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Comment Re:Poker isn't really about math (Score 1) 340

You should read the comment above:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comme...
Basically, they can only call it solved if the robot has a strategy that's not exploitable in this format (limited Texas Hold'EM).
But the ironic thing (and the article itself admits it) is that this perfect robot player doesn't necessarily win the most because it can't adjust to exploit other human players. It just has a can't lose.

Comment Re:Accuracy (Score 2) 106

Well, that sort of illustrates why the test is wrong so often, but if you TRY to be bored and aggressive, you'll probably think too much ;)

The way they teach you to beat it is pretty simple. Before they ask the hard questions, they need to calibrate. They will ask you something easy to get a base truth response. Likewise, they will get a base lie response. You want your base lie response to go sky high so that nothing can ever match that. Bite your tongue. Tighten you ass. Whatever you like. Once you're past that, then strain yourself a little and answer all the questions like that. Just remember that you're not in the clear yet because you've handled the problem with the junk science handing out false positives, but don't forget the person across from you is not a scientist but a skilled interrogator. They can still ask all sorts of loaded questions. For example, have you ever done something personal during work time? The interrogator is much better at this game than you are and probably has more mental stamina than you do. That's why they say if you have a choice, don't take a polygraph - tell them you know how it works, and that it's a sham.

Comment Re:Accuracy (Score 1) 106

I found this to be a great read on the subject:
https://antipolygraph.org/lie-...
They actually talk about specific cases concerning the trouble use of this for defense and intelligence, and why it's such a sham. You also see that they probably keep using it even though it's inaccurate because it beats some confessions out of some people, and I guess they don't mind the innocents that get screwed by it.

Comment Re:Accuracy (Score 5, Insightful) 106

Exactly. There's no reliable body response for a lie. All they are measuring is nervousness, which you could have for a variety of reasons. It's the same thing the border agent does.

The purpose of the polygraph is to bully the victim into a confession. The unknowing victim thinks they are undergoing a scientific test, but they are actually being drilled by a skilled interrogator w/ no lawyer present to defuse the loaded questions.

Submission + - PC cooling specialist Zalman goes bankrupt due to fraud (geek.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Zalman's parent company Moneual's CEO Harold Park, and vice presidents Scott Park and Won Duck-yeok, have apparently spent the last five years producing fraudulent documentation relating to the sales performance of Zalman. These documents inflated sales figures and export data for Zalman’s products. The reason? Bank loans.

By increasing sales and exports Park and his associates were able to secure bank loans totaling $2.98 billion. Someone has finally realized what has been going on, though, triggering Zalman’s shares to be suspended on the stock market and the company filing for bankruptcy protection. The questions now turn to how this practice was allowed to continue unnoticed for so long and how the banks will go about getting their near $3 billion back?

Comment Cloud service bandwidth caps, rsync? (Score 1) 124

All this has done is catalog what the bandwidth caps for the various cloud services are. The article itself admits that. BitTorrent performance is completely irrelevant.
A relevant comparison would be against other peer-to-peer transfer utilities like scp and rsync (w/ and w/o -z).

Comment Re:quid pro quo? (Score 2) 72

There is. It's mentioned in the story:
"Since 2007, Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco’s office in New York, where ComputerCOP is based, has bought 43,000 copies of the software—a fact trumpeted in DeMarco’s reelection campaign materials. ComputerCOP’s parent company directly donated to DeMarco’s campaign at least nine times over the same period.

Indeed, ComputerCOP markets itself as the “perfect election and fundraising tool.” As part of the package, when a law enforcement agency buys a certain amount of copies, ComputerCOP will send out a camera crew to record an introduction video with the head of the department. The discs are also customized to prominently feature the head of the agency, who can count on a solid round of local press coverage about the giveaway."

Comment Re:Don't wait on the wiping... (Score 1) 577

That's just sad - why are you even buying new PCs with Windows preloaded and paying for something you'll wipe immediately? You're clearly not the clueless user so just buy the parts yourself and stick them together. Dell/HP basically use the cheapest, crappiest parts they can get, and that's why their standard warranty is 1 year when most quality computer parts have a 3-year warranty. That is why the Apple fanboys always rag on PCs. For just slightly more than Dell/HP, you can build a faster, quieter quality computer that will last 10+ years and with parts you can individually upgrade. SSDs are cheap now too, and they give the huge speed boost. Dell/HP gives you like a pathetic 60GB hard drive and change you an arm and a leg to upgrade it.

Comment Re:Vague click-bait (Score 1) 577

Same experience. WinXP has serious fragmentation issues, and the included Disk Defragmenter is not enough to fix it. I have had success with third-party defragmenters that do more - in particular Norton Speed Disk, which is unfortunately part of the horribly bloated Norton Utilities. Even disabling everything, the Norton Control Center still starts up, so I had to remove the startup entry from the registry manually. However, it's worth the trouble because it really does return the system to its original snappiness.

Haven't seen it on Win7, although I am running on a well-performing SSD, so that mask some of the problems.

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