I suspect you may be somewhat overestimating the average criminal's technical abilities or knowledge. Maybe if this became a common sort of tool and were used all the time, people might begin to learn how to avoid it, but I can't see it being install on more than a tiny fraction of a percent of laptops for the near future...
Some programming experience might also help, Fortran is still in quite common use in physics and is easy to learn.
C/C++ is generally better than Fortran these days for physics, as it seems to have overtaken Fortran as the most used langauge, although I'm finding myself having to learn Python for my astrophysics.
The Feynman Lectures aren't nearly as relevant as one might think, for an astrophysicist. They'd be brilliant if he wanted to do a general physics degree, but there are far better specialist texts which don't require all the pain of quantum.
They're well worth reading, of course, but Carroll and Ostlie is the better read for the course he wants to do.
Thirded. A lot of people are recommending pop-physics books which are fine for an odd read, but are useless for actually gaining an in-depth knowledge of physics. Carroll and Ostlie is the standard catch-all general reference textbook all the Astrophysics lecturers at my (English) University tend to recommend. I find it very good as a reference text for odd topics I have little knowledge of, but it shouldn't assume too much prior knowledge you don't have - the maths is the important thing to have covered separately, and even then it's rarely very advanced.
As the person says about, not in the age of the Universe. I don't know how old it would have to be, but to be that mass I'm fairly sure it would need to be several times older than the Universe itself at least.
I guess though, the point is noone is really sure what it is yet. My personal guess would be the core of a larger object that somehow lost its envelope, but wasn't dense enough to form a white dwarf, but it's a bit of a mystery.
We've searched for large, dense objects that create dark matter (MACHOs) with microlensing, but there aren't nearly enough. Combined with some other properties of dark matter observed in other galaxies, where it appears to be distinct from normal matter, we're fairly sure now that it's small particles with a mass, such as neutrinos or some as yet undiscovered particle (WIMPs). Wikipedia will probably tell you more.
Yes but they don't have such high densities - I think the point is that it's a huge anomaly for it to have such a high mass with such a small radius - it probably has to be way denser than any brown dwarf could be (as it would have to contain a lot of elements heavier than helium).
I might be wrong, this is just the impression I got as a physics undergrad.
Is it just me, or is the important part of this not "band makes music video" but than 75% of organisations will deny a legitimate request under the Freedom of Information Act? Surely someone should be investigating this...
Only a few people need to have a lot of servers for there to be 18 servers for every 15 customers. To be honest, I'm surprised the ratio is so low, I would have guessed most hosting in a similar environment would be by people who'd want at least 2 servers for redundancy/backup/speed reasons...
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, your grammar is appalling, but I think you're trying to say the need for communication means all systems should be networked.
Why does communication need to be on the same network as the critical systems? Surely critical systems should be kept off ANY system connected to the internet. Hell, even communications should probably be done over a private network/system that isn't integrated with the main internet...
You beat me to it - hell, my old SCHOOL didn't have their servers that contained student records connected to the internet, and this was back 5+ years ago when people were less well educated on these things.
That ANY major infrastructure would be connected to the internet is shocking, and I'd really like to believe that people aren't that stupid...
Is it just me, or does it seem somewhat odd to make a low budget PC quite so flash and stylish? Surely, if you're trying to get sales by having THE cheapest machine on the market, then perhaps people might not care how it looks so much as how much it costs?
I would have thought you could shave at least $50 off the price if you built it in a really boring, plain case, without silly stands or LED buttons...
Who cares what's been or not been on Digg? I read slashdot for my tech news, if they started only publishing stories that hadn't been published anywhere else, we wouldn't get much news...
Now, a 2 year old Idle story being forced onto everyone's front page, that's a better thing to moan about...
1. Being able to have 4Gb of RAM and my graphics card 2. All sorts of improved usability things, such as the sidebar, searchable start menu et cetera. I'm sure you CAN hack them into XP, I just don't have the time to do that. 3. Volume manager that lets you change the volume of different programs (such as muting Firefox).
I'll happily admit there aren't loads of extras over XP, but there are lots of little things I find useful. It doesn't have to give me a blowjob every time I turn it on to be useful to me, and I've found it worth the money spent (I bought an OEM edition). I've not noticed any performance slowdown, but maybe that's just my PC being pretty fast.
I've never claimed it's the best thing ever, I just have never had any troubles with Vista and don't see why it's so despised. I don't think it's a huge upgrade from XP, but I do believe it's an upgrade nonetheless.
Because I wanted every other Vista feature bar one? And UAC is a good idea for the average user, just not necessarily for the average slashdot reader. It's not like it's hard to turn on and off...
I bought Vista, I use Vista, and once I turned off UAC I've had no problems with Vista. I think the hatred for it is overstated, and largely perpetuated by people who don't use it - the only problem I've had is a lack of printer drivers for a printer, and that's because Samsung want to sell new printers rather than make new drivers for their old ones...
Slashdot Mirror
Fortunately for Homer Simpson, that's @aol.com
I suspect you may be somewhat overestimating the average criminal's technical abilities or knowledge. Maybe if this became a common sort of tool and were used all the time, people might begin to learn how to avoid it, but I can't see it being install on more than a tiny fraction of a percent of laptops for the near future...
Some programming experience might also help, Fortran is still in quite common use in physics and is easy to learn.
C/C++ is generally better than Fortran these days for physics, as it seems to have overtaken Fortran as the most used langauge, although I'm finding myself having to learn Python for my astrophysics.
The Feynman Lectures aren't nearly as relevant as one might think, for an astrophysicist. They'd be brilliant if he wanted to do a general physics degree, but there are far better specialist texts which don't require all the pain of quantum.
They're well worth reading, of course, but Carroll and Ostlie is the better read for the course he wants to do.
Thirded. A lot of people are recommending pop-physics books which are fine for an odd read, but are useless for actually gaining an in-depth knowledge of physics. Carroll and Ostlie is the standard catch-all general reference textbook all the Astrophysics lecturers at my (English) University tend to recommend. I find it very good as a reference text for odd topics I have little knowledge of, but it shouldn't assume too much prior knowledge you don't have - the maths is the important thing to have covered separately, and even then it's rarely very advanced.
I mean, I once heard of a farmer who gave the keys to the henhouse to a fox. And, guess what? The next day: no more chicken! What a surprise!
That's a pretty damn talented fox!
As the person says about, not in the age of the Universe. I don't know how old it would have to be, but to be that mass I'm fairly sure it would need to be several times older than the Universe itself at least.
I guess though, the point is noone is really sure what it is yet. My personal guess would be the core of a larger object that somehow lost its envelope, but wasn't dense enough to form a white dwarf, but it's a bit of a mystery.
We don't need to worry until it rings Bill Gates...
We've searched for large, dense objects that create dark matter (MACHOs) with microlensing, but there aren't nearly enough. Combined with some other properties of dark matter observed in other galaxies, where it appears to be distinct from normal matter, we're fairly sure now that it's small particles with a mass, such as neutrinos or some as yet undiscovered particle (WIMPs). Wikipedia will probably tell you more.
Yes but they don't have such high densities - I think the point is that it's a huge anomaly for it to have such a high mass with such a small radius - it probably has to be way denser than any brown dwarf could be (as it would have to contain a lot of elements heavier than helium).
I might be wrong, this is just the impression I got as a physics undergrad.
Works for me with it on - you must have REALLY aggressive filter rules...
This is true, I went and actual READ a bit of the Act, and it does indeed only cover government and similar organisations.
It would be interesting to know, though, if any of the refusals came from any such organisations...
Is it just me, or is the important part of this not "band makes music video" but than 75% of organisations will deny a legitimate request under the Freedom of Information Act? Surely someone should be investigating this...
Only a few people need to have a lot of servers for there to be 18 servers for every 15 customers. To be honest, I'm surprised the ratio is so low, I would have guessed most hosting in a similar environment would be by people who'd want at least 2 servers for redundancy/backup/speed reasons...
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, your grammar is appalling, but I think you're trying to say the need for communication means all systems should be networked.
Why does communication need to be on the same network as the critical systems? Surely critical systems should be kept off ANY system connected to the internet. Hell, even communications should probably be done over a private network/system that isn't integrated with the main internet...
You beat me to it - hell, my old SCHOOL didn't have their servers that contained student records connected to the internet, and this was back 5+ years ago when people were less well educated on these things.
That ANY major infrastructure would be connected to the internet is shocking, and I'd really like to believe that people aren't that stupid...
Well, how much can you simplify playing drums?
Is it just me, or does it seem somewhat odd to make a low budget PC quite so flash and stylish? Surely, if you're trying to get sales by having THE cheapest machine on the market, then perhaps people might not care how it looks so much as how much it costs?
I would have thought you could shave at least $50 off the price if you built it in a really boring, plain case, without silly stands or LED buttons...
Who cares what's been or not been on Digg? I read slashdot for my tech news, if they started only publishing stories that hadn't been published anywhere else, we wouldn't get much news...
Now, a 2 year old Idle story being forced onto everyone's front page, that's a better thing to moan about...
Okay, let's see:
1. Being able to have 4Gb of RAM and my graphics card
2. All sorts of improved usability things, such as the sidebar, searchable start menu et cetera. I'm sure you CAN hack them into XP, I just don't have the time to do that.
3. Volume manager that lets you change the volume of different programs (such as muting Firefox).
I'll happily admit there aren't loads of extras over XP, but there are lots of little things I find useful. It doesn't have to give me a blowjob every time I turn it on to be useful to me, and I've found it worth the money spent (I bought an OEM edition). I've not noticed any performance slowdown, but maybe that's just my PC being pretty fast.
I've never claimed it's the best thing ever, I just have never had any troubles with Vista and don't see why it's so despised. I don't think it's a huge upgrade from XP, but I do believe it's an upgrade nonetheless.
Because I wanted every other Vista feature bar one? And UAC is a good idea for the average user, just not necessarily for the average slashdot reader. It's not like it's hard to turn on and off...
I bought Vista, I use Vista, and once I turned off UAC I've had no problems with Vista. I think the hatred for it is overstated, and largely perpetuated by people who don't use it - the only problem I've had is a lack of printer drivers for a printer, and that's because Samsung want to sell new printers rather than make new drivers for their old ones...
/. - I mean, uh, Microsoft suck!
Wait, this is
You know Apple fandom is getting excessive when a product doesn't even need to exist to get hyped...
..isn't this the plot from The Hulk?