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User: LeadSongDog

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  1. Re: Efficiency on Enzymes Make Electricity From Jet Fuel Without Ignition · · Score: 1

    Better question, is it still burnable?

    Well, it's a PDF, so whether you can burn it depends on what you print it on. Paper ought to work.

  2. Getting back to the original question on Help a Journalist With An NFC Chip Implant Violate His Own Privacy and Security · · Score: 1

    So just what uses can we contrive? I kind of favour using it as a proximity sensor in or near steering wheels that disables his mobile phone if the car is running, while leaving the passenger's phone functional. Of course Big Wireless may not like the hit on their bottom line.
    The storage issue is a red herring. It just needs enough to store a short URI where everything else can be found. Probably want a private key too, to be used only for generating signatures within the chip.

  3. Re:So, mesh? on 'Endrun' Networks: Help In Danger Zones · · Score: 1

    "I sense a great disturbance in the Force..."

  4. Re:Comparing Preview/Test to Release... on If You're Connected, Apple Collects Your Data · · Score: 1

    is it a hypocrite to take private nudes of yourself but not want to be naked in front of america on the movie screen? it sounds like both are defensible.

    I don't know if it really matters any more: attention spans have fallen under the ten-second threshold. Why worry who sees what they're about to forget anyway?

  5. Re:Just moves a choke point on Battery Breakthrough: Researchers Claim 70% Charge In 2 Minutes, 20-Year Life · · Score: 1

    Generally fast chargers will not be in constant use.

    Bull. When I pull off the motorway/freeway/throughway I'm usually stopping just long enough to buy a fresh coffee and dispose of the last one. If it wasn't for the latter requirement, I'd just use the drive-through. Strangely, there's always a line of other people doing the same things, even late at night. If recharging were a broadly-practiced parallel activity, many of them would be recharging, vice refilling as a serial activity. Most available fast chargers would be in use. After all, who would pay to buy and install extra ones that were not going to be used?
    So, I want a wireless recharge in five minutes that will take me another three hours down the road, and I want it to be ubiquitously available. I'd settle for a simple and reliable cable connection, but it's not the first choice unless the efficiency hit for the wireless charger exceeds $1/charge. Nobody wants to be messing with manually mated cables when it's -30C or +35C outside. A robotic or drive-on-drive-off contact connections (as for electric subway cars) are viable alternatives. Payment systems have to be as automatic as a toll transponder.

  6. Re:No mention on capacity though on Battery Breakthrough: Researchers Claim 70% Charge In 2 Minutes, 20-Year Life · · Score: 1

    Flywheels are fine for vehicles that only travel in straight lines, but when they have to turn corners, precession rears its ugly head, creating a torque that tries to barrel-roll the vehicle. That makes them useful for regenerative braking (which spins the flywheel fastest only when travelling slowest), but not for the main energy store (which spins fastest at the first part of a journey, irrespective of the speed of travel).

  7. Re:Much better article on Lockheed Claims Breakthrough On Fusion Energy Project · · Score: 1

    Strangely, the Aviation Week article gives a very different size: they "fit into transportable units measuring 23 X 43 ft." Perhaps Reuters has a different source on the same LMCo release, or perhaps one of them just got it wrong.

  8. Re:Why? on The $1,200 DIY Gunsmithing Machine · · Score: 1

    ... police are NOT OBLIGATED TO PROTECT YOU

    Sounds like you've identified a problem worth addressing. What do you propose to do to fix that?

  9. Re:Americans are smart. on Scientists Seen As Competent But Not Trusted By Americans · · Score: 1

    But keep in mind that all of those "chemicals" in your food and medicines were passed upon by the FDA...

    Citation needed. Appears to presume that FDA has awareness of what every farmer in China puts on his crops.

  10. Re:satellites? on SkyOrbiter UAVs Could Fly For Years and Provide Global Internet Access · · Score: 4, Interesting

    LEO sats go past quickly, so you need bigger power budgets in lieu of beam steering. You also give up bandwidth to manage doppler. Best to use a mix: LEO channels for small packets with low latency, GEO channels for bandwidth. Smart routing and channel bonding does the rest.

  11. Re:Maybe first you can stop pigeon-holing people.. on Why Atheists Need Captain Kirk · · Score: 1

    Odd. You're careful about the "claiming" caveat when discussing religions, but not those other groups. Consider Jerry Thompson: http://dlib.nyu.edu/undercover...

  12. Re:DNA? on Schizophrenia Is Not a Single Disease · · Score: 1

    What if instead of sterilization we pass laws saying that if you knowingly and willingly pass defective genes on to your kid, you'll get prosecuted just as though you'd harmed them through abuse. For example, if a couple knew they were both carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene, they had a kid anyway, the kid had CF, and died at age 20, they would go to jail for murder.

    captcha = "condom"

    That would certainly discourage people from getting tested...

  13. Re:Quite accurately? on Universal Big Bang Lithium Deficit Confirmed · · Score: 1

    ...or there is something about the post big-bang that we do not quite understand.

    Should we ask Kaley to explain it to you???

  14. Re:magicJack alternative? on Google Hangouts Gets Google Voice Integration And Free VoIP Calls · · Score: 1

    Unless "don't be evil" will still allow them to profit off delivering ads customized to whatever you've been chatting about on VoIP, then the profit has to be found in licensing Android. How's that working out so far?

  15. Re:Self-extracting EXEs on Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Desktop x86 Motherboard Manufacturers? · · Score: 1

    (Why do I hear these words with James Doohan's voice?)

    "Och, lad, yae didnae tell him when yae coud raelly have it done?!?!?"

  16. Re:Slashdot got a sensational story wrong? on No, a Stolen iPod Didn't Brick Ben Eberle's Prosthetic Hand · · Score: 1

    More likely because they both end with ".com". This is, of course, a perfectly understandable error. No commercial website would ever do anything in order to benefit the reader, after all.

  17. Re: Rule of thumb on No, a Stolen iPod Didn't Brick Ben Eberle's Prosthetic Hand · · Score: 1

    (cut a slot; now it's a flat head screw).

    Exactly what I did when my (name and shame) Shopvac stopped. Once I got past the "security" barrier, as usual, the last facade of quality fell away and the crap that it truly was stood exposed. I was astounded that this thing hadn't spontaneously burst into flames: the motor windings were exposed to sawdust! I replaced it with a different brand, but of course I'd be deluding myself to think it's really any better.

  18. mod parent up on Study: Firmware Plagued By Poor Encryption and Backdoors · · Score: 1

    Someone please mod parent up, insightful

  19. Re:Legal pemission? THEY GIVE IT! on Comcast Drops Spurious Fees When Customer Reveals Recording · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The statement of permission is that "this call may be recorded", not "we may record this call". The statement does not distinguish the party permitted to make the recording. IANAL, but that is plain English.

  20. Re:Actually it's good news since... on Great White Sharks Making Comeback Off Atlantic Coast · · Score: 1

    Mod parent up! If the sharks can get the seals back under control, there's still an outside chance the cod will recover (everyone sing together: "It's the circle, the circle of life!"). Then if that happens, maybe we'll even see an end to this glut of lobster! Disgusting bottom feeders.... they remind me of lawyers.

  21. Great, so they reinvented on Researchers Unveil Experimental 36-Core Chip · · Score: 1

    ..the Transputer. Great idea, but a giant market fail.

  22. "Project Livewire" on Harley-Davidson Unveils Their First Electric Motorcycle · · Score: 2

    What, "ElectraGlide" was taken?

  23. "Coffee Can" on Draper Labs Develops Low Cost Probe To Orbit, Land On Europa For NASA · · Score: 1

    But The Atlantic said "a small satellite about as large as a half-gallon of milk". I may be confused here, but at that ambient pressure, wouldn't that launched half-gallon of milk turn into a very much larger volume of water vapour, plus half a cup of freeze-dried milk solids? Just what would that volume be? Conversely, if it was a half-gallon at insertion, we're talking a fractional-droplet of milk at launch. So which is it?

    Ya gotta love it when Americans try to talk down to each other about stuff that's already simple.

  24. Re:Should have gone Beta on Freecode Freezeup · · Score: 1

    S-VHS?

  25. Re:So in 5 years... on Google To Take On Apple's CarPlay · · Score: 1

    No, in 5 years you'll have to pay extra to have Google drive the car go to where you want, stop, and unlock the doors to let you out. Decline to pay extra and you'll be delivered to the drive-through shopping mall that bids highest for your eyeballs. Or perhaps direct to the soylent green^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrecycling plant....