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  1. Re: No! Of course not! on Slashdot Asks: Should Businesses Switch To Biometric Passwords? (hbr.org) · · Score: 1

    Swilden's post agrees, and of course, if you can break the hardware and modify it you can perform a replay attack only providing the bio parameters, not even faking a print. However, swilden also points out that the amount of effort required to do these things is significant... With well designed systems, it will be significant for a long time, still. You have to consider the threat to determine the risk of using biometrics... In many situations, the threat is unsophisticated, and unlikely to ever be sophisticated enough, especially if there are simpler ways for the actor to accomplish their goals.

  2. Re: Boeing, Lockheed, Tobacco, Cable, Firearms on The Android Administration: Google's Relationship With the Obama White House (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    I saw that movie! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...â"_The_Wall

  3. Boeing, Lockheed, Tobacco, Cable, Firearms on The Android Administration: Google's Relationship With the Obama White House (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    Why is a relationship between Google and the White House anywhere near as bad as one between our lawmakers and Boeing, Lockheed, tobacco companies, cable companies, or firearms companies? I trust Google way more than those other guys, and for the White House to actively sway anything in favour of Goog would make waves.

  4. Re: Card to Card payments on MasterCard Forcing PayPal To Pay Higher Fees · · Score: 2

    Are you suggesting that Bitcoin is as safe as the USD? One of those still works when the lights go out...

  5. Re:no, it's not dead on The Nielsen Family Is Dead · · Score: 1
    I agree. Downloaders, Hulu watchers, or network website viewers will not see the TV ads because that's not how the system currently works. To include those folks in the Nielsen ratings would make the ratings less relevant to the people who actually pay for the shows. Viewers don't pay for the shows, advertisers do (excepting premium, which, why can't I buy an Internet subscription from HBO?).

    It's unfortunate that the number we talk about as a show's popularity is the Nielsen number, which increasingly does not represent actual popularity. Because these networks are a business, though, as these other audiences make up more of their income due to Hulu ads/whatever, the networks will have to start taking them into account. Then the definition of show popularity will no longer solely be the Nielson rating based on TV viewership. It'll probably just be proportional to delivery medium income...

  6. Re:Frying pan or fire? on Who Should Manage the Nuclear Weapons Complex, Civilians Or Military? · · Score: 1

    [Citation needed] It's not that I think this can't be true, I'd just like to know specific cases where it was true. Certainly I can think of unethical appropriations of the type you mention, but I wouldn't put deals with Boeing in the category of "worst acts from our government".

  7. Re:What is Mesa? on Mesa Finally An OpenGL Implementation (On Intel Hardware) · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here's the relevant part (sorry, editing on a phone isn't that easy...):

    Now comes the fun part: modern hardware acceleration. I assume everybody already knows what OpenGL is. It’s not a library, there will never be one set of sources to alibGL.so. Each vendor is supposed to provide its ownlibGL.so. NVIDIA provides its own implementation of OpenGL and ships its ownlibGL.so, based on its implementations for Windows and OS X.

    If you are running open-source drivers, yourlibGL.so implementation probably comes from Mesa. Mesa is many things, but one of the major things it provides that it is most famous for is its OpenGL implementation. It is an open-source implementation of the OpenGL API. Mesa itself has multiple backends for which it provides support. It has three CPU-based implementations: swrast (outdated and old, do not use it), softpipe (slow), llvmpipe (potentially fast). Mesa also has hardware-specific drivers. Intel supports Mesa and has built a number of drivers for their chipsets which are shipped inside Mesa. The radeon and nouveau drivers are also supported in Mesa, but are built on a different architecture: gallium.

  8. Re:What is Mesa? on Mesa Finally An OpenGL Implementation (On Intel Hardware) · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've wondered this before too. How does it all fit together. I found this very helpful: http://blog.mecheye.net/2012/06/the-linux-graphics-stack/#rendering-stack

  9. Gamer Diaspora on Battlestar Galactica Community Game Diaspora Has Arrived · · Score: 2

    I saw this headline and was worried about the Cheeto and Mountain Dew famines that would occur if a community of displaced Battlestar Galactica Gamers was unleashed upon this land.

  10. Re:For the masses? on Satellite Uplinks For the Masses · · Score: 1

    Well, if you were talking to a geosat satellite, those are way out there in orbit. Fast electrically steerable antennas may allow comms with low earth orbit satellites, which would lower latency.

  11. Re:Chaos... what? on The Chaos Within Sudoku - a Richter Scale of Difficulty · · Score: 1

    There are a lot of ways to look at hard, somewhat generic problems, like Sudoku. Have you seen the SAT problem? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_satisfiability_problem One way to consider it is like you describe - a set of simultaneous equations. Another way to consider it is to use the equations and some rules to draw a graph, then perform graph operations. NP problems are an active area of academic interest. It's generally not possible to know how hard these problems are before solving them, so if this technique can be more general than just Sudoku, that could be important.

  12. Re:Whats the problem on Sexy Female Scientist Video Draws Fire · · Score: 2

    Personally, I think smart girls are sexy - end of story.

    Yes. This. In the same way, dumb folks are a complete turnoff, I don't care how good you look.

    I've put this statement to the test.

  13. Re:FIRST things FIRST on At Canadian Airports, Your Conversation May Be Remotely Recorded · · Score: 2

    Clearly, then, the solution is to install listening devices in everyone's homes.

  14. Re:It's a free tool! on Microsoft Relents On Metro-Only Visual Studio Express · · Score: 1

    That was my initial thought too. But the complaining worked, so more power to the complainers.

  15. Re:Trying to parse... on How Nearby Supernovae Affected Life On Earth · · Score: 1

    My interpretation was, "temperature variations caused by cosmic rays are influenced more by supernovae than by the Sun." I think it's similar to yours, but that the Sun and supernovae are causing cosmic rays to affect Earth's temperature. It probably infers what you're saying too.

  16. Re:Where? on The Ugly Underbelly of Coder Culture · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The problem is generally not that men dislike women, sexism takes much more subtle forms than that. I'm in the military, another male dominated career field, and I've seen that it can be hard for women to try to just fit in and work if they're being singled out even in small ways. This post discusses it a bit:
    http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/

    There are times that I've thought one of my female coworker friends needs to "lighten up", and I've thought that about male coworkers too. But there are many times when I've seen that the women are correct, and that they've been singled out in an unfortunate way. It really turns them off to a field that needs a more equal gender balance, and that's too bad.

    I think XZVF kinda hit it on the head, too.

  17. A friend was on Ask Slashdot: Who Has Been Sued By the RIAA? · · Score: 1
    I have a friend who was sued by the RIAA or one of their members. I don't know anything about it, except that he and a few others all decided to settle, and that they were all in college at the time. He's doing well now.

    There have been a few news stories about the grandma who was sued, or the cute college coed that was sued, too. Not that I know them, but the people do exist.

  18. Re:naysayers on New Record High Temperature At South Pole · · Score: 1

    Not to defend or disagree with your comment's parent, I've been thinking a bit about science belief/knowledge and relaized that there's a lot of science which I understtand logically but that I haven't witnessed firsthand. For instance, in physics labs I've proved a lot of physics to myself, and I "know" that bit of science. I've seen the curvature of earth and know that it's round. I've used an electron microscope (don't remember the type) and understand its function and now I "know" about atoms. Biology, on the other hand, is something I'm not terribly versed in. I totally believe that white and red blood cells exist, and that that's how our immune system works and how oxygen gets to our body parts, but I can't say that I "know" it to be true. I'm sure this sounds like a drunk college conversation, sorry. It'd be better but I'm driving and typing...

  19. Re:naysayers on New Record High Temperature At South Pole · · Score: 1

    I totally agree, but never put it so well. Thank you.

  20. Re:Nothing new here on US Senator Proposes Bill To Eliminate Overtime For IT Workers · · Score: 1

    Thanks for saying that. The summary is enough to enrage anybody, then I read the bill and the context and I was puzzled as to why anybody was making a big deal.

  21. Re:1% on When Having the US Debt Paid Off Was a Problem · · Score: 1

    Ha! It's better than that! US debt ensures that all citizens in the World economy are on the hook. We're all dependent upon each other. This was made clear by the global market instability during this last recession. Mutually assured economic destruction - hopefully it'll be as successful as nuclear MAD.

  22. Re:Giving it away on A Day In the Life of Privacy · · Score: 2

    We give away privacy to gain certain benefits. I work on code projects at coffee shops sometimes, instead of at home, despite the reduction in privacy. The benefit that I get is that I feel slightly more social, and I get to drink some good good espresso. Just because I choose to buy into the ridiculous game of corporate bs and use credit sensibly for all types of purchases does not make me a lemming. My fursuit does that just fine thankyou. Typed on my AndroidMegaCorp2000FancySchmantzPhone.

  23. Re:Not a true experience then. on Russian Simulated Mars Mission Close To 'Landing' · · Score: 1

    I agree with you vadim. If I was in this situation, for at least the first two weeks the idea that I could just quit and go back to everyday life at anytime would be at the top of my mind. There are few consequences to quitting in this situation, compared to those in a real mission. In a real mission you're completely committed both physically and mentally, in a fake mission it's a mental game.

  24. Re:Seriously? Do your own job. on SSL Certificates For Intranet Sites? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I remember the same sort of stuff from Usenet - where do they think RTFM came from? This question isn't even bad.

  25. Re:739 Gb/sq.in. on The Limits To Perpendicular Recording · · Score: 1

    How many libraries of congress/libraries of congress is it?