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Comment Re:BT is crap (Score 1) 228

BT Infinity (FTTC, uncapped) doesn't seem to suffer from throttling at any time - I get the full 40 Mbps.

However, I often need to switch ports after a download has started to realize full speed. I don't know if this is a quirk of my BitTorrent client, or whether there is actually throttling that's broken by the port switch. Worth trying if you're having trouble, though.

Comment Article is misleading (Score 5, Insightful) 366

TinyMCE is not an addon - the article seems to be talking about a Firefox bug, but doesn't provide a bug ID.

Addons are now up-issued automatically where possible; I have found fewer addons breaking compared with the sweeping changes made using the old model of major releases.

The article also misses the benefits from regular releases: features and improvements get in front of users more quickly, and changes are incremental, rather than jarringly abrupt. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Firefox_(Rapid_release_development_cycle) for a list of changes since Firefox 4.

Comment Re:This is awesome, but... (Score 1) 294

I can find no reference to the Channel Tunnel project ever being referred to as the Eden project, but possibly it's been swamped by the biome complex in Cornwall, which is known by that name. You're welcome to provide a citation, if you have one. (Incidentally, the Eden Project was an engineering challenge in itself, given the difficult conditions found in the clay pit it was constructed in. It's well worth a read on the subject - Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it.)

w.r.t. the TBMs used in the Channel Tunnel, they weren't all built by the same company, and they operated in different modes. There weren't even just two. More info at http://www.batisseurs-tunnel.com/amicale/doc%20UK/3%20Tunnels%20Tunnel%20sous%20La%20Manche_C%20.pdf

Comment Re:This is awesome, but... (Score 1) 294

The Eden project had nothing to do with the Channel Tunnel (in fact, needed no tunnel construction at all), and the latter used different types of TBM from each end.

I suspect you've just done the equivalent of equating all types of car as identical, the only difference being the number of passengers carried, type of fuel, and terrain they need to be able to handle.

Comment Re:Perhap the kernel's size is becoming too unweil (Score 2, Informative) 274

Actually, I think it's a code quality issue.

Look at http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.35.y.git;a=commitdiff;h=d4d67150165df8bf1cc05e532f6efca96f907cab

It seems to me that the critical line of code reloading EAX was deleted because the committer couldn't see why it was necessary, and there was no comment in the code to explain its purpose. With no comment, and no unit test to guard against regressions (and I recognise that isn't always practical), this was an accident waiting to happen.

Social Networks

Twitter Throttling Hits Third-Party Apps 119

Barence writes "Twitter's battle to keep the microblogging service from falling over is having a dire affect on third-party Twitter apps. Users of Twitter-related apps such as TweetDeck, Echofon and even Twitter's own mobile software have complained of a lack of updates, after the company imposed strict limits on the number of times third-party apps can access the service. Over the past week, Twitter has reduced the number of API calls from 350 to 175 an hour. At one point last week, that number was temporarily reduced to only 75. A warning on TweetDeck's support page states that users 'should allow TweetDeck to ensure you do not run out of calls, although with such a small API limit, your refresh rates will be very slow.'"

Comment Measured via the toolbar (Score 2, Informative) 202

From a slightly older article on the same blog:

The load time data is derived from aggregated information sent by users of your site who have installed the Google Toolbar and opted-in to its enhanced features.

So this isn't quite as susceptible to people playing games with Googlebot as it might appear.

Java

The Struggle To Keep Java Relevant 667

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions Oracle's ability to revive interest in Java in the wake of Oracle VP Jeet Kaul's announcement at EclipseCon that he would 'like to see people with piercings doing Java programming.' 'If Kaul is hoping Java will once again attract youthful, cutting-edge developers, as it did when it debuted in 1995, [Kaul] may be in for a long wait,' McAllister writes. 'Java has evolved from a groundbreaking, revolutionary language platform to something closer to a modern-day version of Cobol.' And, as McAllister sees it, 'Nothing screams "get off my lawn" like a language controlled by Oracle, the world's largest enterprise software vendor. The chances that Java can attract the mohawks-and-tattoos set today seem slimmer than ever.'"

Comment Re:Not only on the race track (Score 1) 750

Agree that the left foot should only be used to operate the clutch on a manual transmission, but disagree with the rest of your advice.

Following your advice, if your foot were to slip off the pedal under braking (perhaps if you hit a pothole), the car will have no engine braking effect to keep it under control and you'll most likely hit whatever you were braking for, or overshoot your corner. The shift down or to neutral should come when you've lost most of your speed (obviously depends on how high your gear is), or when you're about to accelerate again.

Similarly, when starting off, releasing the handbrake (aka emergency brake) before setting the clutch will result in you rolling forward or backwards if you are stopped on a slope, or even jumping forward if you panic and overshoot the bite point. Unless you're on the flat (typically in standing traffic), always find the bite point before releasing the handbrake.

Comment Re:Dear FSF (Score 1) 1634

According to the limited info on Wikipedia, the A4 is a 'system-on-chip' which consists of an ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore with an ARM Mali graphics core[5], plus a PowerVR VXD for video and audio playback.

So yes, it's an ARM processor.

Displays

Live Intel WiDi Demonstration At CES 2010 45

MojoKid writes "As we saw earlier this week, Intel's new WiDi (Wireless Display Interface) technology will start to be bundled with various Core i5 and Core i3 notebooks later this month, promising to address the Home Theater and Multimedia PC markets with a solution that enables wireless connectivity of your notebook over HDMI to an HDTV using standard 802.11n wireless technologies for transmission of the data. Intel was also demonstrating this technology live at CES 2010 and HotHardware captured video of the technology in action, with Intel Product Manager Joshua Newman. This new technology is obviously fairly mature at this point with retail products waiting in the wings, just a few weeks away."

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