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User: AtomicDevice

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  1. AWS needs to fix things up on AWS Urges Devs To Scrub Secret Keys From GitHub · · Score: 0

    People aren't putting their secret keys into code _just_ because they are dumb, it's also by far the simplest way to write code that uses amazon services from inside ec2. There are other (not particularly complicated and very secure) ways to do it, but amazon should probably look into making those so dead-simple no one would even think of using something else.

  2. Steeeeeeeeeam Machiiiiiine on Valve Announces Hardware Beta Test For 'Steam Machine' · · Score: 0

    Did no one else think of that immediately?

  3. Neuromancer! on Ask Slashdot: High-School Suitable Books On How Computers Affect Society? · · Score: 1

    It's got a ninja-lady in space!

  4. Re:Naked? on The Rails Girls Are Coming to a City Near You (Video) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought:
    "I bet the first comment on this article is going to be obnoxious and misogynist"

    I was right!

  5. Um. on Facebook Silently Removes Ability To Download Your Posts · · Score: 1

    https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/search/
    https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/post/

    Maybe they just replaced it with something better? Maybe learn how to use google for even a single moment? I don't recall facebook ever promising to me that they would meet my every data need if I signed up for their free ad-supported service.

    Maybe build a tron canoe to ride on your river of digital tears?

  6. Re:Oh, good on EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Insecticides · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Forget about "greedy" beekeepers - neonicotiniods are indiscriminate insecticides. They'll kill any pollinator unlucky enough to be on the wrong plant. You know, pollinators that pollinate crops, maybe you heard about pollination, it's this crazy thing that makes your food exist.

    This isn't just a beekeeper issue, plenty of farmers depend on bees (almond growers, blueberries, oranges, etc) to pollinate their crop. The california almond crop isn't a crop at all without migratory bees.

    In other news: these pesticides are chronic toxins, they build up in bees until the whole colony keels over. There's other not-so-long-lived insecticides (i.e. organophosphate) that can be safely used even where bees are going to be, because it breaks down quickly, and unless the bees receive a lethal dose, they'll be able to pass the toxin.

    Whine about beekeeper's all you want, you're still pissing in the well if you think using nonspecific pesticides are going to do anything other than breed tougher bugs. Why do we keep having to develop nastier and nastier pesticides anyways? Because pests are becoming resistant to all the old ones because of overuse.

  7. Re:Oh, good on EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Insecticides · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not magic, honey has a low ph and high osmotic pressure (i.e. high sugar/water ratio) which lend it's antimicrobial properties. Plenty of beekeepers feed a solution of sugar similar in concentration and ph to their bees.

  8. WHAT!!?!? on Washington AG Slams T-Mobile Over Deceptive 'No-Contract' Ads · · Score: 1

    You mean to tell me that T-Mobile isn't selling smartphones for the low-low price of a single month of their cheapest plan?!!?!? THAT'S A RIDICULOUS ASSAULT ON MY RIGHTS AND INTERNET PRIVACY AND STUFF!!!

    Really? Who cares about this?

  9. Re:Nintendo needs to rethink its place in the worl on Is the Wii U Already Dead? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    YOU can do whatever you want, Valve in the meantime is drowning in a firehose of cash.

  10. Buzzword attack. on Just Say No To College · · Score: 1

    Holey moley, if I was allergic to buzzwords I'd be in anaphylactic shock right now. Could the have possibly crammed more buzzwords into the summary?

    Really all that needs to be said for going to college: "don't be stupid"

    Racking up huge debt for a worthless degree when you aren't already rich? Stupid.

    Taking gen-ed classes at community college and then transferring into a state college to get your degree? Smart.

  11. is it more than just solar cell efficiency that's preventing the creation of a solar-powered airliner?

    Short answer: No.

    Why do we keep using fossil fuels really (in a non-conspiracy theory world)? Two words: energy density.

    Gasoline has a significantly higher energy density than many (most?) explosives. TNT, gunpowder, etc. Compare that to batteries, solar cells, capacitors, whatever, you aren't even anywhere on the same chart. Jet fuel has an even higher energy density than gasoline. On top of that, the best solar cells ever are something like

    Think about those solar planes you've seen. Super light weight, incredibly long wings with a super high aspect ratio (wingspan/chord). Often designed to fly at high altitude (above clouds). The kind of wingspan and PV cell area needed for a many-passenger plane would be astronomical. Maybe if PV cells were hyper-efficient, but even then, you can only optimize so much. I highly doubt that completely weightless 100% efficient solar cells completely covering a modern jet in perfectly clear weather at high noon would generate as much power as those jet engines do.

  12. Maybe actually measure efficiency? on Will EU Regulations Effectively Ban High-End Video Cards? · · Score: 2

    Measure by joules/floating-point operation, and I bet video cards win hands-down every time over any other kind of computing unit. If you want to perform certain types of calculations (like, I dunno, graphics), a GPU is the most efficient way to do it. Now that's not to say that some GPUs aren't much more efficient that other per op. Especially when you consider the power they use while not cranking out a top-end game, I'm sure the field opens up even more. But measuring a card by total draw is dumb.

  13. Shotgun. on Ask Slashdot: Video Monitors For Areas That Are Off the Grid? · · Score: 1

    Wait in a ground blind with a boomstick and give em a taste of frontier justice (where justice == birdshot)

    Seriously though, the comment about trail cameras is right on. Motion activated camera that's self contained and battery powered. Designed for locating and tracking game movements, sounds like it would be perfect for your situation.

    Double seriously, trying to wait out for them and firing some blanks and generally appearing to be a totally unhinged redneck might go a long way to scaring them off. Plus it would be a hell of a lot of fun, legal issues not withstanding.

  14. What happened? on What Happened To Diaspora, the Facebook Killer? It's Complicated · · Score: 1

    Nothing at all

    womp womp

  15. Whaaaaa on Windows 8 Has Scaling Issues On High-PPI Displays · · Score: 1

    IE10 HAVE RENDER ISSUES ME NO BELIEVE.

    I get that it's really hard to make a browser do everything right, but if you're going to push IE as such a major competitor to other browsers, maybe make it less of a steaming pile? The web browser is basically a commodity nowadays, drawing things right is just about the only thing that matters.

  16. Re:Probably and andriod fork/knockoff on Alibaba Says Google Threatened Acer With Banishment From Android · · Score: 1

    I don't think microsoft is doing a whole lot to support mozilla, they just don't actively shut it down. Google doesn't have to pay engineers to help acer if they don't want, microsoft sure doesn't pay mozilla engineers.

  17. In other news: on BMW Cars Vulnerable To Blank Key Attack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Highly advanced cyber-thieves discover method to steal cars with a coat hanger and a screw driver! Everyone cower in terror!

    Not that this isn't dumb security on BMW's part, but the thing keeping people from stealing your car is their conscience and the police, not your hyper-powerful super-locks. They might keep some dumb teenagers out of your car, but not car thieves who buy blank keys on the black market and learn to reprogram them.

  18. Re:Vaccines should be mandatory. on Study Finds Unvaccinated Students Putting Other Students At Risk · · Score: 1

    So if hitler did it that means we can't do it? Goodbye highways, you'll be missed. I guess we'll just kiss interstate trade goodbye until we build a bazillion railroads (what's that hitler? You used railroads too!? Oh Crap.)

    You don't want to get vaccinated? Fine, go live in the mountains and never make contact with everyone. For the same reason we don't let people walk around strapped with unstable explosives (it's dangerous), we don't let people not get vaccinated (it's dangerous).

    But but but! Almost no one gets that disease anyways, and my little johnny has a one in a billion chance of a bad reaction to the vaccine! NO ONE GETS THAT DISEASE BECAUSE THEY ALL GOT VACCINATED.

  19. Meh on The Cost To 'Promote' a Facebook Post: $200 To $500 · · Score: 1

    Facebook has all kinds of data analysis capabilities - I'm sure they didn't just pull this price out of their butt, but if they did, or if they are being pressured into these prices by investors, they need to nut up and let their data lead the way. What's a couple hundred bucks to a company selling a gigantic multi-million-$-revenue product - especially if facebook can use their data to target it and verify it?

    Problems with bot clicks? Whatever, build that into the price. Also, I've never once clicked on a tv or newspaper ad, and yet advertisers seem to have no problem selling those.

  20. Tools! on Ask Slashdot: Good Books and Tools For a Software/Hardware Hobbyist? · · Score: 3, Informative

    I vote tools.
    1) Really nice electronics-oriented multimeter. I'm sure he has one already, but it might be cheap/lacking in function/etc
    2) O-scope. Super handy and fun too. Old analog ones can be had for cheap. Check craigslist and ebay.
    3) Logic analyzer/Bus Pirate. I realize these are two pretty different things, but they fill a similar place in the "debugging digital stuff" category.

    Other than tools, I think some kind of audio kit/project would be cool. IMO nothing helps you learn more about how electronics really work than analog audio, synthesizers, amps, etc. It really helps connect the concepts of how voltage/current/power/etc are connected since it all ends up in a very tangible (audible) medium.

    Plus: Boom Boxes are sweet. It's a scientific fact.

  21. Translation on Microsoft Buys 800 AOL Patents For $1 Billion · · Score: 2

    AOL's CEO today said at a press release: "Although no one uses any of the products or services we provide anymore, we're still able to leech off of a broken patent system to make a huge amount of money for me."

  22. Less evil, more science on Majority of Landmark Cancer Studies Cannot Be Replicated · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While certainly there are those who will publish findings they know to be false, that's not really the big issue I see here. Good science demands that studies be replicated so they can be upheld or refuted. Sure, there's confirmation bias in science all over the place - the bigger problem I see is that there's very little incentive to publish a paper that simply refutes another. Busting existing studies should be a glorious field, but it's not. If big-name scientist A publishes a result in nature, and no-name scientist B publishes a paper in the journal-of-no-one-reads-it, everyone just assumes scientist B is just a bad scientist (assuming he even managed to actually get published at all).

    Another major issue is that the null hypothesis is a very un-enticing story. No one wants to publish the paper: "New Drug does nothing to cure cancer". If you spent a year and a ton of money researching New Drug, you're damn sure going to try and make it work. It's unfortunate, because often the null hypothesis is very informative, but it doesn't get you paid or published. Or how about the psychology paper: "Brain does not respond to stimulus A in any meaningful way", don't remember that paper? That's because it never got published.

    I think this is less about malicious behavior, and more about a lack of interest (which can somewhat be blamed on the way universities/journals/grants handle funding, notoriety, etc) in replicating and refuting studies.

    Do you want to be the guy who cured cancer, or the guy who disproved a bunch of studies?

  23. New idea! on Spider Silk Spun Into Violin Strings · · Score: 0

    What if we could some how extract the protiens from snake oil and make strings with that? snakes are long and tough, and some of them make cool noises. Maybe we could rub snake oil into the wood as well.

    Whenever you hear something about violin sound, your BS meter should be going off the scale. Many tests have shown that professional musicians have a really hard time distinguishing between new and old instruments, strativaris or modern copies, etc. Almost all violins are made with the same materials and are copies of the same designs. So long as they meet some baseline of quality in construction and materials, it becomes largely a matter of personal preference for the performer in terms of what sound they like and what instrument they want to play.

    Also everytime I hear 'audiophiles' talk about the qualities of a particular sound (i.e. 'soft and profound timbre') it makes me want to gag. What a load of BS. If you can't be specific in the differences in sound quality (better sustain, flatter frequency response) it's probably because there _aren't_ any differences. If it can't be measured with a 'scope, it's probably just not there. Go take some homeopathic medicine for your magic ears.

  24. Loose the videogames on Ask Slashdot: Do Kids Still Take Interest In Programming For Its Own Sake? · · Score: 1

    Every time I hear about teaching kids to program, it's all about the videogames. Kids like videogames right? So they should like programming them right? Wrong. How many young girls make their own makeup out of egg whites and whale barf (It's none)? How many boys are just chomping at the bit to build an injection molding machine so they can make a super soaker (none again)?

    Why not use programming to let kids solve problems they hate, do work they don't want to do. Just like in the real world, I hate correcting spelling errors in a million documents, but my computer doesn't mind.

    I bet johnny would be thrilled to discover that he could write a computer program to do his math homework, and I bet he'd be a lot better at the math as well, since he would have to exactly encode every step of the solution in an algorithm (as opposed to a mix of wrote memorization and guessing that often goes on in math classes).

    Statistics too, is the perfect place for programming in schools. No one in the world performs any meaningful statistics without using computer programs, so why should students? It's way more important that they understand what a t-test is for and where to use it than that they know exactly how to compute it by hand and the proof for why it's valid.

  25. Listen to publishers? on The eBook Backlash · · Score: 2

    Who cares what publishers (or many authors for that matter) think about what's good for reading? Publishers have shown time and time again that the little they know about e-publishing terrifies them. They just want to stick their head in the sand and go back to paper, they latch on to any tidbit of evidence that people might not like e-books or e-reading. They do all they can to minimize e-book sales to protect their paper business.

    If publishers were smart, they could get way more people reading way more books, and make a lot more money off it. They need to get over their fears about e-publishing and move fast before piracy becomes the norm in the book world, just like it did in the music and video world.