Comment Re:Circular what? (Score 2, Informative) 459
It's commonly referred to as bootstrapping. For instance, you might bootstrap your compiler by using an older version to compile the newer version of that compiler.
Comment What reason is there (Score 1) 196
to prepend your own ASN multiple times in an outgoing advertisement?
bgp-prepend (integer: 0..16) - number which indicates how many times to prepend AS_NAME to AS_PATH
Unless there really is a legitimate reason for it, this seems stupid. The only reason I can think of to put your own ASN more than once would be to artifically increase the AS_PATH size and lower other ASN's preference to route through you. But BGP has lots of other ways to accomplish that same goal.
Why would MikroTik have this as a required parameter? And what legitimate reasons are there to include your own ASN multiple times on an advertisement?
Boxee Drops Hulu Support 375
frdmfghtr writes "According to a boxee blog entry, Hulu will no longer be supported. From the post: 'two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. you can see their blog post about the issues they are facing.' Reading the hulu blog post, the only 'issue' I see facing Hulu is that content providers have (once again) shot themselves in the foot, switching off a media conduit they should have been promoting." Update: 02/19 14:31 GMT by T : Jamie points out this interesting (speculative) piece at O'Reilly Radar about the thought process that may have driven the decision.
Comment Re:So facebook spreads disease. (Score 4, Funny) 219
I first became aware of this during the act of using Facebook. A profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly -- loss of essence. I can assure you it has not reoccurred. Facebook would sense my power and they would seek the life essence. I have since closed my account and I now deny them my essence.
UK University Making Universal Game Emulator 217
Techradar reports that researchers at the University of Portsmouth in England are working on a project to create a game emulator that will "recognise and play all types of videogames and computer files from the 1970s through to the present day." One of the major goals of the project is to preserve software from early in the computer age. David Anderson of the Humanities Computing Group said, "Early hardware, like games consoles and computers, are already found in museums. But if you can't show visitors what they did, by playing the software on them, it would be much the same as putting musical instruments on display but throwing away all the music. ... Games particularly tend not to be archived because they are seen as disposable, pulp cultural artefacts, but they represent a really important part of our recent cultural history. Games are one of the biggest media formats on the planet and we must preserve them for future generations."
Family Dog Cloned, Thanks To Dolly Patents 261
patentpundit writes "BioArts International announced today that they have delivered the world's first commercially cloned dog, a 10-week old Labrador named Lancey, to Florida residents Edgar and Nina Otto. According to the press release issued by the company, 'BioArts International is a biotech company focused on unique, untapped markets in the global companion animal, stem cell and human genomics industries. The Best Friends Again program is a collaboration between BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, home to the best and most experienced dog cloning team in the world.' The technology that makes this animal cloning possible stems from the cloning patents developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning of the now famous, or infamous depending on your view, Dolly the sheep."
$6 Billion Proposal For High-Speed Internet Grants 280
witherstaff writes "House Democrats have proposed $6 billion in Internet investmentsas part of a sweeping economic stimulus bill that the full House is expected to vote on next week. The $6 billion is considered a down payment on efforts Obama will make in this area over the next several years. Of course let's not forget the $200 billion broadband scandal that the large telecommunication companies have been paid but never delivered on."
Red Hat Set To Surpass Sun In Market Capitalization 221
mytrip writes "In what may come to be seen as a deeply symbolic moment in the history of operating systems, Red Hat is on the verge of surpassing Sun Microsystems' market capitalization for the first time.
Sun, perhaps unfairly, represents a fading Unix market. Red Hat, for its part, represents the rising Linux market.
Given enough time for its open-source strategy to play out, Sun's market capitalization will likely recover and outpace Red Hat's."
Comment Re:My piracy (Score 1) 261
I own a bunch of games and a DS lite. When traveling, I have to take whatever games I want with me. Well now I have a DS plus a bunch of carts, any one of which I could easily lose and I juggle them back and forth the whole trip. On top of that suppose I didn't bring a game and now I want to play it? So I bought an R4. Now I put all of my games on a single microSD card and never have to switch the cart out of the DS. So now I only have the DS to keep track of, and the possibility of losing any of those carts is nil. It's so much more convenient, especially since it's supposed to be a portable device.
You're right that Nintendo needs to (re)visit this concept.
You're right that Nintendo needs to (re)visit this concept.
Comment Re:Inaccurate wiimote description (Score 1) 187
Your comment agreed with what I said, so I don't understand your first sentence. The only problem I see with your comment is that the sensor bar is only an approximation (and a fairly bad one at that) and obviously can only be taken into account if you are pointing the camera at it.
Comment Re:Inaccurate wiimote description (Score 1) 187
On paper, sure. In practice, no. The wiimote is +/- 3g with 10% sensitivity. If you start doing those kind of precise calculations starting with data that is somewhat inaccurate then you are going to end up with data that is nearly meaningless. It wasn't designed to be that accurate. If you buy an expensive accelerometer then maybe, but the wiimote uses a ADXL330 chip.
Comment Re:Inaccurate wiimote description (Score 4, Insightful) 187
The statement "The Wiimote only knows which direction you're moving the controller" is not accurate
That statement is accruate.
The wiimote knows that direction it is moving in wiimote space, but not world space. I can prove it to you. Face north, hold the wiimote directly out in front of you with the A button facing up, and move it horizontally to the right. The force will push the accelerometer x-axis to the left, so the wiimote knows it is moving right. Now turn your body 90 degrees so you are facing east. Move the wiimote again to the right. Just like before the wiimote knows it is moving to the right. However, relative to the room you are standing in, you just moved the wiimote in two completely different directions. The wiimote doesn't know that.
Touchscreen Netbooks To Shine At CES 2009 109
i4u writes "The new generation of netbooks debuting at CES 2009 will add touch and have twistable screens to use them in tablet or notebook style. Intel is set to introduce a new Classmate netbook with a twistable screen and touchscreen at the CES 2009. Back in October Asus said it was planning to introduce touchscreen Asus Eee netbooks in early 2009. Asus is exhibiting at the CES Unveiled pre-show that takes place on January 6th. Expect the Asus Eee Touch to be unveiled then. Gigabyte has outrun all of them with the Intel Atom-powered M912V that has been on the market for a while. Adding a touchscreen is rather easy. More difficult is to offer a touch-optimized UI. Let's see what the netbook vendors are going to invest on the software side."
Recession Pushes IT To Find New Value In Old Gear 206
buzzardsbay writes "Trying to put a bright spin on a gloomy subject, the folks at eWEEK unearth an emerging trend: There's a booming cottage industry of dealers in refurbished computer and networking gear serving folks on the hunt for 'slightly used' and 'new to you' equipment. The dealers selling the stuff tell eWEEK the equipment is practically new, most of it less than a year old, and that the prices for things like servers and routers are lower than they have been since the post dot-com / Sept. 11 days in 2001. Used gear isn't for everybody, obviously. The story points out that while many of these used IT dealers offer configuration services, they don't do installs, and most are not authorized resellers. They do, however, offer decent warranties, so if you can do some of the work yourself, you'll probably be OK."
Android Susceptible To Apps That Turn On Roaming 136
fermion writes "If seems that Google's Android and T-Mobile have not learned from the bad experience and wrath Apple incurred with roaming charges on the iPhone. Applications can switch to roaming and data operation without the user's knowledge. Also, according to The Register, there is no way to switch off roaming. Given the backlash that Apple experienced over international roaming charges, one would think that T-Mobile would have built a phone to prevent such unexpected charges." From the wording of the article, the inability to turn off roaming seems to be on a per-application basis; users can evidently disable it globally.
