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User: mikael

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  1. Re:Awesome! on Docker 0.7 Runs On All Linux Distributions · · Score: 1

    I had to look at their website to figure it out. The two most important criteria for me when considering installing any new Linux service is: (1) Is it a server, (2) Does it provide access to a filesystem and (3) Does it access the window system?

    Docker is a type of virtualization system. But rather than duplicating the entire set of kernel services; file systems, displays, IO ports, hardware, it only duplicates the network services through "containers". These are file systems that hook up to the OS and file system through the network layer such that containers can be attached to each other and communicate across networks. It's a sort of distributed network mirroring file system. Wonderful for sys-admins because they can maintain duplicate copies of a standard filesystem across multiple desktop and server systems. But it also makes for perfect rootkitware because it could be pre-installed onto standard Linux distro's with the mirrored copies on some cloud server.

  2. Re:Focus on Ask Slashdot: Are We Older Experts Being Retired Too Early? · · Score: 1

    That's because at one time or another they've hit a glass ceiling. You can work on project X at company A. A year later, they decide to start work on project Y and those with seniority are moved onto that project. But they decide to discontinue project X. All the other companies are now only considering people that are on project Y.

  3. Re:Lie a little on Ask Slashdot: Are We Older Experts Being Retired Too Early? · · Score: 1

    Some British employers only want people who had grades A all the way through primary school to university. I remember a company call Data Connection who were like that. Other employers will still look at your undergraduate degree from 30 years ago.

  4. Re:Food Quality on European Health Levels Suddenly Collapsed After 2003 and Nobody Is Sure Why · · Score: 1

    That could be measured by heights of children vs. parents. Assuming they have had children.

  5. Re:Do some more studying on European Health Levels Suddenly Collapsed After 2003 and Nobody Is Sure Why · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Most of Europe is Agrarian where land is dominantly used for agriculture. Countries like France. There was the introduction of a pesticide ban in 2003/2004 - The Rotterdam Convention
    http://www.pan-europe.info/Archive/Banned%20and%20authorised.htm

    The Convention entered into force on 24 February 2004 and became legally binding for its Parties. Perhaps the replacement chemicals were worse than the original ones that were banned.

  6. Re:2013-11-04 on Have 100GB Free? Host Your Own Copy of Wikipedia, With Images · · Score: 1

    I've seen some online specifications in the format YY/MM/DD or maybe it's YY/DD/MM, practically impossible to determine for the past 14 years.

  7. Re:Calling home on Speed Test 2: Comparing C++ Compilers On WIndows · · Score: 0

    There was a company that sold (or still sells) a blob of software that calculated a registration key based on the configuration of the hardware; serial numbers of the CPU(s), motherboards, GPU boards, installation date of the software, time zone. If any of those changed, you would have to apply for a new registry key.

  8. Re: fwd ur number on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Stop a Debt Collection Scam From Targeting You? · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Because call forwarding happens at the exchange before the connection is put through to your number. The exchange has three parts - incoming connections, local numbers and outgoing conections. Call forwarding simply replaces a local number with an outgoing connection to a new number.

    Many businesses do tbat when their own staff can't handle the volume of calls at certain times of the year.

  9. Re:fwd ur number on Ask Slashdot: How Would You Stop a Debt Collection Scam From Targeting You? · · Score: 0

    Better still, forward their call to a premium rate number registered to your bank account. Some can allow you to charge up to $2.00/minute - like those psychic hotline services. You should be able to make a fortune as well as get them to stop by the time the next phone bill comes in.

  10. I did that with my old FAX machine - you could program in what text went at the header of the page. That just happened to be the same data that was read back out at the other end as Caller-ID.

  11. Re: follow the money on NYT: Healthcare.gov Project Chaos Due Partly To Unorthodox Database Choice · · Score: 1

    Just about every application stores configuration data in some TAFF format (Tagged Ascii File Format). You have to state things like the data version, the field name and the field value. Look at the various game industry formats out there: LUA scripts, Sony's COLLADA. Even Quake and Doom had the level stored in ASCII.

    The advantage of using XML is that it could be converted to a binary XML format or something else in the future. Design your API's correctly, so that the query functions level is separate from the XML loading/saving level and it would just be a matter of swapping one module for another.

  12. Re:one method on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Protect Your Privacy These Days? Or Do You? · · Score: 1

    That's where the tracking cookies come in ... you might have several facebook accounts, but the odds are, there's going to be one cookie that remains the same for advertisers.

  13. Re:*the* guts on The Art of Apple, In Pictures · · Score: 1

    Back in the 90's, the engineers would breadboard everything - giant circut boards where every component had pins, and the breadboard was just dozens of tracks and and patch cables. First they would get the circuits working, then they would miniaturize everything onto a single circuit board with ASIC's.

  14. Re:AMD may benefit on Intel Opens Doors To Rivals, Maybe · · Score: 2

    Intel could always do as they do and move to higher performance systems.

    Could this be a way of Intel to learn about ARM's technology and go one better? There are so many ways of optimizing CPU's now - more pipeline stages, lookahead stages, more registers, more cache, custom logic units, custom track layout, internal instruction sets. Intel themselves have said that their CPU's actually convert legacy x86 code into internal RISC instruction set code. So in theory, they could do the same with ARM code.

  15. Re:2nd Dr on Happy 50th Doctor Who · · Score: 2

    They announced that there are 7 new episodes that have been recovered. Some guy had recorded the shows broadcast live using a cine-camera but he lost the sound. Fortunately, the BBC had keep the sound reels, but had lost the video. They were able to combine both together.

    I just hope they would be able to do something crazy like find out that the magnetic heads of the recording machines were strong enough to leave some kind of signal on the audio tapes.

  16. Re:Fucking rednecks on A War Over Solar Power Is Raging Within the GOP · · Score: 1

    And the more China becomes dependent on solar power, the more demand there will be for clear skies and no desert sandstorms. So the manufacturing that creates all that pollution will have to go elsewhere.

  17. Re:Human nature? on Software Patent Reform Stalls Thanks To IBM and Microsoft Lobbying · · Score: 1

    Corporations are duty-bound to maximize revenue for their investors. If the laws permits them to behave in a particular way, they are entitled to behave that way.
    Every corporations now is building up defensive patent portfolios because they have all at some time or another being sued by patent trolls, either when they were small companies or because they saw another company being sued.

  18. Re:Money again... on Software Patent Reform Stalls Thanks To IBM and Microsoft Lobbying · · Score: 1

    The French had a system during the 1800's, where f a person had an idea that would be of benefit to the country at large, he or she would be given an state pension in exchange for sharing that knowledge. The benefits of having the whole country know about something like automated punch-card loom weaving meant that the entire country could be taken out of poverty through knowledge, and the person would have a secure retirement.

    The patent system in the USA and UK granted a person the right to collect royalties in exchange for sharing knowledge. They'd write down the main design, and then have the ability to allow other individuals to license those ideas.

  19. Re:What is the greatest lower bound? on Mathematicians Team Up To Close the Prime Gap · · Score: 1

    Theoretically, it can't be any lower than 2. The fascinating thing is that as prime numbers become larger, they are found further and further apart, which plotted as a graph is more like a log n curve. But every now and again, you find a couple that are just two units apart. Usually one of them is something like (2^n)-1 and the other is (2^n)+1 . If the first one is written out as binary, it would form a prime number of 1's eg. 31. The only way such a binary number could have factors is one with 2^(n-1) number and the other being an odd number with 1 spaces a prime number distance apart.

    Simplest example would be 3 and 5. 3 = (2^2)-1, and 5 = (2^2)+1

  20. Re:Work smarter, not harder. on Warning At SC13 That Supercomputing Will Plateau Without a Disruptive Technology · · Score: 1

    FPGA's are slower than ASIC's. And an ASIC processor can always be made to be programmable. Beyond ASIC's are systems-on-a-chip: memory, CPU, vector processing, internetworking all on one chip. Perhaps even thousands of cores and blocks of shared memory everywhere.

    Moving to optical computing seems to be the most likely move, unless something completely different comes in - maybe processors could store bits in electromagnetic fields between electrodes rather than that actual moving electrons. There was some research going on into magnetic storage that used individual magnetic vortices to store bits rather than millions of atoms. So it would seem logical that they could extend that to logic gates.

  21. Re:Success through constant failure on And Now For Something Completely Different: Monty Python Reunion Planned · · Score: 1

    There were some basic comedy rules, like power-rivalry and sudden role reversal. You could have some strong characters like Vikings come across a Death like ferryman, covered head-to-toe like a leper. With a deep booming voice Death summons their leader to sit in the boat and be ferried to the land of his ancestors and feast for all eternity. The Viking leader knocks him into the river, steals the boat and goes off looking for women. Next thing you have the Death frantically paddling in the water, shouting that the leader is a big bully, he's taken out a loan for the boat and he's got a wife and kids to feed, and furthermore he can't even swim.

    Then you can have apparently uneducated characters like peasants in a field having philosophical discussions with a king over political leadership, self governance and collective rule. Fawlty Towers was another good example of power-rivalry. They actually based it on a hotel owner who had mental health issues. That had a certain balance in that Basil Fawlty could tell Manuel what to do but Cybil his wife would keep him in check, while Polly always tried to cool things down.

    The other rule was escalating chaos slapstick; the best one is Jabberwocky, where there is the workshop for repairing knights armor. It's a highly well oiled setup, but then one guy has to be a nuisance and keep distracting the team leader. Eventually, the whole operation goes out of sync because the hammer guy hits his assistant, who then turns round, starts hopping about and knocks someone else off, balance who then drops the knight he's hauling up on a rope, back onto the horse which then gallops out of the castle, tearing down bunting, pulling down tents, knocking over urns of hot oil, before shooting out of the castle entrance straight into the breath of the Jabberwocky.

    It's not so funny when it happens to normal characters, but when it happens to bossy impatient characters or the bad guy then it's funny.

  22. Re:They pop up and notify me they are running. on Ask Slashdot: What Makes You Uninstall Apps? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have "Ad Network Detector". I run that on all downloaded applications. Anything that tracks my location, collects device or mobile network information, needs my list of contacts, has popup advertising and hotkeys that jump to a web page gets thrown out. I'd also throw out "TapJoy", "Mobclix", Mobo and Game Hub if it were possible to remove them.

  23. Re:How many humans does the farm require? on Robots: a Working Breed At the Dairy · · Score: 1

    Usually once inside the milking shed, the cattle can find their way to the stalls by their own. Then you only need a robotic system to collect the milk:

    http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/ploughing-championships/robotic-milking-parlour-with-herd-of-40-cows-is-set-to-be-star-attraction-29604052.html

  24. Re:Nice, but... on Experts Hail Quantum Computer Memory Stability Breakthrough · · Score: 2

    A couple of decades ago, even discussions on the factorisation of integers would be discouraged by the FBI, and exports of software that did 128-bit encryption and above required an official federal application for an export license.

  25. Re:WHY NOT IN THE FIRST PLACE !! on Physicists Plan to Build a Bigger LHC · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you would have proved the existence of the Higgs Boson 20 years earlier, and then research would have been 20 years ahead of where it is today?
    It's like oil exploration, maybe 9 out of 10 exploration wells don't find anything, but that 1 out of 10 has a pay off that covers the cost of that exploration.
    Same with the movie industry.