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Comment Re:Let's stop making reviews for gamers (Score 1) 214

I took my i7 920 from 2.66GHz to 3.32GHz by upping my base clock from 133MHz to 166Mhz. This changes the QPI bus accordingly, making system transactions much faster as well. It cost me nothing over the original system cost to do this, and I didn't have to change voltages to make it work.

This makes all single core bound tasks (which are frequent) substantially faster, and I spend far less money to do it.

Comment Re:What the hell? (Score 1) 653

>I've been pulled over at least a dozen times in the 11 years I've been driving, and only come away with a ticket once. Half the time I was definitely over the limit.

Why is a cop pulling you over when you weren't doing something? How is that okay? What are you doing that they keep deciding to pull you over? I certainly am not starting out respectful of someone falsely accusing me of something, especially when there is a high probably that they know they are lying about it.

I've been pulled over for being young in a car, young at night, young with other people in the car, "too young" for the car I was driving. I've been pulled over at various times for my hair being long. I've also been pulled over for doing something that I knew was against the laws of the area.

The people that have pulled me over for doing something worthy of a citation have tended approach me, ask what I was doing, tell me why they pulled me over, and let me respond. I don't fight with someone when I know I'm in the wrong.

BY FAR, the most offensive, lowest form of life I have ever encountered has been the cops that pulled me over for the far more frequent problem of being young. These cops endanger everyone around them, they will openly lie to you, on their reports, and to judges. They will fly down the road and tailgate you to pull you over. They will get in your face and call you a liar. This type is the kind that I have encountered more than anyone positive with a badge.

And the worst part, is that many of the ones that aren't like the above, still cover for them. That doesn't make them particularly good people, either.

I've spent a lot of miles on the road, and while minivans and vehicles like Buicks and such are most likely to be not paying attention... police cruisers are the mostly likely to do something dangerous. I've seen marked cruisers tailgating people with only feet of room on the highway, I've been nearly rear-ended, broadsided, and t-boned by them, because they think they own the road, and just expect people will throw their cars into ditches because there's something with a lightbar behind them, even when it's turned off. Hell, I've had one of these assholes shine a spotlight on me *while driving down a highway*.

As someone that has been driving for well over 10 years, and has worked with police for years, I wish I had something more positive to say about them. The ones worth giving a badge to seem to have a high tendency to change jobs or retire.

Comment Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score 1) 641

Actually, just below the graph you mention it says that Snow Leopard is shipping both 32bit and 64bit version of the kernel and all bundled applications. Apple is doing exactly what MS has been, but shipping a combined OSX product on one DVD, rather than selling two separated editions.

I would say that the Apple way of shipping is far better than MS, but it is certainly not the first away from 32-bit. They are still maintaining a 32bit *and* a 64bit version of their OS.

Censorship

India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society 292

An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid has a fascinating roundup of news stories surrounding the latest surveillance laws passed in India, including a first-hand account of someone writing from inside India. The legislation in question is the Information Technology Act's amendment bill 2006, which was recently passed in the Indian parliament. Things you can't do with the new legislation include surfing for news in Bollywood and looking up porn on the internet. The legislation also allows all transmissions over the internet to be monitored for any form of lawbreaking and permits a sub-inspector to break into your house to make sure you aren't browsing porn on your computer."

Comment Re:WTF do they need GPS for? (Score 1) 713

Definitely not likely to get cheap enough. Perhaps it is possible to build something half-assed that would be just good enough to offset south-east by 500 miles or something.

I don't know how the timing and tracking works on GPS, if you couldn't tell. ;-) I thought it had to do with knowing the expected positions and an exact time. If there isn't encryption, it would certainly be easier.

The Internet

Doubts Multiply About the "Long Tail" 194

fruey sends in a New Scientist analysis of the many second thoughts about the Long Tail theory. It summarizes four studies that show, in different markets, that the tail is both flatter and thinner than originally supposed, and that blockbusters are not going away in those markets — they are getting bigger. It's theorized that widely used collaborative filtering software is magnifying the winners' share of the various pies, and peer influence is a large contributor to consumer behavior.

Comment Re:Less Government for Less Money (Score 1) 655

Actually health care is NYS' largest item, then education, then the STAR program.

Health care = Medicaid and public health ($3.5b)
Education ($2.0b)
STAR = exemptions from school tax ($1.7b)

What they *actually* are trying to do is increase their tax revenue by $3.1b this year. They're doing the typical lying about what they'll cut if you don't give them more money.

As a former local government employee that dealt with budgets, let me tell you that there isn't a year that goes by that your government doesn't lie to you about what they'll actually cut if you turn down the budget. They might do something stupid just to scare the hell out of you into paying, but they'll always find somewhere to cut that they didn't tell you before. For example, you can guarantee that sports will always somehow find its way back, even when they claim that they'll have to fire dozens of teachers.

They'll claim to have to cut the most visible and scary programs every time. If you don't agree to pay more, then "you must be a terrorist, after all".

Comment Re:Solution: driving w/ phone = lose your license (Score 1) 439

Mostly because we have enough arbitrary laws, and we should be working to get rid of them instead of adding more.

So we ban cellular phones in the car. What do you do if people then start using ham radio or CB? Do you ban that, too? What if people then start using data channel voice chat? If you ban things like that, then you also risk banning voice activated functions and systems like OnStar. Then maybe we ban communicating with someone outside the vehicle. Well, what if your passenger is on the phone and puts it on speaker? Does that count? Or do we ban having a phone in the car?

We already have laws about "endangering those around". We don't need "endangering those around [when using a mobile telephone]" any more than "beating someone [who happens to be gay]". We shouldn't even have "endangering those around [while driving a car]". Laws written like these are not just unnecessary, but they are almost guaranteed to be abused, and are simply wrong. You make the behavior have legal repercussions and apply it uniformly and fairly.

FWIW, I also am very strongly opposed to sentencing restrictions (mandatory minimums), three-strikes laws, and "zero tolerance". We have judges for a reason, and they should be able to do their jobs. Instead if these stupid minimums aren't warranted by what the crime really is, then any sane person has to acquit rather than convict, even when guilt is assured.

The same is true with doing this with cell phones. If your only "crime" was being unfortunate enough to be noticed talking on the phone by some guy in a police car, how does that warrant taking away your license? The punishment does not fit the crime. Driving already has enough lunacy in its punishments and laws, I certainly don't want even more.

Comment Re:Solution: driving w/ phone = lose your license (Score 1) 439

I think we might get better results from vastly improved driver training.

Telling people they aren't allowed to drive because they were on the phone isn't the right way. Part of my point is that there is always going to be another distraction. For example, speed traps don't really make people drive slower, it just makes them slow down rapidly when they see a cruiser, and then speed right back up again when they pass it.

I agree with you on this, the phone is a distraction, and it's one of many. People need to learn to deal with them, rather than pushing to have a nearly sound proofed box around the driver's seat, with no comforts or conveniences inside.

A big reason that drivers are better in other countries is that they are forced to have much more training and strict testing. This is my preference for where we should start in the US. Education comes first, and prohibitions to follow.

Comment Re:Cost of Convenience? (Score 4, Informative) 439

http://www.sae.org/technical/papers/960439

It costs money, though the brief is still useful.

Basically the leading cause of accidents would seem to be bad road design. Additionally most accidents happen on roads with lower-than-highway limits. Also, the German autobahns, with no speed limits, have consistently been safer than US low limit roads.

"Speed limits were found to have minimal effect on the traffic accidents. "

Comment Re:Solution: driving w/ phone = lose your license (Score 0) 439

Looks like you were being humorous, but seriously, pulling licenses doesn't ever work. Driving is essential to function in the United States, and no amount of complaining is going to make it different. This means that to start taking away licenses for even more reasons than today is not likely to be a good move.

People require a way to travel. Putting infrastructure in place to make it otherwise would take a huge investment and many years. Look at how poorly the existing infrastructure is maintained in many places, and then tell me seriously that full scale public transit would be a good idea, without sweeping changing in other places.

The result is that if a person isn't in a place where there is good public transit, and they don't have friends that can cart them around for months on end, then you force them to drive anyway.

Taking away people's licenses just means that they are now an uninsured/unlicensed driver.

Hopefully some day people will learn that you don't punish people for things you don't like. You already have a system in place to deal with driving to endanger, and you already have a system to fine irresponsible drivers. What you advocate can be just as easily applied to talking in the car, the radio, GPS, trip computers, and on and on.

Censorship

Google's Gatekeepers 150

theodp writes "With control of 63% of the world's Internet searches, as well as ownership of YouTube, the NY Times reports that Google is the most powerful and protean of the Internet gatekeepers, exerting enormous influence over who can find an audience on the Web around the world. Deciding what controversial material does and doesn't appear on the local search engines Google maintains in many countries — as well as on Google.com, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, and Orkut — falls on the shoulders of Nicole Wong and her colleagues, who have arguably been given more influence over online expression than anyone else on the planet. Some find Google's gatekeeper role worrisome: 'If your whole game is to increase market share,' says Lawrence Lessig, 'it's hard to do good, and to gather data in ways that don't raise privacy concerns or that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.'"

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