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Comment Re:Nonsense! (Score 1) 340

How do the creators of this thing say it's perfect?

They have computed every possible game of limit hold'em poker. Based on these computations, the bot will always pick the optimal hand for the given situation (or possibly fold). Yes, it may lose a hand here or there, but the point is that over the long term, given enough hands, it will always beat imperfect (read human) players.

Comment Re:Perfect? Really? (Score 1) 340

Limit hold'em is real poker, and people actually do play it, at real casinos and everything.

Meh, it's nothing more than advanced blackjack... In real poker, you don't share cards with your adversaries, have wildcards, etc... This "hold'em" poker is just a bunch of tripe to make things look ok for TV.

Comment Re:Re usability (Score 4, Informative) 151

The external tank is jettisoned too high to recover. It was thought that it could be used in space to construct something but that was never done.

As much as this played out in various types of fiction and so forth, the reality is that the tanks wouldn't have been all that useful in orbit. The foam insulation would have off-gassed significantly and dumped all sorts of crap into your orbital environment, and the tanks themselves had nowhere near the shielding required to be used for human habitation (both radiation, and micrometeorite).

Comment Re:Laughably wrong. (Score 1) 386

But in 10 years, every new car sold in the US, including the lowest-end Fiesta, will have options for some degree of automated driving. At the very least, there will be a driverless highway mode.

Why does everyone want to not drive? I find driving to be a particularly enjoyable task, hell I don't even mind being stuck in traffic as long as I have NPR/CBC or decent podcasts to listen to.

Comment Re:Who will get (Score 4, Interesting) 360

It kind of begs the question about what the US is still doing in South Korea anyhow. South Korea is a rich country. They can afford their own defense, but its convenient for them for Uncle Sam to pick up the tab. I have stood on the North side of the DMZ and it is clear that the US is just a thorn in the situation making everybody tense. There is no doubt that the South Koreans can adequately defend themselves against any potential "invasion" from the North. There is no reason for the US to be there. The constant presence of US marines on the DMZ make the North Koreans nervous that the South will invade them.

One of the running half-jokes amongst the US troops and marines in South Korea is their primary purpose is to keep the South Korean army in the south, not the other way around. The US influence keeps the south somewhat calm, and acts as a deterrent to the north.

Comment Re:Celular (Score 2) 115

Cellular is pretty much the only reasonable option given the lack of infrastructure. It can be installed completely wireless, aside from power. And finally, an answer to where the old phones can go.

It already is. I was at GTMO on business, and as I was walking into one of the dining facilities, my cell phone rang. Everyone looked at me like I was from Mars, until I explained that as a Canadian phone, it happily roamed onto the Cuban cell network.

Comment Re:Sure but... (Score 1) 212

Exactly. I work in an environment with very limited bandwidth (1.8Mbps private satellite link servicing ~80 people). SSL by default is the bane of my existence. Right now, I've got Cisco WAAS deployed, and it adds about another 30% of effective capacity to my link, and often more. If everything goes encrypted by default, then I lose all of that. I get no caching gain, no compression gain, nothing, unless I MITM the link, which is evil and causes no end of support headaches.

Encrypt what needs to be encrypted (Authentication mechanisms, financial transactions, etc...) and leave the rest. There's no reason to encrypt cute cat pictures or grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Comment Re:Caller ID spoofing (Score 2) 159

Sure, but you can verify that the ANI (originating number) belongs to a block that the customer is allowed to use. I have a PRI with two 100 blocks associated with it. I would expect that the telco would verify that the originating number I send to the switch is taken from those 200 valid numbers, if only in case someone calls 911 etc...

Comment Re: May I suggest (Score 2) 334

Remember, the old Lee Enfield rifles were never designed as sniper weapons. They were battle rifles first and foremost, which just happened to be pretty serviceable as sniper weapons. Additionally, I don't think the rifles to be replaced are scoped rifles. As far as I know they are simply standard Lee Enfield No.4's.

Years ago, I was working in a research camp in the high arctic, and the Arctic Ranger in our camp let me shoot his Lee Enfield. Amazing weapon, and the perfect thing for knocking down a polar bear. The amazing thing with the weapon I used, is that it had graphiti on the stock... Scratched into it, and nearly worn away was written "June 6, 1944." which to me indicates that the weapon had been used at Normandy. The serial number on the barrel also indicated that the weapon pre-dated the Normandy landings as well.

Comment Re:News for nerds? (Score 1) 254

Eh? I always thought of my three sports (Skiing, Sailing, and SCUBA diving) as all being pretty nerdy sports... you need plenty of equipment, often with funny names, and know how to use that equipment properly (some more than others of course... when skiing, if your equipment doesn't work right, you faceplant... in Sailing, you don't go anywhere, and in SCUBA if your equipment isn't working, you might die).

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