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User: Winged+Cat

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Comments · 659

  1. Re:Power? on US Army to Try Out New, Anime-based Uniforms · · Score: 2

    There are more efficient ways to generate electricity from heat. Photovoltaics get somewhere less than 30% of the energy from heat. Standard steam turbines get 35% easily. More advanced turbines can get over 50%.

    Unless that car was using some kind of advanced photovoltaics, or its designers simply didn't know better (or wanted to avoid the potential mechanical breakdowns of turbines, which might be good reason in itself)...

  2. Re:Power? on US Army to Try Out New, Anime-based Uniforms · · Score: 2

    Err...SCVs are these things, just simplified for (relatively) civilian use. So, how do you power the SCVs?

    Build a command center, you say? But you need working SCVs to do that. Catch-21... ;)

  3. Re:Power? on US Army to Try Out New, Anime-based Uniforms · · Score: 2

    Unfortunately, even large batteries don't last that long. And what do you do when (not if) the power runs out? In a tank that's out of gas, you grab your sidearm, pop the hatch, and run before the artillery frags your immobile tin can. Getting out of these things without power is a bit trickier, and your "sidearm" is likely to require the suit's power to carry (maybe even to fire)...

    Frankly, the power requirement is the single biggest technical challenge in building these sorts of things. The actuators, sensors, special gizmos...all those things are doable and simple, compared to the sheer challenge of powering the thing for any decent length of time.

  4. Re:Duct tape! on Robotic Mini-sub to Inspect NYC Water System · · Score: 1

    Because duct tape works on everything but ducts...and this is close enough to a cooling duct, with the water coming out of the leak. ;)

  5. Re:Hey, the american citizens! on Nukes: The Next Generation · · Score: 2

    And people wonder why the American public is so disillusioned with politics, when the only ones able to get into office keep pulling these kinds of stunts.

  6. Re:Biologists and Psychologists Abuse this... on Digital Biology · · Score: 1

    However, the behavior of protein molecules of known sequence is not ab initio predictable in practice for sequences of any useful length.

    Take a ~1 MB (source code) computer program, written in a language you don't understand. Try predicting what it will do without actually compiling and running it. Same problem...so I'm not surprised this is the case. OTOH, very small sequences can be predicted, it's just that the sizes which we can predict don't happen to be usably long.

  7. Re:What about spoofing spiders? on Robotcop: It's the Law · · Score: 1

    I can just see some legit, curious AOL user viewing source and going to that "forbidden" link...then, bam, you've declared AOL a "spider".

  8. Re:what? on Nukes: The Next Generation · · Score: 2

    We are the terrorists now.

    Nah. We just want the rest of the world not to mess with us because of our nuclear arsenal and l33t military. We want to enforce our words with the terror they instill...

    ...oh, wait...

  9. Re:Hey, the american citizens! on Nukes: The Next Generation · · Score: 2

    We tried to stop him from even getting into office. Remember the 2000 elections? The next best opportunity is in a couple of years.

  10. Re:I bet it's a mechanical effect on Investigating Super Efficient Laser Propulsion Leads to Serendipitous UV effects · · Score: 1

    Pulse sparks at one point, travels down the guide exciting the material along its path, reflects off the end, travels back down the guide re-exciting the material along its path, reflects off the other side...repeat until the pulse becomes coherent. Weaken one of the reflectors so the pulse, once it is coherent (i.e., in one big burst), overwhelms the reflector at the end and breaks out. "Mechanical" or not, that's how lasers operate.

  11. Re:Manned space travel is pointless. on Hubble Upgraded; NASA's Future Not So Bright · · Score: 1

    Probably a corporate son that's been hungry for a bit, so they can claim it's a "starving child". ^_-

  12. Re:Manned space travel is pointless. on Hubble Upgraded; NASA's Future Not So Bright · · Score: 2

    Funny .sig, in that context. ^_-

  13. Re:Risk vs. Budgets on Hubble Upgraded; NASA's Future Not So Bright · · Score: 2

    Would you rather be stuck on a remote island with 100 politicians or 100 geeks?

    I'd take the one more able to build radio gear, rafts, and whatever else would help us get off said island and back to civilization.

  14. Re:I bet it's a mechanical effect on Investigating Super Efficient Laser Propulsion Leads to Serendipitous UV effects · · Score: 1

    What, you mean like the basic mechanism by which a laser operates? ;)

  15. Re:Only because nobody makes it matter... on Fox Explains Why SSSCA Is Bad · · Score: 2

    It's going to boil down to someone other than a person running for office or acting on their behalf to make this work. I, for one, would do so.

    As would and do others. Who wind up having remarkably little effect on how the public actually votes. Is because the public is genuinely apathetic and/or dumb enough not to believe that a person's prior voting record is a better predictor of in-office behavior than any campaign promises, or is this because the politicians just know how to distract the public from such things by drowning them out with massive media spending to direct their attention to other issues?

  16. Re:Is this really a problem for us? on Netscape 6 is Spyware? · · Score: 2

    It kinda makes sense that the "Search" button would go through some Netscape server, and of course Netscape logs traffic on their servers. Any competent Web admin does so.

    If, say, you go to www.google.com and search there, that doesn't get logged by Netscape's servers, in contradiction to what the article implies.

  17. Re:Interacting with Personified Programs Stinks on TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD Reviewed · · Score: 2

    Oh, I don't know. That one might make a good test subject to find out just how many ways there are to delete a program. Hit with disc, falling from an erased platform, hit (or near miss) by tank projectile, stomped by recognizer, run into lightcycle wall at high speed...and let's not forget the wall of pain. ^_-

  18. Re:And if you don't like the DVD.. on TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD Reviewed · · Score: 1

    Aye. 'Twas a relic of its era...and it is sad to think how well it would stack up with even the best of the more modern games, despite all these years of "progress".

    ("Even the best" used deliberately - there was a lot of junk then, and a lot of junk now. If you're going to compare based on nostalgia, only the best usually gets remembered...so compare the best to the best.)

  19. Re:Eva on Toonami Producer on Editing Process · · Score: 1

    Actually, a certain US TV channel (54, in Silicon Valley) has aired Eva uncut. Then again, it knows its market (local, non-network), and there are many in the area already used to non-kiddie animation.

  20. Re:Write Your Senators! (nicely, please) on Fox Explains Why SSSCA Is Bad · · Score: 2

    Do you seriously think they'll listen? Their staffs just tally up "yes" vs. "no" letters, no matter how well informed and eloquent each letter is...and then, on issues like this where the senators are paid sufficiently, even that won't change their opinions.

    Now, if someone would bring up this hypocrisy when it came re-election time and got them voted out, maybe the rest would start caring. But they know their actual legislative record matters little come re-election time.

  21. Re:The DOJ's case was so weak.. on DOJ Argues in Favor of MS Settlement · · Score: 2

    I wonder if there is some reverse psychology going on here. As in, the DOJ found itself under orders from their new boss to go easy, so they're gambling that the judge will see that they've been on the defendant's side since the election, toss out the settlement as not in the public interest, and implement something much harsher...say, restoring Jackson's original penalty, or just revoking Microsoft's corporate charter.

  22. Re:One more stupid lawsuit out of the way. on Columbine Video-Games Suit Dismissed · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do it for the children!

    Man, that phrase almost makes sense in this context. Wierd.

  23. Re:A new video game idea on Columbine Video-Games Suit Dismissed · · Score: 1

    I recall hearing about a game, "Schoolyard Massacre", that was just that. It was back in the '80s, so it was shooting gallery style instead of FPS, and I'm not sure if one could insert pictures of one's personal hated targets. I only heard about it, never saw the game myself, so it might have been just a rumor. If it was real, it was not a hot seller (proof: not that many people even knew about it).

  24. Re:Huh? on Columbine Video-Games Suit Dismissed · · Score: 2

    As if facts like those matter in the face of public hysteria, and desperate calls to the politicians to Do Something.

    Unfortunately.

  25. Re:Media on The Customer is Always Wrong · · Score: 3, Informative

    Err...Dan Gillmor writes for the San Jose Mercury News, and I'd call that rather mainstream. He's been hitting on this issue extensively.

    http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/b us iness/columnists/dan_gillmor/ejournal/