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User: crovira

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Comments · 2,847

  1. Where did you get that fact from? on Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice · · Score: 2

    Most of the current sea ice is less than 10 years old is suspiciously in need of references.

  2. Re:The Mircro$oft $urface on Microsoft Continues To Lose Money With Each Surface Tablet It Sells · · Score: 1

    That's not funny, that's $ick... :-) Still with ALL the tablets they're selling, I don't imagine that the corporate bottom line is hurting too much.

  3. Re:What we've learned from Bitcoin on The Future of Cryptocurrencies · · Score: 1

    Accountants LOVE the idea that every coin you spend is traceable.
      A BitCoin like crypto currency is likely in the offing as a supplement to cash and bank transactions
    Backed by the full faith and credit of the US it is likely to be one of MANY co-existing currencies. (Just like we have now! [on paper.])

  4. Its less than the cost of a lousy hamburger on Report: Space Elevators Are Feasible · · Score: 1

    And definitely less than I spend in beer when I go out. Don't be so cheap that you're left behind... Buy it!

  5. WRONG! Make the NSA SHARE its data. on Schneier: Break Up the NSA · · Score: 1

    That it stupid, short sighed and unworkable. You can't un-see goat.se.

    Instead, make them SHARE and just learn what you can.

    We will have different uses for the data, but its just data, that WE unknowingly paid for.

    The last time that happened we got Google Maps. The time before we got the internet.

  6. Only work if documents we on computer. on S. Korea's Cyberwar Against N. Korea's Nukes · · Score: 1

    As things stand, I doubt that the NK is that advanced. It doesn't need to be. There were NO COMPUTERS when the first A-Bomb was dropped or when V2s flew.

    The purpose of an atomic bomb atop a rocket is to get near enough to a target and detonate.

    It does not need any sophistication to do so,

    it just needs enough propellant, a crude guidance system (like a cheap GPS [use existing infrastructure,] some actuators for targeting and detonation,) air bursting at height seems to generate a big blast.

  7. a long shot get mac os X on their hardware on HP Brings Back Windows 7 'By Popular Demand' As Buyers Shun Windows 8 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Fuggedaboudid. If it wasn't made by Apple, it is NOT running OS X. Apple doesn't care what YOU think or need. Apple cares about what THEY need, which is your cash. (I don't blame them. Its like being able to drop a Ford engine block into a chevy chassis. Its not happening unless you're really willing to do it, by hand, by yourself, without any support from either company.)

    Macs are mostly there for people to build applications for the Apple ecosystem, which is primarily iOS anyway.

  8. Learn Forth. on Ask Slashdot: How Many (Electronics) Gates Is That Software Algorithm? · · Score: 1

    Charles H. Moore wrote it and extended it to be able to compile directly into silicon.

    Forth is actually a TIL [Threaded Interpretive Language] but it is so easily extensible that it is possible to implement all the way to the gates.

    Moore was working with Forth to do exactly that last I heard.

  9. I can already hear the daleks... on Neural Net Learns Breakout By Watching It On Screen, Then Beats Humans · · Score: 1

    "Exterminate... Exterminate...."

    Actually, when they become advanced enough, we won't need to work anymore.

    I'll buy TWO. One to do my job and one ... just in case.

  10. And will it attract bugs? on Next-Gen Windshield Wipers To Be Based On Jet Fighter "Forcefield" Tech · · Score: 1

    Insects depend on high-frequency sound to attract mates.

    I'd hate to find my windshield suddenly covered with horny (or angry) bugs while driving, in the rain, on a dark road, on my way to the ditch, picking up a few unwanted, unexpected pedestrians, who were waiting for a bus...

  11. YES. YES, YES!!! on NSA Wants To Reveal Its Secrets To Prevent Snowden From Revealing Them First · · Score: 2

    Its about time. What really pisses me off about the NSA isn't that its just a warmed over version of Pointdexter's TIA (Total Information Awareness) but the secrecy.

    Forget about privacy. That toothpaste been squeezed out of the tube for years.

    WE'RE paying for all of this in all the ways possible and we're not seeing any benefits.

    Why not?

    Because its all supposed to be a big secret.

    SCREW the NSA's sense of entitlement to OUR data.

  12. Hardware is just petrified software. on Crossing the Divide From Software Dev To Hardware Dev · · Score: 1

    I fail to see the difficulty, or the divide, since hardware is a question of petrifying some software to enhance the operation of certain algorithms.

    I remember reading articles several years ago by Chuck Moore about what he was doing to control a silicon foundry to produce chips which would hard wire some algorithms in silicon while leaving the rest as software implementations in Forth.

    TILs (Threaded Interpreted Languages) lend themselves very well to this.

    The level of interpretation, and the repetition of interpiling, depends on what you define and cache as interpreted code. That is only one step away from petrifying it in silicon.

  13. The request was anything but polite... on David Cameron Wants the Guardian Investigated Over Snowden Files · · Score: 1

    "when asked politely by my national security adviser and cabinet secretary to destroy the files they had, they went ahead and destroyed those files"

    They knew they didn't have the only copy so they figured "WTF It's the only way we're going to get out of this basement so, screw it, we can always pick up a spare copy at our destination."

    The security adviser should have told the cabinet secretary about the reach of the internet, but he didn't bother. LOL :-)

  14. Uh, this is actually brilliant. on Would You Secure Personal Data With DRM Tools? · · Score: 1

    "some entity other than their owners" but what if YOU own and enforce it.

    "Publish" all of your data to a backup drive, apply DRM to "secure it*" and issue take downs to any intruder (like the NSA) to force them to remove it or face litigation and hassles from the sheriff.

    All you need to do is have a warning page/file at the lowest lever on the backup drive and then encrypt your backup.

    *) "Secure it" can be as flimsy as the original DVD DRM. The point is to insure the protection of the law, however unwilling the law might be to provide it.

  15. Its called the LEAP MOTION. on Researchers Create Mid-Air Haptic Feedback System For Touch Displays · · Score: 0

    I've got one. Its pretty good too. Specially for the $70 or $80 that it cost me.

    There's no story here. There's no research project either.

  16. I'd take issue with their sense of hygiene... on Cyborg Cockroach Sparks Ethics Debate · · Score: 1

    And can't believe that an ethicist would have a problem with using cockroaches for cybernetic experimentation.

    I come across a cockroach, its a race between me and the cockroach as to what's going to happen first.

    It gets to escape or it gets to become a greasy smear.

    And its not like it was a protected species... ITS A COCKROACH!

    They aren't throwing panda or unicorn steaks on the bar-b-que here.

  17. Last time i was at the track I broke even. on Fusion Reactor Breaks Even · · Score: 1

    Good thing too. I needed the money.

  18. Sure OPTIONAL safety courses. on NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website · · Score: 1

    In Switzerland they're compulsory.

    You aren't allowed to touch a weapon unsupervised before your basic training is completed.

    In the 'States, if you've got enough money to buy weapon, regardless of how you got that money, you're now armed and dangerous (to yourself and to everyone around you.)

    The NRA are a bunch of profiteers, nothing else...

  19. Utter garbage. on NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website · · Score: 1

    The amusing thing is that the increase of bullets (i.e. people owning guns) has also contributed to drops in crime rates...

    The NRA is all abut perpetuating the NRA.

    If they really believed their own rhetorical spew, they would insist that the US adopt the Swiss method.

    Every Swiss citizen serves two years in the militia, where they are educated and trained in the use of the weapon, keep their weapon when they leave, and have them in locked gun safes.

    The NRA doesn't give a crap about you, just your dues.

  20. Lead poisoning... I wonder... on NRA Launches Pro-Lead Website · · Score: 1

    Hmm. I wonder if lead poisoning could explain the NRA steadfast insistence on thinking that they have a god given right to shoot weapons.

    Their demanding to stick with lead shells, despite the demonstrated environmental harm that lead causes and the proof that copper jacketed bullets deliver superior stopping power at longer ranges seems a bit suspicious...

  21. But it has two fatal flaws... on Microsoft Cuts Surface Pro Price By $100 · · Score: 1

    1) Nobody who posts on /. actually needs one.

    2) Its from Microsoft. That's a LOT of baggage.

  22. They'll notice when the population rate declines on UK ISP Filter Will Censor More Than Porn · · Score: 1

    while the violence rate goes up. (The limbic centers for violence and sex are right next to each other, and act to produce diametrically opposite social effects.)

    This will lead to an increase of "Shaken Baby" syndrome further exacerbating the problem.

    Put this in your Red Book of predictions.

  23. From Zune to Kin to Encarta. on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    MIcrosoft is proving that it can't sell a thing unless it can apply some antitrust leverage.

  24. NO ONE would be complaining but on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    the enterprise accountants aren't interested, so NO ONE is buying.

    I maintained that the proper and fitting punishment for Microsoft's losses at their various antitrust trials was to nail their ass to the desktop.

    History is proving that I was right.

    Microsoft couldn't sell a damn thing to anyone NOT a PC manufacturer.

    ENTERPRISE doesn't acknowledge them except as an expense, CONSUMERS have had quite enough of their shoddy products.

  25. Implement M...F Ranges (GUI on Sliders.) on Transgendered Folks Encountering Document/Database ID Hassles · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are various diseases, dysmorphia, accidents and disorders that affect how one perceives one's gender and which affect how other's perceive one's gender.

    If we want an accurate Object definition for Class>>Gender it has to be implemented to have a pair of small integers as attributes and presented/interacted with as a pair of Sliders.