Comment Re:The Idea Is Actually Not Complete Bullshit (Score 1) 404
"Windows is dying"?
Windows 8 is already at a higher market % than OSX 10.8. Is OSX dying?
Comment Damn you automatic name resolution! (Score 1) 333
The perils of hiring (and needing to fire) a guy named Joe Allusers.
Submission + - Microsoft shows off universal translator (extremetech.com)
MrSeb writes: "Microsoft Research has shown off software that translates your spoken words into another language while preserving the accent, timbre, and intonation of your actual voice. In a demo of the prototype software, Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s chief research officer, said a long sentence in English, and then had it translated into Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. You can definitely hear an edge of digitized “Microsoft Sam,” but overall it’s remarkable how the three translations still sound just like Rashid. The translation requires an hour of training, but after that there's no reason why it couldn't be run in real time on a smartphone, or near-real-time with a cloud backend. Imagine this tech in a two-way setup. You speak into your smartphone, and it comes out in their language. Then, the person you’re talking to speaks into your smartphone and their voice comes out in your language."
Journal Journal: Science vs. superstition in Louisiana, again 2
You have to read carefully to understand what's really being debated here. Short version: in 2008, Louisiana passed a law which more or less mandated the teaching of creationism, Luddism, and denialism, and now they're trying to repeal it. I don't know enough about the current state of LA politics to know if the repeal effort has a prayer (hah!) of succeeding, but I wish the best of luck to Sen. Peterson, Mr. Ko
Submission + - Bacteria-Killing Viruses Wield an Iron Spike (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Scientists have long known that a group of viruses called bacteriophages have a knack for infiltrating bacteria and that some begin their attack with a protein spike. But the tip of this spike is so small that no one knew what it was made of or exactly how it worked. Now a team of researchers has found a single iron atom at the head of the spike, a discovery that suggests phages enter bacteria in a different way than surmised.
Comment grandiose luster? (Score 1) 241
Is the editorializing in the lead sentence of the article really necessary? If you have an opinion to share; state the fact and save the editorial for a concluding sentence.
As it is written, my reflex is to discount the entire post as biased crap.
As it is written, my reflex is to discount the entire post as biased crap.
Comment Title says "Less", Article says "Comparable" (Score 1) 225
"On a range of different systems, the power consumption of the Linux OS was comparable to that of Windows except for a few select workloads and systems."
That sentence says power consumption was relatively the same, except when Windows consumed less.
A little bias by the headline writer?
Comment Re:Best Part (Score 1) 174
Some intruders download Windows service packs to check the bandwidth available.
Comment Re:Won't someone please think of the children (Score 1) 256
You said
"HTTPS only works one IP per host, so that gives a positive track to where they were going."
That is not correct. If you inspect HTTPS traffic you'll see that clients issue something like the following:
CONNECT www.myawesomehost.net:443 HTTP/1.1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Host: www.myawesomehost.net
The same IP address can host www.myawesomehost.net and plenty of other Web sites. With HTTPS the Feds would just track the CONNECT and Host: fields since those are in the clear.
Comment Re:Thanks! (Score 1) 216
"I know the book has pissed some people off, especially when I take on their particular sacred cows (e.g., intrusion detection)."
"Sacred cows" have nothing to do with it. The book just isn't that interesting.
Pakistan Used Google Earth For Military Targeting 111
NeoBeans writes "According to this article in the New York Times about the recent 'improvements' in military strikes by the Pakistani military it is revealed that they have dropped Google Earth as part of their target planning for a more precise technology. From the article, '... the air force has shifted from using Google Earth to more sophisticated images from spy planes and other surveillance aircraft, and has increased its use of laser-guided bombs. And no, you can't really find Osama Bin Laden using Google Maps either."
Comment Re:Put your personal agenda on the shelf (Score 1) 149
Granted it would be a mistake to elevate this above the task of actually getting the job done, but I see no shame in promoting OSS as a matter of policy provided there are no overriding practical considerations.
My point exactly. Anyone making recommendations with any sort of bias blinders on, whether is be (corruption) getting paid off by a corporate entity or personal agenda (being an OSS zealot), is inherently not to be trusted. Getting the job done is the key. In the best way, for the least money, and serving the public good. The OP suggested that he wanted to convince the powers that be that OSS was the way. The absense of any other reasoning suggests that he may have a personal agenda that is clouding his judgement. It is not and should not be OSS vs. Commercial software. It should be solution A vs solution B. With all the aspects of those solutions taken into consideration. If solution B is OSS, perhaps it gets a +1. But OSS is merely one of the factors, not all of them.
Comment New Zealand today... (Score 1) 2
tomorrow, Rhode Island!
Comment Cold Fusion (Score 0, Redundant) 260
Hay guys. I made cold fusion work in my bathtub. Want to invest?
Comment Put your personal agenda on the shelf (Score 1) 149
and recommend the best solution to the tasks at hand. You sound like you have a OSS agenda to push without regard at to what the issue that needs to be addressed is. I can tell you, as someone that has managed teams of engineers, that I will be convinced by a logical discussion of why software package A is preferred over software package B. If I hired a guy who had an agenda of pushing a particular software vendor over another due to personal agendas, I can tell you he wouldn't be around for long. Pushing OSS, just because it is OSS, is equally as pernicious as pushing BigSoftwareCoX's products. Right tool, right job. Of course $ is always a consideration, so OSS may have a good "Right Tool" argument, but you need to make the WHOLE argument.
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