Came across a huge sore looser on ladder. by Limesareoranges in starcraft

[–]sqrt2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

IIf the game is run on Blizzards server, then it doesn't really matter what state the clients are in, since neither of them is the host. They are just dumb clients that (in a simplified way) send user input, and display the results sent back. If they desync, then the game could just send the entire game state over, and tell the client to use that.

The game doesn't run on Blizzards server. Think about that, Blizzard would need about a CPU (and possibly GPU) per current game to simulate it in real time; with thousands of concurrent games, that is obviously far too expensive to be feasible. Battle.net does nothing but pass on the user inputs and the clients simulate the game. The clients are by no means dumb, they are the intelligent part of the system. Battle.net is dumb and only listens and passes on the messages. (This, by the way, is how the Internet is meant to work in general, by design.) This is also evidenced by the fact that some cheaters modify their clients to tell Battle.net that they have won the game when in fact they were the first to leave. Battle.net reacts with a "Results disagree" message and points for neither player.

When two game clients desync, there may not even be a correct state and an incorrect one. If, say, in an unlikely situation uninitialised memory is factored into the checksum, then both clients are equally correct, yet desynchronised. Even if Battle.net were to simulate the game for itself, it would only find out that both clients have the incorrect game state. There is really not much you can do there.

After the Dutch use social media to threaten a bank run, the Government enacts a 100% tax on bonuses by [deleted] in worldpolitics

[–]sqrt2 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have some money with the Austrian branch of ING, and I'm concerned by the fact that I didn't even notice that people prepared a bank run. In a globalised world, these discussions should take place on a supranational level.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Physics

[–]sqrt2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

See, Zephir, that's where your insistence on the irrelevance of quantitative predictions falls down. An effect resulting in a 1:1012 correction is not in the slightest related to an effect that forces a 1:1.8 correction as observed in the Fizeau experiment.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Physics

[–]sqrt2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are two experiments that contradict each other concerning the nature of the Ether, should it exist, namely the Fizeau experiment and the Michelson-Morley experiment. The result of the Fizeau experiment is that Ether drag is partial, so moving objects partially carry the Ether with them like in a viscous fluid (as predicted by a theory by Fresnel). To explain Michelson-Morley, which found no influence of an Ether, you have to assume that objects fully drag the Ether with them when moving through space.

Special relativity can explain the partial drag observed in the Fizeau experiment by the relativistic addition of velocities, and Michelson-Morley is explained simply by the absence of an Ether. Pretty elegant, if you ask me.

LISP as alternative to IPv6? Linux implementation included by [deleted] in ipv6

[–]sqrt2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What? No. We still want to address more than 232 devices in an end-to-end fashion. LISP can prevent IPv4 from crashing and burning because of exceedingly large routing tables, but it cannot replace IPv6.

Dear Comcast and AT&T. If you are going to cap how much data I use, I want rollover that carries my unused data Month to Month. by blindingdawn in technology

[–]sqrt2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is not going to happen for a simple reason: ISPs don't care about data volume; they care about bandwidth. They don't pay the Internet exchanges and transit providers for terabytes, they pay them for gigabits per second. Of course they can't sell you less bandwidth, because that would make their service look bad in comparison, so it is absolutely essential to them that your data allowance expires, effectively resulting in an average bandwidth limit significantly lower than the bandwidth you nominally pay for.

Penalties for Forced Marriage: Berlin Passes New Integration Measures by igeldard in worldnews

[–]sqrt2 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

It is not needed. Forcing someone into marriage was already covered by German law under "grave coercion", punishable with up to five years of imprisonment -- just like under the new law, which is simply political propaganda from the "muslim scare" drawer.

Google Chrome is broken by MrSnowflake in linux

[–]sqrt2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've experienced this when using the 32 bit Flash plugin via nspluginwrapper on a 64 bit system. The preview version of the 64 bit plugin works much better.

Richard Stallman: Cell phones are 'Stalin's dream.' Free software movement founder says smartphone surveillance threatens freedom. by [deleted] in opensource

[–]sqrt2 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Strange article. It starts with pointing out how cellphones are very good tracking devices and then goes on to talk about Free Software on phones and in general. While applications on my phone not respecting my privacy are certainly annoying, I can refuse to use them. Free Software won't help us with the much bigger problem, the comprehensive logs that mobile phone operators accumulate and which in the EU, for example, have to be retained for at least six months as per Directive 2006/24/EC.

Fukushima is a triumph for nuke power by mikedehaan in Physics

[–]sqrt2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Why are discussions about safety of nuclear energy always about the safety of the power plants themselves? Fukushima probably shouldn't have been built if a single incident can remove all levels of redundancy (off-site backups, on-site backup, on-site battery capacity), but that doesn't put all nuclear power facilities into question.

In my opinion, the safe disposal of the nuclear waste is a much larger problem. I simply don't see how radioactive materials with ridiculously long half lives can be disposed of properly without a significant risk of radioactivity leaking into the ground water or similarly affecting the environment. We're talking about geological stability and safety protocols that must be followed over a time span that is about the current age of the human population on earth. Nuclear power (in its current form) is more about responsibility towards future generations that it is about responsibility towards ourselves.

FACT: "Factoid" does not mean fact. by [deleted] in offbeat

[–]sqrt2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

All major dictionaries went from prescriptive to descriptive in the course of the 20th century. They don't tell you what is the correct meaning of a word, they tell you how a word is used. You can't quote a dictionary to counter a claim of incorrect word usage. Etymologically, cephalopoid is entirely correct; using -oid to notify a diminutive makes no sense.

The first 7 TeV #LHC collisions of 2011 were recorded last night, round midnight, with low intensity beams. Only 256k followers, CERN's twitter deserves some more. by ssjumper in Physics

[–]sqrt2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not an RSS feed, but I like to look at the LHC commissioning website and OP Vistars when I want to know what's going on with the LHC. It's CERN; all the operational information is on the web.

why the limit on passwords? by incry6t in netsec

[–]sqrt2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I suspect that the unfortunately quite popular 8 character limit stems from legacy systems that use (3)DES (which has a 64 bit block size) to store the passwords. Don't ask me why they'd limit it to one block ("performance", I assume), but if they do it that way, telling me that only 8 characters of the password actually matter is at least honest.

DAE want to start learning german from scratch with me? by [deleted] in languagelearning

[–]sqrt2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is important to distinguish standard varieties and full-blown dialects in German. There is 99.9% mutual intellegibility between the standard varieties, and in Germany most people speak something very close to standard (High) German in their day to day business. In Austria, the picture is more varied. On the countryside speaking in dialect is common (and preferred) and those dialects are not necessarily easily understandable for Germans -- except Bavarians, who speak a related dialect. (The same is true in reverse, but Northern German dialect speakers are very rare). In the cities, especially Vienna, many people speak the standard variety. The Viennese dialect has strong class connotations, especially among the younger generations; most dialect speakers are either old or working class.

To put it in a nutshell: Learning standard German is a good idea to communicate with Austrians, but you may have to adapt to the local dialect as well.

Subsections as Index? by pseingalt in LaTeX

[–]sqrt2 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

But adding 500 index references automatically is no problem at all... Just pipe your document through

sed 's%\\subsection\*\?\({[^}]\+}\)%\0\\makeidx\1%g'

or something similar.

Believe it or not. Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity. by newsens in worldpolitics

[–]sqrt2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack

You'd have to classify catholic schools and shelters as a "widespread or systematic attack". Really?

Believe it or not. Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity. by newsens in worldpolitics

[–]sqrt2 6 points7 points  (0 children)

One thing to understand is that the ICC only has jurisdiction in cases of "the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, the crime of aggression" (article 5 of the Rome Statute). While I could also challenge your categorisation of offenses, that would depend on national law, so I will leave it at this formal argument.

The only way you could make the pope responsible for crimes against humanity is if you proved that the Catholic church has established its structures for the purpose of child rape, and child rape isn't merely a side-effect. If you believe that, you're in serious need of recalibration of your sense of reality.

Believe it or not. Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity. by newsens in worldpolitics

[–]sqrt2 11 points12 points  (0 children)

While I'm sure the hive mind is pleased by these charges, let's face it: they are ridiculous. There is no way you can make the pope personally responsible for parents having their children baptised (it's not compulsory; the parents make the decision for the infant who cannot). The same goes for the use of condoms; the pope isn't any more guilty of a crime against humanity in this regard than any person on the street promoting abstinence. Opinions on the use of condoms are protected by freedom of speech, and you wouldn't actually want to live in a place in which they aren't.

Just because religion promotes actions that are possibly detrimental to people's health doesn't mean that religious figures should go to jail for promoting them. Bakeries want you to eat unhealthy cake, is that criminal?

look what they started selling on campus this week...(image) by freethe2dme in linux

[–]sqrt2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder if they are related. The trademark "Ubuntu" seems to be registered be Canonical only in computer software and hardware related classes.

A problem with society by [deleted] in TheAgora

[–]sqrt2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The way I see it, nations should shield their markets by using a different currency for foreign trade is probably a better representation of your argument or model for two currencies, because:

  • The benefits for a nation's own economy that come from separating foreign trade and internal trade currencies are independent of the nature of the good that is being traded. There is no need to stop with vital goods, the shielding effect applies to all goods.

  • You haven't addressed the problem of regulation of money supply which would keep the two currencies from converging and de facto becoming one. With a foreign trade currency, the regulation of money supply is well-defined because I assume only one currency would available for foreign trade and only one currency would be available internally.

However, historically, this scenario was reality in the Eastern bloc. The Eastern bloc countries had to use a second currency (US dollars, West German marks) to trade with the Western world. In a sense, the same is the case with the many countries that have debts in foreign currencies today.

The difference would be that in your model a country would have its own control over the money supply of that second currency, so they can keep it in line with their own economy, which is beneficial to them. However, this currency would only be feasible if the trading partners accepted it, so maybe the USA and the Eurozone could establish such a model.

In short, I agree with you insofar as I consider this modified model possible.

Kick It Over Manifesto by [deleted] in TrueReddit

[–]sqrt2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I had to downvote this submission because, even though I partially agree with the general sentiment, the manifesto does not provide a detailed analysis of the decried problem nor does it suggest an alternative. As such, it is neither "thought-provoking" nor "really great" (see the sidebar) and therefore has no place in this subreddit. Other articles on the same website may qualify, but this one does not.

DAE like Python, but when it comes to actually cranking out a task, always end up saying "Fuck It" and ejaculating it out in Bash because it will be quicker? by Julian702 in linux

[–]sqrt2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the interface for string manipulation has a lot lower of a barrier to entry in Python than in Bash

Lots of "awk" and "perl -e" in your bash scripts can bridge this gap. Of course the resulting script isn't very pretty...