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Comment Try Google. (Score 4, Interesting) 217

The axe has been with us for thousands of years, with its design changing very little during that time. After all, how much can you really alter a basic blade-and-handle?

Well, a simple Google image search for "axe catalog" shows 42 different axe heads sold by the Shapleigh company in 1929.

So, the answer would seem to be "quite a lot."

Comment Re:Free as in fuck you! (Score 2) 268

Nothing in the GPL prevents you from charging money for GPL licensed software. You appear to be confused on this point. Based on a large sample set of previous discussions on the effects and merits of various licensing schemes, I suspect you are also confused on the definition of the word "freedom." In case you're not confused, but offering a goalpost moving teaser into a discussion on the latter point, I'll preemptively note that neither you nor Stallman get to redefine words to fit any particular ideology. I choose to license most of my software under derivatives of BSD style and Artistic licenses, and I do so for what I believe are good reasons. While I absolutely encourage you to engage in persuasive public discourse on the merits of your favorite licensing schemes, I also absolutely insist on honesty while doing so.

Comment Re:Medical doctor (Score 1) 737

Dating is easier when you have resources, such as ample food, that are in demand. However, you may not want to be so quick to disregard the primitive bow and arrow factor, as such projectile weapons are also capable of dispatching you when used by competing males. Arrows readily traverse pits.

Comment Re:more pseudo science (Score 4, Informative) 869

Which track record is that?

  • Spontaneous generation
  • Lamarckian inheritance
  • Miasma
  • Bloodletting
  • Aether
  • Java Man

Be careful putting too much faith in almighty science. They've been wrong before, you know. A lot. And people died because of it.

You show a bunch of ideas that, when exposed to science, got shot down as objectively wrong pretty quickly. Sounds like the process works.

Want to list 6 current sciency ideas that are wrong but the scientific community considers reasonable? I'll give you a few to start you off:

1. Humans are not changing the climate. Current verdict: wrong. Supporters: a few loons. Evidence: about nil.
2. Evolution is wrong. Current verdict: wrong. Supporters: a few loons. Evidence: nil.
3. Vaccines cause autism. Current verdict: wrong. Supporters: a few loons. Evidence: nil.

I'm sure Slashdot2114 will be debating the bad science ideas that existed in 2014. Some will claim history shows science is death. Smarter people will note that imbeciles, public relations people, lobbyists, and trolls have always added noise and generally slowed the dissemination of knowledge.

Where do you stand, PR Man?

Comment Re:Linux is not an Operating System (Score 1) 144

GnuPG implements RFC4880. See also the OpenPGP alliance. GnuTLS implements SSL, TLS and DTLS. See also OpenSSL and PolarSSL.

Your userland software may or may not link against GnuTLS. It's probably more likely to link against OpenSSL.

It's important to understand the mechanisms involved with software that provides facilities for securing information both locally and in transit to others. It's nearly as important to do a bit of research on said mechanisms before engaging in discussions on them.

Comment Re:Why? Is it really necessary? (Score 1) 187

When was the last time you were party to a serious information security audit? I get the feeling you don't protect data of substantial value for a living.

In any event, this only protects against internal incompetence rather than external malice, so is not a necessary part of running a secure system.

You forgot to mention internal malice.

Comment Re:No more iptables (Score 1) 187

As I mentioned in a previous /. story regarding nftables, iptables isn't "going away." You neglected to mention that nftables provides backward compatibility with iptables, while allowing significant new functionality. A huge amount of infrastructure utilizes iptables rules, and nftables isn't intended to break that.

There is no confusion of tons of admins here.

Comment Re: Here it comes... (Score 1) 93

and is not required at all for a computer

You must have missed my earlier reply. As the GGP comment contained the excerpt "like your computer", I'm still eagerly awaiting a citation regarding a computer which contains no plastic components, presumably one available for purchase under the implicit assumption that you are in possession of such a machine. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to purchase this wonderful device for my own use, so please don't keep me waiting too long.

Comment Re: Let them be. (Score 1) 87

You must have missed the bit about "Three fowl plays and you're bunted out!"

That's a reference to the "three strikes and you're disconnected/banned at the ISP level" legislation that has popped up in various locales, lobbied for by the media industry folks. As far as I can tell, the source of your whooshing was a joke in a joke, and I must say I found it pretty amusing.

Comment Re:Does it make Minecraft run faster? (Score 4, Insightful) 302

Quoting the grandparent:

The one thing they need to do is make Java run multi-threaded ... Oracle should not ignore it's Minecraft userbase.

Three things seem plain. First, the poster appears to believe that applications may be rendered multithreaded by mere virtue of the programming language they are written in, without special consideration; in other words, an application that would otherwise be singlethreaded may be made instantly multithreaded without special work. Second, the poster did not know Java has threads. Third, the poster believes Oracle cares about Minecraft. All of these things appear to reflect an uninformed poster.

Comment Re:Crap (Score 1) 85

This is an impressive step forward in image processing - while reconstructing an image from diffuse light seemed plausible in theory, figuring out how to do it in practice is a hard problem. These guys deserve some respect.

Well, some respect, but it's hardly cutting edge or even very new. Maybe for physicists, but CS was ahead.

Kohonen described the basics of correlated reconstruction back in the 1980s.

There were videos of reading the backs of cards from diffuse lighting by the early 2000s. Admitted using some cheats like controlling the light source, but not awful compared to this paper that restricts the color.

By the late 2000s, the ideas were pretty common and computationally feasible. I even wrote a few POCs myself while working on somewhat related optical stuff.

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