Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Want to understand? (Score 1) 1226

This is a very interesting post, I have always thought the debate on global warming/climate change is very similar to the creation/evolution debate. In both cases you cannot claim independence:
1) If Climate change is true, it affects us in how we live and is a cost to us, we need to reduce pollution.
2) If Creation is true, and there is a Creator God, that has an effect on how we live our lives.

We need to accept that in both of these debates we are not independent third parties, but the outcome has a direct impact and cost on our lives and therefore we are likely to have a bias coming into these discussions.

Comment Re:I approve (Score 1) 805

These jammers do not only affect mobile phone users (people), but any equipment that uses the 2G/3G mobile phone network for communication. A bus may have a 3G connection for the ticketing system, for monitoring the location and/or 'vital signs' of the bus. Devices on the side of the road may be affected by the jammer - that big electronic sign may be controlled via a 3G connection. Or their might be equipment around that runs on a neighbouring licenced band. The 2G and 3G networks are not just used for mobile phone calls.

This is why we have laws like this, it is for the benefit of the public that these frequencies cannot be blocked by anybody.

Comment Re:Invented in US? Made in China. (Score 1) 613

Yes the Cobra is fairly worthless air combat wise, but there are a number of related manoeuvres, that require the same airframe capabilities which are. As for Russian radars, the Russians were the first to have an airborne PESA (Passive electronically steered array) in the Mig-31, and whilst they don't have a AESA (Active electronically steered array) airborne yet or any new fighters since the su-27/mig-29/mig-31, they have been developing a number of new radars in the last two decades. The Su-27 also has the advantage of it's size , it can fit a larger and more powerful radar unit and more fuel, the su-27 family never carry drop tanks (I have never seen a picture of one with external tanks) and it has a range that is as good as, if not better than American fighters like the Eagle fully loaded with fuel tanks. On the other hand you are correct that the have a lot of non flying aircraft due to maintenance issues, but over the last few years they have been trying to fix that, and it is not like they are short of aircraft either, they still have about 1000 modern fighter jets.

Comment Re:Someone help me out here. (Score 1) 613

Supercruise is not the magic ticket you think it is. While a number of fighter jets can travel faster than the speed of sound in a clean configuration in level flight, the F-22 does have the advantage that it can get up to ~Mach 1.7, and can carry weapons internally, IIRC the PAK-FA will have supercruise as well. But supercruise is nothing special, all it takes is having enough thrust from your engines for the drag of the airframe. And don't be fooled that the cruising speed is supersonic, due to the higher drag you still consume more fuel. Now the advantage of supercruise in close combat is that you can force your opponent to use the afterburner and make them run out of fuel (the F-22 did this in some mock engagements with F-15s and F-16s). The problem here is when we put the F-22 up against the Mig-31, a Russian Interceptor without supercruise, due to the extra fuel that the Mig-31 carries, not only does it have a higher top speed of over Mach 2.8, but at the F-22's supersonic cruising speed of about Mach 1.7, the Mig-31 has more range on afterburner, so the 'advantage' of supercruise is negated by the fuel capacity of the Mig-31.

(Yes I know the Mig-31 is an interceptor and not a dog fighter, and is inferior in it's dogfighting ability - it was not designed for that - but it's dammed fast)

Comment Re:Remember Macrovision scrubbers? (Score 1) 225

Not necessarily,

Previous posters have mentioned that a lot of the costs in the software version is bitwise operations (reversing buses and the like). These are very expensive in software, but in hardware they can be implemented very cheaply. Encryption is particularly efficient on either a dedicated chip or a FPGA because it is a reasonably straight forward (if complicated) process. There is no need for the branching and general purpose processing of a computer, on a FPGA you could set up the decryption in a pipeline so that you can be decrypting multiple words at once - basically what you are doing is reimplementating the ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) chips that are already in use on a FPGA. Granted a FPGA won't have the same performance of a ASIC, but I would imagine that the HDCP ASIC are not very big.

Games

Pirates as a Marketplace 214

John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, made some revealing comments in an interview with Kotaku about how the company's attitudes are shifting with regard to software piracy. Quoting: "Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: 'There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,' he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it. The EA boss would prefer people bought their games, of course. 'I don't think anybody should pirate anything,' he said. 'I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that. And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.' So encourage those pirates to pay for something, he figures. Riccitiello explained that EA's download services aren't perfect at distinguishing between used copies of games and pirated copies. As a result, he suggested, EA sells DLC to both communities of gamers. And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer."
Google

Submission + - Google News gets a separate web crawler and index

markkezner writes: In response to complaints by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and others, Google has given Google News its own web crawler. The service had previously relied on the same web crawler that is used to index pages for regular web search. This change allows publishers to use robots.txt to finely control how Google News indexes their content without affecting how it is indexed for normal Google web searches. Before this change occurred, publishers could have contacted Google to specifically de-index content from Google News.

Submission + - Biodiesel Plant Explodes (king5.com)

" rel="nofollow">WED Fan writes: "A biodiesel plant in Grays Harbor, Washington has exploded and is leaking sulfuric acid into the atmosphere, causing local residents discomfort and wreaking a lot of environmental damage. Plant officials are still trying to figure out how to clean up the mess."

Submission + - SPAM: Sonyâ(TM)s Latest Single Lens 3D Camera

An anonymous reader writes: The Explore Media Group team is very excited to have this groundbreaking opportunity as we are at the CEATEC Exhibition in Tokyo, Japan where Sony will unveil their first ever professional single lens 3D camera. We are in touch with the Sony crew and will be bringing you a video interview from CEATEC on this shortly.
Link to Original Source
Science

Submission + - Cryogenics Lab Workers Gone Wild? 1

theodp writes: So much for dignity in death. All Baseball Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams wanted was a simple departure from this earth and for his remains to be cremated and scattered over the deep waters of the Florida Keys. Instead, his wacky children had him frozen and his head cut off. And if that wasn't bad enough, a new book alleges workers at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation abused Williams' remains, posing for pictures a la Weekend at Bernie's. According to the book, crude equipment was used to cut off Williams head, which was then balanced on an empty can of Bumble Bee tuna and frozen in liquid nitrogen while workers recorded the sound of his brain cracking as the temperature dropped. The book further claims a worker lacking The Splendid Splinter's sweet swing later tried to dislodge the tuna can by whacking it with a monkey wrench, but instead smacked Williams' head, sending tiny pieces of frozen tissue flying around the room. Alcor is denying what it calls sensational and unfounded allegations.

Comment Re:So what if it's a cat? (Score 1) 874

With quite a few installer programs the licence is stored as a text file licence.txt, what is stopping me from modifying or replacing the license file with something else? I also recall either a program or registration on a web page where the licence was in a text box that was editable - so you could just select the whole license and delete it or change it as you saw fit.

To me it seems that you can't prove that someone accepted a EULA - or with a computer with multiple users, who accepted it. I think at least when you agree to an EULA, it needs to record your name and what you agreed to, and send it back to the company, ignoring the privacy issue for the moment, just so that the licenser has a copy of the agreement the licensee agreed to and who that licensee is.

IANAL, but I think that you need to agree to the license before you get the software, rather than after.

Security

Submission + - Hackers Exploit SafeDisc DRM in Windows XP

An anonymous reader writes: InfoWorld has a story on how hackers are taking advantage of a privilege escalation bug in the SafeDisc DRM that ships with Windows XP and Server 2003. What I wonder is why did Microsoft include this more subtle DRM at all, and can't users simply remove the secdrv.sys file and avoid what could be a slimy patch/secret DRM upgrade?

Read: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/11/06/Hackers-exploiting-bug-in-DRM-shipped-with-Windows_1.html
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft fires its CIO after investigation

Stony Stevenson writes: Microsoft has fired its chief information officer, Stuart Scott. "We can confirm that Stuart Scott was terminated after an investigation for violation of company policies," the company said. "We have no further information to share." But according to this article, Microsoft is already looking for a replacement. Microsoft General Manager Shahla Aly and Alain Crozier, a Microsoft VP in charge of the company's CFO, sales, marketing and services group will take over Scott's duties while Microsoft looks around.
The Internet

Submission + - Do Frames Still Suck? 5

Gonoff writes: Last year, I decided to broaden my abilities a little and started an evening, 2 year, university course. This year a major part of what I am doing is web development and I will be creating a website.

I had never used Dreamweaver before so I expected to have to learn but what caught my attention was the huge dislike I see the course leader has for frames.

I had already read Jakob Neilsens material but being keen to learn, I read it again. Much of what he put in seems completely out of date now.
The only browser I have that can't do frames is Lynx.
All major development packages do them a lot better than when that article was written — Dreamweaver, Frontpage or even Open Office do them fine. I find that it is not too hard in a text editor either...

Obviously, I will do it the way that I am instructed. I just can't see wanting to do it this way for real afterwards. Templates and layers seem much more complicated and I suspect that they are less simple to maintain once a site goes live. I know the need for maintainable source code. Surely maintainable HTML is the same?

What do other people think? Forget aesthetics and coolness. Can people convince me that this is a better way to work?

Slashdot Top Deals

Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker

Working...