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Comment: Re:talent! (Score 1) 512

by Sc4Freak (#43375877) Attached to: H-1B Cap Reached Today; Didn't Get In? Too Bad

Uh, it's pretty well known that all of the big tech companies pay quite well. In the pacific northwest (Amazon, Microsoft) H-1B salaries for graduates with 4-year bachelor's degrees start at around $100k, fresh out of college. It's even higher in Silicon Valley (Facebook, Google, Apple, etc.), although it's offset by higher living costs.

Comment: Re:A very MS centric blog indeed... (Score 3, Informative) 357

by Sc4Freak (#41694467) Attached to: Surface RT vs. iPad: a Comparison

The other day, MS's engineering team did an AMA on reddit where they answered the question of screen resolution:


Some more links to share if you want to know more (http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF.html)... Also This is a great book to read if you really want to get into it: http://www.amazon.com/Contrast-Sensitivity-Effects-Quality-Monograph/dp/0819434965 or more here http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra2/9901043.pdf

So it seems that Microsoft has data that suggests that, despite the lower resolution, the Surface has greater precieved detail than the iPad. (although I find it annoying that they've muddied the waters by re-using trademarks - they've repurposed "Cleartype Display" as the MS equivalent of Apple's "Retina Display")

Comment: Re:The NYSE shouldn't reverse trades. (Score 2) 223

by Sc4Freak (#40994103) Attached to: Knight Trading Losses Attributed To Old, Dormant Software

I use a method by the late great Harry Browne he called failsafe investing.

Here is the summary. Divide your investment into quarters.
25% S&P 500 stocks
25% 30 year Treasury Bonds
25% 100% Treasury Money Market (If you can find one. They pretty much all went under after they put FDIC on money markets)
25% Gold Bullion Coins
The beauty of it is that when anything bad happens it is usually people running from one of these to another. This allows you to automatically buy low and sell high.

So in other words it's like traditional portfolio theory except worse?


by Sc4Freak (#40994087) Attached to: Knight Trading Losses Attributed To Old, Dormant Software

That isn't true. The pure idiocy and stupidity rampant in American politics means that the US government can default, just like they came close to doing a while ago. That's why the rating on government bonds was dropped to AA - the fact that default was even being considered as a possibility is utterly mindboggling.

Economically there's no reason why the government would ever default. Instead it's the pure unadultered retardation of the politicans in this country that have ensured that an investment that should be risk-free, actually isn't. And that's just so insane that I still have trouble believing that we actually managed to get ourselves into this situation.

Comment: Re:DirectX? (Score 1) 711

by Sc4Freak (#40694741) Attached to: Microsoft Office 2013 Not Compatible With Windows XP, Vista

I'm sorry to have to ask this, but are you retarded? Honestly.

Hardware acceleration means that the drawing/animations/etc are done faster, more efficiently, and with lower power. And if you don't have hardware acceleration available, it falls back to software. There is not a single conceivable case in which you would prefer software over hardware-accelerated rendering - if it's available the hardware does the same thing, except faster and more efficiently. If you prefer to do everything in software, feel free to rip the graphics card from your PC and go back to your P-133.

Comment: Re:Wait, what now? (Score 4, Informative) 462

by Sc4Freak (#40117851) Attached to: Free Desktop Software Development Dead In Windows 8

The Windows SDK won't ship with MSVC, but Visual Studio Express 11 still does. Visual Studio Express 11 still includes the full compiler toolkits and you're free to use those however you want as you could with the Windows SDK. But the IDE itself will only support creation of Metro-style projects.

Comment: Re:New options? (Score 2) 219

Er, because any filesystem can have nonfatal minor errors? For example a filesystem that uses a bitmap to track free space (like NTFS does) can have that bitmap corrupted by bad sectors or whatever. Things like that are sufficiently simple that you can attempt a repair while the volume is online, without major risk of failure.

Comment: Re:What I want to know is... (Score 2) 163

by Sc4Freak (#39870265) Attached to: German Court Grants Motorola Xbox and Windows 7 Sales Ban

The German courts and legal system doesn't listen to the US judge. That much is patently obvious, because the US has no jurisdiction in Germany.

But Motorola is a US company who does business in the US. Hence it must abide by US laws and rulings. The US judge said to Motorola, "even if you win the case in Germany, you must not follow through on the ban on MS products in Germany until I have made my ruling here." That doesn't infringe on German jurisdiction.

Comment: "Arise Sir Jonathan Ive"? (Score 4, Informative) 183

by Sc4Freak (#38547202) Attached to: Arise SIR Jonathan Ive

In ceremony of knighting, the knight-elect kneels on a knighting-stool in front of The Queen, who then lays the sword blade on the knight's right and then left shoulder.

After he has been dubbed, the new knight stands up, and The Queen invests the knight with the insignia of the Order to which he has been appointed, or the Badge of a Knight Bachelor.

Contrary to popular belief, the words 'Arise, Sir ...' are not used.

Source: royal.gov.uk

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