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User: fringd

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Comments · 48

  1. optional garbage collector? on New Release Of Nim Borrows From Python, Rust, Go, and Lisp (fossbytes.com) · · Score: 1

    There's a bit of handwaving in the introduction concerning the garbage collector. There's a compiler option to turn it off allowing you to manually manage memory, but what if libraries you're using aren't all written to manually clean up after themselves? It seems to me that one of two things will happen:

    1. Not everybody in the community manually manages their memory, making the --gc=none option impossible to use in practice.
    2. Everybody is required to manually manage their memory so that others can gc off, effectively making the memory management mandatory.

    So unless there's something more to this it seems like it's really just punting the gc decision to the community and creating confusion and uncertainty.

    Can anybody with more knowledge maybe clear this up?

  2. Re:More allergenic? on Scientists Advocate Replacing Cattle With Insects · · Score: 1

    Either get over it, or take your argument to its logical conclusion and stop living.

    you joke, but seriously, read about the Jains. They do try not to kill plants, eating no roots, and ideally no leaves, just fruits. Nor do they eat honey or milk. And your logical conclusion is accurate. The highest austerity is starvation.

    As an example Chandragupta of Maruya conquered India through military action at first, but became a Jain and continued his conquest through diplomatic marriage. In the end he became an ascetic and fasted himself to death.

  3. so beautiful on Double Eclipse Photographed, Sun, Moon, and ISS · · Score: 1

    it's almost like a triple eclipse

  4. Re:Poor backwards Indiana on An Anonymous, Verifiable E-Voting Tech · · Score: 1

    you are either a troll or like 8 years old.

    you raise one good point at the end though: ballot stuffing. it is a real problem.

    one way this is handled is by collecting and publishing a list of eligible voters ahead of time, and only producing one ticket per voter, and provide a mechanism for a voter who has NOT voted to verify that their vote was not counted.

    i'm not sure if the method talked about in this video addresses this issue well...

    i think that this method has been around for a while though, maybe 5-10 years. i got very excited about it when i first read it, but it is hard to explain, and so i don't think it will ever be used...

    condorcet voting would also be nice, but suffers the same problems

  5. Re:another requirement on An Anonymous, Verifiable E-Voting Tech · · Score: 1

    i understand your confuse. but i also understand the explanation.

    alright watch the video... see after he tears the names off the ballot? now your ballot doesn't say who each checkbox means... not in plaintext anyways, the meanings are encoded in lotsa crypto gobeldygook on the right there... you take your ballot home with you, and verify it's in the database, exactly as you see it in your hand.

    now... goon has to take your word that checkbox #1 is for the guy he wanted you to vote for, he has no way of knowing, and you don't have any way to prove it, even if you want to!

  6. Re:another requirement on An Anonymous, Verifiable E-Voting Tech · · Score: 1

    the system in question allows me to verify that my vote was correctly cast, without being able to prove it. assuming the ballots are made right, you will get the information about who each checkbox refers to, this secret is encoded in the 2d bar code, but encrypted, so that strong-arming can't work. when you rip off the names and shred them, this makes it very hard to prove to someone else who you voted for. YOU might know that checkbox #3 had ron paul next to it, you remember that, but when the thugs look at the ballot, they have no way of knowing...

    now that said, the thugs could force you to wear a little camera and video everything you do in the booth, or some other contrivance... but it's still a stiff improvement... and that is not a new risk introduced by this tech.

    another possible attack against this system is bad ballots. you have SPECIAL ballots that switch the democratic and republican candidates, and you check to see if the person has dreadlocks or a crew cut before you decide to hand them the good ballots or the bad ones. ideally the cryptography is such that only a small group of people can make valid ballots, and so you can centralize the fraud detection. this attack would require a good amount of collusion though, and any system fails if the entire world is conspiring against you (THEY ARE!!!!)

  7. Re:Poor backwards Indiana on An Anonymous, Verifiable E-Voting Tech · · Score: 2, Insightful

    that sounds pretty good, but i think this crypto-thing would be better. people are working hard on the crypt to solve real problems

    what you describe is pretty good, as it tries to fix problems with throwing the paper votes, but this improves on that a bit.

    it's features include
    * at the end i can check that my vote is in the published database of votes, which newspapers, etc can verify is added right.
    * I cannot prove to anybody else who i voted for (so they can't strong-arm me)
    * officials can not throw the votes in the trash, or a river, or bury them, or delete them... if the votes aren't in the published database people will see that their vote is missing.
    * they can not scan the votes, keep them in the database, but add it up wrong and publish a wrong total, and then throw the records out. if they add it up wrong newspapers, universities, or any old slashdotter can do the adding themselves and call bullshit.

  8. for the impatient on Google Publishes Censorship Map · · Score: 0, Redundant

    http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/governmentrequests/

  9. sneakers on Top 10 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do · · Score: 1

    sneakers is the real deal, if you want a semi-realistic hacker movie.

  10. Re:How this scam works on NASA Attempts To Assuage 2012 Fears · · Score: 1

    great idea, but actually, this is a forwards mortgage.

  11. hee on How To Keep a Web Site Local? · · Score: 1

    +funny

  12. two words on How To Keep a Web Site Local? · · Score: 1

    google maps

  13. wrong units on Universal Power Adapter Struggling For Support · · Score: 1

    I see this mistake all the time. The units look similar, mA and mAh. Also I often see mW and mWh confused in the same way.

    mAh is a unit of electric charge, like the coulomb. mAh is not a rate of charge, or a rate of energy transfer. It's basically an amount of electrons.

    A battery might say how many mAh it can store and dispense. Combined with the voltage, this would tell you how much energy the battery has.

    If you leave OpenMoko plugged in long enough you can have an arbitrary amount of mAh(until your battery is full anyhow). It has nothing to do with how fast it charges. Following your link i see you misread the article. It says mA.

    Personally I'd rather know how many mW this thing charges at. The page you link doesn't mention the voltage, but USB is specified at 5 (4.75 to 5.25), so that makes a maximum of 1000mA*5V, or 1A*5V = 5 Watts or 5000mW. This is not very fast...

    For the OpenMoko it's probably fine, the OpenMoko battery is probably not that big. For a big chunky laptop it would be terrible, it'd take maybe 4x as long to charge as discharge. You wouldn't be able to operate on battery power.

    Think about it, if the laptop needs to have enough power to operate USB peripherals, it requires significantly more power than that to operate if it's to function with a few USB peripherals plugged in.

  14. Re:Proof that competition is good on AMD Releases Open-Source R600/700 3D Code · · Score: 1

    maybe this would help people donate easily?

  15. Re:Define "Winning" on Discuss the US Presidential Election & the War · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the war in Afghanistan was in response to 9/11

    The Real truth is sadder than that. Even Afghanistan was riddled with ulterior motives. 911 was just a pretext to do what they wanted anyway. Your first clue was:

    • step 1: pass the patriot act.
    • ...
    • ok i'm not gonna write it
  16. Wrong on Exchanging Pictures To Generate Passwords · · Score: 1

    RTFA. who modded this informative? you should also RTFA.

    from TFA:

    ...even if the user has altered his hair drastically, the system can still recognize him.

    so this information IS the same if you take 100 pictures of the same person standing in the same place, or a different place, or if they cut their hair or put on a badge. the crack seems ludicrously easy.

    Sadly TFA has extremely bare details. how did this become news on slashdot? I demand more details if I'm going to be bothered. Sometimes I think the admins put bad stories up just so that we can bitch about how bad they are.

  17. Re:Oh Dear on Exchanging Pictures To Generate Passwords · · Score: 1

    Secure as in having no way of a third party listening in undetected, and getting the actual keys.

    if they are using PKE then they only need to know that the keys are not changed. it doesn't matter if the keys are simply overheard. the only keys transmitted are the public keys, which as their name suggests, are publishable.

    You only need to worry about a man in the middle attack. It doesn't matter if anybody else hears you. You only need to know that you have gotten the key that alice transmitted, and not eve's key.

    Now, none of this may really matter. TFA is extremely thin on the details, but the way they seem to be working it is this: they get some sort of fingerprint from facial pictures, -- something that won't change between one picture of a person and another picture of the same person -- and a pair of these fingerprints makes a key.

    If this is really their plan, then none of this thread matters. As a reader pointed out above, Eve can just take her own pictures of Alice and Bob, and then eve can eavesdrop on their conversation as she will have their shared key.

  18. Re:I would like to be the first to welcome on Appropriate Tech, 300mpg Car Top 2008 Innovators · · Score: 1

    ok i'll do the math 130*5+50=14*50=700

    damn. that's a lot of miles. i could go from philly to dc and back like... 2.55474453 times before refueling and plugging in.

  19. Re:I would like to be the first to welcome on Appropriate Tech, 300mpg Car Top 2008 Innovators · · Score: 1

    300mpg is the BS number. all the hybrids are putting out BS numbers though. 130mpg is the real number it seems.

  20. Re:Great, but does it really matter? on IBM Threatens To Leave ISO Over OOXML Brouhaha · · Score: 1

    On Second thought, forget the standards.

  21. Re:Solve the problem, for pete's sake on Germany Fired Up Over Clean Coal · · Score: 1

    you are not a comedian are you?

  22. math on Sub-$100 Laptops Have Finally Arrived · · Score: 1

    the inverse of 3/4 is 4/3 and 4/3 times $100 is $133.33...

  23. Re:To save you 16 minutes, on Lessig On McCain's Technology Platform · · Score: 1

    Despite the current lack of regulation I think I get a fairly fast, unrestricted Internet connection at a fairly low price. I think that as long as there are at least two providers available in any locality the market will force reasonable prices and net neutrality.

    I'm not so sure. I think that as long as it is (nearly) impossible for a new company to come along and compete (in broadband), we will be paying a premium for sub-par service. Why are you willing to let things get so close to monopoly?

    I'm all for a free market, but the tendency of a free market towards monopoly must be quashed.

  24. Re:radical Islamic moderates on McCain Supports Warrantless Domestic Surveillance · · Score: 1

    True, even if we behave well, we will still have to defend ourselves. But do not miss the point. Treating other countries and their citizens like the muck that gets on our boots when we dig for oil... well that just doesn't help the whole terrorism thing.

    people have to be _really_ pissed to blow themselves up.

  25. Re:Best metaphor ever on The Limits of Quantum Computing · · Score: 2, Informative

    incorrect. there are an equal number of possibilities, not more. he might have said more possibilities than there are atoms in a vat of 26^99 atoms.