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Comment Nonsense anyway. (Score 1) 216

You can put the dram's socket on the edge of the motherboard instead of the top and make the laptop just as thin as before. And the difference in power efficiency might be as much as a minute on the battery's charge. Maybe.

No, the real difference is they can save a dollar, maybe not even that much, by soldering the ram instead of socketing it. If they can convince you that the soldered laptop is as valuable as the socketed one, that's a dollar's competitive advantage.

Comment Re:80% of the server market still (Score 2) 76

AMD is pretty close on Intel's tail for the server market. Arm and the mobile-derived processors, on the other hand, aren't making much of an inroad there.

For server processor's it's all about the CPU sram cache. Intel learned that lesson from AMD 20 years ago. AMD inexplicably forgot it in their following generation of processors and has only recently started making good server chips again.

Mobile processors are all about power consumption. Best bang for the watt. That starts with a software-level instruction set that requires as few transistors as possible to implement. Assembly language and microcode that is the legacy of the x86 is not such an instruction set. While more performant that arm, many of the x86's instructions consume more electricity that a comparable sequence of arm instructions. That's fine when you're plugged into the wall and want to go fast, but it's less desirable when you're running off a tiny phone battery.

Comment Re:Maybe It's Documentation On Location. (Score 1) 90

I'm sure someone with half a brain can figure out what the real issue is.

I have at least half a brain, so here it is:

1. Kansas City's Subtropolis and nearby areas are host to a large number of data centers. The next closest data centers of comparable size are in Chicago, Dallas and Colorado, quite some distance away. And it's not clear that Kansas City isn't bigger.

But while the area is dense with data centers, it's not dense with communications pathways. The customers aren't in Kansas City.

2. It is notoriously difficult to assess whether two network services you wish to buy will ever use the same physical path. Not only are there too many levels in the supply chain, the paths change as companies at each level renegotiate contracts and reconfigure their networks.

Comment I don't want and wouldn't pay for HBO. (Score 4, Interesting) 35

I subscribed to Netflix DVDs because I could get the latest movie releases, all of last season's TV shows and a bunch of other stuff. I added streaming because it added to that value.

Then Netflix canceled my DVD service and with it, many of the latest movie releases and most of last season's TV shows. Which was the core reason I wanted Netflix in the first place.

Netflix's CEO said, "the goal is to become hbo faster than hbo can become us." Congratulations. There's just one problem with your success: I was never willing to pay for HBO. And I'm still not. Stay on this path and the days of my subscription are numbered.

Comment I watched it (Score 1) 2

Technically excellent. Great effects. Wonderful loyalty to the source material. Acting is acceptable. The plot... well, it's 8 hours of a video game. Not 8 hours of a show set in a video game universe. And that's unfortunate. The characters are caricatures and the plot runs at a video game cadence. No emotional investment in any of it.

Comment Re: extradition (Score 1) 146

you still can't end up with capital punishment.

Did I say otherwise? I did not.

Even if a death sentence is issued, that is ok under the treaty, but the US is obligated to not carry it out if such an assurance was provided.

Again, the treaty says the inverse: that the U.K. can refuse to extradite if the the U.S. fails to provide such an assurance. Nothing in the treaty, nor anywhere else in U.S. law, grants anyone the authority to provide such a sweeping exception to U.S. law.

Comment Re: extradition (Score 1) 146

Article 7 of the treaty says the inverse of what you claim: extradition can be refused for failing to provide assurance. It does not require any such assurance to be provided and does not provide a mechanism by which such assurance can be lawfully provided.

As you point out, the judge in a specific case can impose any sentence it wants within what the law allows regardless of what anybody else promises. How exactly do you propose that a judge in a case where the judge has not even been selected yet make a promise to a foreign nation that he won't impose the death penalty in a case where the law allows it? Have you even begun to think it through?

Finally, once the accused is in the U.S. states can file any charges they want under state law regardless of what the federal government does, so long as they're under state law. For example, if they decide that someone was killed in their state because of wikileaks, they can charge Assange with murder. And there's nothing the Federal government can do about it. The President can't even issue a pardon because it's not a Federal crime.

Comment Re:extradition (Score 1) 146

The treaty says they don't have to turn Assange over unless we waive the death penalty. But neither it nor any other U.S. law actually grants anyone in the United States the authority to irreversibly waive the death penalty for all crimes with which the extradited individual might be charged.

The practical effect of the treaty clause is that if the crime carries the death penalty in the U.S. but not the U.K., the U.K. is not bound by treaty to extradite.

Comment Re:extradition (Score 1) 146

Why would rewriting the treaty make a difference to the ability to provide the assurance?

No U.S. law specifies who is authorized to waive the death penalty associated with this treaty. Including the treaty itself. Even if there were a law separate from the treaty, it would not be binding on the states over state crimes.

However, the Constitution grants the Senate the authority to ratify treaties, so if they specified who could waive the death penalty *in the treaty* then it would be binding on both the federal and state governments.

As the treaty is written now, the only consequence of the death penalty clause is that the U.K. can refuse extradition without breaking the treaty.

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