Your post is an exquisite cornucopia of fail. "ARM can play..." but "ARM can't". Thinking an iPad is a representative example of all ARM chips or thinking it is representative of anything more than a toolbag's status symbol. Newsflash, numerous ARM SoCs (including those used in mainstream Android phones) include hardware video decoding for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, and many of these ARM based chips can easily decode MPEG-2 in software and can DMA that to the display.

I would actually be surprised if the iPad couldn't easily decode MPEG-4, because I thought they designed a custom ARM SoC for that thing. But then again, I always assumed it was a piece of shit anyway.

Be happy you've never encountered an actual problem with DRM and copy protection systems and enjoy feeling smugly superior to all of us incompetents telling stories. And you can also go fuck yourself while you're at it, douche bag.

So much for decentralizing the money-supply, though.

I mean, I just enjoy the rhetoric of "central banks are evil and abusive" (which is true to certain extents), and the solution proposed either a) makes things worse b) replaces that problems with a set of new problems, some of which are worse than the original problems. Yea.

Assuming this ever gained momentum: Lovely, so they think they can impose an absolute cap from the outright on Bitcoin currency and not be affected like everyone else by deflation. The ability to increase money supply has proven to be quite necessary (not even bringing in QE2 or the recent BS).. of course if you are convinced that the US is in hyperinflation right now because of some toolbags on Youtube I guess this is an argument not worth having..

And LOL I guess there is an article on their wiki about this very issue.

Whatever.

As the other poster commented: "flawed"? Yeah, I'm going to gather that this is some silly reference to the fact that the quadratic formula as conventionally written is not ideal from a numerical stability and roundoff standpoint when implemented on a finite precision computer. Yeah, man, so you're basically trying to sound cool on slashdot by veiling a superficial knowledge of a piece of numerical computation trivia in some meaningless (in this context) "photon flux" bullshit. +9000 Internets for you.

Trying to equate a reality of finite numerical computation to the accuracy of a general formula doesn't go very far in proving any point about an understanding of math.

Wow, you think a "quart" of oil to lubricate engines sold in retail packaging is closer to the crude oil market than gasoline. Hint... it's not.

This is slashdot, it's likely they're just an idiot.

You're joking, right?

A "beam" in this case is formed by doing signal processing tricks and sending out this signal to a special antenna array (but what is essentially a single physical antenna system). Many such beams can be formed electronically and combined electronically and sent out to this single antenna array.

Each new "beam" doesn't require additional hardware as you seem to be thinking.

Teh stupid. It burns.

Oh, well maybe you did read it.. In any case, I had precisely the Tannenbaum example in mind when I mentioned sneakernet in this context.. because they often go together in examples in introductory networking classes. What else did you think I meant by that last sentence then?

Um... You didn't bother to read the last paragraph of my post.. I thought about deleting because it may have been too condescending.. But apparently it wasn't in this case.

And the ironic part of Tannenbaum's observation is that sneakernet actually *is* at times more efficient than using some low-latency telecom network. Not that anything is wrong.. that is the whole point. He wasn't lying. Try it and see. Even Internet2 can't compete with my van filled with Western Digital hard-drives. It really boils down to an observation on the bandwidth/latency trade-off.

So at this point I've completely lost the point you had. But it's too late for me to care.

You're honestly comparing cheap pieces of plastic used as a storage medium and sold at retail with a telecommunications network and infrastructure??? Really? You think everyone here is that retarded?

I mean, sure all info is measured in bits, so telecom is measured in bits and so are DVDs. But gasoline is measured in gallons, and water is measured in gallons... That's about the level your example is working at, IMNSHO.

There's a reason that the irony of "sneakernet" is funny... You seem to have missed it. Why don't you just stick to disk media if that seems to solve all your problems, and is cheaper.

How do you conclude a result is "surprising" if you can't draw any conclusions from said results?

Umm.. you do realize that CBBS and Ward Christensen should be ample clues that this was a dialup BBS issue and not an Internet issue. Things were a lot more closeknit on dialup BBSes.