Comment Patents (Score 2) 51
Doesn't matter how good x265 is, as long as patent litigation clouds keep forming over it, it will not succeed.
Comment Perpetual energy machine (Score 2) 72
I'm sure I'm wrong considering the laws of thermodynamics and all, but if a moon is heated by gravitational shifting, does this go on for ever? I.e. is this a perpetuum mobile?
Comment Re: Can I jump ship yet? (Score 4, Interesting) 88
I understand the importance of having office applications but like how porn pushes technological advances, I think that gaming pushes the desktop.
Having a Linux desktop at work will not make the average user install Linux at home. The other way around, maybe...
Comment Can I jump ship yet? (Score 4, Insightful) 88
I hate that Linux has such bad graphical card support. Games are the only thing that are keeping me on the Windows platform. I think it really is the only thing that is keeping the world from a "Linux on the desktop" utopia.
Comment Re:Sony Pictures == Columbia, a California company (Score 1) 231
Ah right, thanks for that.
Comment Explain it like I'm five (Score 1) 231
I _really_ don't get it.. Sony, a _Japanese_ company, and the US is going world police cop. I understand that Hollywood has a stake in this perhaps, but what political reason are they using to legitimize this?!
Comcast's Lobbyists Hand Out VIP Cards To Skip the Customer Service Wait 131
An anonymous reader writes: A lengthy story about how David Gregory lost his job hosting Meet the Press holds an interesting tidbit: Comcast's team of lobbyists regularly hands out VIP cards to influential (and influence-able) people in Washington that lets them bypass normal customer service and fast-track their support problems. "Its government-affairs team carried around 'We'll make it right' cards stamped with 'priority assistance' codes for fast-tracking help and handed them out to congressional staffers, journalists, and other influential Washingtonians who complained about their service.
A Comcast spokeswoman says this practice isn't exclusive to DC; every Comcast employee receives the cards, which they can distribute to any customer with cable or internet trouble. Nevertheless, efforts like this one have surely helped Comcast boost its standing inside the Beltway and improve its chances of winning regulatory approval for its next big conquest: merging with the second-largest cable provider in the country, Time Warner Cable." (The David Gregory article is worth a look on it's own, too; it shows how Comcast's purchase of NBC has led to interference in NBC's attempts at real journalism.)
Denmark Makes Claim To North Pole, Based On Undersea Geography 191
As reported by The Independent, A scientific study has found that Greenland is actually connected to the area beneath the polar ice where the North Pole lies – thanks to a huge stretch of continental crust known as the Lomonosov Ridge.
Since Greenland is a Danish territory, that gives the country the right to put its hat in the ring for ownership of the stretch of land, Denmark’s foreign minister [Martin Lidegaard ] said. ... Of the five Arctic countries – the US, Russia, Norway, Canada and Denmark —only Canada and Russia had indicated an interest in the North Pole territory until now. "This is a historical milestone for Denmark and many others as the area has an impact on the lives of lot of people. After the U.N. panel had taken a decision based on scientific data, comes a political process," Lidegaard told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday. "I expect this to take some time. An answer will come in a few decades. Why such a big deal? As Business Insider notes, The U.S. currently estimates that the Arctic sea bed could contain 15% of the earth's remaining oil, along with 30% of the planet's natural gas and 20% of its liquefied natural gas. Whichever country is able to successfully claim the Arctic would have the right to extract these resources.
The Sony Pictures Hack Was Even Worse Than Everyone Thought 528
An anonymous reader writes with today's installment of Sony hack news. "It's time to take a moment of silence for Sony Pictures, because more startling revelations about leaked information just came out and employees are starting to panic. BuzzFeed raked through some 40 gigabytes of data and found everything from medical records to unreleased scripts. This is probably the worst corporate hack in history. Meanwhile, Fusion's Kevin Roose is reporting on what exactly happened at Sony Pictures when the hack went down. The hack was evidently so extensive that even the company gym had to shut down. And once the hackers started releasing the data, people started 'freaking out,' one employee said. That saddest part about all of this is that the very worst is probably still to come. Hackers say they stole 100 terabytes of data in total. If only 40 gigabytes contained all of this damning information, just imagine what 100 terabytes contains."
Comment Re:Super-capitalism (Score 3, Interesting) 516
1) Espionage is anything but cost-effective. But cost isn't the primary (or even secondary) concern there for those who want to do the spying. (It's (technical) feasibility)
2) Running cable above ground is _always_ more cost-effective then running cable underground. So if you:
- don't give a shit about your customers
- don't have a lot of competition because you can gain a monopoly by buying senators
- and if you do a bare minimum of maintenance because you want more money (more so if you _do_ run cables underground)
then even in a city, local power stability is going to be shit.
Comment Re:Shyeah, right. (Score 2) 284
If you think 250TB of backup is a lot, then you don't need tape.
I currently backup about 1PB and data storage is growing exponentially here (gene sequencing data). Tape is the only cost effective solution for us.
I do agree though that tapedrives are ridiculously expensive but it's a sellers market. Tapedrives don't sell in massive quantities so the price stays up, mainly because there just aren't that many suppliers.
On the other hand. I called a shop a while ago to see what they'd give for our 5x LTO4 tapedrives since we upgraded to LTO6 and they only offered us 30 euros per drive. So if you don't need the latest drive out there, you can save a lot of money by buying second-hand.
Comment Re:You need more nuclear and less renewables (Score 2) 516
It's true that renewable power levels like wind-power rise and fall, but once you look at a larger area then it pretty much evens out.
Of course you can back it up with other types of renewable that have a more stable output like hydro-electric of geothermal.
Comment Super-capitalism (Score 1, Insightful) 516
For one, the US is big.. really big.. So it's not cost-effective to run power cables and alike underground. So that makes them more vulnerable.
Also, the US enjoys a form of super-capitalism, where the almighty dollar stands above things like quality of service and stability. So companies do the bare minimum of maintenance, also worsening outages.
Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places? 516
An anonymous reader writes: I live in a relatively large college town that's within easy driving distance of several major metropolitan centers. In many ways, the infrastructure around here is top-notch. The major exception is the electrical grid. Lightning storm? Power outage. Heavy winds? Power outage. Lots of rain? Power outage. Some areas around town are immune to this — like around the hospital, for obvious reasons. But others seem to lose power at the drop of hat. Why is this? If it were a tiny village or in the middle of nowhere, it would make sense to me. What problems do the utility companies face that they can't keep service steady? Do you deal with a lot of outages where you live? I'm not sure if it's just an investment issue or a technological one. It hasn't gotten better in the decade I've lived here, and I can imagine it will only get worse as the infrastructure ages.
Comment Re:Dear Sony, I am delighted! (Score 1) 155
[haha.jpg]
