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User: marcosdumay

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  1. Re:The PC is Dead! Long live the PC! on PC Shipments In 2013 See the Worst Yearly Decline In History · · Score: 1

    Not crappy at all. Most of the times, it has a bigger battery life, is lighter and has a more confortable keyboard than any laptop available.

    The problem is that laptops are very crappy desktops, and what they bring to the table over a tablet does not matter at all for creating text. (But it does matter for other uses.)

  2. Re:That can be changed... on PC Shipments In 2013 See the Worst Yearly Decline In History · · Score: 1

    disk encryption on the controller level

    Besides all the problems with disk encryption usability, would you trust it? I wouldn't.

  3. Re:Current PCs are good enough. on PC Shipments In 2013 See the Worst Yearly Decline In History · · Score: 1

    Just reimage one. Like we do with PCs.

  4. Re:Current PCs are good enough. on PC Shipments In 2013 See the Worst Yearly Decline In History · · Score: 1

    Problem is that what should be the next good version of Windows become 8.1.

    Maybe Microsoft will get the memo when corporations start migrating from Windows, because they've already showed that they couldn't care less about personal devices.

  5. Re:The most insightfull part of TFA on Physicists Claim First Observation of a Quantum Cheshire Cat · · Score: 1

    the same neutron

    That expression has no meaning in the context of quantum mechanics. You measure a neutron, and then you measure a neutron. You can't apply "same" or "another" to those phrases.

  6. Re:The recommendations in TFA on Mobile Banking Apps For iOS Woefully Insecure · · Score: 1

    It's still better to avoid the bear, and not think about your friend getting killed.

    That's exactly the GP compaint. They are recommending that a bank outrun the others (by procedures that'll reduce the overall security of the app users, be assured of that), instead of avoiding the bear.

  7. Re:This makes me think more about the word "Speed" on New Class of "Hypervelocity Stars" Discovered Escaping the Galaxy · · Score: 1

    And as a second tough, it would also be a quite local "universal" referential. Probably bigger than a galaxy, but not an overall constant.

  8. Re:The solution will never happen. on Ford Exec: 'We Know Everyone Who Breaks the Law' Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car · · Score: 1

    The few companies who are too important to politicians to be allowed to [not?] collapse are very much the exception

    I don't know about Europe (as that's not something one can learn from the newspapers), but here at Brazil, those are the only big corporations that survive. However exceptional they are when the governemnt starts protecting them does not matter, because it accumulates.

    Yep, there are some natural monopolies, and anti-competitive practices too. Normaly the corps that get to exploit those are the same ones that are protected by a government. When an unprotected corp tries to exploit those, the government corrects the situation (as it should).

  9. Re:Somebody stop them! on New Class of "Hypervelocity Stars" Discovered Escaping the Galaxy · · Score: 1

    I stand for the freedom of those stars to choose a neighborhood.

  10. Re:This makes me think more about the word "Speed" on New Class of "Hypervelocity Stars" Discovered Escaping the Galaxy · · Score: 1

    But why is[n't] the background radiation ALREADY Doppler shifted?

    It is already Doppler shifted, and the GP either knows too well what he's talking about and simplified it into something unrecognizable, or simply has no idea at all.

    In theory, you can calculate a "universal" rest frame from the background radiation if the Universe is planar enough. I have no idea if this is actualy the case.

  11. Re:The solution will never happen. on Ford Exec: 'We Know Everyone Who Breaks the Law' Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car · · Score: 1

    3. Deregulation - Make the governments stop protecting corporations that can't compete in a level market. So the shareholders dumb enough to be played by those boards at #1 just lose their money, and can't do any extra damage to society, while the CEOs and boards run out of their supply of rich victims. But that also won't happen.

  12. Re:If you're concerned... on Largest Bitcoin Mining Pool Pledges Not To Execute '51% Attack' · · Score: 2

    Looks like it's not that much decentralized.

  13. Re:I wouldn't say he was wrong on Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction For 2014 Is Viral and Wrong · · Score: 1

    The only problem is that people on any given spot of the world think the guys across the border are out to get them.

    Well, that's because they are. As also are the ones within borders.

    About distribution, that only works if you don't do it too much. Make enough people have nothing to lose, and they'll make the next rational step.

  14. Re:Summary is wrong on Isaac Asimov's 50-Year-Old Prediction For 2014 Is Viral and Wrong · · Score: 1

    That's because robots are not safe, so we keep them in huge boxes, separated from humans.

    In 2013 there was massive improvement on that area, and people are already starting to mix robots and humans on factories. Ater that, mixing them at home requires only time and bug-fixing. I gess he was only a bit early with that prediction.

  15. Re:Which part is most disturbing? on NSA Trying To Build Quantum Computer · · Score: 1

    Hey, thanks. Quite an iteresting algorithm.

    I've already seek advice from experts. Don't expect to get out with anything but a lecture about how you must weight costs and benefits, and the best way to do that is though math improvements, not by "brute-forcing" it using larger keys, and if you do resot to large keys, your best hope is to put all your bits on the best algorithm. Or, in other words, experts trust the math. They are almost certainly right, of course, but there is that almost nil chance that they are completely wrong... Anyway, I'd be more actively researching composed algos if I had anything worth using them on. Up to now, I've only looked enough to confirm that they are possible, just in case.

  16. Re:Which part is most disturbing? on NSA Trying To Build Quantum Computer · · Score: 1

    What post-quantum assymetric crypto is there?

    Anyway, crypto researchers don't like to increase their key-size without a clear need. Although I can understand why, I think they are too strict on that, and that we should start adopting multi-algorithm (composed) algorithms... but we just won't.

  17. Re:Actually... on NSA Trying To Build Quantum Computer · · Score: 1

    Nope. That'll only work while Congress is not looking.

  18. Re:Saw this earlier on US Customs Destroys Virtuoso's Flutes Because They Were "Agricultural Items" · · Score: 1

    Please, just tell me the remainings are incinerated after grinding. Because that's completely stupid, as it won't protect your terrritory against external plages.

  19. Re:Betteridge's law of headlines on Chromebooks Have a Lucrative Year; Should WinTel Be Worried? · · Score: 1

    Ok, I should have written GNU/Linux.

  20. Re:Amateur chemistry is all but impossible now on Citizen Science: Who Makes the Rules? · · Score: 1

    First half of the XX century.

    Most of the previous generation of scientits were already scientits when they could get a job doing science. And that's all over the world.

  21. Re:Amateur chemistry is all but impossible now on Citizen Science: Who Makes the Rules? · · Score: 1

    You must also not have one of either salt, power outlets or wires. And there ought be a way to reach the couch with N2, I'm just not good enough to come up with it.

  22. Re:Amateur chemistry is all but impossible now on Citizen Science: Who Makes the Rules? · · Score: 1

    Cant we do VR/Computer simulated chemistry?

    Some of it, and making lots of assumptions because you can not simulate the solvent.

    But the most important impact is that chemistry is a tool for many other kinds of experiments. Ban chemistry and those are gone. (Also, there is applied research - creating a startup on chemistry is about as impossible as it gets.)

  23. Re:Sorta makes sense on Is a Super-Sized iPad the Future of Education? · · Score: 1

    Gotta love a grammar nazi that does not know grammar. Take a look on the section about possessive next time.

  24. Re:The future of education on Is a Super-Sized iPad the Future of Education? · · Score: 1

    If it can be fun, with no loss in quality, why make it boring?

    Kids certainly learn better a subject if they like it, by the way, thus all else being equal (what I'll grant you that never is), being fun increases quality just by itself.

  25. Re:Totally Underappreciated Taiwanese Geeks on Chromebooks Have a Lucrative Year; Should WinTel Be Worried? · · Score: 1

    The Taiwanese and Chinese just copy everyone

    Yep, that's exactly what everybody said about the Japanese and Koreans before acknowledging that their products were good.