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User: hakey

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  1. Don't get me started. Computer mice don't even look real. Computer scientists are so dumb they think trees grow with their branches and leaves pointed downward. I would like to see someone smoke a hash function, you can't!

  2. Nuclear is about 4% of world energy consumption. Don't know if the tech has evolved sufficiently yet to replace renewables.

  3. Re:How long will we be able to sequester carbon? on Australian University Unveils New Carbon-Trapping Bricks · · Score: 1

    So more like planet of the gerbils?

  4. Re:200 miles or 400 km? on Cassini Discovers First River On Another World · · Score: 1

    Good point, but even with high resolution images it may be hard to pinpoint the furthest "headwaters" as they may be just a trickle.

  5. Re:200 miles or 400 km? on Cassini Discovers First River On Another World · · Score: 1

    Beware of false precision. If the instrument is only precise to 100 km and they measured 400 km, then it would be correct to report 200 miles and not 249 miles.

  6. Re:Why C? on New Contiki OS Network Regression Test Framework · · Score: 1

    It's designed to run on microcontrollers with kilobytes of RAM. C++ and OO are possible, but C tends to fit better.

  7. Re:Can't keep this up on Mars Rover Finds Complex Chemicals But No Organic Compounds · · Score: 1

    Go to the linked article, it uses "something remarkable" where Slashdot used "Earth-shaking" in the summary. Not sure if Slashdot changed the word, or if NPR revised the article. Either way, the over-hype is as much the fault of the media as it is NASA.

  8. Re:Architecture on Scrum/Agile Now Used To Manage Non-Tech Projects · · Score: 1

    Pouring of concrete is analogous to software going to golden master. The architecture design effort that agile would apply to is everything that leads up to that point. Also architecture isn't just about making buildings that don't fall down, not every defect leads to jail time, some defects just mean the building isn't as nice as the client hoped for.

  9. Re:Who needs fast data rates? on Neutrino-Powered Financial Trading In Our Future? · · Score: 2

    I forgot the latency through the earth which is about 42ms. So actually you would need to transmit at 100b / (150ms - 42ms) = 952bps just to break even.

  10. Re:Who needs fast data rates? on Neutrino-Powered Financial Trading In Our Future? · · Score: 1, Informative

    Hong Kong to US is about 150ms latency using conventional technology verizon. So taking your own example of needing 100 bits to transmit a useful message (I don't know if that is realistic), the message would need to be transmitted faster than 666bps just to break even with existing communications. Given the cost of neutrino detectors and the current state of technology it just doesn't seem likely.

  11. Re:freedom of Rim on How NY Gov. Cuomo Sidesteps Freedom of Information Requests With His Blackberry · · Score: 2

    I'm surprised the FOIA applies to state governments. They are independent governments from the U.S. government, and thus U.S. law only applies to U.S. government and interstate transaction. Not internal state government affairs.

    The article doesn't specifically say FOIA, just "a freedom of information request". All states have enacted there own version of FOIA.

  12. Re:Stop the clock now! on Walmart Goes Solar In California · · Score: 5, Informative
    China shuts factory after pollution protests

    China shut down a solar panel factory on Monday after hundreds of angry residents staged days of violent protests over pollution, the second such incident in as many months.

  13. Re:Make sure you patent everything on Obama To Sign 'America Invents Act of 2011' Today · · Score: 1

    I far as I can tell, first-to-file applies only to parties that keep their inventions secret, in such a case the one that files first wins. If someone publishes their invention publicly, thus establishing prior art, the invention is no longer patentable.

  14. Re:1000 seconds on CERN Ups Antimatter Confinement Record to 15+ Minutes · · Score: 1

    I can imagine in the interview the scientists trying to explain the concept of orders of magnitude. Scientist: "You see it doesn't matter if was exactly 15 or 16 minutes, the point is we can now achieve confinement for an order of magnitude of a thousand seconds." Reporter thinking to himself while writing the story: "so it's 1000 seconds, lets see thats exactly 16 minutes and 40 seconds. Now what was they where trying to explain to me about powers of 10, I better put that in to look smart, oh yeah, the more relevant number for physicists, who often deal in powers of 10, is 1,000 seconds."

  15. Re:Why fine the bank? on 8000 Credit Cards' Details Compromised In Australian Bank Breach · · Score: 1

    The summary removed the important bit. There is a second unnamed "acquiring bank" that is potentially responsible. From TFA: "Mastercard and Visa may issue penalties including fines to the acquiring bank, not CommBank, under the payment industry’s PCI-DSS compliance rules."

  16. Re:Wait on Skylon Spaceplane Design Passes Key Review · · Score: 1

    HOTOL is this an earlier version of this project. Here is the history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_Skylon#Research_and_development_programme

  17. Re:I thought this was known? on Jupiter's Moon Io Has a Volcanic Sub-Surface · · Score: 2

    From the article: "Scientists are excited we finally understand where Io's magma is coming from and have an explanation for some of the mysterious signatures we saw in some of the Galileo's magnetic field data," Krishan Khurana, lead author of the study and former co-investigator on Galileo's magnetometer team at UCLA, said.

  18. Re:What are you planning on doing next? on Is Attending a CS Conference Worth the Time? · · Score: 1

    However, student fees a generally fairly minimal. For example, the conference in question is only $45 for students, and that includes two free meals.

  19. Re:Steal the market? on Why Tablets Haven't Taken Off In Business · · Score: 1

    Maybe you are thinking about audio. They advertise "Video playback time: up to 7 hours" and "Music playback time: up to 22 hours". That is with low backlight.

  20. Re:what stuns me... on There Is No Plan B, the Ugly Transition To IPv6 · · Score: 1

    is why didn't we just go for an extension?

    Normal IPv4 is 4 sections, for IPv6 we could have added 2 sections, making IPs such as: 150.150.150.150.150.150

    It's Internet Protocol Version 6. It actually has 16 bytes.

  21. Keep Looking Up on Jack Horkheimer, 'The Star Hustler,' Dies At 72 · · Score: 4, Informative

    queue Première arabesque: I. Andantino con moto (Claude Debussy)

  22. Re:not really on Glass Invisibility Cloak Shields Infrared · · Score: 3, Informative

    measure the surrounding background heat levels and *match them*, like a chameleon matches background visual colors

    How invisibility cloaks work http://www.howstuffworks.com/invisibility-cloak.htm

  23. Re:Wow .. Grade 7 has changed on 7th Graders Find Large Cave On Mars · · Score: 1

    Some people would think that looking at cells under a microscope is more interesting than geological formations. Are these caves significantly different from those found on earth?

    Are those cells your looking at significantly different from those found on Mars?

  24. Re:Talking Through Gas? on The Truth About the Polygraph, According To the NSA · · Score: 1
  25. Re:Opera MathML support on NIST Releases Updated Handbook of Math Functions · · Score: 2, Informative

    You don't need to change user-agent. Take a look at the customization page http://dlmf.nist.gov/help/customize. I wish all sites had something like that.