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User: MichaelSmith

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Comments · 11,670

  1. Re:right to not incriminate yourself? on British Teen Jailed Over Encryption Password · · Score: 1

    plead the 5th

    We are talking about the UK here.

  2. Re:right to not incriminate yourself? on British Teen Jailed Over Encryption Password · · Score: 1

    So, can they prove that he hasn't forgotten the password?

    It seems they don't need to. In other news I am unable to provide the decryption key for the random bits on the USB key I bought an hour ago.

  3. Re:Word to the wise... on British Teen Jailed Over Encryption Password · · Score: 1

    and when they find the deeper encryption, just say, "that's old junk, I forgot the password to that, and never got around to deleting it."

    I don't see how that would keep would keep you out of gaol given the apparent wording of the law in this case.

  4. SSH FTW on Cryptome Hacked; All Files Deleted · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Its the only CMS I use on my servers. Mercurial for version control over ssh. Update my sites with hg push. Hooks on the receiving side to run hg up and rebuild if required. SSH can be configured to require certificates only for authentication. Desktop environments all integration with ssh-askpass or similar.

  5. Available now on Ballmer Promises Microsoft Tablet By Christmas · · Score: 1

    There is a Windows 7 tablet in OfficeWorks just up the road from here right now.

  6. Re:Welcome heavy metals on West Virginia Is Geothermically Active · · Score: 1

    There's also weird stuff with harmonics

    Western Australia has this problem in a few places. Its a big state and some of their transmission lines approach a resonant length at the 50Hz mains frequency. The story is that this is part of the reason why the normal mains voltage in other states is 240V but in WA its 260.

  7. Re:Welcom heavy metals on West Virginia Is Geothermically Active · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Thats okay. Our brown coal won't run out for thousands of years at the current rate!

    But seriously we have so much flat, empty and hot land in this country we should be getting in to photovoltaic and solar thermal energy production. Transmission losses aren't really a big deal.

  8. Re:GUI interface can sell a product to management on Take This GUI and Shove It · · Score: 1

    TCL is very commonly used around here for that purpose, but I mean scripting to build a conf, not scripting to build a GUI to build a conf. Thats still a GUI and the work it can do can only scale with available man power.

  9. Re:3d hype. on Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year · · Score: 1

    Are you really sure it's a good idea to rely in ATC on an effect which is so subtle and not terribly accurate between viewers?

    Possibly. ATC operators in many markets are selected for the quality of their vision so the variation between individuals might be smaller.

  10. Re:3d hype. on Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year · · Score: 1

    I will do my best. I don't see a point arguing about personal preference.

    Incidentally if this sort of TV is a success I can see applications in human machine interfaces. I work in ATC and I definitely think a 3D UI would be worth the trouble.

  11. Re:Do not want on Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year · · Score: 1

    who cares what it's all about
    as long as the kids go

    -Roger Waters

  12. Re:3d hype. on Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year · · Score: 1

    I assume you also know not to watch "Transformer" movies too, but so what? I thought Avatar was a pretty good, very visual, film. Better than most of the popcorn crap out there.

  13. Re:Do not want on Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Give me a decent script and acting I can believe.

    Me too but sometimes I want to watch the pretty pictures.

  14. Re:GUI interface can sell a product to management on Take This GUI and Shove It · · Score: 1

    Where I work most things are large scale. Everything has to be automated to some degree and that generally means we write our own tools to generate configuration files for (often) hundreds of systems at a go. So GUI tools are of little use to us.

  15. Re:What about emacs on Free Software Foundation Turns 25 · · Score: 1

    I think that Campagnolo bicycle components are fantastic. Flame away.

  16. GUI interface can sell a product to management on Take This GUI and Shove It · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Without a GUI it will be hard to sell, but automation is next to impossible with GUIs, so they are expensive to use in the long run because you have to pay for more Users.

  17. Re:And we need this why? on OLPC Gets $5.6M Grant To Develop Tablet With Marvell · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sounds like manufacturing let them down. Also they were first into the cheap netbook market so there may have been a burst of demand.

  18. Re:This is not news on 15-Year-Old Boy Fitted With Robotic Heart · · Score: 1

    but oh no, thats not artificial intelligence because we know how it works

    it doesn't learn or modify it's behaviors in response to experience.

    How do you know? This is a VW Jetta. It is loaded with low performing AI, particularly in the transmission. It learns, just not very well.

  19. Re:This is not news on 15-Year-Old Boy Fitted With Robotic Heart · · Score: 1

    I would love to see artificial hearts jump the demand/supply/research curve into a product which more people can use. My family does have heart disease. My father survived a heart attack at 63 and the next one is just a matter of time. His father died at 58. We have found the cure for cancer ;(

    I suppose if you don't have a degenerative problem like this boy, exercise is still the best way out. Now if I could only get my dad to walk rather than drive...

  20. Re:This is not news on 15-Year-Old Boy Fitted With Robotic Heart · · Score: 1

    I know that there is no formal definition for this but I would prefer to reserve the word cyborg for those with active prosthesis.

    Its a bit like AI. My wife's car can decide when to use its lights and windscreen wipers but oh no, thats not artificial intelligence because we know how it works.

  21. Re:And we need this why? on OLPC Gets $5.6M Grant To Develop Tablet With Marvell · · Score: 2, Informative

    I used an OLPC for the first time at a free software event in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago, The units they had were on loan from a school. It is a fantastic machine. Very rugged and attractive to children. I would probably prefer a stock ubuntu install instead of using the sugar UI, but the hardware is open so you can do that.

    I think its a shame more people didn't get an opportunity to buy them.

  22. Re:What about emacs on Free Software Foundation Turns 25 · · Score: 1

    nicolas.kassis didn't mention vi. He said that emacs was a great accomplishment. Any emacs vs vi implication is in your head.

  23. Re:The numbers are wrong on The Binary Code In Canada's Gov-Gen Coat of Arms · · Score: 1

    0x1954729D3

    Hmmm. Doesn't work as Baudot.

  24. Re:43-Man Squamish? on The Binary Code In Canada's Gov-Gen Coat of Arms · · Score: 1

    I was thinking in terms of streams where a frame is extended by setting one bit. Handy if space is limited.

  25. Re:The number is a Palindromic Prime in base 2. on The Binary Code In Canada's Gov-Gen Coat of Arms · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This number is a prime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_prime in base 2.
    In decimal it is: 6830770643

    1.1 times the number of people alive today