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User: tkw954

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Comments · 285

  1. Re:Disease Gap... on Going Pink For October · · Score: 1
    Are there any organizations that you can donate to, that just tackle critical diseases at large, rather than having tunnel-vision on one single issue?

    Try your local medical research university. I'm sure that any of the researchers there have unfunded, but important, projects.

  2. Re:No explanation? on The Mystery of Oregon's 'Dead Zone' · · Score: 1
    Well Mr. SmartyPants, think about it.

    Have you seen any large wooden ships in the area? Seen any flags with skull and crossbones? Huh? Have you?

    Still don't see it? Man, some scientist you'd make...

    No drunken songs heard in the night? No parrots? Eyepatches?

    Good God man, it's the PIRATES! There aren't any in the area, and haven't been for a while. It's scientific fact: the absence of pirates leads to global warming.

    Don't pretend they didn't teach you this in school.

    We need a *massive* pirate infusion here. I mean, invite them from madagascar or something. Just get enough pirates in there to balance the ecosystem.

    I'm done extensive research in this field and came to the same conclusion. However, one must be sure that there are no more than 135752 pirates, or we will be plunged into an ice age. The details and a pretty graph are at http://www.venganza.org/sighting/69.htm
  3. Re:Think about it as number of possibilities on Debunking a Bogus Encryption Statement? · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If you have 64 bits, that is 1.84467441 × 10^19 (2^64), meaning maximum that many tries to break the first layer of encryption. The second layer is the same number, meaning to break it would mean a maximum of 3.68934881 × 10^19 attempts.

    This assumes that you can determine when you break the first layer of encryption, i.e. it won't work if the encrypted string is not distinguishable from noise. If this is not true, you must try each possible 64 bit second key for each 64 bit first key, for a maximum of 2^64*2^64=2^128 different keys, which would be equivalent to brute-forcing one 128 bit key.

  4. Re:What's funny on Teens Don't Think CD Copying is a Crime · · Score: 1
    What's funny is that we suddenly have 10 year olds with a criminal record...

    I doubt they get crimal records, I'm pretty sure that in most countries copyright infringement falls under civil law, not criminal.

  5. Re:Pretty cool, but on DIY Random Number Generator · · Score: 1
    And besides, why the emphasis on shielding the camera? You'd think that for a RNG interference is good as it adds more randomness.
    I'd suspect that it is to avoid the nonrandom 60 Hz mains noise.
  6. Re:HuH? on Turning Network Free-Riders' Lives Upside Down · · Score: 1
    I don't agree with your analogy. I'm not saying yes when someone hops on my network.

    ...reflecting light...DRM...music trading...commuter lane...Jurassic Park...

    None of this addresses the fact that an open WAP broadcasts an invitation and approves a request for a connection. You may not say "yes", but your proxy in the electronic domain, the WAP, certainly does.

  7. Re:HuH? on Turning Network Free-Riders' Lives Upside Down · · Score: 1
    If I leave my bike on my front lawn without a lock and someone steals it--even if they give it back before I notice it was gone--it's still theft.

    True, but an unsecured access point broadcasts an invitation beacon, then the client makes a DHCP request, which is finally approved by the WAP. A better analogy would be leaving your bike on your front lawn with a sign inviting people to borrow your bike, then saying "yes" if anyone asks if they can really borrow your bike.

  8. Re:Summary is wrong yet again on Lab Produces 3.6 Billion Degree Gas · · Score: 1
    ...it's 15 million degrees Kelvin which makes the Sun's interior actually 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.

    For the non-scientists and non-Americans out there, thats 14.99972785 million degrees Celsius.

  9. Re:Human nature? on NASA Warns of Cluttered Space · · Score: 1
    a little perspective is due...1 object in every 2.82659564 × 10^11 m^3...to put this in perspective, the Empire State Building has a volume of just over 1000000 m^3

    While this seems like a large volume, I'd imageing the huge velocity of satellites allow them to sweep large volumes quickly.

    For example, a typical LEO satellite travels at 8000 m/s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbiting_sa tellite. Assume a large satellite has a cross section of 10 m^2. This satellite will thus sweep through 80000 m^3/s. It will sweep through the given 2.83e11 m^3 per object in 3.54e6 s or 41 days.

  10. Re:Monster on Earth's Copper Supply Inadequate For Development? · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...replaced by fiber (glass) for which we have an incredible abundance of raw material.

    Oh great! How long before they come to strip-mine my beach?

  11. Re:Interesting... on Ultrawide Zoom in a Compact Camera · · Score: 1

    You bought it because you know that Kodak is a trusted brand name in the photography business. Unfortunately, they're trusted for producing good film and chemicals, not cameras.

  12. Re:Tell the truth! on Lie Detectors to be Used for Airline Security · · Score: 1
    If you're honest, you get cleared, right?

    "Are you a terrorist?"

    "Yes."

    "Go on through."

    My local airport has a sign that says "It is illegal to make false bomb threats". I assume true threats are also OK.

  13. Re:Scoreboard, tough guy on Apple - What A Difference Eight Years Can Make · · Score: 1
    The legal obligation of a company is to do its best to obey the wises of its owners.

    Exactly. And this is precisely why Co-ops and Credit Unions have been so successful: the customers (owners) demand that the company act in their best interests.

  14. Re:Torrent Links on OpenOffice.org 2.0 Released · · Score: 1
    "has more seeds than a farmer at harvest time"

    Um, aren't the farmers reaping what they sowed at harvest time? So in turn...they won't have to many seeds then. Maybe you meant at planting time?

    I hope you're joking. I really do.

  15. Re:Happy 100th on One Hundred Years of E=MC2 · · Score: 1
    "I explode like a bomb. No-one is spared. My power is my mass times the speed of light squared."

    My energy is my mass times the speed of light squared.

    or

    My power is my mass times times the speed of light squared divided by the elapsed time.

    On second thought, I think the original version is more beautiful and, therefore, more true. Time to reprint the textbooks.

  16. Re:Hack suggestion on Sony Aibo Hacks Increase Functionality · · Score: 1
    "The best material model of a cat is another, or preferably the same, cat."

    -A. Rosenblueth, Philosophy of Science, 1945

  17. Re:Neat on Evolving Lego Mindstorms · · Score: 1
    Anything that doesn't get back to the sensor pad gets killed from the genome and recharged.

    One problem with this is that you'd have to manually recharge the "dead" cars. One cool idea would be to somehow reward another car that develops the behavior of pushing dead cars back to the charger (e.g. with a larger energy dose, or by spreading its genes as you suggest) .

    While this behavior might be too complex to emerge spontaneously, it would allow the system to continue indefinitely without human intervention.

  18. Re:Ha! You call that a solar death ray? on The Solar Death Ray · · Score: 1
    THIS is a solar death ray: 10 metres of high-precision parabolic polished aluminium...we had strict instructions to never let the sun fall on the dish.

    Then whoever took the picture on the page you linked to never got the memo.

  19. Re:No surprise on iTunes DRM Hole Closed · · Score: 2, Insightful
    "Music is spiritual. The music business is not."

    -Van Morrison

  20. Re:Bittorrent traffic makeup... on Legal Torrent Sites Help Legitimize BitTorrent · · Score: 4, Informative
    Who in their right mind would advertise the fact they're looking for something which to download would be a violation of copyright??

    You're assuming the copyright laws of your country apply everywhere. For example, it is generally legal to download copyrighted works in Canada.

  21. Re:coLinux and live CDs on Knoppix 3.8 at CeBIT w/ Kernel 2.6, FF, and More · · Score: 1

    I believe http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ can do this, using Qemu. I haven't tried it yet, but they claim the bootable USB pendrive can boot from bios or from within Windows.

  22. Re:Umm... on How Much Harm Can One Web Site Do? · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Right.

    So what he (Edelman) wrote was '"Your computer is broked"[s.i.c][sic]'.

  23. Re:local geology on Fl. County Halts FTTP Until Installation Is Safer · · Score: 1
    I thought this has more to do with geology than with contractor ineptitude.

    Not taking geology into account is ineptitude.

  24. Re:Hydrogen Power. on Combined Gasoline/Hydrogen Fuel Station Opens · · Score: 1
    _Noone_ has yet produced a hydrogen fuel cell or hydrogen ICE that produces both the same amount of power, or has the same range, as an equivalent gas or diesel engine.

    The Saskatchewan Research Council has produced a hydrogen/diesel truck which had "as much if not more power and the accelerator pedal inputs were more responsive." http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/jk/040721.h tm

  25. Re:It's what you like on Aural Heaven -- iPod And Analog · · Score: 1
    they're just technical devices and if they produce the same sound then they do that.

    But they don't produce the same sound. If you played your music through a perfectly accurate op amp, it would sound crappy because the amp is too linear. Tubes are notoriously non-linear, which is why yo'd never see them on scientific amplifiers. The harmonics created by these non-linearities is the secret to the "warm" sound, and their saturation is why you get nice distortion at high gains. This is what audio amplifier manufacturers are trying to replicate with "transtube" type amps.