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Comment Re:Am I the only one? (Score 1) 121

My thoughts exactly.

I used to have a Creative Zen Vision which had a pretty decent video quality and the only thing I ever watched was some Heroes episodes on a bus trip. And that was before high-definition.

Maybe some people don't care about quality, but I like my movies on a 1080p kickass flat screen and a trusty HTPC.

What we really need is more bandwidth.

Comment Rake + Capistrano (Score 1) 267

As GP, I use Rails migrations, and they work for most part. Unless you're changing some data in a batch, structural changes should be able to do / undo. Rake automations helps a lot http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Migration.html

But for SPs I'd create a separate file for each and add to SVN, then force my migration to recreate them every time.

I also find it handy to keep your dev / test / production databases up to date. Or at least a test one (with a sample data set), so you won't screw up badly if you mess up.

Altering production databases is great responsability!

Comment FeatureCpak (Score 2, Funny) 31

<quote>FeaturePak specification, trademark, and logo over to a suitable standards organization so it can become an industry-wide, open-architecture, embedded standard" <b>(but to use the logo you have to join the organization).</b></quote>

Specifically, the terms and conditions you are asked to agree to in the MOU are:

      1. Recipient acknowledges Diamond Systems Corporation as present owner of the FeaturePak trademark and logo.
      2. Recipient may only associate the FeaturePak logo with products that conform to the FeaturePak specification.
      3. Recipient may only use the FeaturePak logo in accordance with the logo use guidelines.
      4. Recipient may not use a name, trademark, or logo similar to FeaturePak's name, trademark, or logo for any substantially similar purpose.
      5. *Resistance is futile*
Input Devices

New I/O Standard Bids To Replace Mini PCI Express 31

DeviceGuru writes "LinuxDevices reports that a group of companies today unveiled — and demonstrated products based on — a tiny new PCI Express expansion standard. Although it's somewhat larger than the PCI Express Mini Card, the tiny new 43mm x 65mm FeaturePak card's high density 230-pin edgecard connector provides twice the number of PCI Express and USB 2.0 channels to the host computer, plus 100 lines dedicated to general purpose I/O, of which 34 signal pairs are implemented with enhanced isolation for use in applications such as gigabit Ethernet or high-precision analog I/O. While FeaturePaks will certainly be used in all sorts of embedded devices (medical instruments, test equipment, etc.), the tiny cards could also be used for developing configurable consumer devices, for example to add an embedded firewall/router or security processor to laptop or notebook computers, or for modular functionality in TV set-top-boxes and Internet edge devices." The president of Diamond Systems, which invented the new card, said "Following the FeaturePak initiative's initial launch, we intend to turn the FeaturePak specification, trademark, and logo over to a suitable standards organization so it can become an industry-wide, open-architecture, embedded standard" (but to use the logo you have to join the organization).

Comment Police is corrupt. Piracy is the norm. (Score 1) 194

I live in Sao Paulo, in a middle class neighborhood where the law sort of works, work in a cyber cafe. I have had policemen, who can barely double click an icon, walk in insinuating they will confiscate everything because there is pirate software.

I live in Sao Paulo, you insensitive clod!

If the cops were in ur coffeeshops, stealing ur puterz, then the law sort of doesn't work. AFAIK there's only a small task force authorized to do that, provided they have a warrant from the ABES (Associação Brasileira das Empresas de Software) and even that was only after larger companies and those major bootleggers.

Yeah, cops here can be an ass if you let them bully you. I'd get their names and badges, ask for a warrant and file a serious report on their asses if they tried that on me.

Fuck those dirty cops.

And it's true, when I lived in Jabaquara, most Lan houses were all about piracy. Cable jacking and counter-strike galore. Truth is, in general you don't see anyone buying legal software unless they run a business that gets audited. We have so much more serious stuff going on, legal software is extremely overpriced and you find people selling pirate CDs on every street, the notion of copyright infringement is slim at best. You have people hijacking cable modems, open Wi-Fis everywhere.

On the bright side, our government loves Linux, thanks to our *nix zealots in the south and our leftist president. They're doing a bunch of cool stuff like putting linux boxes in public schools, computers with Internet at subways and such. There's a serious Digital Inclusion program going on, wouldn't be a bad place to get a job in IT right now.

Telefonica is such a crappy, old and monopolist ISP, can't even keep their backbone running right, let alone implement any sort of verification or throttling. They are so bad they were actually banned from selling ADSL by Anatel for almost a year. But they virtually own the entire state, cable being available only in São Paulo and adjacent cities.

NET and Ajato are a little better, though both throttle P2P (unless you encrypt) and have a monthly cap (that can be circumvented by changing your MAC address).

And they are all heavily overpriced. I pay around U$70/mo for a sloppy 2Mb Telefonica ADSL that rarely reaches 200kbps. Their boxes are saturated and their tech support is a joke.

Compared to those fellas, we are the Pirate Party. Yarr!

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