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Comment Re:Microsoft Optical Mouse (Score 1) 702

Not if you got a first generation, the first ones had a design flaw that caused the wires to wear out where they came into the case (hard 90 degree bend). MS to their credit had the design fixed (Logitech was the ODM) and covered replacements for like 5 years even without proof of purchase, you just needed a first generation serial number.

Comment Re:HP LaserJet 4M+ (Score 2) 702

The 4 series was built fairly well, but it was nothing compared to the beast that was the LJ 3 series. I once was called out to repair an ~15 year old LJ3 with just under 1M pages (at ~3PPM!). The reason it needed repair? The single sacrificial plastic gear had grown brittle with age, everything else in that beast was metal.

Comment Re:Hipsters generally do ok (Score 1) 336

The hipsters should arm themselves. Michigan's gun laws aren't too restrictive, and with the money saved on housing they should be able to afford to arm and train themselves well. Your average hoodlum barely knows how to operate his gun, which is often a piece of junk, so the bar isn't too high.

Comment Re:Nothing new - Always had tech jobs (Score 1) 336

Top two cities with the highest density of engineers are Huntsville Alabama and Palm Bay/Melbourne Florida for what should be obvious reasons.

I'm sure that's true if you're counting traditional engineering fields, meaning not including software engineers. I'm not sure it would still be true if you included software. Of course many would argue that software engineering isn't yet mature enough to be a real engineering discipline, but it definitely is a big part of "tech", which is the subject of discussion.

Comment Re:do they have a progressive view? (Score 1) 336

I've spent about half of my life in Texas. I've lived in Houston, Dallas, and Austin. I've also lived in Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Southern California.

Every conversation about living in Texas I've had with a West Coaster: "How can you stand living in Texas. Everyone is so bigoted and prejudicial?" "Oh really, have you ever been there?" "No." "..."

And, of course, they completely miss the irony in their own statements.

Comment Re:Security compiler? (Score 1) 235

Why not a security compiler? Seems some clever, creative hackers could work up something which would take raw code, subject it to some scrutiny and give output/feedback. Perhaps even a security switch to the standard compilers or even a security test suite. Shouldn't be that hard to do.

Shouldn't be too hard... in the sense that solving the Halting Problem shouldn't be too difficult. I conjecture that with an appropriate set of assumptions it's possible to use Rice's Theorem to prove that security analysis is equivalent to the Halting Problem.

Of course, static analysis can catch some vulnerabilities, and can highlight potential vulnerabilities. That's what Coverity does. But I don't think any mechanical process can defeat a creative attacker.

Comment Inductive Fallacy (Score 1) 235

This analysis is based on an erroneous assumption which is derived from an inductive fallacy. Specifically, the author assumes that because one researcher who found one bug believes he could have found a second for roughly the same level of effort means that the researcher believes this process could be repeated indefinitely. I'm certain that if Kohno were asked he would deny the validity of this assumption. I'm sure he would say that his team could find a handful of similar bugs for similar level of effort, but once the pool of low-hanging fruit bugs was exhausted, the cost and difficulty would rise.

Comment Re:I switched from sitting to standing. (Score 1) 312

The desk I have is motorized. Push a button, takes about five seconds. Another option is to get a desk that is always positioned at standing level and a tall chair. That seems cheaper and more convenient but there are some downsides. One is that you have far fewer options in chairs than if you're getting normal-height chairs. Another is that changing the level of the desk is difficult, which is particularly problematic if the seating gets rearranged regularly.

Comment Re:not really (Score 1) 256

Interesting, you're right the IODrive 2 brings MLC much closer to SLC, there's only a 2x performance delta on an IOPS/GB basis (270k 4k random writes vs 140k for 400GB vs 365GB), for the first generation (which I own a number of) the gulf was much wider.

Comment Re:not really (Score 1) 256

I have never seen a smaller version ssd have a better IOPS number than a larger one.

I have, plenty of times, SLC has better IOPS/GB than MLC and within MLC eMLC has better IOPS/GB than tMLC. So for a given number of dollars the smaller drive will have better performance.

Comment Re:I switched from sitting to standing. (Score 4, Interesting) 312

I'd recommend a standing desk to anyone with the willpower to make it through the transition.

And I'd recommend a sit-stand desk to anyone at all. Even if you don't stand all the time (I don't), being able to spend part of your day standing will make you feel better without discomfort, in fact being able to switch back and forth is more comfortable than sitting.

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