* Posts by Destroy All Monsters

16005 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

Software update knocks out Space Station communications

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Paris Hilton

> Comms down but the backups are very resilient

For the price, you would hope so.

How many hundred times over budget up there? And then they can use the military comms. And then they can drop to ham radio. And then they can use morse with the attitude thrusters.

Chip daddy Mead: 'A bunch of big egos' are strangling science

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Thumb Down

I am not happy

> "obscure mathematics"

Crank alert. Seriously, didn't we have that discussion back in the 1920's? When Weyl first went for the jugular and applied appropriate mathematics to QM (i.e. the book Group Theory and Quantum Mechanics) came out, physicists complained about mathematization and "Gruppenpest". The approach of throwing math structures at fundamental problems has been successful ever since. There are still massive open questions and one hopes that investigation of the math structures of math space one can derive useful, applicable mappings to physics. Just take a look at, for example this SUSY and QM blogpost.

> "I have found personally that I had to go all the way back and reformulate the laws of electromagnetism, starting with the quantum nature of the electron as the foundation"

No, no, no, no. No. Anything that goes like "I found personally" is a bad sign. Anything that single-handedly tries to reformulate 100+ years of complex research -- which does not just include research into maths, genius brainwaves, possibly dodgy approaches that turned out well 20 years after and theorem-proving but also many many many experiments tying that research to the actual world (aka. unit testing your description) -- is a bad sign. These approaches have been tried. They have all failed miserably.

> "We have a list of fundamental constants that we're not allowed to ask where they come from."

BULLSHIT IN A CAN. If anyone knows where alpha or whatever else comes from, the Noble prize is GUARANTEED. People try numerology on the mass spectrum or whatever all the time, a fruitless approach as it doesn't yield insights just patterns. QCD makes physicist very happy btw because it doesn't seem to need any fundamental constants in its description. How cool is that?

Chinese PLA soldiers 'mastermind cyber-espionage Cold War'

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: China

> Unit 31337

That would blow the cover. It's prime!

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Windows

Re: Computer insecurity ...

far less data was kept online

Of course, but....

You really need to read Clifford Stoll's "Stalking the Wily Hacker", available online, with hacks emanating from East Germany. Those were good times. Uni networks were open to all and sundry and led directly to peripheral databases of military contractors, or to mainframes of research groups with interesting subjects. Kevin Mitnick was making a name etc. And that was even before Gulf War I. It was clear what was coming. Cyberpunk was exploring the subject, for what it's worth. Anyone remember Thierry Breton's "Softwar" thriller about a logic bomb in a Cray sold to the URSS btw?

I still remember "Computers Under Attack: intruders, worms, and viruses", 1990.

A review notes:

"Although prescriptive in how to deal with particular instances of computer insecurity, such as viruses and worms, the book does not make specific recommendations or predictions for the future. The view implied to the reader here is that most types of illicit activities are fairly well understood by the computing community. These are given treatment in some detail in the book. What new twists might be added to the cracker's bag of tricks, or what entirely new types of mischief might yet be invented, are left to the reader's imagination."

Indeed.

After Gulf War I, US security consisted in endless discussion whether it would be appropriate to shove Clipper Chips up everyone's arse so one could eavesdrop at leisure. Appaling. Nowadays we have secret unconstitutional investigations, torture, extrajudicial killings and quite possibly disappearances, but alt least the crypto is hard. But I digress...

It was not so much that US security services hadn't enthused the 'computer' makers to dilute security as that really nobody gave a f*ck, as consumer-level operating systems were hitting the market and network cards were plugged in enthusiastically. People where happy when connection worked at all! Open dialins where everywhere! X.25 was dying. VPNs? Nope. Firewalls were unknown.

Note that the classic "Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker." by Chesvick and Bellovin came out only in 1994.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Trollface

What's Cantonese for "Muahahaha!"?

"Either a secret, resourced organization full of mainland Chinese speakers with direct access to Shanghai-based telecommunications infrastructure is engaged in a multi-year, enterprise-scale computer espionage campaign right outside of Unit 61398’s gates, performing tasks similar to Unit 61398’s known mission, or APT1 is Unit 61398."

Maybe it' just exploits of a massage parlor working mom?

Amazon ditches 'neo-Nazi' security firm over alleged harassment of workers

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Is anyone really surprised?

...superior distribution channels?

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Bad Hersfeld! Bad Hersfeld!

Nein Nein Nein!

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Facepalm

Oh no, ANOTHER issue of "Der Spiegel" with Hitler on the front page coming

Every third week for the last 50 years....

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Amazon is VERY sharp

> who wanted to copyright, or patent the term "python" her

It's called trademarking. Just sayin'

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Amazon not out of the woods yet

> in breach of employment and taxation laws

Who in central europe is NOT in breach of employment and taxation laws?

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

The pronounciation would be "Herrsfeld", so no. Just sounds like any spa to me.

Top Firefox OS bloke flames Opera for WebKit surrender

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Coat

Re: too bad the Gecko engine is half-baked bloatware

Thank you for playing. Your opinion is valuable to us for continued improvement.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
FAIL

Re: WebKit alone

"This interwebsite is optimized for Internet Explorer"

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Go

Go Gecko Go!

2013-02-13 NEVER FORGET!

Python-lovers sling 'death threats' at UK ISP in trademark row

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
FAIL

FAIL all the way

They are claiming a distinctive logo and the PYTHON string.

Implying that there would be no problem, how hard is it to talk to the Python guys and allay their fears, maybe write up a MOU about not grabbing each other's legal balls?

Looks like that was too hard, too.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: If I can't have it, nobody can...

So say we all.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Meh

That's complete BS.

If there was "no objection" then there was no problem, right? Veber owns "python.co.uk" for unknown reasons without having trademarked anything for a long time. The Python language has been called Python for unknown reasons without having trademarked anything for a long time. Then suddenly...

It's pretty rich that you point fingers at the PSF while okaying jerky behaviour by Veber. Whether the PSF is "monolithic" (what?) or not is neither here nor there.

They applied for a non-software

Citation needed...

I have this. You may say it's false, but please do tell me more.

There is a company in the UK that is trying to trademark the use of the term "Python" for all software, services, servers... pretty much anything having to do with a computer. Specifically, it is the company that got a hold on the python.co.uk domain 13 years ago. At that time we weren't looking a lot at trademark issues, and so we didn't get that domain.

This hasn't been an issue since then because the python.co.uk domain has, for most of its life, just forwarded its traffic on to the parent companies, veber.co.uk and pobox.co.uk. Unfortunately, Veber has decided that they want to start using the name "Python" for their server products.

We contacted the owners of python.co.uk repeatedly and tried to discuss the matter with them. They blew us off and responded by filing the community trademark application claiming the exclusive right to use "Python" for software, servers, and web services - everywhere in Europe.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: I can't believe some of you think they should have 'expected' this

"When you step out in front of a truck, the truck needs no excuse." ℠

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Thumb Down

"This is beyond ridiculous."

It's also 100% foreseeable.

The only ridiculous thing is that the company of N men and a dog kicked this off in the first place.

It's just pure provocation. "Yeah, we own the name, never heard of PYTHON in relationship to computers, we will trademark it, yadda yadda".

They should have trademarked PRUTON and all of this could have been avoided.

Here's hoping their telephone explodes due to the stupid.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Coat

“We are five men and a dog - not a multinational with lawyers. One of the guys is off with stress."

I wouldn't wish the dog to get stressed out by this flap.

Dogs got personality. Personality goes a long way.

MIT boffin teases space-station probe's DARK MATTER DISCOVERY

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Trollface

"Cosmic-ray positrons from annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles in the galaxy"

The production of cosmic-ray positrons from the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMP’s) is considered. Conventional supersymmetric-neutralino annihilation generally yields an unobservably small e+ flux. However, a massive WIMP (≳20 GeV) with a large annihilation cross section into a single e+e- pair produces a distinctive and observable shelf in the cosmic-ray e+ spectrum. Only Dirac neutrinos obviously generate such a feature, but it may also appear in more elaborate neutralino models. Such models are constrained by upper limits on the low-energy antiproton flux.

This actually means that there is a non-zero chance of getting one or even e few e+/e- pairs out of WIMP annihilation, not that you necessarily get pairs as El Reg's words imply:

WIMPs have their own antimatter partner particles. When matter and antimatter bits meet up, they destroy each other, in theory leaving behind, in the case of WIMPs, a pair of resultant particles: an electron and a positron (a positive electron).

I foresee:

"In a few weeks, we will be able to make an announcement"

...

"For the moment, we found nothing".

Problem, world?

Wind-up bloke Baylis winds up broke, turns to UK gov for help

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Facepalm

No sympathy

This is not about inventing but about marketing/selling/finding the distribution channels.

Which is the hard work.

Falling back to a "the world owes me" defense is just weak.

Higgs data shows alternate reality will SWALLOW UNIVERSE

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Pint

Re: Obligatory Daily Fail angle

It will drive down house prices!!

Bubbles always drive prices UP!

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Trollface

When bubbles collide!

Are we alluding to the fact here that the mass of the Higgs is "low" and so the vacuum may "decay" to a lower-state energy with high probability (because not stabilized by a high Higgs mass?) I can only say... HIGHLY speculative. Let's talk about angles on pins instead.

Additionally. with some luck, the universe will be expanding so quickly by then that any of the multicolored bubbles will never see each other....

Also: http://blog.vixra.org/2011/12/04/what-would-a-higgs-at-125-gev-tell-us/

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Moot

Why troll? Your comment will last even less.

Russian boffins race to meteorite crash lake as shard prices go sky-high

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Coat

Re: Genuine...

Get out of here, Stalker.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

"You can take this meteorid from my cold, dead fingers!"

From the hole in the ice: "Challenge accepted"

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Trollface

Clearly....

...another kind of "space industry".

Facebook turns billion-dollar profit into tax refund

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Devil

Muahaha!

Well, lawmakers do tie themselves into convoluted pretzels to simultaneously milk the cow without actually appearing to do so (if need be the "be social" label is applied to destructive policies) while giving nice rebates and deals to politically well-connected operators or just to influence decision making by private and corporate entities.

Someone on the other side of the board actually playing the game instead of playing the victim is thus very much ok.

On the other hand...

Brand-new black hole found in supernova remnant

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Not that careful with the dates

Additionally, as there is no "universal t" and the time at which events apparently happen can differ significantly depending on the observers' reference frame for events "distant enough" (several thousand years for local observers moving at relative velocity of pedestrians when one considers what happened in the Andromeda Galaxy for example), it makes sense to enumerate things by the moment their light arrived "here".

Earth escapes asteroid flyby, boffins want lasers aimed at next one

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Devil

Re: Rather than a laser...

Picture a ton of regolith leaving Moon every second for months and months on a collision course with soon smaller asteroid...

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Just Say No to Hillbillies in Space

Stop flapping your mouth already, you are disturbing finely tuned trajectories! Who knows what could happen!! Quick, where's the number of Greenpeace??

IBM forges Power7+ PureApplication appliance

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Stop

Re: DIY wins, when it comes to hardware

> Why should I leave the self-made server to Google?

Because you are not Google.

I understand the concepts of "overestimating oneself" and "underestimating the time/money/effort/debugging between where one is now and where one wants to get by at least an order of magnitude" because I have been burned too many times.

These problems are out there. They will bite you. And then your whole rig crashes and you don't know why.

Did you include your salary and that of your colleague (and probably the other colleague who is on 24/7 call), btw?

Civilization peaks: BEER-dispensing arcade game created

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Pint

Re: I want to play a Russian copy of this game...

That would be an adaptation of STALKER.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Go

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! YOUR CIVILIZATION DISCOVERED: BEER GAMING!

A Barbarian Cohort appears at your gate!

A Barbarian Cohort appears at your gate!

There is not enough money to build a stadium!

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Megaphone

Re: American beer

Correct!

Heroku cops to poor tech performance for last THREE YEARS

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Trollface

Re: It's a fair cop.

That's because are you are too occupied with survivalism and hog farming.

The universe speaks: 'It's time to get off your rock!'

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Long-term survival is impossible

Sometimes teenagers exist in old bodies.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Long-term survival is impossible

Edgy teenager detected.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Considering the mess we've made of this planet...

Welcom to the Universe where Entropy may increase in unexpected places and self-assembling agents are not magically fully rational.

Oh surprise!

Firm moves to trademark 'Python' name out from under the language

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Mushroom

Jesus H. Christ riding into town in the driver seat of an Sd.Kfz 250 'Greif'

1) Go to Stack Overflow

2) Find out whether anyone uses "Python" for some retarded company's product as opposed to "The Python Programming Language"

3) ???

4) THE CHOICE IS CLEAR

HYPERSONIC METEOR smashes into Russia, injuring hundreds

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Russians = Potty Mouth

So it's like a movie with Al Pasdcheznous and Robert de Negro?

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Paris Hilton

Re: AAAHH MOTHERLAND!

2 cents?

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Russians - hard as nails, not fazed at all

The meteorite preferred to blow itself up rather than land in Russia.

Seriously, I would freak out when seeing this thing get bigger and bigger and bigger.

And don't look at it directly, do you want retina burn?

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Pint

AAAHH MOTHERLAND!

Russian meteor path plotted in Google Maps

http://attivissimo.blogspot.com/2013/02/russian-meteor-path-plotted-in-google.html

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Holmes

Re: More videos

404: Not Found!

Is this a new Tunguska coverup? Where is Fox Mulder??

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

Re: Not a meterorite

LOLNO. Vertical? WHY? Not moving? WHY?? No contrail? WHY???

More physics, my dear friend.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Alert

Hello, I am bear, welcome to Russia!

Isn't Chelyabinsk the most radioactive city outside of the Prypiat/Chernobyl axis? Now pelted by HUGE METEOR? Hardcore.

> 54,000km/h

That's about 15 km/s. Not too fast, not too slow. As this is a morning impact, it must be a rock being overtaken by Earth?

Satanic Renault takes hapless French bloke on 200km/h joyride

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Devil

Re: Why not....

Or you could just shoot the engine, like in Blackhawk Down.

Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
Joke

Not satanic, just sanic!

"I had a full tank, it could have kept going for a long time. I didn't want to continue till I reached Holland."

Shurely someone who would have liked to have a Tesla.