Ulric - Slashdot User

Submission + - Humans Dominating Poker Super Computer (roboticstrends.com)

Submitted by IoTdude on Friday May 01, 2015 @01:41PM

IoTdude writes: The Claudico super computer uses an algorithm to account for gargantuan amounts of complexity by representing the number of possible Heads-Up No-limit Texas Hold’em decisions. Claudico also updates its strategy as it goes along, but its basic approach to the game involves getting into every hand by calling bets. And it's not working out so far. Halfway through the competition, the four human pros had a cumulative lead of 626,892 chips. Though much could change in the week remaining, a lead of around 600,000 chips is considered statistically significant.

Submission + - Microsoft Releases Visual Studio Code Preview For Linux, OS X & 64-Bit Windo

Submitted by ClockEndGooner on Friday May 01, 2015 @11:01AM

ClockEndGooner writes: Microsoft is still extending its efforts into cross platform development with the release of a preview edition of Visual Studio Code, "a lightweight cross-platform code editor for writing modern web and cloud applications that will run on OS X, Linux and Windows." . Derived from its Monaco editor for Visual Studio Online, the initial release includes rich code assistance and naavigation for JavaScript, TypeScript, Node.js, ASP.NET 5, C# and many others.

Comment Re:IPv6 and Rust: overhyped and unwanted! (Score 1) 390

by Ulric on Tuesday April 21, 2015 @02:35AM (#49517457) Attached to: Why the Journey To IPv6 Is Still the Road Less Traveled

I had mod points yesterday, but not today, so here's a reply instead of the "+1 insightful" you deserve. IPv6 does unsolve problems that already have solutions in IPv4. *cough* DHCP *cough* indeed.

Submission + - The 'Page 63' Backdoor to Elliptic Curve Cryptography 3

Submitted by CRYPTIS on Thursday April 09, 2015 @04:21PM

CRYPTIS writes: The security of Elliptic curve cryptography is facilitated by the perceived 'hard' problem of cracking the Discrete Logarithm Problem (DLP) for any given curve. Historically, for FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) compliance it was required that your curves conformed to the FIPS186-2 document located at http://csrc.nist.gov/publicati... . Page 63 of this specifies that the 'a' and 'b' elliptic curve domain parameters should conform to the mathematical requirement of c*b^2 = a^3 (mod p).

Interestingly, back in 1982, A. M. Odlyzko, of AT & T Bell Laboratories, published a document entitled “Discrete logarithms in finite fields and their cryptographic significance” ( http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzk... ). Page 63 of this document presents a weak form of the DLP, namely a^3 = b^2*c (mod p).

It seems then, that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), driven in turn by the NSA, have required that compliant curves have this potentially weak form of the DLP built in; merely transposing the layout of the formula in order to obtain what little obfuscation is available with such a short piece of text.

Comment Re:Tabs vs Spaces (Score 1) 428

by Ulric on Wednesday April 08, 2015 @01:54PM (#49431133) Attached to: Stack Overflow 2015 Developer Survey Reveals Coder Stats

Because code that looks like this is more readable than code that looks like this.

The examples violate the simple rule "tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment".

Comment Re:Tabs vs Spaces (Score 1) 428

by Ulric on Wednesday April 08, 2015 @01:48PM (#49431061) Attached to: Stack Overflow 2015 Developer Survey Reveals Coder Stats

I can virtually guarantee if you were inventing the first character set today, with no backward-compatibility constraints and no knowledge of the real world's history of keyboarding, you would not include a tab key.

An indentation level key. I think I would like that. Put it on the list. Scroll Lock on the other hand...

Comment Re: Tabs vs Spaces (Score 1) 428

by Ulric on Wednesday April 08, 2015 @01:35PM (#49430867) Attached to: Stack Overflow 2015 Developer Survey Reveals Coder Stats

Are you kidding? If you edit code on unix tabs are a nightmare.

I edit code on Unix all the time and have no problem with tabs.

Comment Re:Dupe (Score 1) 840

by Ulric on Monday January 05, 2015 @04:10PM (#48739531) Attached to: Professor: Young People Are "Lost Generation" Who Can No Longer Fix Gadgets

Guys [1] usually fell into two categories, the electrical or mechanical.

Yep, those were the two categories I fell into.

Comment Re:Ten years? (Score 1) 332

by Ulric on Thursday January 01, 2015 @11:28AM (#48711425) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Tech Companies Won't Be Around In 10 Years?

Yes, Linux integrates great with Windows AD.

Comment Wrong reason (Score 1) 433

by Ulric on Tuesday December 16, 2014 @05:45AM (#48607719) Attached to: Vinyl Record Pressing Plants Struggle To Keep Up With Demand

Vinyl is making a comeback because an analog LP is an attractive object in its own right. A CD isn't.

Comment Re:And where are all the hurricanes? (Score 1) 187

by Ulric on Tuesday December 16, 2014 @03:25AM (#48607383) Attached to: Last Three Years the Quietest For Tornadoes Ever

It looks like it's getting warmer.

Comment I was never taught low-level bit-fiddling (Score 1) 637

by Ulric on Thursday August 07, 2014 @12:30PM (#47623459) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: "Real" Computer Scientists vs. Modern Curriculum?

I studied CS in the 80s. The first language was LISP. I don't think we were taught any language that required explicit memory management. We did learn, of course, how a computer works from the silicon level and up. On the other hand, it was impossible to do anything without learning C, so we learned C.

Comment Environmentally worthless (Score 1) 466

by Ulric on Monday April 28, 2014 @03:07PM (#46861901) Attached to: Bill Gates & Twitter Founders Put "Meatless" Meat To the Test

What people fail to realize is that the extinction of grazing animals will lead to extinction of the wildlife that depends on said grazing animals. That is the environmental effect that artificial "meat" would have. From an environmental point of view, such products are worthless.

Comment My tractor (Score 1) 702

by Ulric on Saturday April 19, 2014 @02:43PM (#46795705) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Tech Products Were Built To Last?

My 1954 Volvo T24 tractor. And since it is still possible to get new spare parts for it, I expect it to run for quite a few more years.

Comment Mandatory helmets in cars (Score 1) 1651

by Ulric on Thursday October 04, 2012 @05:53AM (#41546873) Attached to: To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets

I believe that mandatory helmets for anyone riding in a car (driver and passengers) would reduce injuries much more than mandatory helmets for bicyclists. There are many more of them and they are going much faster. It would also be more convenient, since the helmets can simply be stored inside the car when the car is parked.

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