Slashdot Mirror


User: localman57

localman57's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
860
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 860

  1. Re:"Anectdotal"? on Personal Electronics May Indeed Disrupt Avionics · · Score: 1

    Seriously? The number that a casual Google search shows is about 28,000 commercial flights a day. Multiply that by a conservative 75 people a flight and you get at least 2,100,000 people taking a flight per day, just in the US . You think that doesn't warrant an all-out investigation to resolve the questions involved in a methodical and scientific manner, regardless of the cost?

    No. Because the number we're really interested in is the number of people who die, not the number of people who succeed, and what it would take to prevent those deaths. We've gone years in the US without a catastrophic airliner crash. Even if every crash in history was attributable to iPods and kindles, the math still doesn't add up. There seems to be the idea that somehow where safety is involved, you do everything possible to reduce any risk. For some reason, perhaps the sensationalism of a crash, this attitude is multiplied 100 fold around airports. But that's reactionary fear-think. The world has a finite number of people, capable of generating a finite amount of effort towards solving an infinite number of problems. You prioritize. And iPods on airplanes haven't proven to be a serious risk, even to people who rack up a million frequent flier miles.

    Better to spend your money (effort) on Heart Disease, Cancer, Auto Safety (including drunk driving reduction), and reducing the number of people who shoot themselves or others. Depending on your demographic, those are the things likely to kill you. Not some wad who won't turn off his cell phone in flight. If your death is related to flying, it's gonna be in the cab ride to the airport, not on the plane.

  2. Re:"Anectdotal"? on Personal Electronics May Indeed Disrupt Avionics · · Score: 1

    Studies cost money. Everything costs money. With a finite amount of money, you prioritize. And this isn't a big enough problem to warrant spending money studing. So instead of paying a bunch of test engineers to undertake a bunch of tests (which to be useful would have to be re-run on practically every aircraft configuration), you hire one guy to look at the anectdotal evidence. Best case, your studies would prevent a couple of crashes over the span of a human lifetime, saving a few hundred lives. Much better to invest in something else, such as the stability control systems on SUVs, which have had a huge impact on SUV rollover rates, for a relatively small investment.

  3. Re:And on Personal Electronics May Indeed Disrupt Avionics · · Score: 2

    Actually, increases your risk. Generally speaking, The higher up in the atmosphere you go, the more radition you're exposed to.

  4. Re:...really? on Personal Electronics May Indeed Disrupt Avionics · · Score: 1

    +1 insightful for the top half of your post. -1 Flamebait for the last line...

  5. Re:Good luck with that on NATO Report Threatens To 'Persecute' Anonymous · · Score: 1

    I am Spartacus!

    I am Spartacus!

    I am Spartacus!

    Very funny. But seriously let me...BLAM!...BLAM!...BLAM!...

    Ok, assholes. This isn't the Bronze age anymore where I gotta hack you to bits, one stabbing at a time. Anybody else got anything to say? Wanna end up like those three?

  6. Re:Great idea! on NATO Report Threatens To 'Persecute' Anonymous · · Score: 1

    Probably. We've backpeddaled pretty far from what was promised in 2008. My buddy Kenny had two unpaid parking tickets and failed to show up for a drunken-disorderly charge court date. Then, BAM! He's in cuba.

  7. Re:Persecuting your own citizens on NATO Report Threatens To 'Persecute' Anonymous · · Score: 2

    I don't think you just end up in Seal Team 6 by accident. It takes a lifetime of work and dedication. Their agenda is to promote a certain vision of society, where what is vision is determined by their superiors, who in turn (hopefully) derive their vision from the values of the collective American Hive Mind. And the individuals in Seal Team 6 are anonymous. Sound at all familliar?

  8. Re:I guess we'll find out... on NATO Report Threatens To 'Persecute' Anonymous · · Score: 1

    That's the whole thing, though, about the whole cops and robbers game. You gotta evade the cops forever. They only gotta catch you once.

  9. Re:and if you use maglev bearings on Using Flywheels to Meet Peak Power Grid Demands · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, it's ok. See, this is for generating electricity. It's mosly the electrons that move around. I don't think we really need the protons that much.

  10. Re:What's the purpose of this? on 'Fee-Deduction' Malware On Android Spotted In the Wild · · Score: 1

    What benefit do the authors receive from getting the phone to make random calls or send SMS?

    What benefit to the authors recieve from getting your computer to send random e-mails? It seems like this could be the beginning of botNet style SMS spam. So far the networks have kept it pretty clean by putting heavy filtering on the internet/SMS gateways. It doesn't make sense to spam SMS if you're paying 5 cents a message to do it. But if you can compromise devices inside that gateway, and use their 5 cents, it's a whole different story.

  11. Re:Glad I stuck with Windows Phone 7 on 'Fee-Deduction' Malware On Android Spotted In the Wild · · Score: 1

    It may or may not be worthwhile. If you know someone(s) who has something you want, and uses Windows Phone 7, you might write such a piece of malware. Remember, Siemen's Industrial Control Systems for Centrifuges have an even smaller number of manufactured units than Windows Phones. But I've heard there's been quite the nifty malware written for them. The criteria for writing malware is the value of what you achieve, not just the number of devices you can attack.

  12. Re:Hello Moto? on HTC To Unlock Smartphones' Bootloader · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And there are thousands upon thousands up people who modify their phones.

    Out of millions upon millions of phones sold. Again, less than 1 percent. But, originally, less than 1 percent of people had cell phones. Then less than 1 percent had data capable phones. Now, less than 1 percent of people install custom firmware. Don't get discouraged by the numbers. We're just leading the curve.

  13. Re:You kids get off my lawn! on Computer De-Evolution: Awesome Features We've Lost · · Score: 1

    USB really isn't _that_ complicated. There's a physical layer, then the various layers having to do with enumeration , transport, power permissions, etc. Then on top of that there's a hand full of specified types (HID, Mass Storage, Communication, etc), all of which are understandable with a few weeks of study / experimentation. There's different responsibilities for the host and the device, so you have to learn that stuff, but typically you're only developing for one side or the other. Check out Jan Axelson's book USB Complete for a great intro.

  14. Re:Bullshit. on Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water · · Score: 1

    I mean the 3.5mm. The 3.5mm is huge, when you look at the footprint it takes up inside something like an ipod shuffle. Obviously, this wasn't an issue when sony created the walkman, but the point is we won't replace it, even if it means it's the limiting factor in how small you can make an mp3 player.

  15. Re:Excuse me? on Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water · · Score: 1

    Those are both niche markets. That only proves my point.

    The speed to a camera only matters if you're streaming data in real time. If you're moving stored video from internal storage to a PC, the average consumer will pick price over throughput, which means USB.

    The longest cable an average household has is ouside the house used for transmitting water, not data, and even that's far shorter than 100 meters.

  16. Re:Bullshit. on Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water · · Score: 1

    Now the USB connector on the other hand is crap because a lot of people probably have to make two or three tries before then can plug something in.

    Who exactly are you hanging out with? I'm picturing those infomercials, where they try to convince you that straining spaghetti is really hard, then cut to a clip of some moron accidentally dumping spaghetti on the floor. Fortunately, they have a new spaghetti strainer which will help you avoid this, and they have it for sale.

  17. Re:Bullshit. on Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water · · Score: 1

    And they'll never replace 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives

    The 5.25 and 3.5" floppies had significant drawbacks that begged for an improvment. First it was the Zip drive. Then some people used CDR/CDRW's. Finally, the thumb drive became king. Each was a significant improvement. USB will remain forever as a wired interface, because it's too close to the perfect port for a mouse, keyboard, etc to be replaced. That means volume, and volume means cheap. Device makers go where the volume is for most of their products.

  18. Re:Excuse me? on Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water · · Score: 1

    Faster for what? That's the question. Hard drives? They're already slower than USB 3.0. Video? Why should I choose thunderbolt over HDMI? Scanners? Printers? Input Devices? Video Capture? USB 2.0 is good enough for lots of this, and 3.0 will be even better. Like firewire, there's a small problem space that's better solved by Thunderbolt than USB, but not enough volume there to drive the cost low enough to be adapted by the mainstream.

  19. Re:Bullshit. on Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No it won't. USB will be the next USB. The connector is too common now to ever be replaced as the default digital interface for most things. It's on the front of my car radio, for damn sake.

    A good parallel is the 3.5mm headphone jack. Frankly, it's stupidly large and poorly designed for what it needs to do (USB isn't). But it will never be replaced by another (wired) connector in it's application space. There's just too many of them, and it's hard to make a compelling case for replacement for 98% of users.

  20. Re:At least they don't region block paper editions on Ebooks Now Outselling Print Books At Amazon · · Score: 1

    They do region block paper editions, or at least try. There's efforts by the publishers to make it illegal to import books from other countries if the publisher hasn't released them in your country yet. The "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series is a great example of this. If you wanted to be ahead of the curve, you got a friend to bring back "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" when they were in England, before it was available in the States.

  21. Re:Also reveals schedules to thieves on Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You? · · Score: 1

    Again, who cares? Nobody's gonna use this to steal your TV. The hackers will be able to tell when you're likely home and when you're likely not from the data. Maybe a little bit about what you're doing.

    And sure, you care. I care. But if you spend even a moment worrying about this, it means you're spending some of your worry-time that could be much better spent on things like worrying about protecting your Social Security Number, Credit Cards, and avoiding bee stings, drunk drivers, lightning bolts, badgers, and any of a million other things whose product of frequency x consequences are a lot higher than this smart meter thing.

  22. Re:Sometimes I feel like the only one... on Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You? · · Score: 1

    "We are going to install new meters that allow us to charge you more for electricity when you use it when you most need it."

    I need /. to let me know... am I the only one?

    That energy really is the most important, and when you need it most is when everybody else in your neighborhood does too.

    In the power utility where I worked we had a "peaker" which was basically a jet engine on blocks which kicked in at peak time, when the cost of buying surplus (if any) off the grid exceeded the cost of running the peaker. The cost per kwh (energy produced) was much, much higher than the coal plant. But the cost per kw (power capacity) was much, much lower. Since it only ran maybe 100 hours per year, in the afternoon of the hottest days, this made sense. That marginal electricity had all the cost of the peaker hardware, plus the cost of Jet fuel rather than coal. Very expensive indeed.

    Or, don't have a peaker, and enjoy your rolling blackouts. A few days each summer of rolling blackouts, and everybody'd forget about this smart meter thing...

  23. Re:Classic TEMPEST on Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You? · · Score: 1

    Actually, they have, but it's opt in. Most utilities have a program to pay you for control over your water heater. They shift it's on/off phase based on grid usage to lower their peaks. Energy cost is as much about peak infrastructure as about the total energy used.

  24. Re:Also reveals schedules to thieves on Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You? · · Score: 1

    Yes. I can just see the thieves breaking into the power comapny, finding the data, pouring over their data with statistical software to determine when you won't be home. Then breaking in with a crowbar to steal your TV.

    Granted, that's about what they did as part of finding UBL, but that's a different bunch of guys than the ones stealing TVs.

  25. Re:Privacy on Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You? · · Score: 1

    That varies by state. In Indiana the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission must approve rate hikes. Although they've recently been plauged with the typicaly "You went to work for the company you regulated and made a gazillion dollars, right after making a favorable decision for said utility." scandal.