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User: wjh31

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Comments · 355

  1. Not really nanoscale on Nanoscale Race Car Gets 3D Printed With a Laser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's stretching it a bit to call it nano-scale. The legend on the images puts the models in the region of 100um. 0.1mm is not really nano-scale, unless the hair on our head is nano-scale. With around 200 lines per layer, we're still talking about hundreds of nanometers for the print resolution.

    small is not nano, regardless of how much SEO you're after

  2. Re:Agreed on Pi Day Is Coming — But Tau Day Is Better · · Score: 5, Interesting

    22/7 is actually more accurate than 3.14 (0.05% vs 0.04%)

  3. Same thing in the uk. on SFPD Breathalyzer Mistake Puts Hundreds of DUI Convictions In Doubt · · Score: 1

    In the UK, refusing/failing to provide a specimen of blood or breath carries the same punishment as providing a positive sample. This gets around people like you trying to avoid responsibility for their actions.

  4. Re:Super fast with a cap? on Brits Rejecting Superfast Broadband · · Score: 4, Informative

    Cant speak for BT, but virgin use throttling instead of a cap If you get through more than some amount (typically a few GB's) during peak times your speeds will be throttled to 25% for a few hours, beyond that you can do what you want. And the top end services mentioned here dont even have that throttling....

  5. wrong on Throwable 36-Camera Ball Takes Spherical Panoramas · · Score: 1

    this has come on a long way since you last saw it clearly. Mostly it's done with flash these days using the mouse to drag around or arrows if you prefer. Additionlly HTML5 viewers are starting to appear and mobile/tablet friendly viewers. See e.g http://360cities.net/

  6. Latex based alternatives on Anti-PowerPoint Party Formed In Switzerland · · Score: 1

    Especially in the fields you mention, you might want to look into latex based options such as beamer or powerdot. Both work in Lyx if you prefer not to hand-code the latex

  7. Re:kilometer conversion for the math impared on Mars Rover Opportunity Surpasses 30km Driving · · Score: 1

    i am perplexed as to why you chose to convert from SI units to light minuites. If you are going to convert from SI units it would make more sense to me to convert to plank units, in which case 1Km=16.16E39lp.

  8. Beta around for a while on OnLive To Launch In UK This Autumn · · Score: 2

    My attention was drawn a little while ago to the beta of this being around in the uk I downloaded it, and gave it a go and was pleased with the results, but wouldnt use it myself. Pro: The video quality was very good, and i had no latency issues, i tried out a racing game and an action game, both fast paced and i had no issue with input latency. It's clearly a fantastic way for those with lower end graphics cards to play games, You can also pay less than full price for games in exchange for access for a limited period, i.e rental for games you might only play through once. Con: You have to buy your games again to use within OnLive, which can then only be used in onlive. So you may have to pay again fro games you already own, and if you ever leave onlive youd have to buy again to regain access. Bandwidth. The video resolution was good but used every byte of my 10Mbps connection, rendering it unusable for anyone else, or if others used it i'd see a reduction in quality. Note the implications of 4.5+GB/hr for those with caps When my provider throttled me to 2.5Mbps, quality was noticably reduced (though latency was still good) and eventually onlive game up, stating i had insufficient speed. This is a fantastic concept, but as others have highlighted it effectively becomes another form of DRM, but allows gaming on non-gaming machines at good cost

  9. Re:Diffraction? on The World's Smallest Video Camera · · Score: 2

    If you crunch the numbers, the pixel density is equvilant to a 90 megapixel full frame sensor. The calculator on the page on diffraction on cambridge in colour suggest that this only becomes diffraction limited at about f/5.6 The pixel size is about 10um^2, which is larger than that of most compact point and shoot cameras

  10. Re:Alright guys... on China Starts Censoring Phone Calls Mid Sentence · · Score: 1
  11. Re:Bad Premise on Ask Slashdot: Online Science For 8th Grade Students? · · Score: 1

    Or, show me an experiment that an online program has better interest-level and/or student outcomes (from the same population of student).

    Like the hole in the wall experiments?:
    http://solesandsomes.wikispaces.com/
    http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html
    http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/12/05/1542231/Using-the-Web-To-Turn-Kids-Into-Autodidacts

  12. Re:Translation on Virgin Media UK Begins Throttling P2P Traffic · · Score: 1

    They use fibre, and Ofcom recently tested a variety of ISP's, to find the average recieved speed from virgins 50Mbps connection was 44-47Mbps. The 100Mbps is unthrottled, and the 50Mbps comes with 5Mbps upload which is only reduced to 1.75Mbps for just 5 hours if you upload more than 6GB in a day. TFA says this p2p limiting is only between 5PM and midnight, the rest of the day you are free to upload pretty much as much as you want, i got through 3GB of seeding last night on their lowest package

  13. Re:Translation on Virgin Media UK Begins Throttling P2P Traffic · · Score: 4, Informative

    Virgin media have just finished rolling out 50Mbps download, just started rolling out 100Mbps. and are in the process of doubling their upload speeds, so I call bull on you.

  14. Open-ness is good on Virgin Media UK Begins Throttling P2P Traffic · · Score: 2

    Atleast they are admitting to it. Virgin have for a long time openly displayed their traffic management policy (http://www.virginmedia.com/myvirginmedia/faster_upload_traffic_management_table.php) which is very reasonable for all but the most hardcore bandwidth users, and they are regularly upgrading their upload and download speeds, so no crying about using this to avoiding network upgrades. This is all much better than 'fair use' policies or hard bandwidth limits.

  15. Re:Worse when the teachers dont know. on Do High Schools Know What 'Computer Science' Is? · · Score: 1

    my point is that the candidates had not self-selected, i.e had not themselves clocked the considerable difference, and were putting themselves forwards for the role. It was not my intention to imply that and IT teacher would suffice in place of a CS teacher

  16. Worse when the teachers dont know. on Do High Schools Know What 'Computer Science' Is? · · Score: 1

    A little while ago where i teach, some candidates had to be turned down from a position because they were IT teachers, and the position was for CompSci

  17. Re:Blocking legal material on UK Gov't Wants To Block Internet Porn By Default · · Score: 1

    further to this, if one were to argue it is blocked because it is an age limited product/service, and therefore potentially harmful to those who might be underage and see it, then other age limited products/services should also be blocked, such as gambling sites, sites selling tobacco/alcohol etc

  18. Bandwidth costs. on UK Gov't Wants To Block Internet Porn By Default · · Score: 2

    Could one motivation for ISPs to join be a reduction in bandwidth usage. We already hear about the massive amounts of it which streaming services such as youtube and netflix. There must be also a substantial amount dedicated to comparable adult sites. Block them by default and those who dont opt in for whatever reason wont get through so many GB each month, or each day depending on the user.

  19. 15! on Did an Apple Engineer Invent FB Messages In 2003? · · Score: 1

    1.3 trillion?

  20. Disappointed on New Device Puts SSD In a DIMM Slot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When i saw the headline, i was hoping that this would be a device that allowed an SSD to be connected to a RAM slot and used as RAM, rather than an SSD that takes up a RAM slot.

    Additionally, if they can squeeze a 256GB into a DIMM form factor, why the are even 4GB sticks of RAM still expensive

  21. well done OP, a superb fail on Cooking With Your USB Ports · · Score: 5, Informative

    not only has the gizmodo article disappeared at time of post, but there is no link to the original blog post (http://xe.bz/aho/24/) which is date-stamped for 2006. This is 4 years old!

  22. I actually find in moderately usefull on Did Google Go Instant Just To Show More Ads? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    in so far as I don't have to keep on hitting return.

    It means that typing a few letters at the start of a search instead of having to type out the full phrase is sufficient sometimes to pull up the necessary results. It also makes it quicker and easier to tweak a search for slightly different keywords, or to browse through the auto-suggest searches.

  23. Re:I love LaTeX, but really, now on Bill Gates Enrolls His Kids In Khan Academy · · Score: 1

    you should have a look at Lyx

  24. solar furnace on Fun To Be Had With a 10-Foot Satellite Dish? · · Score: 1

    line it with mirrors and the focus becomes a solar furnace

  25. Re:Nothing compared to what they did before... on Facebook Says It Owns 'Book' · · Score: 1

    on the other hand, getting sued by one of the worlds largest web based companies into having to change your name sounds like hella cheap publicity if you dont put up much of a fight