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Comment Teach Science in School (Score 1) 360

The subject sounds offtopic, but seriously, a clear, natural, everyday usage of the scientific method to solve problems would make your average user be capable of sending meaningful bug reports,because they would understand how problems are solved in the most general sense. They would realize that in order to diagnose where a problem is coming from, all of the possible sources of that problem must be independently tested in a controlled way. Doing that by nature makes for naturally good bug reports.
Slashdot.org

Upcoming Changes To 'Ask Slashdot' 230

We're pleased to announce that changes are coming to the Ask Slashdot section. Ask Slashdot is a place to get your technical questions answered, show off your big brain by helping others, debate products and practices, and occasionally talk directly to companies about their offerings. Over the years, we've posted more than 7700 questions, on everything from workplace relations to home networking to evading censorship from unfriendly regimes. Starting tomorrow, you'll see that some Ask Slashdot questions have their own sponsors; the sponsors don't pick the questions, but experts from each sponsor will stick around for the discussion. Next up: we're making it easier for you to submit questions. Our goal is to make Ask Slashdot your "go-to" place for answers to your pressing nerd questions. So please post your questions, put on your answering hats, and come along for the ride.

Comment Re:30 years later... (Score 2) 166

I'd say that the hardware for collecting data has substantially improved with time too (imaging sensors, etc.). Not to mention storage capacity, and I'm sure there is plenty of other stuff I can't think of right now, even if launching technology hasn't changed much. There could definitely be huge benefits.

Comment Question About Voyager(s)... (Score 4, Interesting) 166

It receives commands from Earth, and it's 34 years old. What's to keep enemies of the United States from sending it bad instructions, or from collecting all data it sends back to us? I realize that Voyager isn't of any military importance, but I guess this is more of a hypothetical question. Does it use some type of encryption? Is that encryption still unbreakable today? The keys haven't been compromised after all this time? Just curious.

Comment Re:Hell I might build one for home (Score 2) 161

The reason the companies won't sell you an unprotected AVI file isn't that they're afraid you'll put it on TPB (where they know it will be no matter what, as you pointed out). It's that they're afraid that people who have no idea what TPB is (ie most people) will be ble to share and copy those unprotected AVI files, and sales will go down because frankly, the people who don't know what TPB is are the HUGE majority of those people who are willing to pay for movies...Not people like you.

Comment From a Photographer... (Score 2) 569

Take it from a professional photographer (http://facebook.com/keysphotography)...Buy a Canon PowerShot. Get the cheapest one you can buy with optical "IS" (image stabilization). I'd shoot for the $130-180 price range. From the sound of your post, you aren't interested in donating a HUGE portion of your time and effort into learning how to make a photograph, and you are concerned about price. That's fine, but because of the former of those two, you will not see ANY improvement in image quality with price past about $150. Photography is ~95% about your abilities and ~5% about your equipment in everyday scenarios. That extra 5% of goodness goes a long way for pros who have already maxed out the 95% that comes from skill, but you are not those people. The extra weight, price, and bulk of a DSLR will only be a bad thing for you, because it will make you do the worst thing you can possibly do: Not bring your camera somewhere (due to laziness, fear of destruction, or lack of space, respectively).

Comment Re:Some Ideas... (Score 1) 2

Thank you very much for all the great suggestions! Museums are definitely possibilities for the trip, especially since some of the ones you mentioned are so big, but I am a little more curious to know of places where science is actually done (or has been done), which can also be toured by the public, like the examples I listed in the original post. Thanks again!
Software

Secure Syslog Replacement Proposed 248

LinuxScribe writes with this bit from IT World: "In an effort to foil crackers' attempts to cover their tracks by altering text-based syslogs, and improve the syslog process as a whole, developers Lennart Poettering and Kay Sievers are proposing a new tool called The Journal. Using key/value pairs in a binary format, The Journal is already stirring up a lot of objections." Log entries are "cryptographically hashed along with the hash of the previous entry in the file" resulting in a verifiable chain of entries. This is being done as an extension to systemd (git branch). The design doesn't just make logging more secure, but introduces a number of overdue improvements to the logging process. It's even compatible with the standard syslog interface allowing it to either coexist with or replace the usual syslog daemon with minimal disruption.
Science

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Science Sights to See? 2

steevven1 writes: "My girlfriend and I are planning a long trip across the United States for this summer, and we'd like to see the usual sights, but we both have a bit of a geeky side, and we were trying to think of science-related marvels to see along the way. So far, we have thought of places like the Very Large Array in New Mexico and Fermilab in Illinois. Any suggestions?"

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