That's like asking does any one use the internet for anything other than porn?
Posts by nk
21 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Jan 2011
Don't panic, but your Bitcoins may just vanish into the ether next month
Hold 'em, don't fold 'em: How to bite Bitcoin pools
Re: house of cards question
It could be used for another cryptocurrency
It could be used for any other need to process sha256 hashes
Or, more likely, the machines will be scrapped. Despite the ostensibly large processing power (from the specialization), the number of actual machines is rather small compared to all the consumer computers out there.
Already there are 4 generations of sha256 asics out there, 3 of which (probably but 2 for sure) are currently obsolete, not worth using any more.
I guess what happens to them is the same thing that happens to all those decade+ old laptops and desktops.
Frustrated by reboot-happy Windows 10? Creators Update hopes to take away the pain
Re: I don't understand....
If you don't leave them (all 5 of them) on 24/7 or if you check up on them all daily you'll never have a problem because you'll notice the prompts.
I have at least 2 PCs in separate locations always on and sometimes it can be days before I log on to either remotely. More often, I log on quickly to do something and I barely notice if there is a system warning.
Now, because I am aware of this "feature", I make sure to check on them relatively often to avoid a nasty surprise. But it's still frustrating when I happen to forget.
And I'm not one of those people who think windows updating is bad. On the contrary I'm quite dilligent and even considered an update zealot by some
TalkTalk website STILL down on day TWO
Reviewed: Shadowrun: Hong Kong, Until Dawn, Hearthstone expansion and more
It should be fine, even with a modern onboard card, but admittedly I have not tried that
The game does not impress visually, with its retro looks and isometric viewpoint.
Still I thoroughly enjoyed the previous 2 iterations and look forward to the latest.
Any fan of turn based action with a good storyline should check it out
Windows 10 marks the end of 'pay once, use forever' software
For crying out loud stop this madness!
You are not being charged on a monthly or any other basis for using windows 10. Not a year from now, and not 10 years from now.
Sure, at some point what you have is not going to be worth running any more. You might want to upgrade then... or not, whatever. But it's not just gonna refuse to run.
Yet all it takes is yet another crap article saying arbitrary things and baseless assumptions and all those people who can't wait, jump on the opportunity to "stick it to M$" or gloat about how happy they are with OSX or Linux. As if anybody cares.
I am not a MS employee or shareholder, just a satisfied user who's sick and tired of pointless bashing. It used to be cool 10 years ago. Now it's just stupid.
Downvote away!
Bitcoin fixes a Greek problem – but not the Greek debt problem
>So, what's to stop them just running this press until it melts? Using the local plod/squaddies to commandeer it and whisk it off to a Natanz-style fortress if necessary.
Seriously? Just because they have the equipment does not give them the right to print euros. each country has its quota of euros to print.
Not following those rules would essentially result in printing counterfeit money
Also, as a tax paying Greek, I resent that remark about not paying taxes. I know it was meant somewhat as a joke but still.
There is a huge problem with black economy. That is true. And its only gonna get worse when Europe stubbornly insists that we should increase our VAT instead of what we suggested, which is to lower it and improve collection mechanisms. What any sensible economists would suggest.
Run Windows 10 on your existing PC you say, Microsoft? Hmmm.
Re: Minimum requirements
I had a friend in the late 90s who stubbornly refused to upgrade his PC. He was of the mentality that you don't upgrade hardware until literally nothing runs on it any more. He had not upgraded from his 8086 XT until 1994.
We were joking about windows 95 (he was on still on dos of course) and I told him about the minimum requirements which he happened to meet. He had 8MB RAM and a 386DX 40 Mhz
He actually went ahead and installed win95 on that machine and told me it ran well. I did not believe it so I had to go and see it.
I must say I was very surprised as it actually did run respectably. He could browse the internet (little more than plain html at the time) and use an email client.
It was not fast but not that much slower either than my 75Mhz Pentium with 16MB RAM, provided you only did one thing at a time.
It's 2015 and Microsoft has figured out anything can break Windows
Re: Rewrite!
>Perhaps I am being only wishful, but I most definitely can say why I am making this wish and what you have failed to do is state, in a sensible way, why we should not wish that to happen.
You can wish all you like but unrealistic wishes are irrelevant.
The advantage MS has is all those other products that run on windows, and their main source of income is large organizations that run on MS software, paying for licenses.
This is their bread and butter. Still their dominant business model despite all their efforts to make a dent on other markets. And the main cash cow that makes all their other endeavors possible.
The whole home user desktop thing is a side-show by now, mostly useful for people to be familiar with their products and therefore ask for them in the workplace.
And you think that somehow, MS should spend a huge amount of effort to give everything away, adopt linux and open source their technologies so that every other vendor and their dog can rebrand them and bundle them with their own products (such as hardware and support or cloud services).
Because the linux kernel is superior...right!
You'd better drop this dream for something more attainable, like world peace for example.
Everything old is new again: Man mugged in New York, only this time for his Bitcoins
Re: Please foregive my ignorance in this but...
Who's Suzy? I only know Alice :P
Yes you could trace the transactions back but...
You still can't seize the bitcoins or ban them from trade.
You still can't ID the owner, only the address.
After many transactions with unidentified addresses the bitcoin could end up in a legitimate account that got it through a legitimate transaction. You can't expect them to know every bitcoin's history just because they own it, and you can't very well charge them for holding it.
The criminal could upload the stolen bitcoin to an online exchange. Most of them still only ask for an email UNLESS you want to withdraw cash. You can still withdraw bitcoin and certainly you can withdraw other cryptocurrencies.
Even if they only withdraw back in bitcoin in another withdrawal address, the trail is lost because the coin they get is not the same they gave the exchange. Unless the cops can force the exchange to give up the email address.
A much better plan would be to withdraw on an entirely different blockchain, preferably one built with anonymity in mind like dash or monero.
I suppose its still possible to catch them but the amount of effort is too much
Sysadmins rebel over GUI-free install for Windows Server 2016
Inside the guts of Nano Server, Microsoft's tiny new Cloud OS
Re: Registry... Why keep it?
>Does anyone really want to manage the registry completely from command line?
While possible even in cmd (albeit tiresome) it is even less of a problem in powershell.
You can mount registry hives and treat them like a file system (within PSh only though, not on windows explorer)
Ten excellent FREE PC apps to brighten your Windows
Well I suppose a browser should technically be mentioned too but its way too obvious and nobody really needs advice on that.
Office suites: We're talking free here so with MSOffice out of the picture, most people would default to Libre Office. I however find Kingsoft Office to be much better if all you need is word, excel and powerpoint alternatives. The last one is particularly well developed and definitely superior to the libre equivalent.
For an even more bare bones system, abiword and gnumeric for word and excel respectively are decent alternatives too and open most standard files.
And for as long as Optical drives are still somewhat relevant, I still install a copy of ashampoo. Great Nero alternative with all functionallity I need but without the bloat
Your Bitcoins aren't money – but it is barter, so we'll tax it, ta ... says Australia's taxman
Re: The first problem....
Call it what you like but it is easily doable
You can hide your transactions if you want and you can prove that you made them if you want. Bitcoin's system helps you both ways.
And they haven't even implemented an anonymizing transaction system yet like other cryptocurrencies
Sure any formal transaction or payment, like employee salary in bitcoin will be taxable and traceable but the bulk of transactions will not be.
Bottom line is, the authorities will never manage to tax this thing effectively
Everyone can and should learn to code? RUBBISH, says Torvalds
What they really mean by "everyone should learn to code" is everyone should be exposed to it in some form, for at least some limited time.
Its not as essential to daily life as reading and writing or basic math. That's why those skills are taught during primary education.
But coding should have its rightful place in some form or the other within the curriculum of secondary education so people may know what it's about
Code does not have to mean a full featured programming language. A spreadsheet with macros, hell even pseudocode would do
Teaching how to break down a problem into ever smaller parts until each becomes manageable is a skill that I dare say should be valuable for *everyone*. I believe that coding is a very good vehicle for that. Sure there might be better ones but I can't think of many
No one ever said people should be forced into software development. Sometimes it looks as though people make an effort to miss the point
Silicon daddy: Moore's Law about to be repealed, but don't blame physics
Microsoft: YES Windows 8.1 is finished, but NO you can't have it
US cops make 'first ever' Bitcoin seizure following house raid
Re: Legality and fractional amounts
>How does a fractional bitcoin work?
The lowest amount is 0.0000001 which is called 1 satoshi. Bitcoin can be divided up to 8 decimal points. If it catches on, perhaps further decimal points will be added in the future. 1 bitcoin is already quite a lot of money for small transactions
Finally – mind-controlled limbs without brain surgery
If I understand correctly,
Old arm nerves reassigned to certain chest muscles
Man thinks of moving arm - signal travels and eventually said chest muscles contract.
This chest muscle contraction sends another message to a receiver that translates to prosthetic hand movement
I assume those chest muscles had to exist before for a reason. That is, they would have to contract at some point regardless of reassigned arm nerves
So... what happens during those unrelated contractions? Does the prosthetic hand also move involuntarily?
'Your app will work on Windows 8 - but please rewrite it anyway'
US woman sues again over XP 'downgrade', seeks class action
its just marketing
I've seen stranger, and occasionally even paradoxical pricing schemes. They all make sense on some level, but the motivations behind them might be different from what most people assume.
Suffice it to say that some products are not expected to ever sell in any serious quantities and their sole purpose is to make other offerings from that company to look like a bargain in comparison.
Essentially, they are exploiting the way the human mind works. We tend to anchor on price way too much when making purchasing decisions