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Comment: He was framed by the Tudors (Score 1) 145

by boddhisatva (#43833523) Attached to: Richard III Suffered an Ignominious Burial, Researchers Find
Richard was, by surviving contemporary evidence a pretty good guy as monarchs of time go. He modified laws and the legal system to provide justice for the lower class citizens. The Tudors had every reason to fear his memory and smear it. During the early period of Tudor reign, saying something good about the Plantagenets, especially Richard would have been the equivalent of talking about how good the Czar had been during the rule of Stalin.

+ - Leader of $45 million hack/heist murdered

Submitted by boddhisatva
boddhisatva (774894) writes "The men who did it were armed with an M-16 and a Smith and Wesson 9mm, both standard US military issue. They killed him with a single shot. They shot both of the other two men in the leg with a single shot each, presumably to deter any immediate action on their part. The police said it was crime related but the attackers left $100,000 behind in the room. What criminal would do that? Would a hit man leave two guys alive?

In the case described by Clifford Stoll in the "The Cuckoo's Egg", one of the hackers working with the KGB was found in a forest where he had been covered with gasoline and set on fire. It was ruled a suicide. Now if I were to kill myself, I think setting myself on fire would be way down on the list of methods to consider.

Is it possible that someone leading a hack crew on a job that endangers national security or economic stability may be used as a "don't do this" message to others?"

Comment: Sure he loses or does he? (Score 1) 231

by boddhisatva (#43487249) Attached to: Prof. Stephen Hawking: Great Scientist, Bad Gambler
The bets he has lost have all been ones in which the monetary amount has been small and the outcome of the proof has enormous implications for physics. Winning a bottle of Scotch or something from a great physicist and making a huge contribution to knowledge. His gambling losses have paid for tremendous breakthroughs in science. That's a bet I would love to lose. I think he likes to lose too.

Comment: Is this just a curiosity or a long-range plan? (Score 0) 79

by boddhisatva (#43487145) Attached to: Kepler-62 Has 2 Good Candidate Planets In the Search for Life
Traveling at 1/10 of the speed of light it would take 12,000 years to get there, not counting acceleration and deceleration at start and arrival (dropping out of warp isn't that easy). Before doing anything radical maybe we should phone ET and see if he's home. I think this stuff is great because it motivates young people to excel in their education. But we've got at least 3 billion people who can't read and write much less solve integrals. They are poorly fed, their drinking water is killing them and they don't get medical care and die of diseases that we cure with 4 tablets of an antibiotic. We need to get everyone up to speed to have the resources of the entire world to have the enormous economy required to support such an effort.

Comment: I don't see any math, just talk. (Score 1) 589

by boddhisatva (#42768225) Attached to: Missile Defense's Real Enemy: Math
It costs money to keep the old stuff up and working, and then you're going to develop new, more accurate stuff and put that on line and keep the whole thing up and working with Perl and duct tape? And of course you have your super-accurate counter-measures system going too. What do you think put the Soviet Union out of business. Unworkable and stupid. I can think of a dozen better ways to wreak havoc for less money.

Comment: Java sucks (Score 1) 270

It's so shot full of security problems that it's virtually a malware writing language. The promised code reuse. Code reuse? 30% of Java programmer time is spent maintaining legacy code because of changes in the language and libraries. Single framework. That's a laugh. It's so shot full of security holes it's virtually a malware writing language.Write once, run everywhere? What a laugh. 99.9% of the stuff on the web is Javascript. Performance? It stinks. Period. C++ is better and Linus Torvalds says "C++ is a horrible language." Java is C++--.
