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Comment Re:The real reason (Score 1) 403

They did this 5 years ago. I am posting from the one I bought then. Pretty much built like a tank, but is now starting to get a little obsolete. I'll probably replace it with a system 76 next time. BTW if you are running Linux, you always want buy one with it preinstalled, even if it is little more expensive. If for no other reason then you know there will be Linux drivers for all of your shit. Much easier that way.

Comment Re:Aesthetic (Score 1) 635

A few years ago, I bought the DVD for "Rocky and Bullwinkle - Fractured Fairy Tales". I popped it into my Ubuntu system and immediately began watching "Sleeping Beauty Land" and "Riding Hoods Anonymous". It was awesome!

Until I tried to watch the same DVD on a normal DVD player. It had a 15 minute, unskipable ad for some old crappy rabbit movie. As a result, I never watch movies on a regular DVD player. With Ubuntu, I get to the main menu immediately, regardless of what "unskipable" ads the DVD has. It is worth it for that reason alone.

Comment Re:Ads in movie theatres (Score 1) 635

But there is no hockey, at least not at the NHL level. That should start riots in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto at least, or perhaps staging a coup-de-tat of Gary Bettman. To make it even worse, the Stanley Cup is in possession of the LA Kings which should offend Canadians everywhere.

Oh, wait, Canadians actually have lots of good hockey that isn't NHL. Here in the states, it is either the NHL or the Frozen Four if you are lucky. Oh, well, pitchers and catchers report in February.

Comment Re:Barack Obama agrees with Marco Rubio (Score 1) 518

What if his non-answer is right? Since the Earth, by definition wasn't created, the 24 hour day is meaningless. What if he subcontracted the planet of Magrathea to construct the Earth and it go delayed an cost overruns so it wound up taking 4 billion years? What if the dinosaurs were a minor side project which got hosed when another subcontractor forgot to adjust the heading of a resupply asteroid when then slammed into the Earth?

Comment Re:Poor security standards (Score 5, Insightful) 64

That is cool. It is nice that you can configure firewalls to protect against layer 7 attacks. It is a great part of defence in depth. If I set up the firewalls I would do this. Of course I don't, and the bureaucracy makes the Vogons look nimble. They would feed their own grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblater Beast of Traal rather than change the rules. And of course, some other "developer" with some clout would get an exception so his craptastic application still works.

I love the idea of a Firewall protecting my app, but would rather write the 2 lines of code to ensure my app doesn't get pwned if it doesn't for whatever reason.

Comment Re:Poor security standards (Score 3, Insightful) 64

I'm not sure how a firewall would prevent SQL injection, as the attack pass through the normal HTTP/HTTPS traffic and their own crappy web application is the attack vector. Then again, setting up any firewall is far more complex than the few lines of code or bind variables need to stop SQL injection attacks.

Comment Re:The Difference Between OpenGL and DirectX (Score 2) 553

The Commodore was introduced in 1982, and the graphic hardware was never updated. However, developers were making games with good graphics almost 10 years later, on the original 1982 chipset. In fact, one of the best games released for the PC in the early 1990's (Commander Keen) would have been even better had it been introduced for the C-64. Commodore made their hardware API completely open. If I were a developer now, I would avoid all of the locked in crap and probably use Open GL even if is more of a PITA. At least my shit will still work if Bill or Steve or whoever decides to change crap.

Submission + - The World's Lightest Electric Vehicle

El_Oscuro writes: Not only is it a vehicle – it’s a skateboard, more specifically a longboard. silverfishlongboarding tested some prototypes and has a good write up on it.

If you rode a Tony Hawk when you were a kid and are tired of rising gas prices, parking, traffic, etc, this might be for you. With a speed governed 20mph top speed, 6 mile range and regenerative braking, this bad boy could be your next commuter ride.

The Tech
Boosteb Boards founders, all three of whom were engineering students and longboarders at Stanford University, are definitely well-versed in the technologies they've applied to their board project. For reporters like us, drooling over paper with the large, fat pencils the doctors say are safe for us to use, it boils down to sime relatively simple stuff: a custom mounting plate and driveline they bolt onto Landyachtz'es Bear Trucks, independently belt-driven by tandem 1kw, brushless DC "outrider" motors, all powered by a lithium-ion battery pack managed by a heat-sinked mos-fet controller that's directed by a blue tooth handset. Simpler yet: tons of horsepower, 6+ miles of range and only about six pounds heavier than the longboard they start with before adding on the electronics.

Comment Re:I just hope they don't get discouraged (Score 2) 280

License cost is not just important for someone messing around at home. It can have a profound impact on large corporations too. There it is not so much the cost of the license itself, but the cost of procuring and managing them. With Server 2008, you have to have install and configure "activation servers". WTF? The amount of time spent managing license keys, activation servers, and other bullshit is time you are not working on something productive. Say what you want about Oracle, one thing the get right is they don't have any activation codes or similar crap, yet the last time I checked they still make boatloads of money.

Should you happen to find a new commercial program you need, expect to wait 6 months for the trolls at procurment to either reject it or simply ignore it. On the other hand, with open source, just download and compile. It also a lot easier to get something new through security, as you can say: "I compiled this from source. I have a few minor custom settings, and all of these, along with the compile scripts are in CM. Much easier (and safer) than trusting a random binary BLOB

Science

Submission + - Turtle Urinates from Its Mouth (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: Talk about having a potty mouth. When Chinese soft-shelled turtles to relieve themselves, they just open wide, according to a new study. Researchers thought it was a little odd that, when the turtles were on dry land, they would stick their heads in puddles and swish water around in their mouths. The scientists thought maybe something else was going on besides respiration, so they bought Chinese soft-shelled turtles at a market in Singapore and found ways to collect their urine, like attaching a flexible latex tube to each one's underside. They found that the animals were getting rid of the vast majority of their urea, a major component of urine, through their mouths instead of their hind ends. The team speculates that this might be because animals have to drink a lot of water to make urine, which can be unhealthy in the saltier waters where these turtles spend some of their time. If they're just rinsing the water around in their mouths, they avoid having to get rid of all that salt.

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