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User: bruce_the_loon

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  1. Re:Runbox.com on Ask Slashdot: Recommendations For Non-US Based Email Providers? · · Score: 1

    All current email server-to-server communication is SMTP or SMTP-TLS which is an encrypted channel. Except for internal site chatter on something like Exchange or Notes, SMTP is used globally, and even Exchange can be configured to use it for internal chatter.

    You might be thinking of the old UUCP days, but those boxes are long dead for the vast majority.

  2. Re:isn't wifi like the old layer 1 hubs? on Bad Connections Dog Google's Mountain View Wi-Fi Network · · Score: 2

    No, once you change the channel, you change the RF and IF tuning so the radio's analog signal stages effectively ignore the other frequencies. Only the demodulated data wave from the frequency on that channel gets through to the digital processing part of the WiFi device.

    To be physics correct before some expert goes postal, the antenna does receive the other frequencies, but the RF stage (2.4Ghz level) eliminates them by speed-of-light physics, not by digital processing of anything.

  3. Re:Weird! on Silent Circle Follows Lavabit By Closing Encrypted E-mail Service · · Score: 2

    TLS and encrypted IMAP protect the path, not the content. Only if you deliver directly to and receive directly from the other endpoint is there known protection. Any relay in the system might not store the message encrypted on disk and might not relay on with TLS.

    Encryption of the body itself is the only real way to protect the message completely. And that shouldn't need a third party like Lavabit or Silent Circle to do as it is a mail client function.

  4. Re:Not an exact name but close on Microsoft Will Have To Rename SkyDrive · · Score: 1

    So BSkyB is preemptively preventing their helldesk from being flooded with calls about SkyDrive? Sounds like a good business reason to sue.

  5. Re:Double the delay every failed attempt on PIN-Cracking Robot To Be Showed Off At Defcon · · Score: 1

    Then IT will examine the logs and discover the source of the lockout. Lockouts are clearable on most systems without resetting the password and after the 2nd or 3rd time it happens, IT will get interested.

  6. Re:Diet and laziness on The Man Who Convinced Us We Needed Vitamin Supplements · · Score: 1

    Ascorbic acid decomposes at 190 degrees Celsius. While that is very hot for cooking, it is at the upper end of the usable ranges. Or mid-range for McD's coffee.

  7. Re:The TRUE test on Bell Labs Break Record With 31Tbps Via a Single 7200km Optical Fibre · · Score: 1

    But you still have to read them off on USB2 card readers.

  8. Re:This is the dumbest idea ever on Describe Any Location On Earth In 3 Words · · Score: 1

    It might be if it were crowd-sourced, but it looks more like they randomly generated the triplets and assigned them to squares. There's no descriptive data in there at all.

  9. Cooling system leak on Spacewalk Aborted When Water Fills Astronaut's Helmet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like it was a leak in the inner-jacket cooling system that circulates water around the astronaut's body. Can't be a fun experience though,

  10. The theory is that pro-social behaviours disappear first before anti-social behaviours appears. Like picking up pens leading to not doing anything to help then leading to actively knocking the pens out of the hand. You see this in real-life violent environments, citizens not getting involved when there is a fight going down, then later drifting into gangs or militias. Very very few people do an overnight switch from helping prevent violence to taking part in it. There is an apathetic phase in the middle.

    A reduction in the willingness of individuals to assist after playing violent video games would be an indicator that there is an effect. Having not seen a reduction manifesting is a medium-strength indicator that the claims regarding the effect of video game violence might be incorrect.

    Before someone harps on about pretending to help because you know what the investigator wants, remember very few people would help pick up the pens while waiting for a moment to stab the person in the neck with one. That sort of behaviour is indicative of a sociopath.

  11. Re:So much for "New Republic" on How Old Is the Average Country? · · Score: 1

    The exploding-tyre non-finishing-of-champions failure that is the Formula 1 calendar of 2013. F1 has had a San Marino race just about for ever, so the only reason it should disappear is if the country is gone.

  12. Re:Forgetting the 'where' clause on Things That Scare the Bejeezus Out of Programmers · · Score: 1

    you're not running your update statements in a transaction that you can rollback from?

  13. Re:May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls on With Sales Down, Whale Meat Flogged As Source of Strength · · Score: 1

    Well, I suppose we could stake them out an inch from a lake of water and salt them. We'd still need divine support to keep them alive for eternity.

    Link should work now, hosting provider had DNS issues.

  14. Re:Bottom head? on 900 Ton Containment Vessel Bottom Head Installed At Vogtle 3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a blerry summary. There's a nice wikipedia link in the first line, and it goes to the relevant section of the page, and a decent article about the whole thing. Stop wanting to be spoon-fed every little factoid and become an independent thinker.

  15. May Bel-Shamharoth eat their souls on With Sales Down, Whale Meat Flogged As Source of Strength · · Score: 5, Funny

    The bastards and their ships need to be pulled down to the deep dark ooze of the abyss where tentacled beasties will toy with their souls for eternity.

  16. Re:No way on Matt Smith Leaves "Doctor Who" · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'd love the 13th Doctor to be desperately trying to avoid dying because he knows he's the last generation, then regenerating instead and saying something like "What? Nobody ever did 14? How did I do 14? And why am I still not ginger?"

  17. Re:in otherwords on Richard III Suffered an Ignominious Burial, Researchers Find · · Score: 5, Informative

    No. It took researchers months to write an article, get it proof-read, submitted to a journal, peer-reviewed and finally published in the journal.

  18. Re:You don't say? on Richard III Suffered an Ignominious Burial, Researchers Find · · Score: 3, Informative

    Those readers who don't RTFA are doomed to make themselves look silly.

    Two different articles two different topics in the articles, one a press release that the DNA matched and that it was Richard the 3rd, the new one on how he was buried in the grave.

  19. Re:Out of character... on Thousands of Whistle Blowers Vulnerable After Anonymous Hacks SAPS · · Score: 1

    And replying to myself.....

    Reading the associated Twitter account, the voice seems young and very un-South African to my mind. Seems more like US or British youf.

  20. Re:Out of character... on Thousands of Whistle Blowers Vulnerable After Anonymous Hacks SAPS · · Score: 1

    First thought I had was this as well.

    Then I recalled the SAPS officer that struggled to write down a statement in printed letters and the officers without driving licenses. Those with the skills to do this are not the thugs on the street patrols that the complaints would have been about.

    There was a joke in the old days about why there were 3 SAP officers in a van, one to do the reading, one to do the writing and the third to keep an eye on the two intellectuals. I suspect it is still much the same.

  21. Re:There are problems with new languages on Dart Is Not the Language You Think It Is · · Score: 1

    The point was the lack of consistent meaning for 'void'.

    ANY pointer, be it int*, char*, void* or object* is a pointer to absolutely anything. Allowing a pointer to be of type void makes sense for defining functions that accept a pointer to several data structures that will be cast into the right form in the function.

  22. Re:Go Free Market on Congress Demands Answers From Google Over Google Glass Privacy Concerns · · Score: 1

    So, just because I'm unknown and don't get my face splashed over the covers of the celeb magazines gives some perverted idiot the right to take photos of my gentleman's sausage and go home and wank over it?

  23. Re:Robot rights? on How Should the Law Think About Robots? · · Score: 1

    The point at which robots not programmed to demand legal rights begin to demand legal rights is when we either need to amend the laws or run like hell if we don't. Until then, let's leave the problem alone.

  24. Re:The Law Doesn't Think, People Do. on How Should the Law Think About Robots? · · Score: 1

    No. The law documents a set of parameters that humans have determined is satisfactory information to prove whether someone is to be executed. The law itself is not sentient, or even instinctive. It is merely documentation of processes and parameters.

  25. Re:Everything is hard in space on Space Station Crew Prepare For Emergency Spacewalk · · Score: 2

    Exactly. NASA's definition of an emergency spacewalk is one that wasn't on the schedule a month in advance and that nobody has practiced for in the giant swimming pool. It's something that needs to be done quickly before they lose too much coolant, but it isn't an emergency in the sense of "Roll Engine Company 3 and 4 and bring the long ladder trucks"