If we accept that the universe is infinite, any point can be accurately called the center. Imagine the number line -- where is the center? Some people might say 0, but they would be just as correct as someone who said 1 or -1376! Any point in an infinite space is surrounded by equal (infinite) distance.

The earth is the center of the universe!

I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

Intel's hexacore offering features hyperthreading technology, which allows each core to execute two threads simultaneously. This means that Intel's hexacore chips actually have twelve logical cores, while the AMD hexacore chips only have six logical cores. Your number of physical cores comparison is meaningless, and actual performance benchmarks show that the Core i7 980X is more than twice as fast as the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T. [1]

[1] http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

We have them in the States.

I had a Comcast router/modem combination very similar to what amorsen describes. When I tried to upgrade the firmware, the Comcast site told me to find my model on Linkysys and get the firmware from them, while Linksys told me that because the model was operating under custom firmware rolled in house by Comcast, I would have to get firmware updates from Comcast.

When it finally died, the tech who came to replace it was surprised that there were any of this model left in the wild because they're "junk". It's my understanding that Comcast is no longer rolling out router/modem combinations and instead provide two separate devices.

This article is a truly atrocious fluff piece. I would be better off reading my sister's blog.

“The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn't have to do a second one." Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO [1]

Clearly false, Google has painted the Nexus One as a success because it has dramatically pushed phone hardware forward. Whether phones as powerful as the EVO 4G and Droid X would be available without the Nexus One, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

Google's CEO announced that they wouldn't be producing a "Nexus Two" three motherfucking weeks ago. Thanks for the completely unnecessary speculation, though. "I called up the board and said: 'Ok, it worked. Congratulations - we're stopping.'" [2]

[1][2] Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7864223/Googles-Eric-Schmidt-You-can-trust-us-with-your-data.html

Nobody does. Consumer monitors are not built that support a native resolution of 4096 x 3072. You would hard pressed to find even a 60" TV that supports this kind of resolution.

Hopefully, Google knows something we don't about the future of display resolutions and this is foreshadowing consumer grade monitors receiving a long needed bump in pixels per dollar. With Apple's "retina display", maybe higher resolutions will become trendy and spark a resolution war. I don't know much about the actual feasibility of this from a technological stand point, so maybe someone in the industry could give us a break down on just how reasonable this is with current technology. This is exciting for anyone who spends a significant amount of time with technology because the advent of screens with higher DPI would significantly improve readability and allow us to deprecate things like font hinting.

More realistically, Google is just trolling for some publicity. Unless YouTube relaxes their compression on 4K video, its current incarnation is useless and, even if Google was to offer high quality 4K video, the bandwidth is simply not available. ISPs would have to roll out infrastructure that allows for speeds of 100+ Mbit/s.

At this point in time, the only reasons for putting 4K video on YouTube are bragging rights and future-proofing.

OLPC would not be able to cut out the fat and make OSX run decently due to its proprietary nature. Presumably, OLPC chose OSS for the ability to modify the OS to conform to their systems' capabilities, which would simply not be possible on OSX. I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that Steve Jobs would ever offer to license OSX to run on hardware that they did not control.

In my opinion, Firefox could definitely use some work on their UI. I would like the default install of Firefox to take up less screen real estate, but I can see where power users might be uncomfortable with drastic change. It's obviously a balancing act: don't become antiquated, but at the same time don't make large UI changes all at once. However, I'm more interested in performance. When it comes to a web browser, performance probably means more to me than the polish of the GUI (within reason).

On one hand, I own a release model 360 that is still running fine and has yet to RROD on me. Admittedly, I don't use the console nearly as much as hardcore gamers (or even casual ones, for that matter), but I don't typically take any special precautions with it other than keeping it in an open area and not leaving it on top of carpet.

I also have a part time job fixing 360s and, in my experience, the failure rate on the newer models is still significant. Probably not as high as the originals, but I wouldn't go pushing my luck by keeping the newer models in enclosed spaces. For every Wii or PS3 we get in, we get about 4-5 360s.

A mile is an imperial unit used nearly ubiquitously in the USA. 1 mile is the equivalent of ~1.6 kilometers. For example, speed (in the USA) is typically measured in miles per hour.

I'm a little taken aback that you're not at least roughly familiar with imperial units. I suppose I always assumed that Europeans had a general idea of what a mile is, just as most Americans have a general idea of what a kilometer is, even if they are not entirely comfortable with metric.

Not looking someone directly in the eye is, in some cultures, a sign of respect. Specifically, the indigenous tribes of northwestern Ontario believe that you only look an inferior in the eye.

Shouldn't the casino have some kind of insurance against this type of thing? Say, they have to pay out, but the insurance covers it since the machine was faulty. I suppose the manufacturer is probably ultimately responsible, so perhaps the manufacturers insurance should cover it.

At any rate, it doesn't seem very okay that the manufacturer can just ship faulty machines and not be held accountable.

Why is this modded +5 insightful? The only thing that the justice department should not allow is monopolies that are harmful to competition. The OP isn't even talking about a monopoly, just vertical integration, which is perfectly legal.

Many private trackers (maybe some public, too) already offer https. I'm not a security analyst so I'm unable to comment on how effective the provided services are, but there has certainly been a stab at doing just that.

Why is this sort of legal tactic allowed? The "sue everyone and let the court sort out who is guilty" attitude is ridiculous. Is there some kind of legislation that prevents this sort of behavior? Why isn't this illegal? It's obviously an abuse of the legal system, as far as I can tell.

Basically, I feel that this is extortion. Their tactic is: pay me x dollars or else you'll have to pay to fight an expensive civil suit. That's not ok.

Of course, it's easier to blame pirates for the failure to properly monetize your film. Couldn't be Hollywood's fault, could it?

It seems to me that you wish to curb the kid's hours spent gaming and replace it with something that you view as more "worthwhile." First thing, I suggest you sit down with the boy's father and talk about why you want him to take up a new hobby.

If you still think a different hobby is the right way to go, sit down and talk with the boy. "What do you think about computer programming? Why do you like video games?" You might be surprised by his answers. Progressively more kids game for the social aspect and that's something a lot of parents fail to grok. Coding is typically a lot more solitary than an MMORPG.

Okay, you've done this and you're still gung ho on this coding thing. Get him off of Windows. Nothing trashed my desire to game more than formatting my Windows box. At the same time, a lot less of the core of Linux is hidden behind a GUI so he'll be exposed to more code and how computers actually operate. After learning bash tools like ls, grep, etc, more serious coding is just a natural progression.

As for what distro to start him off on, that's a tough choice. Ubuntu is a pretty good beginner distro (though deb packaging can be a bitch for a new user), but Lucid has undergone some weird design choices. I'd say give him a copy of Fedora and maybe show him how to add the fusion repo's so that he can play video. Oh, and enable compiz-fusion. When people ask me why I use Linux, I just show them the windowmanager effects. Compiz-fusion makes maximizing a window fun.