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Comment Re:And.... (Score 2) 258

I have not realized that we had one.... Interesting, I wonder which verb is irregular.
When it is your native language peculiarities of the language tend to be overlooked. For example, in Turkish vocalization of vowels are horrible. We kid ourselves that it is very simple and regular. They might be simpler than English, but there are strange variations. I became aware of those modifications only in University while trying to explain my English teacher, how we understand particular homonyms' different meanings out of context. It turned out that they were not homonyms, but homographs.
And yes, I cheated by using Google now, it is not possible to remember homonym, homograph and homophone after 20 years :)

Comment Re:Storage. (Score 1) 232

In 1992 we were buying 1 MB SIMM RAM for 50 USD, when ordered in bulk for our company, SIPP had a 10% or more cost-up. Then there was a big fire in one of the producers' facilities (I guess it was in 1993), that doubled prices overnight to 100 USD/MB range. Then prices lowered gradually, probabably it was due to relaunch of new production facilities in Japan and Korea...

Comment Re:AltaVista (Score 3, Insightful) 176

Do you remember DEC? If they could see the potential in search engine market, they would end up buying Compaq and HP, with the head start they have. For the sake of fairness, I do not think nobody could see search services as a major product before Google showed us.

Comment Re:As the song asks... (Score 1) 358

maintaining a Facebook page has much to do with what kind of employee I want, unless perhaps those "tweets" particularly socially unacceptable.

Unfortunate point you seem to be missing is that HR do not care about "what you need". And maybe due to my increasing age, I can understand their PoV. They do not understand, or they do not believe that it is their job to understand what you and your future co-worker, assistant, slave would be doing while working. I have spent maybe hundreds of precious working hours to explain, if a network team could find time to play a networked FPS, it is a good network team. In short IT definition of work is not compatible to suits' definition of work. HR mainly concerns with turnover rates, costs and business ethics etc.

HR people usually believe that sociable candidates are better that not so sociable ones. So that, regardless of the qualifications related to technical abilities, they are looking for such activities. So a good social networking presence is a better start for any job applicant. Fortunately Linkedin and slashdot are also acceptable as social networking environments for most HR experts.

Submission + - Iain Banks passed away (telegraph.co.uk)

pegdhcp writes: Iain Banks died due to complications of his illness. He was a great writer who does not need praises that I cannot write at the moment.

Comment Re:anyone rememeber CoffeeHouse? (Score 1) 99

That is why I love Action Point limited systems. After wasting so much time that could be devoted to study, work or family in NannyMud I was away from multiplayer games for a long while. Then I found Pardus (not the Linux distro but the game at www.pardus.at) Pardus limits your daily activity with a set amount of APs which regenerates very slowly, thus you cannot kill your whole day in front of it.
Politics

Submission + - White House threatened Bob Woodward for Obama expose (examiner.com)

An anonymous reader writes: On Wednesday, the White House sent a threatening email to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward in response to a column in which the veteran journalist suggested that President Barack Obama and cabinet official Jack Lew lied about the sequestration cuts. In a Feb. 27 appearance on CNN's "Situation Room," Woodward declined to identify the senior administration official who had threatened him.

"They're not happy at all," said Woodward. "It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this. He added that he was "very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters you're going to regret doing something. Let's hope it's not the strategy."

Cellphones

Submission + - Smartphone Screen Real Estate: How Big Is Big Enough? (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: "Aside from the terrible nickname (it sounds like a term for the spoiled offspring of fabulous people), phablets are somewhat controversial because they seem to be the epitome of inflated phone sizes. A lot of people wanted bigger, and this is “bigger” to the extreme. A larger screen on a smartphone is attractive for obvious reasons, but surely there’s a limit. So how big is too big? If you’re not into parsing out the particulars of form factors and use cases, here’s a really easy way to figure out if your phone or phablet is too big: Can you hold the device in one hand and 1) unlock the phone, 2) type out a text message with your thumb, and 3) adjust the volume with the rocker without using your other hand? If not, you might need a smaller phone."

Comment Re:Ironic (Score 2) 270

Surely they could solve this using a verbal code.

I guess "secure" means more than "secret" in the context of TFA. As it is mentioned that regular radio can be triangulated, hence I am assuming that "secure radio" should be protected from that. Which might mean serious frequency hopping and probably bouncing signal from big birds flying above etc...

Comment Re:They are behind the schedule (Score 1) 94

I used to think like, that there is a threshold, a stage of development, after which the machines would start developing so fast. It was going to modify Moore's Law as instead of "every two years" it would be "every two minutes".... Now I think there is a problem with that approach. The efficiency of computing resources are dropping. I am writing this message on a computer which has maybe ten times of storage and computing power, that my whole school had back in 1996, when I was graduated. I used to be responsible of such statistics there; 13 k undergrads, 4 k masters and above level students and maybe 300 full professors with lots of lower levels and assistants were both making scientific research and use those devices from Internet to games. At the moment, aside from writing to /. most serious thing I use this computer is reading mail, and some gaming.

In short we are producing and using serious amount of IT resources, but those are not being utilized as efficient as expected in the past....

Security

Submission + - Apple's Secret Plan to Join iPhones with Airport Security

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Currently — as most of us know — TSA agents briefly examine government ID and boarding passes as each passenger presents their documents at a checkpoint at the end of a security line but Thom Patterson writes at CNN that under a 2008 Apple patent application that was approved in July and filed under the working title "iTravel," a traveler's phone would automatically send electronic identification to a TSA agent as soon as the traveler got in line and as each traveler waits in line, TSA agents would examine the electronic ID at an electronic viewing station. Next, at the X-ray stations, a traveler's phone would confirm to security agents that the traveler's ID had already been checked. Apple's patent calls for the placement of special kiosks (PDF) around the airport which will automatically exchange data with your phone via a close range wireless technology called near field communication (NFC). Throughout the process, the phone photo could be displayed on a screen for comparison with the traveler. Facial recognition software could be included in the process. Several experts say a key question that must be answered is: How would you prove that the phone is yours? To get around this problem, future phones or electronic ID may require some form of biometric security function including photo, fingerprint and photo retinal scan comparisons. Of course, there is still a ways to go. If consumers, airlines, airports and the TSA don't embrace the NFC kiosks, experts say it's unlikely Apple's vision would become reality. "First you would have to sell industry on Apple's idea. Then you'd have to sell it to travel consumers," says Neil Hughes of Apple Insider. "It's a chicken-and-egg problem.""

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