venus Exploration · · Score: 1

    Infinitely is a long time span to design for. And frankly speaking the sun will expand engulfing Venus and this proposed probe well before the clock expires on Infinity.

  22. Re: And Yet; on NASA Study Proposes Airships, Cloud Cities For Venus Exploration · · Score: 1

    Pot Bellied Pigs fly quite regularly on commercial aircraft as "service animals" as do miniature chetlan ponies, for what it's worth! What a glorious day we live in thanks to the ADA! Some amazing breakthroughs in science must be coming any day now, right? Right?

  23. Re: Let's chose a name on NASA Study Proposes Airships, Cloud Cities For Venus Exploration · · Score: 1

    Skytanic?

  24. Re: Yes this is Terrible. on Apple Wins iTunes DRM Case · · Score: 1

    That again is also muddying the waters, considering that Apple established via their contracts with RIAA member companies that DRM was required for them to sell music online. The more appropriate question is whether their prevention of competitors DRM Schemes on the iPod drove up prices of either the music itself or the iPod devices upon which said digitally purchased tracks could be obtained. This would also seem to be an easier question to answer as it would allow for direct analysis of Apple's business model versus their competitors, or even the price jump experienced when their tracks went from $0.99 to $1.29.

  25. Re: Not convincing at all on Vinyl Record Pressing Plants Struggle To Keep Up With Demand · · Score: 1

    I have, yes. Both conducted and had them conducted on me, including some tricks from a music producer friend who would send the same track mastered identically and simply exported into different formats. It's only possible with active listening when the information is present in the actual file. I can't tell the difference between one 16bit track and another regardless of format (even 256kbps to 320kbps for most tracks), or a 24bit track that was mastered in 16 and then upconverted versus a strait 16bit track. Passive listening without looking for those "defects" or "differences", or without having a point of comparison between the two, you'd be very, very, very hard pressed to infer the differences with a percentage greater than random chance. Active listening, when you know what you're doing and have a lot of practice, and have the right equipment, the differences are apparent. Are they significant? Not really and in no way impact the enjoyment of the track, but there nonetheless and in a predictable fashion between masters across a variety of genres.