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Comment: At least they tried (Score 1) 191

by arugulatarsus (#31659066) Attached to: 15 Years of Microsoft Bob
I know Bob is considered one of the worst failing designs for a ... whatever it was... ever. BUT, I applaud Microsoft for trying something new like that. They surely analyzed the market and thought this would solve a problem.The people here are not going to use bob, but for new users, maybe bob helped a bit.
I kinda feel it's like bashing apple for learning about touchpads in the newton.

Comment: Resource sharing? (Score 1) 191

by arugulatarsus (#29872021) Attached to: Tilera To Release 100-Core Processor
Any news on how the busses will be shared? This is an issue that most CPU manufacturers will look away from. Remember FB-DDRram? I can actually imagine an arbitrator bigger than the CPU in this multi-core architecture. You need something to help it scale.
To explain my point a bit better: Imaging you have 100 computer all hooked up to a 10 / 100 hub (not switch ) and every computer has a bit torrent client opened. Same thing with the CPU and most modern buses. Your potential lag time to the bus is 99 other CPUs doing their shtick.
In TFA they mention blocks sharing switch points. Does that mean people will be encouraged to set affinities for data locality? Consider me to be an old fart, but I really would like some real world junk thrown at this or disclosure on the design.

Comment: Some other factors (Score 2, Insightful) 567

by arugulatarsus (#29796295) Attached to: 1/3 of People Can't Tell 48Kbps Audio From 160Kbps
There are a lot of things to mention in this article. They are using VERY high end hardware that can interpolate the sound and cause sound clipping (which makes things sound metallic) to be minimized. They also didn't mention what songs were chosen. A lot of music is mastered to sound good on poor quality speakers and thus the 48 Kbps may actually not be the limiting factor.
At least there going to be a new reason to sell audio snake oil now.

Comment: this reminds me of wing commander (Score 1) 590

by arugulatarsus (#28906429) Attached to: Games Fail To Portray Gender and Ethnic Diversity
In the older wing commander games (WC1) there was a caucasian pilgrim, a scott, a canuck, a japanese woman, a beligian woman, an angolan, an aussie, a maori... it was pretty diverse.
Then in wing commander 2, they added more flavour.
Unfortunately, come wc3, the cast was whitewashed. I admit, I missed it, but I understand that 1 char of each race ends up being cliched and a circus look

Comment: Great news (Score 4, Funny) 104

by arugulatarsus (#28771231) Attached to: 802.11n Should Be Finalized By September
Now maybe some networking companies can start releasing wireless N products.

On another note, imagine how much the nerd herd is going to have to work to sell a netowrk product now.
Chuck: "OK, you can get this router which is a draft N, but this new N product will do everything the draft N product does for 20$ more"
Client: "All these letters confuse me and make me belligerent. Can't we only use one letter? "
Chuck: "Ok, howabout N?"
Client: "Why not something simpler, like A, A is the best you know."
Chuck: "Just give me 150$ for the router a 75$ for an extended warranty."
Client: "Here you go, I am easily parted from my money."

Comment: Re:Yeah, but what's the point? (Score 5, Interesting) 394

by arugulatarsus (#27496459) Attached to: Segway, GM Partner On Two-Wheeled Electric Car

Their weather (if you can call it that) is just a wee bit different as well. One of those little SMART cars would be the dumbest choice you could make for winter driving here.

My friend has a smart. My boss has a mini. We live in sunny Montreal. Here we hit 30 degrees in summer and -30 in winter. That's a 60 degree c swing yearly and in 2007-2008, we had 3 (three) meters of snowfall. In winter they put on winter tires and driver very comfortably through snow. Moreover, my boss had a jeep explorer beforehand, and he had a harder time driving it on ice than the mini.

I think countries like Norway may actually know what snow is, ice and black ice are. I understand that from an intuitive point of view, it looks weird as it seems natural that a hummer with huge tires would get a better grip on the street than a dinky little car, but the issue of sliding is more a question of friction, and these car were designed to grip the road. Their wheels are placed "SMART"ly and the weight is "SMART"ly distributed.

Comment: EZpcb (Score 3, Informative) 262

by arugulatarsus (#27357075) Attached to: Circuit Board Design For a Small Startup?
I've had nothing but success with EZPCB. They charged around 150$ for 36 boards... They design, routing and assembly services too.
The way I coordinated with them, because they are in china, is by MSN instant messenger when I was about to go to bed.
They are courteous, they make a good product, and are inexpensive.
expect a 2 week delay from order to reception.

Comment: Spending time with the kids. (Score 1) 678

by arugulatarsus (#27228125) Attached to: What Filters Are Right For Kids?
I can vouch for taking interest in your kids activities combined with noscipt or adblock doing a great job.
Your daughter will probably become savy to understand what to type in a google query and what not to type very fast. You may wish to teach her also how to read the URL name in google results and avoid the funky ones.
