Comment Re:Who really cares, though? (Score 1) 263
Freedom for the companies to do what they want with *our* devices? Nice obfuscated troll.
Comment Re:How Does the Same Company Make iPods and iTunes (Score 1) 390
though it still desperately needs a rewrite as TFA says
Arguably, a thing you should never do...
Comment Re:Time for some insightful, informative rants (Score 2, Interesting) 286
If you let everyone copy, nobody does any R&D
Ah, but this is not even remotely certain. Actually, several economic papers give documented facts about how patents actually discourage innovation. (I remember that one of them was linked to in a recent discussion, but I don't have the time to search now)
Submission + - GIMP dropped from Ubuntu 10.04 (digitizor.com) 2
kai_hiwatari writes: It seems like the Ubuntu developers consider GIMP to be too powerful for a normal desktop user. So they are removing it from the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04. This actually feels like a good reason as most people uses GIMP as a "Paint"-like software.
Submission + - Building a 32-bit One Instruction Computer
Hugh Pickens writes: "The advantages of RISC are well known — simplifying the CPU core by reducing the complexity of the instruction set allows faster speeds, more registers, and pipelining to provide the appearance of single cycle execution. Al Williams writes in Dr Dobbs about taking RISC to it's logical conclusion by designing a functional computer called One-Der with only a single simple instruction — a 32-bit Transfer Triggered Architecture (TTA) CPU that operates at roughly 10 MIPS. "When I tell this story in person, people are usually squirming with the inevitable question: What's the one instruction?" writes Williams. "It turns out there's several ways to construct a single instruction CPU, but the method I had stumbled on does everything via a move instruction (hence the name, "Transfer Triggered Architecture")." The CPU is implemented on a a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device and the prototype works on a "Spartan 3 Starter Board" with an XS3C1000 device available from Digilent that has the equivalent of about 1,000,000 logic gates costing between $100 and $200. "Applications that can benefit from custom instruction in hardware — things like digital signal processing, for example — are ideal for One-Der since you can implement parts of your algorithm in hardware and then easily integrate those parts with the CPU.""
Comment Re:Beyond the Alien (Score 1) 336
Now think about the world that could produce such a creature, with all those defenses. The Aliens.... are not even CLOSE to the top of the food chain. Imagine what horrors you would find on the world that produced them....
In a novel adapted from the original scenario, there was significant hints that the aliens were not a species, but a biological weapon that proved to be too dangerous even for their creators.
Now, that could lead to an interesting prequel...
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