Slashdot Mirror


User: SuricouRaven

SuricouRaven's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
11,749
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 11,749

  1. Re:they will defeat themselves on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    Not much of a bomb, then.

    China tolerates NK, but their alliance is strained. They seek regional stability, while NK is always sabre-rattling at the south and at the world in general, provoking naval skirmishes as a show of force and generally stiring up trouble. You're right, it isn't worth the trouble - the cost of peacekeeping would be huge, and there would be diplomatic trouble with South Korea too. But I've no doubt China has invasion plans drawn up, and if NK ever does something that starts a real war, China will be ready to put a stop to it. They just won't be the ones to shoot first.

  2. Re:Algebra on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    No need, really. Arabic numerals are also called Indian numerals, and predate Islam. They picked up the misleading name because they were introduced via Arabic texts.

  3. Re:Of course they do on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    They probably recruit engineers. Any idiot can be a militia fighter, but an engineer is a valuable asset to any terrorist organisation.

  4. Re:US is next? on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    Fundamentalist Islam today looks very similar to medieval Christianity.

  5. Re:Actually against Islam on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    Muhammad raised an army, besieged and captured Mecca and went on to take over much of the surrounding area. He wasn't some hippy street-peacher like Jesus - he was a prophet of action, not just words. Given his willingness to use military force to convert rival tribes to his new religion, he may well have been perfectly ok with beheading those who effectively served the enemy by spreading goodwill and thus sapping his side of the will to fight.

  6. Re:Why math? on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 3, Informative

    I suspect it might be a translation issue. But to know that we need the oppinion of someone who speaks whatever language the announcement was in, presumably Arabic. Banning math makes no sense, but it might be perhaps banning certain types of math, or preparing for a yet-to-be-finished Islamic Mathematics cirriculum that downplays the role of western mathematicians.

    Languages can be tricky. Another Islamist group, widely (Though unofficially) called Boko Haram, literally translates as 'Counterfeits are prohibited' - but it actually means something closer to 'Western education is unislamic.' A translation that wouldn't be at all obvious unless you are familiar with the region's history, and knew that 'Boko' might mean counterfeit or fake, but could also be a contraction for 'ilimin boko' or 'fake education' - a phrase used to describe British schools created when the country was formerly part of the British Empire.

  7. Re:Anti-math and anti-science ... on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Neither if which matters, because few believers actually do what their holy book says. They do what they want, then look to their holy book to justify it.

  8. Re:they will defeat themselves on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 1

    Nice idea, but not practical. This isn't an old-fashioned war of country v country. They'll just discard uniforms and blend into the civilian population. Unless you can justify vast numbers of civilian casulties, it'd be impossible to kill them all, and require a continued and expensive presence just to keep them underground.

  9. Re:they will defeat themselves on ISIS Bans Math and Social Studies For Children · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are playing a rather dangerous game. Remember that the US or Europe could squish them with ease, militarily - if we had to, it wouldn't be hard to nuke the whole region. There are only two reasons this isn't being done: It'd be expensive, and it's mean very large numbers of civilian deaths which would be politically problematic. This situation persists only because they aren't a major threat: The moment they actually become a danger to the continued existance of the US or any major European power they'd be crushed without regard to how much it costs or how many people would die. Remember that as recently as WWII even the allies - the 'good guys' - considered carpet-bombing cities to be perfectly justifiable. During the cold war the US has missiles poised to kill tens of millions at a moment's notice, if they ever needed to.

    ISIS can only survive so long as they are powerful enough to dominate the region, but not powerful enough to invoke an unrestrained defensive action from the western powers. Like North Korea: The crazed dictator can brag all he wants about his military supremacy, but he doesn't have it, and that makes him too expensive to invade. if NK ever managed to actually detonate a nuclear bomb even China wouldn't hestitate to march in and take over. I think they'd be glad of the excuse, really.

  10. Re:It works both ways... on Comcast Allegedly Asking Customers to Stop Using Tor · · Score: 1

    In many areas there is only one broadband ISP. It's a simple economic factor: Once there is an incumbent, it isn't viable for another company to invest in the infrastructure to enter the same area.

  11. Re:containment on WD Announces 8TB, 10TB Helium Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    Can anyone run calculations on this? I imagine it'll be welded shut, so you're looking at the helium having to escape through perhaps a 5mm-thick block of the most impermiable metal they can find. It may well be that it does leak, but only after long after the drive would be considered obsolete. You might not want to use them for archival storage, but how many production drives will still be in use after twenty years?

  12. Re:Helium? on WD Announces 8TB, 10TB Helium Hard Drives · · Score: 1

    It's been done. That's how it was proven that alpha particles are helium nuclei. Someone put an alpha emitter in a very well-sealed vacuum container, waited a long time, and was able to detect a trace of helium gas that couldn't have come from anywhere else.

  13. Re:Tragic technology failure ... on In France, a Second Patient Receives Permanent Artificial Heart · · Score: 1

    If you include non-heart things, though...

    1. Fix the bloody retinas! They are back to front.
    2. Why is regeneration limited to small-scale only? A lot of amputees are unhappy with this. The ability probably isn't there because there's no selective advantage in recovering from wounds which would have killed from blood loss anyway.
    3. Everything that relates to aging.
    4. The fat thing you said.
    5. Instincts urging the consumption of calories vastly in excess to requirements.
    6. The appendix. Begone!
    7. Parts are not easily replaceable or interchangeable.
    8. Poor spinal support.
    9. Poor regeneration of vital nerves.
    10. Cancer. Cancer sucks.

  14. Re:Transhumanists - Stop it already on In France, a Second Patient Receives Permanent Artificial Heart · · Score: 1

    It doesn't become a victory for transhumanism until the artificial heats are sufficiently better than the natural ones that people make the upgrade for non-medical reasons (Superior athetic ability perhaps, or because the artificial hearts with three redundant pumping systems are more reliable than the natural ones). I can't see that happening for a long time.

  15. Re:Predictable on In France, a Second Patient Receives Permanent Artificial Heart · · Score: 1

    The comments aren't rejecting having a control. They are rejecting the suggestion of wifi, a very unappropriate choice of control channel. Several have suggested some form of NFC, which may be a choice more suited to the application.

  16. Re:Tragic technology failure ... on In France, a Second Patient Receives Permanent Artificial Heart · · Score: 1

    How could you improve the heart? It's really very reliable, self-maintaining, self-configuring, powered off readily-available biochemical energy. You can pretty much forget it's there, most of the time. Evolution has done an excellent job. The only area I can see to improve would be correcting single points of failure.

  17. Re:Scaled property rights on BBC: ISPs Should Assume VPN Users Are Pirates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Easily abused. No hollywood movie ever turns a profit on paper.

  18. It's not just a fish cannon. on Restoring Salmon To Their Original Habitat -- With a Cannon · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's an eagle entertainment device.

  19. Re:Humans have too much on Should Cyborgs Have the Same Privacy Rights As Humans? · · Score: 1

    Same at the one I went to - there was minimal catholic influence. We had a bishop in to speak once - discovered at the last minute that the portable projection screen we were going to set up in the churchy bit was broken, so I spent half an hour sitting behind it with one arm holding the screen in place.

    It depends how many potential candidates there are. If there are more jobs than candidates, employers will have an incentive to overlook minorly undesireable traits to hire the best talant. But if there are many many candidates qualified for a job, who would you expect the employer to choose? The one with a history of insulting religion online, which some future customer could cite as evidence in a discrimination claim (Possibly an unjustified one, fishing for a settlement), or the one who has no strong opinions on anything?

  20. Re:Humans have too much on Should Cyborgs Have the Same Privacy Rights As Humans? · · Score: 2

    But they do have the power to do something about it.

    For a good example, I loathe the catholic church. I think they are an outdated organisation that does far more harm than good, that their views on contraception are getting people killed, that their homophobia and misogyny are archaic and disgusting and that, while they proclaim themselves as a great charitable organisation, the fast wealth they flaunt given every chance tells another story. The cover-ups for pedophiles is just the icing on the evil cake.

    My first job out of university was for a Catholic school.

    If my employers had been able to read my posts about the church, there is no way I would have gotten that job. I'd likely have not gotten my job at another school later on either, because their legal advisor would caution against hiring someone who may later be accused of religious discrimination.

    Sure, you could pass a law prohibiting discrimination in employment or services based on personal views - but it'd be very hard to enforce.

  21. Re:I don't see this as so horrible on UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP · · Score: 1

    I expect the cache could consist of several terabytes of flash (HDDs not liking vibration) - it'd take a long time for LRU cache management to drop anything.

    Even for home users it has potential. Think of things like Windows update. Rather than every PC in the house individually downloading the latest huge upload from MS's server and eating into your connection, only the first one to do so results in internet traffic. The others all fetch it from the router's cache, or from another computer on the network. Even a little SOHO router can comfortably fit a few gigabytes of flash, upgradable via USB stick.

  22. Re:Only viable as a replacement for a subset of us on UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP · · Score: 1

    I think the idea isn't to replace IP, but to run alongside it.

  23. Re:Oh joy, stateful routers... on UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP · · Score: 1

    There's sure to be some approval system, otherwise it'd instantly turn into a tool of massive piracy.

    The technology itsself could be good - it just looks like it'll be hampered by business and legal concerns. Which is understandable - the only reason IP wasn't hampered in the same was was a failure to anticipate the magnitude of its impact. If ARPA had known that their technology would one day be used for commiting so many crimes on such a scale, they would certainly have built in some form of control capability to make sure that the government had a way to securely identify everyone and block illegal acts.

  24. Re:I don't see this as so horrible on UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP · · Score: 1

    That depends where the cache goes. If it's at the endpoint, you're right. But this allows the cache to be much closer. In the cell tower. In the office router.

    You could watch youtube video on a moving train with this. As soon as one person tries to watch the viral video of the day the train's router will store it, so it'll keep working for all even through tunnels and dropouts.

  25. Re:I don't see this as so horrible on UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP · · Score: 1

    Multicast is fine when every reciever wants the same thing at the same time. Good for broadcasting live events. Not very good for things like youtube, where millions of people will want to watch a video but very few of them simutainously, and those that do may want to pause it at any moment and resume playback hours later.