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User: notKevinJohn

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  1. Maximum Rating / Criminal Conduct on GTA V Proves a Lot of Parents Still Don't Know or Care About ESRB Ratings · · Score: 1

    So, if the way we handle video games rating is somewhat analogous to how we handle movies, maybe the proper way to handle a game like this is to rate it A - Adults Only. Maybe it should be as illegal to buy this game for a child as it would be to buy porn for a child. I don't know how graphic the game is, I haven't gotten around to it yet.

  2. Re:Inflatable? on MIT's Inflatable Antennae Could Boost Small Satellite Communications · · Score: 2

    First line of the article: "Mylar-based attennae could inflate once launched, withstand micro-meteor threat, MIT says."

  3. Re:Inflatable Antenna? on MIT's Inflatable Antennae Could Boost Small Satellite Communications · · Score: 1

    Maybe, but since cubesats are only 10cm x 10cm it needs to be a LOT smaller.

  4. Re:Laser on MIT's Inflatable Antennae Could Boost Small Satellite Communications · · Score: 2

    The problem with that is cubesats get launched piggy-backed on Air Force satellites; and they can't give you particularly accurate orbital dynamics. It's hard enough to get a signal using the 433 Mhz band where you really only have to know the position of the cubesat to within a few degrees. To use a laser for communication, you would have to know the position to within a tiny fraction of an arc-second.

  5. Re:Clearly unconstitutional on Senator Feinstein: We Need Video Game Control · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't ANY penalties for selling to minors be, by definition, MORE than the current number of penalties (zero)?

  6. Re:Clearly unconstitutional on Senator Feinstein: We Need Video Game Control · · Score: 1

    The government actually has every right to sensor books, plays, movies, etc if it can be shown that they are demonstrating non-protected speech; things like: Incitement to crime Fighting words True threats Obscenity Child pornography You'll notice that the first item on my list is the very thing that Feinstein is arguing that violent video games are doing. Personally, I think she is probably wrong and that studies have shown that there is no correlation between violent games are incidences of real world violence; but's it's a pretty big jump from 'probably wrong' to 'clearly unconstitutional' and making that jump without any reasoning to support your claim is misguided at best.

  7. Re:I'm the opposite on Why Developers Still Prefer iOS To Android · · Score: 1

    I couldn't agree more. In terms of ease of development, Android blows iOS out of the water. I also think its a much better platform for entry level developers to learn on.

  8. Bond plot? on Will NASA Ever Recover Apollo 13's Plutonium From the Ocean · · Score: 3, Funny

    How has the recovery and development of this plutonium into a weapon NOT been featured as the plot of a James Bond movie?

  9. Re:I'm making money on Is the Apple App Store a Casino? · · Score: 1

    No, the NDA is totally necessary; if it wasn't for that I could make a killing with my hilarious new tell-all book about ideas people actually wanted me to put into production. "It's totally done! All it needs is a programmer. Will you work for equity?"

  10. Re:My grandfather made one of these... on Robot Walks Like a Human, Requires No Power · · Score: 1

    Yeah, like Slinkys

  11. Re:How long do we put up with dark matter on Ask The Bad Astronomer · · Score: 1

    I often hear the argument that Kepler's Laws/ Classical Mechanics should just not be applied to large scale structures like galaxies since it clearly does not accurately predict their behavior. I can understand how this is an intuitive decision to arrive at, but I also think its unfortunately non-scientific. There is precedent for new theories replacing older ones in special cases, like relativistic effects being important when objects are traveling near the speed of light. However, you could apply relativistic equations to events that are not near the speed of light, and you would still get the right answers, the relativistic effects would just be negligible. In that same logic: if you wanted to Kepler's Laws to NOT apply to galaxies, you would have to re-write them so that their effects were just negligible on large scales, or at large masses. I don't think this is the correct approach, I think Dark Matter is the real solution to the problem, but if you want to suggest changing the law instead, it would have to be a universal change, and that would be even more problematic them detecting matter that doesn't give off any light.

  12. Re:I want a Good Astronomer on Comet Nearly Hit Earth? Not So Fast · · Score: 1

    I know that this was a joke, but I think the point was to get "badass" in his title

  13. Re:Public support? on Ask Derek Deville About High-Altitude Amateur Rocketry · · Score: 1

    No, its not an urban myth, it might not be a full blown law, but Tripoli and NAR are the organizations that regulate amateur rocket launches, and their rules DO forbid guidance systems.

  14. Spinning on Ask Derek Deville About High-Altitude Amateur Rocketry · · Score: 1

    Of all the rocket launch videos I have seen, your had by far the least amount of spin on the way up, no doubt due to precision engineering/machining on your part. Have you ever considered launching a camera with a wide angle lens that could see 360 degrees around rocket and then removing the spin from the resulting video with software?

  15. Re:Public support? on Ask Derek Deville About High-Altitude Amateur Rocketry · · Score: 1

    I got into high powered rocketry out at black rock in the last couple of years, and if anything I can say that regulation of these motors has decreased in recent years. You don't need any special licenses from the government (ATF) to purchase motors, you just need to be certified on those motors by your local Tripoli or NAR prefecture. You used to need a small explosives license to store motors, but that is no longer the case. The only way in which terrorism/ national security becomes an issue is that you are not allowed to built a guidance system for your rocket.

  16. Re:Really? on Team Fortress 2 Running In a Web Browser Using WebGL · · Score: 1

    Really? Do you think there is a technology out there that would let games run on machines without hardware capable of running them? I suppose there are some cloud-based options that could work for that, but ultimately the processing has to get done somewhere.

  17. Re:Flash (banner ads + video) on Adobe Releases Flash 11 and AIR 3 · · Score: 1

    I use 3D in flash ALL THE TIME with no trouble. Granted, I am usually using the Papervision3D library, which is technically a 3D mock-up of a 2D implementation. I also have 3d hardware acceleration turned on, and I don't have any issues with that. I do this on both Windows 7 and Ubuntu Linux platforms. Is your problem an OSX thing? I only here from people on OSX that Flash is unstable, everyone else has no trouble with it. Then again, maybe that's not surprising since Mac and Adobe aren't exactly BFF's anymore...

  18. Re:Flash (banner ads + video) on Adobe Releases Flash 11 and AIR 3 · · Score: 1

    Couldn't agree more. If you looked back five years, you would find that HTML was handling the standard web media like images and text and layouts, and Flash was handing the rich internet media like video and interactives. That really isn't changing, what is changing is where we draw the line between standard and rich content. Now we expect things like Video, Audio, and some simple interactives to be considered standard, and things like in-browser 3D, heavy vector graphics, hardware acceleration and a complete OOP environment to be rich media. The notion that HTML 5 is competing with Flash is true, its just that its competing with Flash Player 8, not 11.

  19. Re:Flash plays video, but Flash != video on Adobe Brings Flash-Free Flash To iOS Devices · · Score: 1

    From a developers standpoint, I could not agree more with this statement, video is a very small part of what Flash can do. Really its a platform for distributing interactive content, not just video. On the other hand, as a consumer, I think its important to realize that if you look at all the Flash on the internet, I am sure a very high percentage of it is video.

  20. User Error on Mac OS X Lion LDAP Vulnerability Emerges · · Score: 1, Funny

    Don't worry, I am sure Apple will soon release a statement explaining that LDAP works on Lion as long as you hold your laptop in the correct way.

  21. Re:Do you own a Guy Fawkes Mask? on Ask Kevin Mitnick · · Score: 1

    Regardless of whether you approve or disapprove of Anonymous' activities, do you think that the "genie could be put back into the bottle" even if we wanted to? Is Hacktivism here to stay?

  22. Self Serving Suggestion: on What HP's TouchPad Fire Sale Teaches iPad Rivals · · Score: 1

    If Andoid manufacturers are worried about not enough Apps existing on their platform, I think the solution is obvious: Give App developers (like me!) free Tablets. I PROMISE to make lots of really nice apps for it.

  23. So, this is hardware acceleration for HTML 5? on WebAPI: Mozilla Proposes Open App Interface For Smartphones · · Score: 1

    It sounds like this is just a series of APIs to try and make the hardware of a mobile device available to an HTML 5 application? It would be nice for HTML 5 to have hardware acceleration, and for HTML 5 apps to be able to take advantage of GPS, accelerometer, etc data, but I don't think its the right approach. Personally, I like Adobe's approach to the problem of OS fragmentation with AIR better: create and maintain client-side run-time environments (VM's) that can execute pre-compiled code to facilitate OS agnosticism in applications. It worked pretty darn well for solving the problem of writing web application with OS/Browser agnosticism, I think it could do the same for the mobile platform.

  24. Boo HP! yay Lenovo! on HP's Shift On PCs Could Boost Acer, Dell and Lenovo · · Score: 1

    I have really loved my little Lenovo T500, it has been proved itself to be a rugged and reliable laptop, and it was very affordable. If they p

  25. Great News for Teachers on App Inventor Continues Life at MIT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I used to teach a Lego Mindstorm based after-school program. If this guy can make a GUI on top of LabView that is easy enough for 4rth graders to master, I can't wait to see what he does with the Android SDK/ App Inventor.