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User: hobbes75

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Comments · 48

  1. Re: Stop utilizing 3rd parties on YouTube's New Moderators Mistakenly Pull Right-Wing Channels (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 1

    I kind of agree with your message, but it seems you underestimate the bandwidth requirements of video streaming.

  2. Re: Anything for work on Ask Slashdot: When Do You Include 'Unnecessary' Code? (sas.com) · · Score: 0

    Remember that comments always lie. Still put them but don't trust them.

  3. Re: Considering Apple admitted.... on Apple SSL Bug In iOS Also Affects OS X · · Score: 1

    If the language would require the braces it would even be better...

  4. Re:Grandparrents on Google+ Registers 25 Million Visitors · · Score: 1

    worked for me

  5. Too expensive to not be evil on Google.cn Still Remains In China · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obviously not being evil is too expensive... maybe that explains the amount of evil in the world in general.

  6. Re:But weren't they on anyway? on SETI@Home Install Leads To School Tech Supervisor's Resignation · · Score: 1

    Even if they were on anyways, the background process will have prevented power saving modes. The only time when the additional processing is almost free is when the additional power used can be saved in heating. When it is too hot anyways it costs double because of additional cooling requirements. For the same reasons, a java-script and ad-blocker an reduce the energy bill a bit.

  7. Really fast for text editing on Fast-Booting Text-Editor Operating System? · · Score: 1

    See Oberon or the newer Bluebottle/A2 for booting with USB sticks:

    http://www.ocp.inf.ethz.ch/

    You can boot the OS natively, or if needed start it as applications on Windows or Linux/MacOS/Unix (x86).

  8. Re:US Customs has always been like this on Securing Your Notebook Against US Customs · · Score: 1

    Idiot

  9. Re:AC's bore me.. on Facebook Exposes Advertisers To Hate Speech · · Score: 1

    Afaik soldiers are not included in the minimum estimate of 71,277 dead civilians. Quote from the source of the number :"The count encompasses non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion."

  10. Re:They hired DoS specialists against their own us on Did Russian Hackers Crash Skype? · · Score: 1

    Try (on windows)

    schtasks /Create /TN slashdot /SC ONCE /SD 01/12/2007 /ST 01:00:00 /TR "wget -m http://slashdot.org/"

    adjust for timezone and make sure to have wget installed, then you can read it offline when you come back another time ;-)

  11. Re:I think that's the marketing dept. on Measure Anything with a Camera and Software · · Score: 2, Informative

    I agree. There is no way the software can figure out the measurements, unless their "DigiTarget" sheet is in the same plane as all the points between which distances need to be measured. It could in (science fiction like) theory use assumptions of orthogonal planes (walls to floor) to help but this is not a solved problem in AI and even then would not work in general.
    So the "hard" part in this software remains to automatically (hopefully it is automatic) find the DigiTarget and calculate a "more or less affine" transformation matrix and then calculate the distance with regard of the found matrix (this does not resolve distorions and assumes a pinhole camera, but there is not much else doable with only one picture and a small known target).
    The situation would change if they took at least two pictures of the scene from two slightly different positions, with at least one including the "DigiTarget". Then all the information would be available to really do the measurement as long as the user defines the distance that is to be measured in at least two of the pictures (and there are 5 additional points that can be matched between the two pictures, which is typically automatically feasible)

  12. Re:More specifically, on HP's Windows Bundle Trouble · · Score: 1

    But HP should be allowed to sell a PC without OS for a higher or the same price because the configuration is much less common. E.g. the OS free HD has to be installed from another batch, or the installation step has to be manually skipped. Lots of reasons to justify the higher price.
    I think the customer should just not buy from them and stfu instead of seeking legal action. (Btw. that's what I think everybody should do with HP since sbout 1990 or so)

  13. Re:Someone please explain on Second Life Hit By Massive In-Game Worm · · Score: 1

    I'd say worse. Web pages and browsers can't even adhere to standards for static pages. Scripts definitly made the mess worse.

  14. Re:Dear Aunt... on 3D Virtual Reconstructions From Microsoft · · Score: 1

    >I doubt that too many home computers will have the grunt to do that on a reasonable time-scale before the end of the decade. I expect it will be a serviceon Microsoft Live, where you submit the pictures and use a viewer

    Once Vista is ready, a typical low-end 64-core system will do the job in a blink ;-)

  15. Re:I don't think so on Is SETI@home Where Your Cycles Belong? · · Score: 1

    You are right. Free cycles are not free. Definitely not in summer, when you need air condition to cool the room. 400K BOINC clients using 20-30W more over an idle CPU results in about 10MW "wasted" energy... about twice as much if you factor in air condition. (I don't know if there is any peer reviewed study about the energy consumption of @home calculations).
    In winter, the waste heat is not really wasted (except for server-rooms that need AC in winter)

  16. Re:how long will it be before they tire of this ga on Yahoo China has the Worst Filtering Policy · · Score: 1

    Censoring the search results is only the first level of defense. The filters at the service providers will catch a lot more, so many pages found can not be opened. The restrictions vary from province to province and are also depending on different branches of the different providers.

  17. Re:What about simulations? on Clocking the Movements of Atoms · · Score: 1

    "Here is the code I was using. Sure, it's only approximating reality, but the degree to which it is an approximation can be increased or decreased."

    So it can help for example to decide how to tune the approximation and to verify your approximation and simulation. There is no perfect simulation, it may just be good enough for the job at hand.

  18. Re:What about simulations? on Clocking the Movements of Atoms · · Score: 1

    Physically seeing the atoms can help verify or improve the simulations.

  19. Re:It's not 1984 if everyone can watch everyone on London 2006, Meet London 1984 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As far as I am informed: The violence dropped just after the relaxing of the police enforced closing time of the pubs (which is only several years after the introduction of heavy surveilance of the general public). Main reason is probably that less drunks are the same place at the same time since they go home over a 2h period instead of a 5m period.

  20. Re:UK on The NSA Knows Who You've Called · · Score: 1

    >Like in the case of MI5 knowing at least 2 of the London bombers before hand.
    >
    >Following up on leads and determining that these guys were heading together as a group into London
    >could have possibly prevented the attacks by monitoring and capturing them red handed with bombs
    >and bomb making equipment rather than waiting until afterwards.

    These "almost caught" stories of secret services of any kind really just sound like ways to increase their budgets. They just have to say they were quite near but because of lacking resources/funds not near enough. (Of course they have to make sure they don't look incompetent because of an apparent too-near miss) Who could then not grant them more funding because "they would have caught them".

  21. Re:Strong encryption on Military Secrets for Sale on Stolen USB Drives · · Score: 1

    Why is this moderated as Flamebait ? The wish to publicise improper behaviour so that it may change to the better is hardly a flamebait in my eyes.

  22. Re:Xenophobia, anyone? on Feds Kill Check Point's Sourcefire Bid · · Score: 1

    Not xenophobia, they are just afraid of a security system they can not crack/control... ;-)

  23. Re:Hot damn, I was RIGHT?!? on Google Faces Wall Street Revolt · · Score: 1

    How could the analysts "speak up about the company's strengths" if they are left in the dark about the skeletons in the closet and much more importantly about how the company intents to deal with them ?
    Even if you consider the "corrections" in the stock price this week, the stock price is still overrated with a P/E of 68 (by standards applied to mature companies). If the analysts have (fact based) reasons to be confident in a strongly growing (immature) company they can accept this P/E in hindsight of a lower forward P/E of currently 28 (or even a bit higher if they are very confident). But the slightest doubts in the growth of the company or unclear strategies let the analysts be careful. Even if the analyst-business is a lot like throwing dices they still try to be on the safe side wherever possible.
    So dont be too disappointed about the current stock price, it could be much worse. The near future will show if it trust returns or if the stock price will be "adjusted" to a P/E that requires less optimism.

  24. Re:releasing memory on Firefox Memory Leak is a Feature · · Score: 1

    Yes, you are completely right. Unfortunatley this is quite difficult (but not impossible) to implement with current operating system structures.
    The cache management you are talking about would work best for a system with a single address space and a GC that could keep some kind of weak-pointers to objects with timestamps alive until there is need for memory.
    The single address space would require the sole use type-safe programming languages to guarantee the "independance" of the programs, so we are not going to see this soon.
    (There are also quite some unsolved problems with single address space systems. Some of them are getting irrelevant with 64 bit HW architectures, others remain to be solved)

  25. Evil on Intel and Skype Exclude AMD · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They turned evil when they were bought by eBay. Before, I was quite confident their encryption was sound, now after they sold their souls and released skype 2 I have to assume NSA can tap in.