Slashdot Mirror

I'm not sure about the 2 first questions.
http://www.sr.bham.ac.uk/~tjp/... seems to suggest that apparent magnitude is based on flux (=total amount of light), and not on intensity (=light density).
It means that the light density of Betelgeuse supernova would be much higher than the light density of the quarter moon. The total amount would be approximately the same. If I'm not mistaken, since the sun (32.7 arcminutes) is much bigger than Betelgeuse (0.056 arcseconds), Betelgeuse supernova would also have a much higer intensity than the Sun.

For the last one :
https://what-if.xkcd.com/129/
http://home.earthlink.net/~kit...
During a quarter moon, you only get sunlight reflected at weird angles off the moon.

xkcd

It would need agreement from John Conner.

Unless the AI was dumb, this is what would happen to John Conner.

Oblig: http://xkcd.com/538/

Oblig. xkcd

Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/435/

This guy should stick to his theories and STFU about biology.

He's a physicist. And, as any fule kno, biology is applied applied physics.

...as soon as robots can write code, the singularity hits! It is impossible to predict what that world will be like, but I am willing to wager that unemployment for programmers will be pretty low on the list of anyone's concerns.

Relevant words of a prophet.

Would you say sociology, psychology,etc are not science just because your narrow definition of science is exact science, those fields like physics, chemistry and mathematics which are leading to one single unambiguous answer?

Yes.
It's actually pretty easy to prove that economics is flawed.
Just take one of the many bullshit predictions (e.g. possibility of infinite growth) that is in direct contradiction with physical laws.
Economics isn't even on http://xkcd.com/435/.

[Backdoors are hard to find.] At this point with the exiting statement of the developers only a fool would trust Truecrypt with anything important.

Let's see: only a fool trusts things that actively lose data. (ie, bitrot, or email systems used by important people. If it's important, have 2+ independent copies)

So let's posit that TC is "sane", that it doesn't actively corrupt your data (Actual disk bitrot is another matter.)

Is it secure? (Ignoring keyloggers, CPU tampering, OS-file I/O interception, not to mention on-bus DMA controllers that have direct access to physical memory, and other out of band things? You could argue they need to detect this but they aren't an A/V vendor and you do halfway have to trust your hardware. Oh, visit CC PIN hacking via a IR camera to see your hardware "betray" you.)

Well, given a correct encryption key, things work correctly; given seemingly any incorrect key, things don't -- a very good start. So they need to protect the working in-memory key (because it's game-over if not.) They erase it if enough idle time has passed and try to keep it from being swapped out to disk. Process memory isolation is great, but in both cases the OS itself can do whatever it wants. So you have to trust the OS, at least a bit.

So, what everybody actually means: is the encryption secure? Can someone who doesn't know my password read my data due to stupid password handling, bad encryption routine choices (ROT-26), or leaky code of good routines? (Say perfect AES file encryption, but the unencrypted source file moved to the recycle bin, never mind about any corruptible buffer or stack overflows. [That's an example; TC doesn't encrypt single files.] ) Are there password collisions, ie password are actually case-insenstive? or silently truncated after 2 characters?

I suspect that you're (humans) the weakest link because of the XKCD wrench, an easily guessed password, or your likes/habits that could lead to your password. If you can't type your password it's not going to work, and you have to remember how to type it.

It seems to boil down to do you trust the vendor to act in good faith every step of the way? Let's see: -anonymous vendor, +access to source code that compiles to the released binary, +routine usage that makes sense, +updates over time, -weird final message. Personally, i trust them more than MS's native BitLocker, which is sane but has a (understandable) business-released AD key recovery function. (It's not your data but the companies, and they have keys to continue read it.) But is BL actually secure? Dunno, can't tell; we have to trust MS completely on that.

If it (TC v7.1) was good to use the day before sunset, it was good to the use day after too, until known problems arise or non-OS support kills it. But YMMV -- trust whom you see fit. So being curious: what are you using, if not TC?

Obligatory xkcd.

I wouldn't put all the blame on him. I doubt he sees himself as an expert on computing or human behaviour, but people, especially the media, blow everything he says (even casually) out of proportion just because he is one of the few "famous smart scientists".
Just read the summary/TFA again and compare it to the xkcd comic.

http://xkcd.com/799/

Go see Randall, he's a specialist on this kind of subject. https://what-if.xkcd.com/

http://xkcd.com/1377/

obligatory XKCD reference

I was too quick on the draw and thought from context that that was "obviously" a link to a different xkcd before clicking on it. I actually like the one he actually linked.

I was too quick on the draw and thought from context that that was "obviously" a link to a different xkcd before clicking on it. I actually like the one he actually linked.

Obligatory xkcd!

I just realized you linked a different comic than I thought you had from your text. The one you actually linked is actually funny and not just the preachy bullshit he's been putting out lately. I retract that half of my comment.

People are stupid. Like, really fucking dumb.

Remember when you talk like that, you're a member of the set 'people'.

People are scared of radiation because they don't understand it.
Rather then educate children todays society is more concerned with protecting them.
Relevant XKCD for dosage information.
I would be interested in how many banana doses of radiation this kit contained.
Everything is radioactive, granite countertops, bananas, sea-salt, living in Denver (higher elevations), hell carbon dating works because all life is radioactive.

It probably does, actually. There's always a very fine line between enough and too much. Hell, that's the entirety of the Ballmer Peak joke. It applies to any substance that alters brain chemistry.

I can attest to the fact that a mild buzz improves my ability to play fast-paced video games. In racing games, it's the fact that I'm not so worried about the other drivers and more mesmerized by the speed. In shooters, I'm less concerned about taking risks and getting killed, so I just attack the objective.

I can imagine that in real life, you would be less worried about the rules of the road and would concentrate more on not running into things and getting to your destination. And that's usually how drunk drivers get caught: they speed. The swerving thing is far less common, though it's also stated as an excuse for cause to pull a driver over and check whether they're drunk. (Because cops are pretty much universally petty assholes, even the "good" ones that aren't flat-out thugs.)

I can't be bothered to check something that I vaguely remember, but luckily there are many people with the personality type to do this, reading this very thread. Woot.

Doesn't #2 impose a greater cognitive load than #3? Which of course would make it more tiring to maintain in the long run.

But biology is just applied chemistry, and chemistry is just applied physics! (and then there are mathematicians)

http://xkcd.com/1138/

Plus, obligatory XKCD

I wish this was America, I hear we would be tried by a jury of our peers and I've always seeded generously http://xkcd.com/553/

Users must be able to provide officers with DL information, but officers must not be able to get any additional data.

Obligatory xkcd.

Oblig. XKCD: http://xkcd.com/385/

old problem documented here
http://xkcd.com/686/

and obligitory...xkcd

http://xkcd.com/1462/

Heh, I clicked your link, then wasted some time there, which led me to this: http://xkcd.com/301/

Obligatory: http://xkcd.com/292/

Citation.

xkcd.com/927/

The problem is not his particular slip-ups - it's the widespread nerd belief that Tor, Bitcoin and crypto are going to keep you safe from whoever-you're-a-thorn-in-the-side-to. The list of potential ways to accidentally leak your identity is massive; sooner or later, you're going to slip up. Just like what happens with all "perfect crimes".

Honestly, if you really want to be safe from arrest (at least for a while), move to Russia, pay off and/or befriend the right people, be a Putin supporter, and only do things that are a PITA to people in western countries. In the current political climate they're more likely to give you a medal than deport you.

Obligatory xkcd.

http://xkcd.com/1205/

If your SQL server is fed the paswords in plain text, you have larger security problems than injection attacks. That was my point. I don't care if there's some "worry" about SQL injection. Your passwords shouldn't make it to that system in plain text. http://xkcd.com/463/ is the first thing that pops into mind. Sure, it's safer to scrub all inputs for SQL injection, but if you are scrubbing content the SQL can never see for it, you are doing something wrong.

... the Macrobiome in her Gut Fauna could have been out of whack.

Oblig.
http://xkcd.com/1343/

Infrastructures

I think you were just successfully nerd-sniped.

This story has been up for an hour and and there hasn't been one reference to the obligatory.

Xkcd Duty Calls

I'm now "designing" something in my head that does all that. You load it with a coffee brick from time to time (it'll send an email when you're low), and obviously have to hook it up to the water, but otherwise it does the rest. Log in five minutes before you want coffee, enter how many mugs you'll want, and that's it.

Plus the ability to schedule them, obviously. And presumably some modern AI logic along the lines of "I see the in-laws are over, that means you'll want me to start making four cups of coffee right after you stop cooking, and also make four additional cups first thing in the morning."

Of course, if I think about this any more I'll need to consult this: http://xkcd.com/1205/

Oh, yeah, good ol' C-x M-c M-systemd

http://xkcd.com/882/

Wait, so what's wrong with trusting a 5% confidence study done 20 times?

I too have this gmail phenomenon. There are some instances where I have received e-mails from multiple sources, all to the same 'other me' (A little more ambiguous in my case as it's first initial then surname).

Some people just assume they have this e-mail.

And in true spirit of 'there's an XKCD of this', this one was always pretty relevant for me lol... http://xkcd.com/1279/

it's an xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/325/