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Comments · 183

  1. Re:mathematica? on Wolfram Language Demo Impresses · · Score: 1

    It's not that different from the OpenGL teapot. It's fantabulous if you want to draw a teapot...pretty useless otherwise.

  2. Re:And all these computer parts in cars... on DRM To Be Used In Renault Electric Cars · · Score: 1

    IDK, anti-lock brakes are nice, variable ignition timing, crash detection, monitoring the health of the engine and supporting systems, not to even get started on the newer stuff like key-less entry/starting, information displays, entertainment for passengers, voice-activated actions, adaptive cruise-control, and that's just off the top of my head.

  3. Re:Twitter? Really? on Tom Clancy Is Dead At 66 · · Score: 1

    Sorry for talking to myself here, but I just realized it was "Publisher Weekly's" twitter account, not "his publisher's weekly" twitter account. My mistake!

  4. Twitter? Really? on Tom Clancy Is Dead At 66 · · Score: 2

    Am I the only one who finds it sad that such an influential author's death warranted only a tweet by his publisher and that it was "confirmed" by a NYT reporter's tweet as opposed to say, Clancy's estate or an official family statement? Tom Clancy dies and he gets two tweets. I suppose there's a bit of irony there. Now get off my lawn.

  5. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? on MS Tackles CS Education Crisis With Popularity Contest · · Score: 1

    30 second google search FTW!
    In-state, public: $22k/year
    Private: $43k/year
    and yes, that includes room-and board because that's part of the cost of anything you do in life once you decide to leave the nest.

  6. Re:Trust on Are You Sure This Is the Source Code? · · Score: 1
    Maybe those just aren't good examples, but both have way more than simple trust involved. There's a huge disincentive to perpetrate either of those actions. In the case of a driver, there's car repairs, court costs, plus the downstream effects; running down a pedestrian, especially one on a sidewalk is a life altering action that no sane individual would perform just on a lark. In the case of an insecure computer, the company would be ruined if it came out that they were doing this to all the systems it sold, and targeting specific individuals would be prohibitively expensive.

    No, the ones to worry about are those who have a reward that outweighs the risk. Voting is an excellent example of this.

  7. Re:and in tsunamis? on Partially-Undersea Water Discus Hotel To Be Built In the Maldives · · Score: 1

    only the front of the wave that is in the shallows slows, which is when the body and rear of the wave piles into it. Each part that gets to the shallows slows, but 'the wave' itself isn't slowing

    True. I was imprecise in my language; I meant the foremost period of the wave.

    Two waves that are five minutes apart in the ocean, traveling the same speed, will hit land five minutes apart as well.

    False. The speed of the wave is determined by the depth of the water relative to the amplitude of the peak. As the wave approaches a shoreline, the first period will shorten and therefore the wave peaks will hit, probably dramatically, less than 5 minutes apart.

  8. Re: and in tsunamis? on Partially-Undersea Water Discus Hotel To Be Built In the Maldives · · Score: 1

    They do that to protect against the wind, not so much the waves or, obviously, the rain.

  9. Re:and in tsunamis? on Partially-Undersea Water Discus Hotel To Be Built In the Maldives · · Score: 1

    How about a Rapid Ultra Low Frequency and Amplitude (Rulfa) wave when it's at sea and a Negatively Accelerating Wave With Rapidly Increasing Amplitude and Frequencey (Naw Wriaf) as it approaches shore?

  10. Re:and in tsunamis? on Partially-Undersea Water Discus Hotel To Be Built In the Maldives · · Score: 1

    I don't think that would be a problem at the water depth they're talking about. Even a very powerful tsunami would only be about a 3m wave at those depths.
    Here's an interesting write up about how tsunamis work.

  11. Surrogates anyone? on Cisco and iRobot Create Sheldonbot-Like Telepresence System · · Score: 1

    They made a movie about this...

  12. Reduce driver fatigue on Tesla To Blanket US With Superchargers In Two Years · · Score: 1

    This might cause a major culture shift in road trips. One, forcing a 30 minute rest every 3-4 hours will do wonders for driver fatigue and provide an easy opportunity for driver swapping. Second, when you can't iron-man a 1,400 mile trip in less than a day, it becomes more probable you'll take a second to stop and take in the local scenery and culture of the area of the US you're driving through. This could do wonders for bringing the country back together since people won't be traveling from one microcosm to another without interacting with all those in between.

  13. Re:Note the discrepancy on Nasdaq Fined $10M Over Facebook IPO Failures · · Score: 1

    Nobody committed fraud by hiding material facts.

    Actually, that is exactly the stated problem; though, not surprisingly, Facebook denies any such thing. Reports came to light that information was selectively released in the days before the IPO and that the IPO was inappropriately priced based on that information.

  14. Re:patents vs. research? on WHO: Intellectual Property Claims Hindering Research On Deadly Novel Coronavirus · · Score: 1
    From TFA:

    No IP (intellectual property) should stand in the way of you, the countries of the world, to protect your people.

    I find it really sad that countries are willing to bomb other countries and kill people under the auspices of protecting their citizenry, but feel so hamstrung by IP claims when they're actually trying to protect their citizenry that they need a pep-talk from the head of the WHO.

  15. Re:With What Money? on Yahoo Joins Growing List of Bidders For Hulu · · Score: 1

    Where did you get the 1.2 billion in cash reserves? According to their filings, they have $3 billion, and they have a market cap of nearly $30 billion. And they're offering between $600 and 800 million... What are you talking about??

  16. Re:Fear Mongering on Terrorist Murder In London Could Revive Snooper's Charter · · Score: 1

    i so wish i could mod you up a million times right now. I'm a muslim, but i realize that that's just me. I have no empirical evidence to back me up, so how the hell can i go to someone else and say they're wrong? I can't and no one ever should and oh look! it's actively discouraged in the Quran. If someone asks me why I'm a muslim, i'll gladly tell them. if someone says something to me about islam that is false, i'll correct them without name calling or pipe-bombs. If someone shows me a cartoon of a dude fucking a pig and tells me that's mohammad while pointing at the pig, i'll say: "ok...weirdo." but as you say, we are all guilty of standing by our arguments even when there is no "right" answer and when there is no empirical evidence that something is right, only vehemence adds strength to your argument. sometimes that means shouting, sometimes that means ostracizing, and sometimes that means flying a couple of 747s into buildings on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday morning.

  17. Why wouldn't it? on Predicting IQ With a Simple Visual Test · · Score: 1

    Having read the article, I can see how this might sound snotty, but why wouldn't it be easier to detect motion in the small circle? There are more axes of motion than in the bigger view. The big view is almost purely left and right, but by virtue of being a circle, there's a much greater chance to perceive vertical motion as well. It seems like there is, in a sense, more motion to see in the smaller set.

  18. Didn't disappoint on 97% of Climate Science Papers Agree Global Warming Is Man-made · · Score: 1

    Thank you /.! I flagged this entry for follow-up solely to get a gauge on how tenaciously otherwise open-minded, intelligent people will stand on their rationalized belief-systems. This is a brilliant display of that tenacity and I applaud you for it. Bravo!

  19. Re:exploit sale = nondisclosure on Exploit Sales: the New Disclosure Debate · · Score: 1

    Let's say you accidentally discover a vulnerability in a bank's web site by mistyping a URL and you ended up at a different customer's account. You write up your finding, and you privately send it to the bank's security team and ask them for nothing in return other than that they act quickly to protect your account. And let's say they turn around and accuse you of hacking them under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and they provide your own written report to the Secret Service as evidence against you? Who is the ethical party? How would money alter the ethics? If you gave them the details of the flaw and asked the bank for a $1,000 reward, would that change things? What if you offered to tell the bank of the flaw in exchange for $1,000? If they don't pay, are you ethically bound to not sell the vulnerability to a third party? What if you don't know of any specific flaw in your bank's site, but you would like to make some side money as a pen tester; so you send them a letter asking if they have a "pay for vulnerability policy", and they respond by placing a hold on your account and calling in the Secret Service? Who is acting ethically in that scenario? What if you fear retribution so you ask this question anonymously? Are you more or less suspicious to the bank? Should they be more or less likely to seek your prosecution? What if you exploit the vulnerability personally to view Paris Hilton's bank balance, but you don't do anything malicious to her account? What if you disclose that balance information to the tabloids? What about viewing the bank data of a non-celebrity? And if not the bank, which third party might you sell it to? A security researcher? A competing bank? Microsoft? A hacker? Some random alias on darkode? Different people are likely to view these behaviors differently, including banks, law enforcement, hackers, computer security professionals, lawmakers, bank customers, and the general public. Different legal cases with different judges are likely to interpret these differently, as well.

    I'm sorry, I don't see a single one of those as vague ethical quandaries. You seem to be confusing "ethics" with "what a bank/government would do in today's litigious, paranoid, and ignorant society."
    To answer your questions in order though:

    1) You were acting ethically, the bank was not.
    2a) No, you're now simply asking for a tip for services already rendered.
    2b) Dramtically by introducing an artificial and selfishly motivated barrier to aiding those in need.
    2c) You are ethically bound to not "sell" the solution to anyone, but rather to freely inform those who have the power to address the situation without affecting other innocent parties.
    3) There was no ethical attribute to your action, the bank is being unethical.
    4a) No
    4b) No, they shouldn't be seeking prosecution in either case.
    5) You are acting unethically in all three scenarios, especially the 2nd.
    6) The information should not be sold at all. But if the bank is not interested, then a security firm, and the FTC, FCC, SEC, and FDIC should be next on your list.

    I don't think they would view these scenarios differently than laid out above from a strictly ethical point of view without a damaged moral compass. Legally speaking, there might be slightly more of a gray area around whether the bank has the right to charge you with a crime, but selling the information will be illegal barring an agreement struck with the bank before you were in possession of the knowledge. Viewing another person's account information, famous or not, is always illegal. You're really not raising any hard questions.

  20. Re:Lawsuit piracy on Federal Judge Dismisses Movie Piracy Complaint · · Score: 2

    This should get like Comment O' the Week status! Sometimes, you just need to be able to score 6!

  21. Unfortunate name on Carnivorous Plant Ejects Junk DNA · · Score: 0

    So, this is offtopic but I thought humped bladderwort was a pretty unfortunate name. However a Google search and a couple of clicks later I land on the broom-rape cancer-root, of which there is an alpine, a Mexican, and an American variety.

  22. Re:Old, boring, uninspired... on Get Zapped While Playing Video Games · · Score: 1

    gee... that sounds...awesome? no..no...that's not the word...terrifying! there it is. that's the word.

  23. Re:I bet they know what the problem is on Heavy Weather Exometeorology Style · · Score: 1

    Dude...y'all seriously need to lighten up. It was a "joke." Perhaps you've heard of them. Or perhaps you hear nothing over the constant WHOOOSHing over your heads.

  24. Re:Why didn't they evolve a "better" brain? Easy on 'Master Gene' Makes Mouse Brain Look More Human · · Score: 1

    Did you know all living things have exactly the same length of life in terms of heart beats. All animals get about 2 billion heartbeats of life.

    Did you know that most factoids found on the Internet are wrong?
    First, the factoid states 1 billion, not 2.
    Second, it only holds remotely true when restricted to mammals.
    Third, it's really not a very tight correlation between 1 billion beats and lifespan. (scroll down a bit)
    Fourth, the real correlation is between energy consumption and size.
    Fifth, don't believe everything you read, and please, please, don't go spouting off everything you "know."

  25. Re:I agree on BlackBerry CEO: Tablet Market Is Dying · · Score: 1

    I have to prop my tablet up on a pillow

    OH!! the HUMANITY!! ;)