Comment Re:Oh Em Gee! (Score 1) 196
Lock-in is difficult on unlocked Nexus devices in a pre-paid situation.
Comment Re:Oh Em Gee! (Score 1) 196
Right here. Why? Did I not make it clear that we were testing the coverage of the T-Mobile network with our tablets before we switched our phones over?
Comment Re:No Qi? (Score 1) 196
Absolutely. I'm back and forth from my desk all day, and like to keep my phone & tablet batteries topped up, just in case I need them. I started to worry about the usable lifetime of the micro-USB jack, so switched over to Qi at work exclusively.
Comment Re:Too good to be true? (Score 2) 196
Doubtful, according to the FAQ. At least, I'm hoping the warehouses mentioned are, based on the initial countries of availability, in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Comment No Qi? (Score 1) 196
Wireless charging (preferably via Qi, as I have several Qi chargers between home & work) seem to be the only thing I'm not seeing listed in the specs.
Still, it's been a while since I got excited about a phone, and I told myself that if something cool came out, November would be a good time to upgrade my N4.
Comment Re:Oh Em Gee! (Score 1) 196
Closest I can come in the US is T-Mobile pre-paid plans. My wife and I switched our phones to it after "test driving" the service with our Nexus 7 (2013) tablets for a few months. Even with double the devices that we had on AT&T, we cut the monthly cost in half...
Comment Re:But what is a militia? (Score 1) 1633
It's part of US Code. It's been on the books for... quite a while, and is regularly re-affirmed.
Comment Re:But what is a militia? (Score 5, Informative) 1633
It's already part of 10 US Code 311 - Militia: composition and classes, last passed in December 2013 by the House and March 2014 by the Senate...
Comment My profession would be useless, hobbies useful... (Score 1) 737
Frankly, as a sysadmin, it would take quite some time for my profession to be useful. However, I am not solely defined by my profession. My hobbies, such as firearms, cooking, woodworking, dabbling in a little gardening and other low tech stuff would end up much more useful, after the apocalypse. I actually enjoy unplugging and doing something that doesn't require a computer now and then.
Comment Re:Tmux (Score 1) 136
Does tmux support connecting to serial consoles yet?
Comment Re:informal poll (Score 2) 641
Debian Sid @ home on my laptop & desktop
CentOS 5/6 @ work on my cluster/desktop
Android on my phone & tablet
Synology @ home for storage, so basically Linux there, too...
OpenWRT on my wireless routers (yes, plural) @ home, so Linux there *too*.
I guess you could say I run Linux...
MariaDB 10 Released, Now With NoSQL Support 103
noahfecks (2379422) writes "Version 10 of the most famous fork of MySQL MariaDB has been released. Its developers said that is many times faster than MySQL, also claiming that its replications slaves are crash free. More details of this release can be found on the blog."
Comment Re:reduce the amount (Score 1) 983
Indeed, this weekend I just brought a 8x 4TB RAID6 array online at home. I'm wondering what approach I'll be taking myself.
Comment Re:Hmmm... (Score 1) 983
You haven't seen how long my backups take at work...
NASA Forgets How To Talk To ICE/ISEE-3 Spacecraft 166
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Randall Munroe's XKCD cartoon on the ICE/ISEE-3 spacecraft inspired me to do a little research on why Nasa can no long communicate with the International Cometary Explorer. Launched in 1978 ISEE-3 was the first spacecraft to be placed in a halo orbit at one of Earth-Sun Lagrangian points (L1). It was later (as ICE) sent to visit Comet Giacobini-Zinner and became the first spacecraft to do so by flying through a comet's tail passing the nucleus at a distance of approximately 7800 km. ICE has been in a heliocentric orbit since then, traveling just slightly faster than Earth and it's finally catching up to us from behind, and will return to Earth in August. According to Emily Lakdawalla, it's still functioning, broadcasting a carrier signal that the Deep Space Network successfully detected in 2008 and twelve of its 13 instruments were working when we last checked on its condition, sometime prior to 1999.
Can we tell the spacecraft to turn back on its thrusters and science instruments after decades of silence and perform the intricate ballet needed to send it back to where it can again monitor the Sun? Unfortunately the answer to that question appears to be no. 'The transmitters of the Deep Space Network, the hardware to send signals out to the fleet of NASA spacecraft in deep space, no longer includes the equipment needed to talk to ISEE-3. These old-fashioned transmitters were removed in 1999.' Could new transmitters be built? Yes, but it would be at a price no one is willing to spend. 'So ISEE-3 will pass by us, ready to talk with us, but in the 30 years since it departed Earth we've lost the ability to speak its language,' concludes Lakdawalla. 'I wonder if ham radio operators will be able to pick up its carrier signal — it's meaningless, I guess, but it feels like an honorable thing to do, a kind of salute to the venerable ship as it passes by.'"
Can we tell the spacecraft to turn back on its thrusters and science instruments after decades of silence and perform the intricate ballet needed to send it back to where it can again monitor the Sun? Unfortunately the answer to that question appears to be no. 'The transmitters of the Deep Space Network, the hardware to send signals out to the fleet of NASA spacecraft in deep space, no longer includes the equipment needed to talk to ISEE-3. These old-fashioned transmitters were removed in 1999.' Could new transmitters be built? Yes, but it would be at a price no one is willing to spend. 'So ISEE-3 will pass by us, ready to talk with us, but in the 30 years since it departed Earth we've lost the ability to speak its language,' concludes Lakdawalla. 'I wonder if ham radio operators will be able to pick up its carrier signal — it's meaningless, I guess, but it feels like an honorable thing to do, a kind of salute to the venerable ship as it passes by.'"
