Qian and co first tested the cytotoxicity of gallium and indium by allowing cells to grow in its presence and measuring the number that survive after 48 hours. If more than 75 per cent, a substance is deemed safe by China’s national standards.
After 48 hours just over 75 percent of cells in both samples were still alive
The experiments also reveal a number of potential problems, however. X-rays of the rabbit they injected clearly show that blobs of liquid metal found their way to the animal’s heart and lungs.
What’s more, their experiments also show blood vessel growth around the blocked arteries, revealing how quickly the body adapts to blockages.
At least it's easy to conduct research in China. Maybe they'll find something.
What I want to know is, why didn't they try wax or oil first?
I worry that the unglamorous, mostly uncompensated, and largely intellectually driven practice of pure software programming and creation has been left behind in recent years. I personally have noticed little progression and indeed in many areas a general regression in the quality and reliability of software since approximately 2006/7.
It's worse than you think -- this has been going on for as long as we can remember.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions. -- Ecclesiastes 7:10, about 1000 BC
The rate of decline over the past 3000 years is astronomical -- it's amazing our young still learn to walk. Why, I hardly dare to imagine what programming geniuses people must have been even one thousand years ago!
On a more serious note, I think the problem is a combination of natural selection (we only remember the stuff that wasn't crap) plus nostalgia (we think it was better than it really was). Go ahead, dig up some of your favorite programs from 20 years ago and tell me if they're as awesome as you remember them.
I bet you also think entropy is near useless in an ASCII attack (trying combinations of characters) unless your password is sentence-length? There's more words than there are characters, and people don't even use all the characters there are.
You think it's commendable to apologize "Sorry we only copy your address book to 'see if you're online' "? No, they copy your address book to see who your contacts are. There's much less invasive ways to "see if you're online".
You obviously don't know what entropy is. Hint: if you can compress information, say by saying the 457th word in my dictionary, then it is low entropy information (the dictionary is sorted by how common words are in passwords, so that common words need a short index). This is also why passwords like 12345 or asdfg are low entropy. I suppose this is where you say I really should be using a non-password related measure of entropy, and then tell me it won't work.
I've never understood why passwords can't be sentences, like "I'm going to take my dog, Spot, to the park today."
They can be, but it would be incredibly stupid to use something like that. A dictionary attack would crack that password in seconds.
Wrong. That would be an incredibly strong password -- just because it's easy to remember doesn't mean it has low entropy. I mean, if it were a combination of 11 semi-random characters you would think it was a strong password, but because it is 11 semi-random words you think it's weak? Yet there's way more words than there are letters.
Just have websites measure password entropy and get rid of the various stupid requirements and restrictions.
Genetics affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Environment affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Culture and self-determination facets of the environment affect your mental attributes, but aren't the whole story. People of different cultures have statistical differences in mental attributes. There's a bunch of people who get upset by these facts, and a different bunch of people who like to exaggerate them. And anyone who was named as being involved in any of this is going to end up at the center of a political shitstorm, so it's no surprise they want out.
When someone uses your connection excessively in the opinion of your ISP, watch "an choice" become "an bill". Or when someone uses your connection for copyright infringement or child pornography, watch "an choice" become "an lawsuit" or "an criminal charge".
When someone does the same over your secured connection, either because you shared your password with the wrong friends, someone guessed your password, or you got hacked, good luck explaining to a jury that it's possible for others to use your secured connection.
This exploit is built around a flexible skeleton that can fit through the smallest holes. You can't remain insulated forever, and shedding the old will lead to a powered vacuum. This agile system sinks its claws into its opposition and quickly gets to the meat of the matter. Don't expect the fat cats to do much work -- someone has to get off their tails and get rid of all the vermin. You should be warned that this system is susceptible to worms.
There's no pussyfooting around the security implications. This, more than ever, proves that security is a cat-and-mouse game. The script kitties will be all over this -- they'll milk it for all it's worth.
I can't think of any other industry besides solar whose business model requires laws to require a business (utilities) to purchase their own product from the customers at retail prices whenever the customer feels like having a surplus.
All that is is another subsidy for solar, one which happens to be incredibly convenient for all involved compared to subsidizing the equivalent value in money. It prevents monopolistic behavior (would you like to sell that electricity at 1% of its value or build your own grid, mini-competitor?), removes uncertainty on the part of potential purchasers of solar, allows meters to simply run backwards instead of something more complicated, encourages attaching solar to the grid instead of dumping the excess into the ground, and perhaps a few others.
To provide the same value as a subsidy to solar would cost a bunch more than it costs the power companies, although it is a bit unfair in that it uses a company's money to subsidize its competitors. Most of the above would remain true if the government reimbursed the power companies for the difference to make it a fairer subsidy, but I'm fine with anti-subsidies for fossil fuels, so I don't really care.
While normally I'm against government subsides, I personally think solar/alternative energy is a great thing for the governments to subsidize; especially when you consider that the "loser" (if there truly is one) is another government sponsored monopoly.
Renewables are a good idea to subsidize for all the same reasons that every other energy source is subsidized, plus a bunch more (including the whole Middle East thing, the future, and the environment).
First, make the company clean up their mess, with a suitable plan signed off by some ecologists. Make sure the clean-up will 1) be better than doing nothing and 2) accomplish its objective.
Whatever money you want to spend to clean up a disaster like this would be better spent finding other potential disasters and making sure they don't happen, rather than donating your money to save a greedy corporation from their responsibility and encouraging other companies to save money by having suckers clean up their messes.
The French nuclear industry does not have the very best reputation for diligence and safety. I would not be too surprised if they have a major accident some day. That is the flip side of having no NIMBYs.
Where were all the NIMBYs when they were building the coal plants though? Sure, we eventually got them to fix acid rain, but now we can't safely eat fish (from 70% of the Earth's surface) because of all the mercury from coal, and we still have the CO2 which will have its own costs. Turns out that continuous, ongoing disasters like coal get little notice compared to the comparatively minor nuclear disasters.
Make coal plants clean the mercury out of the ocean, fix the damage caused by acid rain, put the CO2 back in the ground, and reimburse for mercury and carcinogenic particulates, and then compare the costs of all nuclear cleanups put together.
Does the amount of savings expected include the additional costs of misdiagnosis that might be higher over the phone than in-person? Alternately, the savings could be even higher if it leads to serious conditions being diagnosed sooner from people being more willing to make a phone call than visit the hospital.
Slashdot Mirror
Qian and co first tested the cytotoxicity of gallium and indium by allowing cells to grow in its presence and measuring the number that survive after 48 hours. If more than 75 per cent, a substance is deemed safe by China’s national standards.
After 48 hours just over 75 percent of cells in both samples were still alive
The experiments also reveal a number of potential problems, however. X-rays of the rabbit they injected clearly show that blobs of liquid metal found their way to the animal’s heart and lungs.
What’s more, their experiments also show blood vessel growth around the blocked arteries, revealing how quickly the body adapts to blockages.
At least it's easy to conduct research in China. Maybe they'll find something.
What I want to know is, why didn't they try wax or oil first?
Lots of things are relatively benign compared to cancer -- but I'm not sure this is one of them.
I worry that the unglamorous, mostly uncompensated, and largely intellectually driven practice of pure software programming and creation has been left behind in recent years. I personally have noticed little progression and indeed in many areas a general regression in the quality and reliability of software since approximately 2006/7.
It's worse than you think -- this has been going on for as long as we can remember.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions. -- Ecclesiastes 7:10, about 1000 BC
The rate of decline over the past 3000 years is astronomical -- it's amazing our young still learn to walk. Why, I hardly dare to imagine what programming geniuses people must have been even one thousand years ago!
On a more serious note, I think the problem is a combination of natural selection (we only remember the stuff that wasn't crap) plus nostalgia (we think it was better than it really was). Go ahead, dig up some of your favorite programs from 20 years ago and tell me if they're as awesome as you remember them.
I bet you also think entropy is near useless in an ASCII attack (trying combinations of characters) unless your password is sentence-length? There's more words than there are characters, and people don't even use all the characters there are.
You think it's commendable to apologize "Sorry we only copy your address book to 'see if you're online' "? No, they copy your address book to see who your contacts are. There's much less invasive ways to "see if you're online".
You obviously don't know what entropy is. Hint: if you can compress information, say by saying the 457th word in my dictionary, then it is low entropy information (the dictionary is sorted by how common words are in passwords, so that common words need a short index). This is also why passwords like 12345 or asdfg are low entropy. I suppose this is where you say I really should be using a non-password related measure of entropy, and then tell me it won't work.
I've never understood why passwords can't be sentences, like "I'm going to take my dog, Spot, to the park today."
They can be, but it would be incredibly stupid to use something like that. A dictionary attack would crack that password in seconds.
Wrong. That would be an incredibly strong password -- just because it's easy to remember doesn't mean it has low entropy. I mean, if it were a combination of 11 semi-random characters you would think it was a strong password, but because it is 11 semi-random words you think it's weak? Yet there's way more words than there are letters.
Just have websites measure password entropy and get rid of the various stupid requirements and restrictions.
Genetics affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Environment affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Culture and self-determination facets of the environment affect your mental attributes, but aren't the whole story. People of different cultures have statistical differences in mental attributes. There's a bunch of people who get upset by these facts, and a different bunch of people who like to exaggerate them. And anyone who was named as being involved in any of this is going to end up at the center of a political shitstorm, so it's no surprise they want out.
When someone uses your connection excessively in the opinion of your ISP, watch "an choice" become "an bill". Or when someone uses your connection for copyright infringement or child pornography, watch "an choice" become "an lawsuit" or "an criminal charge".
When someone does the same over your secured connection, either because you shared your password with the wrong friends, someone guessed your password, or you got hacked, good luck explaining to a jury that it's possible for others to use your secured connection.
This exploit is built around a flexible skeleton that can fit through the smallest holes. You can't remain insulated forever, and shedding the old will lead to a powered vacuum. This agile system sinks its claws into its opposition and quickly gets to the meat of the matter. Don't expect the fat cats to do much work -- someone has to get off their tails and get rid of all the vermin. You should be warned that this system is susceptible to worms.
There's no pussyfooting around the security implications. This, more than ever, proves that security is a cat-and-mouse game. The script kitties will be all over this -- they'll milk it for all it's worth.
Could this be Linux's killer app that would blow the competition out of the water?
shit like this.
He means "fertilizer".
The data is copied, not "stolen". Get it right!
If you own one of these phones, you will be personally attacked by Chinese pirates who will steal trillions of dollars worth of your data!
I can't think of any other industry besides solar whose business model requires laws to require a business (utilities) to purchase their own product from the customers at retail prices whenever the customer feels like having a surplus.
All that is is another subsidy for solar, one which happens to be incredibly convenient for all involved compared to subsidizing the equivalent value in money. It prevents monopolistic behavior (would you like to sell that electricity at 1% of its value or build your own grid, mini-competitor?), removes uncertainty on the part of potential purchasers of solar, allows meters to simply run backwards instead of something more complicated, encourages attaching solar to the grid instead of dumping the excess into the ground, and perhaps a few others.
To provide the same value as a subsidy to solar would cost a bunch more than it costs the power companies, although it is a bit unfair in that it uses a company's money to subsidize its competitors. Most of the above would remain true if the government reimbursed the power companies for the difference to make it a fairer subsidy, but I'm fine with anti-subsidies for fossil fuels, so I don't really care.
While normally I'm against government subsides, I personally think solar/alternative energy is a great thing for the governments to subsidize; especially when you consider that the "loser" (if there truly is one) is another government sponsored monopoly.
Renewables are a good idea to subsidize for all the same reasons that every other energy source is subsidized, plus a bunch more (including the whole Middle East thing, the future, and the environment).
Wasn't there some discussion on how effective a special, compiler-embedded virus would be? This seems like a good candidate for that.
First, make the company clean up their mess, with a suitable plan signed off by some ecologists. Make sure the clean-up will 1) be better than doing nothing and 2) accomplish its objective.
Whatever money you want to spend to clean up a disaster like this would be better spent finding other potential disasters and making sure they don't happen, rather than donating your money to save a greedy corporation from their responsibility and encouraging other companies to save money by having suckers clean up their messes.
All lab mice are euthanized whether tests are successful or not.
All humans die whether they were successful or not. (With the possible exception of those who signed up for cryonics.)
Who cares to even read the titles anymore?
from New York. Where's the slowpokes from Virginia?
The French nuclear industry does not have the very best reputation for diligence and safety. I would not be too surprised if they have a major accident some day. That is the flip side of having no NIMBYs.
Where were all the NIMBYs when they were building the coal plants though? Sure, we eventually got them to fix acid rain, but now we can't safely eat fish (from 70% of the Earth's surface) because of all the mercury from coal, and we still have the CO2 which will have its own costs. Turns out that continuous, ongoing disasters like coal get little notice compared to the comparatively minor nuclear disasters.
Make coal plants clean the mercury out of the ocean, fix the damage caused by acid rain, put the CO2 back in the ground, and reimburse for mercury and carcinogenic particulates, and then compare the costs of all nuclear cleanups put together.
Also mercury and other pollutants from burning fossil fuels, what's the decommissioning cost for those?
Decommissioning costs (including storage, disposal, and demolition) never seem to figure into these numbers.
What's the decommissioning costs of a few billion tons of CO2, or of adapting to water level and weather changes?
Does the amount of savings expected include the additional costs of misdiagnosis that might be higher over the phone than in-person? Alternately, the savings could be even higher if it leads to serious conditions being diagnosed sooner from people being more willing to make a phone call than visit the hospital.