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Comment Re:Air gap the damned networks.... (Score 3, Interesting) 40

Since I helped write a system that pulled live data from medical devices (during surgery) to update patient records on the fly, and that, eventually, those records have to be sent to someone else (using the internet): No. You can't just run an internal network with no access to the internet.

Build layers of security. Don't use hard-wired passwords. I.e., Stop being stupid about security. But no, you can't just air gap.

Comment Re:what happens (Score 4, Insightful) 57

Actually, this is the most ridiculous response I've ever seen that had the gall to start with "actually."

Actually, alternate universes and white holes are about as far from actually accepted theories as you can get, this side of string theory.

Actually, starting a response with "actually" makes anyone sound like a jerk.

Comment Re:lol... (Score 2, Interesting) 319

There will probably be a slight increase in thyroid cancer rates. Luckily, thyroid cancer is one of the most-survivable types, especially when detected early, and people who were in the area will be checked regularly. The number of cancer deaths statistically-attributable to this will be very low, and as someone further down noted, the 20,000 dead by the tsunami will far-exceed them.

Comment Re:One teensy detail (Score 4, Informative) 393

His whole argument is you don't NEED a definition of intelligence in order to build a replica. (Like you don't need to, I dunno, read German in order to be able to copy a passage of text written in German.) I mean, he's probably still wrong and crazy. But lack of a definition is not WHY he's probably wrong and crazy.

Comment An Extra Bit of Register (Score 5, Insightful) 332

When AMD gave a presentation to my processor design course (not coincidentally about 10 years ago) one of the presenters said that one of the most surprising speed-ups for 64-bit code came from just having 16 real general purpose registers to work with. Even though register renaming lets you smooth over them, it meant all those extra load and store ops (that RR would identify as waste and work around) now didn't need to be in the code at all. It turned out to be rather non-trivial for one of their test apps.

So those 32 extra bits of memory addressing are nice. But don't forget about that 1 extra bit for identifying registers!

Comment Re:Well the ultimate value of a dollar is (Score 1) 605

The relationship between the money supply and inflation isn't quite that naive. While there are more dollars now, there are also more people doing more work producing more value; if there wasn't more money, there would have been deflation, which is much more crippling to an economy than inflation. (Which is one of the reasons gold didn't work out in the long run, and why bitcoin won't either.)

Fiat currency is sort of like the relativity of economics. It makes people uncomfortable, it doesn't seem to jive with everyday experience (although it does), and it pulls the rug out from under the idea of universal references (either reference frames or the valuableness of certain rare metals.)

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