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User: BigFootApe

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  1. Re:So why would anyone want to do this? on Windows Cluster Hits a Petaflop, But Linux Retains Top-5 Spot · · Score: 1

    The only "advantage" is when you're defaulted to Windows because an ISV has a required shrink wrap application available only for Windows.

  2. Navy Test Site? on Mystery Missile Launched Near LA · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing this is the command that lit off the rocket. It seems like it's still used for a lot of weapons development testing.
    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/point-mugu.htm

  3. Re:Weird. And then what? on New York Judge Rules 6-Year-Old Can Be Sued · · Score: 1

    The lady didn't die because of the bicycle accident. She died 3 months later due to an unrelated cause.

  4. Re:Math is recursively important on How Much Math Do We Really Need? · · Score: 1

    Math has an axiomatic basis, and those axioms have no natural validity to them. We don't strictly know any mathematical assertions are true, we believe they are true.

  5. Re:Weird. And then what? on New York Judge Rules 6-Year-Old Can Be Sued · · Score: 2, Insightful

    At this age, those teachings tend to be very concrete. "Don't play with matches." "Don't touch things on the stove." Being able to logically evaluate the consequences of a theoretical action in a situation with which a child is unfamiliar would be almost unheard of.

  6. Re:Wait what? on New York Judge Rules 6-Year-Old Can Be Sued · · Score: 1, Informative

    It actually does mean they can't plan evil. Within the Piaget model, children do not form the processes necessary to reasonably determine the consequences of their actions and furthermore do not have an understanding of right and wrong beyond an egocentric level.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_cognitive_development#Preoperational_stage

    But you're right about the brain matter thing.

  7. Re:Holy design, Batman. on Hands-On Test With the Dirt-Cheap CherryPad Tablet · · Score: 1

    Go watch 2001 again.

  8. Re:Diesels already do this. on Mazda Claims 70 mpg For New Engine, No Hybrid Needed · · Score: 1

    Not a problem. Diesels tend to be quite durable, so (with a few notable exceptions) if you can put the mileage into the car, the motor will stand up to it. 1/2 million miles is not uncommon for a VW diesel.

    It doesn't make sense to buy an expensive, efficient car if you're going to be putting in low mileage/low hours on your car.

  9. Re:Lest we forget on CIA Drones May Have Used Illegal, Inaccurate Code · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Cold War arose because of the Russian fear of the nuclear-armed US (they had after all nearly been destroyed by Germany, a smaller country) and their desire to create buffer zones in the West of the Soviet Union. That, and what that notorious left-winger Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex".

    Eisenhower wasn't upset about having a strong, high technology military. He was concerned that crackpot projects were excessively milking the country for money and that military spending should be looked upon always with a certain amount of clear eyed judgement to prevent unwarranted waste.

    Nuclear powered bombers? Remember that one? Safeguard? Heck, even now NMD is being built for pork purposes under the smokescreen of a fictional "rogue nation" threat.

    Even the Sovs had their own version military industrial complex. They called it the "metal eaters alliance".

    However, as I suspect that you're writing that from your parents' basement, I doubt that you actually know any history, or were even around for the Cold War."We are too easily impressed by small wars nowadays"- if you knew any history, you would know that the Western invasion of Germany was a limited war because high casualties would not be accepted by the American and British public. Read up on Eisenhower. You need to learn about the greatest American general.

    I'd say it was pretty much total war. There was a certain amount of trust within the western allied governments that the generals would not be wasteful with soldiers lives and I think Eisenhower and his colleagues were cognisant of that.

  10. Re:Wow. on CIA Drones May Have Used Illegal, Inaccurate Code · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm guessing this is adaptable to alternative sensor platforms, not just cell towers. If they want that kind of accuracy from the SIGINT/DF hardware, they can probably get it. The problem is that they might not have a handle on the systematic errors being introduced into their targeting.

    For example, say they slave the on station Predator optics to data from this software so they can pick up a guy in a town and follow him to wherever he's going. Everything is peachy, because they know there was nobody within 10m (but there were people 12m away) and the system's supposed to be accurate to 5m (or whatever). They have a good fix. CIA decides to make him an ex-person and maybe kills the wrong guy.

    I hope this doesn't happen. I hope there are redundant checks within such a program to keep these things from happening. Maybe he has to make two phone calls. Who knows? The original contractor didn't know specifically how their software would be used. They wanted to ensure that the new hardware would match the old based on their regression testing so that as much as humanly possible, there would be no surprises.

  11. Re:Sad, actually on James Cameron Commissions Submarine To Visit Challenger Deep · · Score: 1

    Big myth, here.

    http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/saturn_five_000313.html

    Rebuilding the assembly lines and rediscovering the small things which aren't down on paper. That's what's hard. The design is still there, right where it should be.

    Now people actually know quite a bit about main engines. Nobody makes the really big ones these days because there's not much work and not a large amount of funding for big boosters. If the gloves were pulled off, I'm sure that they'd be able to impress.

  12. Re:More details and downloadable archive on Claimed Proof That UNIX Code Was Copied Into Linux · · Score: 1

    I,J,K also work pretty good as array indexes because they are the unit vectors for X,Y,Z. So physicists were mostly ok with leaving them as is.

  13. Re:Free OS, free software on Most Useful OS For High-School Science Education? · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure about their current stuff, but Bruker had (closed) software which they ported from commercial UNIX to Linux (Redhat in this case).

  14. Re:$380? on Asus Budget Ultraportable Notebook Sold Sans OS · · Score: 1

    I believe what we're seeing a coalescing of different pressures keeping prices high, including customer wanting Windows, substantial market requirements for CPU power (higher resolution media playback, etc), some key applications not currently available on ARM, marketing channels not setting appropriate expectations vis-a-vis product capabilities. I also believe existing hardware suppliers are somewhat reluctant to race each other to the bottom in pricing and margin.

  15. Re:Think critically--and READ critically on Texas Schools Board Rewriting US History · · Score: 1

    There was also the article in the New York Times, which you mentioned. Maybe they're also a little left wing, but they're arguably more responsible, and definitely drink less Guinness. Perhaps it's all just a liberal conspiracy, then?

    I understand that in order to take office, you had to profess Christianity. You also had to be a property owning white male, and usually protestant. Apparently, these things were all subject to change. Religion was just the first thing on the chopping block. So, it's really not that interesting. Kind of shameful, in a way.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_in_the_United_States#Removal_of_exclusions

    By the way, Sarah Palin is too stupid to be insidious. Pumpkin positive stupid.

  16. Re:No option of Fortran? on Good Language Choice For School Programming Test? · · Score: 1

    They'll just have to learn how to write FORTRAN in any language. Soon enough, they will become a Real Programmer.

    A valuable lesson, really.

  17. Re:Secretive Space Plane? on Air Force Spaceplane Readying For Launch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everyone knows that the US has orbital photo recon. We don't have a 100% clear picture of what the capabilities are.

    The fact that it's an X craft tells us this orbital space plane is a test vehicle. But a test vehicle for what? What are the ultimate objectives of the program? How does it tie in with Prompt Global Strike?

  18. We don't have the whole picture. on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ares I was a piece of pork which should have long since been canceled. I'm glad it's gone. Everyone knows there are currently two US boosters (three soon enough) in the same weight and performance category and part of Obama's plan is to use those to go into LEO. This makes sense.

    What no one has discussed, either in the pro Constellation crowd or those against, is what the propulsion package will be for Flexible Path. I'd like to see some of the ideas behind DIRECT refined so we end up with a moderately economical, scalable launch architecture for really heavy payloads. COTS is not likely to develop this on their own, they're happy at 25 tons to LEO and under. It's where their profit is. Note, I'm choosing to be optimistic on Flexible path being funded and implemented.

    It looks like Orion Lite from Bigelow/Boeing/Lockheed is the front runner for crew transport. I'm not sure how much commonality is possible between it and a future Orion Heavy used for lunar or martian missions. Hopefully building one makes it easier to build the other.

  19. Re:Priorities. on Former Astronauts Call Obama NASA Plans "Catastrophic" · · Score: 1

    And don't depend on your Navy keeping them away forever. Just ask the Minoans. They bottled themselves up on Crete, and when Mt. Thera erupted they were easy pickings for the Mycenaeans.

    As to the question of Empire...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard

    Some will argue that there is a great difference between being a player in power politics and being a colonial power. I do not necessarily agree. Rather, I believe in the duck test.

  20. Re:What do you expect? on Ex-Sun Chief Dishes Dirt On Gates, Jobs · · Score: 1

    To release a better, or cheaper product.

    I'll settle for either cheaper with the same quality or the same price with better quality.

  21. Re:With lube strip on Mach 6 Test Aircraft Set For Trials · · Score: 1

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F7TMlrDXtw

  22. It's Pretentious More Than Annoying on Race For the "God Particle" Heats Up · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let's just stick to calling it the Higgs Boson. God Particle is just a meaningless snippet that the scientifically semi-literate have latched onto because it sounds cool.

    Just like Theory of Everything, actually.

  23. Re:Great idea but pie in the sky... on Workable Fusion Starship Proposed · · Score: 3, Funny

    Only in James Bond films.

  24. From an Earlier Time on Linux Compatibility With VR Goggles? · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hi,

        Here's some software to read a Mattel Powerglove through the Linux
    serial driver, you must be using a Menelli box to interface to the glove.
    I also wrote a predictive filter to try and eliminate glitches, a TCP-IP
    server-client pair to read data in your application, a posture look-up
    table to recognise hand shapes, and a simple attempt at recognising 6DOF
    movement with vectors and tokenising them into gestures.
        I'm not supporting the software, but I will be hacking around with it
    again after Christmas, so the only condition on using it is to send me
    any fixes, improvements, and ideas on making it better.

    (there is a also an AMI PRO document to go with this stuff, which is
    the project report I wrote for my BSc degree.)

    http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/hardware/drivers/linux-powerglove.README

  25. Re:Frozen Bubble on Great Games To Put On a Free PC? · · Score: 1

    I have found that Frozen Bubble tends to interfere quite a bit with the whole doing work thing. It's more addictive than Tetris, which has always been the crack cocaine of computing in my mind.

    Fun, though.