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User: MercTech

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Comments · 596

  1. Re:So basically operator error? on Was The Florida Pedestrian Bridge Collapse Triggered By Post-Tensioning? (enr.com) · · Score: 1

    Running up to final tension on one joint before moving to another joint is a sure recipe for stress cracking. But, it is so much faster than going to an intermediate spec, removing hydraulic tensioners and moving to the next, and taking each point up incrementally. If you don't get it, check "torque pattern" for the lugs on your car tires for the basic concept.

  2. Re:Yes on Should We Revive Extinct Species? (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    They kinda went extinct because they were so tasty and easy to catch.

  3. Non ionizing (read radio waves) can generate magnetic eddy currents in an electrolyte solution such as a living organism when the flux (power of transmitter and distance from transmitter are the factor). The magnetic eddy currents can manifest as nerve conduction issues at extreme power. The reason that hand held radio devices built to be held close to the head are limited to 300 milliWatts transmitter power is that such a power level is about a thousand times lower than any somatic biological effect can be measured. The 5 watt maximum power level for cellular phones overall is based on interference possibility with other types of transmission. This stuff has been studied to death since the introduction of microwave ovens in the 1950s. No study has ever shown a clear reproducible effect at reasonable power levels or even several times reasonable power levels. When someone is selling you Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.... follow the money. Often it is a crackpot campaigning for grant money somewhere in the brew.

  4. Or is it just a move in the vein of "F*** the Flyover States"

  5. Re:Pointless labels on Coffee Requires Cancer Warning, California Judge Rules (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Just the bottom line of California being cancer.

  6. Lack of digital longevity.... on CDs, Vinyl Are Outselling Digital Downloads For the First Time Since 2011 (mercurynews.com) · · Score: 1

    I have mainly bought CDs for years because I didn't trust online sources not to delete my media if all I have is a digital copy. Yep, iTunes has done that. You get to download only once and if you change players, so sorry you don't have the songs you paid for any more. Amazon seems more reliable but for music I want to keep, I get a physical copy.

  7. Re:Old ideas that are still unproven on For the First Time, a US City Has Banned Cryptocurrency Mining (businessinsider.com) · · Score: 1

    Combine fiat money with removing regulations on credit contracts and you get the bubble of the 1920s followed by the crash and depression of 1929. When inflation is killing savings, it makes buying on credit look very very good. But, once the market is saturated the dominoes fall.... falling sales, layoffs, failure to pay revolving credit accounts, economy crashes and burns. Then you have a SEC making sure more money is not loaned than the loaning institution can cover. (broad strokes on the Great Depression) For over 100 years we have the Republican Party trying to give everyone the opportunity to get rich just like they did ignoring that concentrated wealth concentrates power to leverage deals to make sure they and they alone get to keep the wealth. Meanwhile the Democratic Party works hard to make everyone as poor and their neighbor while the old money elite running the party gets to keep all their old families have accumulated to leverage power. Is it really Demos vs Repubs or is it Aristocrats vs Plutocrats?

  8. Re:End of Petroleum Taxes on US Utilities Have Finally Realized Electric Cars May Save Them (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    Taxes... depends on jurisdiction. Are the road use fees built into the vehicle taxes or are they built into the annual license fees (car tags). Or like Virginia tried back in the 80s, implement a higher tax rate based on age of vehicle and miles driven per year. That really socks it to lower middle class and working poor.

  9. Time for a stupid idea to die. on Are The Alternatives Even Worse Than Daylight Saving Time? (chron.com) · · Score: 1

    Business hours and school hours are not some divine edict handed down on stone tablets from burning bushes. Before the silliness of "Daylight Savings Time", like the 1960s, businesses that needed to work by the sun had Summer Hours and Winter Hours. Want your kids to have more after school recreational time? Why not get your elected local school board to change the school hours to start earlier and let out earlier? Do we really still need a practice geared to allow agrarian small farm owners to also work a factory job? (One of the excuses used to foist off the clock shift in the 1960s.) I've never been able to see an actual advantage to Daylight Savings Time.

  10. When you move inside the beltway; the gestalt stupidity field installed by our alien overlords automatically lowers 50 IQ points.

    Although I'm being snarky; I fully expect this meme to become featured on 4chan soon.

  11. Re:Repeal the 2nd amendment on President Trump: 'We Have To Do Something' About Violent Video Games, Movies (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    And you want to turn over responsibility for your medical care to an organization that can't even update a database of criminal convictions in a timely manner? Nope, an organization that the courts have ruled has no obligation to protect the individual taking the means for the individual to protect themselves is going to have a very hard sell.

  12. Part of a larger trend that could be a plot on FCC To Officially Rescind Net Neutrality Rules On Thursday (reuters.com) · · Score: 1
    What many don't realize is that two companies have not only taken over or driven out of business the majority of Internet Service Provider Companies (ISPs) but have quietly purchased control of the companies that maintain the internet backbone.

    The trend is a bit disturbing and it would be easy to start looking for a plot for world domination akin to a comic book plot. But, there is no need for an evil plot when greed, avarice, and apathy can achieve the same results.

    Net neutrality predates Obama by almost a decade. During the aegis of the Obama administration just saw the 2015 tightening of the definition of net neutrality as a result of court actions by AT&T, Comcast, and others to destroy the concept in law. Neutral traffic routing except in case of war was one of the fundamental properties of the network from its first iterations as ARPAnet. Calling net neutrality an Obama Administration thing is a calumny trying to piggy back on the disgust with a destructive administration.

    Large corporations now have the control and legal permission to edit all of what you watch and read.

    Hmmm, a plot comes to mind. Combination of Skynet and Fahrenheit 451. Population control by hacking and nuking any computer containing unauthorized ideas. Might be too close to reality to sell well.

  13. Re:Is The Article's Title For Real? on Slashdot Asks: What Do People Misunderstand or Underappreciate About Apple? (fastcompany.com) · · Score: 1

    Why bother with a flame war? For decades Apple has been a regressive proprietary purveyor of overpriced locked down and crippled technology. But, that works for those like Great Aunt Clueless that doesn't reply to emails because she can't figure out how to apply the stamp.

  14. It seems that if you did the free upgrade; your key is invalidated in Microsoft's database.

  15. B&N Shot their own feet.... on The Slow Demise of Barnes & Noble (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    A decade ago B&N marketed an eReader that was ahead of anything else on the market. Amazon was a year away from anything close to competitive to the inexpensive almost tablet that was the Nook Color. But what did B&N management do; they locked it into only doing business with the "Nook Store" and prevented installing standard Android Apps. Sorry bubba, walled gardens get neglected and turn into weed lots. I did a lot of business with B&N until they became the more expensive with less service store.

  16. Yep, them dumb country boys don't make phone apps. They make something stupid like rockets to mars. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/m...

  17. Media Tank on Ask Slashdot: How Can I Build a Private TV Channel For My Kids? · · Score: 1

    Install a media tank with what you want on it and password lock out the cable box. Job Done!

  18. Total lack of understanding... on Trump Team Considers Nationalizing America's 5G Network (axios.com) · · Score: 1

    The federal government cannot take over a 5G network. .. First reason is that there is no 5G network yet. With the history of the large cellular companies being totally reluctant to improve infrastructure I doubt it will happen this decade. We don't even have a 4G network in the U.S. There is limited penetration of 4Glte which is 3G+ (or 4G light) elsewhere in the world. .. Second reason is that the bandwidth doesn't belong to the populace but companies LEASE the radio bandwidth and the leases are done by competitive bid. ALL radio traffic in a country is governed by international treaty. In the U.S. the agency that oversees radio usage is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Yep, this was a bit of fake news written by someone that has no foggy clue about radio frequency licensing.

  19. Carbon Footprint? Drones? on 'No Drones or Driverless Trucks', Demands Teamsters Labor Union (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    I have to call bull on that one pending some sort of proof. Electric creates a larger carbon footprint than internal combustion and in what mythical universe does a drone internal combustion vehicle have a lower carbon footprint that one with a thinking driver? Or, is someone inflating the minuscule savings of a vehicle that doesn't have a driver taking lunch and washroom breaks?

  20. Russian trolls... on Russian Trolls Created Facebook Events Seen By More Than 300,000 Users (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    That would explain how the Bolshevist terrorists of Antifa got ignored by the liberal press so long.

  21. Re:Run iPhone on AA batteries on Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries (vice.com) · · Score: 1

    Naaa, a 18650 battery works much better with more capacity than a AA. I have had a hate on with soldered in batteries in consumer electronics for decades. Pop in battery holders are dirt cheap.

  22. Fail on so many levels.... on Scientists Calculate Carbon Emissions of Your Sandwich (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    How does such off the wall insanity make it into print anywhere? I think someone needs to go back to middle school and look up carbon cycle and get some kind of handle on what greenhouse gasses are. (increasing the carbon fraction in the cycle by releasing carbon previously bound up in the soil during earlier epochs in the planet's geological history)

  23. After two decades it is time to retire the prototype platform for work in space. The ISS did its job as a prototype for living environments in orbit and for interstellar long duration voyages. It is time to build a real working model.

  24. Re:Parallels with 9/11 on 'How We Made Starship Troopers' (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    We understand each other perfectly. And there are factions in each culture that find the other culture totally intolerable and vile,

  25. And since it isn't a tangible goods that requires manufacture; they didn't "invent" anything. They "defined" a new unit that is not accepted by the international community nor the National Institute of Standards. In other words, silly buzz word and nothing more.