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User: chihowa

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  1. Re:Sum up... on Double Take: Condoleezza Rice As Dropbox's Newest Board Member · · Score: 1

    Both of which use closed-source clients and infrastructure (with a couple of open components), so you're really only basing your security assessment on their word. Not what I'd consider savvy...

    Remember that Dropbox said similarly positive things about their security at one time.

  2. Re:Nobody should be constantly monitored on LA Police Officers Suspected of Tampering With Their Monitoring Systems · · Score: 1

    Oh, I wasn't including them in my "we". I was referring to conscientious non-psychopathic humans!

  3. Re:Nobody should be constantly monitored on LA Police Officers Suspected of Tampering With Their Monitoring Systems · · Score: 1

    So, like we already have with prison rape, you suggest further decoupling sentences from justice?

    We're trying to make the world a less corrupt and barbaric place. Hyperbole and hysteria don't further that cause.

  4. Re:Easy fix on LA Police Officers Suspected of Tampering With Their Monitoring Systems · · Score: 1

    Are you seriously comparing most people's "imperfections" with "accessory after the fact" and "conspiracy to X", where X is bribery, battery, murder and the like?

    Covering up for fellow officers' crimes is not even in the same ballgame as promising to take out the garbage and forgetting.

  5. Re:Here we go again on Study: Video Gamer Aggression Result of Game Experience, Not Violent Content · · Score: 2

    Your scenario is even more obnoxious on awful PC ports (way too many recently) of console games where you're sitting in front of over a hundred buttons and every action possible is mapped to 'E'. Paired with fuzzy interpretation of inputs from your hyper-precise mouse and keyboard, you're constantly fighting the game engine instead of the game.

    This isn't a new phenomenon, either. Many Nintendo hard games of yore required input precision greater than the controller was capable of predictably providing. In fact, Nintendo hard is a prime example of what TFS is describing. There was a lot of video game provoked aggression back then (the controllers probably took the brunt of it, but they were pretty hardy things).

  6. Re:It's a start on Windows 8.1 Update Released, With Improvements For Non-Touch Hardware · · Score: 1

    Windows gadgets were essentially borderless IE windows that ran in the local zone. This means they could CreateObject(...) ActiveX libraries via scripting that could do, well, anything to your system. The sandbox didn't matter at that point.

    Well, that seems like a pretty easy thing to fix. Why ditch them entirely?

  7. Re:Pseudo-science in the Survey! on It's Time To Bring Pseudoscience Into the Science Classroom · · Score: 1

    Good call on the de Broglie wavelength correction. I had misremembered it and if I'd given it a little more thought, it would have seemed obviously wrong.

    It does serve to highlight how you're stating this incorrectly, though. The wavefunction doesn't represent the "size" of a particle in any meaningful way. If anything, psi squared describes the probability of finding a particle at a particular location. Analogously, if I describe your location as somewhere within the 1200 block of Broad St, it doesn't make sense to interpret that statement as saying you are actually the size of a city block. The QM wave description of matter has nothing to do with size (in any distinct and meaningful sense) and everything to do with location.

    Quantum mechanics describes particle interactions in terms of waves, but it is not a statement that the wave-particle duality doesn't exist. Any actual interaction between particles requires decoherence and a collapse of the wavefunction to a more classical-like particle.

  8. Re:Pseudo-science in the Survey! on It's Time To Bring Pseudoscience Into the Science Classroom · · Score: 2

    What you're describing here are pedantic objections, though, of which there will always be some to any question that isn't qualified to absurdity.

    For your example, the rest mass of an electron is smaller than the mass of any atom, so the wavefunction of any electron will be smaller than that of any atom at the same velocity (de Broglie wavelength) and in the same environment (the "state" you describe is a function of being part of an atom, it doesn't apply to free electrons). Or simply, since an electron is a component of an atom, any constituent electron will be smaller than the atom it inhabits.

    If you contrive a complex and unreasonable enough scenario, you can change the answer to most any question (e.g., is an electron smaller than the Earth). For most exams, reasonable assumptions are expected unless otherwise stated: at standard temperature and pressure, in the ground state, etc.

    The correct answer to the question is that, yes, an electron is smaller than an atom.

  9. Re:They talk very big on Google Project Ara Design Will Use Electro-Permanent Magnets To Lock In Modules · · Score: 1

    Modern magnetometers in phones are pretty robust. After calibration, the one in my phone works fine right next to a 500 MHz NMR (~12 T [for reference the earth's magnetic field is around 50 uT]). The magnetic locks won't be moving around much, so the field it sees from them will be pretty static.

  10. Re:Here's a thought on Ad Tracking: Is Anything Being Done? · · Score: 1

    In that same line of thinking, I'm surprised that advertising to children (specifically, as in ads designed for children) is legal.

    It's hard to think of a team of trained psychologists, armed with extensive market research and determined to manipulate minors for their own profit, as anything but despicably evil.

  11. Re:If you take the profits on Vermont Nuclear Plant Seeks Decommission But Lacks Funds · · Score: 1

    Are you saying that in cases of radioactive potassium, the body has a way of just shutting it down?

    Which radioactive isotopes from Fukushima are you talking about that bioaccumulate?

  12. Re:If you take the profits on Vermont Nuclear Plant Seeks Decommission But Lacks Funds · · Score: 1

    So "low and constant" radiation from potassium is ok (because it's "natural", right, like botulism and being eaten by a bear?), but vague and unspecified Fukushima radiation is bad because it bioaccumulates (which is actually not the case for most of the released isotopes: Cs, for example is treated the same as your well-regarded potassium by animal tissue)? Many of the elements that bioaccumulate are more chemically toxic by virtue of being heavy metals than by being radioactive.

    You don't understand your basic and crucial facts very well, either. There are enough real dangers in dealing with radioisotopes; you don't need to keep adding your own hysteria-based ones to the mix.

  13. Re:If only.. on The Connected Home's Battle of the Bulbs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's a pretty lame reason, actually. What use case (that's big enough to support an entire industry of "smart lightbulbs") involves:

    o light fixtures that don't already have switches installed,

    o users who are not industrious enough to move the lightswitch themselves,

    o users who are too cheap to just have an electrician move it (this is shockingly inexpensive, by the way... typically cheaper than one of these bulbs),

    o users who are fine with accidentally flipping the wall switch and making the whole thing inoperative or covering the switch with tape or something cheesy like that to keep people from switching it (or are industrious enough to rewire the switch and install an ugly blank panel but can't move the switch),

    o and users who can afford (or rationalize) spending $60 or up on a light bulb?

    I guess the intersection of most of that is gadget-addicted renters. Is that really a very lucrative market?

  14. Re:Beaglebone Black on Intel Upgrades MinnowBoard: Baytrail CPU, Nearly Halves Price To $99 · · Score: 2

    It does, but there are some legitimate uses for a modern embedded x86 board.

  15. Re:About to break a world record! on The Highest-Flying Wind Turbine · · Score: 1

    Orbit is just an extreme example of ballistic flight, so you could say that the ISS is flying.

  16. Re:Paranoia? on Russian Officials Dump iPads For Samsung Tablets Over Spy Fears · · Score: 1

    So how does "specially protected devices that can be used to work with confidential information" translate to "open source"? Products with that many qualifiers tend to be extremely proprietary.

    As to the paranoia, the Android in question was designed by a very close US ally and runs an OS designed by a US company. I wouldn't rule out the presence of "hooks" in their devices.

  17. Re:Paranoia? on Russian Officials Dump iPads For Samsung Tablets Over Spy Fears · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The software delivered on Samsung tablets isn't entirely open source, either. Anyway, iOS is built on Darwin (among many other open source components), which is open source, too.

    None of Google's non-OS apps, including the Play Store, are open source. The words "open source" are not a complete explanation of this situation.

  18. Re:I admire their spunk, but... on Operation Wants To Mine 10% of All New Bitcoins · · Score: 1

    At that point mining will be supported entirely by fees.

    Maybe you can help me understand this because I can't seem to find it stated clearly anywhere...

    Aren't the fees payed to the original miner of a specific block in exchange for continuing to validate transactions derived from that block? What happens to the transactions derived from a block when the original miner stops validating transactions (which is sure to happen by 2140) and what incentives do others have to validate transactions if the fees will just be going to the long dead original miner?

    (If that's what happens to fees, then the end result will be a slow condensation of all bitcoins into the unspendable wallets of the long dead original miners. But first, people will stop wasting electricity validating transactions which only benefit them by keeping the whole system from collapsing.)

    If that's not true and anyone can collect fees by validating transactions, and if the fees aren't tied to mining difficulty, at what point does it make more sense to just validate transactions in exchange for fees than to actively look for more coins?

  19. Re:It was not misspelled on TSA Missed Boston Bomber Because His Name Was Misspelled In a Database · · Score: 1

    There is a table for consistent transliteration from Western and Cyrillic alphabets. It does seem like a shame that the original script isn't at least stored in the contactless chip, though.

  20. Re:Who says computers will take over.... on TSA Missed Boston Bomber Because His Name Was Misspelled In a Database · · Score: 1

    Have you ever went through US Customs and Border? I would not expect their personel to be able to type in and search for any non-Ascii letters.

    Have you? They don't type in and search the names on passports. Any passports in use have a standardized machine readable section (with transliteration conducted by the issuing state). Automatically testing other transliterations wouldn't be that hard of a task.

  21. Re:Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out on Minecraft Creator Halts Plans For Oculus Version Following Facebook Acquisition · · Score: 2

    Are you sure that they're trying to produce the Metaverse and not just the anarcho-capitalistic dystopia part?

  22. Re:Infighting: Linux's biggest weakness on Canonical's Troubles With the Free Software Community · · Score: 1

    Or that some of the other manufacturers are cutting their production costs to the point that the product is starting to suffer and they are losing customers because of it.

    There's no fixed cost for the production of a computer. Quality of components, design, materials, etc can be varied over a very large range and the quality of the final product is dependent on these inputs. Apple is certainly getting quite the profit margin, but I've used many computers over the years and their products fare very well in fit and finish and longevity (especially for the price).

    Chinese factories are capable of making goods of high or low quality, depending on what you pay. Most of the stuff we get from China is crap because the management of most the companies that move their manufacturing overseas are already in aggressive cost cutting mode and want the product made as cheaply as possible. Of course, if your schtick is quality, you can't cut production costs to the bone and still keep your customers.

    Anyway, much of the profit difference is based on how the different computer companies are structured. Other companies that make high quality computers gouge on those models as well, they just sustain themselves with cheap disposable junk (that has a lower profit margin).

  23. Re:Submarines Move on Physicists Produce Antineutrino Map of the World · · Score: 1

    If they move, but travel along consistent paths, those will become apparent after enough data is collected. Similarly, given enough time you could tell where the never travel or where they tend to dwell longer.

  24. Re:Strategic move to compete on Facebook Buying Oculus VR For $2 Billion · · Score: 1

    Do you understand either Glass or Occulus Rift?

    Does Facebook?

    Recent history is littered with interesting start-ups getting bought out and abandoned because of a misunderstanding of the start-up's core concept.

    Or maybe there's a patent that Facebook wants for leverage in some other area and everything else will just be dropped...

  25. Re:Redefine hunting. on Drone-Assisted Hunting To Be Illegal In Alaska · · Score: 1

    There's also the argument that it's healthier to eat wild deer than hormone, antibiotic, growth enhanced meat.

    I'd argue that if you're going to eat meat, it's also more ethical to kill and eat animals who've lived free in the wild than encourage people to keep animals penned up in cages being pumped full antibiotics and hormones.

    That being said. I think having a high powered rifle with a high powered scope is more than enough advantage. Using drones is ridiculous.

    Technological advantages come in two different classes wrt hunting...

    The first, which covers a high powered rifle and scope, is about increasing the likelihood of a clean, ethical kill. Using primitive technology, like bows (or muskets!), is more likely to leave maimed or horribly injured animals or leave you to have to track and kill an animal after a long time of suffering. That's not cool.

    The second, which covers drones and baiting, is about increasing the likelihood of encountering an animal to kill. If you're hunting in order to not starve I can see the argument, but otherwise you're cheating and another creature is paying for that with its life. Where's the sport in that? (Along that line of thinking, the Predator was a fucking loser.)