Not for infringing the "page turning" patent - for infringing on their patent of "a method to use the US Patent Office for anti-competitive business tactics".
Password policies are voodoo. They may make it more difficult for stupid users from using weak passwords, but they do not reliably prevent it, and they actively inhibit the use of strong passwords.
While gold has a few industrial applications (in very small amounts), it is precisely as worthless as dollars. In both cases, what determines its worth is solely how much other people are willing to give you for it, or give it to you for. You can see the same volatility in the gold price as you see in Bitcoin, if on a slower scale, with its ebbs and flows dictated by demand. If tomorrow, everyone who owned gold decided that the time was right to sell, the market would implode. There is no magical Ronpaulium contained inside gold that lends it an inherent worth.
What form do those Joules take? Are they contained in the chemical bonds of a potato, a mass atop a gravity well, the heat in a few thousand gallons of luke-warm water? How efficiently and quickly can you get that energy to where you need it? And how do you need it - are you freezing to death in the arctic, starving in the desert, or in need of some electrical power to check your email?
Whenever you to define universal value, Adam Smith's ghost chuckles gently.
1. Not legal tender. 2. Only exchangeable for other goods or currencies at a very small number of markets and merchants.
The Bitcoin system cryptographically and decentrally secures ownership and continued scarcity of the currency. But the real value, as with all currencies including gold, lies in the ability to exchange it. Lose that, and you're pretty much SOL.
(If a small number of actors can destabilize the currency like this, guess how resilient it is against the pressure that national governments can put on it.)
If they were the only ones who said so, I'd be inclined to distrust it too. However, RSA has been around for 36 years now with no serious challenges, so either there is a world-wide conspiracy that controls every single mathematician (or several that between them control all the mathematicians), or it's unbroken.
It's also possible that there are a few mathematicians decades ahead of current research that all work for various governments, but considering how much of mathematical work is derivative now, it seems far too unlikely that some unaffiliated researcher wouldn't have stumbled across the discovery independently.
(Well, or the NSA has a working quantum computer that can do work on a useful scale, which goes back to "decades ahead of current research".)
Any flicker at 100Hz or faster is imperceptible to humans (and even that's pretty generous; the actual threshold is lower). This is 30-180MHz; a million times as fast.
Slashdot Mirror
Not for infringing the "page turning" patent - for infringing on their patent of "a method to use the US Patent Office for anti-competitive business tactics".
I get my groceries on a bicycle. Beat that.
As an atheist I am averse to toast with the face of Jesus on it. :P
Just be glad you don't have to pay a license fee for that technique. See, this lawyer tried to patent it, but...
Password policies are voodoo. They may make it more difficult for stupid users from using weak passwords, but they do not reliably prevent it, and they actively inhibit the use of strong passwords.
You're saying that like it's a bad thing. I might end up buying a TV.
"We demand to see your email account."
"Sure, let me just go over to Gmail and make one especially for you."
Because terrorists are way too dumb to sign up for more than one email account.
This is what happens when you leave laws and the justice system to the control of the wealthy. In what alternate reality is that "lefty"?
People will never agree about what constitutes news for nerds, but the following should be pretty much common ground:
* Things that go beep.
* Things that go boom.
Because otherwise they'll be buried in suits from MS and Samsung before you can say Prior Art.
Next you'll be telling me that my deeds to lunar real estate are not legally enforceable. :P
(...)
And serve it through Tor. Darknets aren't suited for BitTorrent traffic, but they're perfect for trackers and search engines.
While gold has a few industrial applications (in very small amounts), it is precisely as worthless as dollars. In both cases, what determines its worth is solely how much other people are willing to give you for it, or give it to you for. You can see the same volatility in the gold price as you see in Bitcoin, if on a slower scale, with its ebbs and flows dictated by demand. If tomorrow, everyone who owned gold decided that the time was right to sell, the market would implode. There is no magical Ronpaulium contained inside gold that lends it an inherent worth.
What form do those Joules take? Are they contained in the chemical bonds of a potato, a mass atop a gravity well, the heat in a few thousand gallons of luke-warm water? How efficiently and quickly can you get that energy to where you need it? And how do you need it - are you freezing to death in the arctic, starving in the desert, or in need of some electrical power to check your email?
Whenever you to define universal value, Adam Smith's ghost chuckles gently.
1. Not legal tender.
2. Only exchangeable for other goods or currencies at a very small number of markets and merchants.
The Bitcoin system cryptographically and decentrally secures ownership and continued scarcity of the currency. But the real value, as with all currencies including gold, lies in the ability to exchange it. Lose that, and you're pretty much SOL.
(If a small number of actors can destabilize the currency like this, guess how resilient it is against the pressure that national governments can put on it.)
This was a Doctor Who story!
(The nice thing about this watch, of course, is that you absolutely could make it do that while looking up your calendar or time table.)
And phones that lasted for weeks, too.
"[n] seconds until your appointment/train departure/etc."
While approximate time of day is a useful gimmick, you don't really need a watch to keep track of that.
If they were the only ones who said so, I'd be inclined to distrust it too. However, RSA has been around for 36 years now with no serious challenges, so either there is a world-wide conspiracy that controls every single mathematician (or several that between them control all the mathematicians), or it's unbroken.
It's also possible that there are a few mathematicians decades ahead of current research that all work for various governments, but considering how much of mathematical work is derivative now, it seems far too unlikely that some unaffiliated researcher wouldn't have stumbled across the discovery independently.
(Well, or the NSA has a working quantum computer that can do work on a useful scale, which goes back to "decades ahead of current research".)
Because who could have possibly seen THAT coming. Seriously, this is my shocked face.
(and proceed to slap both of them on the back of the head)
Any flicker at 100Hz or faster is imperceptible to humans (and even that's pretty generous; the actual threshold is lower). This is 30-180MHz; a million times as fast.