Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:They risked a valuable Monkey? (Score 1) 425

I'm convinced that's true ( people being treated badly in Iran ) , but my comment was more broad than that. The fact is a lot of us have never been to a country like Iran, so basically I have no way of real knowing what going on there.

I don't have the money to go to Iran though, so don't worry :-)
When you say "spend them on getting people out" , what are referring to ? I'd like to help where I can.

Comment Re:Really!? (Score 1) 231

pal means "friend" in french , and the plural would be "pals" , not paux. But it's only used in a non-formal setting.

There is also the concept of "false friends" , which are words which are pronounced similary in different languages, but have a totally different meaning.
Ex : library (to borrow books) libraire ( bookshop , to buy books )

That term is called "faux amis" in french ( false friends ).

Comment Re:Really!? (Score 1) 231

faux pas = false step
the word "pas" in plural is still "pas"
So , "false steps" , is still "faux pas"

French has more of this words, where the plural is the same, or even the word has a completely different based on the context.
Usually, other words in the sentence will make it clear that the word is in plural.

For example :
I took a big step : J'ai pris un grand pas
I took big steps : J'ai pris de grands pas

the usage of "s" after "grand" signifies that it's plural, and the usage of "de" signifies a quantity.
To make things worse "ne ... pas" is also used to mean "not" .
I didn't take steps : Je n'ai pas pris de pas :-)

Comment Neanderthal rights movement now (Score 1) 697

What I'm more concerned about, is how he will be treated : what rights will he have . What is the legal definition of 'human' ?
If it's not covered by law, we need Neanderthal rights as soon as possible, or they might just start experimenting on him ( which I find horrible for any animal though, but it's currently still legal ).

Comment Re:MMMM, Doughnut (Score 1) 242

That depends on what you would otherwise do with the energy.
Typically, traditional power plants keep on running at the same output level, regardless of energy demand ( they can't quickly lower their output ).
However, looking at a typical day, the consumption of energy is not always the same : at noon there will be a much higher demand for energy than at night.

What happens in this case is the following : water is pumped up to a higher level at night ( using electricity that is produced anyway and would otherwise go to waste ). At noon , the water is brought down again, thus producing electricity which can be used to handle the higher demand at a certain moment.

Added advantage is that electricity is cheaper at night than in the day, so you win back some of the money you lose on efficiency.
This isn't exactly a new idea though.

Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 182

Well, if you were leading a government, and you know that an asteroid is going to hit the earth, are you going tell everyone that, knowing that it would cause mass hysteria, riots,etc..., long before the asteroid would hit.

Probably not.

Comment possible scenario (Score 1) 149

1. We manufacture this cathelicin-AM , to create very powerful antibiotics
2. People start taking the antibiotics, specificaly to counter resistant super bacteria infections
3. cathelicin-AM kills of all the super bacteria, except some super super bacteria , which now has free reign since all the competition is destroyed
4. cathelicin-AM resistant bacteria kill off 90 % of the panda population

Comment Re:Easy way to solve robots taking jobs (Score 1) 540

Mandatory reversible sterilization of all children when they turn 12 years of age. Then let them undergo the procedure for free to reverse it after age 21 if they choose to do so. I will bet you that 90% will prefer to not have kids. Keeping young teens from ruining their lives by having kids is important, teens will hump like rabbits, it's in their nature. Lets not let them ruin their lives because a bunch of backwater uneducated hillbillies wont let the government give out birth control and educated kids in the use of birth control.

So you are going to do forced sterilization because some people don't like birth control ?

If you force something, you take away choice. You are no better than those "backwater uneducated hillbillies" who forbid using birth control.
Give them choice, and most of them will do the right thing. Those who don't suffer the consequences by life itself, and serve as a good example for others.

Comment Re:Not as silly as it sounds (Score 1) 337

Actually, it might not be as simple as that.
For example, what if you don't own the car, but use a service which drives you to the correct location ( similar to how a bus drives you to a certain location ).

Certainly, you are not responsible in the case of the bus, the bus driver is. But what if this bus doesn't have a physical driver, but is driven by an A.I
What if the bus only contains minors being driven to school ? Who is responsible then ?

Comment Re:It is already done. (Score 1) 70

Unless he manages to convince each party that the public key has changed, without the secure connection.

For example, you have JohnA@gmail.com and JohnB@gmail.com , and they have a secure connection through assymetric encryption.
I create my own private keys JohnA@gmail.com and JohnB@gmail.com , and corresponding public keys.

I send a mail from JohanB@gmail.Com to JohnA@gmail.com , stating that I've changed my key, and this is the new public key.
I do the same from JohanA@gmail.com to JohnB@gmail.com.

Now, I can intercept the connection which will be attempted with the new keys, decrypt them with my new private keys, and resend them using the old public keys.
Each party will just receive it and decrypt it using their old keys, while thinking the other person has a new key.

Offcourse, this could be avoided by having a clearly defined system of exchanging new keys preferably with new keys signed and encrypted by the old ones.

Comment Re:Independence day. (Score 1) 61

Yes, there are advantages to the EU.
But's there's also a whole lot done wrong.

I see two problem :
- The EU top is power hungry, and wants to expand no matter the cost ( created a United States of Europe ), making them go way too fast, and thus losing a lot of people, and implementing untested laws ( for example the design of the Euro which has a number of flaws ).

- The people in Europe are not very different from each other, both economically and culturally. We simply see things in other ways.
    The people of Europe also speaks many different languages, meaning that you always have physical borders.

The current situation is somewhere between seperate nations and a unified Europe, and that's causing a number of problems.
What's missing is buy-in from the people : the EU is made in such way that we can't affect the big decisions, so it all looks like a show which no one asked for, just costing a lot of money.

What we need is for the EU to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. And that's missing now.

Slashdot Top Deals

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken

Working...