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Comment None of the above (Score 1) 572

I find it interesting that the only option that isn't something I find myself directly using is a nuclear bomb, and that it isn't even something I'd want to uninvent. Almost seems like they wanted me to pick it. Maybe traction control or anti-lock brakes. Now those piss me off.
AMD

Submission + - AMD's Next Gen Steamroller CPU Could Deliver Where Bulldozer Fell Short (hothardware.com) 1

MojoKid writes: "Today at the Hot Chips Symposium, AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster is taking the wraps off the company's upcoming CPU core, codenamed Steamroller. Steamroller is the third iteration of AMD's Bulldozer architecture and an extremely important part for AMD. Bulldozer, which launched just over a year ago, was a disappointment. The company's second-generation Bulldozer implementation, codenamed Piledriver, offered a number of key changes and was incorporated into theTrinity APU family that debuted last spring. Steamroller is the first refresh of Bulldozer's underlying architecture and may finally deliver the sort of performance and efficiency AMD was aiming for when it built Bulldozer in the first place. Enhancements to Fetch and Decode architecture have been made, as well as increased scheduler efficiency and cache load latency, which combined could bring a claimed 15 percent performance-per-watt performance gain. AMD expects to ship Steamroller sometime in 2013 but wouldn't offer timing detail beyond that."

Comment Re:Does staring at a Computer Screen all day count (Score 3, Interesting) 149

I use the Nature's Way Sublingual Melatonin in the 2.5mg potency. You can order it on Amazon, if you prefer. They also come in other forms where you just swallow them, but then you tend to have to take them a few hours before you go to bed, whereas you can take the lozenge closer or at the time you intend to go to sleep.

Disclaimer: I'm no doctor of course, but I'm told it's perfectly safe. I actually know of 3 people other than myself that use it without issues. I've also heard that if you take much more than 2 mg it can lessen the effect, but I've had no issues with the 2.5 mg lozenges.

Interesting tidbit: I just did the math. I used to sleep for 9.5-10 hours, and then was awake for 16. That would make my sleep cycle around 25.5-26 hours.

Comment Re:Does staring at a Computer Screen all day count (Score 5, Interesting) 149

I actually have a circadian rhythm disorder myself. Between 2005 and 2010 my sleep 'schedule' would go around the clock fully over a period of every 1-2 weeks. So, part of the time I was up during only the night, sometimes in between, sometimes during normal parts of the day. I have a greater than 24-hour sleep cycle naturally it would seem. However, I've been maintaining a pretty normal schedule for 1.5 years now. I started using sublingual 2.5mg melatonin lozenges after my sister told me about them. It totally did the trick in my case.

Of course, more relevant to the article, there are lamps you can also buy for bright light therapy. I actually just got myself one about 11 days ago. It can take up to a few weeks to have an effect, and I think I've finally started to feel a measurable effect over the past 3 days, but I'll see how it goes before I make a final determination. According to what I've read, it can help with circadian rhythm disorders, but I personally bought it for the antidepressant effect. Perhaps I'll be able to switch over to using only the light, which would be pretty neat. But I wouldn't complain if I still had to use melatonin.

Comment Re:One could, and one would be wrong (Score 5, Insightful) 307

Having driven manual cars and motorcycles plenty myself, I can say that I don't find the need to use the clutch or change gears really that distracting at all. Sure, it's something else to do, but something I can do without thinking about it. On top of that, if you just want to stop in a manual and you're more concerned about avoiding an accident? You can still just hit the brake. The car will stop and stall, no big deal. It's a lot better than getting in an accident, and it probably won't do any real damage to your car. Trust me, I've stalled mine plenty when I first learned to drive a stick.

P.S. Good luck shifting a manual into reverse going at 70 MPH on the highway. Most cars, to my knowledge, don't have a synchro on the reverse gear.

Comment Re:Not comcast (Score 4, Interesting) 235

No joke. My dad has Charter out at his business, and his modem died not too long ago, so he called them up and they came out and replaced it. This new modem had three different ethernet ports on it, and what the charter guy did was plug the router into the second, non-operative port (he was only paying for one connection anyway), and then plugged his desktop directly into the first port on this new modem. He also told my dad that he needed a "business router" and that's why the router no longer worked. Business router my foot, all he needed was someone with a brain larger than a peanut to come in and hook it up for him. I unplugged the computer, plugged it back into the router, then plugged the router into the first port of the new modem and all was well. It's just a cheap little d-link router but it works fine, he doesn't need anything more and never did.
Transportation

Submission + - TSA Inspects a 296 Foot Railway in Iowa (latimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In the interests of national security the TSA recently sent four inspectors to an Iowa town, to check a 296 foot hillside rail elevator. They were a bit surprised when they showed up at the small size of the potential target. But, "if it's on their list, they have to inspect it."
Firefox

Submission + - Mozilla releases Firefox 8, adds new security feat (winbeta.org) 1

BogenDorpher writes: Mozilla has just released Firefox 8, which now offers several new security features to the popular web browser. Firefox 8 users will have better add-on management, faster browser loading, new history window, and several other cool new features.
Android

Submission + - How does a self published android app writer get t (android.com)

An anonymous reader writes: For a senior project I wrote a puzzle game for the Android. I published the app thinking that I would gradually get downloads, but I find that the only ones who have installed it are friends and family that I have shown the app to.

I've briefly looked into advertising, but nothing seems worthwhile, so I've just published two versions a paid and free version without any difference between the two. Even after doing this nobody seems to be trying out the free version. So my question is: how can a person who has just created an Android app get noticed?

BSD

Submission + - FreeBSD 8.0 RELEASE now available

An anonymous reader writes: FreeBSD 8.0 RELEASE has now hit the main FreeBSD ftp sites. Many new and exiting features with this release such as updated ZFS support, new net80211 architecture, Intel i7 support, and much more.
Idle

Submission + - Celebrate Geekiness: Geeks Go Nude (techdusts.com)

ksantani writes: What comes to your mind when you think of a geek? Specs, badly dressed, beard, messy hair. In short not so cool and attractive. But the Nude London Tech Calendar is going to brainwash your notion. The Nude London Tech Calendar is an initiative which brings together top 24 (geek guys and chicks) Internet entrepreneurs from UK to pose (strip) for a charity in India. The photos are being captured strategically making use of laptops and wires to cover up some areas.
Google

Submission + - Releasing the Chromium OS open source project (blogspot.com)

Kelson writes: Google has released the source to what will eventually become Chrome OS, and will begin developing it as an open source project like Chromium. The OS differs from the usual computing model by (1) making all apps web apps (2) sandboxing everything and (3) removing anything unnecessary, to focus on speed.

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