Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:WP7's two biggest problems... (Score 5, Insightful) 195

Ditto. Another N900 owner here. I'm amazed when new phones don't do this when my relatively old N900 has always had really good contact account integration. Also, Skype and SIP are well integrated into the phone app and all messaging including SMS is integrated. Without looking at an indicator icon, you may not know whether you're using SMS or an IM protocol. Or you may now know if you're receiving a cell call or a Skype call.

It's funny that MS is advertising features from the platform they're trying to kill.

Comment Re:Easy fix? (Score 1) 465

Also, dose is not the only factor to consider. The scanners are designed to concentrate radiation on a single organ - your skin, where as the radiation you encouter in flight is more equally distributed. Also, the duration of exposure is important. Receiving a particular dose over a few milliseconds is more harmful than receiving the same dose over an hour or two.

Comment Re:Can't change contract without compensation (Score 1) 166

It's like going to an all you can eat buffet, and getting your first plate of food with no problem, but each subsequent bite of food has to be acquired spoonful by spoonful after waiting in line each time.

The perfect slashdoter analogy.

Much better than car analogies. Long live restaurant buffet analogies!

Comment Re:"Smart" TVs? (Score 1) 381

And that's why the Roku plug-in stick version is great. I've got a new Samsung "Smart TV", and the smart part is not so great. The interface is clunky (as is the remote) and slow. I actually like my Roku box better. My TV is "all" that you see since I don't a cable box or anything hooked up to it and I don't have a place to hide a box that needs to see "IR", so I'm really looking forward to the streaming stick (or whatever they call it) that takes commands through the TV and will simple to hook

Comment Re:IT needs apprenticeship not degrees. Tech schoo (Score 1) 265

and/or something similar to the Professional Engineer (P.E.) system. After you receive your engineering degree, pass the Engineer in Training (EIT) exam, and receive your Fundamentals of Engineering (F.E.), you must work (in my state at least) for 4 years under a licensed P.E. (essentially an apprenticeship) before you can even take the P.E. exam and apply for a license.

Comment Re:What about Video?? (Score 5, Informative) 324

Sorry. You're just wrong about the progressive download thing. And it's not in the scope of HTML5 to define bitrate or fragmented delivery. Fragmented delivery is turf for HTTP and bitrate is for the browser or embedded player.

Read:

14.35.2 Range Retrieval Requests

HTTP retrieval requests using conditional or unconditional GET methods MAY request one or more sub-ranges of the entity, instead of the entire entity, using the Range request header, which applies to the entity returned as the result of the request:

            Range = "Range" ":" ranges-specifier

Please read the HTTP 1.1 RFC

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html

Comment Re:That PSU is to cheap and more ram can help as w (Score 1) 182

The only real advantage "real raid" has over "fake raid" is the battery backed cache, so if it doesn't have that, you're probably better off with "fake raid". Your system CPU is faster than the CPU on board (plenty fast for parity calculations) and with "real raid", you have yet another OS (the board's firmware) to keep updated and hope doesn't crash and take our your file system.

I'd rather have the OS handle the disks so there's no mystery disk format and I have complete control from the OS level. ZFS and BTRFS are the future and make more sense than using separate MD and FS layers. Still, a battery backed write cache is a nice thing to have and it would be cool to have those built into the disks.

Comment Re:No chair (Score 1) 235

I'm about 6 months into standing. I use a soft pad under my feet and swap out a bar stool if I feel tired. I also take frequent walks, using the time to find solutions to what I'm working on. I shifted to standing after finding that I couldn't sit for more than 15 minutes without back pain, which began after a few months of increased sitting time. Standing offered immediate relief.

I'm no stranger to physical activity, so I don't think the lack of exercise was the culprit. In fact, exercise has always been an integral and enjoyable part of my life. I played about every sport I could as a kid and teenager including varsity and recreation. In my 20s I continued to play rec sports and even competed (and won) in bodybuilding. I still play soccer, train with weights, bike (great trails here), but the the one thing that causes me pain is the chair.

Comment Re:Why is JS compiling ominous? (Score 1) 219

It's becoming obvious that browsers need to support a runtime like LLVM in addition to or instead of javascript. That way, the developer could use their language of choice and just compile to LLVM byte code instead of to javascript. I would think it should be easier to optimize performance for LLVM byte code that for javascript. Would there be any downsides except for the fact that it does not exist already?

Comment Re:It's not a bad thing (Score 1) 219

And why must "fun" and "enterprisey" be exclusive? If your definition for enterprisey is scalable and risk-averse, why can't a language that is pleasant to use meet those requirements?

I maintain hope for a language, compiler/runtime, and library that allows me to easily communicate my solution without being distracted by the language implementation (fun), while offering good performance and scalability. As for being risk-averse, there are never any guarantees there and I doubt you'll find that the great successes and advancements of the past belong to the risk-averse.

Comment Re:Pay to call, not to recieve. (Score 1) 619

I'm surprised to see this viewpoint repeatedly posted on slashdot. It costs the same in physical resources for both sending and receiving (air time), so the current financial model more closely matches the physical (ignoring the SMS abuse). Slashdot readers usually stand against subsidizing schemes and other schemes far from the physical reality, so why are so many taking this stance? In the days before Caller ID I might agree, but now it's easy to ignore or blacklist calls. For myself, I have distinctive ring tones so if I don't recognize the ring tone, it's not important (and you're not charged for your phone ringing). This is not to say I'm in favor of this bill, just that the "free incoming calls" stance seems unbecoming for someone who should understand what's required to connect that call.

Comment Re:Good mother! (Score 1) 1017

But ...

The backscatter is emitted at a wavelength intended to be absorbed by the skin making it "concentrate" on the skin. Also the dose is given over a very short time frame. It's like being hit by 1000 gallons of water from a fire hose vs. 1000 gallons from a garden hose - same amount of water, but I'll take the garden hose. In contrast, the x-rays in flight are of varying wavelengths and the dose is spread over the flight period with some radiation going completely through the body and the rest spread out, not concentrated on the skin.

Comment VOIP only for 9 years (Score 1) 305

I dumped PSTN somewhere around 2002, first went to vonage and shortly after to Asterisk + PSTN gateways. Over these 9 years I think I've developed an idea of the pros and cons of VOIP.

* Call quality, on average, has been very good. This probably depends mostly on one's ISP, but call quality is better than a cell phone which most people are OK with. I prefer PCMU since it's what the telcos use and is a simple (little processing overhead) and raw codec. Keep in mind that it's possible to use codecs with higher quality (HD in marketing speak) that what's on the PSTN.

* Reliability is OK, but I've had occasional problems with PSTN gateways not getting calls out and the occasional dropped calls, which I'm not always sure where the blame lies. My biggest headache has been NAT, mostly when trying to bridge calls with someone else behind NAT. I prefer to try to bridge calls directly to keep latency to a minimum.

* Cost and features ROCK! Keeping a DID (phone number) with Vitelity is just $1.99 per month. I love paying just for the minutes I use, typically between $0.0008 and $0.0016 per minute. And of course the feature list in nearly left to the imagination with Asterisk.

I have my network equipment and IP phones on a UPS and my ISP (cable company) keeps functioning when my power goes out so my phones still work. I could see this being a problem for the average Joe though. A straight DC solution would be nice and could be cheaper that using a UPS.

Comment Re:Makes sense... (Score 1) 341

Netflix doesn't use RTP style streaming, at least not with the Rokus I own. They stream using buffers and yes they use TCP, not UDP. Just from watching the video I can tell there is about 30 seconds of video buffered. Looking at the stats on my router I can see the spikes as the movie buffers then it drops off. It doesn't truly "stream". VOIP and teleconferencing require RTP, not movie streaming.

Slashdot Top Deals

Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.

Working...