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User: sudonim2

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Comments · 47

  1. And This Is New? on New Flat Lens Focuses Without Distortion · · Score: 1

    So... it's a Fresnel zone plate? 'Cause they had those in the eighteenth century.

  2. Nuke It. It's The Only Way to Be Sure. on Ask Slashdot: Best Use For an Old Smartphone? · · Score: 1

    Get an old microwave from a thrift store or pawn shop. Stick your smartphone in it. Turn it on high for at least three minutes. There'll be nothing left on the phone to be stolen. Then just recycle it and the microwave you probably killed as well.

  3. Re:Do the candidates know what Net Neutrality mean on Where the Candidates Stand On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    Republican or demonrat

    And clearly, you're an objective, non-partisan source for such judgements.

    The fact is at least some Deomocrats are for NN. None of the Republicans are. Ultimately, as always, you should look at the record and positions of each person you're voting for and make an informed choice. Something I'm not sure you're capable of.

  4. The Bubble Has Reached Its Apex on Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History · · Score: 2

    ...Time to start shorting Apple.

  5. QWERTY Is Superior on Is It Time To End Our Love Affair With the QWERTY Keyboard? · · Score: 1

    History lesson: the QWERTY keyboard was adobted as the English-language standard keyboard on typwriters. This was because, with most words, including most common words, you alternate which side of the keyboad your stroke lands. This helps reduce the amount of times the hammers in mechanical typewritters will jam. This sped up typing time considerably. DVORAK isn't a faster keyboard layout. It's simply more ergonomic, which carries more weight once you get rid of hammers in typewritters. Fast-forward to today: QWERTY keyboards are standard on almost all smartphones. But, as smartphones lack hammers, what are they most pressing criteria for a mobile keyboard? What are the greatest limitation to using mobile keyboards? The size of the keys are a major obstacle, but QWERTY is actually a rather efficient layout to use with auto-correct. The other major limitation is the fact that you only have two digits available for input, the two thumbs. Thus the most optimal keyboard is one where you alternate the sides of the keyboard between strokes as often as possible. So what's the most efficient layout for smartphones? One that's easy to use auto-correct with. One that alternates the side of keyboard used as frequently as possible. In other words the one we just happened to already use. So, upon consideration, QWERTY should be standard on all smartphones.

  6. Re:Darn that dirty hydrogen on Self-Sustaining Solar Reactor Creates Clean Hydrogen · · Score: 1

    Most hydrogen today is made from natural gas. CO2 is a byproduct of the process. Electrolysis of water is a really expensive way to generate hydrogen. Just the electricity it takes to generate the hydrogen from water makes it more poluting than hydrogen from natural gas. First the natural gas or, more likely, coal is converted to electricity at 40% efficiency. Then the electricity is transmitted with 3-7% loss. Then the electrolysis is only ~80% efficient with electrolytes that are economic on an industrial scale. You might as well just turn the coal or natural gas into liquid fuel. The problem with this system is that mining and refining zinc would be more poluting than just using the Fischer-Tropsch process to turn the fuel used to refine the zinc to make liquid fuels. That way you wouldn't have to even replace any infrastructure.

  7. Re:Perspective, people, perspective on Ask Slashdot: How Would Room-Temp Superconductors Affect Us? · · Score: 1

    Vacuum isn't cold. It's a vacuum. Like in a thermas. You need a shiny structure with a large surface area facing away from the ship to cool things in space. That's why the shuttle kept the bay doors open in space. It's also why the ISS has those shiny panels near their solar arrays. Also energy input from the sun dies off with the square of the distance. So once you're out about 12-15 AU, you can cool a fluid below the boiling point of liquid nitrogen easily.

  8. Re:*Stomps foot* on RIAA Wants To Scrap Anti-Piracy OPEN Act · · Score: 1

    Actually, we're still Apes. Just like we're still monkeys. Just like we're still placentals. Just like we're still mammals. Just like we're still tetrapods. Just like we're still vertebrates. Just like we're still animals. Just like we're still eukaryotes. Evolution produces nested hierarchies. We never stop being any group. We simply add new taxonomic levels as time goes on. That's one of the reasons modern biology is moving away from Linnaean taxonomy and towards genetic cladistics.

  9. Re:Security through obscurity on Satellite Phone Encryption Cracked · · Score: 1

    Iridium sats operate @200MHz. My, nearly obsolete, cell phone is 2.5x as powerful as an Iridium satelite. That's why microsatelites are the future. They're cheap enough to send dozens up at once, which allows you to update the network more easily.

  10. Re:Optical interferometry? on World's Largest Virtual Optical Telescope Created · · Score: 1

    It is my understanding that by seperating the detectors over large distances in space or time, it makes it easier to detect and correct for atmospheric abberations. Which is one of the reasons interferometers were built in the first place.

  11. The Obvious Thing to Do on World's Largest Virtual Optical Telescope Created · · Score: 1

    Why not get a couple thousand 10" reflecting telescopes on digital servo mounts (~$1,500 each), hook them up to HD web cams (~$1,500 each), and use netbooks (~$300 each) with unlimited data plans (~$500/yr) to connect to database that uses a volunteer-based distributed computing network to process the data using inteferometry? You'd effectively have a telescope with a mirror the size of the Earth for about the cost of a professional level telescope. It would be orders of magnitude more powerful than anything else we could build. I still have no idea why this hasn't been built yet.

  12. Re:Good idea on New Mobile Plan Pools Data On Unlimited Devices · · Score: 1

    With tethering and WiFi Hotspots, if my phone has unlimited data, every other device I have has unlimited data. The only question is how many hoops I have to jump through to bypass my carrier wanting to charge me for using my devices in the most obvious fashion.

  13. Re:32 bit servers in 2011? on HP Announces ARM-Based Server Line · · Score: 1

    My dad bought a 386 with 8MB of RAM in 1986. People told him he'd never need that much memory. (Fun fact, the RAM was actually soldered to the board!)

  14. Re:Uh... on OccupySF IT Admins Using Pedal Power For Protest · · Score: 1

    That was actually the (somewhat belaboured and clumsily executed) point of Ghost in The Shell. I've felt for a long time now that the older I get, the more the world looks like a mashup novel of George Orwell and Philip K. Dick. I guess I have to add Masamune Shirow to that list, now. OWS and Anonymous both bear a striking resemblance to the goings on in Stand-Alone Complex.

    On another note, there is a lot written in the counter-insurgency (COIN) literature about the difficulty of fighting a decentralized, amourphous enemy and the inability of a traditional, rigidly structured military force to effectively combat it.

  15. Re:This is scientifically impossible on Does Italian Demo Show Cold Fusion, or Snake Oil? · · Score: 1

    You beat me to this. After you pass iron, you can't get exothermic fusion reactions. You just can't. The Physics behinds this are well understood. This is just more snake oil.

  16. Hint: Not GlobalSign on GlobalSign Web Server Hacked, But Not CA · · Score: 2

    Guess who I'm more inclined to believe: an anonymous supossed hacker or a certificate CA?

  17. Germs & Space on Could New Rover's Wheels Deliver Germs To Mars? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apollo 12 brought back parts from a Probe that landed on the Moon two years earlier. On it were found bacterial spores. When those spores were added to a growth medium, they cultured. Considering a) the Moon has no atmosphere, b) the Moon receives 4x the solar radiation as Mars, and c) the spores had been there for two years, I don't think we can actually consider any space craft sent to Mars truly sterile.

  18. Serendipity on Chemical Cocktail Turns Mice Clear · · Score: 1

    ...a mixture of urea, glycerol, and soap...

    How did they find this formula? Did one of the researchers piss in a bottle of liquid soap?

  19. I know the feeling on Synaptic Dropped From Ubuntu 11.10 · · Score: 1

    I switched to Kubuntu from Ubuntu back at 9.10. I kept using Synaptic until just recently.

  20. Firefox OS? on Where Is Firefox OS? · · Score: 1

    "Why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?" They did. It's called "Google Chrome". Seriously, Google hired large numbers of people from Mozilla a few years back. They still work with Mozilla while simultaneously working for Google. Chrome is built on a base of Firefox. Chrome OS is the Chrome browser layered over a custom build of Linux. It's this reality that Microsoft is moving against with this development. Microsoft is playing catch-up, not leading the way.

  21. This Again on Apple Sued Over Use of iCloud Name · · Score: 1

    Apple did the same thing with Cisco over the name "iPhone". Look how that turned out.

  22. Cart Before The Horse on Former Senator Wants to Mine The Moon · · Score: 2

    First you have to be able to generate more power with fusion than is consumed generating it. We haven't done that yet. Also, all current fusion generator designs generate low-level radioactive contamination. So fusion will have the same long-term radioactive waste disposal problems as fission power currently does. If you're going to mine the moon, mine the aluminum and magnesium and make orbital mirrors for an orbiting solar-thermal plant.