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User: cwebster

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  1. Re:WeMo vs. high current devices? on Turning the Belkin WeMo Into a Deathtrap · · Score: 1

    Relay switched, so your circuit breakers will be the limiting factor, not this switch.

  2. Re:MS says: on Linux: Booting Via UEFI Can Brick Samsung Notebooks · · Score: 2

    They wont learn from this lesson, as this is not the first time they've learned this lesson.

    A number of their leaked (shame on you) and official (shame on them) updates to android had an flash update that would hard-brick phones. Granted the phones had bad EMMC chips and the update code triggered this bug, but Samsung was told of the bug, told how to avoid it, and even given a community patch. A year later, they have not fixed it and official updates can still brick certain phones.

    Par for the course.

  3. Re:Let's kowtow! on Anonymous Warhead Targets US Sentencing Commission · · Score: 3, Informative

    He didn't steal anyones work, at best he deprived publishers of profit, which is debatable since not many people who don't already have free access to journals actually want to read those articles.

    The journal publishing industry is a huge racket. Editors, assistant editors, peer reviewers, etc are all unpaid volunteer positions. Authors are unpaid and in many cases have to pay money to submit an article (some flat fee, some per page, some extra for color). The guys who get paid are the guys who take your LaTeX submission document and change the style file to the 'journal format' style from the 'journal draft' style and put in the page numbers, doi info, etc. That guy and the executives who run the publishing house. In return for essentially 95% volunteer work to get an article to print they charge exorbitant fees to libraries and universities to get the journals (and some like Elsevier wont even offer you a subscription to the 1 journal you want unless you buy the package that includes 19 others that you don't want).

    On top of that, the vast majority of published research out there is paid for by public funds, that you as a taxpayer are helping pay for. If the public pays for it, the public should have access to it. You shouldnt have to pay for the research and then pay to see the results. Sure, there is a real cost associated with printing and distributing publications and with storage and bandwidth for articles available online. The price charges is not inline with those costs though.

  4. Here is the link the editor meant to use on Wolfram Alpha Gives a New Window On Facebook Data · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why do they link to a cnet article about a blog rather than the blog itself? Here's the proper link http://actualfacebookgraphsearches.tumblr.com/

  5. Re:You can do this in Java already? on JavaScript Comes To Minecraft · · Score: 2

    Get Play On Linux http://www.playonlinux.com/en/, (your distro might distribute it). It comes with user contributed install scripts for a variety of games (from CD/DVDs, GoG, Steam, etc), which will download the version of wine with the best compatibility / least regressions for a particular title, install needed runtimes, do all the winetricks magic needed and install the games. I've installed a few old GoG games and some newer ones. I'm playing Skyrim through PoL now and it runs (with DLC, high rest textures, and a handful of mods) just fine. Give it a shot, even if you dont have a GPU that will run the highest end games, you can get most of the classics through GoG and install/play them with PoL.

  6. Re:Uhhhh on What 'Negative Temperature' Really Means · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All quantum means is that energy can only have specific values. Imagine a stereo with a volume knob that clicks between values, ie it can be 1, 2, 3, n, but cannot be anything inbetween those numbers. Now you have a quantum volume knob.

    Temperature is a statistical property of matter that only exists once we consider things as a continuum. At scales where we consider quantum mechanics, a molecule has energies (kinetic, rotational, vibrational, electrical, etc) which can only take on specific values (quantized) and these values are specific to the atom/molecule to some degree (atom makeup, radiative properties, etc).

    That probably doesnt help wtih the sub-0 part of the article, but perhaps it will help with the quantum part.

  7. Re:Its all in the language on FSF Does Want Secure Boot; They Just Want It Under User Control · · Score: 5, Insightful

    'Jailed' is the popular nomenclature. What do you think 'jailbreaking' means on your mobile device? It means unlocking the bootloader so it will boot unsigned or differently signed kernels. Doesnt sound patronizing to me, it sounds descriptive.

  8. Re:What's the percentage on Most Kickstarter Projects Fail To Deliver On Time · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your first statement is untrue. You can limit the number of backers in each tier you set up. If you can only accommodate a production run of 250 units, you can set the pledge tier that includes the item as a reward to only allow 250 people to select it. Sure, that will limit your funding if you limit the tiers,but it fixes your hypothetical problem.

  9. Re:Whatever on Adam Lanza Destroyed His Computer Before Rampage · · Score: 1

    Given his willingness to use a gun and the article states the disk platter was removed from the casing, its not a stretch to imagine he put a couple of bullets through that too. That will make data recovery a bit harder.

  10. Re:Why not both? on ITU To Choose Emergency Line For Mobiles: 911, or 112? · · Score: 1

    My phone (Samsung Galaxy S2 SGH-i777 running Android 4.1.2) automatically adds the +1 when I'm abroad.

  11. Re:Why not both? on ITU To Choose Emergency Line For Mobiles: 911, or 112? · · Score: 2

    There are no 12x area codes in the US, and switches are plenty smart enough to distinguish +1 yyy npa-nxx from 112. And furthermore, this is a mobile standard, and no-one dials US country code for long distance calls on mobile, its just yyy npa-nxx. You dont dial the 1 or +1 unless you are outside of NA and need to call back into the US (or just overly pedantic).

  12. Re:Apt-get install clue on How To Use a Linux Virtual Private Server · · Score: 1

    Thankfully the way X is structured, the X server is running on your machine, not the VPS. ssh -X or ssh -Y and your X applications will connect to your locally running X server to display themselves, while running and installing on the VPS.

  13. Re:Developers not using Linux on Notch Expands On 0x10c, Microsoft and Quantum Computing · · Score: 1

    Neither of those theories work here

    1) this guy and his company are in sweden, and Notch has openly refused to left Minecraft be certified to be sold in the windows store fwiw.

    2) He writes horribly inefficient java that does actually run crossplatform (Minecraft runs in windows, linux and macos).

  14. Re:Why did they change the requirements? on Airlines Face Acute Pilot Shortage · · Score: 5, Insightful

    250 hours is the minimum for a commercial rating, the theoretical minimum for a job as a first officer at an airline. The practical minimum is dictated by the supply and demand in the job market and I have seen it vary between 1500 and 250 hours over the last decade and across different airlines. The 1500 hour minimum is a good thing. There are still jobs out there for the 250 hour people (part 135 freight) and this gives experience that they need to get on their way to an airline cockpit.

    Disclaimer: I flew for a regional airline for 4 years, benefited from the 250 hr baseline (I had 600 hours when hired, 3100 when I left) and I completely support getting more experienced people into those airplanes.

  15. Re:It was a good launch on SpaceX Launch Not So Perfect After All · · Score: 4, Funny

    A landing you can walk away from is a good landing... A landing when you can re-use the airplane is a great landing.

  16. Re:For these 'fastest' metrics: on India Plans To Build Fastest Supercomputer By 2017 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Modeling.

    Weather modeling (solving navier-stokes and a few other equations on a discrete cartesian grid or on a spherical grid in spectral space). Add in land surface models, ocean models, data assimilation, chemical processes, and then crank the resolution way up and you need a lot of power.

    DNS (direct numerical simulation) -- if you want to simulate a fluid flow with turbulence and you want to resolve the turbulence explicitly you need to have a grid spacing in your model that is smaller than the kolmogorov scale. For some flows this may produce a grid spacing measured in millimeters. If you want any decent sized model domain, this produces a lot of grid points.

    Monte-carlo type simulations -- i.e., run a simple simulation but do it 1e50 times to amass a statistical representation of the process.

    and lots of other types of modeling. Basically if you have a set of partial differential equations that tell us something and you need to solve them numerically (no analytic solutions, etc) and need to do it on very large domains at high resolution and your neighbor grid dependencies are such that your problem is parallel, then a supercomputer is for you.

  17. Re:Not too suprising on FAA Permits American Airlines To Use iPads In Cockpit "In All Phases of Flight" · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No reason this should be restricted to apple products as an android tablet would work just as well to view pdf files, but still, very reasonable savings estimate.

    You dont know the FAA then. I have two headsets, a Bose X and a Lightspeed Zulu. Both have the same 1/4" plugs and the slightly smaller one for the mic, both transmit the audio to the headset, both have (various degrees of) noisecancelling microphones, both use active noise cancellation.

    But.... one has been shown to conform to a technical standards order (TSO) and one has not. So I can wear one of them at work, and one of them I cannot. All the TSO is btw is some standards on how the headset performs in certain situations, but the mfgr has to pay for the testing and certification. Both headsets work great, in fact the non-TSO one works better, but since word came down that we were not authorized to use non-TSO equipment, I cant wear it.

    Its entirely plausible that apple has gone through a special certification process, and others have not. Typical of the FAA the certification is restricted to specific models, so you couldnt do something like certify "android", you would have to certify a specific hardware model with a specific version of the android OS.

  18. Re:How about just an iPhone and save even more? on FAA Permits American Airlines To Use iPads In Cockpit "In All Phases of Flight" · · Score: 2

    Sit inside an airline cockpit once in a while, the majority of planes cannot do what a G1000 can.

    Charts absolutely are used. On an approach, both pilots will have the approach plate (paper or otherwise) open and able to reference during the procedure.

    The FMS, btw, is not why a B747 can execute a cat III landing. The aspects to that include crew certification (have to do a bunch of stuff in a sim to get certified), crew training (special procedures between the pilot flying and pilot not flying to setup the avionics, monitor the avionics and make the land/go around call), aircraft certification (there are extra sensors and instruments on the airplane with painted critical areas around them that must be free of dents and irregularities on preflight; the flight computers do more sensitive inter-comparisons between all of the instruments, the localizer is tracked with more sensitivity, radar altitude is used rather than pressure altitude), and airport certification (specific lighting systems must be installed and used, and the localizer and glideslope must be usable to the surface).

    There is a lot more that goes into being able to fly and actually flying a cat III (my plane could only do cat II, but the concepts are the same) than just programming an approach into the FMS and engaging the autopilot.

  19. Re:How about just an iPhone and save even more? on FAA Permits American Airlines To Use iPads In Cockpit "In All Phases of Flight" · · Score: 5, Informative

    The checklists shouldn't be going anywhere. Disclaimer: I dont fly for AA, but I did fly for another airline. The pilots carry docs and the plane carries docs. The plane should have at least 2 checklists and a quick reference handbook, in printed form, in the cockpit. The checklists cover all normal procedures for all phases of flight. The QRH has all of the abnormal checklists. The absolutely vital emergency procedures are printed also in the QRH but the primary source is the pilots memory (things that need to be accomplished ASAP before there is time to consult the book).

    What the electronic flight bag (EFB) is going to replace is the junk the pilots carry. My flight bag had 2 2" binders full of nothing but approach plates, a 1" binder with our hub airport approach plates in it, a 1" foldout thing with all of the enroute maps, a 1" binder with the company flight ops (essentially 14 CFR 121 plus whatever opspecs the airline has approval for), a 2" binder with procedures and checklists (serves as backup for the checklists and QRH that the airplane carries), a 2" binder with our collective bargaining agreement in it. Not carried was another 2" binder that were all of the details of the aircraft systems, it was not required to be carries and there just wasnt room for it. The EFB replaces all of that into a tablet form factor.

    On a typical flight the only things in that bag that get touched are the high enroute chart I need, the airport diagram and company page for the departure airport and the approach plate, airport diagram and company page for the arrival airport. The checklist used is the laminated one that belongs to the airplane. If there is an abnormal, the QRH belonging to the airplane is consulted (in conjunction with other docs on the airplane: the MEL book and the logbook).

  20. Re:I disagree; Bill is an idiot. on Bill "The Science Guy" Nye Says Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children · · Score: 1

    Evolution is scientific. Belief in a creator is religious. Belief in evolution is rational. Each of these statements is true in a way.

    False.

    No one who understand what science is believes in evolution. Science is not a system of beliefs, it is a system of evidence based reasoning. It is not proper to say "I believe in evolution", but rather "the theory of evolution is the hypothesis best supported by the evidence". In science, nothing can be fact, or definitively proven. We rather conduct experiments to reduce uncertainty in a theory, or to disprove a theory. So, evolution is not scientific, nor is it religious. Evolution and creationism are ideas; two competing hypotheses describing a process. Evolution is supported by the scientific process, while creationism is not supported by scientific evidence. Creationism however is supported by a faith based belief system, and people such as yourself (im assuming) who only know belief systems in turn think that scientists believe in evolution. Perhaps it is not your fault that you are unfamiliar with evidence based reasoning, what skepticism really means, and the scientific method, but that is all the more reason for you to support better science education in our nation's schools.

  21. Re:At least open the specs. on NVIDIA Responds To Linus Torvalds · · Score: 1

    If most people don't compile the kernel then I doubt they have the problems you claim. I can't speak for rpm based distros (and perhaps this is why I doubt you, who knows) but I've never had this issue with a debian based distro or gentoo. In debian (i'm a bit out of date here) there was a package you could install (and apt-get update kept it updated) that you would just have to rebuild when you built/installed a new kernel. With gentoo I have a package installed that manages my external modules so I just need to do a 'module-rebuild' and it updates everything to the kernel linked in /usr/src/linux. Perhaps there are more issues for people using distro-built packages, but I can't speak for them either (the only distro-built kernels I've ever used are the ones bundled in installers to get enough of a system installed to build my own kernel). I do recall having some issues 10 or so years ago, but since then, and especially recently, I have had no problems.

    The biggest inconvenience I can see is when your binary driver gets upgraded/rebuilt while using X, as then apps trying to use GLX fail with a kernel driver version mismatch, but a quick logout / stop xdm, rmmod nvidia, modprobe nvidia, start xdm, login, fixes that (or just reboot if that is too hard).

  22. Re:Right to Repair bill in Massachusetts on NVIDIA Responds To Linus Torvalds · · Score: 1

    Didn't know that. The newest car I've owned is a '97 and barely speaks OBD II.

  23. Re:Right to Repair bill in Massachusetts on NVIDIA Responds To Linus Torvalds · · Score: 1

    Go to an O'reilleys auto part store, they'll pull your engine codes for free for you. Some small oil change places will do it also in my experience. Fuses? Just look at them, or buy a cheap tester to probe them.

  24. Re:At least open the specs. on NVIDIA Responds To Linus Torvalds · · Score: 1

    At the end of the day updating a binary driver is a pain in the arse. Every time the kernel changes, the video driver must be updated. The natural inclination for Linux users is to favour AMD or Intel products and forget about NVidia completely.

    If you are compiling the kernel and whatever modules you compiled, how hard is it to compile one more module external to the kernel sources?

    Chances are if you are using a distro that provides per-built generic kernels for you to use, they also provide a package for the nvidia driver package that takes care of things for you. If you are building the kernel yourself, it really is no pain to use tools like 'cd' and 'make' to build the nvidia driver.

  25. Re:yes but they are claiming that the spin on Garden Gnome Tests Earth's Gravity · · Score: 2

    changes gravity.

    i.e. they are specifically claiming that 'gravity is different due to the spin'. but the spin is only relevant in that the earth's "geoid" shape is thought to be due to the spin. the spin itself doesnt change how gravity works. at least not that i am aware of. if the earth stopped spinning all of a sudden, but remained a geoid... then the gravity at the poles wouldn't change, nor would the gravity at the equator. the only thing gone would be the centripetal acceleration due to spin. things would 'weigh less' because they lacked centripetal acceleration not because gravity suddenly changed.

    an interesting question about your point is this - if you take stuff to the top of a mountain, does it weigh 'more' or 'less' than at sea level?

    The spin does cause the Earth to be shaped like an oblate spheroid as you mention but it does alter the gravity you experience as well. The local balance of forces if you are at rest relative to the Earth involves gravitational force and an apparent force (centrifugal) caused by centripetal acceleration. This alters your effective gravity that you experience ever so slightly (ie g_eff = g_newtonian + f_cent, where f is a specific force [units ms-2 or N/kg]) .