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22736392
comment
byJoeBuck
@09:26AM
(#36921074)
Attached to: Google Buys IBM Patents
Possibly they think that Apple (who's making lots of chips these days) may be infringing those patents, so it would be something to countersue with if Apple attacks Android.
18916370
comment
byJoeBuck
011 @09:14PM
(#35052760)
Attached to: Atomic Disguise Makes Helium Look Like Hydrogen
Helium behaves as it does (as an inert gas) because its outer shell is filled. The Pauli exclusion principle means that you can't force another electron into the same place, so an He+ ion would have its extra electron in a higher energy level and very loosely attached. But the Pauli exclusion principle doesn't apply if you have one electron and one muon; the muon's average position is much closer to the nucleus (since the muon is about 200 times heavier), shielding the positive charge of the nucleus. So to any other atom the "helium atom" looks as if it were a very heavy hydrogen atom, as if it had one proton and three neutrons in its nucleus.
Also, the muon's half-life is less than 2 microseconds, so any experiments have to be done very, very quickly.
18783088
comment
byJoeBuck
011 @09:50PM
(#34977730)
Attached to: Is Retaliation the Answer To Cyber Attacks?
Any competent attackers will cover their tracks, often making it appear that the source of the attack is in a completely different country. It's fairly easy to frame someone and make it look credible.
18150500
comment
byJoeBuck
2010 @04:15PM
(#34609910)
Attached to: Is Going To an Elite College Worth the Cost?
Many of the most elite schools have a "legacy admissions" policy (that's how the C-student George W. Bush managed to get into Yale). It gives the children of alumni priority admission, because they want their richer alumni to keep contributing money, and denying little Biff or Muffy their admission would be bad business. It's affirmative action for the rich.
16590870
comment
byJoeBuck
2010 @10:34PM
(#33707782)
Attached to: Iris Scanning Set To Secure City In Mexico
If someone manages to make a copy of your iris to create contact lenses that let them pose as you, we'll just issue you a new iris.
16399306
comment
byJoeBuck
2010 @10:29PM
(#33632112)
Attached to: Distinguishing Encrypted Data From Random Data?
Useful data are not random. If it looks random, and you're devoting disk space to it, the investigator will assume that it is encrypted, or is key material for encryption (e.g. a one-time pad). Why else would you have lots of random data around?
15760516
comment
byJoeBuck
010 @11:07PM
(#33432490)
Attached to: New Silicon-Based Memory 5X Denser Than NAND Flash
... which may limit how much of the 3rd dimension you can use.
15421690
comment
byJoeBuck
2010 @02:02PM
(#33326706)
Attached to: Throwing Out Software That Works
If it were only Flash it wouldn't be that big a deal. But Jobs wants a monopoly and wants to prevent any development platform that would let you write once, and wind up with an app that runs on an iPhone, a Droid, any other Android phone, and a Blackberry by providing an abstraction layer. The fanboys will complain that such an abstraction might result in an app that is somehow 10% worse than a "native" app. Big deal; if both kinds of apps existed you could choose the kind you prefer, but it shouldn't be up to Jobs.
14840662
comment
byJoeBuck
2010 @08:00PM
(#33145908)
Attached to: Market Data Firm Spots the Tracks of Bizarre Robot Trading
... that is, if people are doing this kind of thing to gum up the works for their competition, one answer is to assess a very small fee per trade, less than a penny. This would be completely negligible to a normal investor, but could be quite expensive to those trying to saturate the system for the benefit of their trading algorithm. Market-makers like Goldman Sachs would also wind up paying significant amounts, but given their privileged position which basically gives them a license to print money it's only fair. The fees collected could go into an insurance fund to help cover the next financial meltdown, and if it slows down trading a bit, that may well be a good thing. Complex nonlinear systems have a tendency to go unstable, and damping is one way of decreasing this possibility.
14795666
comment
byJoeBuck
010 @05:04PM
(#33131096)
Attached to: No, Net Neutrality Doesn't Violate the 5th Amendment
There's a fringe of zealots who think (falsely) that any government action that imposes any restriction on anyone is a "taking", which would make zoning laws invalid. Sorry, that's fantasy law, not real law. It's true that if regulations go so far as to make the property completely useless to the owner, this might amount to a regulatory taking. But this is a very high bar. Since net neutrality would impose rules on ISPs that are very similar to the laws already imposed on telephone companies, these kinds of arguments aren't going to go very far.
14758836
comment
byJoeBuck
10 @08:11PM
(#33118450)
Attached to: Sun Founders' Push For Open Source Education
If a school district decides to commission a textbook as a work made for hire, and pays the authors handsomely, and then makes the work free, it can be a win-win. The authors get a guaranteed amount, but they won't collect royalties going forward. The schools don't go broke buying expensive textbooks, and poorer districts can benefit. Textbook writers can be booked again when revisions are made.
Of course, it will be possible to identify people that make less money. That's life.
14663670
comment
byJoeBuck
010 @01:28PM
(#33059542)
Attached to: What To Do About CC License Violations?
Begin by sending a polite request to remove the content that is being used without permission.
14663624
comment
byJoeBuck
010 @01:25PM
(#33059510)
Attached to: What To Do About CC License Violations?
Boing Boing releases their stuff using a license that would prevent others from picking it all up on a different web site and selling ads. This doesn't give them the right to use others' work in a way that conflicts with the license (other than fair use, which might allow for a thumbnail link).
I think that this license violation on their part was inadvertent, the author of the web page thought he was filing his personal "I'm on vacation" announcement and forgot about the ads. In the case of BoingBoing I would politely ask them to take it down, and to respect that "noncommercial" means "don't attach ads to this". The copyright holder can still decide to grant permission if asked politely.
14663512
comment
byJoeBuck
010 @01:20PM
(#33059406)
Attached to: What To Do About CC License Violations?
There's an intermediate step: send them a DMCA takedown notice. If they defy it, then you have to decide whether you want to sue.
14633482
comment
byJoeBuck
@11:03PM
(#33040444)
Attached to: Your Online Education Experience?
You know, the kind that advertise. It's a racket; they'll take your money, or financial aid money from the government, and give you a "degree". They don't want to let you skip "learning" what you already know because they want your cash.
You need a legitimate institution, a community college or a state university.
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●System-level CAD hacker and member of the GCC (formerly egcs) steering committee. This means that I get to deal with
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The Maker
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Re:Build custom Google chips???
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Chemicall, it's not helium at all
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What if you "retaliate" against the wrong target?
●
Did they factor in legacy admissions?
(Score:4, Insightful)
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