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User: HawkinsD

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Comments · 122

  1. Isn't GnuPG German? on Non-US Encryption Is 'Theoretical', Claims CIA Chief In Backdoor Debate (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hold up there a minute, Mr SpyMaster. I think GnuPG (open-source implementation of PGP) is German. Or at least: " g10code GmbH, the legal entity employing some of the GnuPG hackers" is German.

    My company has been using GnuPG for ten years.

    See https://gnupg.org/ .

  2. Re:What Type of Truck? on Tesla Truck 'Quite Likely,' Says Elon Musk (bgr.com) · · Score: 1

    Ludicrous amounts of torque, from a standing start, might be a huge selling point.

    This instant torque is why locomotive designers hook up diesel engines to make electricity to power electric motors. The torque is worth the conversion losses.

    So imagine a pickup truck with a "ludicrous" mode, not for acceleration, but for getting a trailer rolling.

  3. Re:58 Second Burn? on Easily-Captured Asteroids Identified · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, let's consider the damage from the impact of a rocky asteroid, 60m in diameter. Plug this into the excellent Earth Impact Effects program at http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/. Assume a velocity of 17 km/s, which they say is "typical for asteroids," and an impact angle of 45 degrees.

    The calculator says:

            The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 54000 meters = 177000 ft
            The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 4700 meters = 15400 ft
            The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 4.77 km/s = 2.96 miles/s
            The energy of the airburst is 4.52 x 1016 Joules = 1.08 MegaTons.
            No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface.

    Clearly you wouldn't want to be right underneath it, but even as close as 20 km, the air blast effects seem rather anticlimactic:

            Peak Overpressure: 18900 Pa = 0.189 bars = 2.69 psi
            Max wind velocity: 41.4 m/s = 92.6 mph
            Sound Intensity: 86 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
            Damage Description:
                    Glass windows will shatter.
                    About 30 percent of trees blown down; remainder have some branches and leaves blown off.

    So it'd be like BOOM! But not like KA-FOOOM!

    For comparison, the Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated at 17-20m, with an airburst energy of 0.4 MegaTons.

  4. Re:What could possibly go wrong? on NASA Considers Putting an Asteroid Into Orbit Around the Moon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, they defintely mean 7 meters. 500,000 kg. Which seems like a lot, if it's hitting your house at several miles per second.

    But that's only 90,000 kg more than the ISS (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/isstodate.html).

    On the other hand, I bet the ISS would burn up a lot better on its way towards your house.

  5. Re:Obvious answer.. on Ask Slashdot: 2nd Spoken/Written Language For Software Developer? · · Score: 1

    Spanish is a good idea, but won't help in the Philippines, where they speak Tagalog (a.k.a. Filipino) and English.

    Spanish will help you learn Tagalog, since there are some cognates. But none of my Pinoy friends speak any Spanish.

  6. Re:BYO on Secret Security Questions Are a Joke · · Score: 5, Funny

    My favorite make-up-your-own pair, which a CSR at a bank was once forced to read to me over the phone:

    Q: "You're not going out dressed like that are you?"

    A: "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real father!"

  7. Re:Launcher barrels rifled! on Build Your Own Camera, Launch It Like a Grenade · · Score: 1

    Mr. Elm:

    That's a good point about the rifling. It appears that the Defcon fellows are using flare launchers, which, anecdotally, are described as smoothbore.

    I dunno why flare launchers aren't rifled. Maybe the need for accuracy in shooting a flare is low: if it goes UP, instead of sideways, it's probably considered a success. The energy expended on making it spin could arguably be better spent on making it fly.

  8. Good for Slashdot for following up on Samsung Keylogger Stories a False Alarm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least Slashdot has the journalistic ethics to post the follow-up. Good for them. I note that Network World is doing the same.

    Yes, I said "journalistic" in the same sentence as "Slashdot." It's important.

  9. Re:Favorite on Revenge of the Cable Customer · · Score: 1

    They will simply drop you as a client if you take them to court.

  10. Re:I don't care about "most dictionaries"... on Google Launches Dictionary, Drops Answers.com · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's really interesting, thanks. The main dictionary (oed.com) is $295/year. I didn't know they had a concise one for free.

    And it really is concise. One (really good) definition. Not 37 links, like the Google dictionary.

    Not that there's anything wrong with 37 links. But sometimes I just want to want to know the definition of the word.

  11. Re:sectioned while alive? on Brain of Patient H.M. Being Sliced, Streamed Live · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought the same thing. Nowhere in the summary does it say that the patient is deceased.

    May I suggest a clarification?

    The slicing the brain of the famous amnesic patient H.M. WHO IS FRICKIN' DEAD into giant histological sections...

  12. Re:LogMeIn on Simple, Free Web Remote PC Control? · · Score: 1

    Who rated this a troll? It's funny.

  13. link is Judge Borked on Chicago Court Throwing Out LIDAR Speeding Tickets · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The link doesn't work. On the other hand, there's a very nice 404 page. It's funny, friendly, and attempts to be informative.

    Good error handling is something many of us don't always do well.

  14. Re:Rain? Insects? Birds? on Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome · · Score: 1

    Water needs? A river runs through downtown.

    Plus, as the owner of a house with a leaky roof and a lawn that needs mowing, I say FUCK the plants.

  15. I dunno, man. Snow is heavy on Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A couple of years ago Burlington, VT received 25.7 inches (0.65 m) of snow in 24 hours. I don't know what the density of snow is (I imagine it varies wildly), but that seems like a lot of weight.

    OK, maybe the warm air can support that... but if that were the case, then on days when there wasn't 89 grillion kg of snow on top, there would be some pretty huge upward forces on the tent-pegs.

    OK, well, then, there are vents, to let our some of the hot air. But then you waste all that energy heating air that you're venting.

    But maybe it all works out somehow.

  16. Re:Thatcher and Argentina on Trojan Kill Switches In Military Technology · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wait! I retract my earlier assertion.

    According to this article (cited elsewhere in this thread by acb) about French President Mitterand, PM Thatcher successfully pressured the French to reveal the "codes to make the Exocets deaf and blind" after the Sheffield was sunk.

    Very interesting.

  17. Re:Thatcher and Argentina on Trojan Kill Switches In Military Technology · · Score: 4, Informative

    Perhaps you're referring to the French-made Exocet missiles, launched from the Argentine Super Etendard planes? The 20 dead sailors on HMS Sheffield, sunk by an Exocet, would disagree.

  18. Downtown Charlottesville, VA begs to differ on Is City-Wide Wi-Fi a Dead Idea? · · Score: 1

    I dunno about other places. But a pretty good chunk of downtown Charlottesville, Virginia is covered by free municipal wifi, and it works OK. Not everywhere, and no, you can't "seamlessly roam from one hotspot to another," as they say.

    But so what? The signal is reasonably reliable where I've tried it, on and near the downtown pedestrian mall, and the throughput is significantly better than that provided by the coffee shop or the library, even with the trees in full radiation-absorptive leafy-mode.

    Maybe "municipal wireless" means something more ambitious, like everybody who lives downtown gets a big honking signal even in their basement, and I don't think that's what they're trying to do here. But it sure is useful to be able to assume that, no matter where you get your latte, or slice, or dumpling, you'll be able to get some work done.

    That doesn't sound "dead" to me.

  19. Re:Comcast's version is orders of magitude better. on Comcast the Latest ISP To Try DNS Hijacking · · Score: 1

    I got the same results. That is: asking for asdrfkjgshklghrfgserg.com got me the stupid Comcast "Maybe you're looking for douchebags in Singapore" page.

  20. Re:1-800-comcast on Comcast the Latest ISP To Try DNS Hijacking · · Score: 1

    That's a nice thought, and I agree. But after you get through the 18 layers of phone menus... who are you going to talk to? The billing clerk? The tech support person? I guarantee you that their response will be: "Please unplug your cable modem and wait sixty seconds..."

    "Caller is ranting about broken DNS functionality" is NOT on their script.

    And anyway it's (888) COMCAST (not 800-). I have it memorized from all the service outages we get around here.

  21. Re:triggered an overlimit fee, as I recall on Software Glitch Leads To $23,148,855,308,184,500 Visa Charges · · Score: 1

    Correct, Mr. Deviant. Perhaps that was my screencap that you saw. They removed the $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 within a few hours, but I had to speak to a supervisor to get them to remove the $20 "Negative Balance Fee."

  22. I'm afraid you're wrong, sir on Software Glitch Leads To $23,148,855,308,184,500 Visa Charges · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm afraid you're wrong, sir or madam.

    I am one of the victims of this programming error, and I can tell you that several thousand VISA debit transactions were miscoded with the same amount: $23,148,855,308,184,500.00.

    I was not smart enough to look at my card number before I sent it off to Consumerist so that VISA could be made fun of. Happily, the string does not contain my (or apparently anybody's) credit (or debit) card number.

  23. Re:Does it ... on Asus Launches Eee PC T91, a Touch-Screen Tablet Netbook · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Aaaargh! I accidentally moderated this "Redundant." I meant to moderate it "Informative." There doesn't seem to be a way to take back a moderation. So I'm an idiot, and I apologize for my fat fingers.

  24. Re:submarine levels on Nuclear Subs 'Collide In Ocean' · · Score: 1

    Well, now I know what depth to set my depth charges to, when I'm trying to kill you.

    Dude, their motto is "We Hide With Pride." Your suggestion would make them less hide-y.

  25. Dang! I was getting SUCH a good deal on Repair Crews Reach Vicinity of Damaged Cables In Mediterranean · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dang it! I was getting SUCH a good deal from the colocation facility in Yemen.