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User: atamido

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  1. Re:Sail Envy on Tapping Solar Wind's Renewable Energy · · Score: 1

    I wish I hadn't commented so I could mod you up. That's an important point that appears to be completely missed elsewhere.

  2. Re:Bizarre number choice on Tapping Solar Wind's Renewable Energy · · Score: 1

    It SOUNDS like it might be practical if you could figure out the power beaming problem, but in order to arrive at that conclusion you have to do your own math.

    Beaming power by microwave was trivial decades ago. The bigger problem is needing to keep this in valuable geosynchronous orbit.

  3. Re:Is it going to have a TV tuner built-in? on Google TV Details Revealed · · Score: 1

    Realize that I made several guesses, so it's possible it can communicate with the satellite box via Ethernet, or some other method. At the moment there simply isn't enough information to know for sure.

  4. Re:Is it going to have a TV tuner built-in? on Google TV Details Revealed · · Score: 1

    It appears to basically do video pass-through with an IR blaster to your satellite box. So it doesn't need a tuner, it just uses your satellite box for tuning. But it can do picture-in-picture type stuff with video and internet as the video passes through it.

    At least, that's what it looks like.

  5. Re:Roku + media streaming on Google TV Details Revealed · · Score: 1

    Hulu is easy to fix, just have a computer in your living room that is either hooked to the tv via hdmi or using one of the many applications that can forward to your player of choice.

    Then you don't even need hulu premium.

    If you're going to have a computer, why have anything else? A computer will run Boxee, XBMC, or whatever else you want to run.

  6. Re:FAIL on Jaguar's Hybrid Jet-Powered Concept Car · · Score: 1

    Why is that a fail? Should they be black so that they absorb every amount of heat possible?

  7. Re:A step in a right direction on Jaguar's Hybrid Jet-Powered Concept Car · · Score: 1

    Awesome, although a bit dangerous to be doing (especially in Yugoslavia).

  8. Re:Venus and Mars on Earth-Like Planet That Could Sustain Life Found · · Score: 1

    Well, if you were physically able to somehow swap the locations of Mars and Venus, I'd wager they would both be much more habitable than they are now for example.

    The problem with Mars is the lack of a large spinning iron core to create a strong magnetic field. That's why the solar winds have been stripping away the atmosphere for so long that it's basically useless now.

  9. Re:Fermenting in space? on Researchers Test Space Beer · · Score: 1

    If you let the beer sit after shaking it, won't the liquid reabsorb the CO2 again because of the pressure it is under?

  10. Re:Consequences for the Cops on Motorcyclist Wins Taping Case Against State Police · · Score: 1

    It certainly looks a lot more like he was angry at being passed and thought waving a gun around was the answer. That's EXACTLY the sort of person we DON'T want carrying a gun in public.

    ...

    As for the DC detective, note that his actions were not considered appropriate either. In fact, an internal affairs review recommended a 10 day suspension for his actions.

    This is the real crux of the problem. Bad cops aren't really the problem, it's the departments that support them. A good department will quickly weed out bad cops as the situations arise, while bad departments will clam up and support the bad cops, leading to the corruption of more cops.

    As far as the internal investigation goes, a 10 day suspension was basically a slap on the wrist, and continuing the charges against the motorcyclist is proof of that. It might be appropriate for a rooky traffic cop, but someone at a detective level should be held to much higher standards.

  11. Re:contractors on The Ancient Computers Powering the Space Race · · Score: 1

    It is often the case that the contractors hold the copyrights for products produced for the Federal government.

    That's only half the story. Contracts often stipulate the contractor write code, which is copyrighted by them, and then hand the copyright over to the government. The government can't copyright anything directly, but they can get the copyright from someone else.

  12. Re:The Energy Detective on Real-Time Power Monitoring Options? · · Score: 1

    The cool "multi-can" lighting systems in my kitchen, living and family room suck a lot of juice -- each room is about 800W with the lights on.

    I hate those can lighting systems, but if you have them then you should consider dropping some CFLs into them. Incandescent can lighting is basically as inefficient as it gets. There was also that article about the really efficient directional LED bulbs recently, but they're pretty expensive so I don't see how they'd be worth it.

  13. Re:Grain of Salt on Microwave Map of Entire Moon Revealed · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It puts them about 50 years behind the US and the Russians in extraterrestrial exploration.

    I don't see why it's at all fishy.

    It's not a technically difficult feat, but it is still extremely difficult to do. The Chinese (as a country) have a strong history of lying about research (and other stuff) to try and make themselves look better. This is all certainly possible, but I wouldn't put any money on it until after it's been peer reviewed.

  14. Re:Wild Animals Should Stay In the Wild on Opossums Overrun Brooklyn, Fail To Eliminate Rats · · Score: 1

    Just use rounds loaded with rock salt.

    You want to shoot opossums with rock salt?

  15. Re:Wild Animals Should Stay In the Wild on Opossums Overrun Brooklyn, Fail To Eliminate Rats · · Score: 2, Informative

    That is why you use a shotgun.

    Contrary to popular belief, shot will go through several layers of sheetrock. It is not safe for shooting in a residential neighborhood.

    http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

  16. Re:Who revealed it on HDCP Master Key Revealed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why did they bother to use weak encryption? Is it not trivial to make longer formulas etc. ?

    There are two possible answers.

    1. They didn't get smart enough people to design the system (see DVD CSS).

    2. The complexity of the key system was limited so as to allow small/cheap/embedded devices to implement it with limited processing power and speed.

    I'd say option 2 is more likely, but wouldn't be surprised with option 1.

  17. Re:Looks like people are starting to see the benef on Is DIY Algae Farming the Future? · · Score: 1

    What is your energy consumption? IE, how many kWh per 7 day period?

  18. Re:self defeating business plan on Is DIY Algae Farming the Future? · · Score: 1

    In one of their experiments they fed the algae exhaust from a generator.

    I don't think there's an exhaust system out there that would convince me that pumping diesel exhaust into my food is a good thing.

  19. Re:Perhaps not as much as you think on Australia Adopts EU's Geographical Indicator System For Wine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have been eating a wide range of food, lots of water and plenty of wines and I can tell the difference between two bottles of the same vineyard but of two different years.

    The point of the GP was that this type of statement is likely wrong. The only way to know for sure that you can tell the difference is through a double blind test as described above. Anything else is tainting the results and likely giving you a false impression.

  20. Louisiana is misspelled on Another Gulf Oil Rig Explodes · · Score: 1

    I can't believe they haven't yet fixed the misspelling in the summary. Is Louisiana that hard of a word? Are they using some magical web browser that doesn't include a spell check?

  21. Re:Is that a non-standard connector? on Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Android Allegiance · · Score: 1

    Wow. You're a jerk, and you're none too bright.

    1. Nobody ever said anything about charging over two cables at once. Micro-USB = Charging + Data.

    2. Assuming the connector being used is actually a PDMI, that has a width of 22mm. With overmold, a micro-USB-B connector has a maximum width of 10.6. A micro-HDMI connector is about the same, so if you included them both next to each other, they'd be the same width as the PDMI.

    3. Who is going to confuse a micro-USB plug for an analog stereo jack or a much larger plug? I've seen many phones with multiple connectors, but I've never seen anyone get confused about where to plug something in.

    4. If you went absolutely crazy and put a micro-USB, micro-HDMI, AND another similarly sized plug on, you'd still only be about 1cm in extra total width.

  22. Re:Is that a non-standard connector? on Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Android Allegiance · · Score: 1

    De-facto standard, maybe?

    That's a good name for a proprietary connector on an unreleased tablet costing more and having less features than the currently leading tablet.

    I would also like to nominate "Super Mighty Elephant Connector" for a name.

  23. Re:Is that a non-standard connector? on Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Android Allegiance · · Score: 1

    It can be used for HDMI and docking as well.

    So why not use a mini-HDMI port (standard) and a mini-USB port (standard) next to each other? How is it more useful to require some proprietary cable that no one is going to have while your out and about?

  24. Re:Is that a non-standard connector? on Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Android Allegiance · · Score: 1

    That is a standard. It's designed to replace Apple's iPod connector, which is arguably more flexible than USB.

    And what standard is it? Do you have an ISO number? Or even a name?

  25. Re:Is that a non-standard connector? on Samsung Shows Off Galaxy Tab, Android Allegiance · · Score: 1

    So why not also have a connector that does [other stuff]? I don't see why having two connectors is a bad thing. One could be the standard micro-USB connector that is used 99% of the time by 99% of the people for syncing and charging. And then another one could whatever wacky proprietary design they use for those features only a tiny percentage of the population ever uses.