Sirius goes missing in space

SO WHEN you say "readers' letters are a fine example…" shorely you mean…

I wonder if they thought I was daft after Penguin Raider? Volesoft? And who could forget… behind the lines at CeBIT 2004?.

We hope they didn't operate on your head those many healthy years ago.

: ) Neal

That was the stupidest thing I've ever read -> your name is Andrew Thomas right?

Why does Mageek let you print this trash -> start charging mike more and have him fire those other hacks.

Quit your job and stick to quaffing pints full time -> Start "translating" the worst user mail and make it a bi-weekly feature, because most of us appreciate how dumb it is, and hopefully you can piss off those who have no sense of humour enough to give you more ammunition... or just let those other boffins you work with "keep up the good work".

P*** off and die -> rock on mate, have a good one

Enraged dork -> sincerely
Eric G

Kids shot, stabbed while cops nick wi-fi man

This bit of morality you speak of is the same as having our law enforcement agencies involved in raiding the homes and small businesses for mod chips for the xBox.

You don't think that the DHS has the charter to protect us from terrorism? Yet they are in full force to take down mod chip makers, under the guise that they are involved in money laundering which leads to funding terrorism! What a laughable argument, yet they got away with it. Not only that they set up a multi-State raid to do just that.

Our tax payer dollars would be better used having them protect our citizenry against real crimes that lead to kids being exposed to drugs, to them being shot or killed in drive by shootings. He'll those dollars would be better spent just getting those kids involved in something technical and science oriented. So, they take away the openness one achieves by actually performing the mod chip upgrades.

This is just pathetic and stupid to have the police authorities going after someone who was nicking some bit of bandwidth from an open WI-FI. And, what if the person with the open WI-FI actually wanted it open? Does it mean there was a crime? Hell no. Soon they'll be claiming that an open WI-FI promotes un-metered anonymous use by potential terrorists for illegal communication and then arrest everyone with an open WI-FI.

Jim B

Dear Sir, I am no prude, but

That gave me a good laugh.

Several actually. Well done.

Thanks.

That article gave me a well needed laugh on a frustrating afternoon of dealing with "user issues."

"I've never read such rubbish I am a Fox News viewer"

That one especially brought a smile to my face.

Apo@somewhere.com

Everywhere girl - I havent seen this one on the inquirer before.... maybe I dont read it enough though ;-)

Here.

Joel S

Boffins build evanescent laser

You would of course be thinking of effervescent, when speaking of bubbling lasers. Evanescent is another beast entirely, but as your story was probably written on the way to the local boozer your mind was filled with joy over the up and coming of the evanescence of the effervescent contents of your pint glass? :)

Jay.

Every software firm in world sued over patent

Patents are stupid. They're as stupid as saying Christopher Columbus discovered North America, which he did not! Because it's not about who invented what first, it's about who got recognition for it first.

ttl

AMD has squandered a golden opportunity

Hello Mike,

I wanna make a few comments on the article posted on the Inquirer:

AMD should have done a Quad-Core last year, when Intel released their dual-die Quad Core Processor. People ignore completely that AMD has done this, in the only reasonable way, they released the 4x4 Platform. There is for AMD no other reasonable way, because of their difference in architecture. Let put this clear, Intel Processors still use the old shared frontside bus technologie.

So you have one bus, with its traces on the mainboard connecting to each socket. All communication to Memory or any other parts of a computer go through this Bus. So if you put 2 dies on one socket, simply spoken, you connect all Socket Pins for Power, Clocksignal, FSB and so on via an "Y" circuitry to both dies and it is done.

There will be no performance difference between a Single Core - Two Socket system and a Dual Core - Single socket system, as for 4 Socket Single Core against QuadCore Single Socket. Every communication is still going through the FSB (ok, exception the shared Level 2 Cache in Core2Duo architecture should leverage the problem a bit).

Lets take AMD system, where today all experts are agreeing, that the Hypertransport and Integrated Memory Controller technology is more modern, eliminating the classic system bottlenecks. But how should they do a dual die, one socket quadcore processor? Each die has its memory controller, the socket has only traces for one memory controller. So should only one die be connected to the memory? the other die must talk via HT to the other die and then to the memory? Performance hit here.

Another way is each die connects only to ONE channel, but does this work without reworking on mainboards and sockets? Also here: Performance hit. And now the connection to the periphals, via HT. Which die will be connected via HT to the outside world? There are 3 HT connects on each Opteron, 1 on each Athlon64. With 2 dies you have 6 connections, or 2 on Athlon64. 2 are needed to talk from one die to the other, since it is a point-to-point connection. So standard Athlon64 cannot be used, since there will be no HT connection left for the periphals.

And on Opteron? 6 are available, two are used for internal connectivity, and 3 are on the socket, which die will be connected? Without changing the Socket and Infrastructure, based on the actual architecture a Quadcore was not feasible for AMD the way Intel did it, they need to do a "true" Quadcore, where all cpu's are connected via the Crossbar Switch to HT and Memory Controller.

So people should use their brain, before saying AMD should have done a Quadcore the way Intel did it, because it is almost impossible to do, or at least there will be all advantages of the Opteron Architecture gone.

Oliver R

Wi-Fi link stretches 190 miles

"So what's the big deal? Well, now ham radio operators on Sardinia can keep in touch with their pals on the Italian peninsula. Thank heavens for that. µ"

Ever tried it?

This is how high speed gets to people not served by the local carriers.

Glen Waldrop

Hi There,

Usually I cringe when I hear "paradigm shift". This is the first time that I have come across something like that and have not felt like the person saying those words deserves to have a vacation on an island that is inhabited only by Steve Ballmer.

OSK

Hi there,

I was opening a Google account the other day and it the word for the word verification was "nonse"

I was most shocked that Google would include such a word for me to verify!

Best regards,
Liam B

Adamson Rust and All

Lets see...

1. Adamson Rust

Drama Snouts
Sonata Drums
Stardom Anus<- my favorite :D
Mansard To Us
Satan Do Rums
Mad Sans Tour
Mad Anus Rots
Mad Ant Sours
Damn Ass Tour
Dormant As Us
And Soar Smut
And Ass Tumor
Road Mass Nut
Soda Man Rust
Soda RAM Nuts
Soda Arm Stun
And of course Nostradamus.

2. Eva Glass

Gavel Ass
Slave Gas
Vase Lags
Save Gals
And of course Las Vegas.

3. Cher Price

Perch Rice
And of course Rich Creep.

Source: Anagram engine

Regards,
Igor

The DRMurai

Hi there! I just wanted to inform you guys about the huge discussions about Bioshocks Securom DRM protection over at the offical forums, it's pretty insane. First of the DRM is horrible and almost impossible to remove from your computer, secondly the forum moderators and developers at irrational games are closing down and locking the threads which dicuss the DRM protection.

Cheers
// Hjalmar Mill

Windows XP is the bee's b*ll*cks

why on earth would you say that "XP is not that great. It's ugly, and its functionality is quickly becoming horribly outdated."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is NOT ugly, and that would be a subjective opinion anyway....which it looks like that's all you've got. XP is a HIGHLY stable robust OS that has PLENTY of leggs left. There is VERY, VERY, VERY few things that Vista can do that XP cannot in providing more Functionality for the user. XP is not quirky in any way, where do you GET this....stuff? It took MS until SP2 to get it there, but it IS here and will be for a long time I'd say....many business do NOT want to use Vista, and I can hardly blame them.....there are MANY MANY MANY problems with it still.....most of which revolve around drivers....

Alan

Patent Place

Just think where we would all be if early cave man had patented the wheel.

I think patents should have a fixed shelf-life, if you can't reap a return in say 5 years - hard-luck - it goes public.

The world would be far better off.

Roger

Why oh why oh why oh wi-fi?

This is really very strange...after all, anyone who is computer literate would assume that if a person has an open network, or unsecure network they are in fact INVITING whoever wishes to piggy-back. What other reason would anyone have for no security? in extreme circumstances you might need to disable security to get a better signal etc, but even then you could define work station MAC addresses.

In my area there are 9 wireless networks, 8 are secure and 1 is not. After locating the network originating from a neighbours house I have told him about the problem and he said he "doesn't care" why would it be a crime for anyone to use his connection? why would iut be a crime to leave his connection open?

If an ISP does not want more than one person to connect through a client's I.P. address, which many times would violate terms of use, why even allow the option and send an unsecure wireless router?

I completely agree with the article...arresting someone over such activities is a load of horseshit. Law makers really need to have a second look at this, it stinks.

If you care to wonder about possible disaster scenerios in this matter, most laptops are set to load an available wireless network when in range. So your computer might be the reason you are arrested, in theory a person could then blame microsoft or the wireless card driver manufacturer. Along such lines there are nearly endless disaster scenerios which are simply laughable.

Just my rant, w00tseaker.

One Star Not in Sight

Dear Sir

I just have one question. Why is that we don't have a clear picture of the star named Sirius? We make better pictures from the other side of our universe. Sirius is just 8.6 LE away. And in Google Earth this star is cut out! I can zoom in on many nebula's and galaxies and see it in it's full glory. But when I zoom in on Sirius...I find just a big yellow spot.

You might have better connections and you could ask around. Thank you.

Jakra