Posts by Charles 9

Re: Next great idea

And if you're going somewhere where photo labs aren't guaranteed? That's the primary reason I keep a PhotoSmart.

Re: Next great idea

I'll believe it when I see one of them make a portable CIS photo printer. Photos are the one reason I use inkjets, and usually while on international trips where photo labs aren't guaranteed.

Oh, and HP is taking a CIS route, too, with the Smart Tank printers.

Re: Allowing the DoJ to determine who is a "bad samaratin"

Then you can't trust anyone because someone with sufficient power will just take over with sheer force.

Re: Bots and idiots

They'll just figure out how to beat the Turing tests. Research into machine learning and AI will only improve. Plus there's always Indian click shops...

It's tricky to block VPNs without being seen as supporting oppressive regimes.

Re: git broke English

Does it? Or does it simply mean to stop pulling (create the absence of pulling, IOW)? Then you have dispull, depull, and so on...

Re: git broke English

What about undo?

Seems to be "un" can be a bit broader: not just the absence of something (as part of an adjective) but also to create that absence (as part of a verb). Meaning uninstalling, undressing, etc. make sense as you're removing (creating the absence) of the installation, clothes, etc.

Re: @devTrail - What kind of opt-in was it?

The tri-core POWER-based CPU in the Xbox 360 was relatively simple, and it was noted to be somewhat of a lightweight compared to the Cell CPU of the PS3 (both ran at 3.2GHz IIRC).

Seems to me simple isn't going to cut it with modern workloads; its versatility will be too limited.

Re: Real Fix

NO, because we still need high performance. We can BS around a wrong answer, but we can't BS around a missed deadline.

Re: Dennard scaling

But what happens when you get caught between Scylla and Charybdis: stuck with an inherently serial job that requires a lot of raw computing power BUT can't be parallelized? Or even just a job that is highly serial (like high-ratio compression, including video compression)?

Re: optimize / optimise

"You are not a real programmer unless you remember when an assembler multiplication of 200x5 could be made faster than 5x200."

Unless every little cycle counted (in a limited-resource environment, I'll grant you), the difference really wouldn't be all that great (if you take the shift-and-add approach, as both types of instructions are usually pretty cheap time-wise, you'd only need one additional shift-and-add--4+1 versus 128+64+8).

Re: Pasteur is turning over in his grave

You're forgetting the kinds of organisms that THRIVE in alcohol, like Acetobacter (What's one of the common results on too-old alcohol? Vinegar; blame Acetobacter).

Re: Unpasteurised milk

Brucellosis is actually a decently nasty bacterial infection. Worse, it's persistent and can often recur. If a steer or horse gets it, it's generally considered a lost cause and euthanized.

Re: Milk consumption?

Unless there's a rennet shortage...

Re: Milk consumption?

Point is, for these kinds of people, given a little dough and the choice between beer and toilet paper, they take the beer and just ask for a receipt. Use BOTH sides...

Until municipal water quality took a turn for the better, it was generally considered safer to drink beer than water as the process of making the beer worked as water treatment (heating the water in the wort and the fermentation of alcohol).

Re: It's probably not actually "bad".

Where do you think most of the craft breweries are located? Oop North. And while craft brews are booming right now, they don't hold a candle to the sheer volume of the big boys. And given the options are out there, yet the big boys are still making a killing, they must be doing something right...as in maybe Americans don't want to get so drunk so quickly.

Re: Milk consumption?

Retail packaging (bottles, jugs, cartons, etc.) versus foodservice packaging (in the US, a 2 1/2-gallon bag-in-box of dairy product like milk, half-and-half, creamers, etc. is common for use in bulk dispensers). At least flour keeps as long as it's dry and it's practical to repackage them; milk, owing to its sensitivity to contamination, requires extra case and may not legally be able to be repackaged.

Re: Milk consumption?

What about those that serve breakfast? Or people who take their (especially young) kids with them to dine?

Re: It's probably not actually "bad".

And particularly since American taste for beer tends toward ice-cold lagers that don't have a lot of alcohol. If light beer is preferred there, it's because beer drinkers don't want to get too buzzed too soon: cool off and quench thirst first, then get drunk, and American light beers provide a good balance for the American drinker.

Re: It's probably not actually "bad".

It doesn't age well if it's kept in glass, as beer will react to light and start to "skunk." Dark glass slows the process but doesn't fully block it. Plus it depends on the beer, as ale doesn't have to be kept as cold as lager.

Re: Naming of devices

The point I was trying to make is why isn't it such a steep requirement to drive ANY car? Take Germany. As I recall, the driving license requirements there either are or used to be considerably stricter than most English-speaking countries.

Re: Naming of devices

"...and unlike aviation (where autopilots range from "keeping directional heading" and nothing else - through to full automated flights from takeoff/landing), drivers are not _required_ to be certified to know all the limitations of their devices before being allowed to use it."

Next question: WHY aren't they required?

1. People are PAYING for the privilege. LOADSAMONEY. SOMEONE's going to fill that demand, guaran-damn-teed.

2. You can't fix stupid, and there are a lot of stupid breadwinners out there.

Re: why it this civil litigation rather than criminal

So put a spike in the steering wheel...and then your spouse gets rammed by a ghost driver.

Sometimes, you just can't win.

Re: If the experts aren't safe,

Many times the gap is too narrow for the viewing angle of the driver (especially if it's a car with a low ride height). Plus what if it's the child that pops out first...three feet from the driver? I don't care if you're going 5 mph, a child that pops out of the blue a mere three feet in front of you isn't going to end well, full stop.

IOW, there's always Murphy.

Re: If the experts aren't safe,

Oh? NAME the law, then, because what you're describing is a Duty to Rescue, which most civilized countries won't carry because obligation doesn't automatically convey ability, resulting in the common situation of someone trying to help only making the situation worse. Good example: how does a Duty to Rescue apply to someone passing someone drowning in the river when the bystander can't swim?

Re: "... believe the humble password is a good enough security measure"

"I have a terrible memory for that kind of alphanumerical stuff (for other stuff my memory is excellent). My solution to the problem was a Password Manager (Bruce Schneier's one). That way I only have to memorize one, strong password, that much I can handle..."

For some, even that is too much, meaning even password managers are risky, as are little black books and the like (keeps losing the keys, for goodness sakes). And yes, I LIVE with such a person (three guesses why).

Re: "... believe the humble password is a good enough security measure"

So what happens when your two ends cross over and you end up with an UNhappy medium: in charge of something that legally requires high-strength protection AND a bunch of users with terrible memories?

Re: Good security will always need some user action

WRONG! You can fix shill, but you CAN'T fix Stupid OR Murphy. And Stupid is that I have to deal with on a daily basis (and by stupid, I mean someone who's told to look left and looks right, is told to turn around and spins a full 360, I kid you not).

"You must be really fun to hang around with, Charles 9."

Not so much they hanging around with me as I hanging around with them...and not by choice. All those things I'm talking about tend to come from firsthand experience.

Re: @Brian Miller -- It's the microphone, not the browser

Then what happens when they go the other direction and use infra-sonics instead? That's the technique Cinavia uses to watermark audio, and it's blended into the audible frequencies to make them hard to remove. Good luck trying to demand filtering out low frequencies, especially for those "audiophiles" that insist on feeling rather than hearing the music (meaning massive woofers and subwoofers).

Re: Good security will always need some user action

And if the institution is in on it? ALL institutions?