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Comment Re: ReactOS takes an initiative (Score 1) 208

implemented in a subset of C++ programming language.

Doesn't C itself technically fit that criteria?

No, not even close. For this to be true, a necessary (but not sufficient) requirement is for every syntactically valid C program to also be a syntactically valid C++ program. This is obviously not the case: for example, C allows the use of "new" as an identifier, while C++ does not. I'd wager that most C programs would not even build with a C++ compiler unless the writers specifically put in the effort to make it work.

There are many other differences, and over the past 20+ years C and C++ have been diverging as new features are added to each language.

Comment Re:Fermat? (Score 5, Informative) 216

Obviously nobody has found an exception to disprove it yet. The dude wouldn't be offering a pile of money if he were just looking to disprove it...he would just funnel the money into some supercomputer time to step through an absurd amount of integers until he comes up with an exception.

The set of integers to test is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think that Graham's number is a lot, but that's just peanuts compared to the integers.

If a conjecture could be disproven by simply throwing computational resources at the problem, chances are that it's not particularly interesting. Many open problems in number theory have known lower bounds well above anything that could possibly be tested by a computer. For example, there is no odd perfect number less than 10**1500.

Comment Re:Edge of space? (Score 2) 90

It just happens to be such a convenient number in their preferred units?

Obviously the number 100 was chosen for its convenience. From Wikipedia (Kármán line):

Although the calculated altitude was not exactly 100 km, Kármán proposed that 100 km be the designated boundary to space, since the round number is more memorable, and the calculated altitude varies minutely as certain parameters are varied. An international committee recommended the 100 km line to the FAI, and upon adoption, it became widely accepted as the boundary to space for many purposes.

Comment Re:NO. (Score 4, Interesting) 646

I've advocated making all even months 30 days and all odd months except November 31 days with November receiving the leap year day. Simplifies things completely and never leaves people guessing, except for if it's a leapyear or not.

If we're going to change the months, we should just have 13 months of 28 days each, a nice even 4 weeks per month. That has one leftover day per year (two on leap years), which would not be part of any month or week. We'll call those "nameless days" or something and would fall between saturday of the last week of the year, and sunday of the first week of the next year. Those days would be holidays and everyone can have a big new year's party.

Comment Re: As opposed to actual Model Ms which are still (Score 2) 298

I bought one of those Unicomp keyboards and I was very disappointed with the build quality. It looks like they just made a cheap plastic housing for the keyboard but there was none of the heft of an original IBM model M.

I have a Unicomp SpaceSaver 104 and a Customizer 104. I would not buy the Customizer again; it has all of the bulk of the classic Model M without the same build quality. On the other hand, I love the SpaceSaver -- while it's likely not as effective for self-defense as the classic Model M is, I love typing on this as much as my ~30yr old IBM keyboard (which still works great!), and it uses less desk space, and is natively USB. It also doesn't feel as flimsy as the Customizer does, probably simply due to there being less plastic overall.

I also use a Das, which I don't like typing on as much as the SpaceSaver but it is extremely well built. Maybe I'll replace all the key switches in it with these green ones if they're more like buckling springs!

Comment Re:Awesome (Score 1) 1176

It was quite possibly fitted with electronic accelerator and break paddles for hand-use or similar.

No wonder! The driver probably had intended to activate the brake control, but accidentally hit the break switch instead. Then, naturally, the car broke.

Comment Re:Showing crack? (Score 4, Funny) 330

What kind of drug would a staple need? It's job is to hold reams of paper together securely.

Unfortunately, most staples are quite inept at holding even one ream of paper together, let alone multiple reams. They are normally not in a position with much job security, as they usually can barely even support a quire of bond paper.

The drugs let these millions of inadequate staples feel better about themselves.

Comment Re:What's the cost for Cash? (Score 1) 732

There are what, 12 digits in a visa number?

OK, 16 digits. That's about 2**53 possibilities, although the numbers are not all chosen randomly so you should be able to reduce the search space significantly. Still well within the realm of possibility for brute force by a determined adversary, but you may need more than a few desktops to pull it off.

Comment Re:What's the cost for Cash? (Score 1) 732

It's pretty easy to salt + hash every card number and then just track the hashes.

You may as well just store the card numbers in plaintext. There are what, 12 digits in a visa number? That's less than 2**36 possible card numbers. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes for a modest cluster to test every card number and find the one which matched a given salt & hash.

Comment Re:The wrong way around (Score 1) 151

The in-kernel write support for NTFS only allows you to write to an existing file, and only allows you to write the same amount of data as the exact files size and name on the disk.

This is not quite accurate: support for extending existing files w/ the in-kernel driver has been available for some time (ca. 2005). Apparently it can fail to extend the file if it is excessively fragmented, however.

Comment Re:PS2 VS USB? (Score 3, Interesting) 307

I know USB can't handle as many simultaneous key hits as PS/2.. but don't see how that would apply here.

This is only half true. The 6+4 simultaneous key limit is part of the HID boot protocol for keyboards, which is a restricted subset of the USB HID interface meant for limited environments such as the system boot firmware.

The full USB HID protocol has no such limits, but it seems that most keyboards only support the boot protocol for whatever reason.

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