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Ergomane

68 karma · joined October 10, 2011

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Ergomane··on Ask HN: What ever happened with the TrueCrypt shutdown?
Windows 8 Pro comes with Bitlocker and is fairly cheap.
Ergomane··on Heartbleed vulnerability tester
It appears so. Many sites that were vulnerable earlier today haven't even inactivated sessions.
Ergomane··on How smoking weed is still legal for tourists in Amsterdam
That depends on what is downloaded. Downloading copyrighted software is illegal in NL, downloading movies, music and books is not.
Ergomane··on Let banks fail: Iceland’s plan looks to be working
Iceland was not obliged to ensure payment of a minimum compensation to the depositors.

See the EFTA court ruling at http://www.eftacourt.int/uploads/tx_nvcases/16_11_Judgment_E...

Ergomane··on UK Gov Security Assessment puts Ubuntu in First Place [pdf]
Ubuntu and Windows 8 have the same amount of "orange" and "green", but because the latter is grouped with Windows 7 it disappears from the table.
Ergomane··on Skype blog hacked
It is only a simple feature if you don't care about DOS against the user account and do not have an adversary with a large botnet.
Ergomane··on Feynman: There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959)
Transcription is the process where RNA is generated from a DNA template.

The observed error rate is about 10^-5 per nt. This is the error rate after nucleolytic proofreading.

Ergomane··on France’s Hollande Gets Court Approval for 75% Millionaire Tax
> It can easily be extended.

Indeed. Just like the Netherlands where 2013 saw the introduction of the "one time crisis tax" (eenmalige crisisheffing) which constitutes a 16% tax on wages, including bonus, over EUR 150K.

Now, for 2014, the "one time crisis tax" regulation has been prolonged. One time, promise! ("Eenmalige crisisheffing eenmalig verlengd")

Ergomane··on High Quality PHP
Is _a_ commercial company behind the development. The most important, for sure, but not the only one.
Ergomane··on Poll: Which platforms do you develop for?
That would be Windows Store vs Windows, right?
Ergomane··on Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
> Bacteria both evolve resistance quickly, they also lose it just as quick.

Alas, experiments have shown that it is possible for resistant strains to strongly reduce the cost of resistance maintenance. If there are no naive invaders, this can lead to an evolutionary stable situation where the maintenance of resistance is less costly than losing it.

See Lenski's (old) review "Bacterial evolution and the cost of antibiotic resistance"

Ergomane··on Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”
Even purified phages are not without possible side-effects.

Several phages even encode for bacterial virulence factors such as exotoxins (stx, diphteria toxin).

Fortunately, we are much better equipped in the molecular biology department to do research.

Ergomane··on Millions in Asia still on Windows XP
Why do so many commenters on tech sites believe "mum" or "grandpa" only run a browser?
Ergomane··on Misconceptions about evolution
The center of gravity of the entire solar system (the solar barycenter) wanders around and is currently located inside the star. It will be outside of the sun in 2017.

Jupiter, Neptune (edit: and Uranus) serve to create a giant spirograph.

Ergomane··on UN caused deadly cholera in Haiti, covered it up, lawsuit says
The suit alleges that "false statements and misleading information" increased the risk to the population.

I'm not sure that is plausible. At the start of the epidemic investigation on Oct 19, dissemination into communities on the Artibonite delta had already happened.

Ergomane··on N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption
The Debian OpenSSL snafu showed that even rather blatant changes get missed.

Anything in the leaked docs on that particular incident?

Ergomane··on "Forensics for Prosecutors" mentions backdoor in TrueCrypt (page 15) [pdf]
> The container format itself is really just a giant mathematical mess -- there really isn't anything to backdoor there.

The container itself can actually be 'backdoored' by a malicious client by eg saving a duplicate of the master key, or generating a master key using a deliberately weak RNG.

Ergomane··on Technology enables crops to take nitrogen from the air
It's also silly because many blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), including those in rice paddies, already fix nitrogen in their heterocysts.
Ergomane··on Torsploit takedown: analysis, reverse engineering, forensic
An entity controlling traffic at your internet connection can force node selection during circuit building by failing requests to uncontrolled nodes. The path bias warning is informational only AFAIK (was added in 2012?) and is not perfect.
Ergomane··on Samsung agency is buying off StackOverflow users
Samsung hires lots of small companies, usually on a per-project basis.
Ergomane··on Hacker Barnaby Jack has died
If you hear hoof-beats, you'd expect a horse, not a zebra (unless you are on a Safari).

It's not that uncommon that 35 year old people die at home. Common causes are suicide, unintentional overdose, aneurysm (brain, AAA), arrhythmia, a fall.

Ergomane··on Why Your Dog Can Get Vaccinated Against Lyme Disease And You Can’t
While it is called the 'sheep tick' around here, Ixodes ricinus has a number of hosts, including mice, deer and birds (eg black birds, robins) that contribute to the spread and maintenance of the species in forests and woodlands.

Roe deer often carry all tick stages (larvae, nymphs and adults).

Ergomane··on Client won’t pay, my final resort
Explaining grievances to the public by making a site may not be legal in certain countries at all (NL to name one) if there's no clear need to do so for the common good.
Ergomane··on Https URLs posted in private Skype chats visited by Microsoft
The "one-click to activate one time" links should always lead to a page where the user has to perform a POST to prevent "smart" applications from using the token when trying to show a thumbnail / preview or offer other services.

eg KDE (old) http://drupal.org/node/24398

Ergomane··on WordPress Core is Secure
Serious Wordpress, Joomla! or Drupal vulnerabilities and exploits can still get you a few thousand dollars. Quite a high ROI because the vulnerabilities are easier to find than in Chrome.
Ergomane··on Microsoft is killing Linux shops with Secure Boot
You can still buy a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu via dell.nl or an OS-less laptop via BTO.

> http://linuxcomputers.nl/

They don't appear to even mention secure boot as the reason, but pricing, margin and lack of interest, both from consumers as from vendors.

Ergomane··on Scientists Back Kiera Wilmot by Tweeting About All the Stuff They've Blown Up
Near misses must be analysed and acted upon to be a useful force in accident or disaster prevention. Such actions can include changes to the facility, changes to protocol, but also educating or punishing workers.

As an example: Misconduct causing a near miss, such as smoking or using open fire near chemical storage, is grounds for instant dismissal, even in the "socialist" countries of NW Europe.

Ergomane··on Intel’s “Iris” wants to change how you feel about integrated graphics
They already came a long way. I recently got an i5 with a HD4000 and was blown away by the fact that it runs Mass Effect 3 smoothly at 1600 x 900. Having good hopes for the Haswells.
Ergomane··on Is Organic Better? Ask a Fruit Fly
The materials and methods section should contain such steps. Washing and peeling was not indicated.
Ergomane··on The True Cost of Healthcare in the US
Unless you have low income, you pay more than that in the Netherlands.

Payment for health care is composed of two parts:

You pay about EUR 867 to 1,140 directly to an insurance company PER ADULT depending on how much you want to pay yourself in case of required care.

Then there's the socialized income dependent part of the insurance that's either payed via your employer or by yourself, which, in the latter case, is 5,65% over up to EUR ~51 K.

A family of two, each with an income > 51K then pays between EUR 7,480 to 8,026 (atm USD ~10K) each year for health insurance, subsidizing insurance for lower income groups.

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