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The Almighty Buck

Do You Really Need a Smart Phone? 851

Roblimo writes "My phone is as stupid as a phone can be, but you can drop it or get it wet and it will still work. My cellular cost per month is about $4, on average. I've had a cellular phone longer than most people, and I assure you that a smart phone would not improve my life one bit. You, too, might find that you are just as happy with a stupid phone as with a smart one. If nothing else, you'll save money by dumbing down your phone." I stuck with a dumb phone for a long time, but I admit to loving the versatility of my Android phone, for all its imperfections.

Comment Re:Strange (Score 1) 395

I was thinking the same thing. AIM was the first feeling of being online? Hell no! It was 9600 baud modems, BBSes and the first live chat for a lot of us was IRC.

I know I know unix has a chat thingy too, but it was IRC that connected the world, in strange little dungeon chatrooms, where you had to smell the bots before trying to download mp3s from them :)

Comment Re:No. (Score 1) 1486

When the first-ever reactor was being setup by Fermi, he know exactly how to build it and what the results will be. No human had ever built one before. And yet it was 'science' before the first reactor.

More than being 'testable', science gives you results rather than emotional satisfaction. There is much of science not testable (immediately) such as time travel and the likelihood of intelligent aliens in nearby galaxies.

A different definition might be:

- Science is the most likely truth given the observable

- Religion is usually the least likely truth, but one that emotionally appeals to us.

It was religion that claimed the world is flat, and sits on the back of a giant tortoise and a few other animals piled up. Science claimed the world was round before it was directly testable. It because testable when people sailed around the world. Yet there are still people in the 21st century who believe the world is flat, and they're being lied to.
Intel

Intel Unveils 10-Core Xeon Processors 128

MojoKid writes "Intel announced its new E-series of Xeon processors today, claiming that they will deliver nearly unparalleled advances in CPU performance and power efficiency. It has been just over a year since Santa Clara released its Nehalem-based octal-core Beckton processors. Whereas Beckton was focused entirely on performance and architectural efficiency, these new Xeons are more balanced. The new chips boost the core count to ten (up to 20 threads with HT enabled) and will be offered at a wide range of power envelopes. The new E7 series incorporates the benefits of the Sandy Bridge architecture, its support for new security processing instructions, and its improved power management technology. Intel has also baked in support for low-voltage DIMMs, which allows vendors to opt for 1.35v products."

Comment Re:Or ... (Score 1) 223

Holy assumptions in the original article. It links the core's relative rotation to the magnetic field. The magnetic field exists because a huge mass of ferroelectric material rotates.

Now which do you think affects the magnetic field more, the cores RELATIVE rotation speed (a few degrees in a million years?) or the overall Earth rotation (roughly 365 degrees in a day)? This is like putting a magnet in a plastic cup, rotating the magnet, and rotating the cup SLIGHTLY slower, and saying the resulting magnetic field is due to the cup rotating SLOWER.
Handhelds

Are Tablets Just Too Expensive? 549

An anonymous reader writes "Over at PCWorld they're asking a simple but valid question: Are tablets just too expensive? They point out that, weight-for-weight, pure silver is cheaper than most tablets, and that, like jewelery, tablets are highly thievable. The worst thing might be that the nascent tablet platform gets written-off as a high-priced niche for people with more money than sense."
Hardware

'Universal' Memory Aims To Replace Flash/DRAM 125

siliconbits writes "A single 'universal' memory technology that combines the speed of DRAM with the non-volatility and density of flash memory was recently invented at North Carolina State University, according to researchers. The new memory technology, which uses a double floating-gate field-effect-transistor, should enable computers to power down memories not currently being accessed, drastically cutting the energy consumed by computers of all types, from mobile and desktop computers to server farms and data centers, the researchers say."
Businesses

Which Shipping Company Is Kindest To Your Packages? 480

Ant writes "Popular Mechanics mailed a bunch of sensors on an epic journey to find out which American shipping company is the most careful with your packages. From the article: 'One disheartening result was that our package received more abuse when marked "Fragile" or "This Side Up." The carriers flipped the package more, and it registered above-average acceleration spikes during trips for which we requested careful treatment.' Here's what they found."
Technology

What To Load On a 4-Year-Old's Netbook? 742

nostrodecus writes "I have a nephew who is very young, but who has the techie gene — he found the Gruffalo on YouTube before anyone knew he could spell. Now he's almost 4, and I was thinking of giving him my netbook (Acer running XP), which I hardly use any more. So, of course, I will be deleting all the porn, but what should I load up on it? Are there tools/apps that I can load up on it to protect it and him from things he shouldn't see until college? Also, what apps or games could I load on it that a 4-year-old will get some use out of?"

Comment Re:Much welcomed tech (Score 1) 141

Can you install Windows/Solaris/Linux/AIX on file-level storage, install Oracle/DB2/Exchange/Domino?

Block-level storage can and does completely replace local harddrives. Thats the reason for bladeservers, where blades have everything but harddisks. They're given volumes of fiber channel, iscsi or fcoe to become their local virtual disks. NFS or CIFS would be completely useless to them without first having block level volumes (except for the rare case of Linux/FreeBSD installed on NFS).

Comment Re:Much welcomed tech (Score 2, Informative) 141

I do not believe you've actually used iSCSI, at all.

The performance numbers are very different and so are the technologies, Microsoft filesharing is file-level and iSCSI is block level. It means with an iSCSI card, the machine can treat volumes as local disks and install any OS.

Secondly, you're confusing iSCSI with NFS. NFS has been freely available even back on Windows NT4. However it was not created to counter Microsoft, it was ALREADY there.

iSCSI until recently has been the only technology that provides block-level storage access and as efficiently as possible on a routable ethernet network. The recent FCoE is even more efficient but its not so easily routable.

Comment Much welcomed tech (Score 4, Interesting) 141

It's interesting how this will increase the adoption of iSCSI storage, yet the original reason to go to iSCSI will be lost since fiber cables will have to be laid.

Either way 1Gbit Ethernet is beginning to feel a bit like a bottleneck with storage and other bottlenecks being removed.

It'll take some time between ratification and cheap D-Link switches...
Image

Woman Claims Wii Fit Caused Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome Screenshot-sm 380

Amanda Flowers always liked her Wii Fit but now she can't get enough of it. Amanda claims a fall from her balance board damaged a nerve and has left her suffering from persistent sexual arousal syndrome. From the article: "The catering worker said: 'It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm.' A doctor diagnosed her with persistent sexual arousal syndrome due to a damaged nerve."

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