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User: Tsar

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  1. Consider the data transfer times... on New USB 3.0 Flash Drive Has 2 TB of Storage · · Score: 3, Interesting

    USB 3.0 supports a MAXIMUM throughput of 5.0Gbit/sec, and even at that insane rate it would take one hour (with 10% protocol overhead) to read or write two terabytes. We're lucky though; at USB 2.0's best rate it would take over 10 hours, with Full Speed USB 1.0 it would take 2½ weeks, and good old Original USB would literally take from now until late evening of January 14, 2012. Nostalgic for floppies? Using a fast backup program, you could do the job in 3½ years with 1.39 million 1.44MB coasters. Watch out for fridge magnets though!

  2. Re:obligatory on 1 in 8 Take Fake Phone Calls to Avoid Talking to Others · · Score: 1

    Yep, the OP was made with bits of real statistics, so you know it's good.

  3. Circumventing our autopilot overlords on Volkswagon Shows Off Self-Driving Auto-Pilot For Cars · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unless there's some unforeseen (by the general public) future setback in technology, there will come a point in the next few years when you won't be able to legally drive on a public street without this kind of technology--probably always on to take over when you speed, tailgate or just drive too aggressively. What possibilities would then exist for gaming the system? Not myself, of course, but others...

    I assume that the firmware on these systems will be DRM'ed to prevent aftermarket adjustments. Some of the basic functionality (speed limits, etc.) would require a GPS signal; perhaps intermittent GPS jamming would cause the system to revert to full manual control. Any other ideas?

  4. Re:Err, waitaminute. on New Find Boosts Prospects For Life On Distant Moons · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, there is no radiations there. Just a big magnetic field which would make it really hard for any kind of civilisation to get pass bronze age. I guess that's one more win for the Na'vi uh...

    Actually, the massive magnetic field is the dynamo for trapping ionizing solar radiation and generating synchrotron radiation. That's why the Europa mission electronics have to be radiation-hardened beyond anything ever sent into space, and why your hypothetical Na'vi would never develop past an interesting self-perpetuating chemical reaction in some Jovian moon's primordial clays. Where's a hyperintelligent, near-omnipotent monolith when you need one?

  5. Re:Fake on Camera Lets You Shift Focus After Shooting · · Score: 1

    Don't click his link. It's the Goatse.cx image.

    Also known as the poor man's basilisk.

  6. Slippery slope on Graphing Internet Interaction To Spot Spammers · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm starting to think that a social graph is going to be the 21st century version of the fingerprint, except it will describe WHAT you are rather than WHO you are. Botnet, AI, Muslim, Baptist, college-educated straight Irish-American middle-child female... Who'd like to guess what the total annual budget is already for this kind of research? How much money and manpower would the Department Homeland Security be willing to invest to keep Facebook et al popular with their target audience, so the cheap social graph data keeps flowing?

  7. Re:A great reminder? on WordPress.org Hacked, Plugin Repository Compromised · · Score: 2

    "This is a great remainder [sic] for all users not use the same password for two different services."

    Not [sic] it's not. Not even slightly.

    Respectfully, I beg to differ. I'm running a password manager to keep track of all my passwords, online and otherwise. I'll never go back, and neither should you.

    Except for my password to the app itself (which is absurdly long but memorized and periodically changed), all my passwords are unique, cryptographically secure random printable-character strings of the maximum length allowed by each system or 255 characters, whichever is shorter. I keep three deeply-encrypted copies stored remotely, so unless we lose North America, I'll never have a problem getting back into my Slashdot account.

    Once I've entered my master password I only have to hit a system key combo to enter my credentials into any site, so after initial setup it's much more convenient than even using the same password everywhere. Yes, there are always potential security holes, but I believe that I'm managing them quite well, thank you.

    I didn't realize how many sites I had login credentials for (well into the triple digits) until I set up this app. Most of them used one of a very small handful of passwords. What's worse, I sometimes tried several of those passwords before I got logged into a site, so a malicious site could easily keep track of those attempts and have the passwords for many of my other sites. Not any more. Changing a password isn't a chore anymore, because I don't have to re-memorize anything. I simply generate a password of the maximum allowed length and complexity, swap it out and move on. Finally, I don't have a photographic memory either, so it's good that I don't have to remember all the sites where I used the same password as I did on the current Hacked Site of the Day.

  8. Re:You raise, I call on Robots Find Wreckage of AF447 · · Score: 0

    It doesn't beg the question. It RAISES the question.

    OK, then I CALL the question. The debate is closed.

    Your statement that the debate is closed assumes that debate on /. is subject to the referenced parliamentary procedure, which it most certainly is not. Guess what this logical fallacy is called?

    If irony were strawberries, we'd both be drinking smoothies right now.

  9. Mod Parent Sideways on Running Your Own Ghost Investigation? · · Score: 1

    Sounds pretty draconian--do you live in the California Nebula?

    In my galaxy they just check positron emissions. My probabilistic engine has been using about a quark a month for eons and they just keep letting it slide.

  10. Mod Parent Up, Please! on Unspoofable Device Identity Using Flash Memory · · Score: 1

    Outstandingly informative post. Thanks for taking the time to share your invaluable knowledge and experience!

  11. Re:On the desktop, perhaps on Microsoft To Charge Phone Makers a Licensing Fee · · Score: 0

    You must be new here.

  12. Possible benefits? on How Good Software Makes Us Stupid · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see (or participate in) a study to determine whether Googling on everything but a specific focus area can help concentrate mental faculties on that area. Something like Joe Haldeman's excellent short story "None So Blind".

  13. Re:Old days? on Twins' DNA Foils Police · · Score: 1

    Hanging would work well in this case if the English still had the balls to do that sort of thing. Just declare them both to be guilty and that they'll both be hanged. When they're on the gibbet with their necks in a noose the guilty one would probably speak up to spare his brother, and if not just hang them both anyway.

    If I were the innocent brother and placed in this situation with no other alternative, I'd gladly confess so that my brother could go free, even knowing (as only I would) that he was the guilty one. I'd be a two thousand years too late to claim that it's my original idea, though.

  14. Crucial means CRUCIAL. on UN To Create Independent Panel To Review IPCC · · Score: 1

    "Many scientists say that such material, ranging from reports by government agencies to respected research not published in scientific journals, is crucial to seeking a complete picture of the state of climate science."

    If it's crucial, it should be peer-reviewed. If no one has time to peer-review the material, it shouldn't be part of the basis for multi-trillion-dollar policy decisions. How is that non-obvious?

  15. Re:Enough about malicious spam on Malicious Spam Jumps To 3B Messages Per Day · · Score: 3, Funny

    And that's just the malicious spam! It doesn't count the dozens of helpful, well-meaning, altruistic spams I get every day from good people who care about whether I have enough hair, or I'm paying too much for prescription drugs, or my wife is completely satisfied. Bless all their hearts!

    Oh, did you mean del.icio.us spam? No, I didn't think so.

  16. Re:Business model on FOSS CAD and 3D Modeling Software? · · Score: 2, Funny

    Fly indiana jones and have him leave a bag of peebles when taking the rocks.

    Harrison Ford probably wouldn't be interested in the venture at this point in his life. Also, I doubt that Mario Van Peebles could be convinced to part with such a personal item.

  17. Re:OMG!!! on Universe Closer To Heat Death Than Once Thought · · Score: 3, Funny

    So as well as peak oil now we have to worry about peak universe?

    Worrying isn't enough--it's time to ACT!
    Assuming, of course, that this is anthropogenic entropy...

  18. Little technology on Fake "Bill Gates" Message Dupes Top Tools · · Score: 4, Funny

    "...And the simplicity and success of the test demonstrated just how powerful social engineering can be and what little technology can actually do about it, security experts say."

    Okay, I give up. What can little technology actually do about it? Is that like nanotechnology, but bigger?
    Yes, I was bored. Back to work!

  19. Dibs on the name... on DARPA Kick-Starts Flying Car Program · · Score: 3, Funny

    HumVTOL.

  20. Re:What's a "Sneaker Tech"? on How Many Admins Per User/Computer Have You Seen? · · Score: 2, Funny

    Google doesn't have any relevant hits for this phrase (except this article).

    Obviously you don't know how to search. I found a job posting for a sneaker tech right away.

  21. A modest proposal... on FTC Says Virtual Worlds Bad For Minors · · Score: 1

    Develop a gatekeeper that, rather than asking for an age or birthdate, actually tests emotional maturity based on some signal criteria. If you test out as mature enough for the subject matter, you're in. If not, you get redirected to something appropriate for your maturity level.

    PROS: Emotionally mature users would be admitted, and others blocked, regardless of age. Advanced tweens and stunted twenty-somethings could both be dealt with appropriately.

    CONS: Where exactly do you draw the line? Chronological age may still need to be used as a deciding factor in borderline cases. Also, some sites might find it beneficial to develop a gatekeeper that identifies other factors not directly relevant to emotional maturity--high susceptibility to certain forms of advertising, for example.

    Hey, it's just a thought.

  22. Re:AI needed? on Google Visual Search Coming Soon to Android · · Score: 1

    Linked videos show testers taking photos of consumer products such as books and food items (a Tabasco label, for example). If Google Goggles can identify any small item I'm looking at using only my GPS coordinates and orientation, we should just surrender now and pray that Richard Brautigan wasn't being too optimistic.

  23. And the assumptions continue! on Network Security While Traveling? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When you're backpacking through South America, "at home" can mean anywhere in your country of origin or current residence. That covers anything from a $100/month blade server at a hosting company to a $30 dd-wrt router in a friend's basement. Either way, please keep the ad hominem attacks out of it, okay? We're all just trying to help here.

  24. Re:Much more mathematical detail... on New Theory of Gravity Decouples Space & Time · · Score: 1

    ... until they plugged the ansatz into the Horava’s action to produce the reduced Lagrangian.

    Huh. I didn't get that far. And I'm pretty sure that whatever it that is, it's illegal in Texas.

    True ansätze may be illegal in Texas, but his one is obviously an ersatz ansatz.
    I've upped my working vocabulary; up yours!

  25. Re:And FTL, too on New Theory of Gravity Decouples Space & Time · · Score: 1

    I'd call that a feature, not a bug!

    I believe pilot Wolf of the Huis Clos would heartily agree with you.