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Comment Re:People on older distros (Score 2, Informative) 351

Firefox 3 relies on the Cairo (svg) and Pango (typesetting) libraries, which are included with and used by newer versions of the GTK (I thought it was >= 2.8, but meh). Especially when using older linux systems (like RHEL4) to which you do not have root access, trying to build all of the updated libraries in a little bottle just to run firefox 3 is a pretty tall order. IIRC, when I tried, I had to start at glibc and work my way up - I never did get it to work properly.

Comment Re:Flawed study (Score 5, Insightful) 271

As I understand it, these ratings are, in large part, a way to help environmentally conscious consumers buy green products. By not disclosing that information, they make this impossible for consumers to do accurately. Reducing their scores for not cooperating is about the only means they have to pressure the companies into being more consumer-frieldny in this matter. While it may be flawed as a study, it functions correctly as a guide to buying products you know to be environmentally-friendly.

Think if it a different way: If you showed up for a university exam or a job interview, and refused to disclose what you knew about the subject in question, wouldn't *you* expect to get low marks, too? If you in fact knew a great deal about the subject, you could claim that the exam/interview was a flawed study, but the fact of the matter is that you refused to participate, and in this case you don't get the benefit of the doubt.

Comment Re:Fuzzy math (Score 1) 280

I think you may have the Giga/Gibi lables confused. Depending on your definition of Gigabyte, Gigabytes are either the same size or smaller than Gibibytes

A Gibibyte is 2^30 (1,073,741,824) bytes. This is the only definition that exists for this term.
A Gigabyte traditionally also means 2^30 bytes, however 'Giga' is actually a base-10 prefix for 1000^3 (as used in the metric system), and therefore has a second menaing of 1,000,000,000 bytes (slightly less than 2^30 bytes).

Hard drive makers were quick to jump on the fact that they could advertise their drives as larger than they were by exploiting this double definition. If anything, what we should want is for hard drives to actually by labeled in Gibibytes to remove the manufacturer's ability to short-change customers.

Since gigabytes are the same or smaller than gibibytes, claiming that it can hold 10 x 25 Gigabyte movies gives us no guarantee that it will be properly, non-deceptively labeled.

Comment Re:Fuzzy math (Score 5, Insightful) 280

This is somethat that a lot of people tend to overlook, either because they don't understand how a hard drive works, or because they don't stop and think about it. Loading programmes, especially ones which rely on libraries, translation files, multimedia, etc... at other locations on a disk would greatly slow down a HDD in comparison to an SSD.

Contrasted with SSDs, which are pretty much random access devices, in order to read each of those files from an HDD, there are basically 3 time factors to consider.

1. Seek time. The time it takes to move a reader head to a specific track (ring of data on a platter). Assuming that there is only this read taking place, you can pretty much assume that the reader head moves from its current location to the correct spot on the disk right away. Things are not always this pretty, though.

2. Rotation time. On average, you will have to wait half a rotation for the correct spot on the disk to spin around to the reader heads. There may be algorithms designed to mitigate this by reading even as it waits. In case the read is large enough to span a significant portion of the track, it can append that buffered data later, but I don't know if this is done or not.

3. Read time. This is the amount of time required to read the data off of a single track, and can take up to 1 rotation of the platter to complete.

So while the GP has a point in that people need to be careful about what kinds of statistics they believe, he/she glosses over the fact that reading a single piece of data with an HDD is hardly a random access, constant time operation (or linear time for n pieces of data).

Privacy

Google Can Predict the Flu 289

An anonymous reader mentions Google Flu Trends, a newly unveiled initiative of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm. The claim is that this Web service, which aggregates search data to track outbreaks of influenza, can spot disease trends up to 2 weeks before Centers for Disease Control data can. The NYTimes writeup begins: "What if Google knew before anyone else that a fast-spreading flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in? That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a new Web tool ... unveiled on Tuesday, right at the start of flu season in the US. Google Flu Trends is based on the simple idea that people who are feeling sick will tend to turn to the Web for information, typing things like 'flu symptoms; or 'muscle aches' into Google. The service tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions and states."
United States

Should the United States' New CTO Really Be a CIO? 243

CurtMonash writes "Barack Obama promised to appoint the United States' first Chief Technology Officer. Naturally, the blogosphere is full of discussion as to who that should be. I favor American Management Systems founder and former IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti. Richard Koman thinks it should be one of the better state CTOs. John Doerr, going in a different direction, thinks it should be his partner Bill Joy. We can bandy names back and forth all month, but first a more fundamental question needs to be answered: What do we need most — a get-things-done CIO (Chief Information Officer), or a more visionary true CTO? I think it's a CIO, and based on his campaign statements it appears Obama agrees. Management of government IT is a huge, generally unsolved problem, and we need somebody deeply experienced to have a fighting chance. Of course, that doesn't preclude recruiting a visionary CTO in addition, but the highest priority is a CIO. What do you think?"
Portables (Apple)

Users Rage Over Missing FireWire On New MacBooks 820

CWmike writes "Apple customers, unhappy that the company dropped FireWire from its new MacBook (not the Pro), are venting their frustrations on the company's support forum in hundreds of messages. Within minutes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrapping up a launch event in Cupertino, Calif., users started several threads to vent over the omission. 'Apple really screwed up with no FireWire port,' said Russ Tolman, who inaugurated a thread that by Thursday has collected more than 300 messages and been viewed over 8,000 times. 'No MacBook with [FireWire] — no new MacBook for me,' added Simon Meyer in a message posted yesterday. Several mentioned that FireWire's disappearance means that the new MacBooks could not be connected to other Macs using Target Disk Mode, and one noted that iMovie will have no way to connect to new MacBooks. Others pointed out that the previous-generation MacBook, which Apple is still selling at a reduced price of $999, includes a FireWire port. Apple introduced FireWire into its product lines in 1999 and championed the standard."
Image

Researchers Claim To Be Able To Determine Political Leaning By How Messy You Are 592

According to a study to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology, you can tell someone's political affiliation by looking at the condition of their offices and bedrooms. Conservatives tend to be neat and liberals love a mess. Researchers found that the bedrooms and offices of liberals tend to be colorful and full of books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia. Their conservative contemporaries, on the other hand, tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials. Their bedrooms and offices are well lit and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags — especially American ones. Sam Gosling, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, says these room cues are "behavioral residue." The findings are just the latest in a series of recent attempts to unearth politics in personality, the brain and DNA. I, for one, support a woman's right to clean.
Portables

Submission + - Linux negatively influences sales of netbooks (laptopmag.com) 3

ivoras writes: "Interview with MSI's director of U.S. Sales Andy Tung has this interesting snippet: "We have done a lot of studies on the return rates and haven't really talked about it much until now. Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don't know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it's not what they are used to. They don't want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.""
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - $700 Billion Bailout Signed Into Law

Roger Wilcox writes: "After the spectacular failure of several large, long-standing banks over the course of the last month, Congress passed a bill that will allocate $700 billion to the Treasury Department for the purchase of so-called 'toxic assets' that have been weighing down on Wall Street balance sheets. President Bush quickly signed the measure into law. The legislation was the same bill that had been defeated in the House of Representatives earlier in the week, though an additional $110 billion in appropriations had been tacked on to appease congressmen who had originally voted against the bill.

Read the Associated Press article at Wired News."
United States

Submission + - Was the Yahoo/Google deal a ploy to weaken Yahoo? (betanews.com)

JagsLive writes: Was the Yahoo/Google deal a ploy to weaken Yahoo ? : Sen. Herb Kohl (D — Wisc.) chairman of the Senate Antitrust Committee

With the DOJ expressing skepticism over Yahoo's agreement to sell search ad space to its biggest competitor, a letter from a key US senator urging action could be preaching to the choir. What's interesting is that senator's theory.

In a letter to the Justice Department's antitrust chief yesterday, Sen. Herb Kohl (D — Wisc.), chairman of the Senate Antitrust Committee, advised the Dept. to maintain a close watch over Google and Yahoo as they initiate their search advertising deal, for two reasons: The first is something discussed quite often, that the deal could be used to drive up the price of contextual search advertising.

But the second is something that has been mentioned, but not fully explored: the notion that Google made the deal in bad faith, as an anti-competitive measure to maintain Yahoo's subordinate position in the marketplace.

"Many interested parties are also apprehensive that if the transaction is consummated, Yahoo will have less incentive to compete against Google, as it will rely upon its main competitor for a significant increase in its revenue," reads Sen. Kohl's letter to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett. "Therefore, critics contend that an advertiser will have an incentive to bypass Yahoo entirely and only bid for Google advertisements since an advertisement purchased with Google could be placed on both Yahoo and Google's search result pages."

Furthermore, Kohl goes on, as Yahoo receives more and more revenue from Google, it will only gain further incentive to give Google better placement. That could water down the value of Yahoo pages for other advertisers, in a situation that eventually leads to Yahoo never retaining a position as a major player in search advertising.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Was_the_YahooGoogle_deal_a_ploy_to_weaken_Yahoo/1223070460

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