Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment What makes this (Score 2) 18

I've not had much luck in getting a better understanding on the algorithm used to generate these black hole images -- it sure sounds sounds like it's like similar to that trope in TV shows where a cop says "enhance!" at a blurry picture, and the original noisy image magically becomes much higher resolution.

Isn't this just feeding a handful of data points into a machine learning algorithm (can we please stop calling this stuff "AI" already) and generating an image from that, not entirely dissimilar from DALL-E or Midjourney or etc etc? If that's the case, how can we be certain the end result actually represents what is really there, and that the output image is actually scientifically useful? Or, how certain are we that the output from this algorithm actually reflects reality, and isn't just spitting back out what we think we want to see?

Honestly I trust that these researchers know what they are doing, but the aspect of what exactly the algorithm is doing and why we think it is trustworthy doesn't seem to get much mention.

Comment Re:that's some nice rationalizations there (Score 1) 154

Not true. I've heard of voting machine attacks where the compromised voting machine will accept a person's ballot, print out a paper copy asking for verification. Now normally if there's an error, the person can go back and void that paper copy and re-vote. However, with this attack, the voter will verify the paper ballot, the machine will tell the voter that everything is done, and then after a few seconds the machine will go back, void the ballot, change a candidate, and print a new paper ballot. Everything looks fine and official, and nobody could ever tell something went wrong, though both the machine and the paper trail have both been cheated. Doing this attack on only a few percent of the votes wouldn't set off any warning signs for anyone looking at the votes after the fact, but would be enough to throw an election.

I don't think there's any way that e-voting can be secure than plain paper voting.

Comment Variable Screencount (Score 1) 503

I'm surprised to see "variable" at such a low percentage (4% right now). I've got a laptop as my main computer, which I do have an extra screen for at home, but I also do a lot of my work *not* at home, leaving me with the one built-in laptop screen. Are there really so few people with good-quality laptops that they can use as a main computer here?
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - iD and Valve violating GPL

frooge writes: With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release.
Privacy

Submission + - Judge Orders FBI to Release Abuse Records (lawbean.com)

Spamicles writes: "A judge has ordered the FBI to release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans' personal information. The ruling came just a day after the EFF urged the judge to immediately respond in its lawsuit over agency delays. This is the same case in which an internal FBI audit found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years."
Math

Submission + - Can statistics predict the outcome of a war? (texyt.com)

StatisticallyDeadGuy writes: A University of Georgia scientist has developed a statistical system that, she claims, can predict the outcome of wars with an accuracy of 80 percent. Her approach, applied retrospectively, says the US chance of victory in the first Gulf War was 93%, while the poor Soviets only had a seven percent chance in Afghanistan (if only they'd known; failure maybe triggered the collapse of the USSR). As for the current Iraq conflict: the US started off with a 70% chance of a successful regime change, which was duly achieved — but extending the mission past this to support a weak government has dropped the probability of ultimate success to 26%. Full details of the forecasting methodology are revealed in a new paper (subscription required — link goes to abstract).
Music

Submission + - SoundExchange: Billion Dollar Administrative Fee

palewook writes: "On June 7th, Yahoo, RealNetworks, Pandora, and Live365 sent letters to US lawmakers emphasizing they owe SoundExchange "administrative fees" of more than $1 billion dollars a year for collecting the increased CRB royalities effective July 15th unless the Internet Radio Equality Act passes Congress. SoundExchange, the non-profit music industry entity, admits the levied charge of $500 per "channel" is supposed to only cover their administrative costs. Last year, SoundExchange collected a total of $20 million dollars from the Internet radio industry. Examining the new "administrative fee", means that RealNetworks which hosted 400,000 unique subscribed channels in 2006, would owe an annual administrative charge of 200 million dollars in addition to the retroactive 2006 rate hike per song played."
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - PCs are cheaper than Macs, right? Wrong! (computerworld.com)

jcatcw writes: "The recently converted Scot Finnie went notebook shopping. At the high end of the notebook spectrum, in order to get comparable power and features, a Dell machine comes in $650 over the Apple, and it was clunkier and weighed more. Sony couldn't beat the Apple either. Midrange and low-end machines, though, turn out to be pretty comparable, with more choices in the PC arena but some good values if you happen to want what Apple has decided you need. So, if you're talking name-brand hardware, it's just no longer the case that PC's are cheaper than Macs."
Google

Submission + - EU questions Google privacy policy

An anonymous reader writes: BBC reports that the European Union is saying that Google's privacy policy may be breaking European privacy laws by keeping people's search information on its servers for up to two years. A data protection group that advises the European Union has written to the search giant to express concerns. The Article 29 group, made up of data protection commissioners around the EU, has asked Google to clarify its policy. Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said the firm was committed to dialogue with the group.

The EU has a wide range of privacy protections that set limits to what information corporations may collect and what they may or may not do with them. In the US on the other hand privacy laws generally cover government actions while the business sector remains largely unregulated. Is it perhaps time to follow the European example and extend privacy laws to include corporations?

Slashdot Top Deals

We all like praise, but a hike in our pay is the best kind of ways.

Working...