"Is that were you learn to raise cattle?":-) No, it isn't but as far as scientific reputation goes, it is pretty far down the list. But heritage is the smaller part of the questions - show me your work - and I will tell you what it is worth.
And the original story was very much lacking there. So they found a string that looked like a credit card number on the hard disk, without any idea how it got there. Note: this is not a controlled experiment, this an xBox from ebay - pretty much the opposite of a controlled experiment. Could it have been in an email? Or maybe it was not a credit card in the first place, but just a number starting with 4? We don't know, and to be honest it does not look like Dr Ashley L Podhradsky. A publicity stunt certainly, but research it is not.
Seconded. This is not Slashdot, this is Slashdot theatre, stages by bad actors with no technical expertise whatsoever.
It has gone from a place were you would find serious technical news stories to one of the worst places on the net. Always looking for the next outcry and the next provocation posting, worse than even the tabloid press.
Exactly. There is a reason that "modern" reactors (that is 1970s constructions) use dome. It contains the water vapour and provides cooling, while the vapour condenses and feeds into the reactor again. Typically this scenario involves the controlled release of some radioactive gases into the atmosphere (most are caught in a filter bank), but it avoids the nasty core melt down Japan has experienced.
Your opinion is your opinion, but why Slashdot is running this story eludes me. Is Slashdot anti-gay? The question has to be asked, because the only other explanation is shock value. And we all know that Slashdot only published well researched, meaningful and interesting stories for geeks.
Libel, slander, extortion, defamation, maybe even stalking. It is all those things, and the medium (the internet) is distinctly secondary here. And it has very little to do with free speech, which gives you the right to voice your opinion (valid or not) in a civilised way.
I agree - but sometimes a browser is actually useful if you want to look up a technical issue or follow a lead. So my recommendation would be a tablet and a piece of paper. Any decent conference facility should provide the later:-)
Ok, so maybe I am paranoid, but that does not mean they are not out to get you. And they could certainly be more reassuring to paranoid people than with this statement:
> Samsung employs... safeguards... to... prevent... unauthorized collection or use.
But authorized by whom? They never clarify this, and they add a lot of exceptions later on. "Required by law", that could mean the law of any of nearly 300 countries in the world. What if Iran wants to spy on you - that is "required by law", too!
> "There is no reason for a chargeback to ever be filed"
That's also more of a statement than a contractual term, and a wrong one at that. It is like saying "We never make any errors." IANAL, but I would not expect it to stand in court if they rely on it.
AC, DC, it does not make a difference any more. Yes, you have to rectify AC before it powers a computer, but the rectification costs less than 1% of the energy. Power factor compensation can be more costly, but it could be avoided by going to a 3 phase rectifier. There are also serious distribution advantages in 3 phase electricity, but it is not used because of the extra complexity, despite being cheap.
DC distribution is expensive, and 1% gain is just not enough to pay for it. Once we have intelligent grids, the situation may be different, but for now there is just no business case.
> I have no love for AT&T and I'm glad the guy won, but if one of my customers sued me, I'd drop them in a heartbeat!
Yes, but I would assume that the 24months minimum contract period plus termination notice apply for both sides. In which case you hanged yourself with your own contract. 5/5 for style, 1/5 for thinking it through.
> Maybe once a generation is imbued with this as obvious then the problem will diminish.
I doubt it. Passwords offer only moderate security. Apart from limited entropy they also suffer from a number of attacks ranging from guessing over imposters to listening on the line or MITM attacks.
The real solution is two factor authentication, either with challenge response (like ssh keys) or with a code generator (like the RSA key). These offer more security than passwords ever could.
I agree - and I especially hate draconian password rules, especially when they are different for every site. Some need at least 8 letters, but then some limit you to 8 or 10 at most. Some want upper case and letters, other's don't. Some don't allow special characters such as '.
And the worst part: if you have a system to generate cryptographically strong passwords, quite a few sites still reject them. The worst site that I would allowed only 12 characters, but required at least 2 digits, 2 special characters, and 2 upper case letters.
I still think that words are the way to go. You just have to make sure that they are reasonably random and not too common. "honeyiamhome" is not going to be difficult to guess if you have billions of attempts. The problem of entropy still stands.
Android tablet is a problem. I would call the HP TouchPad the winner - CM 9 works reasonably well (except for the camera), and the price is really competitive. Shame they pulled out:-(
There are a few decent offers from Asus, Samsung, Motorola, but to be honest they are not serious competition for the iPad 3. And unfortunately the 2nd generation tablets seem to be generally castrated (like the iPad), so they have lost any advantage they may have had in extensibility.
> it looks to me like 97-99% of.info domains are owned by abusers. And whether the "true" number is 98.2 or 99.3 or whatever, it doesn't really matter in a practical sense: blacklisting.info in toto and making exceptions is extremely effective.
Google said that 99% of all email is spam. By that measure blocking *.* would be extremely effective, too. (And of course it is.) But is it The Right Thing To Do(TM)?
> The proliferation of new TLDs, including.xxx, has been brought about for a single purpose: to make registrars more money.
The basic idea of.xxx is sound, it follows the idea of a topical structure. It is in line with.biz,.info etc, which are working well, even if not tremendously popular.
But the handling was shameful, that's true. They even charged (serious money) if you wanted to prevent your name from being used on.xxx - which by all means should be a free or at least nearly free service.
Of course there is the argument that all things adult would be forced into.xxx - but honestly I can't find anything wrong with that, as long as the definition of adult is reasonable and not too broad. I mean just look at a page 3 - and that is available to the general public.
> That might be correct for other carriers, but T-Mobile does offer plans that are cheaper if they don't involve them "giving" you a new phone. Bring your own phone to them and you can get a lower rate.
True, but you still have to sign up to a 2 year contract, with a connection fee of 35 $ (what for? there is no engine to come round to connect your line) and an early termination fee of 200 $. As long as they do that, they cannot complain about a distorted market and lack of customer freedom. Go an fix your own house first before you complain about the neighbours...
> that the impressive-but-evolutionary spec bumps of markedly superior conventional digital cameras don't
That is an excellent point. Specs are getting better, but cameras are not, as you can see in make expert reviews. In fact many of the latest generation cameras make worse pictures than the generation before. The specs are lies served to us for marketing purposes, but the functionality suffers.
The Lytra can't compete on specs or image quality (actually the images are pretty bad, if you look closely). But it brings a new idea to the table, and a chance for some real progress again. I agree with the author: the current version is pretty much a technology demo, a gimmick. The real work is integrating this idea into a normal camera.
Of course the next step is already around the corner: full 3D scanners, where you can move around in the picture. Well, they exist, but they are not practical for the consumer market, and may not be for some time.
Fossil fuel power is even more expensive, generates toxic gasses and residue, and does contaminate large areas of land. It also has the problem that the fuel is running out.
Sometimes you have to pick an option that is not perfect, and nuclear was a perfectly good slice in the energy mix. Shutting it down suddenly just causes supply shortages.
> I wish people could see Android for what it is, a mediocre piece of shit ran by an arrogant asshole called Andy Rubin.
It may be mediocre, but it is the only reasonably open mobile environment with a decent market penetration. Sure iOS may be better, but it is a walled garden, and an expensive one. And of course there are options with more freedom, but they all seem to be as good as dead.
Android is the mainstream, Android is good enough for almost anything.
How does this cut cost? They have work contacting the developers, extra work for processing payments - in every way costs are bound to go up.
This is a move to increase revenue, not to cut cost.
Really, I wonder whether slashdot is going for the most pathetic, misinterpreted, contentious or plain wrong submission, in order to provoke negative responses. A shadow of its former self.
No, and they are using an LED in the far IF spectrum at elevated temperatures. Actually the effect is difficult to distinguish from thermal radiation - a darkening of the LED might also explain it (?). Still, I think the paper is genuine, and under very specific circumstances a combination of thermal and electric energy can power an LED.
The bigger question is: can this be achieved in any real scenario, and not just in minimal amount? That is going to be much tougher.
Slashdot Mirror
> Dakota State University
"Is that were you learn to raise cattle?" :-) No, it isn't but as far as scientific reputation goes, it is pretty far down the list. But heritage is the smaller part of the questions - show me your work - and I will tell you what it is worth.
And the original story was very much lacking there. So they found a string that looked like a credit card number on the hard disk, without any idea how it got there. Note: this is not a controlled experiment, this an xBox from ebay - pretty much the opposite of a controlled experiment. Could it have been in an email? Or maybe it was not a credit card in the first place, but just a number starting with 4? We don't know, and to be honest it does not look like Dr Ashley L Podhradsky. A publicity stunt certainly, but research it is not.
> I want Slashdot back!
Seconded. This is not Slashdot, this is Slashdot theatre, stages by bad actors with no technical expertise whatsoever.
It has gone from a place were you would find serious technical news stories to one of the worst places on the net. Always looking for the next outcry and the next provocation posting, worse than even the tabloid press.
I am sure they would have done that already, but the editors can't find page 3 :-)
Exactly. There is a reason that "modern" reactors (that is 1970s constructions) use dome. It contains the water vapour and provides cooling, while the vapour condenses and feeds into the reactor again. Typically this scenario involves the controlled release of some radioactive gases into the atmosphere (most are caught in a filter bank), but it avoids the nasty core melt down Japan has experienced.
Your opinion is your opinion, but why Slashdot is running this story eludes me. Is Slashdot anti-gay? The question has to be asked, because the only other explanation is shock value. And we all know that Slashdot only published well researched, meaningful and interesting stories for geeks.
Libel, slander, extortion, defamation, maybe even stalking. It is all those things, and the medium (the internet) is distinctly secondary here. And it has very little to do with free speech, which gives you the right to voice your opinion (valid or not) in a civilised way.
I agree - but sometimes a browser is actually useful if you want to look up a technical issue or follow a lead. So my recommendation would be a tablet and a piece of paper. Any decent conference facility should provide the later :-)
Ok, so maybe I am paranoid, but that does not mean they are not out to get you. And they could certainly be more reassuring to paranoid people than with this statement:
> Samsung employs ... safeguards ... to ... prevent ... unauthorized collection or use.
But authorized by whom? They never clarify this, and they add a lot of exceptions later on. "Required by law", that could mean the law of any of nearly 300 countries in the world. What if Iran wants to spy on you - that is "required by law", too!
> "There is no reason for a chargeback to ever be filed"
That's also more of a statement than a contractual term, and a wrong one at that. It is like saying "We never make any errors." IANAL, but I would not expect it to stand in court if they rely on it.
AC, DC, it does not make a difference any more. Yes, you have to rectify AC before it powers a computer, but the rectification costs less than 1% of the energy. Power factor compensation can be more costly, but it could be avoided by going to a 3 phase rectifier. There are also serious distribution advantages in 3 phase electricity, but it is not used because of the extra complexity, despite being cheap.
DC distribution is expensive, and 1% gain is just not enough to pay for it. Once we have intelligent grids, the situation may be different, but for now there is just no business case.
> I have no love for AT&T and I'm glad the guy won, but if one of my customers sued me, I'd drop them in a heartbeat!
Yes, but I would assume that the 24months minimum contract period plus termination notice apply for both sides. In which case you hanged yourself with your own contract. 5/5 for style, 1/5 for thinking it through.
> Maybe once a generation is imbued with this as obvious then the problem will diminish.
I doubt it. Passwords offer only moderate security. Apart from limited entropy they also suffer from a number of attacks ranging from guessing over imposters to listening on the line or MITM attacks.
The real solution is two factor authentication, either with challenge response (like ssh keys) or with a code generator (like the RSA key). These offer more security than passwords ever could.
I agree - and I especially hate draconian password rules, especially when they are different for every site. Some need at least 8 letters, but then some limit you to 8 or 10 at most. Some want upper case and letters, other's don't. Some don't allow special characters such as '.
And the worst part: if you have a system to generate cryptographically strong passwords, quite a few sites still reject them. The worst site that I would allowed only 12 characters, but required at least 2 digits, 2 special characters, and 2 upper case letters.
I still think that words are the way to go. You just have to make sure that they are reasonably random and not too common. "honeyiamhome" is not going to be difficult to guess if you have billions of attempts. The problem of entropy still stands.
> So, how about we don't act like the people who will be affected by this deserve it because other people from their country did it to other people?
A simple word: democracy. With power comes responsibility.
Android tablet is a problem. I would call the HP TouchPad the winner - CM 9 works reasonably well (except for the camera), and the price is really competitive. Shame they pulled out :-(
There are a few decent offers from Asus, Samsung, Motorola, but to be honest they are not serious competition for the iPad 3. And unfortunately the 2nd generation tablets seem to be generally castrated (like the iPad), so they have lost any advantage they may have had in extensibility.
> it looks to me like 97-99% of .info domains are owned by abusers. And whether the "true" number is 98.2 or 99.3 or whatever, it doesn't really matter in a practical sense: blacklisting .info in toto and making exceptions is extremely effective.
Google said that 99% of all email is spam. By that measure blocking *.* would be extremely effective, too. (And of course it is.) But is it The Right Thing To Do(TM)?
> The proliferation of new TLDs, including .xxx, has been brought about for a single purpose: to make registrars more money.
The basic idea of .xxx is sound, it follows the idea of a topical structure. It is in line with .biz, .info etc, which are working well, even if not tremendously popular.
But the handling was shameful, that's true. They even charged (serious money) if you wanted to prevent your name from being used on .xxx - which by all means should be a free or at least nearly free service.
Of course there is the argument that all things adult would be forced into .xxx - but honestly I can't find anything wrong with that, as long as the definition of adult is reasonable and not too broad. I mean just look at a page 3 - and that is available to the general public.
> That might be correct for other carriers, but T-Mobile does offer plans that are cheaper if they don't involve them "giving" you a new phone. Bring your own phone to them and you can get a lower rate.
True, but you still have to sign up to a 2 year contract, with a connection fee of 35 $ (what for? there is no engine to come round to connect your line) and an early termination fee of 200 $. As long as they do that, they cannot complain about a distorted market and lack of customer freedom. Go an fix your own house first before you complain about the neighbours...
> that the impressive-but-evolutionary spec bumps of markedly superior conventional digital cameras don't
That is an excellent point. Specs are getting better, but cameras are not, as you can see in make expert reviews. In fact many of the latest generation cameras make worse pictures than the generation before. The specs are lies served to us for marketing purposes, but the functionality suffers.
The Lytra can't compete on specs or image quality (actually the images are pretty bad, if you look closely). But it brings a new idea to the table, and a chance for some real progress again. I agree with the author: the current version is pretty much a technology demo, a gimmick. The real work is integrating this idea into a normal camera.
Of course the next step is already around the corner: full 3D scanners, where you can move around in the picture. Well, they exist, but they are not practical for the consumer market, and may not be for some time.
Fossil fuel power is even more expensive, generates toxic gasses and residue, and does contaminate large areas of land. It also has the problem that the fuel is running out.
Sometimes you have to pick an option that is not perfect, and nuclear was a perfectly good slice in the energy mix. Shutting it down suddenly just causes supply shortages.
> I wish people could see Android for what it is, a mediocre piece of shit ran by an arrogant asshole called Andy Rubin.
It may be mediocre, but it is the only reasonably open mobile environment with a decent market penetration. Sure iOS may be better, but it is a walled garden, and an expensive one. And of course there are options with more freedom, but they all seem to be as good as dead.
Android is the mainstream, Android is good enough for almost anything.
How does this cut cost? They have work contacting the developers, extra work for processing payments - in every way costs are bound to go up.
This is a move to increase revenue, not to cut cost.
Really, I wonder whether slashdot is going for the most pathetic, misinterpreted, contentious or plain wrong submission, in order to provoke negative responses. A shadow of its former self.
> The fun trick will be to point this at a 45% efficient photovoltaic panel to generate the electricity.
No chance, at 2.5um that is even theoretically impossible. Higher efficiency requires much shorter wavelength.
No, and they are using an LED in the far IF spectrum at elevated temperatures. Actually the effect is difficult to distinguish from thermal radiation - a darkening of the LED might also explain it (?). Still, I think the paper is genuine, and under very specific circumstances a combination of thermal and electric energy can power an LED.
The bigger question is: can this be achieved in any real scenario, and not just in minimal amount? That is going to be much tougher.
Why?
Interviews are a two way street. This is one of the best signs imaginable that this is not a company you want to work for...