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Comment Not actual computation complexity people (Score 1) 403

To assume that their problem (rather than the first solution they've thought of) is exponential is a bad mistake. Somebody used to big multi-dimensional simulations could re-formulate it down to O(n log n). Now it's still never going to be linear and maybe n log n is still bad enough to make simulating a universe quite hard - but like many others here I'm finding it hard to see this as "proof".

Comment Re:That's not the City of London (Score 1) 170

Of course, but it's a particularly american form. I suppose we should be grateful that they didn't put London, England. It's just that in this particular case it looks completely wrong to a native speaker because of the fact of the existence of the "City". You'll notice that that's not something that was in the original Independent article.

Comment That's not the City of London (Score 1) 170

I know it's confusing but the "City of London" is just the square mile around the Bank of England. It's not the big city which is called "London". Brick Lane isn't in "The City" - it's in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. For historical reasons that little borough got the name city first (and properly historical reasons - it's the only place explicitly mentioned in Magna Carta).

Comment WTF NYT? (Score 1) 339

TFA conflates Manning and Snowden with the Manchester bomb info leakers which is a big mistake. There is a huge difference between leaking in the public interest like Manning and Snowden and doing it to sell newspapers because you think the public are interested. I can't imagine why the editors of the NYT thought it was a good idea to publish info that harms an active investigation. It's pretty obvious that finding the bomb maker is important. It's also pretty obvious that you shouldn't tell them what the police know. For all they know everything went up with the bomb, showing them the fragments gives them big clues about the lines that the police will be following. How is that OK? Is it because the funny little people in Manchester are a long way away? The NYT really need to answer for their appalling editorial decision.

Comment Macron email hack wan't the main intervention (Score 2) 671

The french two round system has come to their aid here. The initial intervention was the destruction of the previous mainstream front runner, the republican, Fillon. The most likely outcome was then a run off between Le Pen and a very weak socialist, Hamon, which she'd have had a good chance of winning. They were too late in trying to get to Macron to cause the kind of destabilization that they want because he did too well in the first round. We'll never find out exactly who "they" are - but we should take note to build some checks into the political system to keep it robust against these kind of influences.

Comment Best spoofing suggestion? (Score 1) 95

Between greedy marketeers and semi-competent developers trying to get apps to behave is a lost cause. (For example, I had a fruitless exchange with the customer support on an IoT controller app that was demanding access to phone privilege - they simply didn't get that it was an issue). Our best hope is probably spoofing. It's fine if the app can see that I spend most of my time in Ulan Baator hanging out with Mickey Mouse. But since Xprivacy hasn't got active development I'm not sure what the best spoofing option is. Maybe Lineage privacy manager?.

Comment Of course you are right - but how to make it stop (Score 5, Interesting) 498

It's "cargo cult" requirements. People are so used to the security theatre of the password rules that when they come to specify what their system should do they put in all of this stupidity, They don't actually read NIST guidelines. Maybe we should lobby for some kind of certification mark - and the people who assess it would have some clues.

Comment Yes, remote team can build the wrong thing quickly (Score 2) 165

The reason you might want to co-locate is to get the developers to talk to the users. The "distraction" is then the interaction about what it's actually meant to do It's quite shocking to see the difference between messaging and video interaction, and face-to-face (sorry remote working advocates), I can remember the moment we turned up at a remote site after working on a project for six months and seeing the a-ha moment when they realized what it was for.

Submission + - Eagle is the natural enemy of the drone (abc.net.au)

ICantFindADecentNick writes: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become unlikely prey for wedge-tailed eagles in Western Australia's Goldfields, costing a mining giant more than $100,000 to replace its newest surveying tool.

Comment It's already out there (Score 4, Insightful) 157

As we know, censorship is really hard to do well. A copy has already been sold at auction And they quote some of the good bits: The trigger for writing the book was apparently his pique when the University of Washington asked him, as a distinguished graduate, to attend their computer sciences anniversary in 1992, but gave the keynote speech to dropout Gates. ... "he said of Gates, He is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry..."

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