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User: Rylz

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Comments · 64

  1. Differences from Zewail's Lab? on Capturing Femtosecond Snapshots of Molecular Processes · · Score: 3, Informative

    This looks like it may simply be an implementation of the process described by Ahmed Zewail in the 90's, which also operates on femtosecond time scales. Perhaps this "pump-probe" deal is what makes this approach novel?

  2. New Techonlogy? on Automatic Life Jacket Detection For Drones · · Score: 2

    This can't be the first software of its kind... Five years ago, NASA was using much more subtle feature detection software in detecting interesting rocks and regions from satellite imagery of Mars. It seems like life jacket detection in oceans would be a much simpler reduction of that problem.

  3. Re:Stop wasting food on Spinach Could Be Used For Hydrogen Fuel · · Score: 2

    No need to kill anyone just fewer children due to high costs.

    Too bad that doesn't actually work in practice. It's lower income communities and countries that have the highest birth rates.

  4. Re:Hipsters on Geek Culture Will Never Die...or Be Popular · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have to admit, this makes us sound an awful lot like hipsters trying to be on the edge and always being different.

    This isn't the first time that analogy has been appropriate. Geeks are, after all, known for having huge egos and being a quite exclusive lot. Prior to mainstream acceptance of comic book movies and other aspects of geek culture, just look at how we snubbed script kiddies and noobs on our IRC channels. Much like hipsters snubbing others when outsiders adopt their music or aspects of their culture.

  5. Re:Embracing and extending on Google Releases Open Source JavaScript Tools · · Score: 4, Interesting

    look a bit like a push towards Chrome.

    Funny, I've also heard this argument the other way around. A lot of people seem to think that Chrome is actually meant simply to push every browser developer to build faster JavaScript support and to catalyze other technologies that will allow Google to develop better web applications. Maybe this release is also a push towards those goals.

  6. New Song? on OpenBSD 4.0 Pre-orders are Available · · Score: 1

    Where's the new song?! (http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html) Usually it comes out before the new release, and I only have an OBSD 3.6 server which I never plan to have to upgrade, so an update to me means a new fun song!

  7. Re:As long as ... on Harvard Concludes Linux Will Remain Second Best · · Score: 1

    Once those copyrights expire, people are no longer bound by the terms of the GPL in order to use, modify and distribute the software, since they can exercise these rights in the public domain.

    Actually, once the copyrights expire, people can only use extremely old versions of the software while disregarding the license. Say it's 2087 (95 years after Linus first distributed the Linux source code under the GPL)... You could use that original source code for Linux from way back in the day, but the license would still be working on all changes since then. Thus, it effectively is eternal since by that time the original code will be useless for all practical purposes.

  8. Re:GCC? I think not. on Review of Consumer-Friendly Linux Distro · · Score: 1

    You could always download the gcc source tarball and compile... oh wait.

  9. Re:OS X version not Aquafied. on Inkscape 0.42: The Ultimate Answer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This brings up something I've been wondering. If GTK had an Aqua version, Inkscape as well as a LOT of useful programs could run natively in Aqua. Hey, it's been ported to Windows, porting to Aqua shouldn't be too much harder... But then again I have no experience with developing for Aqua so I guess I can't really talk.

  10. Re:the server has folded up and dropped dead alrig on Fold 'n' Drop Window Interaction · · Score: 1

    mirror anyone?

    Coral cache

  11. Re:Windows only? on Nintendo Releasing Wireless Router for Revolution · · Score: 1

    Notice on the bottom of the DS it says "RSA Secured". Whatever patented security mechanism that refers to is what makes Nintendo wireless different from the wireless our laptops use.

    RSA's patent expired in 2000, and before that the algorithm was very available anyway, so you need not worry about that. (See the wikipedia article on the subject: RSA)

  12. Re:Windows only? on Nintendo Releasing Wireless Router for Revolution · · Score: 1

    So I imagine there would have to be some sort of firmware update, no?

    Although it is possible, I doubt it. Nintendo will want to make this as easy as possible so that even gamers who have no idea what WiFi is can be at a coffee shop or some other WiFi hotspot and connect immediately. Remember that Nintendo has been planning this feature since the production of the DS. It is very possible that this capability is already in the firmware and games flagged to be WiFi compatible will either bring up this option in the boot menu or access it through their own, in-game menus.

  13. Re:Modularised code will always have this problem. on Zlib Security Flaw Could Cause Widespread Trouble · · Score: 1

    Looking further, this is an interesting example of the problems with monoculture. The BSD TCP/IP stack was copied for Windows and Mac OSX - this is great, it saves a tonne of time but you also means you inherit the exact same bugs as the BSD stack.

    What you're missing here is the fact that FreeBSD sent out a security advisory with a patch for this problem 4 days ago. I'm sure the other BSDs sent out patches around the same time, but I don't subscribe to their mailing lists. Anyway, my point is that while inheriting code from BSD may give you the same vulnerabilities, it also gives you frequent security advisories with patches that problem only have to change a little bit to work on your software. Basically what I'm saying is that if you use substantial code from BSD, watching the mailing lists and implementing the patches posted there may be the majority of your security department's work.

  14. Re:Why is this news? on Microsoft's Personnel Puzzle · · Score: 5, Funny

    mv /mnt/fuji /dev/null

    If you wanted to get the job with MS, you would have to change that to:

    move "C:\Mount Fuji" C:\RECYCLED
  15. Re:Malware == Moolah on Non-Technical Users Talk Malware · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they'll get a Mac or something. It's a step in the right direction at least.

    If by a "step in the right direction," you mean that a switch to Mac will bring them closer to switching to Linux, I'll have to disagree. If they switch to Mac, they'll have much fewer reasons to want to switch OSes again.

    But then again, if they decided to move away from Windows, they would probably just come to the grandparent poster and ask him what to do, so he would have the ultimate decision.

  16. Re:Right. on Internet Movies Before DVD · · Score: 1

    From link about the word piracy:

    Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as "sharing information with your neighbor."

    You just have to love RMS. He tried hard to remain neutral and objective with that description, but he just had to throw this in!

  17. Re:Miscalculation? on 83,431 Recited Digits of Pi · · Score: 2, Funny

    The same way people used to memorize 500 page long epic folk poems

    Did they memorize them character by character?

    No, I believe they memorized them by their hex codes in ASCII (or maybe UTF-8 or UTF-16 if they wanted to be more universal).

  18. Re:Wait a minute? on 83,431 Recited Digits of Pi · · Score: 1

    22/7 is an approximation of pi... it only calculates the first 3 digits, 3.14, accurately.

  19. What Boredom will do to you... on How Ice Melts · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wow... I just realized that I read a whole article about ice melting... And I was interested. I guess that's what you're reduced to when you have nothing to do but read Slashdot at midnight on a Friday...

  20. Re:Apple? on AMD Takes Case To Public, Japan · · Score: 1

    What are they so worried about?

    They're worried about consumers like my dad, who refuses to get any computer with an AMD chip because he is convinced that higher clock speeds for P4s means that they are superior to anything made by AMD. People like him, who are above average in computer literacy (and by above average I mean knowing what GHz measures), but who are not quite nerds, are very likely to think the same thing.

  21. Re:Linux distros on Microsoft Wants P2P Avalanche to Crush BitTorrent · · Score: 1

    You got it all wrong! It won't be a PDF, of course! It will be a DOC!

  22. Re:social evolution on How To Balance Life And Technology For Kids? · · Score: 1

    Kids raised indoors on computers will adapt better than their parents to a career in cubicle indenture.

    So we can conclude that it is a bad thing to raise your kids completely indoors on computers. Why? All of their future coworkers would resent them for actually liking their jobs!

  23. Re:SP3? on Free Upgrade From XP Home to XP Pro Lite · · Score: 1

    Another Service Pack wouldn't remedy this. They would have to make all of the Pro features independent of these flags and somehow convince people to install SP3. When the few who take advantage of this figure out that SP3 makes it not work, they will simply continue to use SP2. I don't think MS will worry about it that much anyway since only a small minority of nerds are capable and willing to change the install CD just to get these extra features which aren't really worth it (IMHO) anyway.

  24. Re:I doubt it on Apple to Recycle your iPod for Free · · Score: 1

    Remember M$ giving away US$ 1 billion in software "for free?" Was the software really free of charge? You answer that.

    The analogy is still good, but I'd like to point out that when MS gave away $1 billion in software, those figures were based on what the software sells for, which is not even close to what the software costs them to make. Let's see... one CD plus packaging per unit... not very high costs. This makes it very easy for MS to justify such a move to share holders, since all they have to do is point out very small losses and the fact that they're getting people used to using their software which will bring more money in later. Sad, but true.

  25. Re:Nice on Intel Adds DRM to New Chips · · Score: 1

    I can see it now... a literal DRM-enabled furnace... Throw in a copyrighted CD and it spits it back out at you and says "The author has disallowed burning of this CD."