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User: countach

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Comments · 1,657

  1. Re:Innovative sheepdips on Australia Moves Toward New Restrictions On Technology Export and Publication · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I think the Chinese already have found out about wi-fi.

  2. Re:Uh Oh on Grinch Vulnerability Could Put a Hole In Your Linux Stocking · · Score: 1

    Well pretty much all vulnerabilities can be solved by updating the web front end. But shellshock was pretty much as bad as it gets, because it was extremely widely deployed in web servers, and so simple to exploit that even your mother could do it. It doesn't get worse than that.

  3. Re: Don't worry guys... on Apparent Islamic Terrorism Strikes Sydney · · Score: 2

    Perhaps it will stop happening here, but it will still happen in the middle east. It's not like the middle east is a peaceful place without the west butting in. The Muslims have still got plenty to do blowing each other up.

  4. Re:Lawyers not doing their homework on Apple DRM Lawsuit Might Be Dismissed: Plaintiffs Didn't Own Affected iPods · · Score: 1

    I would have thought if you were launching a class action suit where each potential litigant had only a tiny damage, that you would have hundreds of candidates up front. If you can only find 2 people, and each of them has coming to them.. oh what $50, and even they don't own the right iPod, how good was this suit?

  5. Re: faster-than-light propagation of non-informati on The Fastest Camera Ever Made Captures 100 Billion Frames Per Second · · Score: 1

    Other things can travel faster than light relative to each other, from your view point, but nothing can travel faster than light relative to you.

    An obvious example, aim 2 torches at each other. From your viewpoint, the light approaches the light of the other torch at 2x light speed. There are many examples like that, and they don't break relativity.

  6. Algorithm on UK Announces 'Google Tax' · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not sure what Britain has in mind, but I've long argued for a system like this. Say Apple does business in my country. Say they do 6% of their global business and revenue in my country. OK, then whatever profits Apple makes world wide throughout their empire throughout all associated companies, you've got to pay tax in my country on 6% of it.

    If you want to argue that for whatever reason the product mix of sales in my country is lower margin than your global business because the product mix is different, ok fine, but the onus would be on you to demonstrate that, and the level of proof required would be high.

  7. Re:Digital on MasterCard Rails Against Bitcoin's (Semi-)Anonymity · · Score: 1

    True, although national currencies are unlikely to fail. Governments will tax their citizens in the local currency, so there is incentive for people to earn the local currency, which means there is incentive to work for the local currency. Only gross incompetence by a government can screw up this natural system. The basis for bitcoin having value however is much more tenuous.

  8. Re:What's happening to Linux? on Bad Lockup Bug Plagues Linux · · Score: 1

    Well... there's no walled garden on the Mac side. Nevertheless I used to cringe at the thought of leaving Linux. Then I just got sick of dealing with all that crap of stuff breaking all the time, and I had better things to do than spend a whole night till 2am finding out why the latest update broke something. So I learned to stop worrying and love the Apple.

  9. 3 years? on CERN Releases LHC Data · · Score: 1

    It’s laudible that they release it after 3 years, but then rather reprehensible that they are so scared that someone else might discover something faster than them, and they don’t release it straight away.

  10. Revolutionary on In a Self-Driving Future, We May Not Even Want To Own Cars · · Score: 1

    This could definitely be revolutionary, and governments on the cusp of spending large amounts of money on conventional transport like rail, should be cautious, because they could end up buying a white elephant. I know a lot of people think this is alarmist, but anybody who underestimates the significance of this revolution, should not be making decisions in government.

  11. Re:Flawed, 'cos... on In a Self-Driving Future, We May Not Even Want To Own Cars · · Score: 1

    Yes, but rush hour might be reduced if the pod vehicles could hold a dozen people with optimised routes to pick up people that live within a few hundred metres of you and are going to the same location. Rush hour might be reduced to a trickle and the pods might get recycled a lot quicker than you think. Nobody knows how this could play out.

  12. Re:Interesting though not to be overinterpreted on Doubling Saturated Fat In Diet Does Not Increase It In Blood · · Score: 1

    Those are valid questions, but the results seem to fit the generally emerging consensus that fat doesn't make you fat or do you harm. Until someone gets a counter result, that seems to be the reality.

  13. Re:"Low food" doesn't work either on Doubling Saturated Fat In Diet Does Not Increase It In Blood · · Score: 1

    You can't really compare what is good for an athlete to what is good for the rest of us couch potatoes.

  14. Everest on Space Tourism Isn't Worth Dying For · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes it's stupid.... but its no more stupid than all the stupid idiots who climb everest at significant expense.... a significant number of which never come back.

  15. Re:Get the Best of Both Worlds on Virginia Court: LEOs Can Force You To Provide Fingerprint To Unlock Your Phone · · Score: 1

    For the iPhone, it's 5 failed attempts.

  16. Also, 5 failed attempts and you are locked out. So if you can rub off your fingerprints, by the time they grow back, they are out of luck. Or if you can fool the police into trying the wrong finger until it fails 5 times, you are ok.

    Oh the other hand, we've heard it can be hacked with some sticky tape copies of your prints. So some clever police might still win.

  17. Re:Confirms that Apple's strategy is correct on How Apple Watch Is Really a Regression In Watchmaking · · Score: 1

    Moores law doesn't apply to battery life or screen power usage.

  18. Re: Computer Missues Act 1990 on FTDI Removes Driver From Windows Update That Bricked Cloned Chips · · Score: 1

    Ever since Compaq made the first IBM clone back in the 80s, the entire industry is built on cloning at the functional level, which sounds like what is going on here.

    If a court could establish that this code was designed to deliberately written to damage hardware, that's a lot different to merely failing to make their code work with clones.

  19. Re:What about in house applets? on Adobe: Click-to-Play Would Have Avoided Flood of Java Zero-days · · Score: 1

    You seem to be confusing some very different issues: Java code running in J2EE on servers, and users running Java applications on their client machines.

    For sure Oracle totally screwed up their client machine warnings to users, and I'm still not convinced they have got it right, its nearly impossible to understand Oracle's documentation or make it work as advertised.

    On the other hand, servers aren't particularly vulnerable to most of these exploits because they assume you already have the ability to run the code in question. J2EE servers don't let just anyone run code.

  20. Re:Click-to-Play Would Improve Flash, Too on Adobe: Click-to-Play Would Have Avoided Flood of Java Zero-days · · Score: 1

    In 2014 you are a very unusual person who bothers to whitelist for javascript. You may be the last man standing to do that.

  21. Re:Click-to-Play Would Improve Flash, Too on Adobe: Click-to-Play Would Have Avoided Flood of Java Zero-days · · Score: 2

    I know Java isn't Javascript, but no web site awaits consent before running Javascript. Slashdot basically wouldn't work en-toto without javascript. Back in the old days it would have, but not now.

    The problem with this article is that I'm sure Oracle wanted Java to be more like the web's javascript, running by default and running everywhere. Unfortunately it was just a bit too bloated (and as it turns out, buggy) for the world to accept this proposal, and yet the world is perfectly happy to run javascript code without special permission.

  22. Re:What they fail to mention on Scanning Embryos For Super-Intelligent Kids Is On the Horizon · · Score: 1

    Possibly they could select a sub-set of these genes that don't lead to associated mental illness and have moderately intelligent kids without the downsides.

    But therein lies the rub... if we control everything we could end up with a society of moderate drones, and no exceptional and extraordinary people. What if you need to be a bit crazy to be an Einstein?

  23. Re:What could possibly go wrong? on Scanning Embryos For Super-Intelligent Kids Is On the Horizon · · Score: 1

    That's a very valid question, but more worryingly they could all be psychopaths. At least crooked teeth could be measured by the scientists, but psychopaths would be hard to measure for.

  24. Re:But if we make all future births "geniuses"... on Scanning Embryos For Super-Intelligent Kids Is On the Horizon · · Score: 1

    I don't know, I looked up the smartest guy who is in our school a few years after school finished, and he was working as a courier driver. He and I used to to compete to get the highest mark in the class. 20 years later I checked up on him and he was driving buses.

    It isn't necessarily true that smart people either need or want to be acting like Einstein.

  25. Re:Why Not???? on Scanning Embryos For Super-Intelligent Kids Is On the Horizon · · Score: 1

    It could be worse because we don't understand the relationship between these genes and other attributes like compassion and morality. For example, some scientist boffin might discover that Gene 769 gives 1 extra IQ point but doesn't realise that it makes you into an unfeeling psychopath. Then we end up with a planet of super intelligent nazis.