Comment Re:Mr Motti: (Score 1) 459
Some of us actually cares and we are sorry too...
Comment Re:Propped Up Industry (Score 3, Informative) 410
How much are the subsidies in USA?
Here in Italy they are around 0.42 €/kWh and are crazily high, to the point that no more subsidies are going to be given starting this year.
Comment Re:Low energy nuclear reactions (Score 1) 657
Fusing nickel and hidrogen to copper is endoenergetic and it appears that Rossi is doing his best to make this appear as a scam.
Comment Re:Silvio Berlusconi (Score 1) 150
we vote for berlusconi because there are no alternatives,
There is an alternative to voting for Berlusconi: NOT voting for Berlusconi.
Comment Re:I'm Italian (Score 1) 150
and I can assure you that this draconian law is not a coincidence, considering the increasing number of corruption lawsuits involving the prime minister, his ministers and his close men.
Better say "most of the parliament"
Comment Re:in no other country in the world (Score 1) 150
What it's being made illegal is also personal recording conversations of which you are part. This is legal in most of civilized world, since is a mere documentation of facts you already know by being present.
Third party wiretapping has always needed a Judge consent.
Comment Re:I would be embarassed to be Italian if... (Score 1) 150
It is (also) against one-party consent.
Comment Re:How about using thermals? (Score 2, Interesting) 104
You are so wrong here! Switzerland is fantastic for soaring, *especially* in summer.
Comment Re:That speed comes at a cost (Score 5, Informative) 280
USB is PIO and not DMA? You understand that PIO/DMA transfer modes only meaningful for Parallel ATA devices?
That's because the ATA interface was originally THE 16-bit system bus (AT bus) and the disk controller was onboard on the disks (thus the name IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics).
So, the CPU accessed the disk controller through the AT bus which was originally programmed I/O and then started using DMA.
Of course, the system bus quicky become different and faster (FSB + PCI) thus the ATA interface became a disk attachment interface instead of the system bus and an additional controller was put between the system and the disk.
USB is a completely different beast. The "bus" actually transfer packets (URBs) and all USB controllers use DMA to transfer URBs to the main memory... So, no PIO/DMA stuff is involved....
Submission + - Apple May Brick Your Cracked Phone (pcadvisor.co.uk)
chuckymonkey writes: According to Apple the next software update my break your phone. They say that cracked phones may not be compatible with the new software version. Source
Submission + - LCD screen with Embedded Optical Sensors
dk3nn3dy writes: Sharp has developed a LCD display with optical sensors built into the displays pixels, without requiring a touch-sensitive film to be bonded on top of the regular screen. The optical sensor is similar to that used in scanners, allowing for notes or business cards to be scanned by the screen itself. As the optical recognition technology is built into the pixels it also simplifies tactile recognition based on simultaneously touching multiple points. Future uses include fingerprint authentication on the screen of your mobile phone or PDA, or iPhone style touch recognition. Volume production will start next spring.
Submission + - Norwegian Datacrime wants to block porn and p2p.
Jostein Hanken writes: "Norways 2nd biggest (Dagbladet.no) newspaper reported today that Norwegian Datacrime (A section under Justice and Police Department) will put forward a suggestion to the Justisminister (Minister of Justice?) that sais ISP's should block all internet content that is illegal. That includes websites that contain porn, illegal downloads, racism etc. In short, that means Datacrime wants to block half the content on the internet, giving Norway one of the hardest Internet laws in the western world.
This has been reported in the papir edition of Dagbladet and online by ITavisen ( http://www.itavisen.no/php/art.php?id=368846 ). Both are in norwegian im afraid."
Submission + - Acer bugging computers
tomjen writes: What if a well known laptop company had silently placed an ActiveX Control on their computers that allowed any webpage to execute any program?
Well Acer did and they have (based on the last modified-by date of the file) been doing this since 1998.
"Checking the interface of the control reveals it has a method named "Run()" as shown below. The method supports parameters "Drive", "FileName", and "CmdLine". Isn't it strange for a control that's marked "safe for scripting" to allow a method that is suggestive of possible abuse?"
Well Acer did and they have (based on the last modified-by date of the file) been doing this since 1998.
"Checking the interface of the control reveals it has a method named "Run()" as shown below. The method supports parameters "Drive", "FileName", and "CmdLine". Isn't it strange for a control that's marked "safe for scripting" to allow a method that is suggestive of possible abuse?"
Submission + - BitTornado declares war on BitComet
John Hoffman writes: "I am the administrator of BitTornado, an open-source BitTorrent client. Some time ago I developed a tweak in the protocol that let people seed torrents more efficiently, and many people have benefited from it.
Alas, recently BitComet has been incorporating code designed to game my client into sending them more data than they would normally get. Not only does this reduce torrent performance for the other peers, but they're also stupidly shooting themselves in the foot.
By performing this way BitComet is forcing me to do a lot of work to reduce their predation, and I am therefore declaring war against them, banning their clients from connecting to mine and trying to convince others to do so as well."
Alas, recently BitComet has been incorporating code designed to game my client into sending them more data than they would normally get. Not only does this reduce torrent performance for the other peers, but they're also stupidly shooting themselves in the foot.
By performing this way BitComet is forcing me to do a lot of work to reduce their predation, and I am therefore declaring war against them, banning their clients from connecting to mine and trying to convince others to do so as well."
