Slashdot Mirror


User: jopie_b

jopie_b's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
7
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 7

  1. Re:Holland? on Cooperative Cars Battle It Out In Holland · · Score: 1

    And because there is no single province named "Holland" it is always obvious that when people refer to Holland they mean the whole county, not just a province.

  2. How can you tell graphs without error-bars? on Arctic Ice Extent Understated Because of "Sensor Drift" · · Score: 1

    Looking at the AMST-E data it does seem to be warming up though.
    For sure the lines in winter are pretty close, but if you look at the lines in August 2006 and 2007 show pretty deep dips.

    If you look at the 'old' SSM/I data the same trend emerges.

    If course graphs without error-bars are not to be trusted as people are wont to fixate on the exact numbers shown rather than the trend. Without error-bars you cannot even tell if the trend is real or due to sampling bias.

    A nice way of doing error bars is used in the (our) national weather on TV.
    Instead of showing a line to indicate the predicted rainfall, temp, etc.
    They use a colored area with includes the line + error bars. Except almost none realise its error bars you're looking at. Neat.

  3. Easy fix on Solution Against Cold Boot Attack In the Making · · Score: 1

    This does not sound like such a hard problem,

    Just erase the decryption key from memory when the computer goes to sleep (or lock screen) and ask the user to reenter the decryptkey on wake up of the system.
    Of course this requires that the operating system needed to get out of lock is not on the cryptodisk, but there are solutions for that.
    - Only use a crypto-disk for data.
    - Put wake-up portion of operating system in RAM disk.

    Now the disk-encryption program just needs to be really careful where it stores the key in RAM and you're done.
    For a server this will not work, but for laptops I don't see why not....

  4. Re:Just wondering on Google Challenging Proposition 8 · · Score: 1

    I am just wondering why this story was tagged as "Republican." [...]

    Nothing to do with this story, every item this week has been tagged "Republican".

  5. 50%+ votes should not a constitution change make on Google Challenging Proposition 8 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I for one find the concept that a state (or country) for that matter could change its constitution with a simple 50% majority vote deeply disturbing.
    Where I live (NL) --Yes, liberal bias on these issues because of nationality is noted -- a constitution change involves:
    - Find 2/3 majority vote in Congress;
    - than a 2/3 majority vote in Senate;
    - New elections (that means wait out the 4 year term);
    - new 2/3 majority vote in the newly elected Congress and ...
    - new 2/3 majority vote in the newly elected Senate.
    This prevents constitution amendments based on hype or 'in-vogueness' of an idea and it also allows for the legislation to mature.

    Of course the constitution deal does get clouded in package deals, as it will hardly be the only issue in an election. And yes it does make a constitution change slow as molasses, but it does look like a more even keeled process.

    BTW, does this mean a new 'reverse prop 8' amendment can be started up next week which will undo this change? A flip-flop constitution sounds like an interesting concept for /. (from a digital point of view ;-)

  6. Re:method patent on Satellite Abandoned Due To Orbital Patent · · Score: 1
  7. Re:The Big if on Consequences of a Solution to NP Complete Problems? · · Score: 1

    Fermat's Big Hunch (aka Fermat's Last Theorem).
    Has already been solved.
    In 1993(!) by Andrew Wiles. (after mathmaticians puzzled on it for 358 years).