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

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Got it backwards (Score 1) 192

This remind me of an old Office file where the MS copyright text was encrypted thanks to a simple XOR value (a few bytes). (There is also that funny story at the time of a Linux tool that only needed the `-d` option to decipher a whole XLS, without providing any password...). Anyway, what was said at the time: while XOR encryption seems very week, if the key itself is as long as the text to be encrypted, and if the key is based on reliable random values (and the key is kept secret), it is indeed a very strong encrytion.

Comment Re:Bad news... (Score 1) 104

Offtopic? This is not a secret that RIAA and the like are not investing any effort in building faster infrastructures ( quite the opposite ). If history was made based on their whims, we'd still be using vinyl records, without even a cassette to make a copy... At 40Gbps, a HD movie is copied within a second...

Submission + - How chilly weather weakens our defenses against colds (nature.com)

ananyo writes: It's been a contentious proposition but scientists now have evidence that not wrapping up warm does indeed make it more likely you'll catch a cold. A team from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, found that cold temperatures dampen natural defenses against a rhinovirus, the leading cause of seasonal colds, in mice and in human airway cells.
Colds are more common in winter, and researchers have known for decades that many rhinoviruses prefer colder temperatures: they replicate better in the upper respiratory tract than they do in in the warmer environment of the lungs. But efforts to link the viruses’ apparent temperature preference and seasonal fluctuations in incidence have produced mixed results.
The researchers discovered that at cooler temperatures mice infected with the rhinovirus produced fewer antiviral immune signals. They also found that human airway cells grown in cold conditions were less likely to undergo programmed cell death — a defense mechanism aimed at limiting the spread of infections.

Comment Re:It's my party and no one else is invited (Score 2) 212

the Linux Kernel development team in particular is known for its savagery

Considering the 1. high level of complexity and 2. high quality level of the Linux kernel, please keep him out of the regular OSS projects.
When the GIMP or LibreOffice bug (they do that often), I'm just annoyed. The Linux kernel OTOH cannot afford to bear a botched or newbie-made module.

Comment Re:Yahoo has 22 million .jp users? (Score 4, Informative) 28

Yahoo! Japan (and its fellow Softbank) is incredibly popular in Japan, and plays a top role re Internet: ISP, search, mail, cell phones (SB)...
Question is "why?" Why Yahoo! (mail, search, ...) are still that popular? Why the Japanese didn't follow the Google trend (as much as the Western countries) during the mid 2000, where Yahoo! had (and still has) those very busy pages and (for a long time) the search was of a much lower quality compared to Google, having a lot of results being sponsored by 3rd parties displayed on top without further indications about that sponsoring.
There is a technical answer: most PCs come with Yahoo! stuff, the search is set to Y! and nobody changes that. The thing is, compared to the West, the Japanese do not have that "pursuit of genuineness" reaction - they trust what is popular and Y! is very popular...
Furthermore, there is no strong consumer association in Japan, and abuses (in any field) may remain undisclosed for a long time (yes, there is a connection between Y! and abuses).

Comment Re:Unfortunately (Score 1) 91

Indeed. 30,000 persons will pay a small amount from a carrier POV. This is a problem with that kind of justice: when someone steals or kill, he has to pay a heavy dissuasive "price", also intended to be understood by other people: "look, this is the 'price' you pay if you steal/kill".
Instead, being rather lenient, the court doesn't discourage that kind of behavior in companies.

Comment Re:C'mon NASA, get your act together on units (Score 1) 66

"size of a small boulder"? This has to be one of the most useless size descriptions

NASA message is intended to be delivered to anybody, not only the /. geeks. While we (/. geeks) are used to numbers and proportions, a "small boulder" - while less accurate - is represented better by most people than 0.634124 meter.

Slashdot Top Deals

Hotels are tired of getting ripped off. I checked into a hotel and they had towels from my house. -- Mark Guido

Working...