Slashdot Mirror


User: dbIII

dbIII's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
31,082
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 31,082

  1. Re:Actually, it's not an industry first on RSA Conference Bans "Booth Babes" · · Score: 1

    "Apology follows bikini backlash"

    Nor a girl in a bikini getting her back lashed either!
    We've been cruelly misled.

  2. Re:The real booth babes ain't on the floor at RSA. on RSA Conference Bans "Booth Babes" · · Score: 1

    This weird taboo attitude towards sex confuses me.

    Combining it with work is the problem, especially if it's siphoning off funds that could have gone elsewhere.

  3. Re:The real booth babes ain't on the floor at RSA. on RSA Conference Bans "Booth Babes" · · Score: 1

    And I thought Enron was creepy. So the trading floor pricks getting laid has spread out into other industries like a rampant venerial disease?

  4. Re:Bummer on RSA Conference Bans "Booth Babes" · · Score: 2

    The entire "booth babe" thing is rather pathetic - a step below being desperate enough to pay to see strippers that reveal less than you would see at the beach.
    It's a cynical sales trick that shows a vendor is not taking the visitors seriously.
    Yes, they may be cute, but if you are going there to see cute girls instead of elsewhere then something is screwed up.

  5. Re:And anyway... on Generate Memorizable Passphrases That Even the NSA Can't Guess · · Score: 1

    Sounds like the increasingly common SSL compromise and MITM attack. Some workplaces do it deliberately to their employees (out of industrial espionage paranoia) and do not understand that they are only one incident away from being fucked over by the legal department of a major bank.

  6. Re:There is a huge flaw to this.... on Generate Memorizable Passphrases That Even the NSA Can't Guess · · Score: 1

    The xkcd cartoon example covers this. The number of combinations is very large due to the size of the dictionary.

  7. Re:Memorizing site-unique passwords isn't possible on Generate Memorizable Passphrases That Even the NSA Can't Guess · · Score: 2

    I stopped using Groklaw back in the day because they started requiring excessively complex passwords.

    People were being paid to disrupt Groklaw and even stalk and shame the founder. It's not paranoia when serious cash is being splashed to deface your website and a fucking insane horror writer (who pretends murdering ghosts are real) is parked across from your house watching your front door.
    It's a special case.

  8. Re:'Conservative' is a misnomer on Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law · · Score: 1

    The word is "reactionary" and they want to go back to the ways of the "good old days" of England that inspired America to revolt. The sort of stuff Dickens complained about is their template.

  9. Re:What difference does it make on Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law · · Score: 1

    Good point Mr Buttle, or is that Tuttle?
    When the objective is to catch someone and hold them responsible it's gone beyond the point where it matters if you've got the right person.

  10. Re:What difference does it make on Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law · · Score: 1

    To catch whistleblowers without owing the NSA anything. There's apparently (ten year old info) a lot of foreign collected data that becomes "US eyes only" and getting something reclassified is not trivial.
    Also there has been noise about using it to track down copyright violations, also not worth the NSA's time.
    Plus we don't really know how much is collected with carnivore or whatever the current Five Eyes system is. It may not actually be slurping up everything.

  11. A bit more for US etc readers on Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The ALP want to appear to offer a "united front" on anything related to security or terrorism because of the "if you are not with us you are with the enemy" approach the government has pushed on occasion. Also the individuals in the ALP don't know enough about the issue to think it's important enough to pick a fight over. That's a bit of an artifact of many Australian politicians starting their career from student politics and having little exposure to anything else outside politics, so metadata to them is just "computer shit" and nothing of importance.
    Very disappointing but not unexpected since Conroy of the ALP was pushing for similar things when he had the power to do so.

  12. There is a comma on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    There is a comma which is meant to inform the reader that the first thing may not be the same as the second thing, but yes I could have put it in a different sentence.
    Try reading it as:
    The AP1000 reactors in China seem to be taking a while.
    That reactor in Sweden (Forsmark upgrade) is taking a while (since 2004).

  13. FFS on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    FFS - They all use air as the heat sink via fucking huge cooling towers filled with a lot of water. While they don't actually lose much water you still need a fair bit to start with.

  14. Re:Emacs versus vi again? on Pixar Releases Free Version of RenderMan · · Score: 1

    Well I went from drawing board to AutoCAD, then on from there (pov, blender), and I still do a lot of time saving stuff with arcs as if I had a compass. The interface may change but the geometry doesn't and IMHO that's the really hard bit, especially in 3D.
    However I'm not a 3D art professional and ugly but reasonably accurate visualisations of objects have been enough for me. For that level of operation the hard bit is not a changing GUI.

  15. Re:How to get into 3D? on Pixar Releases Free Version of RenderMan · · Score: 1

    I once installed Blender but its all unfriendly as f***

    It makes AutoCAD look nice. Squeezing 3D onto a 2D screen with a million options on what to do with it is messy no matter which way you shake it. Commercial packages sometimes hide what they think you don't want to use at the moment which makes them look simple to start with but frustrating later when you have a choice of twisty menu options or a truckload of icons.

  16. Re:"Free" with restrictions is not Free! on Pixar Releases Free Version of RenderMan · · Score: 1

    Now, you either need to rebuilt it all from scratch, or you're not allowed to make money off your work.

    Or buy a licence.

  17. Emacs versus vi again? on Pixar Releases Free Version of RenderMan · · Score: 1

    Surely a professional is going to be able to pick up how to use different software quickly enough that's it's going to make little difference in the long run which one they started with?

  18. Re:2022? on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    No so hard when you are using obsolete 1970's French technology.
    The AP1000 reactors in China seem to be taking a while though and that's probably a better comparison, as is that reactor in Sweden that's been taking a while.

  19. Re:Cooling on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    But you're missing the real point. Modern nuclear plants don't need that much water.

    Why do people chime in while knowing so little about their pet topic? Large nuclear plants need access to vast amounts of water purely due to the way the loop of steam through the turbines work - the bigger the heat source the more cooling water you need. The water is not consumed, tied up for that use only or irradiated in any way, but you do need it to be there. It's an issue in choosing a site but after that the water can go down river or whatever, however one of the most simple facts about large nuclear, or any other large thermal power plant, is that you need to put them next to a lot of water and you need to move a vast amount of cooling water through the condensors if you are going to get much use out of the steam.

    Passive cooling towers ... massively reduce the water requirements

    Not enough to reduce the requirements below that of a decent sized lake that could supply a city with water for a few years.

  20. Re:Economics on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    it's something completely different to give them a machine for making plutonium

    But the Russian's would never do that! They're the good guys, not like those sneaky Canadians that sold India the reactor they used to produce their bomb materials!
    In case it wasn't obvious the above was an attempt at a joke based around the idea that this plant will be seen by the buyers as a step towards being a nuclear armed power just like the ones sold to small nations in the 60s and 70s. Even Egypt was angling for the bomb back in the day.

    India's been making noise about it, but the last I checked they hadn't really done much in the way of building actual reactors.

    Seriously? They've built a lot more than the US has over the last 30 years and they've got the accelerated thorium idea heading towards construction.

  21. Re:Economics on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    It's the microcracking due to neutron bombardment while under stress that puts a serious limit on life, since those microcracks eventually grow into real cracks. Just making the vessel wall thicker doesn't do the job. Ripping bits out and welding new ones in does.
    So a lot of decades until the repair costs exceed the worth of the thing, not just decades of sitting idle and pulling in the money.

  22. Economics is not the reason on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    With existing stuff, never, but with new stuff that's never been tried everything is going to work perfectly and payback time will be swift.
    The banks don't believe that either which is why the only entities that put up the cash are governments. So nuclear is built due to a perceived National need for GigaWatts that don't have to come from coal or oil (eg. Japan worried about a blockade and maybe Jordan for the same reason) and not for economic reasons at all.
    So good economic performance is gravy if it happens but it's not the reason to build one of these things.

  23. Why not 100%? Monocultures suck on First Nuclear Power Plant Planned In Jordan · · Score: 1

    No matter how good your energy source is you don't want to rely on it 100% is case something it depends on has problems. I've run into that with inland coal fired power due to a lack of rain - plenty of coal, but not much cooling water. The answer was a long pipeline to a dam near the coast that was hijacked by farmers with strong political connections before it was even finished.
    So without going into the viability of whatever the Russians are selling or that generation of nuclear in general it's a bad idea to "put all eggs in one basket".

  24. Re:How to get 99% of ketchup out of the bottle on Scientists Create Permanently Slick Surface So Ketchup Won't Stay In Bottle · · Score: 1

    Being a cheap bastard I get that last 10% out with some hot water and add it to mince+tomato dishes that lack that deep artificial red colour that most of us are convinced that cooked tomato is supposed to be.

  25. Re:How is this new? on Scientists Create Permanently Slick Surface So Ketchup Won't Stay In Bottle · · Score: 1

    Just wait until you've seen how fish sauce is made, or woostershire sauce.
    I got some very funny looks when I checked the use by date on a bottle of fish sauce. It's already gone off so the date is mere decoration.