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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? (Score 3, Interesting) 46

I don't know. Hydrothermal vents ETC are far more likely, the deep water would provide shielding from cosmic radiation. The first bacteria we know of, from ~3.8Ga or so were completely anoxic since the atmosphere had little to no free oxygen... and therefore no ozone to filter out the radiation that was bombarding the surface.

If life had started by surface impact you would more likely than not see adaptations passed down the generations to be resistant to radiation damage, yet we don't see any indication of that even in ancient strains that survive to modern times.

That's not to say the research isn't interesting, since it is. It just doesn't seem likely due to several factors that may or may not be solved for in the future, only time will tell.

Comment Re:Anyone know what hardware the lockup bug is... (Score 1) 106

Hmmm, that's interesting... pretty sure the original bug filer was using an AMD quad core since several mails had been about core 3 / core 4 being idle at the time of crash. I may be wrong though, I only read through it at the time it was posted on /.

Makes you wonder if it is a AMD multiple of 4 core bug somehow though, and maybe fixable through microcode patching.

Comment Re:So what should they have done? (Score 1) 250

so what should they have done? Just let those pieces of random garbage data take up space on the iPod for the rest of its life? Forced you to erase the whole thing just to get rid of them?

They should have gone with option 1, just left the non-working files on the device. As you said, there had been third party software that could access the files, and presumably RealMedia, or whoever sold the tracks in the first place, would still have their media manager that would be able to play the files. If the user was technically savvy enough to use a secondary store + sync software it can be presumed that they could use other software to surgically remove the files instead of clobbering the whole FS.

Instead Apple seems, and it seems to be that this case is to shed light on if it was deliberate, to have forced the choice number 2 on people, forcing them to lose data. If that's the case, when taken to an admitted extreme, it is no different than if MS formatted your computers hard drive on a reboot because you used a word processor that could output .doc files causing you to lose all of your data. Taken to a lesser extreme, it would be like MS releasing a "patch" to Windows that searched the hard drive and deleted all .doc files that had not been created by word... and called it "protecting the user from possible malicious files", I can guarantee there would have been a huge outcry over that.

Comment Re:Get the facts first (Score 5, Informative) 250

and removed the songs with bogus FairPlay from people's devices, because they would no longer work.

See that's the thing, it's MY filesystem on MY device.

If the files exploited a hole in the DRM, then the DRM was patched and the files no longer work... fine, the files don't work, but you can't delete my files on my device .

Face it, Apple screwed the pooch and got called out on it. Hopefully they get a sharp smack in the nose with a newspaper, learn from the past and don't do stupid shit like this again, and everyone can move on.

Comment Re:Dumb idea (Score 2) 186

How do you know that? Are you really all that sure that your eyes don't look at something that you enjoy for a tenth of a second longer than when looking at things you don't enjoy?

And yet who is to say that I wouldn't look at something for 1/10 second longer just because I absolutely hate that topping and have a hard time believing anyone sane would eat it?

Comment Re:What a shock (Score 2) 409

The risk is low period. There have been studies of the indigenous fauna in the area, which have had many generations of breeding, and there has been found only slightly elevated genetic mutation rates, and orders of magnitude less mutations than predicted. As far as we can tell, as long as you aren't rolling around in areas directly contaminated by the core ( nearby the plant itself ) or in areas that are sheltered, lower leveled, and allowed to build up debris and a radio-isotope pool the risk is nearly identical to living next to a pesticide / chemical plant.

Radiation and radiation damage are still poorly understood, there are some arguments that low dose radiation is actually beneficial. In some areas of the world the background radiation is higher than the NRC Total Yearly Dose limits, and the people there have lower incidences of cancer and other illnesses compared to other areas with lower "safe" background doses.

 

Those people are poor and desperate, and the danger isn't visible to them. It's sad that they are even allowed to live and farm there, instead of being helped to build a life somewhere safer. Stunts like feeding journalists unsafe food just encourage more people to do it.

Most of the people that are still in the exclusion zone are the ones that refused to leave. They had been offered help to move and rebuild, but refused due to loyalty to the area / my family always lived here / this is MY land and I'm not leaving damnit, and ETC. Some of them HAD been forced to leave, they came back and the government just gave up on moving them again.

Comment Re:Tort System (Score 1) 233

Come now, you know your arguments are invalid:

Most people in high school are not considered responsible for themselves, by reason of immaturity. Plenty of people graduate high school while they're legally minors (and football season is typically in the fall, meaning almost every participant is a minor). This is a situation where "think of the children" does apply, since the whole thing is about how things affect children.

First and foremost, even if the players are minors they are there with parental / guardian permission. Secondly, the guardians should be the ones responsible, not the government or someone else. Thus my point still stands.

"If they know it is a dangerous activity" also doesn't really apply here, since schools don't necessarily provide information on the dangers of football. If I'm misled about the risks I'm taking, I do not really have responsibility for all the consequences.

I am willing to wager that 99.99% of Americans who play football know it's a dangerous sport, and further know WHY it is dangerous. Even further along that line they know that safety equipment can help mitigate some of the danger but not all; hence why there are trained medical professionals on site when playing.
It really is no different than any other safety equipment - the general public knows that seatbelts can help save lives, yet wearing a seatbelt is not a 100% guarantee of surviving a crash.
The dangers of football are publicly known, even non-fans can and do talk about the extensive injury lists from the professional leagues, so a person who cares enough about the sport will be more than intimately familiar with the inherent dangers.

   

Therefore, since your first premise is thoroughly wrong, your logic is irrelevant.

Nope, and not all the strawmen in the world will change the fact that everyone involved knew the risks.

Comment Re:Tort System (Score 0) 233

Your argument is invalid, and falls short on several levels.

One: Unfair deals are unfair. - tautology, you cannot have a fair unfair deal. The logic of your whole argument is flawed from the beginning.
Two: A student..... with pain. - This is not even an argument, it is an appeal to emotion I.E. a "think of the children" argument that is used when there is little support for a logical argument.

Except that's not how logic, morality, law and fairness works. Continue to be obtuse if you wish, but you're not persuading anyone with stupidity.

See, thats exactly how logic works.

1: A person is responsible for themselves if they are not required to do something,and especially so if they know it is a dangerous activity, but they do it anyways.
2: Said person gets injured while doing that something.
3: Therefore, said person is responsible for their own injury.

The logic is 100% sound, you may disagree with principle one, but that does not make the logic unsound.

Point A:) Perhaps you should go back to Philosophy 101, and maybe ethics, yourself before you go attacking someone else, which in and of itself is another sign of not having a solid argument, before you go around telling people how logic works.

Point B:) There is no such thing as "fairness", it is a man made construct that can never be realised since there will never be a consensus as to what is truly "fair". Every single attempt to come up with a scheme that is "fair" will have to affect some portion of the population it is being applied to negatively and will be viewed as unfair, thusly negating the whole principle.

Comment Re:Tort System (Score -1, Troll) 233

Actually your *ahem* "argument" is the one that is wrong. No one is required to play football. Sure, it MAY make it easier to get into school later on, but that is a personal choice. The person who chooses to play football in order to get into a school could just as easily made the CHOICE to study harder and get in on a merit scholarship instead.

As for children, _I_ hope I never have any, whiny little entitled fucks that they are today.

Comment Re:Tort System (Score 0) 233

Well how about having the person act responsibly? No one forced any of the kids to play football, if they don't feel that safety needs are being met, then they shouldn't fucking play until they are. THAT is how you incentivize the school to act reasonably, either provide adequate safety or not have bragging rights / a team.

Son of a bitch, these kind of lawsuits are why our society is in the shitter today. It isn't anyones job but our own to take care of ourselves; it isn't the saw manufacturers fault that you cut your leg off because you propped the piece you were cutting on your leg - they shouldn't have to explicitly tell you not to do that, and you should not be able to sue over it.

Comment Re: This could be turned in to a good thing. (Score 1) 289

Specious reasoning on your part.

Under your reasoning, I can take a blockbuster movie, remove one scene ( or even a frame ) that isn't absolutely required for the over-all plot, and turn around and sell / rent it as my own. Sorry, but that isn't how copyright generally works; you need specific licenses to do that or it is infringement.

Comment Re:This could be turned in to a good thing. (Score 1) 289

Not only that, but it would be interesting to see if the publisher will sue ( the one time I would LOVE to see a copyright lawsuit ) for copyright infringement; the school seems to be buying, modifying, and redistributing the book with modified information. Doubly so if the students have to buy the book from the school, since the school most likely will make some profit from the deal then...

Comment Re:Let's do the math (Score 1) 307

And if you read TFS they are only talking about life similar to ours; there is nothing saying that in other regions life hasn't evolved to be able to handle those kinds of environments.

This is exactly why it is impossible to predict the finding of "life" in non-earth environments, there are just too many variables that we don't even know to look for. I.E. life based on something other than carbon, life than can flourish in extremes we could never dream of surviving... be it temperature, pressure, or even radiation bombardment. And that is only a tiny fraction of differences, any one of which could be overlooked, and the probability is there would be multiples of these differences all at once.

Comment Re:Easiest way... (Score 3, Insightful) 267

Maybe if you only want clicky clicky ways of changing things. Otherwise there is still a full terminal and BASH installed, and you can update many many system settings through the CLI. I am using a terminal right now as a matter of fact.

Then there is the questionable applescript / automator scripts you can make. I say questionable because I don't know if they can change any deep system things, but automator at least can do some pretty neat tricks... I don't know if Linux has something comparable, other than shell scripts which I can still run in OS/X.

Comment Re:Intel's new Tock-Tick release cycle ... (Score 3, Insightful) 52

What jobs do Joe and Jane Average have that won't be well served by a C2Q or Phenom X4 from 7 years ago? None, not a damned thing, in fact many can get by just fine on a C2D or Athlon X2 and never notice any difference because they just aren't stressing the chips.

Bullshit. Maybe, MAYBE they are not stressing the C2D / C2Q chips if they only browse the net / read and reply to emails. Otherwise stuff like watching 1080P, and to a lesser extent 720P H.264 10bit videos ( or even 8bit, without GPU acceleration ), which more and more videos are in now, pushes a C2D into the 80-90% utilization range. Then they can't do any background tasks on the CPU when watching movies.

Even if it does do everything you need, the thermal profile is horrid... I moved away from my Prescott that did everything I needed to a C2D simply because I didn't want the thermal profile of the throat of an active volcano on my motherboard anymore, or the fans that sounded like jet engines that cooled it. The benefits of less heat output and less power input by far outweighed the performance gains ( those had been only a bonus ).
No one can know if we are going to hit a thermal wall anytime soon, the next breakthrough could be happening right as we discuss. Add that to the fact that Intel is reaching ARM power profiles with similar, or higher, clocks, and that x86 / x86_64 vastly outperforms ARM on a per clock-cycle basis and Intel has nothing to fear.

And congratulations on being an AMD only shop, heaven forbid your customers have any kind of choice in the matter. AMD hasn't made anything more than an "adequate" chip since the K6. Can you name one x86 based laptop / net-top / tablet that uses AMD chips and boasts long battery life made in the last few years? I've seen quite a few Intel based ones that boast 6-7+ hours VS. the AMDs that are usually rated at ~5+.
You may think I'm "trolling" asking that, but I am actually quite serious, if there is some AMD chip out there that is really power efficient I would like to know, it's just that the only really efficient stuff I have seen recently was all Intel.

Slashdot Top Deals

Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in high spirits. -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Working...