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User: DerekLyons

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  1. No argument on that. on Toshiba CEO, 8 Others, Resign Over $1.2 Billion Accounting Cover-Up · · Score: 1

    No argument there, but that's fraud not embezzlement.

  2. Re:this is Japan on Toshiba CEO, 8 Others, Resign Over $1.2 Billion Accounting Cover-Up · · Score: 0

    Huh? There was no embezzling here - nobody walked off with cash from the business.

  3. *cough* stereotypes and ignorance *cough*

  4. Re:keep the stains on Smithsonian Using Kickstart Campaign To Save Armstrong's Moon Suit · · Score: 2

    I don't want the stains removed. They're part of history. They're badges earned by actually making the trip.

    That's an assumption, not a fact. Fortunately, the Smithsonian knows the difference and plans to research the history of and determine the source of the stain and how it relates to the history and use of the suit before making any decisions. It could just as easily be a manufacturing flaw that didn't manifest for decades, or a handling error at NASA postflight, or a consequence of storage at the Smithsonian - in none of these cases are they part of the significant history of the suit nor are they badges earned by actually making the trip.

    Or, to put it another way, once again the professionals involved know more than random Slashdot posters.

  5. Re:Why? on NASA Funded Study States People Could Be On the Moon By 2021 For $10 Billion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Manned space exploration already has a terrible return on investment compared to unmanned.

    [[Citation Needed]]
     
    Seriously - this is a claim that keeps being made, but doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. Sure, robots excel at the mind numbingly boring shit (like recording temperature every thirty seconds) that robots normally excel at... but they suck at pretty much everything else. The amount of ground covered by the three rovers in years of operation was covered by the LRV in mere hours. There's an account in Steven W. Squyres book of them spending two weeks backing and filling to photograph a rock formation the size of a basketball - a task which would have taken an astronaut mere minutes. If you read the transcripts of the Apollo moonwalks, you find again and again where significant finds were made because there were trained human eyes on the spot.

    Or, to put it much simpler; robots excel at recording, they're not nearly so good at finding. Humans work faster and are far more flexible.

  6. Re:Transparency on Elon Musk: Faulty Strut May Have Led To Falcon 9 Launch Failure · · Score: 2

    I am amused by the fact that a private company does better than our government at disaster transparency.

    Outside of classified launches... when exactly was the government not this transparent (and more)?

  7. At first I was going to ask the doubters why Hawking would be involved if the project was so dubious

    All manner of people, smart and otherwise, hold all manner of dubious beliefs.

  8. Sadly too common. on Massachusetts Examining Disability Access For Uber, Lyft · · Score: 0

    This further entrenches my opinion that the people defending Uber care nothing for others, and do nothing to appreciate the situation that others find themselves in.

    Sadly, it don't think it's as much about people defending Uber (though Slashdot is populated with the self absorbed and self centered) as much as it Slashdot's demographic slants heavily towards ignorant self entitled assholes. (Read any article on diversity or women in tech, etc... for existence proof.)

  9. Re:ridiculous on Plastic Roads Sound Like a Crazy Idea, Maybe Aren't · · Score: 1

    Second, the "prefab road sections" are absurd; nobody builds roads like this already (of any material) because they would be ruinously expensive (not because of the raw material costs), nothing has come close to the level of durability needed to handle 50-ton trucks repeatedly for decades, and extremely hard to deploy.

    Conventional (asphalt or concrete) roads aren't specified to last fifty years - so why would you require plastic roads to do so?

    Not to mention that prefab sections of rail track (handling 100 tons of locomotives pulling half a mile of freight behind them) have been common for decades.

  10. Re:Recognition of need for medical care? on Robot-Staffed Japanese Hotel Opens · · Score: 2

    Will there be any staff to notice that you're unwell and call an ambulance?

    Have you ever actually stayed at a hotel? Interaction with the human staff is already at a minimum (and has been for a long time - a hotel that constantly intrudes on the privacy of it's guests doesn't stay open long).... unless you keel over in a public space, there's pretty much already nobody to notice until housekeeping stops by.

  11. Re:Not an interesting story on 'Pluto Truthers' Are Pretty Sure That the NASA New Horizons Mission Was Faked · · Score: 2

    Unless there's a lot of these attention-desperate people, why should we be interested in this?

    Because This Is Slashdot - and how can we feel superior without our daily Two Minute Hate?

  12. ROTFLMAO on Hillary Clinton Takes Aim At 'Gig Economy' · · Score: 1

    Here's the funny thing. My politics are anything but right wing.

    I'm just going on what you wrote - and it's all rightwingnut talking points.
     

    Do you have actual evidence that shows that not having valuable skills and not working hard results in better outcomes?

    Do you have any actual evidence that they invariably (as you imply, "can be assured") result in better outcomes? No, you do not. You're just repeating a rightwingnut talking point.

    Piss right the hell off, you don't get to make unsupported claims and then insist that I'm the one who has to produce evidence.

  13. Re:The Solution is Subsidiarity on America's Technical Debt · · Score: 1

    The system we have now insures conflict because you can force a slight majority to your will.

    The system you propose is hardly better - because it will never accomplish anything. (Yeah, yeah, bring on the ignorant jokes - but consider a system that fails to anything is also a system that fails to do what you'd like it to do. It won't pass tax breaks for the rich, but it also won't approve the ACA or funding for New Horizons.)

  14. Re:This is why physics is the king of the sciences on LHC Discovers Pentaquark Particles · · Score: 4, Informative

    New Horizons had a 100 km by 150 km window of space that it had to be in within 100 seconds. If it was out of this area, the photos would return blank space. While we won't know if it hit the target until the photos come back late tonight/early tomorrow, it looks like they hit the mark. That's planning a route 9 years out and 5 billion km away.

    You left out, as Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story.

    While they planned the route fourteen years ago, they've spent the last nine years (since launch) analyzing the spacecraft's current trajectory and making mid course corrections as needed to ensure that New Horizons hit the window. If they hadn't done so, less than forty minutes after launch New Horizons would have been doomed to miss Pluto entirely. (The booster ended up performing a little 'hot' - when the final stage was discarded, it was actually going too fast.)

    Don't get me wrong, it's still a fantastic achievement that all they needed was 20 m/s (give or take a little) of course correction - but the fact remains that New Horizons wasn't passively ballistic, it was actively flown.

  15. Re:Mechanism? on Cell Phone Radiation Emission Tests Assume Use of Belt Clip · · Score: 2

    UV isn't ionizing either. Neither are microwaves. Prolonged exposure to either is... not a really bright idea.

    So please, let's leave off the cargo cult science babble about "cell phones don't emit ionizing radiation". They emit energy, and that energy goes somewere. Nor do we need a mechanism when we have an established result.

  16. Re:Must we continue forcing women into tech fields on Interviews: Ask Brianna Wu a Question · · Score: -1, Troll

    The sad part is that idiots like you believe that somehow personal experience and anecdata trump reality. It doesn't even occur to you to question either one.

  17. Re:Piece work on Hillary Clinton Takes Aim At 'Gig Economy' · · Score: 1

    A reliable income can be assured through having valuable skills and working hard.

    So sayeth Faux news and scattered anecdata. (And the rest of your comment is just the same - rightwingnut talking points.)

  18. Re:Does not really matter. on Cell Phone Radiation Emission Tests Assume Use of Belt Clip · · Score: 0

    " UV isn't ionizing at least the far UV bands are, the lower bands are close enough in energy to cause photochemical reactions that break bonds so they are treated as ionizing radiation"

    [[Citation Needed]]

    Meanwhile, both the WHO and Wikipedia note that it is considered non ionizing.

  19. Do your research moron. on Cell Phone Radiation Emission Tests Assume Use of Belt Clip · · Score: 0

    It's not ionizing according the World Health Organization. In the same vein, Wikipedia also lists it as non ionizing.

  20. Re:Does not really matter. on Cell Phone Radiation Emission Tests Assume Use of Belt Clip · · Score: 1

    So? You think radiation is only dangerous when it's ionizing? UV isn't ionizing, neither are microwaves.

  21. Re:Protectionist laws are not labor laws on Hillary Clinton Takes Aim At 'Gig Economy' · · Score: 1

    Laws protecting an outdated business model are far different that laws that protect individual laborers.

    I'm OK with workplace safety laws. I'm not OK with laws that prop up obsolete businesses.

    The problem isn't laws that prop up obsolete businesses, it's folks that regard any business that isn't shiny and new and app and mobile friendly as obsolete. And damn the workers so long as the self absorbed class get theirs.

    It's telling that you don't seem to support laws that protect employees from predatory employers - you only seem to care that they're "safe".

  22. Re:Yes, it could on Supersonic Jet Could Fly NYC To London In 3 Hours · · Score: 3, Informative

    Am I the only one that grasps that the S-512 is a bizjet, not a passenger airliner? The economics of the former are considerably different from that of the latter.

  23. Re:Guns on Rich and American? Australia Wants You · · Score: 0

    Frankly, because most non-Americans seem to get their news about America from Faux and Facebook.

  24. Re:Basic Engineering! on The Missile Impasse In the Iran Negotiations · · Score: 1

    They're making rockets and spacecraft that will be human-rated. That's a bit more challenging.

    OK, look to Falcon I then. And note that they haven't launched a man-rated vehicle yet. Etc... etc...

    Or, to put it another way, like the original poster you're clueless moron.

  25. Re:Basic Engineering! on The Missile Impasse In the Iran Negotiations · · Score: 3, Informative

    Really, the engineering to make and guide a missile is not formidable these days.

    Looks at SpaceX's record, looks at the original poster... *shrug* Yeah, whatever.
     

    Iran is more than capable, though testing is probably hard for them being landlocked.

    Have you ever actually looked at a map? Iran is anything but landlocked - they have hundreds of miles of coast on the Indian Ocean and clear range six thousand miles long before they reach the Antarctic coast.
     

    A good machine shop and a knowledge of F=ma is all that is really needed.

    Yeah, except for all the stuff you can't do with a "good machine shop" and all the math that is far more complex and F=ma. Which is pretty much all of it.
     

    The rest is detail, easily accessible on Wikipedia.

    As they say, the devil is in the details - and Wikipedia is essentially a kindergarten introduction.
     
    Or, to put it another way, you're not only wrong - you're completely clueless. How does bilge like yours get modded "informative"?