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User: blair1q

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Comments · 9,324

  1. Re:Huh? on Chapel Hill Computational Linguists Crack Skype Calls · · Score: 1

    i find linguistics pretty useful, too, since it's how translation of all kinds works (including code compilation). in fact, it's pretty silly to say anyone doesn't find it useful. maybe they meant studying linguistics is pretty useless, if you're not going to work in the construction of translators. but that could be said of any subject, and the continued propagation of that attitude across all subjects and throughout the population, in a nation operating democratically under the principle of majority rule, would result in the ending of public education.

    and i'm pretty sure nobody wants that (except those who prefer an ignorant, easily-defrauded public).

  2. Re:Codec as the weak point on Chapel Hill Computational Linguists Crack Skype Calls · · Score: 1

    it could have been defeated by encrypting the entire data stream instead of just part of it.

  3. Re:overheard in a private jet hanger on Chapel Hill Computational Linguists Crack Skype Calls · · Score: 1

    it's a large multiple of what you need to buy a presidential election

  4. Re:Side channel attack on Chapel Hill Computational Linguists Crack Skype Calls · · Score: 2

    if your encryption leaves the message where it can be read without decrypting it, then it was never actually encrypted

    skype is using a lot more bandwidth than they need to. like single-sideband radio, they can drop at least half the channels they're sending and the information will still be perfectly intelligible on the other end. they've effectively done that by sending superfluous encrypted gibberish on their "main" channel.

    the bonus is, their method of sending the message in the side channel is probably patentable.

  5. Re:Scientific Linux 6.0 or RedHat Enterprise 6.1 on Ask Slashdot: Best Linux Distro For Computational Cluster? · · Score: 1

    eh, nemmind. my brain wandered while my eyes worked over your other two paragraphs.

  6. Re:Scientific Linux 6.0 or RedHat Enterprise 6.1 on Ask Slashdot: Best Linux Distro For Computational Cluster? · · Score: 1

    Scientific Linux 6.0 is built on Redhat Enterprise Edition 6

    So is Scientific Linux 6.0 free?

  7. Re:This Question on Ask Slashdot: Best Linux Distro For Computational Cluster? · · Score: 1

    ..."and whoever is left standing and doesn't have too much shit on him in the end shall be king!"

    Pretty much how all reviews go, minus the fun for the spectators.

  8. Re:None of them on Ask Slashdot: Best Linux Distro For Computational Cluster? · · Score: 2

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of BeOS, beotch.

  9. Re:This just in on PayPal Co-Founder Gives Out $100,000 To Not Go To College · · Score: 1

    Yes, because hard work pays off.

  10. Re:Funny Thing on PayPal Co-Founder Gives Out $100,000 To Not Go To College · · Score: 1

    I'd be willing to bet that J.D. kept him from doing something stupid while building his company.

  11. Re:So tell me on PayPal Co-Founder Gives Out $100,000 To Not Go To College · · Score: 1

    The piece of paper doesn't get you a job.

    It gets you an interview for a different job than you could interview for without it.

    And if that's not the point of going to college, then you're likely wasting your time at college. See "Liberal Arts Major".

  12. Re:So tell me on PayPal Co-Founder Gives Out $100,000 To Not Go To College · · Score: 1

    You can't understand best practices or their value unless you have some experience with what is being practiced.

    Having your managers managing from a position of ignorance is a great way to waste money.

  13. Re:So tell me on PayPal Co-Founder Gives Out $100,000 To Not Go To College · · Score: 1

    You mean he'll be able to buy these companies' patent portfolios for nothing (or indeed may already own them) when their CEOs naturally screw up their businesses and declare bankruptcy.

  14. Re:Bzzzt! Bullshit. on Finnish Record Labels Want To Block Pirate Bay · · Score: 1

    Amazon killed Borders Books.

    So your argument may be built on a cantilevered floor of lahvosh.

  15. Re:Are you surprised? on 35 Million Google Profiles Collected · · Score: 2

    This!...is CNN...

  16. Ahem. on 35 Million Google Profiles Collected · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Internet is not secure.

  17. Re:Amazing! on 10-Year Study Reveals Electron Shape · · Score: 1

    Can you suggest a better way of measuring the shape of an electron?

    What is the shape of a fan?

    Is it a long and turbulent stream, or is it a flat figure-8 with a slight twist in it?

    One is the shape of its force. The other is the shape of it.

    Actually, it is associated with a third shape: A whirling disc of pain.

  18. Re:Under what conditions? on 10-Year Study Reveals Electron Shape · · Score: 1

    "How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality." - Albert Einstein.

    Because real objects follow logical processes, and math is logic. The "independent of experience" part is why it's purely logical and not prejudiced towards assumptions based on apparent constancy of observations, which, it turns out, is precisely why physics has to turn to math.

  19. Re:Under what conditions? on 10-Year Study Reveals Electron Shape · · Score: 1

    it's reasonable to assume that if the dipole moment is zero then the higher moments are nearly zero, too.

    Is it?

    The dipole moment is innately asymmetric.

    The quadrupole moment can be symmetric.

    If all they did was measure symmetry and find no asymmetry...

  20. Re:Seriously on China Alleged To Use Prisoners In Lucrative Internet Gaming · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In a country where you can be jailed for bitching to the government, do you really think that the bosses of the prisons are at all independent of the power structure?

    And the fact that exploitation of human desperation is common does not make it right, in or out of prison. China's brand of socialism is bullshit. It's plain fascism, where workers are cattle and the government gets all the value they add.

  21. Re:What the? on The Petition to Classify Wikipedia a "World Wonder" · · Score: 1

    Changed the lives of at least that many who alwasy thought it might be worth contributing to but found out that any correct information added is removed or modified to senselessness over a surprisingly short time, and thus decided that humanity might not be worth informing after all.

  22. Alternatives? on The Petition to Classify Wikipedia a "World Wonder" · · Score: 1

    We need a petition to have it classed as a reliable source of random values.

  23. Re:Human hair? on 10-Year Study Reveals Electron Shape · · Score: 1

    Inhuman handwaving.

  24. Re:puuurfect on 10-Year Study Reveals Electron Shape · · Score: 2

    It will no longer be possible to measure the error, when you are bald.

  25. Re:Amazing! on 10-Year Study Reveals Electron Shape · · Score: 1

    They didn't measure the particle, they measured the forces between particles.