kiltyj - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Avoid the Osborne Effect (Score 1) 305

by kiltyj on Tuesday June 23, 2009 @07:37PM (#28447233) Attached to: Apple's Obsession With Secrecy Grows Stronger

the mini only came in 1G and 2G. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_mini

Read that page again... The iPod Mini came in two generations (maybe that's where you got 1G and 2G?), but the second generation came in 4GB and 6GB versions.

Comment Re:Choice fodder! (Score 1) 554

by kiltyj on Saturday April 04, 2009 @03:57PM (#27459767) Attached to: Quebec Says 'Non' To English-Only Video Games

Technically the US is not "officially" an English speaking country, either. We have no official language as a country (though many states do).

Comment Re:Search engine... (Score 2, Interesting) 776

by kiltyj on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:57PM (#27117679) Attached to: Favorite on-screen calculator?

Not that there probably aren't better examples of the problem you brought up, but for the specific example you gave:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=WtB&q=sqrt(5+acres)&btnG=Search
But also, you can often just ignore the unit conversions until the end of the equation, using the "in" syntax:
http://www.google.com/search?q=sqrt(5+acres+%2B+3+square+meters)+in+inches
or for an extreme example:
http://www.google.com/search?q=(((3.5*g*(in%5E(-3)))*(9.8%20*m*(s%5E(-2)))*sin(0.15%20radians+2%20degrees))/(1000*(Pa*s)))*(((4*m)*(0.1*ft))-(((0.1*m)%5E2)/2))%20in%20knots

Comment Re:XOR encryption can be good (Score 1) 238

by kiltyj on Tuesday February 19, 2008 @02:18PM (#22477610) Attached to: Cracking a Crypto Hard Drive Case

If you're looking to export a product from the US, including strong AES encryption will get you hassle regarding ITAR. Yes Virginia, encryption algorithms are considered munitions by the US government. The optimist in me would like to think that in-house crypto solutions are implemented to avoid ITAR issues, and not that someone "knows a better solution."

Very interesting stuff. Santas, and all!

Submission + - Mechanical Microprocessor in Development (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

kiltyj

on Tuesday July 24, 2007 @05:55PM

kiltyj writes: "US researchers have outlined a low-power microprocessor based on mechanical elements, inspired by the work of Charles Babbage. Professor Robert Blick of UW Madison, quoted in the article: "We are not going to compete with high-speed silicon, but where we are competitive is for all of those mundane applications where you need microprocessors which can be slow and cheap as well." Also from the article: "The American military is interested in a working device because unlike traditional chips, nano mechanical devices are not susceptible to electromagnetic pulses, which could be used by an enemy to knock out computing systems.""

Submission + - New/Old Form of Nanomechanical Computing Proposed (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Tuesday July 24, 2007 @10:25AM

eldavojohn writes: "The BBC is reporting on a newly proposed type of nanomechanical computer that mimics J. H. Müller & Charles Babbage's work on mechanical computational devices — just on a much smaller level. The paper is published today in the New Journal of Physics and cites three reasons to build a nanocomputer with nanomechanical transistors over bipolar junction transistors or field effect transistors: "(i) mechanical elements are more robust to electromagnetic shocks than current dynamic random access memory (DRAM) based purely on complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, (ii) the power dissipated can be orders of magnitude below CMOS and (iii) the operating temperature of such an NMC can be an order of magnitude above that of conventional CMOS." Perhaps the future of computing (the Difference Engine) has been sitting in a museum right under our noses for well over a hundred years?"

Submission + - OpenBSD developers caught stealing GPL'd code

Submitted by

pH03n1X

on Friday April 06, 2007 @01:49PM

pH03n1X writes: "Michael Buesch, one of the maintainers of the GPL'd Linux wireless LAN driver for the Broadcom chip (bcm43xx), reported a possible violation of copyrights by the OpenBSD developers on their developer mailing list."

Submission + - MPAA Steals Code, Violates Linkware License

Submitted by

GRW

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @05:28PM

GRW writes: "TorrentFreak reports that the MPAA is using blogging software, called Forest Blog by web developer Patrick Robin, in violation of the "linkware" license. They have removed all links and references to the Forest Blog website, and have not purchased a commercial license. Is this a case of "Do as I say and not as I do"?"

Submission + - Classical Music Hoax of the Century?

Submitted by

Retrospeak

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @01:39PM

Retrospeak writes: "The CD recordings of Joyce Hatto, a concert pianist often described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of" and praised by one critic as performing "the most extraordinary recordings I have ever heard" has come under a cloud of musical suspicion, as reported in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/arts/music/17ha tt.html?th&emc=th). Seems that many the Hatto recordings are digitally identical to those of a variety of other classical performers, some relatively obscure and some more famous. Because of the growing storm of sonic controversy, the British audiophile magazine "Gramophone" requested the folks at Pristine Classical to subject some of the tracks in question to detailed digital scrutiny and the results are very interesting (http://www.pristineclassical.com/HattoHoax.html)."

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