* Posts by Destroy All Monsters

16005 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008

Nvidia snaps out snappier Tesla GPU coprocessors

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WTF?

WHERE exactly...

...do all the heatpipes on the M2090 go???

Hack attacks on US could spark military action

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Big Brother

Oh yes...

Fancy an attack on Pakistan my'lord?

Just when you thought irrationality unlawfully carnally paired with american militaro-exceptionalism had generated enough stupidity, they manage to take it to 120%.

France's official P2P monitoring firm hacked

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Big Brother

TMG has said “no personal data was disclosed”

Because once they have it, it's no longer personal.

EXPLODING MELONS terrify Chinese

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Pint

Yeah! Burn his house down! Burning people!

...Wait -- what's going on here?

Winklevoss twins aim Zuckerberg case at Supreme Court

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Coffee/keyboard

Getting that picture in your face during breakfast is deleterious to health!

Please don't do it again, otherwise I will set the Daily Mail on the case.

Russian rumor: Microsoft to buy Nokia for $30bn

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Black Helicopters

That would put Elop on the same train as Lenin, so to say.

I'm impressed.

HP breakthrough to hasten flash memory's demise?

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Headmaster

There is some confusion going on here, my dear lad...

...namely, between the theoretical concept of the "memristor" and a physical implementation of the same.

The theoretical concept, which can be elegantly summarized in a differential equation that I hope you are all aware of, is being alluded to _here_:

"Memristors are the fourth fundamental type of passive circuitry"

Whereas a physical implementation of a particular type is being referred to _here_:

"The core advantage of memristors is that they can theoretically achieve speeds 10 times that of flash at one-tenth the power budget per cell."

I'm sure you could build memristors out of huge power-hungry electronic valves and cabling using the "fat finger" gauge [exercise left for the student]. While these would clearly be *memristors* inasmuch as they would obey the differential equation mentioned earlier, they would have none of the advantages of the physical realization performed by one "HP".

In the same way, you can have a condenser that is a few nanometers across or one that stands in the corner of the room, accumulating a monstrous charge and covered in warning signs. Both are condensers, but of different kind, of different implementation and of different use.

UK public-sector union DDoS'd

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Big Brother

What are they then? Fabians?

Always wondering at the concept of a Union For People Paid By Expropriation of Others.

McKinnon battles renewed Obama-era extradition push

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Big Brother

You know Eric Holder will find a porn stash under his bed....

... just after a SEAL team orchestrated a Counterstrike Event on his hideaway, which resulted in unforeseen circumstances [tm] while he was using his parrot as avian shield.

Facebook planking game claims its first victim

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May I be the first to say?

No

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Big Brother

You need a "right to plank"?

Sod that. Plank ahead.

In-app payment patent scattergun fired at small devs

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WTF?

"around 20 years ago"

And it hasn't expired yet, WTF?

'Upgraded' Apple iMacs lock out hard drive replacement

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Pint

I'm a Mac. I have no user-serviceable parts inside.

And I generate lots of "fan noise".

Porn found in Osama bin Laden compound

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Big Brother

It's called "psyops"

The counterpoint of showing clueless and ignorant Obama & Clinton "in control" and "on top of it".

Hackers turn Cisco phones into remote bugging devices

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Black Helicopters

Yeah....

I'm always suspicious of the unused VoIP conferencing device on the main conference room table [not a Cisco though], plugged into the LAN and sitting there, mute and sullen.

Always wanted to firewall it.

Google 'close to $500m settlement' over illegal drug ads

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WTF?

Yeah....

Maybe Google should just set 500 million aside to move to a place where it won't be bothered by governments and various "actors" looking for a cash windfalls.

Seriously.

Haumea: Mysterious radioactive rugby-ball world

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Black Helicopters

GSV?

Internet Hivemind!

Scala daddy wraps his Java baby in Red Hat-ness

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Boffin

I have the book...

Need time to code. Where to get?

Student accused of posting bogus coupons to 4chan

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Coat

"One Free Internet"

A Winrar is you!

Official: phones sting bees

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FAIL

The Green Fearmongering Group is to the left, right after the communal compost heap

"1/ Try and deny the claim"

There is not even a need to try.

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WTF?

Yes...

This explains everything because many bee hives have mobile phones nearby.

Classify under "brain tumors" "calcium loss" and "stepmother visits" -- "mobile phones [unspecified technology], caused by"

Portal 2 maker punts Portal 2 making pack

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Coat

Yes!!!

Now everyone can play Wheatley!

Just need to practice my classical music and reading skills. Also, DAT ACCENT!

Ok, I'm going. I'm going. Forget I said anything.

Use of Weapons declared best sci-fi film never made

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Pint

Mr Staberinde, I presume?

That would be an epic movie but people would have to have larger bladders than they needed for Titanic.

Maybe an anime series?

Supposed Anonymous hack 'unmasks members'

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WTF?

He thinks anonymous is in fact an organised group with leaders.

laughing_girls.jpg

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Welcome

I understand all of this...

Should I be afraid?

Also, Raids are fun and productive etc.

Microsoft Skype: How the VCs won and Ballmer overpaid

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Paris Hilton

Skype is worth more than Sun?

DAMN BUBBLE ECONOMY, HOW DOES IT WORK?

Australia cuts solar subsidies, and not before time

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FAIL

"Keep the subsidies until the solar industry hits critical mass."

It will either do so on its own or never.

Everything else is make-believe.

Facebook caught exposing millions of user credentials

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Pint

New legislation proposed!

Online providers to be listed on a leakage opt-out list. Film at 11.

Feds raid home of teen fingered in DDoS on Gene Simmons

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Pirate

"anti-piracy crusader Gene Simmons"

So why isn't he tacking off the coast of Somalia in an Ivanhoe costume with a papal bull in his sea chest that allows him do some righteous beheading of heathens?

Or is this just supposed to mean that the rants against file sharing?

Intel's Tri-Gate gamble: It's now or never

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Boffin

No you wouldn't

Nothing would change for you in any of both jobs. Or did you mean "software engineering" is about OS and compiler tuning?

The lower-layer jobs are too specialized nowadays.

Computers taught to sing using autotuning talent show

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Terminator

Oh, Japan!

Now we can have an even more impressive Portal 3 chorus.

Pippa Middleton in $5m grumble flick offer

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Pint

Aha!

I see what you did there.

UK.gov would pay to have benefit claimants' tattoos erased

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Big Brother

He's right though

No way to make a face about it.

Oracle subpoenas Apache in search of Google smoking gun

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Welcome

Needs clarification

"Oracle hopes will prove its case that copyrights and trademarks have been infringed and that there was intent."

Not trademarks. Patents. One hopes that Oracle is sure about its trademarks.

Ellison really is a nice guy. Looks like after the recent bumpy train rain, the Java Developer Community will be treated to free showers. Please disregard the legal attack dogs while exiting the wagons.

Oz boffins in quantum computing breakthrough

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Paris Hilton

Well...

Here's my take:

Consider the quantum computer as an analog computer. You initialize its N-qbit array [giving you a vector of length 1 in a 2^N - dimensional space of complex values, each dimension corresponding to one of the 2^N N-bit-patterns and the magnitude of the vector along that dimension corresponding to the probability density of getting that bit pattern on readout], then you let it run for a while while not touching it [the Hamilton implied by the hardwiring of the computer will evolve the vector to another one, keeping its length constant or reducing it], then you read it out [the vector is projected into a subspace, as the probability of giving certain bitpatterns reduces obviously to 0 if you don't get them on readout].

This procedure is inherently probabilistic! You may not get a solution to your problem at the end. In that case, one has to run the computation again. This should be manageable.

The "projection" or "readout" may happen early. If interaction with the surroundings occur, your computation will be messed up. This also seems to be manageable through "quantum error correction", for which there are some nice encouraging theorems I hear. They say something about how the computer has to be built to reduce the impact of early readouts.

The above is related to the question of "how many qbits can you actually harness until your computer becomes seriously classical". "Becoming classical" apparently happens exponentially fast as you scale up (the probabilities of being in a not-yet-projected state go to ~0 really fast, which is why Schroedinger's cat is alive or dead but never both [A superselection rule for large systems, see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superselection]. So at some point, your "quantum error correction" will no longer manager to keep the system in superposition... but I don't know when that happens. Probably well beyond 1000 qbits.

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Boffin

"testing very large numbers for prime-ness"

Is also easy.

See "PRIMES in P"

http://crypto.cs.mcgill.ca/~stiglic/PRIMES_P_FAQ.html

Star Wars: From dream sci-fi bride to perfect Blu-ray wife

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Pint

Do people still remember the DEC WARS spoof?

"You've had your chance, Vadic. Now I would like the princess to witness the test that will make this workstation fully operational. Today we enable the -r beam option, and we've chosen the princess' $HOME of /usr/alderaan as the primary target."

"No! You can't! /usr/alderaan is a public account, with no restricted permissions. We have no backup tapes! You can't..."

"Then name the rebel inode!" Tarchive snapped.

A voice announced over a hidden speaker that they had arrived in /usr.

"1248," she whispered, "They're on /dev/rm3. Inode 1248, /mnt/dantooine." She turned away.

Tarchive sighed with satisfaction. "There, you see, Lord Vadic? She can be reasonable. Proceed with the operation."

It took several clock ticks for the words to penetrate. "What!" _LPA0: gasped.

"/dev/rm3 is not a public filesystem," Tarchive explained. "We require a more visible subject to demonstrate the power of the Are-Em Star workstation. We will mount an attack on /mnt/dantooine as soon as possible."

As the princess watched, Tarchive reached over and typed "ls" on a nearby terminal. There was a brief pause (there being only one processor on board) and the viewscreen showed, ".: not found." The princess suddenly double- spaced and went off-line.

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Happy

Well...

But you have to admit that seeing the original Star Wars [aka. Episode IV] in a lousy 70's movie theatre on a Saturday afternoon while being < 10 (though under adult supervision) was PRETTY FRACKING COOL.

I didn't understand the story though. Didn't matter.

US spooks to build 60 megawatt data center

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Big Brother

"which had tens of billions of dollars in spending slashed"

Just show for the rubes.

Jack Daniels Explains The Deficit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rl1xgT3REE

Sony implicates Anonymous in PlayStation Network hack

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Big Brother

It's convenient like Al Qaeda

Also starts with A and you can probably whip up some War on Stuff to tag onto it.

Is there anything to find on bin Laden's hard drive?

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Paris Hilton

The buried him in the Vatican?

I would rather hoped for a honorable burial at sea.

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FAIL

"That would actually be a highly effective way of ending the war on terror"

I hate to break it to you, but the "War on Terror" is actually waged by "us".

It's not going to end anytime soon. We have politicians endulging in control freakery, talking heads in remunerated fearmongering, neocons in imperial wankfests and defense industry mavens in money hoovering...

Hell no, it's not going to end. Ever.

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Boffin

You were saying?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_class

Woz snubs Paul Allen, praises pea soup

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Alert

Tard Alert!

Because Woz has not a lot to do with the modern "Apple" Slime-o-corp.

Robot pirate invented in USA: 'Yarr-2 D-2'?

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Terminator

I suppose...

If you throw it back into the sea it will say "No hard feelings" in a rather high-pitched voice.

US acts on telco 'Ponzi scheme'

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Big Brother

The SEC is actually doing something?

Considering that they knew for years about Bernie Maddow but couldn't be arsed to wake up, someone musn't have the right connections.

Mortal Kombat

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Coat

"Someone just watched the royal wedding coverage"

This gem posted only on page 4!

Wikileaks: Canadian piracy arrests were favor to movie biz man

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Big Brother

Lobbyists not able to get the law modified? Go through the rear entrance!

A "personal favor" which "enhances" the law to the profit of some "intellectual property" control association (which incidentally also makes up its justifications using enhanced figures).

Not surprising.

But what's the quid-pro-quo? Dining & Wining? Freely available sexual partners? Brown envelopes?

Did PlayStation Network hackers plan supercomputer botnet?

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Alert

Please refrain from forgetting to enable the use of sarcasm tags.

It confuses the heck out of people.