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User: maxwell+demon

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Comments · 12,279

  1. Re:Bleaker than you think! on Mars One Has 78,000 Applicants · · Score: 1

    So, the candidates must not only be emotionally stable and qualified, but be photogenic and charming enough to sustain the interest of viewers.

    Actually, for the success of the reality TV show, it's better if art least some are not emotionally stable and qualified. It makes a much more interesting watch. :-)

  2. Re:312 km coast to coast on Mars One Has 78,000 Applicants · · Score: 1

    Oops, 19.4 m, of course (after correct rounding).

  3. Re:312 km coast to coast on Mars One Has 78,000 Applicants · · Score: 1

    No, an American would have calculated as 3120000 cm = 19.3 m (where "m" of course means "miles").

  4. Re:Did they check the filing cabinet? on Help the OED Find a Lost Book · · Score: 1

    Well, I tried to remember where the book is, but my memory always started to meander when I tried.

  5. Re:HIgher defect density indicates BETTER code on 450 Million Lines of Code Can't Be Wrong: How Open Source Stacks Up · · Score: 1

    And the next day the $category "partner_shop" was added, whose $page is "http://partnershop.com/landing_page.php?partner=your_shop" ...

  6. Re:Colours in graphs on 450 Million Lines of Code Can't Be Wrong: How Open Source Stacks Up · · Score: 1

    I can see the difference immediately. Maybe it's your monitor settings?

  7. Re:it contradicts the definition on 450 Million Lines of Code Can't Be Wrong: How Open Source Stacks Up · · Score: 1

    Unreachable code doesn't need to be a defect. For example, consider the following function:

    int foo(int n)
    {
      if (INT_MAX < LONG_MAX)
      {
    // use algorithm 1
      }
      else
      {
    // use algorithm 2
      }
    }

    Now on every compiler, one of the branches will be dead code, yet this is not a defect. You might argue that one should use conditional compilation here, but that's no correctness issue. The code as written is certainly not wrong.

  8. Re:Evanescent wave on Los Alamos National Labs Has Working Hub-and-Spoke Quantum Network · · Score: 1

    1. The signal loss problem. The longer the continuous link without retransmission, the more data loss and the lower effective transmission rate. What you refer to might help with that if it allows signals to be boosted without destroying/recreating the photons.

    Good point. While entanglement swapping doesn't destroy and recreate the photons (no scheme doing that could transmit the entanglement needed to ensure secure encryption), it indeed depends on the detection of photons (those photons which are detected obviously are not part of the final entangled pair), and thus the finite detector efficiency would indeed cause an effective loss.

  9. Re:Convergent statistical brain mapping on English May Have Retained Words From an Ice Age Language · · Score: 1

    If the word is somehow linked to the way our brain works, then it is even more likely that it was already used in the ice age, because most likely the brain worked more or less the same back then.

  10. Re:Fail on Los Alamos National Labs Has Working Hub-and-Spoke Quantum Network · · Score: 1

    As long as the conventional links only pass encrypted data without owning the key, it is perfectly secure. Quantum encryption usually means non-locally creating a one-time pad using quantum mechanics, and using that to securely encrypt classical messages (it can be proven that OTP is perfectly secure, so any attack against the scheme has to be with the OTP generation part, which is completely quantum). Indeed, even in protocols where you don't explicitly apply an OTP (as in quantum teleportation) you could consider the process to do the OTP implicitly. The point is that the classical data you send is in any case completely uncorrelated with the message you send. The security would not be compromised even if you put the classical data onto a public message board.

  11. Re:Evanescent wave on Los Alamos National Labs Has Working Hub-and-Spoke Quantum Network · · Score: 1

    This actually surprises me, because using entanglement swapping I think it should be possible to make a protocol so that even a compromised hub could not compromise the security, thanks to monogamy of entanglement.

  12. Re:So... on Los Alamos National Labs Has Working Hub-and-Spoke Quantum Network · · Score: 1

    Classical encryption of the link also doesn't help with compromised systems. Your SSL connection to your bank may be perfectly fine and secure, if your computer is compromised, it won't help you.

  13. Re:Detecting context on Google Seeks 'Do-No-Discoverable-Evil' Patent · · Score: 1

    As long as it doesn't state what "context" means exactly, it might well be something like "email sent to a non-company address". And even otherwise I'm sure the "context detection" is nothing more than yet another keyword search or Bayesian filter.

  14. Re:Prevents innocent mistakes and costly cleanup on Google Seeks 'Do-No-Discoverable-Evil' Patent · · Score: 1

    Well, at least Slashdotters are in general not in danger of violating the statute against exchange of body fluids. :-)

  15. Re:What's mild to moderate? on Tylenol May Ease Pain of Existential Distress, Social Rejection · · Score: 1

    Maybe you should just buy a cheap bottle of generic aspirin instead of a brand name product

    Aspirin is a brand name. The substance is acetylsalicylic acid.

  16. Expletive on "Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail · · Score: 1

    FTFA:

    "I’m not in reality, So when u see me (expletive) go insane and make the news, the paper, and the (expletive) federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t (expletive) cry or be worried because all YOU people (expletive) caused this (expletive),” read the social media posting that raised alarms with high school assistant Principal James Weymouth when another student called it to his attention.

    So the (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) (expletive) with the (expletive) (expletive). (Expletive) (expletive)!

  17. Re:Terroristic Threats on "Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail · · Score: 1

    2. Make threat with the specific intent that it be taken as a threat.

    A rap text is usually not intended to be taken as threat.

  18. Re:And... on "Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail · · Score: 1

    Ol' Dirty Bastard was arrested more than 15 times on charges that ranged from resisting arrest [...]

    Getting arrested for resisting arrest?

    "We are going to arrest you!"
    "Hey, I've done nothing wrong. You have no right to arrest me."
    "Oh, you're resisting arrest? Well, now we do have a perfectly good reason to arrest you!"

  19. Re:Just another whining rapper on "Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail · · Score: 1

    Just another whining rapper, whining about how his life sucks, having to pay for the women he knocked up

    So whining is now a criminal activity in the US? In that case I understand why you posted your whining as AC.

  20. Re:News For Nerds? on "Terrorist" Lyrics Land High Schooler In Jail · · Score: 2

    Slashdot no longer claims to be News for Nerds or Stuff that Matters. The tag line is gone.

  21. Re:Slow animation on Xkcd's Long-running "Time" Comic: Work of Art Or Nerd Sniping? · · Score: 1

    What about making a musical piece and playing it very slowly?

  22. Re:bloat on ORBX.js: 1080p DRM-Free Video and Cloud Gaming Entirely In JavaScript · · Score: 2

    Firefox is becoming the Emacs of web browsers.

  23. Re: bloat on ORBX.js: 1080p DRM-Free Video and Cloud Gaming Entirely In JavaScript · · Score: 2

    Actually Netscape invented JavaScript. Mozilla got the code from Netscape (but did a more or less complete rewrite anyway because that code was too messy), but they are a different organization.

  24. Re:Uh on Bruce Schneier: Why Collecting More Data Doesn't Increase Safety · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is not a problem of statistics, this is a problem of identifying individual terrorists. Even if you could determine exactly how many terrorists there are, it would help you absolutely nothing to prevent the next terror act. You have to know who the terrorist is.

    You can stare at the weather statistics of the last ten centuries as much as you want, it won't help you much when trying to predict when and where the next lightning will strike.

  25. Re:The contractor should be fired and billed on UK Benefits Claimants Must Use Windows XP, IE6 · · Score: 1

    No. The replacement should be plain HTML forms. Nothing fancy, but something which works with every browser, be it IE6 or the newest Firefox or Chrome. Give it some nice CSS styling, but don't have it rely on anything but standard HTML forms. Do not depend on JavaScript. Do not depend on ActiveX. Do not depend on plugins. Do not depend on a certain browser.