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User: sillivalley

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  1. Take a look-- on LHC Restarts High-Energy Quest For Exotic Physics · · Score: 4, Interesting

    https://op-webtools.web.cern.c...

    Live on the web -- this is a summary page, with much more available

  2. Re:Reminds me of on Fabs Now Manufacturing Carbon Nanotube Memory, Which Could Replace NAND and DRAM · · Score: 3, Informative

    Ah, before HP did memristors, they also worked on FERAM -- that program continued with Agilent.

    HP/Agilent are quite good at these breakthrough technologies -- do a search for the Champagne Optical Switch -- that was another one that was going to take over the world.

    But they have had some successes -- the FBAR filter/diplexer was (and still is) a big deal, in the news recently as some individuals were arrested for trying to set up an offshore source...

    FERAM (and the phase change stuff) have been the technology of the decade -- for a couple of decades now.

    One of the issues with FERAM is some of the dopants needed are considered contaminants by most folks, which makes it difficult to use someone else's fab... You want to run WHAT through my fab???

  3. First is NSA, then FSB? on NSA Director Wants Legal Right To Snoop On Encrypted Data · · Score: 1

    What are companies supposed to do when security agencies in other countries want the same access, such as FSB (Russia)? DIRNSA tried to pass that one over, but it is a real concern -- look at what Blackberry went through with India, for example. And how many other countries has Blackberry provided access to?

  4. Try, yes -- on Should We Really Try To Teach Everyone To Code? · · Score: 1

    Try, yes -- but expect everyone to succeed -- h*ll no!

    We shouldn't expect everyone to code (whatever that means) anymore than we should expect everyone to understand differential equations.

    But what is code changes and will change -- I started with machine code; I don't consider HTML/CSS to be "coding." But I'll admit that properly done HTML/CSS is no less artful that some of the things I've written in machine code, C, or Lisp.

    It is also useful to recall that the telephone (the private wire-line kind) would never catch on because it would require everyone to be a telephone operator. The technology improved, and everyone learned to work with 4, 7, and later 10-digit numbers, until now we seldom have to remember phone numbers, as our phones do that for us.

    But the kind and quality of code that causes others to sit back and go, "That is elegant/pretty/sick" will remain the domain of the few, just as few people can play musical instruments really well, or run really fast, or do any number of things at a high level of performance.

  5. Gonna take a lot of butter and syrup... on New Jersey Gov. Christie: Parents Should Have Choice In Vaccinations · · Score: 2

    ...to cover a waffle that big...

    Talking out of both sides of his mouth -- his kids were vaccinated but parents should have the right to put their kids and others at risk -- oh, state's rights and the GOP party line... The only thing that would have made it better was if he was drinking a glass of water at the same time and spinning a plate on the end of a stick. This guy gives buffoons, clowns, and circus performers a bad name.

    Every once in a while, rarely, a politician actually speaks his mind (McCain for example), and usually catches hell for it, not keeping to the party line.

  6. Coming of Age-- on Microsoft Announces Windows For Raspberry Pi 2 · · Score: 1

    The Raspberry Pi has grown up!

    Grown up, come of age... and turning cheap tricks on the corner...

    Yikh... I thought you were raised better than that.

  7. It's the ecosystem-- on New Multi-Core Raspberry Pi 2 Launches · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, it's underpowered and possibly overpriced in comparison to (x, y, z,...)

    But the Raspberry Pi has a large and growing ecosystem behind it -- developers (hardware and software), users, and more.

    The Arduino is a similar beast -- underpowered, overpriced, and with a tremendous ecosystem, approachable and available to new classes of users.

    As an example, look at what Adafruit is doing with Arduinos and the Raspberry Pi -- making them available, accessible, and useable by a wide audience, not just those tho are comfortable rebuilding kernels.

    Look at other historical examples -- the underpowered 6502 (Apple ][) or that atrocity with 640k is good enough for anybody, right?

  8. While Google eliminates the steering wheel... on Ford's Bringing Adaptive Steering To the Masses · · Score: 2

    So tell me please, which company is the innovator?

  9. Bird 43, Simpson 240/260 on Ask Slashdot: What Tech Products Were Built To Last? · · Score: 2

    As another commenter mentioned, old test equipment -- the design of the Bird 43 wattmeter hasn't changed in over 50 years (and mine is over 30 years old). Similar story with the Simpson 240 series of multimeters (VOMs). I inherited a set of Starrett micrometers that are wonderful, even the ones my son used as C-clamps as he was growing up...

    I also have a stack of old HP and Tektronix test equipment -- stuff that has service manuals and more-or-less replaceable parts (except for things like 'scope front ends, which are custom assemblies made of pure unobtanium).

  10. A little over a hundred years ago... on Nat Geo Writer: Science Is Running Out of "Great" Things To Discover · · Score: 1

    Students were advised not to go into Physics as a career, as there were only two unsolved problems in Classical Physics -- that of the photoelectric effect, and the advance of the perihelion of Mercury.

    Einstein addressed both problems in 1905, and changed the world.

    What will the current set of "little problems" and inconsistencies in Physics lead to?

  11. So what? on Ask Slashdot: Mitigating DoS Attacks On Home Network? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Executive summary: Welcome to the real world. Everybody with an "always on" connection is getting this kind of crap, it's just that most people don't realize it.

    Discussion: We have a cable modem for internet service. I run a SSH honeypot (Kippo) to collect information on folks knocking on our door.

    Friday morning, my Kippo honeypot recorded a dictionary attack run of 291 SSH login attempts (against root) in 12 minutes (from 178.141.148.236, look it up if you want). I don't even bother to record to record the crap coming against port 80.

    This isn't unusual, not even for an IP address in a residential cable block! And the more you look for this kind of activity, like running a honeypot, or even reviewing your router logs, the more bewildered you'll become, particularly about how "normal" people's computers survive under these continuous attacks.

    The answer, of course, is that so many do not, their home computers rooted within minutes of being connected to the net, or when a child in the household (using a Windows account with admin privileges) clicks on some enticing link in IE... Their computer gets added to one or more botnets, an eventually they toss it out because it's too slow.

    Suggestions: Make sure your network is as secure as you can make it, then ask for help to make it better. Help those you care about do the same. Friends don't let friends use IE (or windows) is a good start.

  12. Which assumes... on Cell Phones As a Dirty Bomb Detection Network · · Score: 1

    That the data from all those cameras, location+image, is constantly being streamed to a secure government facility where the data will only be used for good, right?

    And people are concerned about Google Glass?

    Yes, it's an interesting idea, but it has some problems!

    But the carriers would probably love it, as someone would have to pay for all the bandwidth used -- certainly not gonna be a freebie on the carrier -- an opportunity for a government mandated fee, perhaps?

    Idea -- check sources (e.g. 137Cs) are pretty cheap. Attach them to the outsides of public transit, pigeons, anything that moves around. The more the merrier.

  13. Bill, I don't have problems creating documents on Bill Gates: iPad Users Are Frustrated They Can't Type Or Create Documents · · Score: 1

    Bill, I don't have any problems creating documents using my iPad, or working on those documents on my Macbook Pro or MacPro desktop
    Things just work. I update a document on one platform, and it appears on the others.

    What I do have problems with is Visio under Windows -- damn, that's a hostile program! Even when trying to integrate Visio content with Office documents. Look on the bright side -- it's like opening Christmas presents -- you never know what you're going to get! But most of the time with Windows, it's not what you expected (or wanted).

    But I guess that's because I don't understand, and haven't accepted the Windows hegemony and world-view.

    Not that I'm singularly focused on Apple -- I do a lot of work on Linux-based platforms, and OSX plays nice with those as well.

    No problems creating and editing documents using my iPad... I hear the shrill cry that the iPad tools don't have the "richness" of MS Word, or Excel, or Visio...
    About that "richness" -- my guess is probably 80% of the "features" in those programs go unused. Most of the time when I run into one of those "features" it's because something popped up and now I'm searching for how to turn it the hell off.
    And what apps such as Pages and Numbers don't offer, apps such as Evernote and Skitch do -- and they work, across platforms (even Windows).

    And don't worry, Bill -- these things are just fads anyway. Don't RIM and Dell say so?

  14. Inertial Nav + Kalman Filter on DARPA Develops Non-GPS Navigation Chip · · Score: 4, Informative

    As others have posted, intertial nav platforms have been around for decades -- in military aircraft, and then in commercial aircraft.

    The break throughs are not only in getting the platform sensors, the gyros, accelerometers, and magnetometers, onto a single chip, but also in being able to provide the computer horsepower to do the Kalman filtering to integrate all these sensors to come out with a nav/position solution, in a few cubic centimeters of processed sand, and for a few Watts.

    It's not just the sensors, it's the processing as well. The sensors just throw data at you (data with all sorts of errors); the Kalman filter lets you bring everything together for your nav/position solution. As a prof long ago said it, "Kalman filtering -- how to stop worrying and learn to love matrix inversion."

  15. ISP Egress Filtering... on Iranians, Russians, and Chinese Hackers Are After You, Says Lawmaker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How much of the crap we put up with would go away if ISPs instituted egress filtering?

    Oh, that's not a panacea; it's not going to cure all the interweb's problems overnight, but it would sure as hell eliminate a lot of the low-level crap that goes on.

    (grumble grumble grumble)

  16. Really tough -- on Ask Slashdot: What Is a Reasonable Way To Deter Piracy? · · Score: 1

    Your first challenge is fitting "reasonable" and "piracy" into the same mental model...

    Maritime nations through history have sought to deter piracy by displaying the miscreant's remains at harbor entrances.

    Think of that as a way to show increased risk.

    But software piracy? What's the risk? If you look at eliminating the gain from piracy, then you need to ask, what's the "gain?" To some, the gain is saving a few bucks. Pricing your software low works to eliminate that gain. Or providing support and/or upgrades to legitimate users. But to some, the "gain" in piracy is playing the game, and that gets back to a rational relationship between your goals and a pirate's: there may not be one. Someone engaging in piracy as a way to get their rocks off isn't likely to be motivated by pricing, support, upgrades, or much of anything else, even the lack of a technological challenge.

    Is piracy something you can more or less ignore in your target market?

    But "fighting" piracy? Old adage: never wrestle with a pig; you'll get filthy and the pig will love it.

  17. Good Grief! on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Feel About Recording Your Entire Life? · · Score: 1

    "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal RIchelieu

    So how long would it take going through those recordings to find something...

    But don't worry, our technological society is evolving to that point asymptotically -- you probably already carry a tracking device in your pocket that also can be used to make phone calls; if you drive a recently manufactured car it has a rat box in it that your insurance company can use to try to avoid any liability, and there are proposals for future model years to make that rat box collect even more information. Sound and pictures will get there eventually.

  18. About all those patents... on LG Acquires WebOS Source Code and Patents From HP · · Score: 2

    Yeah, LG just acquired all those patents from HP/Palm...
    But what did it get? If you imagine each of those patents to be a pie, did LG get the whole pie on each one it got?

    Hell no.

    First, HP undoubtedly retained a license to practice under each of the patents, to make, use, sell, have made, have customers use, yada, yada, yada.
    Next, LG took those patents under whatever licenses and cross-licenses HP (and Palm) had entered into with other companies.
    So while LG acquired a bunch of patents, each of those patents has a chunk or two taken out of it. LG undoubtedly didn't get the whole pie.

  19. Multiple approaches-- on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With an Advanced Wi-Fi Leech? · · Score: 1

    If this person is in it for the game, putting up technical barriers is just going to encourage them. You want them to decide to leech off someone else.
    Make a corner reflector using aluminum foil and cardboard -- figure out where in general the leech is, and keep the signal away from them.
    If you have a spare box, don't do the Upside-Down-Ternet, let them connect and throttle the *&!# out of their connection -- encourage them to go away.
    And yeah, going to PSK-2 with long keys changed every few days will be a pain to you, but more of a pain to someone else.

    Parable #1: Never wrestle with a pig. You'll get dirty, and the pig will love it.
    Parable #2: Two guys out camping. One asks the other, "What would you do if a bear came into the camp?" "Run like hell!" "But you can't outrun a bear!" "I don't have to outrun the bear..."

  20. Thoughtful design-- on Turning the Belkin WeMo Into a Deathtrap · · Score: 1

    I've been using home automation since the 80's (damn, that's a long time ago) in the dark ages of X10.
    As with many systems, there are some important questions to keep in mind:
    Does this system or particular controlled device have benign failure modes? The answer better be "Yes!"
    How do I secure access to the system? (Hint: don't connect it directly to the Internet!)
    Does this system have a master OFF switch and easily useable manual controls? (Think COLOSSUS Forbin Project - again, the answer better be "Yes!")
    Is automating this going to piss off someone I don't want to piss off? (E.g. I like motion-controlled lighting in some rooms; my wife hates motion controlled lighting.)
    How can this whole thing go sideways at 3AM and give me a cheap thrill?

  21. build in exercise, mobility on Ask Slashdot: How To Stay Fit In the Office? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you have a printer in your cube, get rid of it -- use one that makes you get up and walk.

    Use stairs rather than elevators -- use a loo on a different floor to get more use of stairs,

    If you drive to work, don't park next to the building, park where you get to walk some.

    Rather than eating lunch one or more days during the week, take a walk locally instead.

  22. The simple explanation-- on Autonomy Chief Says Whitman Is Watering Down HP Fraud Claims · · Score: 1

    "Nobody with half a brain would have paid that much for this pile of shite; therefore, we must have been defrauded."

    See? It's simple. Blame someone else.

  23. Class C, no filters-- on Pirate Radio Station In Florida Jams Automotive Electronics · · Score: 2

    Yep, 3rd harmonic, probably from an unfiltered Class C power amp -- and it will desense those silly little receivers if it doesn't block them completely. The more modern ones have some front-end filtering, but not a lot.

    A lot of automotive stuff in that frequency range -- keyless entry, TPM (tire pressure monitoring), and garage door openers.

    I'm surprised nobody has gone after the protocols to see how many low tire pressure warnings they can set off at once...

  24. multiple choices-- on Ask Slashdot: The Search For the Ultimate Engineer's Pen · · Score: 1

    (1) Old school drafting pens, with 00 or 000 size tips -- Rapidograph, Kohinoor, Faber, and others
    Pros -- fine lines, don't need to press, with film inks you can write on glass, or just about anything
    Cons -- need special ink, cranky, leak if you take them on planes, drop them and you're out $20 for a new tip
    got to wait for the ink to dry or it smears, getting harder and harder to find

    (2) Fountain pen with XF nib
    Pros -- fine lines, don't need to press, lots of ink colours and you can blend your own
    Cons -- at least $60 - $80 for a good one, you can't let anyone else use it once you have it broken in

    (3) Pentel Precise V5 and V7
    Pros -- cheap! fine lines, reliable
    Cons -- not as good as (1) or (2), but not as expensive, either

  25. JIHAD! on Disney to Acquire Lucasfilm, Star Wars Episode 7 Due In 2015 · · Score: 1

    ...the return of Jar-Jar and everything else we loved...

    and of course the

    NEW! IMPROVED! REVISIONIST! WANKERS CUT!
    of all the previous films.