Slashdot Mirror


User: tlambert

tlambert's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
5,097
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 5,097

  1. They requested modified testing to get the numbers on Start-Up Claims Immortality For Data With 'Stone-Like' Disc · · Score: 2

    They requested modified testing to get the numbers

    Basically, modified ECMA-379 testing, starting with known good discs (where the write was initially verified to be good) with testing limited to 85C temperature and 85% relative humidity profile testing, with the addition of full-spectrum light in order to make the dye substrate more vulnerable to phase-change from humidity lensing of the light.

    The two key elements of the Millenniata test which differ from ECMA-379 are
    consideration of the initial write quality of the discs selected for testing, and the
    introduction of full spectrum light to the test environment.

    ...or to put it into slash-terms: any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to a rigged demo. I'm not saying it's not useful; it probably will be a big hit with the LDS Church, the military, and the IRS, but they had to start with good writes and then work at extreme boundary conditions on the testing to successfully destroy the other discs.

    -- Terry

  2. Actually, the referenced paper says something else on The Fate of the First Known Black Hole · · Score: 2

    Actually, the referenced paper says something else.

    They specifically talk about the LIGO II http://www.ligo.org/ gravity wave observatory. And yes, they believe that a gravity wave can be detected without having the ability to detect individual gravitons as baryonic particles.

    Also, for what it's worth, it'd be possible to check one way or the other for several billion dollars worth of equipment: three large masses arranged in a scalene triangle with laser interferometers acting as a target plane, with another mass to target the plane at an angle of about 45 degrees relative to the face of the plane would either demonstrate a time base variance between the target masses -- or not. You have to keep the target masses relatively close to each other.

    The speed limit on the mass after the slingshot would be about 240,000 KPH. To overcome that problem and get higher speed (we need relativistic speeds for crossing the plane), you need two more masses: one the size of the mass you sling-shotted, the other relatively smaller. From the reference frame of the large and small mass, the are effectively being dropped together onto a stationary object at 240,000 KPH. This will be enough to catapult the smaller mass up to relatavistic speeds for collision with the virtual plane. We don't care if the large slingshot mass and the large target mass survive, we just want the momentum transfer. Here's a nice little demo of the process: http://www.physics.org/interact/physics-to-go/extra-bounce/index.html

    --Terry

  3. FYI Steve Jobs routinely uses out of spec channels on Ask Slashdot: Overcoming Convention Hall Wi-Fi Interference? · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FYI Steve Jobs routinely uses out of spec channels. For WWDC, this used to be channel 13, which is not licensed for use in the US, but is in Japan.

    This got to be a problem (leading to the famous "you've got a choice..." speech) when enough Japanese Mac developers attended without changing their locale, and all the Japanese machines ended up on channel 13 because it was "less crowded" (for obvious reasons).

    -- Terry

  4. "a PC"?!? on Ubuntu 11.10 Down To 12-Second Boot · · Score: 1

    ...a PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.00 GHz and a hard disk drive...

    Well, that's a specific Intel CPU, and we know it has an unspecified hard drive.

    What actual hardware did they use, so that we can reproduce their results?

    Thanks,
    -- Terry

  5. They won't do that... on German Parliament Backs Nuclear Exit By 2022 · · Score: 1

    They'll just invade France again.

    They won't do that... they wouldn't get any power, since as soon as France was controlled by Germany, they'd be phasing out the reactors in (the former) France as well.

    -- Terry

  6. No, MacBooks just can't run at SATA III speeds on Creating a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Bootable Flash Drive · · Score: 2

    No, MacBooks just can't run at SATA III speeds. This is because the SATA cable is insufficient'y shielded, and since it's not COAX, if you put in a very fast drive, it'll happily negotiate the higher 6Gb/S data rate and then get errors and crash because of it.

    So it's really not a good idea to put the jumped up SSD drives in as a replacement for the existing drives (and no, a real and shielded SATA III coax has insufficient clearance to install in place of the old cable; the tolerances are too tight).

    -- Terry

  7. "Microsoft shady practices" on Calling BS On Unpaid Internships · · Score: 1

    they were clearly referring to MS's shady/unethical business practices using contractors as full-time employees [reuters.com], and the consequences thereof.

    ...which would be what, working around government mandated per-employee overhead which contributes to out-sourcing to avoid unfunded government mandates?

    Per employee overhead reduces the number of people a business can employ. Personally, I don't think health care ranks very high on Maslow's hierarchy of needs compared to, say, food, but increasing employer per-employee costs is unlikely to increase the number of employed persons.

    Feel free to correct my logic.

    -- Terry

  8. This may be a stupid question... on US Warns of Problems In Chinese SCADA Software · · Score: 2

    This may be a stupid question...

    What kind of moron connects their factory-internal manufacturing systems to the Internet?

    -- Terry

  9. "This video isn't the best..." Ren & Stimpy? on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1

    Wind power has come a long way [...] This video isn't the best, but..."

    ...because it's a Ren & Stimpy cartoon of a project that hasn't actually been built.

    You can call us back when they build the real thing; until then, it's about as real as the Tooth Nerve Fairy.

    -- Terry

  10. "You mean like Spain..." at least check your facts on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 3, Informative

    You mean, like Spain does? Oh, wait, Spain exports energy to France, and last year over half of its energy production was from renewable resources.

    Actually, Spain imported 2% of its energy from France, and gets 20% of its domestic power from nuclear plants:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Spain.

    -- Terry

  11. Re:I guess I just won't buy stuff online anymore. on California Assembly Approves Internet Tax · · Score: 1

    No income tax in Washington state, no sales tax in Oregon; may I suggest Washington State, near the Washington/Oregon border so you can drive over the border to buy cheap groceries?

    -- Terry

  12. "Your UID is too high to make that joke." on Duke Nukem Forever Goes Gold · · Score: 1

    Your UID is too high to know his UID is too high to make that joke.

    -- Terry

  13. I am completely unimpressed... on Robots Retrieve Your Books At U. Chicago's $81 Million Library · · Score: 0

    I am completely unimpressed with any library where I can not browse books.

    Having books suggested to me by some algorithm that's been training itself to show me things similar to things I've seen before is not at all the same.

    Neither is giving me random crap because I've expressed a distaste for homogenized crap; as I told the designers of the iPod Shuffle the first three times I suggested that they had a perfectly usable UI feedback mechanism for representing menus in the devices audio output: Random Is Not A Feature.

    This goes for browsing them by either topically due to horizontal shelf locality, or because of other physical adjacency (above/below/opposite self), or because of route locality (I went down the wrong row/headed to the right row through another, otherwise unrelated, section).

    FWIW: I also hate electronic books.

    -- Terry

  14. "Why would they lay people off...?" on Jeff Bezos Calls Sales Tax Requirements On Amazon Unconstitutional · · Score: 2

    Why would they lay people off if these people are making them money? If the government takes a little bigger chunk of profits, the logical thing would be to hire more people to make up the difference.

    Because the marginal cost of a given employee exceeds the marginal value, and therefore they become a net loss to the business. It's a straight cost/benefit calculation.

    The same goes for unfunded government mandates for workers comp and other per-worker costs to the business: if it costs me 75% to pay two people time and a half for 4 of 12 hours, my cost has gone up by only 1.5 times the hourly cost times two plus fixed costs I would be out no matter what. As long as that amount is less than the regular hourly rate, which it is - the actual pay-out to an employee is far less than half my cost of employing another person - then I'll just work the people I have harder.

    This is the same reason most small stores have closed, and that there are no unskilled labor jobs available for minors whose employment would cost the local minimum wage floor per hour to push a broom. It's much easier to pay someone here illegally a smaller amount in cash under the table, since it's not like they can report you without putting themselves at risk of deportation. Have fun selling drugs instead.

    There are tons of places in the SF Bay Area where it's common to use undocumented restaurant workers and day laborers, rather than pay the rather usurous local minimum wage and insurance and FICA and SS witholding.

    There are also tons of places where the workers are hired as "independent contractors", which amounts to the same thing, since they are responsible for paying their own taxes and so on. Almost every spa, salon, gym, or other industry, including commissioned sales, tends to operate this way.

    -- Terry

  15. Fifth, drop ceramic coated rebar... on Space Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Off On Final Flight · · Score: 1

    Fifth, drop ceramic coated rebar at orbital velocity on people who piss you off.

    Just saying: there's a reason that access to space is not cheap, McDonnell Douglas isn't independently pursuing the DC-X for commercial purposes, access is not available to the average person, and the government is so anal about licensing of launch sites.

    It isn't a technological one.

    -- Terry

  16. What is this "Powers Hell"? on Ask Slashdot: Moving From *nix To Windows Automation? · · Score: 2

    I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

    Try the veal.

    -- Terry

  17. ps output has a standard governing it... on Ask Slashdot: Moving From *nix To Windows Automation? · · Score: 1

    ...so you can write scripts that depend on the format and have them work in 2032.

    Just saying.

    -- Terry

  18. Re:clearly on Better Brain Wiring Linked To Family Genes · · Score: 1

    Only now we call it "income tax"...

    -- Terry

  19. Re:This supposedly argues in favor of T-Mobile buy on AT&T Admits Network Can't Handle iPhone, iPad Traffic · · Score: 1

    I can answer offline; I'm pretty easy to find.

    -- Terry

  20. This isn't about spectrum on AT&T Admits Network Can't Handle iPhone, iPad Traffic · · Score: 1

    This isn't about spectrum.

    You can increase bandwidth and carrying capacity of a cellular network by increasing tower density, with no change in bandwidth. NTT does this in Japan, and it works fine. This should be an obvious issue as a result of the radius vs. area bein > 1 (bein pi, in fact).

    Here's a study on the issue:

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Bjsessionid%3D490881B8B7F086DD7B8C4C443124827E%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.42.9109%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&rct=j&q=coverage%20vs.%20cell%20density&ei=NByzTfuANInmsQPP3djrCw&usg=AFQjCNGRRIPetr_EsDV946ldfV4E658TiQ&sig2=2AvHcX2oXQG91EcgNbNLSg

    -- Terry

  21. Re:This supposedly argues in favor of T-Mobile buy on AT&T Admits Network Can't Handle iPhone, iPad Traffic · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but as someone who worked on the iPhone, AT&T was aware of it since very early on, so by my count, they've had 5 years already.

    -- Terry

  22. This supposedly argues in favor of T-Mobile buy?!? on AT&T Admits Network Can't Handle iPhone, iPad Traffic · · Score: 1

    OK, I read the article and the related filings...

    This supposedly argues in favor of T-Mobile buy?!?

    Their argument is that it would take them 5 years to build out their infrastructure compared to the purchase of T-Mobile, and how they suddenly have a 30% larger network.

    That works, as long as you assume that that network doesn't come with existing T-Mobile subscribers, and that assumption is wrong. According to the latest figures I could find: http://www.textmessageblog.mobi/2008/06/26/market-share-by-cellular-carrier/, AT&T has 71.3M subscribers and T-Mobile has 30.8M subscribers.

    So... They get a 30% larger network, but a 43% larger number of subscribers.

    How does this make things anything but worse for everyone?

    -- Terry

  23. How is this any different than... on Apple Faces Class-Action Suit For In-App Purchases · · Score: 1

    But they're saying it to Apple. As the complaint points out, the app developer never sees the customer's payment data.

    How is this any different than someone buying gift certificate at a mall office using a credit card, and taking it to a store in the mall and not giving the inbformation to the store?

    I'm not understanding why you belive a payment processing gateway should be responsible for anything other than reasonable diligence against outright fraud.

    -- Terry

  24. I understand they have one obstacle left... on US May Issue Terror Alerts On Facebook, Twitter · · Score: 1

    I understand they have one obstacle left...

    How to hide the resulting concrete numbers about how many people actually give a rats ass about them or their terror alerts.

    -- Terry

  25. Same as the comedy kids? on Do Violent Games Hinder Development of Empathy? · · Score: 1

    These are the same kids who perform comedy because of all the sitcoms on television, right?

    I guess we are on the verge of an epidemic of comedy in the streets; these sitcoms must be stopped!

    -- Terry