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Oblig XKCD

http://xkcd.com/1268/
They can keep the water bugs, I'll stick to steak.

Whatever this is, it is not "online piracy".

No ships have been illegally seized, not a single cutlass has been brandished.

Maybe you didn't brandish a cutlass, but some of us do! I can't believe I am linking XKCD but I guess there is a first time for everything.

And the reason I have a Twitter account devoted to emergencies. http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/seismic_waves.png

Don't be so sure about physical security. The day after 12 people were killed in a shooting at Navy Yard in DC, some dude lobbed firecrackers at the White House.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/white-house-firecrackers_n_3937556.html

Likewise, you might need to go through millimeter wave scans to get through security, but your seeing million dollar scanners at the front door doesn't mean that the back door isn't wide open. It's criticized as "security theater" because it's only meant to make you FEEL safe. As XKCD explains, there are plenty of easy and common loopholes in the system:
https://xkcd.com/651/

http://xkcd.com/927/

The conclusion might be premature, but if they are correct, well what does that make you?

A sceptic? I don't care what you're trying to prove two data points don't make a trend.

This has all happened before.

* Absurd questions demand surreal answers, and the surreal answer to every question is "a fish".

So it has come to this.

Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/538/

Obligatory...

http://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

This debate reminds me of an old xkcd...

Apparently neural networks are news to the dot.com guy who submitted the article...

There's ten thousand every day,

Password Reuse, September 13, 2010

dot tumbler dot com

http://xkcd.com/1025/

If you extrapolate just a little bit...

You lost me.
http://xkcd.com/605/

How is it wasting your time if it inspires someone to prove you wrong? Isn't that what discovery is about?

Ah, I see... a case of age/experience induced:
a. wisdom - on the line of "for those always prepared to learn, nothing in this world is useless" (optimistic stance: there is some control over their own destiny)
b. enhanced skill in finding "ex post factum justifications", very useful in continuing to go ahead with the life (pessimistic stance: everything is useless, the most one can do is to bear whatever fate comes with).
c. a mixture of the above in any proportion.

(grin: congrats, you are likely to survive living with yourself, maybe you will reach - if not already there - the point of liking yourself)

Paging Mr. A. Sorkin to the writing room...

Now, this seems to suggest a quite high proportion of a. into the mixture.
(the opposite would be to illustrate that being proved wrong is nothing more than showing someone is on Duty Call).

(peace, brother. Just kidding... or trying to... To be frank, I am wasting my time on /. posing as a witty person. Anything to get a break from that boring documentation).

Yeah, I don't need to say any more: http://xkcd.com/610/

The golden era of humanity.

The CBR doesn't derive just from the science performed, but also by inspiring the coming generation to enter scientific fields.

Obligatory XKCD
 

Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1022/

Except that you need to overcome the gravity well of earth and (parts of) the sun. Here, I have an illustrative xkcd refecence: http://xkcd.com/681_large/.

If you look at that particular diagram, you don't see "orders of magnitude" difference between Earth and Io especially once you including kinetic energy (a good portion of the energy required to get to Europa is just consumed staying out of the Earth's atmosphere). And energy is not particularly hard or expensive to come by.

Have you seen the rockets built for voyager?

Launch the pieces of the vehicle and its propellant via rockets used today into LEO and assemble. Solar-electric propulsion with aerocapture maneuvers using Jupiter's atmosphere would work. I think the bigger problem would be coming up with the funding and a means to try out the technology. That is currently many orders of magnitude.

Except that you need to overcome the gravity well of earth and (parts of) the sun. Here, I have an illustrative xkcd refecence: http://xkcd.com/681_large/.

You are comparing apples and oranges here. The speed in LEO is (mostly) constant. The (bits of) the ISS where once injected into orbit with significant energy and since then not much additional energy is needed to get the ISS going. (In LEO there is still some atmosphere and slows down the ISS and this is equalised occasionally.) But when you go to a different planet (or moon of), you need to thrust sufficiently to get earth escape velocity, which is significantly more than LEO. In addition, if you are going to the outer planets you need overcome the gravitational pull of the sun. (The inner planets you speed up by "falling" to the sun.)

Have you seen the rockets built for voyager? These where huge and it was for a small probe that was smaller than a compact car. Getting into space is hard and the rocket equation is a bitch.

Well, if this concept pans out, we'd be able to calculate all kinds of particle interactions we'd never be able to observe otherwise because those interaction would just be different facets of The One True Gem

Crap, so the "Time Cube" guy was right all along? ;-)

What this news made me think of at first was Steve Waterman's crazy theory that the properties of fundamental particles are based on their geometric shapes, those being defined by the polyhedra named after himself based on close-packing of equal spheres.

(He was featured in this xkcd which spawned an epic forum thread and its sequel, wherein we all attempted to explain relativity and some basic geometry to him.)

Well, if this concept pans out, we'd be able to calculate all kinds of particle interactions we'd never be able to observe otherwise because those interaction would just be different facets of The One True Gem

Crap, so the "Time Cube" guy was right all along? ;-)

What this news made me think of at first was Steve Waterman's crazy theory that the properties of fundamental particles are based on their geometric shapes, those being defined by the polyhedra named after himself based on close-packing of equal spheres.

(He was featured in this xkcd which spawned an epic forum thread and its sequel, wherein we all attempted to explain relativity and some basic geometry to him.)

Well, if this concept pans out, we'd be able to calculate all kinds of particle interactions we'd never be able to observe otherwise because those interaction would just be different facets of The One True Gem

Crap, so the "Time Cube" guy was right all along? ;-)

What this news made me think of at first was Steve Waterman's crazy theory that the properties of fundamental particles are based on their geometric shapes, those being defined by the polyhedra named after himself based on close-packing of equal spheres.

(He was featured in this xkcd which spawned an epic forum thread and its sequel, wherein we all attempted to explain relativity and some basic geometry to him.)

The idea that everything should be consolidated into one system is not in the spirit of the internet.

Oblig xkcd

I guess she's one of them.

Unfortunately, this is a much less delightful revelation...and, well, she's Brazilian not American...but c'mon lady.

xkcd's Purity. In the other hand, can't take out of my head that Kepler originally tried to match that the orbits of the 6 known planets at that time with the shapes of the platonic solids, and this could face the same risk.

Well, it's sort of like this XKCD cartoon: http://xkcd.com/149/

Except instead of "Sudo make me a sandwich", the response is "Make me a sandwich or the terrorists win." Then give knowledge of this to lawmakers and others in positions of power who want certain legislation passed. As long as they can "elevate permissions" via the "terrorist command", this will continue.

I was thinking more on the lines of:

http://xkcd.com/1200/

http://xkcd.com/927/

The problem is that the NSA and GCHQ have dual mandates. They are responsible for both ensuring their respective countries are not vulnerable to attacks and for ensuring that they have techniques for attacking others.

I read a science fiction story a year ago (Daemon) that had the absolute best idea of very specific crypto usage, and I _really think_ the current NSA and such have always been implementing that.

They assume that "We're [the NSA] Number One" and everybody else is either behind or way, WAY behind. So: they weaken the initial crypto magic number standards just enough so that they can still manage to break it. #2 will eventually figure it out (or 13 can just ask 1600) and the #3 guys could just ask nicely, but #23 will just never get it, even though they're all playing the catch-up game. So NSA weakened crypto would apply to public content and most secrets with a time sensitive content; the REAL secrets use the non-weakened crypto strain or OTP.

Thus the NSA can walk the fine line that pays tribute to both of their conflicting demands: it's secure from everyone else, but not secure from THEM (the NSA) unless they want it to be.

But if somehow on-demand the NSA can't break into the crypto, there's always the $5,000 wrench. (This IS the government we're talking about, remember.)

Year of the Linux desktop has already happend several times. It's like Voyager leaving the solar system. http://xkcd.com/1189/

Obligatory xkcd

i could just write 'wooosh', but instead...
http://xkcd.com/573/

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". Maybe Google just sucks at being evil?

The moment I plugged it into my laptop, even before plugging the iPhone in, the laptop turned off. No damage. Being naturally curious I tried it again and it was repeatable.

Sounds like you are a scientist. Congratulations!

A real programmer would use butterflies!

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/turing_test.png

"I just had an awesome idea. Suppose the entire observable universe exists as a 3d brane on the edge of a 4 dimensional black hole."

"Okay. What would that imply?"

"I dunno."

http://xkcd.com/810/

xkcd, Reassuring: http://xkcd.com/1263/

I get the technical reasons why this would allow the flexibility of easily porting/running iOS apps on OS X Macs ...

Except that there aren't any such reasons; 64-bit iOS does not appear to be any more like 64-bit OS X than 32-bit iOS is like 32-bit OS X.

and...

The vast majority of apps developed for iOS are designed to work better with the limitations of a very portable device (small screen, limited memory and disk storage, etc.). In most cases, they already have more full-featured and capable counterparts that run on regular computer operating systems.

...that's the case. Maybe the "core" of the apps can be shared by the iOS and OS X apps, but the UI's going to be different because 1) Cocoa and Cocoa Touch are different and 2) the machine characteristics are different (which is why Cocoa and Cocoa Touch are different).

Many times, the only reason an "app" exists for iOS (or Android) is to improve an experience that's just fine with a web browser on a Mac or PC, but winds up sub-par on a small touchscreen device.

Well, hopefully it's an improvement.

one faction points out that ads are funding much of the (commercial) Web, and if you suppress them, you won't have all that Free Content.

To this, I reply: Hotels

The odds of my ad blocking putting a website out of business are negligible.
If you're quick with the knife, you'll find the invisible hand is made of delicious invisible meat.

Red in tooth and claw free market captialism swings both ways baby! WOO HOO!

Sorry, that's not on the chart

http://what-if.xkcd.com/62/

Obligatory xkcd (from three days ago!!!): http://what-if.xkcd.com/62/

oblig