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User: xtracto

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  1. Re:Did KDE survive KDE3-KDE4? on Ask Slashdot: Is KDE Dying? · · Score: 1

    Ha, I don't come here that much anymore, but this snippet reminded me of my old Linux days:

    >Yeah, that's not the KDE SC's fault, that's nepomuk / akanodi / strigi / phonon / your graphics. Except only KDE depended on those shitty back-ends in the first place.

    I experienced the same treatment with Graphic cards, WinModems, and ALSA audio config. I "exited" the desktop Linux world about 10 years ago and man, I really don't miss that.

  2. Re:I'm sure it will suck on HBO Developing Asimov's Foundation Series As TV Show · · Score: 1

    They do something similar in American Horror Story series. Every season is a completely separate story with new characters. Some of the actors are recast.

    I think it would work.

  3. Re:More specific on Ask Slashdot: Aging and Orphan Open Source Projects? · · Score: 1

    Sounds like it is GraphViz.

    It is a bummer that such a nice project is in a state like that. I would recommend a lot to make a fork in GitHub so that the source code has more visibility.

    Also, someone touched a very good point. A lot of young people are now focusing on Web technologies (like JS). Are you aware of vis.jz ? (a port of GraphViz engine to JavaScript) We use it were I work now to very quickly visualize graphs.

    I really like the Dot language, and after tinkering with several JS graphing programs, I concluded that GraphViz layout algorithm is the best (for big graphs, pretty much all the others showed crap, while GV shows a decent image).

  4. Re:Tough luck.. on Thieves Who Stole Cobalt-60 Will Soon Be Dead · · Score: 2

    Except that it may be the case that other innocent people may be affected by these people's acts.

  5. Re:Learn JS and compete with $2/hr developers on If You Want To Code From Home, Learn JavaScript · · Score: 1

    After all, no one is asking them to refactor a GUI or build drivers for an OS.

    I think HP and/or Intel build some of their drivers in "third world countries". Is that the reason why they are utter crap?

    (disc. I live in a "third world" country).

  6. Re:PDF is problematic by design on Calibre Version 1.0 Released After 7 Years of Development · · Score: 1

    The best solution I found to read PDF (in my PRS-950) is to crop their margin with BRISS and read them full-screen on the ebook-reader. When the font is still too small, I can do landscape reading... unfortunately, due to the PRS-900 form, a page is broken in 3 (the PRS-650 breaks it in two, which IMO is better). Or with BRISS it is also possible to split pages in two segments, but I don't like that as much.

  7. Re:I agree on Poll Shows That 75% Prefer Printed Books To eBooks · · Score: 1

    I /kind of/ agree:

    I prefer reading books in eBook format. I've got a Sony reader in which I can read all kind of books (including BRISS'd PDFs).

    However, I prefer buying dead-tree books. Because as things stand now "buying" an eBook is not actually "buying" but just renting for a really high price.

  8. Re:Anyone who is surprised is a fool on USA Calling For the Extradition of Snowden · · Score: 1

    He can always get suicided...

  9. Re:Correction on DoS Attack Forces EVE Online Offline · · Score: 2

    uuuh no, the story was an actual technical story with technical details (from Mark Russinovich) ( http://it.slashdot.org/story/05/10/31/2016223/sony-drm-installs-a-rootkit ), and there is actually insightful and interesting technical and political discussion in the thread.

  10. Re:Correction on DoS Attack Forces EVE Online Offline · · Score: 1

    I don't really want to get into details here because it gets really technical,

    This is Slashdot. What else is Slashdot good for, if not "really technical"?

    You are 10 years late to that slashdot who liked to discuss technical stories such as deCSS, Sony Rootkit and Fyodor's nmap.

  11. Re:Sega did it on Can the Wii U Survive Against the PS4 and Xbox One? · · Score: 1

    Dont be so sure. Back in the day when I played videogames there was a very strong Sony vs Nintendo rivalry. Specially in the SNES vs Genesis generation I remember some Sega people saying that the SNES was not truly 16bit (but super-charged 12 bits). The thing is, Sega fans would laugh at the thought of a Sonic game in a Nintendo console... fast forward 15 years, and it is the *only* place where you can get a Sega game.

    I can imagine than in 5 to 10 years, all the Nintendo franchises (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, etc) will be part of either Microsoft or Sony's console. The latter would be very funny (or sad, depending on how you see it) as in the beginning Sony's gaming technology was supposed to work for Nintendo.

  12. Re:rather have money on Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive? · · Score: 1
  13. Re:rather have money on Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive? · · Score: 2

    So much bullshit, at least for the UK.

    I lived there for 4 years and I used the NHS quite frequently and on all levels (from GP to hospital specialists and doing several kinds of analysis).

    If anything, what is horrible with the NHS is the GPs, because you only get 15 minutes (counted by the second) and that's it. GPs do not seem to care, and you are just a number.

    But once you get to the specialist and hospital, everything changes. First, everything is free, so you do not have to worry. Second, the specialists in the hospitals seem to really care, and you know that they are going to make all analysis necessary to find your problem. And you don't have to care about the cost.

    I miss that system, really.

  14. Take it to ycombinator on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Sell an Algorithm To Venture Capitalists? · · Score: 1

    I recommend you take this question to news.ycominator.com It is a forum were lots of entrepreneurs meet and discuss. Most likely, in Slanshot you will only get responses undervaluing your job/algorithm, saying how many ways it sucks and how you could achieve the same with current X or Y (including virtualdub) open source technologies.

    Good luck!

  15. Re:Qt Creator. on KDevelop 4.5 Released · · Score: 1

    I always liked DevCPP and later Code::Blocks. KDevelop seemed very buggy as it crashed very often, and it also felt very resource hungry (and you needed a lot of clicks to start a project or program.

  16. Re:BS Summary on Recovering Data From Broken Hard Drives and SSDs (Video) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nice try NSA guy.

  17. Re:It has to be said on AMD Says There Will Be No DirectX 12 — Ever · · Score: 1

    Ok, you've got Direct3D covered. Now can you provide alternatives for:

    DirectDraw
    DirectPlay
    DirectInput
    DirectSound
    DirectXSecurity

    Hopefully the alternatives you provide would be highly cohesive and integrated.

  18. Re:Let's predict the headlines of the future: on AMD Says There Will Be No DirectX 12 — Ever · · Score: 1

    Well, for one the taskbar is fucked up and less customizable than the Windows XP taskbar (anchor on the right, showing list of running applications with horizontal text, a small section of shortcuts to most-used programs and some drop-down buttons of folders with some programs and documents.

     

  19. Re:Unlikely. on Ask Slashdot: Enterprise Bitcoin Mining For Go-Green Initiatives? · · Score: 1

    Yup, this is spot on, using a client like BitMinter you will see that a 'decent' CPU will mine at most 10 khps (kilo-hashes per second) at most, while a 'decent' GPU will mine at about 60 khps.

  20. Re:This headline pops up every few years on DARPA Tackles Machine Learning · · Score: 1

    I kind of agree with you, however I tink the science progress is running in the path you describe more than you think. For example, the "meh, some kind of back propagation" thought has is now being replaced by RBM and SVMs, which are based in new theories of how the brain works. This has given some kind of new 'life' to AI. It is now known that the typical neural networks and other "classical" machine learning techniques are very prone to overfitting.

    As with every field in science, we put theories, and base new research on those theories, until it yields everything it can, and then someone comes with a new theory.

    .

  21. Re:So many uninformed comments on Chrome OS Remains Undefeated At Pwnium 3 · · Score: 1

    Oh... thanks for this comment. It is so sad that the only really interesting comment (talking about the underlying technology) is sitting at the end of the thread. I cry for those /. days where all the points you touch would be themes for discussion... instead of the useless and stupid comments filling the thread right now.

  22. Who cares? on Gnome Founder Miguel de Icaza Moves To Mac · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    A random Mexican (disc. I am a Mexican too) writes about some crap in his personal blog, someone posts it to /. and everybody gets their panties in a bunch.

    Meh, I don't like Apple philosophy and a lot of the shit Jobs made, but right now I am writing this from a Mac I got in my current job and I have no problem, iterm2 and brew give me everything I need from the Linux world.

  23. Sign of the times... on Bill Gates Answers Questions From Redditors · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sign of the times... when /. is linking to Reddit.

  24. I'll go for Robo-Answer on FTC Offers $50,000 For Best Way To Stop Robocalls · · Score: 2

    I have been wanting to do this for some time at home. How about setting up a linux machine that answers all phone calls (without my phone ringing) and plays a voice that says something like:

    "You are talking to number 1234567, home of the xtracto family, press 8 if you want to talk to a person",

    Maybe changing the number to reach a person randomly per call. It is not until the caller pressess that number that the phone will ring, and this is when I will answer (or, if there is no one home, my robo-answer will ask the caller to leave a message.

    That's sort of a "captcha" but for telephone. Finally, I would give a special code to friends/family to dial just after the call with the robo-answer has connected so that they can directly ring the phone (longer that the one digit announced by the robot).