Slashdot Mirror


User: ablcmx

ablcmx's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
14
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 14

  1. Re:Lazy police on How To Catch a Laptop Thief? · · Score: 1

    Hostage situations, bomb threats, rogue snipers?

    Oh....right....

  2. Re:Quick primer on Persistent Terminals For a Dedicated Computing Box? · · Score: 1

    When you start running more than one screen process under the same user it can make it difficult to re-attach because you have to tell it which pty to attach to.

    Nicodemus

    Or use screen -S NAME to name all of your sessions. Then you can reattach with the logical name rather than numerical pty.

  3. Re:Patent Pending on Build Your Own Chat-Cord · · Score: 1

    Silly - prior art would include telephone headset adapters and so many other things I don't even want to list them. But that, of course, never stopped a patent from being granted in the past.

  4. Methods for finding the can on GPS Cell Phone in Soda Can Form · · Score: 1

    It would be difficult to try any of these methods without having a case with the phone inside. You could guess, but without knowing exactly what the phone is made of, it would be nearly impossible to find it.

  5. Re:No need to oversell it on Nuclear Fusion Real Soon Now · · Score: 1

    CANDU reactors (http://www.candu.org) do not produce plutonium. In fact they can be used to convert plutonium to thorium

  6. Re:Fido using NextNet hardware on Fido Launches New Broadband Wireless Access · · Score: 1

    Hmm...they seem to be using W-CDMA in at least the licensed PCS band: http://www.bbwexchange.com/publications/newswires/ page546-614840.asp

    Where did you get the 500mW EIRP #?

  7. Re:Fido's offering is MMDS on Fido Launches New Broadband Wireless Access · · Score: 1

    Umm, sorry but MMDS is just a frequency band and that has nothing directly to do with LOS and free-space loss. It's all behind the radio technology and power outputs. Sure the higher the frequency the higher the propogation loss due to obstacles (including air). But there are certainly NLOS applications at around that frequency. It may not be very good, but 802.11a certainly does not require LOS to operate (ie it works through walls and small buildings).

  8. Fido using NextNet hardware on Fido Launches New Broadband Wireless Access · · Score: 1

    They are using the NextNet (www.nextnetwireless) hardware - OFDM technology. This seems to be part of the Inukshuk (www.inukshuk.ca) project.

  9. Red Hat financial problems on Snag the Red Hat 9 ISOs, via Cash or BitTorrent · · Score: 5, Funny

    Red Hat must be in serious trouble if they couldn't afford the .0 to append to the 9!

  10. Error: you shouldn't see this error on Gnarly Error Messages · · Score: 1

    This is quite the disconcerting thing to see!

  11. Re:"On-board device" on Perpetual Motion Delorean? · · Score: 1

    An alternator doesn't do you any good without anything to drive it. Say an internal combustion engine. Toidi

  12. "On-board device" on Perpetual Motion Delorean? · · Score: 1

    "The very essence of the technology to be demonstrated is the capability to keep the batteries "topped up" at all times with the "on board" device invented by Carl B. Tilley."

    I bet this so-called device is an internal combustion engine. They said it didn't need "recharging" but they never said anything about refuelling.

  13. Renting Illegal? on Gaming On Demand · · Score: 2

    Surely EB is paying the game publishers money for the right to do this (either a cut per game or some lump sum).
    If they weren't doing this then they would have a LOT more games available. So, EB makes a little money for streaming out the game and the publisher makes a little money as well.

    Also I haven't looked into it but it looks like the content is streamed somewhat like a WMP stream, using pre-caching of content. It may not be easily to get a local cache of the ENTIRE game (since content is sent on demand), so although nothing is impossible, it would be very difficult to pirate the game.

  14. Challenger on The Challenger · · Score: 1
    One of my few childhood memories is of sitting in a circle in my Kindergarten class in the morning on 29 January, 1986. Our teacher walked in, with tears in her eyes, and sat down to tell us about a space shuttle called Challenger and the teacher aboard.

    I, like many children, had (and have) an aspiration to become an astronaut. The opportunity to be an explorer, a pioneer, a scientist and an engineer inspired me to read and learn about the space program. Thus I was one of the few children in the class who knew any specifics about the NASA and the space shuttle.

    I remember this day clearly because it was really my first realization of our mortality, that even in an organization such as NASA, people could make mistakes, make bad decisions; and even without this things could go wrong. I mourned for the astronauts, scientists and teacher who were lost on that day, but as the weeks went by I also mourned the space program. I was afraid that this disaster would cause the downfall of the space program.

    This made me realize that in any scientific endeavor there is always risk. But it is important to learn from everything, whether it is a huge achievement, or a terrible disaster. It is an insult to the memories of the people involved, in either case, to ignore the lessons derived from the experience.

    In the case of the Challenger, the lesson is that it is better to double and triple check everything in an undertaking so huge, than to rush to meet a launch window. However, the lesson taking by much of the public and certain members of the government was that the space program is too dangerous and not worth the risk.

    I think that in order to honour the crew members of the Challenger, today the space program should be decades ahead of where it is now, not stagnating due to lack of interest in everything but tax breaks and a few dozen votes, and buffing up the world's most useless and wasteful military, kept in place to satisfy the macho superiority complex of a relative few.

    We must support more funding for the space program - lest we forget the story of the Challenger - and let one of the greatest achievements of one of the most powerful countries in the world fester, underfunded and unappreciated, in the back of the national mind.