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Submission + - Intel Is Hitting The Wall On Moore's Law (itworld.com)

jfruh writes: Fifty years ago, Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors engineers were managing to squeeze onto a chip was doubling every two years. Four years later, Moore co-founded Intel, a company that elevated this observation into a law and put it at the heart of its business. But now, with chip engineering reaching the point where components are measured in terms of individual molecules, Moore's Law may have reached it's limits — with dire results for Intel.

Comment Re:Why giving ? (Score 1) 92

Alas, WW2 doesn't seem to have been about religion, and it's still the largest war in human history (and if it were split into two separate wars, they'd be the two largest wars in history).

You're just using too narrow a conception of religion, IMO.

Fascism, National Socialism, and Communism all have their true-believers. And some of them are so certain their faith is the correct one that they're willing to kill for it.

Comment Re: So basically (Score 2) 445

Interesting, though, that the vote happened after the election, when it was known who would control the Senate in 2015 and 2016. And interesting that those that are losing power oppose surveillance while those that are gaining it support continued surveillance.

This might suggest the possibility that each side fears the use of the NSA against them by the other side.

I'd hate to think the USA has gotten to that point but I don't think anything would surprise me now.

Comment Re:Couldn't they have used an RTG? (Score 1) 132

Why did we get away from that technology for space exploration? If you're going to spend the money to conduct a mission of this sort why limit yourself to the power provided by solar panels? It would be a pisser to have come this far only to have the mission fail because the probe can't get enough power to carry on operations.

Two reasons: fear that an accident might release plutonium dust into the atmosphere, and the relative shortage of plutonium.

Comment Maybe he thinks libertarians made a difference (Score 1) 127

It looks like the Republicans will have 54 Senators in 2015, in part, I think, to support given them by libertarians (except perhaps in Virginia where a Libertarian candidate took support from the Republican primarily).

Might this be a move by Democrats to reach out to libertarians who tend to be the strongest opponents of the surveillance of the public by government?

Comment Re:Not smart (Score 2) 219

Who is still using these sites after all of the Silk Road 1.0 arrests? You have to be pretty dumb to risk your freedom on some stranger's computer security skills.

And not just some single stranger.

How many thousands of programmers/engineers are indirectly involved?

Can you trust the programmer of the website?

Can you trust the programmers that wrote the webserver code?

Can you trust the programmers that wrote your web browser?

Can you trust the programmers that wrote BASH?

Can you trust the programmers that wrote the rest of the OS?

Can you trust the programmers that wrote the BIOS?

Can you trust the engineers that wrote the CPU's microcode?

I once had this wild idea of trying to come up with some automated proof system that would help insure program correctness. I then looked at the huge amount of errata for Intel processors. How can one be sure one's program will even run as expected when the processor itself can't be proven correct?

Submission + - Reactions to Disgusting Images Predict a Persons Political Ideology (elsevierhealth.com)

LuxuryYacht writes: A new study shows that the way your brain responds to photos of of maggots, mutilated carcasses, and gunk in the kitchen sink gives a pretty good indication of whether you're liberal or conservative.

"Remarkably, we found that the brain's response to a single disgusting image was enough to predict an individual's political ideology," Read Montague, a Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute psychology professor who led the study, said in a written statement.

83 men and women viewed a series of images while having their brains scanned in a functional MRI (fMRI) machine. The images included the disgusting photos described above, along with photos of babies and pleasant landscapes.

Afterward, the participants were asked to rate how grossed out they were by each photo. They also completed a survey about their political beliefs, which included questions about their attitudes toward school prayer, gun control, immigration, and gay marriage.

There was no significant difference in how liberals and conservatives rated the photos. But the researchers noted differences between the two groups in the activity of brain regions associated with disgust recognition, emotion regulation, attention and even memory. The differences were so pronounced that the researchers could analyze a scan and predict the person's political leaning with 95 percent accuracy.

Comment Re:Dear Canada.... (Score 1, Flamebait) 529

The tenets of Islam are not more incompatible than the tenets or radical christs.

If you believe the Islam is your enemy then I might give you a hint: know your enemy, so you can fight him! And you will realize that Islam is a very moderate religion.

You're either a fool or a liar.

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