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Comment Re:Doesn't matter (Score 1) 33

The issues I've had with AMD systems generally are chipset/motherboard issues. But you can't have one without the other, so you're kind of stuck. If I could drop an AMD CPU onto an Intel motherboard like we could way back in the day, it would be a slam dunk - the better AMD CPU combined with the stability of Intel's platform. But since I can't do that, I guess it's buy Intel and just put up with their space heater CPUs.

Comment Re:I don't get why scientists need real eclipses (Score 1) 19

Well yes, of course. That's how literally all telescopes observing the sun currently do it.

Then my questions stands: why do teams of scientists chase lunar eclipses around the world at great expense? What's the added value of a real eclipse.

I think you missed the detail that making an eclipse is not at all needed here.

Not really, because I didn't in fact read the article :) My question about the value of eclipses for solar observation is tangentially related to the satellite thing, which doesn't really interest me at all.

Comment I don't get why scientists need real eclipses (Score 2) 19

I understand that, by sheer coincidence, the moon has the right size and is currently at the right distance to mask the just enough of the sun and let only photons from the sun's upper atmosphere and corona through, making their observation easier.

But why is the moon needed? Why are even clever sun-blocking satellites needed? Do sun-blocking things need to be placed far away to observe the corona? Couldn't a beer coaster placed a few feet away from the telescope serve the same purpose?

I'm oversimplifying of course, but you get the idea.

The only reason I can think of is that the farther the sun-blocking object, the less fuzzy its boundary is when the observed through a telescope focused at infinity, making the moon truly useful when observing the thin boundary layer between the sun and the corona. Other than that, I don't see why a beer coaster - or perhaps a larger round object placed a bit farther out - wouldn't do the job.

Perhaps a reader who is better versed in solar observations can shed some light (pun not intended :)

Comment Re:And they're supposed to know which works are... (Score 2) 56

... copyrighted... how? There is no registry.

It's not because it's inconvenient that it doesn't exist. If you want to reuse a photograph you found somewhere for example, you're supposed to research who owns the rights to it and figure out if and how you can use it.

The problem AI companies have is, they hoover up billions of copyrighted works to train their AIs, but of course they don't have the time or resources to do due diligence on each and every one of those works.

So with typical big tech hubris, instead of taking the time to figure out this particular conundrum legally and cleanly, the tech bros just said "fuck this" and pushed ahead with their massively copyright-infringing products, arguing that you can't stop progress, this outdated copyright stuff is in the way and their bright future can't wait - and nevermind all the people whose work they essentially stole without compensation.

Comment Re:New Horizons? (Score 1) 58

It's not what it lacks. It's because it uses newer components. As you make the transistors smaller and reduce the voltages, you increase the damage a cosmic ray strike will do. Yes, the chips are rad-hardened, but anything that gets through will have greater impact and have a greater risk of frying a component versus flipping the bit. The rad hardening will also have improved, but the risks will have increased faster than the protections.

However, there will undoubtedly be better error-correction in NH at circuit level, Voyager only error corrected the communications not the processor or memory. So I fully expect bit flips to be fixed silently, so I expect data to be of greater robustness. So in terms of quality of output, I expect NH to beat Voyager by a long way.

(I'm ignoring the efforts by the anti-science lobby to shut down NASA and the Deep Space Network. If they succeed, all communication will be permanently lost. But that won't be a technological fault, that will be a massive social fault on a scale comparable with Crusaders destroying the Imperial Library in Constantinople.)

Comment Re:I can feel it (Score 1) 148

Linux won't capture the desktop market unless Microsoft is broken up due to them repeating antitrust activity they have been repeatedly convicted of. But that won't happen because the US is too dependent on its supply of what's basically electronic heroin.

Comment Re:one of my old bosses said (Score 1) 148

Sun tried to go the Networked Computing route and bankrupted themselves.

Internet connectivity is far too slow and far too unreliable for most tasks. Worse, most apps still use TCP and UDP, despite better transport protocols existing. And IPv4 is still mainstream, despite IPv6's benefits.

The Internet is also not secure, due to NSA demanding the IETF withdraw IPSec as a mandatory requirement for IPv6.

No, thin clients with overpowered central servers (the mainframe architecture) was abandoned for good reasons and every attempt to return to centralised computing has failed for good reasons. Companies are now even starting to abandon the cloud.

Submission + - Peter Higgs, physicist, dead. (theguardian.com)

jd writes: Peter Higgs, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who discovered a new particle known as the Higgs boson, has died.

Higgs, 94, who was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2013 for his work in 1964 showing how the boson helped bind the universe together by giving particles their mass, died at home in Edinburgh on Monday.

After a series of experiments, which began in earnest in 2008, his theory was proven by physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern in Switzerland in 2012; the Nobel prize was shared with François Englert, a Belgian theoretical physicist whose work in 1964 also contributed directly to the discovery.

A member of the Royal Society and a Companion of Honour, Higgs spent the bulk of his professional life at Edinburgh University, which set up the Higgs centre for theoretical physics in his honour in 2012.

Prof Peter Mathieson, the university’s principal, said: “Peter Higgs was a remarkable individual – a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world that surrounds us.

“His pioneering work has motivated thousands of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many more for generations to come.”

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