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User: surd1618

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  1. Re:reputation on Why Are Apple's Competitors Staying Silent On the iPhone Unlocking Fight? · · Score: 1

    But they don't have the exclusive software.
    Apple made $17 billion revenue from apps

  2. Apple's reputation is riding on their premium hardware and services, for which they charge premium prices. Their competitors are cheaper, and don't have the same quandary of keeping customers based on being better.

  3. You should read about the case. The FBI can almost certainly crack it. It's like Richard Feynman said about locks, "One guy [or woman] tries to make something to keep another guy out; there must be a way to beat it!". The FBI is most-likely using this high-profile case to secure the legal precedent to demand that devices are unlocked in future cases, making evidence so obtained admissible in court.

  4. Re:Batteries just don't store enough energy... on Elon Musk's Next Great Idea? Electric Air Travel (bgr.com) · · Score: 1

    Ascend to 40,000 feet, and then use a drone glider with limited flying capability and a backup parachute to safely ferry away the spent batteries.

  5. So Much For the Enlightenment on Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs: "The Science is Settled." · · Score: 1

    The Turnbull government would have pulled the plug on Newton's silly academic musings and set him up to slave away at the mint.

  6. Re:Asinine on Hackers Leak List of FBI Employees (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Kornbluth had an idea: Send them on a cruise!

  7. Can't wait for the sequel!

  8. Re:Coins on Ask Slashdot: Time To Get Into Crypto-currency? If So, Which? · · Score: 1
  9. Re:What's the deal... on First Hidden Electric Motor In Cycling World Championship (cxmagazine.com) · · Score: 1

    This is mostly true, but there is some training that involves dexterity and practice. E.G. if you as ask a novice to ride fast they will sway back and forth as they push, and this wastes a decent amount of energy. It takes a fair bit of focused practice to learn to ride in a really straight line. That being said, it's true that basically the person whose body is running most like a racehorse's is likely going to win.

  10. Re:I guess it's easier... on Why the Calorie Is Broken (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    Ask someone sometime what a balanced diet is and if they say anything about carbohydrate intake being over 10% of daily caloric intake.. laugh at them and move on. They have been duped too.

    Sincere question
    But the brain uses ~20% of calories, and the body will throw all nearly all available glucose at it before shifting to ketones. Doesn't that imply that a 20% carb caloric intake can be healthy, so long as it's not a lot of sugar?

  11. Re:record-shattering recording instruments on NASA, NOAA Analyses Reveal Record-Shattering Global Warm Temperatures In 2015 (nasa.gov) · · Score: 1

    I trust a website called climatecrocks.com exactly as much as I would trust a website called, say, scientifictruth.com, which is to say, absolutely not at all.

  12. Re:Mythical man month on Why Do Americans Work So Much? · · Score: 1

    Moving people for work would be extremely terrible. It's one of the main features of slavery.

  13. Re:Simple solution on The Dirty Truth About 'Clean Diesel' (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Does that make it a less insightful or interesting point?

  14. Re:The National Enquirer on Scientists Begin Another Attempt To Drill Through the Earth's Crust · · Score: 1

    The content of the most ancient passages of the OT is indistinguishable from the other religions of the Canaanites (elohim was the generic Canaanite word for a sort of pantheon). Abraham did not come from Ur, but likely from an area north of Palestine. The first ideas about a dichotomy between good and evil came from a Persian influence on the Hebrew religion(s). Before that Yahweh's basic message was "do as I say". The whole of the NT story is basically a crock as far as archeology is concerned, that supposed remark about Jesus in Justinian: I've heard that yarn before too, and it's not true. The story of Jesus is a hyped-up and way-overblown story about the zealots, specifically, a zealot who tried non-violent resistance. The idea of missionaries again came from a Persian religion, a later one called Mithraism. The only mention of Hell (other than as the end of life and fading from cultural memory), the only mention as an inhabited place, comes from Revelations. Many of the ideas that people associate with Christianity, are literally nowhere in the Bible, and a close reading reveals that the OT recounts a conglomerate of about 3 religions.

  15. This is exactly the mindset of the people who act that way. Just like how paranoid people are the most likely to lash out, sociopaths think that everyone would ruin others for their own gain, and liars think they're being lied to all of the time. Disadvantaged people who hurt others for personal gain are common criminals, and privileged and well-educated ones are CEOs.

  16. bike mechanics on Skip the Picks; Expert Uses Hammer To Open a Master Lock (csoonline.com) · · Score: 1

    do this all of the time. Not for thievery, but it's a pretty common bike problem for totally legitimate reasons.

  17. Re:A responsible Atomic Age on Peter Thiel: We Need a New Atomic Age · · Score: 1

    I know that this would be ludicrously unpopular, given the (ludicrous) response to Fukashima draining into the ocean, but: you're talking about putting reactors in mountains, which is difficult and a huge construction project etc. If you're going to go to all of that trouble, wouldn't it be better to install them off-shore, under shallow water?

  18. Mathematicians do the exact same thing on Structural Engineer On the Fallacies of Movie Bridge Destruction (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    In stories, we're happy to accept totally absurd giant robots, but unhappy about magical bridges that don't snap back and fall. It's the same in math. If you don't like the backdrop, then you go down a couple dimensions or switch to a simpler manifold or consider the simpler homomorphic structure that preserves the property you want. But make a conclusion about the wrong side of a quadrilateral and your colleagues might throw pencils at you. We are preserving the things that are important to achieve a correct model.

  19. The iron-nickel in the asteroid belt is worth staggeringly more than some friggin I-beams. Recovering the platinum-group metals first would happen, no matter what.

  20. Re: You must choose.... on Why New Antibiotics Never Come To Market (vice.com) · · Score: 1
  21. Re:food growing to scale on A Real-Life Space Botanist Comments On the Potato Garden In 'The Martian' (cnet.com) · · Score: 2

    Also, 450kg of potatoes would lock up ~360L of water, and I expect that the plants would have maybe another 100L in foliage.

  22. food growing to scale on A Real-Life Space Botanist Comments On the Potato Garden In 'The Martian' (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    I just want to say, most people have no idea how many plants one must grow in order to survive. If you, 1 adult, want to get most of your calories from a plant, a potato is a decent choice. You can plant 5 kilos of potatoes in a 30 meter row, and expect ~ 90,000 kC. Since they take 90-120 days to mature, in order to have a continuous supply, you'd want maybe twice this many, along with lots of other plants that supply calories, protein, vitamins, and flavor. Two rows of potatoes are about a meter wide, so you're looking at 30-40 m^2. You have to dedicate about 1/25 of your potato crop to seeds, and have a good place to store them. This is also assuming that you are great at growing potatoes, nothing goes wrong, and you plant them every week and harvest them every day.

    Due to low light on Mars, you might divide this yield in two. Probably the way it would go is the initial harvests would be smaller until you figured out which varieties yielded more. I'd want 80 m^2 just for potatoes, per person. Then there's all of the other plants. I'd plan on having a 250 m^2 facility, per person, at least.

  23. Re:Use the moon for all launches on Going To Mars Via the Moon (mit.edu) · · Score: 1

    Oh, also, we could make the best optical telescope ever on the far side of moon.

  24. Use the moon for all launches on Going To Mars Via the Moon (mit.edu) · · Score: 2

    It would be ideal to use the moon as a platform for all satellite launches, supposing we can find the raw materials there to make metals. There's enough water and oxygen for humans, and enough silicon to make photovoltaics. Electronics and rare or hard-to-purify materials could be imported from Earth. Fuel could be made using the PVs by reduction of water or other reactions. Once we have a good lunar base, putting satellites in orbit around the Earth or sending ships to Mars will be far more efficient and less polluting and wasteful. And we could use toxic or radioactive rockets that we can't launch from Earth, with fluorine as an oxidizer, or fission.

  25. Would it work out any better if a large number of libraries turned on exit nodes all at once?