Slashdot Mirror


User: localroger

localroger's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
750
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 750

  1. Pelican Case + Thermostatic Heater on Ask Slashdot: How Do I Make a High-Spec PC Waterproof? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Double enclosed is best, but you probably don't have room for that. I've been putting stuff in food processing plants for 20+ years though where the conditions (especially during cleanup) are comparable. Find the smallest Pelican case (there are generic knockoffs, if you go with one check it thoroughly before trusting it) and equip it with a thermostatic heater to keep the temperature above 70F or so all the time to limit condensation. Pack in a big bag of dessicant because without double enclosure that still won't be perfect.

  2. The word is "neutrons." on If Fusion Is the Answer, We Need To Do It Quickly · · Score: 1

    Although there is some lip service to seeking "aneutronic" fusion the truth is that fusion is so hard to achieve that we don't have the luxury of being picky about the reactions we aim for, and all the practical ones generate a metric fuckton of neutrons, enough to be lethal even on the other side of thick shielding, enough to induce dangerous secondary radioactivity in many elements, and enough to knock enough atoms out of their place in metal crystalline lattices to seroiusly weaken structures made from elements that dont' become radioactive too. It's a serious enough problem that the first and most important clue that Pons and Fleischmann had not achieved cold fusion was that they were still alive.

  3. Maybe same chemicals, but not $20 on U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception · · Score: 1

    As I replied below, my wife was on the PIll for 30 years. If there was a cheaper alternative I'd know about it.

  4. Great idea! Not only that... on U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception · · Score: 1

    ...there is no danger of pregnancy when the cucumber loses its cool and rapes you.

  5. In the US, insurance is a racket on U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception · · Score: 1

    Nearly everything is much cheaper to an insurance company than it is for you if you walk in the pharmacy and pay for it out of pocket. By not being able to get it on insurance, you lose that discount. Not that it should be that way, but that's how it is, and often that discount is 70% or more because of some foolishness called "differential pricing" instead of by its proper name, "theft."

  6. More like $50/month in the US on U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception · · Score: 1

    My wife has been on the Pill for 30 years. Believe me, if there were a cheaper option I'd know about it.

  7. Not in the US. on U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception · · Score: 1

    The most common birth control pill in use in the US costs USD$50 a month not counting the mandatory prescriptions. Many countries do sell them cheaper -- but not in the US, and they are never OTC here. Although free clinics do sometimes hand out Plan B I have never heard of one that dispenses regular non-emergency contraception. And this is where the ruling in question applies.

  8. Lots of people can't afford a movie a week on U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Religious Objections To Contraception · · Score: 2

    Particularly a $12 movie, which is what they would have to cost to equal the cost of the Pill. (Not counting the mandatory biannual medical exams, without which you can't get a prescription.) Ginsberg noted in her dissent that the cost of an IUD is comparable to a month's salary for a person making minimum wage. Then again, I'm sure you'll also agree that the cost of your own vaccines and blood transfusions are also reasonable when those folks start claiming their exemption under this stupid ruling.

  9. An old neighbor said 5 = bad cop on US Marshals Seize Police Stingray Records To Keep Them From the ACLU · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He himself retired from the redacted state police after 12 years, some spent undercover. He said that for the most part the idealists who want to save the world get washed out by the corruption by 5 years and anyone who's stayed longer than that is getting more out of it than their salary.

  10. Not really on Grace Hopper, UNIVAC, and the First Programming Language · · Score: 1

    Your 8080 didn't spend most of its time waiting for instructions to pop out of the end of its delay line memory. (My first computer was also powered by an 8080, represent.)

  11. This might work for awhile on Meet Canada's Goosebuster Drone · · Score: 1

    It will stop working when the geese realize that the drones never eat a goose and can be safely ignored.

  12. This has nothing to do with Snowden etc. on Obama Says He May Or May Not Let the NSA Exploit the Next Heartbleed · · Score: 1
    I'm fully with the "buck stops here" theory of governance. The problem is that this isn't even a buck. How, exactly, do you think that the information that an exploit like Heartbleed exists migrates in a compartmentalized agency like the NSA from the group that identifies it to use in spying to the group that perhaps looks to protect us from foreign spies? How does it migrate to top administration? The answer is that it doesn't. It can't. Maybe it should, but as the NSA (and probably any practially workable version of it) exists there simply is no channel for that information to move from those who are using it to others who might have a need, on wholly different merits, to know it.

    It is very unlikely that the guys who discovered Heartbleed as a SIGINT opportunity had any channels at all to warn other arms of the agency that it might be a vulnerability on our side; consider how such channels could and would be misused in so many other situations. The spooks would never implement such a thing. From the SIGINT side Heartbleed is a low-level technical detail, hardly worth the attention of a Civil Service level adminstrator except for the ops that it makes possible.

  13. The President doesn't micro-manage this stuff on Obama Says He May Or May Not Let the NSA Exploit the Next Heartbleed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really, anybody who thinks anybody cabinet level or higher even knows about this kind of logistical detail is an idiot. This isn't at all like the torture thing which is a basic human rights violation; nobody is questioning the NSA's right to spy on certain people, and this has nothing to do with any accusation that they're spying on people they shouldn't be spying on. This is about technological implementation, and it's part of NSA's purview as a spy agency to explore technologies that further their ability to do their job. Part of that is discovering weaknesses in cryptographic systems which are trusted by the people you want to spy on. Having discovered such a useful weakness they aren't obliged to report it, although they are obliged not to use it (or any of their other techniques) against our own citizens.

  14. Re:In a cochlear implant users own words: on How Cochlear Implants Are Being Blamed For Killing Deaf Culture · · Score: 1

    El Rushbo's deafness isn't natural, it's the result of adult opioid abuse, so the treatment may be different than for non drug-addicts who are just naturally deaf.

  15. If you have a time machine with a short range on The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia · · Score: 2

    ...of only a few days, then this would be quite useful. You could get Denzel Washington in onthe project somehow.

  16. I have always felt coding was a language skill on The Neuroscience of Computer Programming · · Score: 1
    Even though computer languages are different from human languages in major and universal ways we do use the same mental muscles to comprehend computer languages as we do human ones. This is also why it is much easier for children who are exposed to programming early to pick up the knack than it is if they aren't introduced to coding until they are adults.

    While computer languages are about math a lot more than human languages, coding isn't really like doing math. It's more like telling the machine how to do math, which the machine then does for you.

  17. Re:Trademark powers? -- NO. on 'The Color Run' Violates Agreement With College Photographer, Then Sues Him · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is all actually fairly straightforward if a little weird under boilerplate copyright law. First, lacking model releases of his own, Jackson cannot use the photos for commercial purposes. He could use them as part of a portfolio but as soon as he puts one on a billboard or in an ad, he needs permission from the individuals who are identifiable in the image, which he doesn't have. Second, in the absence of a contract Jackson owns the images, full stop. Nobody can put them on a billboard without his permission. He gave permission to put them on Facebook, but the going rate for use on billboards and in ads is much higher. $100K is not unreasonable for the level of use that has been demonstrated. Third, Color Run almost certainly has a model release embedded in the paperwork the runners sign to enter the race, so they have the right on that count to use the pictures. They would be OK if they compensated Jackson, but they are not OK if they do not compensate Jackson. This is the ONLY way it is OK to put those pictures on billboards -- Jackson has to give permission to do so, for which he deserves much more compensation than he would get for use on Facebook, and Color Run has to do the publishing because they have the model releases. The Color Run people are way out of line here and probably indulging in a snit because their authoritah was disrespected. But they are very clearly in the wrong. As for trademark, that's completely irrelevant, since Jackson has no right to publish the pictures commercially without the model releases that Color Run has. However, Jackson DOES have certain Fair Use rights, such as releasing a few examples in the course of presenting his side of this story, as long as there is no danger of the images being misinterpreted as a commercial representation by Color Run themselves and as long as they serve certain alternate purposes, for which "news" qualifies.

  18. XP doesn't allow hardware access either on Customer: Dell Denies Speaker Repair Under Warranty, Blames VLC · · Score: 1

    The 16-bit Windows -- 3.x, 95, 98, and ME -- allow DOS style direct hardware access for things like sound and serial hardware. The Windows NT derivatives including NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, and 8 do not allow application program access to hardware at all due to the underlying security model.

  19. It's not for cars on Metal-Free 'Rhubarb' Battery Could Store Renewable Grid Energy · · Score: 2

    For grid storage your battery will be a building. It can be as large as necessary; it's the price of the infrastructure and reactant to store and re-create enough energy to get the solar farm past a rainy day which are limits.

  20. It's not about density on Metal-Free 'Rhubarb' Battery Could Store Renewable Grid Energy · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's about storing a large amount of energy in a very large amount of electrolyte without similarly large plates and electrical connections. For power storage they are thinking in terms of batteries the size of buildings, perhaps built like current sewerage-treatment plants, to store energy in the electrolyte and move it along, bringing it back to the electrical assembly with pumps as needed. It can be considerably less energy-dense than current batteries in pounds per erg and still be far more practical for the kind of large-scale storage the tech is aimed at.

  21. Can't possibly be rocky + H/He on KOI-314c: Weird Small "Puffed-Up" Exoplanet Discovered · · Score: 2

    Planets like Earth don't hold on to hydrogen and helium even without nearby atmosphere-ripping stars in the mix. What is much more likely is that it's an entirely solid world with no atmosphere but made of much lighter elements than the Earth. Carbon mantle over rocky core would be just about right for 1.5 times the density of water. Of course, having once been the core of a gas giant, the planet's surface could very well be a gigantic diamond.

  22. Re:Interesting potential issue on 4 Tips For Your New Laptop · · Score: 1

    Yes the ransomware will encrypt your cloud backups and mounted network drives -- it's not at all limited to your user folder. If the cloud backup service keeps an archive then you might be OK, but the free DropBox service doesn't.

  23. Re:No Sympathy on Exponential Algorithm In Windows Update Slowing XP Machines · · Score: 2

    I suggest you ally yourself with an actual business and try to apply these lofty principles. I'll know your education is complete by the peals of laughter and sound of doors slamming behind you.

  24. Re:No Sympathy on Exponential Algorithm In Windows Update Slowing XP Machines · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is really unrealistic. What if the original hardware supplier is out of business or has discontinued the product line? The supply chain for many industrial systems of this type can be 10 levels deep, and it's simply impossible (unless you make the kind of hyper-expensive arrangements the military does so that they can keep 50's era computers running today) for contractors in that chain to do as you suggest. Commodity computers are so powerful and cheap with such ubiquitous development tools and talent that it's hard for suppliers to ignore what's available just because traditional ideas of longevity can't be trusted.

  25. Re:No Sympathy on Exponential Algorithm In Windows Update Slowing XP Machines · · Score: 1

    Lots of process control and data acquisition systems have proprietary hardware whose drivers haven't been or can't be migrated. A security system has many candidates for such a dependency.