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User: mbone

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Comments · 3,328

  1. It sure wasn't because of a groundswell of public opinion demanding it.

    I would strongly favor bringing back the $ 1000 bill. It's not that you might use it every day (I don't use $ 100 bills every day), but there are occasions where it would be very useful.

  2. Anti-Captcha on Password Security: Why the Horse Battery Staple Is Not Correct · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are now lists of millions of stolen passwords, and frankly none of them are safe. Why shouldn't someone set up a password security app (like captcha, but in reverse) so that a large web site could

    - download a large stolen password list (even 1 billion would only be a few GBytes)
    - checks (a salted hash) of your password against the list (say, salts changed every day or hour or...) and
    - if yours is on the list, tells you to do better

    It seems this would be much safer than just having some app that counts punctuation characters and tells you your password is strong if it has more than 3.

  3. Re:Horse and Cart on Proposed Hab Module For Asteroid Redirect Mission Could Support a Lunar Return · · Score: 1

    Make it profitable, and they will go. How do you think North America got populated* ?

    *Well, there is making it a prison planet, and sending everyone who gets a felony. I am sure some would love doing that, as long as they didn't have to go.

  4. Re:Why send humans now on Proposed Hab Module For Asteroid Redirect Mission Could Support a Lunar Return · · Score: 1

    Sure. Just remember to give us a acre or so of surface area while you're at it.

  5. Re:Why send humans now on Proposed Hab Module For Asteroid Redirect Mission Could Support a Lunar Return · · Score: 2

    Actually, after following artificial intelligence for some 5 decades now, I suspect he or she is highly likely to sound more uninformed in a few decades. Very few things are as wince-inducing as reading 3-decade old AI predictions.

  6. Phobos is the real goal on Proposed Hab Module For Asteroid Redirect Mission Could Support a Lunar Return · · Score: 2

    The real goal of the habitat is the Martian moon, Phobos, which is reachable for nearly the same expenditure of energy as the high retrograde lunar orbit planned for ARM. It would take a good deal longer, though, thus the need for a habitat.

    If you think of ARM as a training wheels dry run for Phobos, you would not be far off.

  7. Society is Hostile to Idiotic Billionaires on Co-Founder of PayPal Peter Thiel: Society Is Hostile To Science and Technology · · Score: 2

    Just as plausible as his assertions.

  8. Re:Not even gonna read this. on Fusion Reactor Concept Could Be Cheaper Than Coal · · Score: 1

    And that (as I suspect you know) is just the rationale behind ITER. In a sane world, ITER would be treated as a crash program, but I guess we have to be glad it's there at all. The frustrating thing is that it's the next (post ITER) reactor that's supposed to be the actual production power generator.

  9. Maybe on Fusion Reactor Concept Could Be Cheaper Than Coal · · Score: 4, Informative

    First, no long-lived radioactive waste is not quite, not exactly, true for the current Deuterium Tritium fusion reactors (which ITER is, and I assume this new U Washington fusion reactor is as well). DT fusion produces neutrons and neutrons can't be controlled and thus go off and hit things (steel in the containment vessel, for example), which both weakens the steel, and makes it radioactive. So, after a while you have a junk old reactor that's radioactive. (One of the benefits of Helium-3 fusion is that it doesn't produce any neutrons, but it is a long way off without some fundamental breakthroughs.)

    Second, fusion is like the Internet - the one question you always have to ask is, "will it scale?". (Will plasma instabilities kill your attempt to make a small lab experiment with some confinement into a viable large scale source of power.) Fusion has a long, long history of cool ideas that did not scale, and I do not regard a press release as proof of their having cracked that problem.

  10. Multipeer Connectivity and Friends on Hong Kong Protesters Use Mesh Networks To Organize · · Score: 3, Informative

    Firechat uses Apple's Multipeer connectivity for IOS, and a similar protocol for Android, to achieve a mesh network. I do not believe that any of this is MANET (the IETF's favorite mesh networking protocol).

  11. Traffic engineering on At CIA Starbucks, Even the Baristas Are Covert · · Score: 2

    I can actually understand this - suppose I was an agent and I made up a random name, like 'Polly-O string cheese'. If I used it consistently, a spy for the other side could do traffic analysis - things like " 'Polly-O string cheese' always gets a coffee, except for 2 recent periods of about a week each. Suspected agent X was reported as being in country Y, an ally of ours, during those 2 periods, and at no other time. Next time 'Polly-O string cheese' doesn't get a coffee, if X is in country Y, get the Y state security to arrest him.

    If I were agent X, I would be very nervous at having to give any name, even if I could make one up each time. Humans are not very good at making up random things...

  12. Store # 1? on At CIA Starbucks, Even the Baristas Are Covert · · Score: 2

    I thought that was a Pike's Place in Seattle?

  13. Re:No thank you on When Everything Works Like Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    During a power failure I found that I can make much better toast in the fireplace than in a toaster. I prefer it now.

  14. Re:Works like a cellphone? on When Everything Works Like Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    In business, whenever you have to ask, why?, the answer is generally, money.

  15. Why on earth would you buy this stuff? on When Everything Works Like Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    Another hyperventilating article about things I have no desire or intention to possess.

  16. Re:Depending on the grade? on Ask Slashdot: How To Keep Students' Passwords Secure? · · Score: 1

    The OP meant grade as in second or third, not as in B or C.

  17. Re:Ignore stupid suggestions on Ask Slashdot: How To Keep Students' Passwords Secure? · · Score: 2

    Oh, and probably most important - parents should make sure they have a copy of the ID's passwords needed to access "third party" resources, to avoid the inevitable loss of notebooks.

  18. Ignore stupid suggestions on Ask Slashdot: How To Keep Students' Passwords Secure? · · Score: 1

    Tell them to put them in a notebook. Accept that they will get shared. If that bothers the school admins, too bad.

    I have a feeling that this school is wasting a bunch of money on stuff "third party" salesmen have sold them, but that is another issue.

  19. Stupid on Nvidia Sinks Moon Landing Hoax Using Virtual Light · · Score: 1

    'We're going to debunk one of the biggest conspiracies in the world,'

    Anyone who takes this seriously is too stupid to take seriously.

  20. Re:Yeah, so? on New Data Center Protects Against Solar Storm and Nuclear EMPs · · Score: 1

    Generally, in the data centers guarantees really mean that you get a payment (or a reduction in fees) if the guarantee is violated. (You might get 1 day's service fee off if you lose power for X minutes, for example). So, if it doesn't work, expect a reduction in the bill, as specified in the contract.

    So, if you bet your business on something like this, you had better have a plan B in case of outages.

  21. Re:Solar storm EMP vs nuclear weapons on New Data Center Protects Against Solar Storm and Nuclear EMPs · · Score: 1

    EMP is not biologically dangerous, unless you are wearing something like a pacemaker. And, all you need for protection is a suitable Faraday cage and isolation from the grid, so the same shielding can protect against both EMPs and Solar Storms.

  22. 2000 square feet? on New Data Center Protects Against Solar Storm and Nuclear EMPs · · Score: 1

    That's it? With a datacenter that small, I wonder they didn't put it deep underground (unless this is a typo).

    Can I convert my basement into a data center and get it on slashdot too?

  23. Re:Those moon rocks sure look owned on Congress Can't Make Asteroid Mining Legal (But It's Trying, Anyway) · · Score: 1

    That's what that "non-interference" bit is about.

  24. Re:Who cares if its legal? on Congress Can't Make Asteroid Mining Legal (But It's Trying, Anyway) · · Score: 1

    If you have the technology to go mine an asteroid, i dont think any country on this planet will be able to take it from you. And if they try, just "accidentally" drop some of what you mined on them.

    You may not care, but your investors are highly likely to. That is really what's driving this.

  25. Wrong, wrong wrong on Congress Can't Make Asteroid Mining Legal (But It's Trying, Anyway) · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was there at the hearing, and I think the summary is pretty far from the true situation.

    First, Prof. Gabrynowicz is in the minority in the legal community on this (her response is also to work for international consensus on these issues, which is not going to happen.

    Second, the Asteroid Act has been vetted by the State Department (and by a whole bunch of interested parties) and it certainly is in agreement with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (even Prof. Gabrynowicz didn't claim otherwise).

    Third, all of the space powers appear to be in agreement with the basic principle expressed by the Asteroid Act - that space mining is a lot like deep sea fishing - you can't claim your fishing hole, but you get to keep what you take.

    For a more balanced explanation as to why the Act is needed as a US instantiation of the '67 Outer Space Treaty to clarify the rules for US Corporations, see Dean Larson's WSJ Op Ed (or my own take on it).