This is the kind of research that creates Skynet. I don't want adaptive problem solving robots. I don't want to live in post-nuclear wasteland.

How interoperable are the European and American GPS systems?

Can = CAN'T

If you've ever lurked Doom9, you'll realize that AMD/ATi cards are very narrow in the types of AVC files they will accelerate, when compared to nVidia. And this is on the well supported and well funded Windows side.

They might have some support in the drivers, but Linux video acceleration is a clusterfuck, some really convoluted setup that makes PulseAudio/ALSA look like a sane design.

In Windows, video players will simply drop to software decoding if it can hardware decode, but in Linux, the video players try to hardware decode anyways, resulting in garbled video.

My nicest card is AMD, but my ancient Pentium 4 with a NV 8400 can DxVA more files... and it needs to.

I believe it was really the Tivozation rule of GPLv3 that forced FreeBSD to abandon GCC in their base. FreeBSD wanted to ensure that a specific version of GCC would be in their highly integrated base operating system. The FreeBSD base has no real comparable analogue in the Linux world, but its a system that is tested and designed to work together from the pseudocode to the final compiled product. GPLv3, with its Tivozation clause, however, made this tying together essentially illegal.

Also the BSDs have long since desired to remove GCC from their base system simply because it has a different license than the rest of the base. They attempted using PCC, but the code it produced was not optimized to a level comparable with GCC. clang/LLVM however, is both BSD licensed and produces well optimized code. Its also newer and cleaner code; sometimes rebuilding everything from scratch helps (though usually not).

Mainly... its often slower C/C++, so the simple presence of the Java icon makes both programmers and users exasperated and annoyed.

Secondly, people hate it the same reason colleges love it, it forces sane programming techniques, like Pascal did.

Thirdly, it is abstracted away from machine code, so you cannot understand what your algorithms do in assembly.

Link Here

Also Radio Clocks

Nothing uses your silly 1950s technology, since shortwave receivers are vastly more expensive than GPS receivers due to economy of scale, and also less accurate. Welcome to the 21st century.

No idea why ATMs need GPS, but... some went offline when the US Navy was playing with their jammer off the coast of San Diego, CA, USA. Link

The thing is GPS technology is in tons of random electronics. Since GPS satellites are essentially transmit their identification and an accurate time, GPS is used to keep time in everything from ATMs to our power grid to consumer "atomic" clocks.

Cellphones also use GPS signals to triangulate their position on earth, so that they can connect to the nearest tower with minimal power. This is more FCC doing its real job, protecting everyone from this interference shit.

Given that they granted "Method for swinging on a swing" I wouldn't doubt that they'd grant it.

Here's the problem, even ignoring issues like software patents, and the morass they cause. The USPTO has stated that they're overwhelmed, so they're just checking the paperwork, and if its all in order, they rubber stamp it and grant the patent, the courts can sort out what patents are valid, they say. Meanwhile, the Courts are continuing to defer to the expertise of the patent office, and are EXTREMELY "reluctant" to void patents. So we get any invention, no matter how obvious, no matter how old, being patentable. And as long as you're smart about who you sue as a patent troll, (pick targets who can't afford to defend themselves, and file in known friendly courts), you're golden. The system is totally borked.

I feel that nVidia uses the same drivers for all operating systems. The core doesn't change, it just has a wrapper to interface with X/DirectX/Quartz. They just update the core significantly once in a while, to the point it can't interface with older cards. That's why the occasionally have huge issues.

Pretty sure FreeNAS moved to Linux.

College classes don't really teach you much; you have to read by yourself and do the homework to benefit. This isn't high school. Also if a fucking screensaver distracts you, you have ADHD. Get some Adderall for yourself.