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Agreed. The variation of password rules means that any algorithm a person uses to come up with a password ends up being site-specific. Some site require special characters, but ban certain special characters - some sites ban special characters altogether. Some of these seem to be concerned that people will use the "Little Bobby Table" http://xkcd.com/327/ name as a password by banning the dollar sign or apostrophe - the thought that systems might be vulnerable to quoting problems in the password gives me the security creeps in a really special way.

Oblig. xkcd.

Here's the link I think you're referring to: Verizon doesn't know dollars from cents

Randall Munroe (of XKCD fame) wrote a legendary check to Verizon afterwards in response to this incident. "What now, bitches?"

log2(1,000,000) is only 19.9 bits. log2(100,000,000,000,000) is 46.5 bits.

An 8-character random password with upper/lower+numbers only has log2(62^8) = 47.6 bits. If you're serious about security, use something longer. A 16-character password has 95.3 bits.

tl;dr: Memorize a random 16-character password, and use it to to access your password vault of other 16-character random passwords.

Even better, pick some song lyrics as your password -- especially lyrics you have wrong inside your head. That way the password can be really long and extremely difficult to guess. Add in spaces and punctuation and it's even better:

There must be some kind of way out of here, said the joker to his feet

would make an excellent password. And It's really easy to remember. Much easier than something akin to correcthorsebatterystaple

Why are we still using passwords?

Pass phrases are far more secure, and easier to remember.

http://xkcd.com/936/

- To play devil's advocate -

So you saw an argument where one side was the devil, and you were like "man, that guy could use an advocate."

Dunning-Kruger is all over this thread, isn't it?

http://xkcd.com/1112/
http://xkcd.com/793/

The Venn diagram mapping "Maths" ability against critical thinking ability is not a pure union... which perhaps you have just demonstrated, if we can presume that you are yourself good at mathematics.

Dunning-Kruger is all over this thread, isn't it?

http://xkcd.com/1112/
http://xkcd.com/793/

The Venn diagram mapping "Maths" ability against critical thinking ability is not a pure union... which perhaps you have just demonstrated, if we can presume that you are yourself good at mathematics.

3. Flush anybody questionable with 2-5 days of IV vitamin C 80,000 mg tid, 50,000 iu vitamin D3 per day, selenium and zinc. These kill viruses.

Hahaha. :D

Well that sounds like the solution to http://xkcd.com/792/ 's problems...

On a serious note though, I won't shed a tear for CryptoRush.in. Using the same password on a small, no-reputation mining pool as the admin access to a currency exchange!?! That's a huge fail even by the lowest security standards, and these guys should know better.

Then what about getting coins stolen from the hot wallet and not even flagging the loss? What's even the point of an offline wallet when you don't reconcile the hot wallet before adding funds to it?? Another huge neglect on their part.

I actually it's probably a good thing they're now out of business because with that level of laxity, if not now there's no doubt it would have happened later, likely with more users and bigger balances... It's just sad for those who lost their coins in the process.

Kinda like this?
https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

"This flow of material effectively turns the entire surface of the Moon into a rocket engine—and a surprisingly efficient one, too. Using lasers to blast off surface material like this is called laser ablation, and it turns out to be a promising method for spacecraft propulsion."

Because the people who don't like emacs don't use it. No one builds software with emacs as a dependency and then tried to get every Linux environment to use it as a core dependency.

True, although GNU info... er, sorry, GNU info had a good college try at inflicting the emacs help system on the world.

In case you didn't have it memorized already.

It means that 4% of the time, the results could occur by chance. How many different soda studies have there been?

For all I know they might have been looking at a lot of different nutrition factors and only reported those which appeared significant after the experiment (obligatory xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/882/ )

http://xkcd.com/927/

I'll stick with Xorg, kthx.

However there is a case where there is a vocal minority using the product for a niche use, that the product isn't designed for.

XKCD

Believe me we have enough imperfection built in already. Your child doesn't need any additional burdens. Keep in mind this child is still you, only the best of you. You could conceive a thousand times and never get such a result.

Too bad the film was a box office flop since it was sci-fi film without explosions, lens flares, buxom scantily clad green women, and/or laser swords. Also at this point there are probably a lot of people who haven't seen the movie since it is 17 years old (and now I feel old) and it hasn't been that popular. Good story, wonderfully shot, well acted, and explores topics that are becoming prescient, just not what people think of when they hear it is a sci-fi movie. Just tell someone it is a drama and it is usually much more readily received.

[...] delaying the calculation of the Ultimate question

I thought that the Ultimate Question was recently changed to "Where do birds go when it rains?"
Not sure how "42" factors into that, though...

http://xkcd.com/605/

Don't write your post in the headline, and also, judging from the summary it doesn't seem like they are about to get to the point of ITER anytime soon.

They say the design can be built and tested within a year, and they expect an operational reactor within a decade

Or to paraphrase it. A non energy-generating test within a year (Already done in other projects.) and functional fusion power in ten years. (Together with flying cars, ideal batteries, quantum computers, a self sustaining moon base and all other neat things that we have been supposed to see in ten years from now for a couple of decades.)

Check XKCD for a reasonable accurate translation table.

Maybe the reactor has no height.

xkcd.com/792

Obligatory XKCD

Of course increasing temperatures to 462'C (864'F) isn't necessary to screw things up royally for ourselves. 4-5'C would be enough.

For a given security level more iterations means you can have a shorter password. In this case, if it really is 300 times slower to try a password in a brute force or dictionary attack, you can drop log(2, 300) = 8.2 bits of entropy. According to xkcd 936 typical naive passwords have ~ 28 bits /11 character = 2.55 bits of entropy per character. This means you can drop ~log(2, 300) / (28/11) = 3.2 characters from your password and keep the same security. Alternatively, you could keep the same password and its as good as if it were 3.2 characters longer. Note: this is just assuming the best case of 300 times harder and a crappy passwords. Realistically it's less effective than that, but you get the idea.

http://xkcd.com/538/

http://xkcd.com/539/

So, 3 sick patients leads to 1 sick healthcare worker. That isn't a particularly good ratio. If we had 100 people with Ebola then you'd expect 33 sick healthcare workers, and then you'd expect those to go on an infect another 11, then another 4, and then one more for good measure. If you're keeping count that is 50 healthcare workers in total, from treating 100 sick people.

Extrapolation from small numbers is rarely a sensible idea.

Sure, it is a silly extrapolation. My point is just that we aren't taking this seriously enough.

So, 3 sick patients leads to 1 sick healthcare worker. That isn't a particularly good ratio. If we had 100 people with Ebola then you'd expect 33 sick healthcare workers, and then you'd expect those to go on an infect another 11, then another 4, and then one more for good measure. If you're keeping count that is 50 healthcare workers in total, from treating 100 sick people.

Extrapolation from small numbers is rarely a sensible idea.

The evidence is continued exponential growth of Ebola to recent past.

Be careful of extrapolation.

So, 3 sick patients leads to 1 sick healthcare worker. That isn't a particularly good ratio. If we had 100 people with Ebola then you'd expect 33 sick healthcare workers, and then you'd expect those to go on an infect another 11, then another 4, and then one more for good measure. If you're keeping count that is 50 healthcare workers in total, from treating 100 sick people.

Oblig xkcd: http://xkcd.com/605/

Nonsense! At this rate they should have 10,000 times as many by next year!

Obligatory XKCD on extrapolation

Seems legit

obligatory link

Actually, it's Bobby Tables

/Oblg. "Good 'ol Emacs" http://xkcd.com/378/ :-)

Absolutely, after all correlation between genetics and IQ is clearly ridiculous. I mean nobody believes in genetics are an inheritable trait, right? .

If you think you don't have time to automate more jobs, but spend most of your time fixing problems caused by lack of automation, you are mistaken.

Obligatory xkcd.

And if you don't like that one, there's this.

If you think you don't have time to automate more jobs, but spend most of your time fixing problems caused by lack of automation, you are mistaken.

Obligatory xkcd.

And if you don't like that one, there's this.

xkcd 810.

http://xkcd.com/979/

http://xkcd.com/1258/

Getting into orbit isn't about height, it's about speed. The vast majority of the work an orbital rocket does is to get going fast enough - getting the height is pretty easy by comparison.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

obligatory xkcd strip

What is engineering but applied math and physics?

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

You sure you didn't mean http://xkcd.com/538/ ?

(so much wisdom in xkcd...)

If enough people use encrypted communication, it will only be a matter of time before the use of encryption is made a crime.

Obligatory:
http://xkcd.com/504/

Yep there's one about it!
It made me not get very enthusiastic about app stores and such.

Bullshit. I can still see the pixels. I have an eye for these things that most people don't.

So there's an XKCD that's about you then?