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User: connor4312

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  1. Beets! on Apple Reportedly Buying Beats Electronics For $3.2 Billion · · Score: 3, Funny

    With Apple buying Beets, they're set to dominate the produce market!

  2. BackBlaze on How Do You Backup 20TB of Data? · · Score: 2

    BackBlaze offers unlimited backup storage for home users for around $5/mo - encrypted with asymmetric keys. I've got about 750 GB on there myself, works great. Although they may not *like* you backing up 20 TB of stuff, they should accept it. And, if they don't, you're about back five bucks. Probably worth a try.

  3. One Word on Why Do Projects Continue To Support Old Python Releases? · · Score: 2

    CentOS

  4. Why the Hate? on Google's Dart Becomes ECMA's Dart · · Score: 1

    As a web developer, I'm quite excited for Google Dart and am interested in seeing where it leads; I'm not sure what's with all the bashing about it, except out of pure ignorance. Javascript is a very useful and neat, but rather strange language, riddled with tricks, "gotchas", and downright strange behavior. I do use it on a daily basis, and I've learned to love it (the NPM ecosystem is wonderful), but I wouldn't go so far to call it a good language in and of itself. That's why things like Typekit and Coffeescript exist. Dart looks like it'll bring more structured programming into the web (along with some performance gains). I've not yet jumped into it - learning Python at the moment - but am excited to do so, and I think it has potential.

  5. Re:Belgium is a NATO member on NSA Infected 50,000 Computer Networks With Malicious Software · · Score: 1

    An outstanding example of a non sequitur, congratulations!

  6. Re:A toxic post on Google Attacks Microsoft Again: Android 4.4 Ships With Quickoffice · · Score: 1

    Feel that burning rage that makes you want to pound the keyboard and mod me down? Free speech working as intended.

    Mods might possibly want to do so, because your comment is blatant flamebait (as I see it). If you feel the need to dare the mods to downvote you, you may want to considering saying something else, or not saying anything at all.

    "-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview" may not to an option, but "-1: Flamebait" is.

  7. Let me get that for you... on Ars: Cross-Platform Malware Communicates With Sound · · Score: 4, Informative
    It seems like the vast majority of people started flaming without reading the author's comment, so here it is:

    Dear Ars readers,

    As a journalist for more than 17 years, I have never written a spoof story for April Fool's Day or any other holiday. I certainly had no intention of doing so with this article. It's completely coincidental that this story ran today, on Halloween.

    The ninth paragraph of my article reads:

    Quote:
    "At times as I've reported this story, its outline has struck me as the stuff of urban legend, the advanced persistent threat equivalent of a Bigfoot sighting. Indeed, Ruiu has conceded that while several fellow security experts have assisted his investigation, none has peer reviewed his process or the tentative findings that he's beginning to draw."


    Here and elsewhere in the post, I have tried to make clear that many of the details of this article sounded far-fetched to me. They still do. I have also tried to be transparent that no one has independently corroborated Ruiu's findings. That said, these same details have been publicly available for more than two weeks, and a large number of Ruiu's peers find them believable.

    I decided to resolve this conflict between my own skepticism and the reaction of Ruiu's fellow security researchers by reporting accurately what all of them said and making clear that so far no one has peer reviewed Ruiu's research process or findings.

    I have no doubt that researchers will pore over every laptop and USB drive Ruiu makes available and independently arrive at their own conclusions. I fully intend to report whatever they find. If they find no evidence to support Ruiu's account, Ars readers will be among the first to know.

    Regards,

    Dan Goodin

  8. Re:Article is likely innaccurate on one point on Ars: Cross-Platform Malware Communicates With Sound · · Score: 1

    That, or, as one Ars commenter suggested, he was infected accidentally. If that is the case, I would not be surprised if the malware he is running into is a sponsored by some state - the complexity of it suggests and organization with means. If that state was our lovely US of A, I would not put it past the NSA to mandate backdoors be built in operating systems. Now, this would obviously be trickier (I'd say impossible) to hide in open source systems like Linux or BSD, but he mentioned that the laptop was a Windows laptop.

  9. I win on DARPA Issues $2mil Cyber Grand Challenge · · Score: 1

    iptables -A INPUT -j DROP
    iptables -A OUTPUT -j DROP

  10. Monitoring? on DHHS Preparing 'Tech Surge' To Fix Remaining Healthcare.gov Issues · · Score: 1

    We're also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site

    So... they didn't already have such a system in place? My faith has been completely restored in the competency of their developers...

  11. Re:This can't be good on Teachers Get 1 Week To Test Tech Giants' Hour of Code · · Score: 1

    I completely agree. Spending one hour of class time teaching students how to code and giving them a glimpse into the CS world could seriously endanger the nation's future as a country with a population less educated than the global average!

  12. Re:Interesting psychological experiment on Google Sparking Interest To Quantum Mechanics With Minecraft · · Score: 2

    Plain ol' physics can be intuitive enough at times - our brains have not evolved to understand it at all, merely to survive. A very basic example is that the mass of an object does not change its rate of deceleration due to friction. F = ma, Force of friction = mgcos(theta), therefore mgcos(theta) = ma and gcos(theta) = ma. Another is that, despite what is seen in films, a swinging object is more likely to fall at the bottom of its path than the top. I would be very, very, very surprised if there was a game that could make a concept that goes far beyond such basics intuitive to the average person.

  13. Re:Shuttleworth works for the NSA on Shuttleworth: Apple Will Merge Mac and iPhone · · Score: 1

    Just because someone works in a country, does not mean they hold every political ideology that that country holds. I happen to live and work in America, but that does not mean that I agree with the government's apparent desire to become a surveillance state, nor does that make me (I hope!) a pro-censorship, nationalistic extremist.

  14. Re:Obligatory on Qualcomm to Build Neuro-Inspired Chips · · Score: 1

    Not sure where that's coming from. The quotations would indicate it's from a 3rd party source, but Google could not find that quote... "Qualcomm chief technology officer Matt Grob said by next year, the company and its partners would design and manufacture neural processing units (NPUs) which function in a completely different manner to current processors." Itnews.

  15. Re:This is bound to come up... on The Era of Young Innovators: Looking Beyond Universities To Source Talents · · Score: 2

    And as a side note: if you need faith restored in the upcoming (my) generation, take a day visit to ISEF when it rolls around near you - they rotate around most major US cities, or even just read about it if you cannot - it's very much worth it. There's pretty incredible, mind-blowing research at every other booth.

  16. This is bound to come up... on The Era of Young Innovators: Looking Beyond Universities To Source Talents · · Score: 1

    There's always Jack Andraka, who happened upon a method for cancer detection. Like many great discoveries, however, it was by chance - background of the discovery is readable across the interwebs. This year at the Intel Internation Science and Engineering Fair (which I attended, competing Computer Science of course), he placed but third in his category, amoungst many other third place winners.

  17. BYOS on Ask Slashdot: Cloud Service On a Budget? · · Score: 2

    Bring your own server. Depending on the time frame/duration of the project, it might be more cost effective to rent a quarter or half rack in a datacenter and build/buy your own servers. High initial up front cost, but does save money in the long run.

  18. Full of BS on Exxon Charged With Illegally Dumping Waste In Pennsylvania · · Score: 1

    Their full article can be viewed here. One of the especially cute things I find on the page is that they give an image of a parking lot, a truck, and some grass to the side. The caption invites the viewer to "[n]ote the... absence of long-term environmental impact." Sorry, XTO, but having green grass on the side of your parking lot does not prove a lack of long-term environmental impact. Not to mention the fact that putting in the parking lot has some significant impacts in and of itself...

  19. So? on Elon Musk Shows His Vision of Holographic Design Technology · · Score: 1

    So he mapped a Leap Motion controller into NX and made it viewable on an Oculus Rift... or more accurately, the code monkeys who work for him did. I remain unimpressed.

  20. Re:Tell me when the subsidie run out on Germany Produces Record-Breaking 5.1 Terawatt Hours of Solar Energy In One Month · · Score: 1

    I mean, no one complains about schools being funded by the government, although private schools do exist. They invest in the future of the people, why not publicly invest in the future of the world?

  21. Re:Tell me when the subsidie run out on Germany Produces Record-Breaking 5.1 Terawatt Hours of Solar Energy In One Month · · Score: 0

    I want renewable energy. But I want it to be self supporting.

    Why? There really is not much reason to require it to be self-sustaining.

  22. "Discovered" on Researchers Discover First Use of Fertilizer · · Score: 1

    Also known as moved back the date of when we think fertilizers were first used...

  23. Use it For Good on Hackers Spawn Web Supercomputer On Way To Chess World Record · · Score: 1

    Now, if something like this could be used for... real... projects, like Rosetta@Home or other good BOINC projects, they could potentially do some real good.

  24. Re:Yes, they might all agree but... on 97% of Climate Science Papers Agree Global Warming Is Man-made · · Score: 1

    No, I realized his comment was intended to be sarcastic - I was just reiterating what he said. Ironically, it appears Poe's law does indeed work!

  25. Re:didn't temperatures peak in 1998? on 97% of Climate Science Papers Agree Global Warming Is Man-made · · Score: 1

    I recall that the global temperature peaked in 1998 and has not broken that record since... recall that the temperature reached in 1998 was lower than that of 1934

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

    I also recall that CO2 levels have reached a new peak

    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html#global_growth (see Annual Mean Global Carbon Dioxide Growth Rates) - it's been increasing every year. You seem to have recalled several things incorrectly.

    Just one example, federal buildings in DC are heated by one of the dirtiest coal fired power plants in the federation. If they were serious about global warming then I would expect them to do something about this first before telling me what kind of heat I can use in my own home.

    Problem is, energy is a private authority. I assume, based on your "2nd ammendment" signature, that you are a conservative. The government doesn't have the ability in modern times (it's more conservative now than when the TVA was around) to regulate energy. Would you rather have them force a company to build a solar/wind/etc farm around DC, or build one themselves? That's a whole different debate.