Slashdot Mirror


User: wwalker

wwalker's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
201
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 201

  1. Not this crap again. Didn't they bust this myth on Mythbusters too? It doesn't matter what you hit, a wall or another object travelling at an arbitrary speed in arbitrary direction. All that matters is delta V. If you were travelling at 50 mph and then as the result of collision ended up travelling 0 mph -- it absolutely doesn't matter what was the object that you hit, a wall, or another car with similar mass head on -- the kinetic energy that you need to dissipate is exactly the same. Yeah, there are nuances about crumple zones and unlike the wall, you hardly every stop at exactly 0 mph with head on collision, but that's minor details.

    It's a different story if you hit a truck with a much larger mass, and the truck continues on its path with slightly reduced speed (i.e. it plows through your car). Then yeah, it's much worse, because you get some of the truck's kinetic energy. On the other hand, if you hit a bike head on, you win hands down. But assuming both cars involved in a head-on collision are about the same mass (and ignoring crumple zones and any residual speed you might have), it will be exactly the same as hitting a wall.

  2. 15%?! It's 30%. Both Apple and Android/Google. I'm sure larger companies like Netflix can negotiate a lower percentage, but for everyone else, it's 30%. Even Epic is releasing Fortnite for Android completely outside of the app store (on their own website), to avoid the 30% tax.

  3. Hardware is secondary on 'It's Time to End the Yearly Smartphone Launch Event' (vice.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    The main distinguishing feature for me in a smartphone is plain stock Android. No non-removable bloatware from marketing partners, and no manufacturer's customizations for the sake of customizations. I don't want to learn Samsung's way of doing the same thing, and then re-learn Motorola's way of doing the same thing, etc.. You can't avoid Google apps with Android, but I can avoid all other crap on my phone, so until Samsung/etc. can offer a decent phone that runs plain stock Android, I'm sticking with the Pixel line.

    Also it has to support Project Fi. Fuck all cell phone carriers combined, the less I have to deal with any of them, the better.

  4. When a deadly strain of monkey flu infected one of the dumb humans, he kept breathing air out and coughing, infecting other dumb humans in the warehouse, who kept doing the same, infecting even more workers. While smart robots kept going and didn't care. See, it goes both ways.

  5. To be clear, Google is not powering all of its energy consumption with renewable energy. It's matching what it consumes with equal amounts of purchased renewable energy. For every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, it buys a kilowatt-hour from a wind or solar farm built specifically for Google.

    What?! "To be clear" my ass. After reading this half a dozen times, I still don't understand what they mean. What's clear is that they are buying renewable energy, but not using it. Where does it go? How can you buy energy, but not use it? You can't just dump it, or recycle it.

    Are they paying the power company, but not consuming any of it? But that's not "buying energy", that's just paying someone to do nothing. Can I get that money then? I promise to produce the required energy in a renewable way, by using this perpetual motion device I invented. Yeah, the energy is definitely being produced, but you don't need any of it, so it just stays within the device.

    Or are they giving the energy away after they buy it? Where can I get that free Google energy then?!

  6. No true Scotsman on Major New Study Confirms Antidepressants Really Do Work (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Quote from the actual study:
    "We excluded quasi-randomised trials and trials that were incomplete or included 20% or more of participants with bipolar disorder, psychotic depression, or treatment-resistant depression". (emphasis mine)

    So yeah, it works, unless it doesn't, in which case we'll exclude those instances. No true Scotsman indeed.

  7. As soon as you see "anagram" mentioned as part of the process to decode a cipher, you can stop reading, it's not a solution. If you allow for an arbitrary arrangement of letters or symbols as part of the solution, you can arrive at pretty much *any* text as the result, with no real connection to the cipher you started with.

  8. Why nobody thought of The Simpsons? on What Disney's Acquisition of Fox Means For the Future of Film and TV (qz.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So Simpsons are now owned by Disney? Boy, oh, boy! Since Fox has been a running joke in many Simpsons episodes, I can't wait to see what they come up with about their new overlords.

  9. Here's what bothers me... on Equifax Breach is Very Possibly the Worst Leak of Personal Info Ever (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    Why was the system with everyone's SSNs connected to internet at all? Why was it not air gapped?! You don't need plaintext SSN included on anyone's credit report, it's only used for authentication (shouldn't be, but too late to change it now I guess). So why not treat it as passwords? As in, properly salted and hashed. And then you don't have to worry about it being stolen. Did they even hire any security experts when designing the system?!

  10. Ramming storage into a 42U rack is fine but... on Intel Unveils One-Petabyte Storage Servers For Data Centers (theinquirer.net) · · Score: 1

    single 1U server rack.

    That's a really small rack. Why would anyone create a server rack with just a single 1U capacity? /s

  11. Re:"more arrests as AlphaBay users are tracked dow on AlphaBay Owner Used Email Address For Both AlphaBay and LinkedIn Profile. · · Score: 1

    Oh and the & itself is written & in case you're wondering.

    Infinite recursion detected.

  12. I don't understand why coding is treated like a simple skill, similar to, say, typing, that anyone can learn. I'm not saying you need a talent, but definitely not everybody can code, and even fewer can produce quality code. And there is nothing worse than poorly written code created by someone who learned to code to get a high-paying job, but who doesn't really get coding. You know, unnecessarily complex and convoluted, full of bugs, impossible to debug or rewrite part of it. When it's easier and faster to start from scratch than to fix the mess they created. I'm not saying we shouldn't promote learning how to code, but forcing everyone to learn it is like forcing everyone to learn how to write poetry.

  13. I haven't read the article, but... on SpaceX's Next Launch Carries Colonies Of A Drug-Resistant Superbug (businessinsider.com.au) · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one thinking this is pointless, as far as the proposed reasoning for this experiment is concerned? My guess is that this is an experiment just to see what happens (like most other science experiments), but it was sold to the higher-ups responsible for funding this project (and possibly the general public) with easy-to-understand, but completely pointless premise. It's pointless for at least two reasons:

    1) Mutations are *random*. There is no predetermined path that evolution will take place. Otherwise every isolated continent would have had the exact same set of animals/birds/insects/etc., as they all started from the same primordial slime. It's like looking at the previous lottery numbers to decide what to play in the next lottery. Completely pointless, but doesn't stop people from developing "strategies". The only thing you can predict is that the evolved bacteria will be different and will be better/fitter at surviving. How different and for what reason better/fitter -- there is no predicting that as there are literally billions upon billions of ways it can go.

    2) Conditions in space will be quite different from down here. It's called "survival of the fittest". "Fittest" for the specific conditions we have down here. MRSA bacteria lives and survives in and around people. Moreover, it lives and survives in and around people treated with various antibiotics. Whatever will survive up there in space will be "fittest" for those conditions, and will likely be nothing like what we'll see in real hospitals. I mean, they might as well get a petri dish and take an X-ray of it every 10 minutes and see what happens, to get fast mutations. No need to send anything into space. Not for that reason.

    Again, I'm not poopooing the experiment, I'm just saying I hope whoever is running it is not delusional. Or at least smarter than me. Or is it I? As you see, the bar is pretty low, so I'm hopeful. :)

  14. Russians hack everything on Krebs Pinpoints the Likely Author of the Mirai Botnet (engadget.com) · · Score: 2

    Wait, I thought it was Russians? After all, "Mirai" means "gullible" in Russian.

  15. > "Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."

      Sounds like someone is a bit butthurt, considering DNC was doing the exact same thing to Bernie Sanders, and it didn't quite work out as expected in the end. Come to think of it, it's actually ironic, that if DNC didn't sabotage Bernie, there would be no emails to leak, so there would be much less leverage in the alleged attempt to influence the elections, by exposing DNC's dirty laundry. So, basically, DNC did it to themselves, and double-time. Too bad the whole country has to suffer as the result too...

  16. What the actual fuck? on Uber Admits To Self-driving Car 'Problem' in Bike Lanes As Safety Concerns Mount (theguardian.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > claiming its rejection of government authority was "an important issue of principle."

    Which means next time you see a self-driving Uber, feel free to scratch the fuck out of it any way you see fit, break the headlights, or even steal it if you like. Since Uber doesn't recognize the government authority on principal, they must have given up police protection as well.

  17. Solution: install open source firmware on Vulnerability Prompts Warning: Stop Using Netgear WiFi Routers (securityledger.com) · · Score: 1

    There is absolutely no reason to keep using the stock firmware (other than laziness), and many reasons not to (see this story). If you don't know where to start: https://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/in...

  18. Math is hard, let's go shopping!

  19. Can someone explain this to me? on A Naked Black Hole Is Screaming Through the Universe (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    So, the name black hole comes from the fact that this object is so massive, nothing can escape its gravitational pull, even light. So, how is it "belching deadly x-rays" or even "hemorrhaging ionized gas"?! Would something escaping it render this object not a black hole any more?

  20. Are they just covering their asses liability-wise, or are they really trying to put restrictions on how I use their product after I bought it? I own it, dammit! It's none of their business if I decide to use it for my mobile pet grooming business or anything else.

  21. Does this imply that the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light? Wouldn't that be a contradiction of the speed of light being the fastest speed you can travel at? Can someone who read the article shed some light on this? :)

  22. Hello hell. on Microsoft Could Bring Windows Hello To Android, iPhone (thurrott.com) · · Score: 1

    Why would I need Windows Hell on my... Oh, sorry, didn't see the "o" at the end there... (yes, I'm a karma whore)

  23. Re:Who cares? on Smoking Permanently Damages Your DNA, Study Finds (nbcnews.com) · · Score: 1

    Repeat after me: correlation doesn't imply causation. Otherwise we'd have to conclude that water is poison, considering 99% of all people who died drank water shortly before they died. Just because a country has both high consumption of wine and longer than average lifespan, does not mean one causes the other.

  24. Domains â websites on Reddit Brings Down North Korea's Entire Internet (mirror.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    Call me a domain Nazi, but not every registered domain is a website, and there could be many websites hosted on the same domain (including, but not limited to subdomains), and multiple domains can resolve to the same IP/website. Is Google one website? Even Gmail is a subdomain of google.com. So we can't say for sure how many websites there are in North Korea based solely on domain data.

    (So much for a Unicode support?)

  25. No upgrade for you on New Intel and AMD Chips Will Only Support Windows 10 (pcworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Alrighty then, I guess I'm not upgrading my notebook any time soon then. There was no real reason to do it, and now I have a real reason not to do it. And if it breaks, I'll pick up something used for cheap that can run what *I* want, and not what Microsoft/Intel/AMD wants me to run with artificial limitations. And then they wonder why PC sales are in deep decline...