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  1. Re: String Theory on Science is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck (theatlantic.com) · · Score: 1

    Nothing to show for it?

    We have five different beyond standard model theories because of it.

    We have three different methods of falsifying string theory.

    We have a deeper understanding of what must be true regardless of how things progress beyond the standard model.

    We have a working understanding of the Pauli Exclusion Principle.

    We have a better grasp of how different models of QM manifest in broader physics.

    We understand what unifying forces actually means.

    You call that nothing?

  2. Re: Most bang for the buck ever poll on Science is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck (theatlantic.com) · · Score: 1

    They weren't free. They each probably cost the equivalent of all research in the 20th and 21st centuries combined.

    Not that I'd expect those ignorant of prehistory to know that.

    And climate research has cost very, very little, but turned up a lot for what was spent.

    Of course, those ignorant of what the research has involved or discovered are likely to be ignorant of the cost:benefit ratios.

  3. So were those who deployed him illegally. His deployment violated military law as he was deemed mentally unfit.

    So were those who posted passwords on post-it notes on secure computers, violating military law on such information.

    So were those who knowingly gunned down journalists and committed other acts of terror in violation of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention, plus US military law.

    Yet you defend those traitors.

    There can be only one law. A person cannot be guilty for embarrassing others. If they are innocent, so is he.

    US military law explicitly protects whistle blowers and those who refuse orders that violate the law.

    So legally Manning is protected by right of such laws.

    He was insane at the time, so is legally innocent by right of insanity.

    The uniform matters for nothing. You must prove guilt in this case, as you must show why medical rulings and DoD rules don't apply. You have not even tried because you can't.

  4. Re:so many things wrong here on Justice Department Is Preparing To Prosecute WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (wsj.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Snowden and Manning did their civic duty. If the government is so corrupt, civic duty is heroic then government needs to be overhauled.

    Nonetheless, they did a significant national service.

    Assange has tried to play puppet master, controlling what information is given, selecting what you can and cannot know. I see no difference between him and the Pentagon, selective manipulation for personal gain.

    If they should be prosecuted, so should he.

  5. Re:Its all been nothing more than ... on Justice Department Is Preparing To Prosecute WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    The rape charges ran out of time. We don't know the evidence, neither do you.

    Show me any of the offers you claim, infowars is not a source.

    Show me when the police could have legally extradited him, given British due process laws and the Vienna convention.

    I'm not arguing you're wrong, only lacking in details.

  6. Re:Six years in inhuman conditions on Justice Department Is Preparing To Prosecute WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    Voluntary confinement, regardless of cause.

    He can't count a personal fetish as anything beyond that.

  7. Assange is not useful. America has no loyalty, Trump less so. It's all about usefulness.

    Assange was always expendable. This is regardless of any actual crimes.

    Mind you, that's true of any government or political figure. People into politics generally can't be trusted. People who know what's good for others is automatically a control freak who cannot be trusted. Same goes for idealogues.

    Don't trust any of them.

  8. Interesting but how does it compare? on Inventors of Omnidirectional Wind Turbine Win James Dyson Award (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    The alternative energy centre in Wales has had omnidirectional wind turbines for twenty or thirty years.

    This may well be superior in some way or ways, but which ones? To what degree?

  9. Re:The thing is... on SpaceX Wins FCC Approval To Deploy 7,518 Satellites (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Only if they get that far.

  10. Re:The thing is... on SpaceX Wins FCC Approval To Deploy 7,518 Satellites (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    Golden parachutes aren't retirement funds, they're bribes to keep people silent.

  11. Never said they wrote bugs deliberately, said they stopped people from writing correctly. And, yes, I've seen programmers do both. "It's faster and the corner case won't happen" is a familiar excuse.

    Y2K was an example.

    Bad programmers, bad managers, bad specifications, seen it all. Makes me want to puke. None of it can be justified.

  12. The thing is... on SpaceX Wins FCC Approval To Deploy 7,518 Satellites (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    ...Nobody in the FCC will face any consequences if it all goes horribly wrong, so where is their motivation to not let it go horribly wrong? And how do they propose to fix things when (not if) it does?

  13. Verified C, the CERT C Secure Programming standards, the JSF coding standards, Power of Ten, the Hoard malloc replacement, Valgrind, LLVM's static checker, Z3, contract programming - all partial solutions that show some developers care.

    Linux could use a mix of these to achieve higher levels of reliability without impacting performance or capability.

    So could most software.

    And therein lies the problem. Some developers don't care, or are opposed to people caring. The numbers don't matter, one person can block a thousand. Change requires consensus.

  14. Re:Maybe... on Researchers Discover Seven New Meltdown and Spectre Attacks (zdnet.com) · · Score: 1

    Hobbits are affected by magic ring buffer attacks via the arithmetic and Mordor unit.

  15. Re:Nope, wrong. on China's Fusion Reactor Reaches 100 Million Degrees Celsius (abc.net.au) · · Score: 1

    But that's going to undergo fusion. It won't escape the magnetic bottle. You only have to worry about what's on the outside, where the neutrons are a problem.

  16. Re: Celsius? on China's Fusion Reactor Reaches 100 Million Degrees Celsius (abc.net.au) · · Score: 1

    *replaces battery in your hp48*

  17. Re: Great! on China's Fusion Reactor Reaches 100 Million Degrees Celsius (abc.net.au) · · Score: 1

    They're trying several methods. Laser fusion is one, the Chinese reactor is another.

    Find out the specific heat of materials to calculate temperature of one given the temperature of the other.

  18. Re: Apparently not on China's Fusion Reactor Reaches 100 Million Degrees Celsius (abc.net.au) · · Score: 1

    Plasma is unstable. If it's not held at suitable density under suitable conditions, it will tend to pinch off. That is the problem. Nothing to do with energy.

  19. Re: could only maintain the state for 10 seconds on China's Fusion Reactor Reaches 100 Million Degrees Celsius (abc.net.au) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not really. The only direct products you make will be Helium-4 (stable), Helium-5 and Helium-6. You could smash up or change isotope a carbon, nitrogen or oxygen atom, I suppose. But you're talking very short half-lives.

    The concrete is a problem. Fortunately, the Iranians have a recipe that is less likely to powder or fail. So, with trade restored under the joint agreement, we're ok.

    Oh.

  20. Re: Fuck this garbage website on A Massive Impact Crater Has Been Detected Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    It has always been a news aggregator, yes.

  21. One Paris is one megacoffee. Well known unit.

  22. Re: Younger dryas culprit? on A Massive Impact Crater Has Been Detected Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    Too small, according to the impact calculator.

  23. Asteroid estimator on A Massive Impact Crater Has Been Detected Beneath Greenland's Ice Sheet (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/Im...

    So, you get a crater roughly the right size in that sort of rock if it is 2.5 km in diameter. You get 0.85 megatonnes equivalent energy, which is next to nothing. No significant global effect.

  24. Maybe... on Researchers Discover Seven New Meltdown and Spectre Attacks (zdnet.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...This wasn't the best way to improve performance. There are other approaches, or modifications to existing ones.

    Does anyone know if Itanium 3 was affected? If not, Intel might want to revisit it, as there's bound to be commercial interest in fast, secure processors. (Because it was a ground-up redesign, it would have been free of defects from mainstream processors.)

    I'm guessing the UltraSPARC/T3 is safe, for similar reasons. Totally different internal architecture.

  25. Why? Scared of formal methods?