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User: ShanghaiBill

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  1. Re:Exposing babies to peanuts on FDA Confirms Toxicity of Homeopathic Baby Products; Maker Refuses To Recall (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My point was that this is an example of effective homeopathy.

    No it isn't. The difference is that if you give a baby some peanut butter, there are ACTUAL PEANUTS IN IT. But if you use the typical homeopathic dilution of 100 fold dilution 100 times, then there is only 100^-100th = 10^-200 of the original amount. For comparison, the number of quarks in the observable universe is roughly 10^80. So the probability of there being even a single molecule of the original harmful substance is closer to zero than the human mind can even conceive. The "theory" is that, although the harmful substance has been diluted out of existence, the water has a protective "memory" of it being present. The "theory", of course, doesn't explain how this "memory" is possible when none of the original water is still present either, or why just using tap water doesn't work since it is also an extremely diluted solution of every known poison.

  2. The FCC requires that all consumer equipment not cause interference, so I guess LG will have to fix the problem.

    No. The monitor is not interfering. The router is.

  3. I would be more worried about cancer if your router is that close to your monitor.

    You are more likely to get hit by a meteor than you are to get cancer from your router's RF.

  4. Re:This seems strange on LG's UltraFine 5K Display Becomes Useless When It's Within Two Meters of a Router (9to5mac.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the amount of money and time poured into these products

    Have you ever worked for a big company? It is quite common for product teams to be starved of resources for a number of reasons, often driven by office politics. This was an orphan project dumped by Apple, and I doubt if it is selling well, since no one else is making a USB-C monitor, and this is a 27" monitor, a size that has been available for Macs for 6 years. Every Mac user that wants a 27" monitor already has one, and the extra resolution makes no perceptible difference at that size. If they had actually thought this through, this would be a 30" - 36" 5k monitor that people would actually want to buy.

  5. Re:I wonder how such fool had admin rights to anyt on Former Fed Employee Fined $5,000 For Installing Bitcoin Software On Server (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    Admin rights to a server?

    You don't need admin privileges to mine bitcoins. A normal user login is enough.

    Tru firewall and proxy? Seriously?

    Even a web browser can do that. Where I work, this many people are unable to access outside servers: 0.

  6. Re:Antropogenic Asteroid Activity (AAA) on Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon (cnet.com) · · Score: 2

    There is one and only one thing I can think of and that is full blown nuclear war.

    Even that is unlikely to make Earth unlivable. Modern nukes are relatively clean, and they are smaller and there are many fewer of them than a few decades ago. A full blown nuclear war may kill a billion or so people, and the economic disruption may kill another billion or two, but humanity would almost certainly survive. Mars, on the other hand, has about a 0% chance of supporting even a single human in the foreseeable future without regular resupply missions from Earth.

  7. Re:Are there more or do we just find more? on Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon (cnet.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You forgot: 15. Create huge panic and looting.

    Panics rarely happen, and happen much less with longer term warnings. During a crisis, people tend to cooperate and bond together. This is one area where real life diverges from the movies.

    Looting tends to happen in the aftermath of a disaster, so greater warning will be unlikely to make it worse, and will more likely to improve the situation by giving more time to mobilize police and military resources. A warning will also give shop owners more time to get to their shops and exercise their 2nd amendment rights.

  8. Re:Antropogenic Asteroid Activity (AAA) on Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    ! Then, when the Earth is unlivable, these billionaires will escape to Mars.

    There is nothing that mankind could conceivably do that would make Earth more unlivable than Mars.

  9. Re:Are there more or do we just find more? on Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    14. Retract the control rods from nuclear reactors.

    Oops. I meant insert control rods into nuclear reactors.

  10. Re:Are there more or do we just find more? on Asteroid Whizzing By Earth 6 Times Closer Than the Moon (cnet.com) · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is pointless to spend a lot of money on this technology,

    Except that "a lot of money" is not required. The equipment used already exists, and even most of the data is already available. It just needs to be analysed to look for the NEOs.

    Sounds great in theory but in practice it's not going to do you any good.

    Except there is plenty we can do. Even with a few hours warning, we can tell people to get away from windows and remove stuff from shelves. Flying glass was the biggest source of injuries from the Chelyabinsk impact.
    Other short term precautions:
    1. Stop trains, so they don't come off the track.
    2. Stop additional cars from entering tunnels.
    3. Pretension seismic dampers in tall structures
    4. Sound an alarm to warn people in warehouses and stores to move away from shelves.
    5. Pull up automatic safely webbing to prevent pallets from falling off racks.
    6. Stop and lower cargo on forklifts.
    7. Start powering down heavy machinery
    8. Stop people from entering elevators
    9. Open fire station doors, so they don't jam closed.
    10. Shutdown the flames in furnaces and water heaters
    11. Start reducing gas pressure in pipelines.
    12. Warn people on beaches to start moving to higher ground.
    13. Start backup diesels for emergency services.
    14. Retract the control rods from nuclear reactors.

  11. Re:Google Docs on Microsoft Reports New Subscribers For Office 365 Plunged 62% (itworld.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also, "cloud-based," was equivalent to "hackable."

    Google's datacenter is likely far less "hackable" than some small company's roll-yer-own solution.

  12. Google Docs on Microsoft Reports New Subscribers For Office 365 Plunged 62% (itworld.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google Docs is another reason. Google Docs doesn't have all the features of MS Office, but it is "good enough" for most people. Instead of $7 per user per month, it is $0 per month. Google Docs also has less downtime.

  13. Re: Considering how often it is down... on Microsoft Reports New Subscribers For Office 365 Plunged 62% (itworld.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    I work for a contractor inside Microsoft buildings, and they tell us to not access the Internet at work or from home.

    If you are using Microsoft products, that is good advice.

  14. Re:Things used to be better on Google Earnings Reveal $3.6 Billion Lost On 'Moonshots' In 2016 (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    ... rather than investing in R&D

    The moonshots ARE R&D.

  15. Re:Accounting on Google Earnings Reveal $3.6 Billion Lost On 'Moonshots' In 2016 (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    What happened to smart investors going long for decade spans?

    What happened is that long term investing has become MORE common. If you ignore HFT (which is market-making, not investing), average stock hold time has been going up for decades.

    The myth that investors today are more demanding of immediate profits is basically BS, and there are many companies with high stock prices and low profits that are investing for the long term. Amazon is a good example. That wouldn't have been possible a few decades ago.

  16. Re:Adversarial networks on Can A Robot Fool 'I Am Not A Robot' Captchas? (businessinsider.com) · · Score: 1

    Presumably they have some way of avoiding this with GANs.

    You just use many (millions at least) samples of human data. You mix the computer generated movements in with the human, and let the 2nd network try to discriminate which are which. You can prevent overfitting by inserting a little random noise into the human samples.

  17. Re: Yay, connectivity and IoT on Ransomware Infects a Hotel's Key System (dailymail.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The free market simply will not correct this situation, because it has no mechanism to do so.

    Yes it does: Civil law torts.

    Until the IoT is regulated, shit like this is just going to keep happening

    Regulation means that the spec is written by government bureaucrats, or (even worse) a congressional committee. That will lead to ossification and a focus on compliance checklists rather than real security.

    This hotel had their card system hacked THREE TIMES, yet still had it connected to the Internet. You can't regulate away that level of stupidity.

  18. Re: Yay, connectivity and IoT on Ransomware Infects a Hotel's Key System (dailymail.co.uk) · · Score: 1, Troll

    Was it connected to the internet?

    Apparently. According to TFA, the hackers were able to lock all the doors, trapping some guests in their rooms. I don't see how they could have done that if the locks were not accessible over the internet.

    I know nothing about Austrian law, but in America this lock system would have been ILLEGAL, and I am astonished that something like this was ever designed and installed. It is a blatant violation of every fire code I have ever seen. Locking people out is fine, but you NEVER NEVER NEVER lock people IN, nor do you ever design something where human safety depends on software or electricity. Egress should always be possible using only mechanical means.

  19. Re:At this point... on All-Corn Diet Turns Hamsters Into Cannibals · · Score: 5, Informative

    Grains are only somewhat harmful.

    The problem is not eating grain, but eating ONLY grain. This leads to deficiency in B3, B12, and lysine.

    If we had evolved to eat grains we would have four stomachs).

    Ruminants don't have four stomachs to digest the starch in grain, but the cellulose in leaves and stems.

  20. Re:error in whose ways? on ISPs Finally Abandon The Copyright Alert System (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    I forget the last time a business willingly changed its model rather than simply trying to force its customers to continue to accept the way it's always been.

    That doesn't work if your customers have the freedom to switch to an upstart competitor.

  21. Adversarial networks on Can A Robot Fool 'I Am Not A Robot' Captchas? (businessinsider.com) · · Score: 1

    Or you could use generative adversarial networks. Basically, you set up two neural networks: one tries to simulate human mouse movements, and the other tries to detect non-human behavior. You pit them against each other in a loop, so they drive each other's improvement.

  22. Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. on Solar Energy Now Employs More Americans Than Oil, Coal and Gas Combined (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    wait, you suggest we do more fracking to avoid pollution due to coal production?

    Yes. Fracking has problems, but it is way cleaner than coal mining. Furthermore, many of the problems with fracking can be fixed with better pipe seals, and better pond liners. There are no "fixes" for coal mines (other than closing them).

  23. Re:What? on Server Runs Continuously For 24 Years (computerworld.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    if it had, it wouldn't have had 24 years of uptime.

    24 years of "uptime" doesn't mean no unplanned shutdowns. It means no shutdowns of any kind. This machine has not done that, and certainly has not been "running continuously".

  24. Re:And when people start hacking these devices? on Medical Startup To Begin Testing At-Home Brain Zapping Devices (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    These are small, battery powered devices. There is little that a "hacker" could do to hurt himself that he couldn't do better by sticking his tongue in a light socket.

  25. Re:Our coal is pathetic. Everybody laughs at it. on Solar Energy Now Employs More Americans Than Oil, Coal and Gas Combined (computerworld.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    That mercury will be disbursed on the ground (where it came from to begin with).

    There is a big difference between mercury in a 300 million year old coal seam, and mercury in topsoil and surface water where it enters the food chain.

    It is not just burning coal that is harmful, but the mining is also very filthy and destructive. If we want to help coal miners, we should give them financial assistance to move out of Appalachia and go where the jobs are. They could move to North Dakota and work on fracking rigs. They could go to Oklahoma and build wind farms. They could move to Arizona and install solar panels.