* Posts by Destroy All Monsters

16005 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

Petaflops beater: Nvidia chief talks exascale

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Holmes

That's not the problem

That power translates to heat being generated in a very small space, which is bad. You need bulky cooling, copper pipes, coolant tubes, noisy and dusty ventilators, special air ducts and space between the elements. This reduces density and increases cost.

The demand for that power translates to your data center needing a cheap power source, best nearby, like a hydroelectric dam around the corner, or a dedicated gas turbine (NSA builds its data miners where there is cheap electricity available). If the machines need more power in the mean, the diesel engines and batteries for uninterruptible power supply will become larger. My local data center bills in "power steps", i.e. Watt and there is a cap on how much energy you can pull out of the socket. That's a hard limiting factor.

Pluto's blushing complexion riddle solved by boffins

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Paris Hilton

Che Guevara a reddish, blushing dwarf?

But I thought he was good with the ladies (not much with anything else, mind).

2012 CES will be Microsoft’s last hurrah

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Go

"Donations", eh?

Sounds like price-finding in action.

Too expensive? Won't buy. See ya laters.

Hasbro sues Asus over Transformer Prime moniker

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Black Helicopters

This is so ridiculous

It must be a junior Intellectual Property Attorney at Hasbro being ordered to show his mettle. This won't go nowhere but he will learn how to sort through the folders.

NASA finds first Earth-sized planets outside the solar system

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Devil

"That's when the fun begins."

You mean, chestbusters?

Oracle hammered as hardware sales soften

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FAIL

"rising on optimism about the European debt crisis being resolved and housing starts in the US"

Who comes up with this kinda sh*t, apart from people sniffing cocaine from rolls of penny stocks?

Software bug fingered as cause of Aussie A330 plunge

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Holmes

Is that a WinXP license sticker on the black box?

Seriously chaps, good work. Tell the machine who's boss. Humans have even higher redundancy than 3 built-in, but are slower. Sometimes it's advantageous. Additionally, good design that is both highly automated and allows manual overrides that make sense.

Also passengers: Keep your seatbelt on, if only for insurance claims - should you survive.

IT'S OFFICIAL: AT&T, T-Mobile deal is dead

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Holmes

"Worst business decision of 2012."

Really, it's NOT a business decision. It's an administrative decision. And even then it would be "of 2011".

So much for "business owns the government". All that spying on behalf of certains parts of the administrative security übercomplex doesn't even buy you votes at the FCC. Yep, fascist administrations are fickle.

Samsung hauls Apple into court over emoticon patent :-(

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Gimp

You must be wrong!

I'm sure the iPhone would ban "(o)(o)"

Homeland Sec., RIAA Torrent lists published

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Pirate

What the hell do you have against Somali gentlemen of fortune?

NASA detects 'heartbeat' of pint-sized star-sucker

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Headmaster

How so, "pint-sized"?

More like a few km across, right?

At 3 solar masses, the radius would be ~10 km

'Self-aware' bank account robbing code unleashed by hacker

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Pint

Haha!

You two utter failheads up there may want to ask for jobs on the Bachmann/Newt/Romney presidential bandwagons because you capacity to spew outrageous B.S. that identifies Bad Guys To Punish with scant reasoning would fit right in.

Apart from that, guy's right about the money printing thing. Bank are the only economic actor legally allowed to "print" their own money and then pull in interest on it. They are then bitching endlessly about how hard off they are and how they can't invest into security because of thin margins. You then get so-called "secure banking access" software that runs *only* on certain kinds of Windows (for which you must confirm that you have bought and are running antivirus software like that's gonna help), uses standard browers and the Java plugin ... NGHHH.

Security mandates aim to shore up shattered SSL system

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FAIL

What the hell am I reading?

"Under the current SSL system, CAs get to log each visit an IP address makes to an HTTPS page protected by one of their certificates."

NO.

Jedi light-sabre beats Taser in Oregon parking-lot fracas

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Big Brother

The midichloridians are strong with this one!

But really, how many degrees of "actions that are frowned upon" are there? And do you count up or down and is 0 included?

And then they throw in the meaningless "arrested for resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer". Hah.

Sounds like imperials. They were not the Boys in White, perchance?

Nearest supernova since 1986 blasts boffin off her chair

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WTF?

Too far away

Also, you can bet your wife they arrived ON TIME, and not A BIT earlier.

Neutrinos are not ÜberGermans!

Brits turned off by Smart TVs

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Big Brother

A smart TV, huh?

Maybe LIKE THIS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twonky

CERN: 'New physics starts now'

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Windows

Unfortunately, the universe may give you the big F.U.

There may be no "new physics" (and certainly no *usable* new physics) - the Standard Model might be approximately correct (it certainly is not fully correct as it has trouble with neutrino masses for one) up to and exceeding all energies reachable in colliders -- forever.

You would get the expected Higgs Boson and that's it. No more opening Christmas Boxes. One would be reduced to practicing numerology and group theory in the dark forever (as well as make shocking obedience to small, ruguous and squamous statues depicting the stringy multiverse). There would still be hope for interesting data in astrophysical measurements, maybe.

But no Minovsky particles or anything. Which is the "desert hypothesis". As possible intro at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.3550

Higgs boson hunters have god particle in their sights

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Devil

"You have made the error of not noticing it was a JOKE"

WRONG!

As I was saying about that reduction of the sample space...

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Pint

You are mistaken. It's actually Cosmic Sans.

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You mean...

GeV.

Directly from: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

"For the last decade we have known that the Higgs mass is above 114 GeV (from LEP) and unlikely to be very much higher than that (from precision electroweak results). This summer’s LHC results disfavored masses above about 130 GeV, so for the last few months we’ve known that if the Standard Model Higgs is there, it should be between 114 and about 130 GeV. For a couple weeks news has been circulating widely from ATLAS and CMS that they are both seeing something around 125 GeV."

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Headmaster

No, it means you have made the error of reducing the sample space early

http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/supernatural_coincidences_and_lookelsewhere_effect

Cosmic Cannonball snapped blazing a bloody trail of star guts

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Holmes

1400 km/s

Ok, that's an acceptable speed for wandering around the neighbourhood and leaving the galaxy altogether.

Not going at anything near c though, so not a Puppeteer fleet getting the hell outta here.

God particle hunt breakthrough expected TODAY

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Headmaster

Oh boy here we go

> gives mass to other particles

That would be "gives some mass to some particles"

Anyway, more at http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4262

"The announcement at CERN tomorrow of a likely-looking signal for a 125 GeV mass Standard Model Higgs will probably unleash a flood of hype from theorists claiming this as evidence for their favorite Beyond the Standard Model scenario. One obvious problem with any such claim is that the CERN results correspond well so far to the Standard Model with no additions whatsoever, so spinning them as providing support for things like supersymmetry and string theory will require some work.

For the last decade we have known that the Higgs mass is above 114 GeV (from LEP) and unlikely to be very much higher than that (from precision electroweak results). This summer’s LHC results disfavored masses above about 130 GeV, so for the last few months we’ve known that if the Standard Model Higgs is there, it should be between 114 and about 130 GeV. For a couple weeks news has been circulating widely from ATLAS and CMS that they are both seeing something around 125 GeV."

RIM execs chewed through restraints after in-flight fracas

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WTF?

Charvers in Suits!

Better than Pigs in Space!

'Why the hell are we paying elite crypto crackers £25k?'

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Meh

MFW

>dinosaurs

>links to anomalocaris

Cops bust den of text-spam spewers

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Unhappy

> Alternatively, bulk SMS is available even in low volumes for less than 3p per text.

From firsthand experience, 100% paid by credit card numbers that belong to somebody else, so the price doesn't really matter.

Red Cross: 600m videogamers may be war criminals

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Facepalm

600 million games with 1 violation a minute = problem virtually solved in 11 minutes

"In a side event, participants were asked: “what should we do, and what is the most effective method?” While National Societies shared their experiences and opinions, there is clearly no simple answer. There is, however, an overall consensus and motivation to take action."

I am donating for this kinda shit?

New account of Flight 447 disaster published

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Holmes

Then you haven't read the details on KAL 007.

Due to epic pilot error (which includes somehow not groking that if the sun doesn't come up at the expect time you are probably NOT at the position you think you are), leisure fly over Soviet territory where stimmed youth in fast planes then shoot you down.

That was before GPS though.

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FAIL

So how is Captain America on the joystick going to help here?

And if you think european commercial airline pilots are cheap, well...

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Holmes

Except for that Iranian Airbus which had a bad encounter with a US missile?

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Well, *some* parts of the US press where into "Airbus plastic material failure / fly-by-wire-too-much-automatics failure, couldn't happen to Boeing oh no"

I was disgust.

OpenDNS puts crypto in beta

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Tech firm deals collapse on fears of double dip

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Trollface

Ah the joys of fiat money!

> potential slide into a second recession.

> potential

> second

My face when people still don't understand that calming words from Krugman types and money generation by banks (central or otherwise) won't wondrously heal an economy destabilized by asset bubbles, malinvestments, do-nothing jobs, and a craterfield of unsustainable debt. Not to mention wars-of-choice, social security promises of the "magic rabbit" kind and so-called "organized labor".

Fusion-io: SSDs are useless ... Let's build one

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Holmes

You may consider it to be of some interest to keep that RAM going if the power supply blows, so it cannot be the standard RAM interface. Battery-backed SSD though? Why not.

Netflix snubs 'Tech City' for Luxembourg

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Big Brother

15% VAT...

It's 15% too much.

VAT - the last refuge of the bankrupt welfare state.

What I do know about Luxusbourg is that they have a nice housing bubble going, which is being strenuously denied by all people political. Also, banking problems...

Secrets of the asteroid belt: Vesta actually more like a planet

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Devil

Iron core?

Let's get Lakshmi Mittal interested in this baby.

Patent tax break takes effect in April 2013

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Thumb Down

Ha Ha Ha!

More stupids who think innovation has anything to do with how easily patents are granted or can be obtained.

"The Patent Box will provide an additional incentive for companies in the UK to retain and commercialise existing patents and to develop new innovative patented products,"

More like, UK companies actually building something will be marooned in intellectual red tape and wander or die off while a thickening (and sickening) cesspool of "IP attorney" types will start its neverending cancerous growth, leading to the known feedback effect of more IP protection laws with even less companies able to do anything.

"This will encourage companies to locate the high-value jobs associated with the development, manufacture and exploitation of patents in the UK and maintain the UK’s position as a world leader in patented technologies."

Just what I said.

US military pays SETI to check Kepler-22b for aliens

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Go

The results are in...

No modulated radio emissions have been found. However, when you look at this far end of the power spectrum, there are tantalizing hints of very short but regular burst emissions that obey a similar probability distribution as does packet communication radio. More money may be needed to confirm or disconfirm this.

Codebreakers find evidence for hidden puzzle in GCHQ challenge

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Happy

Some people should do physics....

I really want to know whether the Hilbert Space of QM has curvature. Not sure what to believe.

Voyager probe reaches edge of Solar System's 'bubble'

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Terminator

There are no cobblestones, rodents, weather or cops in space!

These probes have it easy.

Supermassive surprise: the biggest black holes EVER

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Paris Hilton

http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PLANCK/Complete/Planck.html

“Yes! The centre of the hole lies in our future, now. We won't hit the singularity face-first, we'll hit it future-first — just like hitting the Big Crunch. And the direction on this platform that used to point towards the singularity is now facing ‘down’ on the map — into what seems from the outside to be the hole's past, but is really a vast stretch of space. There are billions of light years laid out in front of us — the entire history of the hole's interior, converted into space — and it's expanding as we approach the singularity. The only catch is, elbow room and head room are in short supply. Not to mention time.”

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Alien

In a nearby Euro Galaxy

After a period of inflation ... supermassive paper money black holes formed everywhere.

This is their story...

NASA probe now closer than ANY OTHER spacecraft to Pluto

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Trollface

WHERE WE GO, WE DON'T NEED NO EYES!

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Holmes

Wonder whether they going to also collect telemetry to clear up the intriguing "Pioneer Anomaly"? I would hop to think they didn't forget about that.

Carrier IQ VP: App on millions of phones not a privacy risk

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Holmes

"It's wholly unnecessary."

And that's why software configuration management and runtime configuration exists.

Maybe Verizon et al. haven't yet fully gotten arround to that.

Reg: "His version of the software has been confirmed by Dan Rosenberg, an Android security researcher who has reverse engineered Carrier IQ and examined the underlying machine language."

The World And His Dog needs an interview with that guy, too.

CarrierIQ: "To prove that's the case, we've brought in security consultants to take a look at our code and take a look at what we're doing and validate it."

That sounds pretty legit to me.

Yes, CarrierIQ needs to talk smooth, but that's understandable -- they suddenly have to deal with bored senators, a busybody FTC, four lawsuits, bad press, irate progressives demanding "ANSWERS, MAN" and people who think capturing a keycode is spying?

(Meanwhile, didcha know that the US senate okayed military detention of Americans without charges or a trial, even if snapped up on a random street of the homeland? Is it in the news?)

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Headmaster

> I have researched and had confirmed by a source at AT&T

Pics or it didn't happen.

Also, you may want to take your questions up with AT&T and Verizon, as these are really the interested parties.

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Trollface

The 99% speak

> TrevE

> looking out for us

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Holmes

"6 MB per month which I have paid for"

So did you notice anything unusual on yer phone bill, old chap?

Maybe these chunks are marked "not billable" in the billing system, who knows.

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Facepalm

What do you mean "Why"?

Because the fracking carrier asked us to and forks over money for it?

Apple files avatar automation, emotion patents

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Devil

Also, "Avatar" is property of James Cameron.

But really, is Apple regressing to a Web 2.0 boutique?