Slashdot Mirror


User: andy_t_roo

andy_t_roo's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
255
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 255

  1. I don't think the government change need Rupert. on Rupert Murdoch Wants To Destroy Australia's National Broadband Network · · Score: 1

    I think the general public will manage to change the government without any prompting from "big media" in the election which has just been announced for about 1 month from now (the 7th).

  2. Re:US Military shares your opinion. on Anonymous Source Claims Feds Demand Private SSL Keys From Web Services · · Score: 1

    "You are, of course, assuming that those who want the keys can't just hack (or walk their way in) into your server, retrieve your keys and access password."

    If they can do that then they can retrieve any data you're trying to protect with the key anyway -- selfsigning would change the bar to "to be able to retrieve my information, you must already be able to retrieve *my* secret" (as compared to the CA's secret).

  3. Re:Our culture on Hollywood's Love of Analytics Couldn't Prevent Six Massive Blockbuster Flops · · Score: 1

    Pure action translates well to large audiences worldwide.

    Except when it doesn't for 6 movies in a row ...

  4. Re:Fingerprint it! on Ask Slashdot: How To Deliver a Print Magazine Online, While Avoiding Piracy? · · Score: 1

    "This is your copy that ended up on the internet, so either your subscription or your computer is compromised. Please either prove your computer is secure, or purchase a new subscription (and don't share the password for the new ones)."

  5. Re:Just block PDFs with javascript on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Automatically Sanitize PDF Email Attachments? · · Score: 2

    bonus points awarded for linking to a pdf.

  6. Re:Will it work as a heat-sink? on New Thermocell Could Turn 'Waste Heat' Into Electricity · · Score: 1

    desktop cpu's typically dissipate ~50w at a moderate load (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation for the maximum disapation of your favourite number cruncher)

    the base of a heatsink is about 5cmx5cm (the actual die is quite a bit smaller than this), that's 50w/25cm2 or about 20 000w/m2.
    at a temperature difference of around 100c, this generates .5w/m2.

    Also, it's Seebeck coefficient of 1.5–2.2 mV K1 is 10x better than bismuth telluride (which has a Se of around 0.2 mV/K), (http://www.iue.tuwien.ac.at/phd/mwagner/node53.html). However, neither the Power Factor, nor Device Merit numbers are mentioned, and without those it is impossible to evaluate this material for suitability in high power operation, however the target audience and the power density of .5w/m2 seems to indicate that this could be more suited for low power density operations, rather than Active Cooling.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_materials is an interesting relevent page ...

  7. Re:I'm not an expert on Aussie Telco Telstra Agreed To Spy For America · · Score: 1

    My reading of that list (i'm also NAL) is that: Unless we can demonstrate harm to the Sovereign, GG, or PM, or wish to declare America "an Enemy" via a declaration of war (or other outbreak of hostilities), there can be no treason through any interaction with the US.

  8. They used the wrong EULA on Sent To Jail Because of a Software Bug · · Score: 1

    sounds like they should've used the windows 7 eula (section 25): LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. Except for any refund the manufacturer or installer may provide, you cannot recover any other damages... This limitation applies ... even if ... Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.

  9. Re:Why? on Critical Security Updates Coming To Windows XP, 8, RT & Server · · Score: 2

    phew, for a moment there i thought you were talking about something other than the windows license :

    "LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. You can recover from Microsoft .. damages up to the amount you paid for the software. You cannot recover any other damages ... It also applies even if ... Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.

    LIMITED WARRANTY. If you follow the instructions and the software is properly licensed, the software will perform substantially as described in the Microsoft materials that you receive in or with the software."

    It seems to me that this a) you can't claim more than you paid, b) the software does roughly what is documented, is a universal disclaimer; it doesn't matter if you paid for it.

  10. Re:Link to a simple example on Harlan: a Language That Simplifies GPU Programming · · Score: 1

    The editor takes care of the closing parentheses for you

    Perhaps a LISP-specific editor does, but the editor that ships with a computer does not. Even basic features such as automatic copying of leading whitespace from the previous line aren't omnipresent among editors that ship with windows based computers.

    Fixed that for you. Furthermore there are many normal document handling operations where you don't want that operation; it is only programming environments which should auto-handle code type syntax highlighting and auto-completion. We like to call an environment for developing code an IDE.

    I agree that many simple text editors don't preserve white space, but even Word preserves indentation level, and notepad++ does quite a bit of syntax highlighting for you.

    Also, referring to a sibling of this post "This completely defeats the argument "simple syntax". If you need the IDE to be able to parse it ...": you don't need an IDE, but the purpose of an IDE is to aid understanding -- simple bracket matching is always going to help. even in languages where the context of the bracket is almost immediately obvious (like java), highlighting a matching bracket allows you to perceive the extent of the current code block with minimal mental effort.

  11. Re:Bad multithreading on Things That Scare the Bejeezus Out of Programmers · · Score: 2

    if your program is slow, you have a problem. Use a thread, now you have 2 problems. --Source Unknown.

  12. Re:Optical density. on New Technique For Optical Storage Claims 1 Petabyte On a Single DVD · · Score: 1

    if physical contact with the media is so dangerous, have these disks mounted inside a traditional enclosure, like an old floppy disk.
    Preventing accidental contact with surfaces scratching is a well solved problem ...

  13. Re:ChromeFrame & Chrome on Google Retiring Chrome Frame · · Score: 1

    WSUS only equals delayed updates if it is managed wrong.
    If all you want to do is minimize bandwidth, you can set WSUS to auto-approve updates.With the WSUS server checking for updates regularly, when the 3am install domain policy ticks over, all updates would be ready to roll anyway. It may mean that some updates get delayed by 1 day, but if your patches are that critical then
    a) you should not be auto-accepting updates direct from microsoft via windows update (the chance of things breaking automatically is higher than the chance of something happening from a day or 2 delayed patch), and
    b) you've probably thought this through anyway.

  14. Re:Here's a thought on 10GbE: What the Heck Took So Long? · · Score: 1

    correct.
    However you or basically anyone with a SSD drive can easily do better than 125MB/s -- you can even do that with a good mechanical drive. (you don't even need raid).

    The real question is: what domestic use scenario regularly requires that much bandwidth, other than copying an entire cd's worth of information in 2 seconds rather than about 10. (the overhead of finding what you want to copy, and the time it takes to issue the paste command at the destination will possibly be larger than the time it takes to copy in either scenario; for most things the computer is "sufficiently" fast.

  15. Re:Not as real a threat as on Microsoft Windows on Ask Slashdot: Is GNU/Linux Malware a Real Threat? · · Score: 1

    There are common code segments across large parts of that ecosystem. eg: what fraction are running any kernel between version 2.6.37 and 3.8.8? (http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/critical-linux-vulnerability-imperils-users-even-after-silent-fix/ ; top google link for 'may kernel exploit')

    There are many different combinations of the same software options, with a few extra patches; I don't believe there are nearly 'thousands' of unique code bases, and even then there has to be very large exposed code segments common to many of them. (eg: What if a remote code exploitation flaw was discovered in Apache? )

    Having said that, the variability in file paths, memory locations, patches, versions available, or even what windowing system libraries are would make any potential issue much more limited in scope compared to over 1/3 of all computers on the net affected by either a xp, or windows 7 flaw.

  16. Re:Consumables vs New. on Ask Slashdot: Do You Trust When a Vendor Tells You To Buy New Parts? · · Score: 1

    If there is enough dust around that this is a valid tactic, then an even more cost effective one might be to get a better dust filter on the aircon, not have carpeted floors, and a couple of other things, to minimize the dust problem.

  17. Re:Damned if they do... on Microsoft Reads Your Skype Chat Messages · · Score: 3, Insightful
    the other thing here is this only makes it clear that the link is "accessed" -- it's quite possible that the link is not persisted in any way. In that case this would just be an automated part of the message passing process, and not a record of the conversation.

    It depends on if skype is sending all chats, or just the links. It depends on if microsoft is archiving what it receives or just checking them for malware. As usual, more information is required to make an informed judgement on this issue.

  18. Re:Using Macs could have prevented this! on IE 0-Day Flaw Used In Chinese Attack · · Score: 1

    some firewalls are much more resiliant to malicious attempts to access the internet than junkware like zone alarm ( see http://www.matousec.com/projects/proactive-security-challenge/ for a review of how well firewalls prevent unwanted access, rather than just block standard requests )

  19. Re:Sounds good except that I ..... on Start-up Claims SSD Achieves 180,000 IOPS · · Score: 1

    probably number 2 -- all you need to do is to have you wear levelling software swap infrequently written cells onto frequently written ones, once some write disparity has arisen. something like:

    onWrite(data,location){
        if(location.writeCount>threshold*drive.writeMinimum){
            write(drive.writeMinimum.data,location)
            write(data,drive.writeMinimum)
        } else
            write(data,location)
    }

    (i'm sure this is a sub-optimal implementation, but then i'm not officially a hardware expert, or even a programmer, just a science grad student)

  20. Re:Damn voyeurism is all it is on Why Anonymized Data Isn't · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i think i found a new sig (a bit too long for /. unfortunately):
      "why is it "marketing" when a company helps itself to my information against my will and "piracy" or "industrial espionage" if I helped myself to THEIR zeroes and ones against their will?"

  21. Re:One word on UK's Oldest Computer To Be "Rebooted" · · Score: 1

    of cogs?

  22. Re:These peanuts are the BOMB! on ACLU Sues For Records On Border Laptop Searches · · Score: 1

    overwrite with 0's / random data multiple times to ensure that not a single bit of usable data remains.

    (not that it has been shown that you can recover data which has been overwritten even once with any degree of certanty (i believe the best that was done was recovering data overwritten once with zeros at between 80 and 90% success per bit, and that was an old drive using techniques which are not realistic today. the cost would be quite a few seconds electron microscope time per bit, so unless you potentially have data worth several thousand billion $, return on investment of extracting data is negative on any modern hard drive)

  23. Re:Wolf 360 hack on Dirty Coding Tricks To Make a Deadline · · Score: 1

    funny mod?!
    its only funny when wonder why you segfault because you forget to turn off fog rendering ...

  24. Re:My business plan includes world domination on Intel's Roadmap Includes 4nm Fab in 2022 · · Score: 1

    the grand parent wasn't promising 2x the computational speed, and neither was I.
    As someone who does a fair amount of image processing i'm well aware of single processing/multi processing limits, and how 2x3gh ~= 6ghz, it can be quicker or slower, depending on where the bottleneck is.

    eg: the duel processor, quad core mac downstairs is the quickest box i have access to, unless you need lots (>12G) of memory and cpu's (>8), in which case the older altix box (11nodes, 2 cpu's,4G/node)is faster, or if it is a low mem (fits in 2G), sequential job, then my core2 laptop is the quickest box.

    Pure Ghz wise, the altix box wins hands down, and my laptop comes in last, but for most serious jobs, the 8cpu's are better, and for minor jobs, 1 cpu wins easly.

  25. Re:Wolf 360 hack on Dirty Coding Tricks To Make a Deadline · · Score: 2, Funny

    my favorite hack is doing object click detection by rendering objects in a function pointer (4 byte pointers, rgba colour buffer .... ) -- when you click, a render pass is done with no lighting, effects, ... , and with each object coloured according <rgbaColour>object->onClick. To act on a click, read of the colour of the pixel under the mouse, and call it :)

    (oh, and solaris lies about giving you rgba -- it only gives you rgb -- my code would work on one of the uni servers, but not on another)