Slashdot Mirror


User: techno-vampire

techno-vampire's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
5,957
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 5,957

  1. Re:Good, but maybe not important on Data Written With "Superman Memory Crystal" Could Last Billions of Years (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Latin is the only one I'm familiar with and it's unfair to say that it hasn't changed but I guess it's true.

    I'm not Catholic, but I have friends that are. My understanding is that in their seminaries there are theology classes taught in Latin because there are technical terms used that have no accurate equivalent in any other language. And, I've heard of priests communicating in Latin simply because it was the only language they both knew. Does that make it a living language? Well, I'm not a linguist either, so I can't say, but it's still in use for something other than the liturgy so it's not quite dead yet.

  2. Re:Good, but maybe not important on Data Written With "Superman Memory Crystal" Could Last Billions of Years (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    To some extent they've changed, but not as much in some cases as you'd think. Latin, as an example, has hardly changed at all. Classical Greek and biblical Hebrew are about as similar to the modern versions as Elizabethan English is to what we use today. As far as the others go, I don't know enough to say.

  3. Re:Good, but maybe not important on Data Written With "Superman Memory Crystal" Could Last Billions of Years (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Some of the languages I was thinking about change faster than others. At least two of them are at least 3000 years old, and their early literature is still easily understood by modern speakers. (Specifically, Greek and Hebrew.) My guess is that today's English will be at least as understandable as Middle English is now, possibly as readable as Shakespeare.

  4. Re:And how do you decode that data? on Data Written With "Superman Memory Crystal" Could Last Billions of Years (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    What you're missing here is the fact that there was never any doubt that the Egyptian inscriptions were written messages of one sort or another. The problem was that the last people who knew how to read hieroglyphics left no instructions on how to translate them into any other form of writing. The only reason that we can translate them today is the fact that the same text is present in three different languages, one of them Greek, on the Rosetta Stone, giving us a way to work out what the symbols meant.

  5. Re:Good, but maybe not important on Data Written With "Superman Memory Crystal" Could Last Billions of Years (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Doesn't solve the language barrier...

    What makes you think that there's going to be one in only 2000 years? I can think of at least seven languages off the top of my head that are at least that old and are still in use today, and I'd expect most of those to last at least another 2000 years. English, of course, isn't that old yet, but unless there's a worse breakdown of society than the Dark Ages, I'd expect that it'd still be in use, even if it's not the main international language any more.

  6. Here in Camarillo, CA (just north of Los Angeles) it's 91 F or just over 32.77C at 4 PM. If this is what Global Warming does, I'm not complaining as I hate cold weather.

  7. TFA didn't say what OS the hospital was using, or if it'd been kept properly updated. I hope, however, that they'll use this as an opportunity to either update all of the computers during the reinstall, or install a more recent version of whatever OS they're using. The same thing goes, of course, for any anti-virus/anti-malware software involved.

  8. Re:Landline is it for me. on Ask Slashdot: Do You Still Have a Pager? Do You Find It Useful? · · Score: 1

    Not only do I have a landline, I use it more than my cell when I'm at home. I'm partially deaf and often I don't hear the cell's ring tone, but the landline is loud enough for me to hear it. Mostly I use the cell for outgoing calls when I'm not at home, and as I'm retired, I don't make that many calls. Still, it's nice to have for emergencies.

  9. Re:Sounds good... on Boeing Installs World's Largest 'Reversible' Renewable Energy Storage System (computerworld.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    That is, if you're near a large supply of readily accessible water.

    If you read TFS (not even TFA) you'll see that this has been built "on a naval base in Port Hueneme, Calif." Port Hueneme is on the West Coast of California, right next to the Pacific Ocean. Is that a sufficient supply of water for you?

  10. Re:Reminiscent of the con games on Hearthstone Cheats and Tools Spiked With Malware (csoonline.com) · · Score: 1

    I don't know if the con used in that movie was authentic or invented for the film, but early on, when they're trying to decide just which con to use, somebody suggests The Spanish Prisoner, a classic con going back to the late 16th century, and still fooling marks today.

  11. Re:If it's "settled", it ISN'T "science" on Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs: "The Science is Settled." · · Score: 1

    You may be right. However, I'm not thinking about how the conditions on the grant are worded, I'm thinking of how they're interpreted. As an example, a grant to study long-term trends in the global climate is nice and even-handed, but if it's never awarded to anybody expressing a contrarian opinion (Please note: this is a made-up example.) the effect is to fund scientists who accept AGW while making it hard for others to test their ideas. I'm not saying that it is happening, but we all know that most politicians are more interested in things that fit their idea of how the world works than in finding out if it does or doesn't.

  12. Re:110 climatologists' next job prospect... on Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs: "The Science is Settled." · · Score: 1

    We're talking about Australia here. I think the word you want is "chips."

  13. Re:If it's "settled", it ISN'T "science" on Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs: "The Science is Settled." · · Score: -1, Troll

    IMHO the Science isn't settled, because science isn't consensus.

    Exactly. I'd also suggest that if you really want to find out what's going on, follow the money. There's lots and lots of grant money out there for people in that field, but only if their results match what the politicians need to push their agendas. You don't even need to bias the peer review (If that's actually going on, that is.) if the only studies to get funded say what you want to hear and the contrarian ones don't get funded.

  14. Re:Rajiv.. on Sen. Blumenthal Demands Lifting of IT 'Gag' Order (computerworld.com) · · Score: 2

    Someone else suggested giving incorrect information in the training -- I wouldn't go that far, hm, incomplete might be ok.

    I've never yet worked anywhere big enough to have an official way to do things where at least some of them weren't at least sub-optimal if not downright wrong. Teach the new hire how to do everything "by the book," and let him find out the hard way, after you're gone, why that's not always a good idea.

  15. Re:One possible argument for lunar industrializati on Giant Magellan Telescope Set To Revolutionize Ground-Based Astronomy · · Score: 1

    It seems like the Moon's surface could be a fantastic place for an absurdly large optical telescope.

    Put it on the back side and you don't have to worry about any light pollution from the Earth. And, you can also set up a huge radio telescope back there because you won't have to worry about any interference from all of the the Earth's broadcast communications.

  16. Re:Metamoderation on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? · · Score: 1

    Yes indeed. Knowing why the post was modded up or down in the first place can help, because you have at least a little idea what the moderator saw in it. This way, you have nothing.

  17. Re:Metamoderation on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? · · Score: 1

    Back when I was metamodding, I never worried about distinctions that didn't make a difference. If somebody gave a post a +1 Informative that didn't tell me anything new, I wouldn't say that it was a bad moderation if I found the post insightful or interesting; an upmod is an upmod. And, of course, the same went for downmods. However, if a post was given -1 Flamebait and nobody had responded to it (or at least, nobody took the bait) I'd give it a downcheck on general principles.

  18. Re:There seem to be a lot of these backdoors on Socat Weak Crypto Draws Suspicions Of a Backdoor (threatpost.com) · · Score: 1

    In fairness, intentionally weakening crypto requires as much understanding of it as doing it right.

    In this case, all it would have needed is understanding that it's important that the numbers used to generate the keys are prime and that substituting a composite number would make the keys easier to find. I'm not claiming that this is what happened, but it's not something that only a cryptography specialist could have come up with.

  19. Metamoderation on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Back when I first registered here, metamoderation consisted of examining how posts had been moderated and judging it was deserved or not. That is, you'd be given a post and told that it had been given a +1 Informative, and asked if it deserved that. I really enjoyed helping out that way and almost never failed to metamoderate.

    Now, you're shown a set of posts that have been moderated and asked if they're good posts or bad posts, with no idea of how they were originally rated. You have no context, no way of knowing if you're being asked to judge an upmod or a downmod (For all I know, you're being asked to judge all the mods a post received in one lump.) and no way to tell what effect your decision will have.

    It's been years, now, since I've even bothered with metamodding, but if you went back to the old style where people knew just what moderations they were checking, I'd gladly start doing it again, and I doubt I'm the only person here who feels that way. Metamoderation used to serve an important function here, and I'd like to see that come back.

  20. Re:Create an "Devil's Advocate" moderation on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? · · Score: 2

    I've always considered it to be closer to "interesting," but more useful to counterbalance an unfair troll, or redundant moderation.

  21. Re:Create an "Devil's Advocate" moderation on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? · · Score: 4, Informative

    They already have it. It's called "+1 Underrated."

  22. Re:Some of this has already been said, but my top on Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? · · Score: 2

    At this point, https is probably just breathing hard.

  23. Re:US democracy... on Perfect Coin-Toss Record Broke 6 Clinton-Sanders Deadlocks In Iowa (marketwatch.com) · · Score: 1

    You might also consider using your browser's spelling checker to catch the most obvious errors.

  24. Re:Electronic Engineer Here on One Hoss Shay and Our Society of Obsolescence (hackaday.com) · · Score: 2

    Obsolescence is DELIBERATLEY limiting the lifetime of an object through design.

    No. When the IBM PC first came out, it made every CP/M machine in the world obsolete, but that wasn't planned when the various CP/M machines were designed and built. The term you want isn't obsolescence, it's "planned obsolescence," where the device is designed to wear out faster than it otherwise would. As an example, if a car manufacturer used parts known to be degraded by exposure to alcohol in cars that were expected to be sold in states where all gasoline was required to have ethanol added, the cars would break down sooner and more often than they would have otherwise and be replaced more often. Or, to keep things in terms of computers, designing a laptop with an inadequate heatsink and an underpowered fan to force users to replace them more often.

  25. Re:Israel-related animal conspiracy theories on Israeli Vulture Suspected of Spying Returned · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honestly, I'm almost surprised to learn that the Arabs haven't accused the Israelis of tying lit torches to the tails of foxes and let them loose to set fire to the Arab's crops. After all, there is a historic account of this being done at least once in the past.