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Comment Re:Anonymity (Score 1) 258

Interesting article. However, it only affects software FDE implementations. FDE implemented in hard drives don't store keys in DRAM, and sector data stored DRAM (cache memory on the drive) is encrypted.

That said, for the described attack to work they'd have to steal a running computer. Which quite likely means they'd have access to all of your data without going through all the trouble.

Comment Re:Hopefully another 25 years or more (Score 1) 455

I love the concept of network transparency, but in many cases VNC-style screen scraping seems faster. I've exported the display of apps from our Linux farm to my desktop. However it is painfully slow. VNC on the other hand operates with barely any noticeable lag. Exporting the display of a Linux app from one machine in the farm to another seems to work fine though.

It seems that network transparency in X requires a very high bandwidth and very low latency network connection, where VNC does better with less bandwidth.

I hope they maintain network transparency in Wayland. But I also hope they can improve it so I don't need VNC anymore.

Comment Re:"gone"? did it ever exist? (Score 5, Interesting) 225

I interpreted the poorly written article to mean. The forming rocks could absorb the other noble gases just fine, but not xenon. I infer this would have left an atmosphere (at the time) that was rich in xenon since very little of it was absorbed into the rock. The article speculated that some form of meteorite collision or solar event blew off the atmosphere. Leaving me to infer that the atmosphere we have today is the result of the rock releasing gas into the atmosphere. Since the rock was xenon poor, today's atmosphere is also xenon poor as a result.

Comment What's needed here (Score 1) 194

What's needed here is to turn this technology against those who are currently wielding it.

Since newspapers are making false claims of copyright ownership over material, we need to somehow submit false claims. Primarily on political material. We need to politicians to be greatly inconvenienced by this. There's nothing like self interest to create change. But if you can take down all the videos on YouTube that have adds with this method, that might get some favorable change as well.

Comment Re:Marvellous! (Score 3, Funny) 205

The press release says the user doesn't need to know anything about how their tool works. So obviously it will infer the appropriate solution and implement that too.

Actually the printf example is one of the easiest to implement. You'll receive a sheet of paper with "Hello World" printed on it in 6-8 weeks.

Comment Re:It's different, that's all (Score 1) 249

If I only had a video camera every time I heard someone say, "Man didn't evolve from apes, God created man. It says so right here in the Bible!" ? However, I thought comments like this occurred so often, that no one would ever deny they are made.

If you've never heard something close to that said, you obviously have never encountered fundamentalist Christians.

Comment Re:Electronic gadgetry used wrong (Score 1) 568

Getting a Bachelor's in Education (or alternatively, a Math or Science Bachelor's with a Minor in Education) and becoming a certified, employable teacher is a 5 year minimum process pushing 18 credit hours per semester (above 15 is considered overload BTW) or realistically, 6 years.

Wha wha wha. The EE (electrical engineering) program I attended was designed as an 18 credit hour program in order to graduate in 4 years. I knew several students taking 20 credit hours. I did the program in 5 years, but that's because I took a year off to work an internship.

I thought the guys taking 20 were crazy (but brilliant), and 18 was certainly a heavy load, but 6 years for a 15 credit hour program is B.S. I know several teachers, and they easily completed the program in 5 years, some in 4.

Comment Re:The grass is always greener on the other side (Score 1) 1019

The "death panels" are quite real... though they aren't necessarily called that. They do make decisions in those systems regarding what they will and won't do based on a person's age, condition, etc.

In the USA we have them too, they are called insurance companies and HMOs. No matter what you call it (death panels vs health board), or who is doing it (insurance company vs government), it is rationing. Rationing is not an evil word, it is simply a description of reality.

When there is limited supply (of resource or money) the amount of the resource consumed (health care) is rationed. In a purely market based solution the rationing is accomplished by those with $$$ buying up the supply and leaving those without, well without. In a regulated (insurance or government) system, some panel will determine the rationing.

In the USA, we pay a lot more per subscriber for our insurance, so the insurance company will provide more services before cutting you off. However we do not distribute this evenly over the entire population, as those without insurance get poorer (although they still get emergency) service. Europe smears the service evenly among its citizens, but funds it at a lower level per subscriber so they have to ration it earlier.

In Europe, if you bought private insurance on top of the public health, you can get USA style health care for similar cost. Although due to the small number of people participating it can be hard to find private providers.

My grandfather died recently. He was 91 and had been in extremely poor health for 5 years. After a recent infection the doctors wanted to go to drastic measures to treat him. Why? He was miserable, wanted to die years ago. After the infection he was in much worse shape and the little quality of life he had was completely gone. They would have done exploratory surgery to find the source of some bleeding in his urine. Most likely he had a cancer of some sort. They would have wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on a procedure that would have put him in much greater pain, and in his condition would probably have killed him anyway.

Thankfully grandpa's health directive was clear, and all his kids supported it, so the doctors were fine with putting him in hospice. However, they told us if one of his three children would have complained, they would have treated him with heroic efforts even despite his health care directive and the objection of the person assigned as power of attorney.

They said it happens frequently, they don't even agree with it, but they have to do it to protect themselves from wrongful death law suits. I don't have statistics to back this up, but my gut feeling tells me its this last 2 weeks of futile expensive health care that is going to make Medicare insolvent. And the reason it's expensive now when it didn't used to be, is simply that the surgery technology now exists to be used and it didn't before. 30 years ago, the only option for someone in my grandfather's situation was hospice.

Its an awful moral dilemma. Assume that 20% of those procedures turn out well. Well then it seems horrible to not try it on everyone in case they're one of that 20%. But if we simply can't afford it what do we do?

So, I say the good outcome rate for the procedure needs to be greater than 50% for Medicare to pay for it. Lower than that and you have to pay for it yourself. Assuming I'm right about the cause of Medicare insolvency, this probably would solve it.

Comment Re:Wrong framing. (Score 1) 848

Bonneville Power Administration shut down its nuclear plant for refueling and their coal plant was shut down because it was unnecessary and still had excess power to export -- 100% from renewables so please, please don't post stupidly about "baseline" power.

Since that is obviously an uninformed opinion, I will post about baseline power.

BPA operates 31 hydroelectric power plants in the Pacific Northwest which supply about 1/3 of the electric power in the region. They also operate around 3/4 of the high-voltage transmission lines in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, western Montana and small parts of eastern Montana, California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.

Source: http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/about_BPA/Facts/FactDocs/BPA_Facts_2009.pdf

Regardless of why they shutdown their nuclear and coal plants, this means there is significantly more power generation demand than what BPA can provide. Since BPA's power is hydro, it does supply baseline power. But at only 1/3 of the region's power needs, that is not enough baseline power for the region. Since BPA operates most of the high voltage lines, they deliver (but do not generate) most of the power in the region. They are delivering power from a mixture of coal, natural gas, and renewable sources. These other renewables do not provide baseline power like BPA's hydro does, because they only work when the sun shines or the wind blows.

Hyrdo does serve as a baseline renewable power source, but we aren't going to be seeing any more of that. Environmental concerns have not only halted nuclear power, but also construction of new dams. Until we get an efficient and environmentally sound way to store wind and solar power, renewables will always be limited to providing just a fraction of our power.

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