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User: TheSHAD0W

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  1. another story of junk that might work on Increasing Fuel Mileage With Hydrogen? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I once read a page containing a suspect method for boosting the power of a motor by adding water. I don't remember how I ran across the page, but it was full of rambling by someone who basically had no idea how chemistry works but who had done some experimenting and may have stumbled on something...

    The idea basically involved mixing water and gasoline before feeding it into the engine. A surfactant was used to allow the two to misch, so the engine was never fed pure water. The experimenter also bolted a hunk of platinum to the top of the cylinder, saying the platinum would be a catalyst and would crack the water into hydrogen and oxygen, producing more energy.

    Pretty funny, huh?

    Well, maybe not. I sent him a letter with an alternative theory; that the added water absorbed heat and evaporated, trading heat that would otherwise be wasted for additional pressure inside the cylinder. I also postulated that the platinum chunk wasn't taking an active part in the situation, but was instead using up space inside the cylinder and increasing the compression ratio; and that a ratio that would lead to pre-detonation in a pure gasoline engine might not do so in a system that ran at lower temperatures, thanks to the water's cooling effect. I suggested running a few experiments to find out, by measuring operating temperatures with and without the water, and by bolting in a hunk of steel in place of the platinum and seeing if it made a difference. I also recommended he try a dual injection system, one for fuel and one for water, rather than try and mix them.

    I did get an email message back from the page's maintainer, but I've no idea if the experimenter ever got the message. Oh well.

  2. "Things that go blimp in the night" on Automated Office Delivery with Helium Blimps · · Score: 4, Funny
  3. Re:In the meantime... on Local Root Hole in Linux Kernels · · Score: 1

    Naw, it's a LOCAL exploit.

  4. Break out the ramdisk! on Gzip on a PCI card · · Score: 1

    Good point, Ego.

    Merlin? Mind running those tests one more time, this time to a ramdisk?

  5. Not a good comparison on Gzip on a PCI card · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You're assuming the card is using the same settings as your version of gzip defaults to. More likely it's using a much lower compression level and a considerably slower processor.

    Note that this isn't necessarily a bad thing; at the expense of maybe 5-10% less compression, you're getting that high throughput. Depending on your task, it's a good trade-off.

  6. In the meantime... on Local Root Hole in Linux Kernels · · Score: 4, Funny

    Until the patch has been tested and distributed, you can prevent the bug from being exploited by locking the door to your office.

  7. Makes sense. on Study Finds Tivo Less of a Threat to Advertisers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you're waiting for a commercial to finish, you aren't really paying attention, just waiting, and snoozing... On the other hand, if your finger is on the fast-forward button, you're paying attention so you don't zoom past the start of the next scene, so you're more likely to catch pieces of the commercial inadvertently.

  8. Wow! on Selling your Inbox Instead of Chocolates? · · Score: 4, Funny

    25 cents apiece? Wow! That's a lot!

    I figure I could make a jillion email addresses on one of the domains I'm squatt^H^H^H^H^H^H reserving, give 'em all to this company, make some quick cash, and then null-route the emails a few days later.

  9. Re:not optimal on Live Vorbis Streams Over 802.11b From SXSW.com · · Score: 1

    I don't *think* you'd need to put the card into promiscuous mode if the streams were served over the broadcast address; i.e., xx.xx.xx.255 (your network may vary). Trouble is, I don't know of any standard streaming software that'd be able to tune into it. It should only take some minor tweaks to do so, though.

  10. not optimal on Live Vorbis Streams Over 802.11b From SXSW.com · · Score: 1

    Without special software, say, receiving the streams over the broadcast address, 802.11b would be an awful way to deliver audio. Each stream would require discrete bandwidth from the connection. Is a broadcast method being used?

  11. encrypted swap space on Basics of Cryptographic Filesystems · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I know I'm going off on a tangent, but I think it's relevant... One of the big problems with PC security is swap space. Unencrypted data often finds its way onto the disk when memory space is swapped out. The simplest solution would be to just load the system up with a huge amount of RAM and disable swapping entirely, but that can get expensive.

    Are there any crypto schemes designed specifically for use on swap files and volumes? They'd need to be blazingly fast so as not to slow the machine down, but would also have to be strong enough to protect anything that gets dumped to the drive. Maybe a big (2 meg plus) hash table generated randomly on boot, with a few extra operations to keep block comparisons from working?

  12. NFS mount on Free Software Operating Systems for Old Laptops? · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you can get a network adapter into that puppy, you can install most any version of Linux using a boot floppy and mounting the CD over the network.

  13. Re:Lame, but good enough. on Securing University Residential Networks? · · Score: 1

    Sounds good... At least, until your Trojan writers get smart and start messing with the drivers, switching MAC addresses randomly...

  14. Me! Me! on The Ethics of Life Extension · · Score: 1

    Yes, I want to elude death, for as long as possible, and as long as I can enjoy life. I WILL take antibiotics when I have a disease, I WILL have surgery when my appendix bursts, and I WILL watch my diet to keep myself healthy.

    Now, go find me an experienced individual. I'd be HAPPY to speak with one. We'll see if he can convince me that a short, brutish life is better for me.

  15. Re:Probably because... on Kodak Releases Digital Camera With OLED Display · · Score: 1

    Don't have any, I'm afraid, and a quick net search doesn't turn it up either. OLED longevity was a big concern during development, and I never saw any "yes we solved the problem" announcements. I was being a bit facetious about the "2-year" estimate. Please note that a technology that IS pretty widespread now ALSO has longevity problems; the plasma display. It's not as pronounced as OLED might prove to be, but if you run your expensive HDTV plasma panel constantly, you might wind up using it up. Heck, LCD panels have problems too, with the back lighting.

  16. Probably because... on Kodak Releases Digital Camera With OLED Display · · Score: 1

    ...They don't want US liability when the OLED display goes tits up 2 years after you buy the camera.

  17. Geez! on Riemann Hypothesis Proved? · · Score: 1

    You folks are as bad as I am; tell you guys a joke, and you think I'm being serious.

    God, we're such nerds. We should stop reading Slashdot.

  18. In that case -- Yay! I win a million dollars! on Riemann Hypothesis Proved? · · Score: 2, Funny

    After reading the article, the solution looks pretty obvious.

    The Riemann hypothesis asserts that all interesting solutions of the equation z(s) = 0 lie on a straight line.

    Well, graphing s versus z(s), if z(s) is always zero, then obviously all values of s solving that equation lie on the s axis, which is a straight line. QED.

    Sheesh. That wasn't so hard.

  19. Re:But which monopoly is the real culprit? on FCC Abandons Linesharing, Kills DSL Competition · · Score: 1

    'Fraid I'd have to disagree with you there. The reason why the telephone line monopolies were established was because of the expense of a new installation, and because Bell could afford to undercut a newly established competitor until they went out of business. This continued to be true up until recently, and is still mostly true... But now that the telcos are stuck with their twisted-pair copper networks when competitors can put in fiber, there's a real potential for change.

    Except there's a catch... It's called government.

  20. But which monopoly is the real culprit? on FCC Abandons Linesharing, Kills DSL Competition · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So the phone companies have monopolies on the wires running to your house, and you have no alternative but to use them... Exactly whose fault is it?

    * The phone companies who own the wires running to your location?

    * The local governments, who regulate how many wires can be put up, and extort plenty of cash from anyone who wishes to emplace new ones?

    * The state governments, who already charge heavy tariffs on current communications methods (hey, it's a monopoly, we can milk it as much as we want), and also put more tariffs and more barriers on newcomers to the business?

    * The federal government, which severely limits anyone who wants to try a wireless solution?

  21. Expect more ions in the future on ESA Satellite Recovers: Total Loss To Geostationary · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The results of this botched lofting actually bode well for future satellite installations. Admittedly, using ion thrusters for final delivery would take much longer than using standard rocket technology, but it would also be enormously less expensive. The weight savings would be large, at a stage where weight is the most expensive part of the flight.

  22. Re:Don't forget trig! on What Math do You Use? · · Score: 1

    You'd be surprised. I mentioned that teacher, who was in mathematics. I'm sure she knew the functions, and basically what they could do, but just couldn't visualize how they worked with the unit circle and their applications.

    Really, the only way to teach this is to go on to either calculus or linear algebra, and then go BACK and redo trig.

  23. Open another email on Cancelling your Passport.NET Account? · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think what may be going on is your Passport account is tied to that email account, and is trying to send a cancellation confirmation or something.

    Try reactivating the old email account, and also make a new temporary account, say with Yahoo email. Then change the Passport email to the Yahoo account. THEN you ought to be able to shut down both Passport and that MS email account.

  24. Don't forget trig! on What Math do You Use? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Trigonometry, and its applications to linear equations, are important to anyone doing 3D graphics work. It's surprising how many people can't visualize sine, cosine and tangent functions nowadays.

    In grade school I had one CS teacher want me to help a fellow student animate a sprite-based ferris wheel on the screen; I used a simple loop from 0 to pi/2 in small steps, with sin and cos functions to place 4 cars on the wheel. The teacher was amazed at how smoothly the wheel ran, and didn't seem to understand how it all worked...

  25. Re:Supposedly... on Windows XP EULA Discrepancies · · Score: 1

    Actually, you're wrong. Microsoft will refund purchases made if you don't install the software and tell them you don't agree with the EULA. They have to, in order to keep the EULA valid. A few reports of their REFUSING to take it back, and if they ever decided to sue someone in court for violation, the defendant's attorney would bring it up that Microsoft routinely disobeyed its own EULA -- and the case would be thrown out.