Posts by GoGlen

Storage startup WekaIO punts latency-slashing parallel file system tech

You all are smarter than me - my CompSci degree is 28 years old. I used floppy discs (5"). So I'm going to simply say "cool".

SanDisk man tipped off his family to Fusion-io fusion, bagged $220k in share snatch – says SEC

I/O Error

Idiot Operator between keyboard and chair.

What did the one Toshiba desktop SSD say to the other? Our cell size has shrunk

Interesting "lifetime" usage

The lifetime for the new "Pro" is 640 TB writing for a 1TB drive.

So, each bit is expected to be able to be written 1x/day for 2 years and then its a brick? Yeah, on average, and I know there are a lot of wiggles, bits and bytes, but given that this is almost double the previous reliability, is... intriguing.

Looking at usage in a NAS, where parity is striped, this could mean lots of writes even in mostly constant data, due to blocks of new parity bits. Yes, its all about reducing risk, spinny disks are inherently a single point of failure, like motors, arms, etc, suddenly can render the entire disk dead. SSD at least dies (in theory) slowly, and (again, in theory) has built in RAID-ish redundancy, so one would like to believe that a drive nearing its EOL can still have remaining data read, possibly at the cost of losing free space.

But, there is still the single failure point of the SSD controller, etc.

I propose a new standard. Lets permanently punch the bits onto stacks of paper. That way, we can trust it. Except the 2000 Florida ballots.

India continues subsidising elite IT schools

Re: A country's best resource is educated people

Here in CA, we see poorly written resumes from people who went to "Java College"... scary. Even talented ones who have worked (and are tech leads) in our Pleasanton office for many years... still cannot properly pluralize or articulate English.

'Bladdered' Utah couple cuffed in church lawn sex outrage

ARGH!

Better warning needed. You cannot UNSEE pictures like those 2.

ATM hacker Barnaby Jack's death blamed on accidental drug overdose

Re: Commence conspiracy theories.

Not sure if joking, psyx - the Secret Service is a branch of the US Treasury department that is tasked with protecting the President and all US (and foreign visiting) officials. And with finding prostitutes in Columbia.

Mall lurk man: Apple smashes Microsoft in Black Friday fondle wars

Re: Surface Tension

Um, I know we have regular sales tax here -- but VAT is "Value ADDED Tax". It is not a straight 20% of sales price.

It is 20% of the additional cost over the BOM... at least that's my understanding ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT

"The value added to a product by or with a business is the sale price charged to its customer, minus the cost of materials and other taxable inputs. A VAT is like a sales tax in that ultimately only the end consumer is taxed. It differs from the sales tax in that, with the latter, the tax is collected and remitted to the government only once, at the point of purchase by the end consumer. With the VAT, collections, remittances to the government, and credits for taxes already paid occur each time a business in the supply chain purchases products."

Chinese e-tailer to build 1,000 empty stores

Re: What's the point?

Quote: "1200sq/m seems like a fuck-ton of space for 1,000 pictures of food - I mean, there only has to be one picture of each, so whats the extra space for?!"

Um, silly -- for the lines and crowds trying to get to the best deals and fast-diminishing stock! Oh... wait...

Foxconn: We're not FORCING interns to make iPhone 5

Re: "W O W the dimwitted are still banging about about OH SO LAST FCKING DECADE IdoitPhone?"

quote:

I find it both amusing and appropriate that you are unable to spell "idiot".

Hmmm... I read it as the I-Do-It-Phone ;)

The Oatmeal hits $850,000 goal for Tesla museum

"Page Views" and "hits" are not good measures

I've never really had much "interaction" with The Oatmeal (ie, vaguely heard of it, never visited it) until this recent fuss over copying and the Carreon lawyer.

However, what bothers me about this money/publicity grab, are the stats. Yes - those boring things called "numbers". Statisticians love to manipulate them into "facts" they can twist.

Raw "realists" like to see the same numbers to try to de-personalize the results.

The Oatmeal stats: per his own "comic" page about it, he says: averages 7m unique visitors, 30m page views-- what length? Per day (each person doing 4 pages?) Per month, with only ~230k visitors/day (each doing 4 pages)...???

The next paragraph says 100m visitors in 3 years, with 1B total pages. That means each visitor only averaged 10 pages. Assuming 90% only read one page, hated it, and never came back... then, over 3 years, each only did 100 pages - or 30 pages a year (3 pages per month)... hardly "impressive" for a daily comic.

Thus, sadly, if you assume 20 pages per person per month - that is 1 million viewers (720M page views over 3 years) and ~300k "one time" viewers.

:Beer, because the math / advertizing rates / The Oatmeal income rates... fails to match no matter how I torture the stats.

Apple pounces on Samsung doc as proof of 'slavish copy' claims

Re: You miss the point of this forum

You don't have to have "more money than brains" to own an iThing.

You simply have to have enough money to qualify to buy it because you THINK you're "rich". Many of my wife's friends have iPhones, iPads, etc - yet have had their houses foreclosed, huge debts, etc.

There is a simple explanation: They're financially stupid. They think it is cool to own an iThing and want to... even though Apple's filings show they PROFIT (average) $150/year per iThing. Every Darn Year It Still Works.

Do the math - 4 year life for the hardware = $600 PROFIT (not gross) into Apple's coffers. It's as overpriced as healthcare is in our USA.

Android activations near a million a day

Re: Metro Make Benefit Glorious Windows Phone 8

"reliable information" throwing out absolutely bizarre numbers that are multiple times MS's own numbers... by an anonymous coward.

Yeah. OK.

Facebook tests parental-guidance tools in plan to pull in under-13s

Re: Ah but

My wife's cousin (we call her our "niece" as she is young enough to be our daughter, just entered college) is visiting.

Apparently, FB & even Twitter are "yesterday". She's all about Tumblr. With me in my 40's, I know less about that, than Twitter - which I've no interest in. Ironically, I've a Computer Sciences degree (UT Austin), and have worked for IBM, Intel, HP, etc, as a "systems analyst". I just choose to disconnect when I leave work!

I'm still getting the hang of text messages ;)

Re: kids adverts

They know you're married. This is *exactly* why you are getting dating ads. Many dating sites earn a lot from married folks looking for a "little extra something". Some, like ashleymaddison, are completely open about it.

How to put "Stuxnet author" on your CV

"Created forward-thinking unique software"

During my tenure with Department X of Some Government, I was a project manager facilitating the development of powerful new software required to push the boundaries of current data collection to an evolutionary new level.

Due to the projects I led, the world experienced radically new shifts in security procedures and paranoid delusions.

Boffins build all-silicon CNOT gate

The next step towards Star Trek's "Computer? Please analyze..."

I know the Star Trek lore always refers to the computer as being banks of "FTL" (Faster Than Light) processors (which explains why the recipient of an intercom "hail" receives the message in "real time" while nobody else does) - but this will help make a quantum leap in performance.

Excuse me. Scott Bakula is at my door. Apparently, it is no coincidence that he starred in Quantum Leap, and a Star Trek series... and the fact that he's ringing my doorbell before I post this is further proof.

TiVo spits out monster 6-way Pace box for US eyes only

6 tuners? Wow. We never need more than 3

We have 2 2-tuner DirecTV DVRs. 99.9 of what we need never exceeds 2 channels - like 2 hours per year, we need to intentionally schedule something on the bedroom DVR.

Otherwise, the bedroom DVR contains duplicates of the family room - so my wife can watch in either place. Inefficient? Yes, but DirecTV wants to add like $5/mo for "multi-room viewing"; it was cheaper to get a 2nd DVR 2 years ago.

Don't get me wrong - I support these products. One reason we never really need more than 2 streams, is there are often such frequent "repeat" showings of the same shows - and, we often have to tweak those manually. Thus, a mega-tuner would *save* us time...

I do hope to return to TiVo. We bought our first one in 1998 (single-tuner over-the-air), used it until moving to DirecTV in 2004 - when we had 2 DirecTV TiVos (each with 2 tuners) until having to move to their home-brand DVR in 2008 for HD... and, almost daily, we lament the horrible software. Notably, we detest the "live TV" picture in the corner. This slows down the UI so much; often we tune to a non-existent channel (black screen saying "call xxx to subscribe")... but makes the UI laser-fast! If we could "turn-off" the live view, we'd be happy!

Yeah, I think aliens are manipulating us. But, there cannot possibly be extraterrestrial life -- if there were, we'd hear them laughing! :)

Oracle: HP settlement is 'not going to happen'

Hmm... HP fired John Hurd, who is now big-honch at Oracle... coincidence?

Nah. There could not possibly be any bitterness between them.

After all, John Hurd is getting mega-bucks from his BFF Larry. Chances are, they need to cut expenses to justify the absurd salary for Hurd (a position that was created out-of-thin-air, for no reason other than for John).

iTunes fanbois outraged by Apple's sex-life quiz probe

Re: I laugh at these simple "security" scenarios :(

Ah, forgot one more rule - cannot change a PW more than 1x/day. Specifically for this reason.

So, at "full speed", it would take 24 days to return to your original password.

I laugh at these simple "security" scenarios :(

OK, not; I envy them. I work in the civilian healthcare industry for the US Military. Our security must comply with Department Of Defense requirements.

15 character password, minimum 1 upper, 1 lower, 1 number, 1 special.

Must change every 60 days

Must change more than 4 characters/time

No dictionary words embedded in the password

Cannot re-use any of the last 24 passwords.

Account is locked after 3 failed attempts within 1 hour - meaning a max of 71 attempts/day if you were timing it for a guess every 20.05 minutes.

(so how can one "crack" a 15-char ugly password with 71 guesses/day?)

Security questions? Must supply 6 questions, unique answers, min 4 chars each. Answer like 4 of them to initiate a reset.

>means your first car better not be a BMW.

>my favorite movie shifts, as does my favorite music, food, etc.

>> Solution? Complex formula, I had to write a code for, so I can generate my pw. I'm a geek... how are doctors or nurses supposed to handle this? THEY WRITE IT ON A POST-IT NOTE.

UK Ministry of Defence eyes GPS patent payoff

So, I merely imagine using GPS in the '90s?

Coz when I traveled, I often paid extra for Hertz rent-a-car to activate the GPS device in the vehicle... but the British Government invented the tech in the 2000's?

Is this sort of like where Australia invented WiFi?

iPad queue hog doesn’t want it, won’t be first

Fool... money... parted. Need more explanation?

So, somebody spent (a) time gaining their foothold, and (b) holding it.

They don't actually want it, and now find their prestige may evaporate. Sorry, it is hard to have pity OR empathy. Their choices; they "bought" (what they hoped was "FIRST") failed. Now, they're left trying to stay afloat, hoping to regain something to justify their bizarre investment of time.

Darwin called. He's wondering why you didn't report to processing a few years ago...

Apple iPad sales slip as cheap Android tablet tsunami looms

Where did you get your (made up) numbers?

Apple stated the iPad2 would sell for $399. Yet, you "categorically" made your comparison between a $199 Kindle and a $299 "iPad 2".

Please, see the book on the edge of your desk? It's called "reality". Apple hasn't read it yet, so you're not allowed to, either.

They've not finished milking the market for their margins, so would rather sell less than accept $100/less per item. They need that! With only $100,000,000,000 in the bank ($100 billion), and a stock value making them the most valuable in history, they cannot possibly afford to sell iPads for less than $200/profit/each. Kindle, potentially losing $10/each... "does not compute".

Acer's proud Wang: We're on the rise at last

I saw what you did with the title...

Went for the title-aying wordplay ;)

Foxconn beefs up iPhone output to 400k units a day

Because YOUR job salary has nothing to do with laws?

"Unionized" and "Over paid"? In other words, laws that try to protect corporations from creating domestic sweat shops? Like the 1800's?

Sure, you think that "minimum wage" is "anti-business" -- but business's #1 job is: extracting as much money, from everyone it can, with a minimum of outlay.

Apple is the king of this. They manufacture iPhones for maybe $200, but extract $600-$700 (when factoring in contracts. They also profit, from their own disclosures, $150 per iDevice (ipod, fone, pad, etc) per year.

They are sitting on over $80 BILLION cash. That is enough to employ 1.6 MILLION people at $50,000/year, for one year, just to find new ways. Yes, 1.6 million NEW JOBS.

Do they? No. They know that they already extract every extra dollar they can out of every iFan with money. They don't want to create new jobs NOR do they want to employ Americans. Apple wants to HARVEST MONEY.

Roll that, and smoke it.

Universal Music sued by its artists over downloads dosh

The industry already treats it as a license!

If you actually bought your tune from iTunes, you'd legally be allowed to move it to other devices, etc. They're already treating each iTunes "purchase" as a license to play that tune on an Apple device only (specifically, when they were DRM protected).

Now, its coming back to bite them... yay!

Netflix whisks DreamWorks deal from under HBO's nose

Though I do not like rate increases - I am very tired of the too-often-used and inaccurate (due to incomplete) mantra that "netflix raised their prices by 60%".

No, only for the worst-case-scenario, did the rate go up that much. What is the % of users it affected?

We started Netflix years ago, at $16.99/mo for 3-at-a time. It crept up to $20.99, but added streaming during those years.

Now, it raised to $24.99 - a 19% increase. This is the plan most people are on, from various articles.

However, I can drop streaming... and be right back to $16.99 for... 3-at-a-time. Hmmm - sounds like the exact same price as I was paying in 2005!

I just lament the name change. Kvakster or whatever.

RIM share price nosedives following stinky numbers

Wow, how its fallen - high of $148

At what point does it become a tailspin and virtually impossible to turn around? The stock high was $148 in June 2008... now about 1/7 that.

Pretty soon, their patents are going to be all they have left. I wonder if Googlerola will try to buy them (and become Research in Moogle)?

HP: webOS will still run PCs and printers

I heard a graphics card will run WebOS

It's being developed by Bitboys Oy :)

Man reveals secret recipe behind undeletable cookies

Hot News: Free sites want money from ads

I'm mixed about this. Often, one is browsing content for free - which is basically funded by advertisers.

Advertisers pay a specific amount, based on what they can expect to get in return. Think of it simply as:

(a) Random ad image

(b) Targeted ad image that should be something the visitor MIGHT be interested in

(c) Focused ad that definitely is "up the alley" of the visitor.

A website (Reg, Ars, etc) must pull in enough money to survive. (a) ads pay the least, (b) more since users are more likely to click, and (c) the most.

I'm on the fence. I have trained myself to ignore virtually all ads (and, yes, when I see the rapid spastic "Click The Monkey", I adblock or RIP it). However, I do click on some - if they are things I'm genuinely interested in.

Like with TiVo; I have often reviewed to watch something that looked interesting. Often, movie trailers that I merely add yo my Netfix queue :)

GE brings holographic storage back from the dead

Will the disc melt before write is finished?

If I recall, these lasers put out a chunk of heat - such that good ripping software (EAC) has a 10-min cool-down pause per hour.

Writing probably uses more power than reading. 3 or 30 hours (depending on speed) -- they'll need serious cooling to ensure you don't end up with a pile of holographic plastic slag dripping out of the drive!

(flame because it's... well... hot!)

Microsoft boffins propose cloudy home furnaces

Think city-scale or larger!

New York has a maze of pipes, still in use today, that carry steam from a central furnace to lots of industrial consumers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

Not sure about efficiencies, but could heat pumps scale like this?

However, my first thought was turning Canada into a Data Furnace, much like Iceland is virtually energy independent due to geothermal.

Google drops Schmidt for Elop, Android for WinPho 7

Sleepy

It took me until the 2nd paragraph to "get it"... oops!

Beer - must have had too much of it last night.

MS smartphone share falls despite WinPho 7

Sad - article implications

Article says WP7 is trending low -- then implies the reason is WP7 is only selling on a few **PHONES** - "Samsung & LG were the #1 & #2 SMARTPHONE providers with 24& & 20%"

Fast forward to the next sentence... oh, whoops, those manufacturers were NOT the top WP7 sellers. Nope, sorry; those manufacturers sold **MORE** Android phones. OOPS! Sorry, left that info out.

Sorry, MS only had 8% of the total market (big drop) - even though 2 companies who make many Android phones (and also each make ONE MS WinFone7) made the tops -- even though their WP7 phones were **NOT** the reason...

Mozilla unfurls twelfth and last Firefox 4 beta

Not all "radical" UI changes are for the best

Too often, somebody (some company, etc) makes a radical change -- and then everybody thinks they have to do the same thing to not seem like they are "out of date".

Think about bell-bottom pants from the 1970's. They were in. Then, they went to tight. Sheeple followed. Fast-forward a few cycles, now it is hanging-low-exposing-butt-crack. Really? If something is **COMFORTABLE**, I prefer to continue to use it... even if young sheeple don't.

WinAmp did it right. They moved to a sort-of-radical new look, but kept the NATIVE "classic" look. Yes, today, I still use it. I am a minimalist - it is a simple UI that has what I need with no flashy icons.

Firefox was that way... until 4.0. Sure, **SOME** people may like the new look (keeping up with the Joneses), but the other way was fine. I can understand needing to minimalize the interface if suddenly you have *LOTS* of new functionality you need to make available - and it would clutter the old menus... but, the "new" way simply makes things take more clicks (hides menus) and in return you get a teeny-tiny more screen real estate.

Really? I have a not-so-great 1920x1200 (several years old) - and never run any windowed (non-video) items full screen -- or even full height or full width. YES, I LIKE HAVING EASY ACCESS TO ALL FUNCTIONS.

Fortunately, there are hidden options and addons to restore the menus, status bar, etc to Firefox 4. If I were running on a netbook... then I'd appreciate the screen savings. But, please, just make it a simple menu choice: [ ] I prefer a minimal UI... [ ] I prefer to have all options immediately accessible.