Comment Just let the Sun be! (Score 1) 285

by sriramv_iyer on Sunday May 30, 2010 @12:43AM (#32394588) Attached to: The Sun's Odd Behavior

The problem comes when we try to fit in behaviors into our model, rather than have models to explain behavior. Sun does what it wants to do - Just because scientists observed something periodic, does not require the Sun to behave appropriately. For e.g., fitting employees performance to a Bell Curve (normalization curve) - Here we take data and fudge it to fit into the model for the sake of convenience of management. It might be of scientific interest to see why this happened, though. Just let the Sun be! Sriram

Blizzard Boss Says Restrictive DRM Is a Waste of Time 563

Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 28, 2010 @03:24AM from the what-about-lan-play dept.

Stoobalou writes "Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce reckons that fighting piracy with DRM is a losing battle. His company — which is responsible for one of the biggest video games of all time, the addictive online fantasy role player World of Warcraft — is to release StarCraft 2 on July 27, and Pearce has told Videogamer that the title won't be hobbled with the kind of crazy copy protection schemes that have made Ubisoft very unpopular in gaming circles of late. StarCraft 2 will require a single online activation using the company's Battle.net servers, after which players will be allowed to play the single-player game to their hearts' content, without being forced to have a persistent Internet connection."

Google Makes Apps Script Available To All 61

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 14, 2010 @10:49AM from the come-one-come-all dept.

theodp writes "Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!"

Comment Help Desk Pilot (Score 1) 321

by sriramv_iyer on Friday February 27, 2009 @02:34AM (#27008855) Attached to: Best FOSS Help Desk Software For Small Firms?

I tried Help Desk Pilot for some time - There used to be a free version for limited users. The support is also pretty good. I am not sure if the free version is still around. It's worth checking out http://www.helpdeskpilot.com/

Comment But.. (Score 1) 534

by sriramv_iyer on Saturday January 17, 2009 @03:04AM (#26494571) Attached to: I'd rather measure my days by means of ...

But isn't time measurement relative and personal in a Einsteinian Universe? :-) And, I was told time exists only in the mind. Also, time flows from a low entropy to a high entropy state. I am also curious how time is related to rate of change of entropy. Will it either speed up or slowdown with change in entropy? In the end, I'd like to measure time only by the way I see it (I don't wear a watch!) I was once imagining how God is able to know the past, present and the future.. I am no Brian Greene, but my thoughts below: http://sviyer.blogspot.com/2008/11/space-time-and-relativity-and-svi_26.html

Comment 42 Mbps is now available with Wimax! (Score 1) 129

by sriramv_iyer on Thursday December 04, 2008 @05:47AM (#25986663) Attached to: Mobile Broadband to Hit 42Mb/sec In 2009

I was expecting something better :-)

In the current configuration available with XOHM, Clearwire (DL/UL - 35/12), it is possible to achieve 46 Mbps using MIMO and 64 QAM 5/6 with 10 MHz bandwidth in 2.5/2.6 GHz operation.

But, this is the throughput at the Base Station. Good Wimax terminals can handle up to 35 Mbps (some claim 40 Mbps) in the downlink.

64 QAM 5/6 is already pushing the limits of wireless. It is possible to decode this modulation and coding only at very high signal to (noise+interference) rations. So, as someone pointed out earlier, it may not be possible for everyone in the coverage to get 64 QAM data. (Unless the Base station supports multi antenna/BeamForming techniques)

It is possible to increase the throughput by increasing the bandwidth. To increase further than 46-50 Mbps, we'll need new coding techniques or use more MIMO (currently only two antennas are used - Wimax supports 3 and 4 antenna schemes too)

I am not too conversant with LTE to comment about it.

Journal Journal: Microsoft Hacked !

Journal by sriramv_iyer on Monday August 04, 2003 @02:17AM

Microsoft Website Microsoft.com was attacked on Friday redering it unavailable for almost 2 hrs ! Microsoft company spokesman Sean Sundwall says Friday incident was unrelated to any Microsoft flaws.

report from detnews.com