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User: MichaelSmith

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Comments · 11,670

  1. Re:Slashdotter's rejoice! on Secure Communication Comes To Android · · Score: 1

    steganographic method

    Thats true. Maybe something which hooks into a picture exchanging site like 4chan. Conceals messages in images so the recipient grabs new images before they go 404.

  2. Re:Slashdotter's rejoice! on Secure Communication Comes To Android · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well okay but say you are in Iran or Thailand and you want organize an action against your government. Secure mobile communications would be pretty handy for that.

  3. Got mine on Happy Towel Day · · Score: 1

    I ride a bike to work and I keep my towel in a locker.
    Except last night....
    (why, you may ask...)
    It needed washing so I took it home, and brought a fresh one in today.

  4. Re:Got it in one on Adobe Founders On Flash and Internet Standards · · Score: 1

    Maybe because the resulting source would still belong to Adobe and nobody would want to have it in their repos.

  5. Re:Got it in one on Adobe Founders On Flash and Internet Standards · · Score: 1

    Flash only works where Adobe choose to compile it. One NetBSD for example it is possible to to get it working under linux compatibility but the results are not great.

  6. Re:Sounds unreasonable on Emergency Dispatcher Fired For Facebook Drug Joke · · Score: 1

    IIRC President Obama wrote about taking drugs in his autobiography. So does that make him stupid or honest?

  7. Re:Too bad they didn't use RTGs. on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Killed By Ice · · Score: 1

    Oh speaking of rovers, Spirit and Opportunity do have radioisotope heaters on them, but they wouldn't be enough to keep one alive through winter. I doubt they would have saved Phoenix if it was buried under that much ice.

    If Phoenix was warm enough to sublimate all that CO2 away it might have not been able to investigate volatiles. It makes sense to send a big RTG heated rover now because this is a third generation vehicle, starting with Pathfinder. The risk of losing it during landing is smaller and the benefit a long traverse across the surface has been established.

    But their "winch down" design for landing gives me the horrors.

  8. Re:No GNOME then? on Slackware 13.1 Released · · Score: 1

    Ok, what's with excluding GNOME?

    IIRC it is too hard to build. I also have the impression that the user base for GNOME and Slackware don't have much overlap.

  9. Re:Too bad they didn't use RTGs. on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Killed By Ice · · Score: 4, Informative

    Of course, an RTG would mass much more than solar power so every part of the system would have to be beefed up. Launcher, cruise stage, aerobraking. Before you know it you are paying for two missions when one at that location was all you needed.

  10. Re:Are we adding "ice" to the no-fly list? on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Killed By Ice · · Score: 3, Informative

    Destroying one of our rovers is a hostile act!

    I feel your pain. It destroyed a Boeing 777 a couple of years ago.

  11. Re:What? on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander Killed By Ice · · Score: 2, Informative

    Umm... Even on our rather aqueous planet, where the only CO2 ice is either synthetic or located in seriously inhospitable places [...]

    Just out of curiosity, is there a place on earth where there is naturally-ocurring dry ice? A Google search comes up empty.

    Apparently it freezes at -78.5 degrees C which is uncommon but not impossible on Earth.

  12. Re:Raising false hopes on Facebook Bug Lets Hackers Delete Friends · · Score: 5, Informative

    They're a bunch of spoil sports:

    5/11/2010 – Facebook notified of vulnerability
    5/13/2010 – Work begins with Facebook to patch flaw.
    5/14/2010 – Facebook confirms flaw is patched.

    5/24/2010 – Post on slashdot.

  13. Re:GOOD I'VE GOT A FEW FRIENDS I DON'T NEED ANYMOR on Facebook Bug Lets Hackers Delete Friends · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thats one hell of a bug. I didn't know you could do that much damage with php.

  14. Re:Does this skip the filter? on BYO Linux Router To Australia's Fibre Network · · Score: 1

    On holiday recently I was confined to Malaysian internet cafés for my /. access and looking over the shoulders of my fellow internet consumers I noticed that a lot of porn is delivered by webmail so I wonder what the filterers plan to do about that? Ban specific webmail URLs?

  15. Re:Does this skip the filter? on BYO Linux Router To Australia's Fibre Network · · Score: 1

    I wonder how hard the system would be to DDOS? Once we identify the blocked URLs deploy scripts which will query them at a great rate from a number of different systems. Also if you can identify the node in the ISP system which does the filtering try to get its attention from outside the ISPs network. That would make the DDOS bit easier.

    Maybe we can fill up a few RAID arrays with trace data.

  16. Re:Free internet filtering! on BYO Linux Router To Australia's Fibre Network · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not. Yet.

    Though I do check /s/ every night after the wife has gone to bed purely to make sure it is still there.

  17. Re:Does this skip the filter? on BYO Linux Router To Australia's Fibre Network · · Score: 1

    I believe the filter they want to implement will be at ISP level. I don't actually know how they plan to implement it. They seem to want to block URLs so blocking hosts would block more than intended. I am willing to bet that a non-encrypted link to an http proxy outside the country would fix the problem for you. SSL being reserved for a future time when Stephen Conroy actually listens to his advisers.

  18. Re:What's the story? on BYO Linux Router To Australia's Fibre Network · · Score: 5, Funny

    We had this pot belly stove in the corner of the living room and during the summer the cat loved to use it to survey the room at eye level but when we used it for the first time in the autumn there was this horrible screech and the cat rocketed across the living room, into the kitchen and stopped, buffing, under the kitchen table.

    The treatment for burns is immediate immersion in cold water and fortunately the bath was half full so I picked up the cat and started to "immerse" the patient in the water. I tell you, the resulting scratches lasted months.

  19. Re:Coz this is a power hungry AUSSIE diy router. on BYO Linux Router To Australia's Fibre Network · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately not but I thought this one was funny.

  20. Re:Not that I'd use it... on New iConji Language For the Symbol-Minded Texter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem with Esperanto is that it is European in focus, while iConji may appeal more to people in Asia.

  21. Its like adwords except you use them to communicat on New iConji Language For the Symbol-Minded Texter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the product itself is not open source; the code is proprietary. Symbols representing commercial products are verboten without a license, allowing iConji to remain free for users by generating revenue for commercial symbols. Companies would pay a nominal fee every time their symbol is used, and in return, would be able to know where and when people were discussing the product.

    Okay so McDonalds will pay to have a unique symbol in the language and in return they get data on when and how people use it. So if I copy that symbol and write a free implementation I am presumably violating copyright.

  22. Re:Just in case.. on Air Force Sets Date To Fly Mach-6 Scramjet · · Score: 1

    I know where my towel is!

    Do you think they have invented an infinite improbability drive? Or an SEP? I thought there was an SEP over there but I lost interest.

    I will check back the next time England wins the ashes, if ever.

  23. Re:About time..... on Air Force Sets Date To Fly Mach-6 Scramjet · · Score: 1

    Does anyone else think it is odd that the fastest plane in the world is still the SR-71, which came into service in 1964.

    Aeronautical engineering is a mature technology. A typical Cessna aircraft won't have changed for 20 or 30 years either.

  24. Re:Old Tech but New Challenges on Air Force Sets Date To Fly Mach-6 Scramjet · · Score: 2, Informative
  25. Re:Great step forward on Air Force Sets Date To Fly Mach-6 Scramjet · · Score: 1

    If you want the power output of a rocket engine you need your oxidiser to be concentrated, which is not going to be easy to do even at mach 6. After finally running the numbers a hydrogen/oxygen rocket may work out better.