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User: Akardam

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Comments · 277

  1. Play the Terrorist card on USGS: Oil and Gas Operations Could Trigger Large Earthquakes · · Score: 1

    A thought (although surely not unique): Pit the industry that is doing this, against our beloved lawmakers. Suggest that terrorists could use this methodology to cause damaging earthquakes that could potentially kill people. Any politician that rolls their eyes at this suggestion is surely to have the ridicule and damnation of their peers visited upon them, because they're not anti-terrorist and pro-america... right?

  2. Release (the sub into) the Kraken on NASA Releases Details of Titan Submarine Concept · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the name tickles those who obsessively play Kerbal Space Program... not that I do... or know people who do... (hides his drawings of SSTO designs).

    Cool concept. Let's hope it comes to fruition.

    Give me a ping, Vasili...

  3. I think you mean the Challenger... on SpaceShipTwo's Rocket Engine Did Not Cause Fatal Crash · · Score: 4, Informative

    Unless I'm missing something, the Columbia event had nothing to do with the SRBs

  4. Perish the thought... on Why Is Wikipedia So Ugly? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To paraphrase a favorite character of mine, "... I'm so sick of (article writers like this) I could vomit...".

    Wikipedia has at its core one basic job to do: convey information. Setting aside for the moment the questions of validity of content, sources, spats between editors, astroturfing, etc, the prime question is, how quickly and easily was one able to find what one was looking for and absorb it. This is a task at which I personally feel Wikipedia does a fine job. It is a simple, straightforward visual style that doesn't bolt on any extraneous flash (no pun intended) or style just for flash or style's sake.

    By the way, when the article author compares Wikipedia and Geocities visual style and finds similarities, I'm prompted to wonder where the author actually was when Geocities was in its heydey.

    As for the complaint about the complexities of editing on Wikipedia: Heaven forbid that when editing one of the great repositories of human knowledge, that the editors should take the time required to learn the skills necessary to do so... seriously, if Wikipedia ever "redesigns" itself to appeal anywhere near the lowest common denominator of the Facebook/Twitter/Myspace generation, I quit.

  5. USGS on Why Engineers Don't Like Twitter · · Score: 1

    The first place you should ever check if you feel a quake (or something like) is the USGS quake page. After that, if you want to delve into the high sig-to-noise ratio of twitter, go right ahead.

  6. Re:Only one thing to do on Warner Bros. Accused of Pirating Anti-Pirating Tech · · Score: 3, Funny

    And what precisely of the watcher's is the watcher's can going to watch?

    I'm so confused...

  7. Re:Who is IPEX? on NewEgg Confirms Shipping Fake Core i7s · · Score: 1

    We used ASI at my last job. Given how seedy their will call area was (been there more'n a few times), and some other things that occured over the years, I can't say as I'm surprised by this.

  8. Re:Planck length on Intergalactic Race Shows That Einstein Still Rules · · Score: 1

    ... the Planck length would be about as long as a tall cedar tree.

    I prefer to measure my Plank lengths in redwood or pine, myself.

    Oh, wait...

  9. Ray... what's with the frames? on Obama DoJ Goes Against Film Companies · · Score: 1

    Just curious why you feel it's necessary to link the PDF in via a frame with some other stuff in the "sidebar" I could care less about.

    Here's a direct link to the PDF:

    http://beckermanlegal.com/Lawyer_Copyright_Internet_Law/cartoonnetwork_csc_090500AmicusCuriaeBriefOfUS.pdf

  10. Re:Laser on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 1

    Perfectly aware, and I was using a figure of speech. However, explain to me how they're supposed to conduct repairs at 65,000'?

  11. Re:Laser on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's amazing how trivial those problems are compared to protecting a blimp at 65,000'.

    From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_Laser:

    "If the ABL achieves its design goals, it could destroy liquid-fueled ICBMs up to 600 km away. Tougher solid-fueled ICBM destruction range would likely be limited to 300 km"

    65,000' is just a hair under 20 kilometers. That's beans compared to what the ABL is supposed to be able to do against a smaller, much faster moving target, from a mobile platform. You might need a stronger laser than the ABL carries, but as I said before, most blimps aren't particularily tough.

  12. Laser on US Pentagon Plans For a Spy Blimp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hmm. Large gas-filled object, presumably with a not overly-thick skin to keep the weight down. Ground based laser of sufficient power to pop a hole in the giant balloon.

    Yeah, this is gonna work real well.

  13. Re:That's two words on What To Do With Old USB Keys, Low-Capacity Hard Drives? · · Score: 1

    Wtf are "${1}" and "$2" supposed to be?

    Perl, foo.

  14. That's two words on What To Do With Old USB Keys, Low-Capacity Hard Drives? · · Score: 2, Funny

    s/([a-z])([A-Z])/${1}_$2/g

    Real geeks don't strip spaces - they use underscores :P

    (Unless you're a JavaScript programmer in which case I'm terribly sorry...)

  15. Re:Data safety with extreme prejudice using a hamm on What To Do With Old USB Keys, Low-Capacity Hard Drives? · · Score: 1

    One nice side effect, is the smashy smashy bit is a great stress reliever, just wear safety glasses and perhaps gloves.

    In the case of a drive that really isn't prime for donation or repurosing (I'd rather see them reused than destroyed), I'll second this. It's also a great perk for a subordinate. One time we had a junior tech who was just having a hell of a week. I plucked an old 4gb scsi drive off the shelf, gave it to him, and said, take this out back and beat the crap out of it. When he came back in he had a huge grin on his face and he sure felt better about life.

  16. *sigh* Iternet ! build to be bomb proof... on Human Exoskeletons Getting Closer · · Score: 2, Informative

    The internet itself exists because the US military was seeking a way to maintain communications in the event that a major city was destroyed with an atomic bomb, causing a disruption in telephone communications.

    Why, oh why do people keep trotting out this tired old myth?

    The ARPANet wasn't created to survive a nuclear holocaust. Hey geniuses, it used common (though pricey and high speed) telco circuits - the same as carried telephone communications. They weren't hardened or anything like that. Explain to me how they'd stay put when everything else went kablooie?

    The original purpose of the ARPANet was to allow resource sharing between research centers with computing resources that were being funded by and/or involved in defense level research. Even after the first dozen-odd IMPs (routers of their day, and amazingly only refrigerator sized, compared to the behemoths that they interconnected), they weren't even hardened.

    Ironically, it would be over 20 years from the inception of the ARPANet that there would be a sufficiently large number of nodes and more imporantly links to give the Internet the level of robustness that might give it a reasonable chance of surviving an all out nuclear attack, the kind that people continually champion as its original raison d'être.

    Anyone who's interested in learning more should really read the excellent book, _Where Wizards Stay Up Late_.

  17. Re:FTA on How a Router's Missed Range Check Nearly Crashed the Internet · · Score: 1

    Speaking of one typo away from disaster...

    Try jonesday.com

  18. Congratulations, sir! on Stop-Motion Modbook Upgrade Video · · Score: 1

    Your vocational test indicates you have excellent potential in... marketing!

    Or children's entertainment.

  19. Re:Not only on MacOS X... on Google Earth 5.0 Silently Changes Update Policy · · Score: 1

    That still doesn't change the fact that there was a service entry (set to manual, but still) and that even if you did remove the task there's nothing to keep any Google app from reinstalling the task and going on as before.

  20. Not only on MacOS X... on Google Earth 5.0 Silently Changes Update Policy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On Windows myself, and I'd just updated to GE5, and found this this morning. Of course, no way to uninstall.

    Deleted the service entries under HKLM/System/CCS. Rebooted, removed PF/Google/Updater/*

    Removed inherited permissions on Updater and made the folder read-only (never thought I'd be truly thankfull for NTFS).

    I totally disagree about this, but GE and GTalk seem to run ok with the above changes.

  21. Snow? on Why Do We Name Servers the Way We Do? · · Score: 1

    Just like my user name, I decided to go with the word "snow" in various languages. So far, I have my router chioni, server nix, desktop losse, and various other names for components. My wii is yuki, my xbox 360 is xue, my ipod touch is lumi. Beyond that I've also used "eira" and "schnee".

    So... do you actually have something named "snow"?

  22. A Moose... on Volvo Introduces a Collision-Proof Car · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... once got in the way of my sister's "crash-proof" Volvo.

    Mind you, moose crashes can be pretty nasti...

  23. Re:Does this mean . . . on Microsoft to Issue Emergency Patch For File-Sharing Hole · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps if you're going to do that you might want to dust off your typing skills, as well...

  24. New tag... on XKCD Invited To New Yorker "Cartoon-Off" · · Score: 1

    !hyberbondage

    or

    knot hyberbondage

    as the case may be...

  25. Yum on Study Shows Worm Grunters Imitate Moles · · Score: 2, Funny

    Fresh Gagh