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Comment Re:Well actually he's pretty solidly anti-gun too. (Score 1) 234

by nyet (#46590775) Attached to: Anti-Game-Violence Legislator Arrested, Faces Gun Trafficking Charges

“My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this horrific tragedy and their families. These events are shocking to all of us and sadly remind us of the carnage that is possible when assault weapons get into the wrong hands. It is imperative that we take every step possible to eliminate the types of senseless killings witnessed in Aurora, Colorado. We must limit access to weapons that can carry massive rounds of bullets or that can be easily reloaded. SB 249 is a step in that direction and should be approved by the Legislature as soon as possible.” - Leland Yee
Shark

What Would You Do With the World's Most Powerful Laser? 143

Posted by samzenpus from the popcorn-house dept.
sciencehabit writes "This week, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced an important milestone on the road to achieving ignition, which could lead to producing controlled fusion reactions here on Earth. But NIF isn't just about harnessing the energy of the stars—it's about learning how stars produce their energy in the first place. In fact, pushing matter to extreme pressures and temperatures lets scientists explore all sorts of unanswered questions. At the annual meeting of AAAS in Chicago four physicists sat down with Science Magazine to discuss NIF's basic science potential and what experiments they would do if they had the laser all to themselves."
Programming

Not All Bugs Are Random 165

Posted by timothy from the especially-not-bees dept.
CowboyRobot writes "Andrew Koenig at Dr. Dobb's argues that by looking at a program's structure — as opposed to only looking at output — we can sometimes predict circumstances in which it is particularly likely to fail. 'For example, any time a program decides to use one or two (or more) algorithms depending on an aspect of its input such as size, we should verify that it works properly as close as possible to the decision boundary on both sides. I've seen quite a few programs that impose arbitrary length limits on, say, the size of an input line or the length of a name. I've also seen far too many such programs that fail when they are presented with input that fits the limit exactly, or is one greater (or less) than the limit. If you know by inspecting the code what those limits are, it is much easier to test for cases near the limits.'"
The Courts

US Federal Judge Rules NSA Data Collection Legal 511

Posted by Soulskill from the time-to-escalate dept.
New submitter CheezburgerBrown . tips this AP report: "A federal judge on Friday found that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of millions of Americans' telephone records is legal and a valuable part of the nation's arsenal to counter the threat of terrorism. U.S. District Judge William Pauley said in a written opinion (PDF) that the program 'represents the government's counter-punch' to eliminate al-Qaeda's terror network by connecting fragmented and fleeting communications. In ruling, the judge noted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and how the phone data-collection system could have helped investigators connect the dots before the attacks occurred. 'The government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world. It launched a number of counter-measures, including a bulk telephony metadata collection program — a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data,' he said."

Comment Re:Enough (Score 5, Informative) 224

by nyet (#45784639) Attached to: Snowden Gives Alternative Christmas Message On Channel 4

There are whistle blower laws that would have protected him if he'd played by the rules. He chose to make a martyr out of himself.

Fool. That isn't how whistleblower laws work, not even in theory, let alone practice, especially in the intelligence industry.

And he did try to play by the rules; his superiors made it abundantly clear to him (repeatedly so) that his opinion on the matter was not solicited, and furthermore, endangered his career.

It's getting old hearing the same story day after day.

Until naive, delusional fools like yourself can't see the problem we're facing, it should be repeated constantly and continuously until you get the fucking message.

Comment Re:kWh/day is stupid. (Score 2) 424

by nyet (#45523509) Attached to: Tesla Model S Has Bizarre 'Vampire-Like' Thirst For Electricity At Night

The average PC draws around 50-200W idle.

And as you said, this is more or less what the author found, except that he apparently has no idea how to convert kW/h per hour into watts. And for some reason, he's using lightbulbs as a yardstick, and not a PC... which is, after all, basically what is running on the tesla 24/7

Yes, he's a fucking moron.

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