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User: Hans+Lehmann

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Comments · 277

  1. 2024 on GPU Supercomputer Could Crunch Exabyte of Data Daily For Square Kilometer Array · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They're not going to even start collecting data for another 12 years, yet they're basing their hardware estimates on what's available today. Compare today's GPUs with those made 12 years ago. I'm guessing they'll be able to crunch their data in 2024 by just using a video game console.

  2. Re:Oh man... on NASA Considers Apollo-Era F1 Engine For Space Launch System · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's left of Rocketdyne still exists, and there's an actual F1 engine in front of their offices on Canoga Avenue, just north of Victory. https://maps.google.com/?ll=34.190997,-118.597948&spn=0.00041,0.000603&t=h&z=21

  3. Re:The real questions should be different on Is Agriculture Sucking Fresh Water Dry? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The areas in which most farming is done, i.e. out in the sticks, also have the least amount of gray water due to the low population density. The only way this idea would work was if infrastructure was built to not only partially treat the sewage and runoff from the cities, but then transport it possibly hundreds of miles to where it's most needed for agriculture.

  4. Re:Observatories, caves ... on Ask Slashdot: Science Sights To See? · · Score: 1

    I second the recommendation for the Mt Wilson Observatory. It's a nice mountain drive, and the observatory grounds are open to the public on weekends (if not the entire week, check their web site). They have a nice little museum with lots of interesting stuff from the golden age of astronomy, you can take look at the 100 inch telescope, complete with the chair that Edwin Hubble spent many a night sitting in while peering at the universe, plus they have unique structures like their solar telescopes.

  5. No longer needed on Ask Slashdot: Are You Streaming-Only For Home Entertainment? · · Score: 1

    Up until about 6 months ago, I was paying ~$50 per month for cable internet and about $80 per month for DirectTV. I had been a DirectTV subscriber for 10 to 12 years (before that cable TV), and during that time our family watched a lot of TV. About two years ago I noticed that everyone was watching less and less TV, and spending more time on YouTube, etc. At some point, when I asked everyone, it turned out that nobody had watched any actual TV for at least 4 months. I dropped direct TV the next day. Mind you I have two sons, 17 and 20, who spends hours a day watching netflix, playing video games, chatting online, etc. The only thing the TV gets used for now is as a display device for the XBox.

  6. How about they just improve it.... on Microsoft Shows Off Radical New UI, Could Be Used In Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    Some of us have to actually use computers to, you know, make a living. We don't want or need yet more fluffy widgets to keep us from getting our work done. For every improved driver in Windows 7, there were at least two annoyances that were added to the mix. Transparent overlays?... useless. God-awful search tool that doesn't even recognize a tilde (~) character?...even worse than useless. Completely arbitrary user interface when trying to copy files (probably depending on which serf wrote that piece of code), absolutely infuriating. Hey, Microsoft, how about you try making your OS better, rather than just putting more lipstick on the pig that is Vista.

  7. Re:One thick cable.... on Electric Car Goes 375 Miles On One 6-Minute Charge · · Score: 1

    Why the hostility? These stories appear here, and elsewhere on the Internet, pretty regularly... "Drive X miles after only charging your car for Y minutes", etc. Without knowing the energy efficiency, the cost of the batteries, their expected lifetime, etc., these claims are completely worthless. They're written the way they are for a reason, to make those that aren't EE's (i.e. the general public) believe that this really is a magic bullet, and to hopefully invest in a probably-bogus company that will never actually produce anything.

  8. Re:Understanding on Rube Goldberg and the Electrification of America · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So it's only nerds that spend the time to understand how anything actually works, while you Real Americans can't bothered with such unnecessary details. No wonder our country is going down the shit hole, too many people think just like you.

  9. Put your money where you mouth is, O'Leary on Ryanair's CEO Suggests Eliminating Co-Pilots · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When Michael O'Leary starts flying on scheduled, commercial flights with no co-pilot, I'll start doing the same. In the meantime, I'll be sure to avoid Ryanair at all costs, since they sure don't seem to be very concerned with my well being.

  10. Re:But corporations don't pay tax on Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Individuals don't pay tax. Not really. We pass that tax to our employers by charging higher salaries. Can I get a free ride now just like a corporation??

  11. Re:Three strikes plan? on TechDirt's Masnick Responds To Warner's Jim Griffin On Choruss · · Score: 1

    It sure didn't work for C. Montgomery Burns

  12. Re:Raises the bar for law enforcement. on Suspect Freed After Exposing Cop's Facebook Status · · Score: 1
    People with proper psychological functioning can easily compartmentalize fantasy from reality.

    Do you really think that anyone with proper psychological functioning would want to become a cop?

  13. Re:Saving on delivery or pickup. on Packing Algorithms May Save the Planet · · Score: 1
    Why don't we place our trash cans and mail boxes all on one side of the road...

    That would be perfect, provided of course that they were all placed on *my* side of the road.

  14. Hardly new on Two Big Tests For Personal Rapid Transportation · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Morgantown, WV, has had something similar for the past 30+ years.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit

  15. How do they know it's never happened before? on Zipingpu Dam May Have Triggered the Sichuan Quake · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The Sichuan region is earthquake-prone, but has not seen anything as large as the 7.9-magnitude quake for perhaps millions of years

    Would a 7.9 quake, although large by earthquake standards, even leave evidence that lasted more than, say, 1000 years? You might be able to tell if you took a cross section of the entire fault line, I suppose, but not all fault lines are known. A L.A. city geologist found a previously unknown (but not currently active) fault under the house of a friend of mine when he was having some drainage work done; new ones are discovered all the time.

  16. Re:What about a _home_ standard for DC power? on DC Power Poised To Bring Savings To Datacenters · · Score: 2, Informative

    Linear power supplies in consumer devices disappeared years ago. I don't think I ever saw a wall-wart that actually had linear regulators in it, even back in the 80's. They're all switching supplies now, running very efficiently at very high frequencies, which is why you can get 50-100 watts out of that little brick that powers your laptop.

  17. Re:Security systems on Last Major Supplier Calls It Quits For VHS · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "Remember that while the resoloution was low by modern standards there was absoloutely no use made of data compression techniques."

    The NTSC television standard itself is quite the marvel when it comes to compressing information to fit into limited bandwidth, especially considering that it was created about 60 years ago. Such concepts as the encoding of color information in a subcarrier at a lower frequency than the luminance signal, interlaced instead of progressive video, etc, were invented for one reason: to get as much information as possible through the limited bandwidth that they able to use. The guys that came up with this stuff were just as clever and innovative as whoever came up with DCT compression.

  18. Re:If the phone company wants to charge... on Hacked Business Owner Stuck With $52k Phone Bill · · Score: 1

    It wasn't stolen goods when the phone company sold it. If sell you my used car and a week later it's stolen from your driveway, that doesn't make me responsible for its theft.

  19. Re:Uh, what? on New .tel TLD Now In Use · · Score: 2, Insightful
    So, what exactly, is the point of .tel?

    The point is to make money for the registrars, of course, since now every major web site will have to register foo.tel to go along with foo.com, foo.org, foo.biz, foo.info,......

  20. why shouldn't we get close to it?? on Space Litter To Hit Earth Tomorrow · · Score: 1
    "If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it,' [a NASA spokesman] said."

    Why the hell not? If I find it first... it's mine.

  21. Re:Mmmmm... on NASA Orbiter Reveals Details of a Moister Mars · · Score: 1
    I have seen lakes that were so saline or full of some organism that they could not support life.

    Ummm... organisms are living things, by definition. Utah's Great Salt Lake also has lots of brine shrimp & algae; it's far from lifeless. Just because there aren't creatures scurrying about the martian surface on their 12 tiny green legs is no reason to think that there was never life there.

  22. Analog -vs- Digital on User Interface of Major Oscilliscope Brands? · · Score: 1
    I'm a 50 year old Electrical Engineer, so yes I've seen my share of real oscilloscopes. In my previous job, we had a couple of HP digital scopes (they sampled with A/D converters, but the displays were still CRT's). They had great bandwidth, they could show you events that happened before the trigger, they could save traces as images files, they could decode serial data on the fly, and THEY ALL FLAT-OUT DIED JUST ABOUT A YEAR AFTER THE MANUFACTURER STOPPED SUPPORTING THEM. It wasn't an easy-to-fix failure either, like a dead power supply or something. In all cases it was some self-diagnostic that came up upon startup that said something like "failed procedure 123", and suddenly you no longer had any vertical gain control. Our only choice was throw them away.
    Meanwhile, the older all-analog models, without all the bells & whistles, are still working fine to this day. All they need is calibration every few years, if you're picky about that sort of thing. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot more HP 465B's still running in this world than there are HP models built just 15 years ago.

    Now get off my lawn

  23. McMaster, all the way on Where to Find Axles, Gears For Kinetic Sculpture? · · Score: 1

    Ditto on McMaster-Carr. They have hardware, gears, electrical goods, tools, etc., that your local Home Depot won't even think of stocking. Need weird materials like sheet brass, Bakelite tubing, solid nylon rods for machining?, they'll have it. I work in Los Angeles; here if you get your order in before you stop for your first cup of coffee, it'll frequently shop up that very same day. Heck, one time, just as I was about to click the Submit button on their web site, the UPS guy tapped me on my shoulder, order already in hand. It's spooky, I tell 'ya

  24. ...especially if you get a break on your insurance on Ford To Introduce Restrictive Car Keys For Parents · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Initially you'll get a break on you auto insurance if you opt in to this feature. After a little while, of course, you'll pay an additional fee if you *don't* take this feature. After all, only reckless drivers wouldn't want to be limited in their maximum speed, right? Once enough car owners "opt-in" to this feature, it will become mandatory in all cars sold in the USA, along with your mileage tracking GPS black-box, which was also sold in the beginning as something that would give you a break on your insurance, or "for the children", or some other B.S.

    Tell me something. With all the safety features that have been added to cars in the last 30 years or so, from seat belts to air bags, all peddled as something that would keep our insurance rates from going up, how come everyone's auto insurance keeps going up, *never* down.

  25. Re:Or more reasonable policies on Students Are Always Half Right In Pittsburgh · · Score: 1
    My HS had a BASIC programming class on a WANG.

    Pfft. My high school had a 110 baud Teletype (with paper tape!) connected to the IBM mainframe at U. of Penn. The Teletype sat at the side of a math classroom, right under the giant slide-rule. Now get off my lawn.