Comment Recklessness?!? (Score 1) 87
Recklessness is selling an OS that can be hacked.
Comment A space ship is not a photon... (Score 1) 162
Maybe I have this wrong, but wouldn't our imaginary space ship be able to turn on it's rockets and accelerate? So when it is a billion light years away, and in space that was receding from Earth, from Earth's point of reference, it could speed up to the local speed of light, in the rocket's now current frame of reference. And thus with repeated application of propulsion along its journey, make up for the recession of space.
Submission + - Krugman: our robotic overlords, "...reduce the demand for people..." (nytimes.com)
ninguna writes: Gordon argues, rightly in my view, that we’ve really had three industrial revolutions so far, each based on a different cluster of technologies:
The analysis in Gordon's paper links periods of slow and rapid growth to the timing of the three industrial revolutions:
The analysis in Gordon's paper links periods of slow and rapid growth to the timing of the three industrial revolutions:
- IR #1 (steam, railroads) from 1750 to 1830;
- IR #2 (electricity, internal combustion engine, running water, indoor toilets, communications, entertainment, chemicals, petroleum) from 1870 to 1900;
- and IR #3 (computers, the web, mobile phones) from 1960 to present.
What Gordon then does is suggest that IR #3 has already mostly run its course, that all our mobile devices and all that are new and fun but not that fundamental. It’s good to have someone questioning the tech euphoria; but I’ve been looking into technology issues a lot lately, and I’m pretty sure he’s wrong, that the IT revolution has only begun to have its impact.
Is Krugman right, will robots put laborers and even the educated out of work?
Submission + - Popular Wordpress Plugin Leaves Sensitive Data in the Open (securityledger.com)
chicksdaddy writes: "A security researcher is warning WordPress uses that a popular plugin may leave sensitive information from their blog accessible from the public Internet with little more than a Google search.
The researcher, Jason A. Donenfeld, who uses the handle “zx2c4” posted a notice about the add-on, W3 Total Cache on the Full Disclosure security mailing list on Sunday, warning that many WordPress blogs that had added the plugin had directories of cached content that could be browsed by anyone with a web browser and the knowledge of where to look. The content of those directories could be downloaded, including directories containing sensitive data like password hashes, Donenfeld wrote.
W3 Total Cache is described as a “performance framework” that speeds up web sites that use the WordPress content management system by caching site content, speeding up page loads, downloads and the like. The plugin has been downloaded 1.39 million times and is used by sites including mashable.com and smashingmagazine.com, according to the WordPress web site."
The researcher, Jason A. Donenfeld, who uses the handle “zx2c4” posted a notice about the add-on, W3 Total Cache on the Full Disclosure security mailing list on Sunday, warning that many WordPress blogs that had added the plugin had directories of cached content that could be browsed by anyone with a web browser and the knowledge of where to look. The content of those directories could be downloaded, including directories containing sensitive data like password hashes, Donenfeld wrote.
W3 Total Cache is described as a “performance framework” that speeds up web sites that use the WordPress content management system by caching site content, speeding up page loads, downloads and the like. The plugin has been downloaded 1.39 million times and is used by sites including mashable.com and smashingmagazine.com, according to the WordPress web site."
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What was your favorite web comic of 2012? 3
skade88 writes: Its that time of the year again! You guessed it! Its time to do another year-end best-of roundup! Today's topic is web comics. What was your favorite web comic of 2012? Feel free to use the following categories or make up your own.
1) Best overall web comic series of 2012. (Any web comic that produced content in 2012)
2) Funniest web comic of 2012. (This one represents the single funniest comic of any web comic series.)
3) Best art in a web comic of 2012. (Web comic from 2012 with the most amazing art ever)
4) Web comic that was most relevant to you in 2012. (This one is even more subjective than the others)
I will post my choices along with why in the comments. I can't wait to see y'all's!
1) Best overall web comic series of 2012. (Any web comic that produced content in 2012)
2) Funniest web comic of 2012. (This one represents the single funniest comic of any web comic series.)
3) Best art in a web comic of 2012. (Web comic from 2012 with the most amazing art ever)
4) Web comic that was most relevant to you in 2012. (This one is even more subjective than the others)
I will post my choices along with why in the comments. I can't wait to see y'all's!
Comment What's next... (Score 1) 334
You got to wonder when the next stage in this story will come out; that with all those computers we purchase being made in China, they have hacked the chipsets to allow backdoors for their use. Probably the only reason this hasn't happend so far is that they make too much money with the current situation and breaking into M$ computers is too easy to make such a step necessary. But the Defense department better be thinking about this!
Submission + - Chernobyl Has Lasting Negative Impact (bbc.co.uk)
ninguna writes: The largest wildlife census of its kind conducted in Chernobyl has revealed that mammals are declining in the exclusion zone surrounding the nuclear power plant. While some stories seem to indicate Nature recovering. The actual picture isn't quite so great (does this really surprise anyone?).
Comment Once all snuggly in space, why return to a planet? (Score 1) 642
Let me see if I've got this straight... I make all this effort to learn to live in space, get comfortable, and even feel able to make a journey of light years to visit a distant star system. I look down and see a teeming cesspool of alien life; viruses, predators, mosquitoes. And all I can think of is landing and taking my chances?
Fermi's Paradox misses the point completely. No alien capable of interstellar travel would seriously consider colonization of a planet. Once able to live in space, space would become home, and a planet would look like a large and dangerous gravity hole with little to offer except possibly entertainment.
Forget about these colonization scenarios. An alien will not be the passenger of some space ship, it will be the space ship, and it will have no interest in leaving it's existence in space. Perhaps we should begin thinking about such a future for ourselves?
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Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space.
