Forgot your password?

Edward Snowden Files For Political Asylum In Russia 447

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the silly-rabbit-human-rights-are-for-Party-members dept.

Comment: Re:Gross? (Score 2) 359

by Bagels (#42996087) Attached to: NASCAR Tries To Squelch Video of Spectators Injured By Crash
I think Seumas is commenting in part on the announcers' apparent lack of concern for the safety of the drivers. Yes, the crash could be a pivotal moment in the race - but it's arguably a little warped to be audibly excited about an event that could lead to the injury/death of several of the people involved. It's a fair criticism, whether you enjoy the sport or not.

Comment: Re:The pricing is still a bit ridiculous (Score 1) 501

by Bagels (#42734541) Attached to: With 128GB, iPad Hits Surface Pro, Ultrabook Territory
Standard 2.5" - it'd fit most laptops and netbooks, but not ultra-slim ones like the Macbook Air. The one I had in mind specifically is the Samsung 840, which supposedly draws 0.071W when active and has read/write speeds of 540MB/s and 250MB/s, respectively (manufacturer's claims - probably does worse in real-world). I couldn't tell you how much of that 2.5" is casing / padding or whether it'd be possible to arrange the internal chips in an iPad-friendly fashion, but I suspect a strongly motivated corporation could fit something comparable into the iPad form factor for an awful lot less than $300 per device (and still make a sizeable profit).

All that said, Apple's not going to have much trouble finding buyers for this iPad, even at this price.

Comment: The pricing is still a bit ridiculous (Score 5, Insightful) 501

by Bagels (#42726363) Attached to: With 128GB, iPad Hits Surface Pro, Ultrabook Territory
Logarithmic pricing or not, if you're paying a $300 premium for this version of the iPad (vs. the 16GB version), that's a seriously lousy price on flash storage; typical SSD prices these days are on the order of $180 for a 250GB SSD (and I've seen sale prices as low as $140-150). Apple's doing this with a lot of other products these days, too: the RAM on their laptops isn't user-serviceable any more, so you have to buy it built-in at hugely inflated prices.

Comment: Re:Wind Electricity (Score 2) 413

by Bagels (#40827561) Attached to: Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens
My understanding is that wind exposure increases temperature change. If the air temperature is below your body temperature, wind will actually cool you down faster (hence the weather report's inclusion of a 'wind chill factor' during the winter months). That said, if it's warmer than your body temperature, exposure to wind will increase your body temperature, and in warm climates (like India) such temperatures are entirely possible.

Air cooling is almost always effective for devices like your computer's CPU/GPU as they're generally much warmer than air temperature.

Comment: Re:Online network OK. But what about the Wii-U? (Score 1) 111

by Bagels (#38840891) Attached to: Iwata Confirms Nintendo Network, New Wii U Controller Functions
I've heard rumors that Nintendo might go to an app-store model for the Wii U that would presumably be a lot more open and XBLIG-ish than their current system (wherein they won't even consider giving you a dev kit unless you're an established development company with a dedicated office, etc.). If they actually did that they'd have to eat a bit of crow, though; Iwata and co. have come out against the app store model in the past pointing at all the crap that winds up making it through. Perhaps they're realizing that being an 'established' company doesn't prevent one from dishing out the shovelware, though, even as they lose out on indie hits like Tiny Towers that might not have made their licensing cut.

Comment: Really? (Score 2) 692

by Bagels (#37213866) Attached to: Acer CEO Declares a Tablets Bubble
The continued popularity of the iPad (and decent success enjoyed by Asus and Samsung with their respective Android tablets) would tend to put the lie to this claim. Acer's own entry into the tablet race was by all accounts a bit crap, so this sounds like some serious sour grapes to me. Also, I haven't heard from anybody in the real world who's excited about these 'ultrabooks' ; they sound like a sad marketing scheme from Intel, along the lines of their old 'Viiv' branding.

Comment: Re:I forget: is tiering good or evil? (Score 1) 348

by Bagels (#37143910) Attached to: AT&amp;T Kills $10 Texting Plan, Pushes $20 Plan
The bit that complicates it for me in this case is that this is knowing that I'm paying $20 to piggy-back on packets that are already being sent constantly anyhow. There's no incremental bandwidth usage and no real infrastructure cost associated - charging for texting is close to pure profit.

+ - Nintendo posts loss, cuts prices->

Submitted by Raenex
Raenex writes "From the article: Shares of Nintendo Co. shed a fifth of their value Friday after the Japanese video game giant posted a deep loss in the latest quarter, cut its full-year forecasts and slashed prices on its new 3DS handheld device. Nintendo on Thursday posted a net loss of 25.5 billion yen ($324 million) in the April-June period, worse than the 25.2 billion yen loss a year earlier. For the fiscal year through March 2012, Nintendo expects net profit of 20 billion yen, down 82 percent from its previous outlook, on sales of 900 billion yen. The 3DS will cost 15,000 yen in Japan starting Aug. 11, down from 25,000 yen. In the U.S., the price drops to $169.99 from $249.99 on Aug. 12. Nintendo does not set suggested retail prices for Europe but said it would lower wholesale prices by about a third. Such a big price cut so soon after a product's launch is unprecedented for Nintendo, and it's likely to annoy the loyal fans who have already bought the device, said Eiji Maeda, an analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities in Tokyo."
Link to Original Source

+ - ALDI sells Conficker-infected hard drives->

Submitted by
mukimu writes "Supermarket ALDI has been selling malware-infected hard drives in Australian stores, prompting the country's Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) to issue an security alert to users on behalf of the government.


AusCERT noted that the worm should be picked up by antivirus given it is extremely old and past its hey day when it infected Australian Banks and transport infrastructure."

Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:And so the horde of twelve year olds yells (Score 1) 223

by Bagels (#36621582) Attached to: Nintendo Trying To Win Back Core Gamers With Wii U
To be fair: Nintendo has come up with something of a solution re: the "nine-year-old's difficulty" bit. Their more recent games (Mario Galaxy 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Ocarina of time 3D) have all had "super guide" functionality - basically, a system that will optionally take over and play part of the game for you if you suck at nine-year-old levels. Seems like they've used that as leverage to start making their games properly challenging again for the rest of us. (Good thing, too; I don't think I died once during Twilight Princess or Wind Waker.)
