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User: Applehu+Akbar

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  1. Re:Tablets age well on Is the Tablet Market In Outright Collapse? Data Suggests Yes · · Score: 0

    But your old Android device will no longer run many of the latest Russian viruses.

  2. We can see all of Scorpius from Arizona, and all the way down to just above Crux.

  3. Re:Open clusters on What Northern Hemisphere Astronomers Are Missing From the Southern Hemisphere · · Score: 1

    Tonight, look in the Northern Hemisphere winter sky for Orion's Belt, the line of three stars in the center of the constellation.. That is right on the celestial equator. Everything below it in the sky is the southern celestial hemisphere.

  4. Yes, most human settlement in new lands has taken place as short moves from existing settlements into new territory. That is human expansion, nonetheless, and has been responsible for most of our occupation of the whole Earth. Where long-distance exploration jumps come in is when a "giant step" is required, say to be first into a new continent. As soon as Musk or anyone else does this for an extraterrestrial destination, the usual legion of incrementalists will follow.

  5. Re:Shut it down on 5,200 Days Aboard ISS, and the Surprising Reason the Mission Is Still Worthwhile · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can you name a single instance of a country that stopped all exploration until domestic debts were paid and all people reported that they were happy with things as they are?

  6. Re:They have a good point on N. Korea Blames US For Internet Outage, Compares Obama to "a Monkey" · · Score: 1

    How do North Koreans get mod points, anyway?

  7. Re:More moaning and groaning for nothing. on N. Korea Blames US For Internet Outage, Compares Obama to "a Monkey" · · Score: 1

    In all fairness, we did make Un a sitcom character on "2 Broke Girls."

  8. Re:5% less leg room? on First Airbus A350 XWB Delivered, Will Start Service in January · · Score: 1

    Within Europe, the door-to-door time on trains is probably better anyway, and with no more worries about weather.

  9. Re:Very doubtful it was North Korea on Did North Korea Really Attack Sony? · · Score: 1

    But what happens to that cyberattack option if North Korea replaces its Dell Vostro with an iMac?

  10. Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? on How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years · · Score: 2

    No, it was failing to outrun your fellow hunters who were fleeing at the same time.

  11. Re: Marketing? on Anonymous Claims They Will Release "The Interview" Themselves · · Score: 1

    This is a major corporate hack, not a garage fire. The insurance company will not only have its best people on the case, but has the assistance of the FBI and Homeland Security.

  12. Re: Marketing? on Anonymous Claims They Will Release "The Interview" Themselves · · Score: 1

    And an insurance company isn't going to do a better job of figuring out "burning it for the insurance" than a bunch of speculative Internet commenters?

  13. Re: Marketing? on Anonymous Claims They Will Release "The Interview" Themselves · · Score: 1

    As I've said in other threads, Sony won't benefit from the publicity if it doesn't release the movie. Now I suppose you'll claim that Sony owns Anonymous too, and is having them release a torrent version of the film that secretly includes a better version of the famed Sony rootkit.

  14. Re: Marketing? on Anonymous Claims They Will Release "The Interview" Themselves · · Score: 0

    So far, bullying seems to be working just fine for North Korea.

    Good on Anonymous for releasing this picture. They should announce a date certain, and release only if Sony does not.

  15. Even after Hadoop becomes self-aware on What Happens To Society When Robots Replace Workers? · · Score: 1

    It will still need humans to keep power flowing to its data centers and to change out RAID drives.

  16. Re:Incompetence vs Conspiracy on North Korea Denies Responsibility for Sony Attack, Warns Against Retaliation · · Score: 1

    In that case, Sony would have nothing to fear from releasing the film - and a lot to monetarily gain from it.

  17. What I would like to see on Boeing and BlackBerry Making a Self-Destructing Phone · · Score: 1

    Is an iPhone case made out of C4, that would detonate whenever the device is placed in Lost Mode. You use Find My Phone to track it when it goes missing, and if you see it floating around in the ghetto, you activate Lost Mode. Kaboom!

  18. Re: Neener on Staples: Breach May Have Affected 1.16 Million Customers' Cards · · Score: 2

    An app is opened, but by the Apple Pay hardware rather than by the user. This keeps the interface simple and does not require any daemon in the OS; the user just pulls out her phone, touches it to the cash register, and authenticates with a designated fingerprint until a 'Done' checkmark pops up. Other schemes require the user to turn on the phone, go into a specified app, and enter a PIN.

    The ACH transfer scheme being pushed by Walmart also requires that the user scan a QR code that is generated by the cash register as a challenge/response sequence. By this time, the other people in line at the register are starting to cough and shuffle their feet while the user wonders why he didn't just pull out his credit card to begin with. Small wonder that Walmart's scheme (which, because it also requires a central database of user information, has already been hacked) is so unpopular even in beta that chains using the system have been ordered to turn off NFC entirely to stop wholesale defection. This locks out all NFC vendors, including Google and all those European and Asian visitors who had been happy to hear that American retailers were finally about to exit the twentieth century.

  19. Re:Re-entry is done wrong on NASA Video Shows What It's Like To Reenter the Earth's Atmosphere · · Score: 3, Informative

    Space Shuttle attempted to do what you describe, coming as close to that ideal as reentry dynamics would allow. It still required a 40-degree angle of attack during the hot part of deceleration. The final approach may look airliner-like, but the sink rate was something like seven times that of a Boeing, a requirement of the delta-wing design, which in turn was imposed by the need to reenter without stripping off the wings.

    The Orion capsule may look like a throwback to the Sixties, but it's the most tolerant, safest design of all.

  20. Re: Neener on Staples: Breach May Have Affected 1.16 Million Customers' Cards · · Score: 2

    Both schemes are just part of the NFC standard, which has worldwide support. The problem with Google Wallet in favor of Apple Pay is that GW requires sharing customer data with Google. Better hope there isn't a breach. GW also requires the user open an app on his device and enter a PIN. AP just comes up when you touch an iPhone to the point-of-sale terminal, and authenticates with your thumbprint.

  21. Neener on Staples: Breach May Have Affected 1.16 Million Customers' Cards · · Score: 1, Funny

    When I shop at Staples, I use Apple Pay.

  22. Re:This is worse than mythology. on The Dominant Life Form In the Cosmos Is Probably Superintelligent Robots · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No it doesn't. It leads to the question.

    But if we assume that all robots - all AI in general - starts by being created by a biologic intelligence, that doesn't matter. We have already established that robots work really well in space, especially for long-distance excursions.

    The first intelligent aliens we encounter will be robots. Furthermore, the encounter will be by our own robots.

  23. No, basement dwellers on Hackers' Shutdown of 'The Interview' Confirms Coding Is a Superpower · · Score: 1

    Hacking, and the reaction to it from our Democrat elites, proves that North Korea is a superpower.

  24. Re:Established science CANNOT BE QUESTIONED! on Skeptics Would Like Media To Stop Calling Science Deniers 'Skeptics' · · Score: 1

    "Germany is leading all other countries by re-building its grid and moving to renewable energy on a very large scale."

    Germany is also digging the world's largest strip mine, and for lignite, an energy source not fit for cavemen. And its push for renewable sources has run into a wall of eco-maniac opposition to the new transmission lines required to wheel power from sunny and windy places to urban users (like our envisioned "Smart Grid")

  25. This would be news... on Scientists Discover That Exercise Changes Your DNA · · Score: 2

    Only if the changed DNA could be passed on. Lysenko would be proven right!