It's rather premature to declare all those systems devoid of planets when our primary means for detecting possible planets is when they pass between our planet and their star at the same time we observe them. Jupiter takes 12 years to make an orbit. As a simple logic problem, that means that we have to one opportunity to observe Jupiter passing between Sol and some sort of earth-analog in another system.... and that makes the HUGE assumption that that earth-analog is aligned with the solar system's orbital plane. If the earth analog happens to be staring down north-south on Sol, it isn't going to detect any planets.
There are a few other ways to detect planets, but those are special cases, again, very rare, and detecting very unique planets.
Detecting Sol-like systems is still extremely difficult.
Have users create a secondary, "sudo" password, that prevents any major account changes (like the main password, associated e-mails or SMS accounts) without presenting that password, too.
In theory, a user should never give out that password, or ever be required to use it, unless on Steam itself.
Sadly, many people are taken in by the fake steampowered websites "http://steempowered.com" and lured in with the promise of free games. This is why they made changes (filtering some web sites) to their chat windows a long time ago.
You can probably set up an alternative that allows SMS messages, like Ring.to or Google, that your son can use as the authenticator
This won't work if the SMS verification backend used by Steam is one of the several that explicitly block non-cellular SMS numbers because they have been "abused" in this manner.
Scammers aren't using the SMS to jack the system, but in theory, they could add an SMS once they hijack an account; then again, they could use any SMS, including something keyed off of burner phone. They can already do that. Blocking SMS services doesn't help Steam fight fraud.
At least if his son has the authenticator set up through some sort of SMS service, then he at least has more security.
it would be a simple thing to check logs against IPs and international locations
Which opens up the "I can't play games while on vacation or a business trip. Is Steam region locked?" debate if not carefully thought out.
I'm talking about using location in conjunction with sudden account changes, not about where the account is used. Detection has to be tweaked to eliminate such obvious false positives. It's about confirmation and likelihood.
I understand your frustration, but something had to be done. My son had his account stolen. It took us over a week to get it back, and in the meantime, the scammer who tricked my son into giving up his password (I tried to teach him better beforehand, but at least his experience means he actually listens to me now) and took over his account sold it to some Russian kid, who was probably out a bit of cash when the account was returned (my son's account had over 600 games at the time).
He didn't have anything in his inventory worth trading out, at least... there wouldn't have been anything left if there was. With this system, at least that wouldn't have been as much as a worry.
The authenticator is a fine system. You can probably set up an alternative that allows SMS messages, like Ring.to or Google, that your son can use as the authenticator; no need for a cell phone these days. It's never too early to take measures that can enhance your son's security now, and even better when such measures can be carried with him for the rest of his life, too.
I hope Steam also improves the way they handle account thefts - it would be a simple thing to check logs against IPs and international locations to see fishy activity once a complaint is raised and act immediately to, at least in the short term, freeze the account until things get sorted. From Day One Steam has not allowed the trading or sale of Steam Accounts in their TOS, so a user suddenly changing names and accessing an American account from Russia should raise a red flag that is easy to spot by the system. Likewise, actions like trying to trade out all the items in the inventory should also signal a possible fraudulent activity. There are probably a good dozen automated ways Steam could detect potential account theft and squash it without ever inconveniencing the customer.
It's terribly incorrect, to say, as the summary says, "Perhaps our lone star Solar System is the oddity, after all" - to the point of blunt stupidity.
Kepler's transit method will find some exoplanets, or at least the signs that something is worth taking a closer look at, but it also relies on a system's elliptical plane being aligned just so such a large exoplanet can cross the path of the star - in other words, we have to be able to see that plan edge-on. This reduces the likelihood of practically using this method to actually find something around 100-to-1, if it even exists.
Downloading images I didn't get (Enterprise x64 and 32-bit, Multiple Version 32-bit) using my MSDN account.
I wanted them handy to install directly using the Windows 7 and Windows 8 serials, as well as the semi-fixed start menu (limit changed from 512 to 2048 items).
Perhaps they were only pulled on the public channel?
Great, let's charge people 5000% of their rates when something terrible hits, like a terrorist attack or some sort of natural disaster, and penalize people for letting people know they are alright or trying to track down their loved ones to make sure they survived!
I guess that is too hard for Slashdot editors to write.
Nothing new here, but at least things seem to be changing, even if it's slow going. Who really expected the same or better performance at this point? Until Linux becomes mainstream (and by that, I mean holds at least 15% of the desktops), it will always be a "back burner" kind of thing for GPU manufacturers; not to mention the fractious bickering (usually over nitpicky crap) that pelts anybody who steps in to try and improve the situation.
This article's headline kind of exemplifies some of the problem - directing scorn and criticism on those who are trying to make things better.
Toyota researcher finds autonomous driving technology is hard to do, beyond the autonomous accelerator pedal.
On a side note, this stuff has been worked on for ages. I worked with a company in 2000, doing image recognition for lane departure warning systems and other subsystems that are currently in use today. The technology is there, but not all companies are happy that many of those technologies are tied to patents and would rather be able to use in-house sources. Developing those sources now is a bit late in the game.
In 5 years, comments like Pratt's will be completely laughable. The only reason he's taken remotely serious now is because it isn't ubiquitous yet. Consumers do not have serious experience with autonomous driving, so his FUD is accepted at face value. In reality, he's just faced with a tremendous uphill battle to catch his company up in the game, and it's overwhelmed Toyota, to the point they are sowing caution to the masses, mostly in the hopes to catch a breather in the court of public opinion.
It got here because Meg wanted to spin EDS back off.
Or course, this brilliant move is from the idiots who kept calling the original HP garage a "two car garage" every couple of days, while featuring a picture of that garage, which was clearly only big enough for one car.
Create a "Credit Union" version of the University - open sourced books, leverage videos, implement real world methodologies into projects, and foster ethical and professional behavior across all disciplines. Drive to create a true non-profit organization centered on delivering actual education and value back to the middle class students who need that accredited degree to get their foot int he door professionally.
Our President and business leaders talks a good game about promoting STEM and education in this country, but won't do anything to overhaul the terrible system that is our college system. Make it affordable, practical, and worthwhile.
Of course, the same could be said about our health care system, too.
If they want to dive into a market, they have to be in it for the long run, just as Microsoft is prepared to do. Amazon is leveraging a lot of their existing resources, which helps them; but Microsoft is probably bleeding pretty badly in the short term, and that's OK.
HP keeps doing dumb things, jumping in head first into a market and mismanaging that effort to a bitter, short end. Part of the problem within HP is that while they can easily manufacture that cheap disposable whitebox hardware to set up the required data centers, the company is run like Lord Of The Flies - with groups charging FULL PRICE for products and services between other HP groups. There isn't even a chance to negotiate terms, and some groups are faced with outsourcing things as simple as a web site for internal support, because to do it in house would cost them 10 times what Azure or Amazon will. You can bet that those server blades to run the data centers (which would also be owned by yet another chunk of HP) will cost exactly full retail, instead of leveraging their resources and providing them at cost (which helps everybody, since the increased production drives down costs and increases profits on outside business). Groups will simply not cooperate within HP, and that kills the bottom line.
"It’s anything but cloudy in Europe" says the e-mail they just sent out, as HP's executives enjoy a European vacation touting... the "Cloud" the day after they shut down Helion.
Maybe they should have priced Helion's could services competitively and gave it a chance, but right now, the board and CEO don't have a long attention span, nor any long term strategy beyond jacking up the stock prices so they can sell off and make a quick escape.
EQIP is the questionnaire the FIB uses to screen people for clearances. It's quite extensive, and quite invasive. It's the information the government lost in the big breach last year. At any rate, it is entirely possible this idiot mailed the form from work to home to fill it out, and then back again... and it sat on his mail server until the hacker gained access to it. It's been a couple of years since I did mine, but I do believe SSNs are on it, including SSNs of family members and associates.
At HP, there are a LOT of people leaving, as morale is at an all-time low. Those with marketable skills would rather leave on their own than get a dreaded "offer" to work at Ciber or Modis at 30% less pay, reduction in benefits, and a loss of seniority - and finding they can make more at a company willing to actually offer reasonable compensation increases on a regular basis.
There may be other companies, not as high profile as HP, where this is also occurring. Obviously, there are many companies "below average" (Kind of has to be that way), but the disparity is pretty high - when people start shopping around, they quickly realize they are underpaid, and the rest of the pieces start falling into place.
It can't go on forever... which is all the more reason those people confident in their ability to place at better companies are going now, rather than waiting.
Don't have more than 512 items (who would ever need more?) in your Start Menu, because Microsoft won't track them, and Cortana won't find them, and random items will disappear.
Also not fixed, probably never will, the "designer" decision to flatten Start Menu's folder structure to one level max, because mobile users are apparently morons who cannot handle the complexity of subfolders.
...than about how good Swift is. Swift is an improvement over Objective-C, but that isn't saying much, and quick adoption also says more about developers fears that Apple will deprecate Objective-C from new iterations of its X-Code and force everybody to use Swift moving forward to new Apple Operating Systems.
The world didn't need more languages. Developers write millions of lines of code for open-source libraries in multi-platform languages, and Apple and Google get into a dick-waving contest with these languages that add little, if anything, to their corner of the programming world.
I'm not sure what the right answer is, but it won't be found in a niche language whose sole purpose is to support one company's ecosystem and lock in developers to their platforms.
We've seen this scam... sell a piglet as a "micro-pig" and by the time the new pig owner discovers it's actually a full-sized, regular pig, the seller has moved on to a new town.
Why support Flash at all? Flash is dying and these days it doesn't offer anything over HTML5.
I think for Adobe, it is more of a time-buying exit strategy for Flash, until their tools are able to output HTML5-compliant media as nicely as they currently do for Flash....yet they continue to upgrade Air, which also might just be a matter of supporting existing users (as in developers), more than trying to attract new ones.
As a mobile app developer, I am moving away from Air as a platform, but appreciate Adobe's commitment to improving performance and reliability for those apps I have that are still using Air.
I think the problem with Java is that Oracle doesn't seem to want to play nice with the browser developers.
It's not like they haven't had the time (or have the resources) to fix the issue. Oracle is letting Java-in-the-browser die over their spat with Google and their desire to control Java on the desktop.
At least Adobe was smart enough to step in and work out the issues with Google and Mozilla so Flash Player would continue to have support. If they could do that, why couldn't Oracle? I'm sure Google and Mozilla both would like to continue to support Java for their customers, but not at the expense of keeping NPAPI support - though I won't say there isn't a bit of negativity towards Oracle in that decision, as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you've exchanged edge-on for perpendicular as a limitation.
Congrats.... you've exactly doubled the potential cases for detection, which is still a small percentage of the systems we can observe.
It's rather premature to declare all those systems devoid of planets when our primary means for detecting possible planets is when they pass between our planet and their star at the same time we observe them. Jupiter takes 12 years to make an orbit. As a simple logic problem, that means that we have to one opportunity to observe Jupiter passing between Sol and some sort of earth-analog in another system.... and that makes the HUGE assumption that that earth-analog is aligned with the solar system's orbital plane. If the earth analog happens to be staring down north-south on Sol, it isn't going to detect any planets.
There are a few other ways to detect planets, but those are special cases, again, very rare, and detecting very unique planets.
Detecting Sol-like systems is still extremely difficult.
Have users create a secondary, "sudo" password, that prevents any major account changes (like the main password, associated e-mails or SMS accounts) without presenting that password, too.
In theory, a user should never give out that password, or ever be required to use it, unless on Steam itself.
Sadly, many people are taken in by the fake steampowered websites "http://steempowered.com" and lured in with the promise of free games. This is why they made changes (filtering some web sites) to their chat windows a long time ago.
You can probably set up an alternative that allows SMS messages, like Ring.to or Google, that your son can use as the authenticator
This won't work if the SMS verification backend used by Steam is one of the several that explicitly block non-cellular SMS numbers because they have been "abused" in this manner.
Scammers aren't using the SMS to jack the system, but in theory, they could add an SMS once they hijack an account; then again, they could use any SMS, including something keyed off of burner phone. They can already do that. Blocking SMS services doesn't help Steam fight fraud.
At least if his son has the authenticator set up through some sort of SMS service, then he at least has more security.
it would be a simple thing to check logs against IPs and international locations
Which opens up the "I can't play games while on vacation or a business trip. Is Steam region locked?" debate if not carefully thought out.
I'm talking about using location in conjunction with sudden account changes, not about where the account is used. Detection has to be tweaked to eliminate such obvious false positives. It's about confirmation and likelihood.
I understand your frustration, but something had to be done. My son had his account stolen. It took us over a week to get it back, and in the meantime, the scammer who tricked my son into giving up his password (I tried to teach him better beforehand, but at least his experience means he actually listens to me now) and took over his account sold it to some Russian kid, who was probably out a bit of cash when the account was returned (my son's account had over 600 games at the time).
He didn't have anything in his inventory worth trading out, at least... there wouldn't have been anything left if there was. With this system, at least that wouldn't have been as much as a worry.
The authenticator is a fine system. You can probably set up an alternative that allows SMS messages, like Ring.to or Google, that your son can use as the authenticator; no need for a cell phone these days. It's never too early to take measures that can enhance your son's security now, and even better when such measures can be carried with him for the rest of his life, too.
I hope Steam also improves the way they handle account thefts - it would be a simple thing to check logs against IPs and international locations to see fishy activity once a complaint is raised and act immediately to, at least in the short term, freeze the account until things get sorted. From Day One Steam has not allowed the trading or sale of Steam Accounts in their TOS, so a user suddenly changing names and accessing an American account from Russia should raise a red flag that is easy to spot by the system. Likewise, actions like trying to trade out all the items in the inventory should also signal a possible fraudulent activity. There are probably a good dozen automated ways Steam could detect potential account theft and squash it without ever inconveniencing the customer.
It's terribly incorrect, to say, as the summary says, "Perhaps our lone star Solar System is the oddity, after all" - to the point of blunt stupidity.
Kepler's transit method will find some exoplanets, or at least the signs that something is worth taking a closer look at, but it also relies on a system's elliptical plane being aligned just so such a large exoplanet can cross the path of the star - in other words, we have to be able to see that plan edge-on. This reduces the likelihood of practically using this method to actually find something around 100-to-1, if it even exists.
They already have a friend building them the Big Red Rocket to take them into space to mine gold in the asteroid belt.
Downloading images I didn't get (Enterprise x64 and 32-bit, Multiple Version 32-bit) using my MSDN account.
I wanted them handy to install directly using the Windows 7 and Windows 8 serials, as well as the semi-fixed start menu (limit changed from 512 to 2048 items).
Perhaps they were only pulled on the public channel?
Great, let's charge people 5000% of their rates when something terrible hits, like a terrorist attack or some sort of natural disaster, and penalize people for letting people know they are alright or trying to track down their loved ones to make sure they survived!
I guess that is too hard for Slashdot editors to write.
Nothing new here, but at least things seem to be changing, even if it's slow going. Who really expected the same or better performance at this point? Until Linux becomes mainstream (and by that, I mean holds at least 15% of the desktops), it will always be a "back burner" kind of thing for GPU manufacturers; not to mention the fractious bickering (usually over nitpicky crap) that pelts anybody who steps in to try and improve the situation.
This article's headline kind of exemplifies some of the problem - directing scorn and criticism on those who are trying to make things better.
Toyota researcher finds autonomous driving technology is hard to do, beyond the autonomous accelerator pedal.
On a side note, this stuff has been worked on for ages. I worked with a company in 2000, doing image recognition for lane departure warning systems and other subsystems that are currently in use today. The technology is there, but not all companies are happy that many of those technologies are tied to patents and would rather be able to use in-house sources. Developing those sources now is a bit late in the game.
In 5 years, comments like Pratt's will be completely laughable. The only reason he's taken remotely serious now is because it isn't ubiquitous yet. Consumers do not have serious experience with autonomous driving, so his FUD is accepted at face value. In reality, he's just faced with a tremendous uphill battle to catch his company up in the game, and it's overwhelmed Toyota, to the point they are sowing caution to the masses, mostly in the hopes to catch a breather in the court of public opinion.
I was tempted by a sale on BoingBoing's store a while back - $79 for one of these types of cameras. Anybody here on Slashdot ever try one out?
I guess HBO has the rights to that series.
It got here because Meg wanted to spin EDS back off.
Or course, this brilliant move is from the idiots who kept calling the original HP garage a "two car garage" every couple of days, while featuring a picture of that garage, which was clearly only big enough for one car.
Create a "Credit Union" version of the University - open sourced books, leverage videos, implement real world methodologies into projects, and foster ethical and professional behavior across all disciplines. Drive to create a true non-profit organization centered on delivering actual education and value back to the middle class students who need that accredited degree to get their foot int he door professionally.
Our President and business leaders talks a good game about promoting STEM and education in this country, but won't do anything to overhaul the terrible system that is our college system. Make it affordable, practical, and worthwhile.
Of course, the same could be said about our health care system, too.
If they want to dive into a market, they have to be in it for the long run, just as Microsoft is prepared to do. Amazon is leveraging a lot of their existing resources, which helps them; but Microsoft is probably bleeding pretty badly in the short term, and that's OK.
HP keeps doing dumb things, jumping in head first into a market and mismanaging that effort to a bitter, short end. Part of the problem within HP is that while they can easily manufacture that cheap disposable whitebox hardware to set up the required data centers, the company is run like Lord Of The Flies - with groups charging FULL PRICE for products and services between other HP groups. There isn't even a chance to negotiate terms, and some groups are faced with outsourcing things as simple as a web site for internal support, because to do it in house would cost them 10 times what Azure or Amazon will. You can bet that those server blades to run the data centers (which would also be owned by yet another chunk of HP) will cost exactly full retail, instead of leveraging their resources and providing them at cost (which helps everybody, since the increased production drives down costs and increases profits on outside business). Groups will simply not cooperate within HP, and that kills the bottom line.
"It’s anything but cloudy in Europe" says the e-mail they just sent out, as HP's executives enjoy a European vacation touting... the "Cloud" the day after they shut down Helion.
Maybe they should have priced Helion's could services competitively and gave it a chance, but right now, the board and CEO don't have a long attention span, nor any long term strategy beyond jacking up the stock prices so they can sell off and make a quick escape.
EQIP is the questionnaire the FIB uses to screen people for clearances. It's quite extensive, and quite invasive. It's the information the government lost in the big breach last year. At any rate, it is entirely possible this idiot mailed the form from work to home to fill it out, and then back again... and it sat on his mail server until the hacker gained access to it. It's been a couple of years since I did mine, but I do believe SSNs are on it, including SSNs of family members and associates.
Summary doesn't say what "CWA" is.... Chuggers With Attitude? Country Western Airlines?
At HP, there are a LOT of people leaving, as morale is at an all-time low. Those with marketable skills would rather leave on their own than get a dreaded "offer" to work at Ciber or Modis at 30% less pay, reduction in benefits, and a loss of seniority - and finding they can make more at a company willing to actually offer reasonable compensation increases on a regular basis.
There may be other companies, not as high profile as HP, where this is also occurring. Obviously, there are many companies "below average" (Kind of has to be that way), but the disparity is pretty high - when people start shopping around, they quickly realize they are underpaid, and the rest of the pieces start falling into place.
It can't go on forever... which is all the more reason those people confident in their ability to place at better companies are going now, rather than waiting.
Don't have more than 512 items (who would ever need more?) in your Start Menu, because Microsoft won't track them, and Cortana won't find them, and random items will disappear.
Also not fixed, probably never will, the "designer" decision to flatten Start Menu's folder structure to one level max, because mobile users are apparently morons who cannot handle the complexity of subfolders.
...than about how good Swift is. Swift is an improvement over Objective-C, but that isn't saying much, and quick adoption also says more about developers fears that Apple will deprecate Objective-C from new iterations of its X-Code and force everybody to use Swift moving forward to new Apple Operating Systems.
The world didn't need more languages. Developers write millions of lines of code for open-source libraries in multi-platform languages, and Apple and Google get into a dick-waving contest with these languages that add little, if anything, to their corner of the programming world.
I'm not sure what the right answer is, but it won't be found in a niche language whose sole purpose is to support one company's ecosystem and lock in developers to their platforms.
We've seen this scam... sell a piglet as a "micro-pig" and by the time the new pig owner discovers it's actually a full-sized, regular pig, the seller has moved on to a new town.
Flash will now be fully supported again?
Why support Flash at all? Flash is dying and these days it doesn't offer anything over HTML5.
I think for Adobe, it is more of a time-buying exit strategy for Flash, until their tools are able to output HTML5-compliant media as nicely as they currently do for Flash. ...yet they continue to upgrade Air, which also might just be a matter of supporting existing users (as in developers), more than trying to attract new ones.
As a mobile app developer, I am moving away from Air as a platform, but appreciate Adobe's commitment to improving performance and reliability for those apps I have that are still using Air.
I think the problem with Java is that Oracle doesn't seem to want to play nice with the browser developers.
It's not like they haven't had the time (or have the resources) to fix the issue. Oracle is letting Java-in-the-browser die over their spat with Google and their desire to control Java on the desktop.
At least Adobe was smart enough to step in and work out the issues with Google and Mozilla so Flash Player would continue to have support. If they could do that, why couldn't Oracle? I'm sure Google and Mozilla both would like to continue to support Java for their customers, but not at the expense of keeping NPAPI support - though I won't say there isn't a bit of negativity towards Oracle in that decision, as well.