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User: Richard_at_work

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Comments · 7,308

  1. Re:what about Intel and M$ on SoftBank To Buy British Chip Designer ARM For $32 Billion (cnet.com) · · Score: 3, Informative

    Microsoft already has Windows 10 IoT Edition, which runs on the Raspberry Pi 2 & 3, and other small systems.

  2. Re:Who? on SoftBank To Buy British Chip Designer ARM For $32 Billion (cnet.com) · · Score: 2, Informative

    ARM Holdings doesnt make processors, they license designs - other people make the processors and improve the designs.

  3. Re:Not impressed on How President Jimmy Carter Saved The Space Shuttle (blastingnews.com) · · Score: 2

    If you want to read a thrilling, in-depth and well researched background to the Space Shuttle, including its links to the Manned Orbital Laboratory program, then read "Into the Black" by Rowland White - excellent commentary on the Airforce/NASA relationship (its often construed that the Airforces requirements crippled the Shuttle, when in-fact it was highly likely that the Shuttle would have been cancelled completely had the Airforce not been forced to be involved), spy satellites, the MOL program and the Shuttles first mission.

  4. Re:It never fails. on A Smaller Version of Raspberry Pi 3 Is Coming Soon (pcworld.com) · · Score: 1

    This isn't for you - it isn't for most people who buy Pi's, its designed as a replacement for the Compute Module, for use in large scale multi-board projects with custom back-planes. Your RasPi3 purchase is perfectly safe as if you were upset at this announcement then you would have been buying the existing Compute Module in the first place...

  5. Legacy on FBI Closes D.B. Cooper Investigation After 45 Years (oregonlive.com) · · Score: 5, Informative

    This incident forced the FAA to issue a requirement to Boeing, Douglas and all US 727 and DC-9 operators to add a "Cooper vane" to the rear air stairs to prevent them being opened when the aircraft was moving.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  6. Re: Another reason on Google To Train 2 Million Indian Android Developers (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    Quite often, the "big bucks" are not enough - its a high stress, low relaxation lifestyle which comes with big fiscal costs as well, such as insurance, ongoing training and often buying your own equipment.

  7. Re:How about this on Telecoms Promise 5G Networks If EU Cripples Net Neutrality (theverge.com) · · Score: 1

    Good luck coming up with the legal case to support that - telco companies (at least in the UK) are not obliged to do anything the government demands them to do, and new legislation compelling them to do so wouldn't make it through Parliament.

  8. Re:Headline is misleading and a little clickbaity on Hostess Saves Twinkies By Automating, Fires 94% Of Their Workforce (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 2

    My first thought on reading the "22,000 employee" line was "how long ago ago was that?"

    Turns out it was over 12 years ago. It had fallen to 8,000 employees by 2011 and the company had already been through multiple bankruptcies.

  9. Re:He is lucky he did not get shot on the spot on Carrying A Gun-Shaped iPhone 'Makes It Much Less Likely You'll Catch Your Plane' (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    There are a lot more professional pilot jobs than "airline pilot".

  10. Re:Likely won't eventuate on Pod Planes Could Change Travel Forever (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    2015 was a good year (but only if you consider pure *jets* as you do - you miss the several turbo prop crashes that occurred last year), but we are already past that in 2016, just barely more than halfway through the year.

  11. Re:Likely won't eventuate on Pod Planes Could Change Travel Forever (cnn.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I agree with this post - airline economics, for both passenger and freight, is built around the cost to transport each kilogram a certain distance. That cost includes both the trip costs (fuel and crew) and also capital costs (purchase and maintenance) - which is why current generations of aircraft are based around both lowering the fuel burn, and lowering the amount of time a maintenance worker has to touch the aircraft.

    A "c-check" of an airliner already costs up to a million dollars, takes months to carry out and needs to be done every few years with older aircraft, with longer intervals for aircraft such as the 787 or A350 - add more complexity to the airframe, such as ejection systems et al, and you vastly increase the maintenance time needed.

    And thats without discussing the whole issue of having pyrotechnics sitting near the pressurised vessel containing the passengers...

    So unless there can be found a way for the economics to not be affected by the addition of ejection systems, they simply will not happen - if you want near zero deaths in commercial aviation, the only thing this is going to accomplish is to make commercial aviation unaffordable for most people.

    General aviation aircraft (think light aircraft) already are being equipped with parachute systems which are deployed if the aircraft is unrecoverable. And they are used. And they save lives. But general aviation is a *lot* more accident prone than commercial aviation, so there is no reason to foist this on commercial aviation.

  12. Re: "anonymous eye scans" on Google's DeepMind AI To Use 1 Million NHS Eye Scans To Spot Diseases Earlier (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Ask your GP Surgery to add the following codes to your records, they opt you out of data sharing:

    XaZ89 - stops non-anonymous data sharing
    XaaVL - stops anonymous data sharing

  13. Re:Viewers hate political correctness on Top Gear Host Chris Evans Steps Down After Poor Ratings (theverge.com) · · Score: 2

    There's actually no rule or law which says an employer has to sack someone for a physical assault - they could have reprimanded him, fined him, put him on unpaid leave etc etc and left criminal or civil proceedings to the police and courts.

    But its well known that Clarkson was disliked by the current BBC management.

  14. You do realise that "International Law" does not recognise "territory captured in a war", right? Been that way since before Israel was created by the UN...

  15. Re:Screw Astroturfing on Uber Plans To Start Monitoring Their Drivers' Behavior (sfgate.com) · · Score: 2

    When automated vehicles come about, Uber will be left in the cold - there are numerous massive management companies who own and manage car fleets (but you guessed that) who would simply start offering direct transport services rather than cars on lease. These companies are already set up to own and maintain large car fleets, which Uber is not, and as a result have a much lower barrier to entry to provide automated transport to the general public - for them, its a simple side step from "long term lease with maintenance" to "instant short term lease with maintenance".

  16. Re:Laughing so hard I nearly ....... myself! on UN Council: Seriously, Nations, Stop Switching Off the Internet! (article19.org) · · Score: 1

    The FBI managed to create a list of "communists" across the US in the 1940s and 1950s, so I dont really think they would have any issues if the internet didnt exist...

  17. Re:Get Rid of The Loophole on Spanish Authorities Raid Google Offices Over Tax (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    The UK passed the Finance Act 2015 which resolves this loophole.

  18. They aren't already? on Congressman Wants Ransomware Attacks To Trigger Breach Notifications (onthewire.io) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought a "breach" was "someone gained unauthorised access to data, typically a persons private data"?

    Or has it magically been watered down to "its only a breach if the data has been proven to have made its way off the premises"?

    If the data has been accessed by unauthorised persons, there is no way to be 100% certain that it hasn't made it off premise, so yes, ransomware should be classed as a breach and notifications should be issued! It certainly indicates that the data was not truly secure in the first place, at the very least!

  19. Re: Unsurprising on AI Downs 'Top Gun' Pilot In Dogfights (dailymail.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Do you realise that modern military aircraft *already* identify targets on radar and through the HUD, and present them to the pilot as such? The onboard avionics already highlight to the pilot the ideal point at which to shoot (literally, on the F/A-18 the box on the HUD turns from a square to a diamond and presents the word "SHOOT" underneath it).

    Onboard avionics targeting systems are already advanced beyond the state which you think they lack.

  20. Having bump started a car, I can tell you that leaving a car in gear isnt going to stop someone pushing it away - sure, its harder, but its not impossible.

  21. Been doing it for 11 years on the same car, havent had an issue yet...

  22. I beg to differ about none of those steps being optional.

    Here in the UK, most people learn to drive a manual, automatics are very much the minority here. When you learn to drive a manual, you are taught to leave the car in neutral and with the handbrake on when parked, but not in gear, unless you are parking on a slope, in which case you turn the wheels toward the curb and put the car in either first or reverse (depending on which way you are facing).

    Cars are not routinely left in gear when parked on flat (or near flat) ground.

  23. Re:Scotland and Ireland can't separate on UK Tech Sector Reacts To Brexit: Some Anticipate Slow Down, Some Contemplate Relocation · · Score: 1

    Its not falling oil prices that an independent Scotland has to worry about, its the 94% fall in tax revenue in 2015 from the oil and gas fields that Scotland would inherit - the money that the Independent Scotland campaign based its finances on no longer exists.

  24. Re:How ages voted on BBC: UK Votes To Leave The European Union (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Does anyone else have a problem with those bandings? I would love to see the raw figures (might take some time tonight to crunch them) but the bandings are totally unequal, which probably lends to the results.

    18-24 - covers a 6 year range.
    25-49 - covers a 24 year range.
    50-64 - covers a 14 year range.
    65+ - who knows!

    The larger the range, the more average the vote is likely to be.

    I would love to see what the actual spread is like year-by-year rather than in seemingly arbitrary bands...

  25. Re:Good for them on BBC: UK Votes To Leave The European Union (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    The problem with that is that the people who would lose money from that are the very people who Greece would ask for more money post-bankruptcy, Greece literally has no one else to turn to - the IMF loans had worse terms than the ECB loans.

    So its very hard to expect to be allowed to fuck over today the people you are going to beg money from tomorrow.