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User: zenaida_valdez

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  1. Don't call it an "autopilot". Teslas don't fly. on Tesla and Autopilot Supplier Mobileye Split Up After Fatal Crash (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    To call it "Autopilot" is a pernicious deception. Teslas don't fly. The proper aviation context is taxiing, and even it's hands-off from rotation to rollout, taxiing still requires eyeballs out the window and a hand on the tiller (or feet on the rudders.) The aerospace community knows better. There has never been a serious proposal to automate the taxiing task.

  2. Re:downward facing optical flow camera!! on Zero Zero's Camera Drone Could Be A Robot Command Center In The Future (ieee.org) · · Score: 1

    Not a new idea. It's how an optical mouse works. Add a telephoto lens to an ADNS-2051. Or Google "optical flow uav navigation 2004"

  3. Number of speakers is not important. on Ask Slashdot: What Would a Constructed Language Have To Be To Replace English? · · Score: 2

    Money talks. Counting the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, fully 30% of the world's GDP is produced in English. Mandarin (70% of Chinese, China produces 13% of the world's GDP) is a distant second at about 9%. We live in an interconnected world, and it speaks English.

  4. Re:For regulation to work... on Come and Take It, Texas Gun Enthusiasts (Video) · · Score: 1

    The rampage people are clearly crazy and I would hesitate to even predict how they would react to the site of your weapon. That second, much larger group... they will likely just walk away peacefully. You will pobably never even know what you avoided.

    But.. But.. You want the criminal to pull a weapon on you so you can shoot him and be famous in the "Armed Citizen" page in the NRA magazines and then everyone will know how brave you are and all the chicks will dig you and the tires on your truck will get bigger and everything!!

  5. Re:No time zones, no DST, centons on Daylight Saving Time Change On Sunday For N. America · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds good. Where do I sign up?

    Set your Wayback Machine for the French Revolution, Paris, France, 5 October 1793. The French National Convention issued the proclamation: XI. Le jour, de minuit à minuit, est divisé en dix parties, chaque partie en dix autres, ainsi de suite jusqu’à la plus petite portion commensurable de la durée.

    There are clocks in French museums with 10 hours in a day, 100 minutes in an hour and 100 seconds in a minute.

  6. Was the NSA watching while it was happening? on FBI: North Korean Hackers "Got Sloppy", Leaked IP Addresses · · Score: 2

    Clapper: “We could see that the IP addresses that were being used to post and to send e-mails were coming from IPs that were exclusively used by the North Koreans.”
    Is he claiming that the NSA was watching the attack and data exfiltration while it was happening? Could they or should they have stopped it?

  7. Re:if not collecting the data on Apple Pay For the UK · · Score: 2

    "It's not a matter of having to run new lines out to the boonies - if they take credit cards, they can likely accept NFC payments."

    Wrong.

    Like most small businesses, ours takes credit cards, and the reader is connected to the dialup fax line. Swipe the card, enter a number and... wait until it dials, Beep Boop Beez Buzzzzz it sounds like a 14,400 modem in there. Takes about 30 seconds, assuming that the fax line isn't busy. Not a problem when you only swipe a few dozen a day, but the whole point of the shiny flashy phone is that you tap and go. We're not going to invest in the infrastructure to save our clients 30 seconds once a week.

  8. Look at Volek's funding. on Doubling Saturated Fat In Diet Does Not Increase It In Blood · · Score: 1

    From TFA "This work was supported by the Dairy Research Institute, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Egg Nutrition Center."

    A study finding that saturated fat is not bad for you is what they paid him for.

    Next up: CO2 is not causing AGW, funded by Exxon Mobil.

  9. Re:Reconstructed = artist's impression on For Jane's, Gustav Weißkopf's 1901 Liftoff Displaces Wright Bros. · · Score: 1

    It's not shenanigans! CSI does this all the time.

  10. Had to wait 100 years for CSI on For Jane's, Gustav Weißkopf's 1901 Liftoff Displaces Wright Bros. · · Score: 1

    It's a shame Whitehead had to wait a century or more for CSI to develop the digital photo interpretation techniques to prove this. With wet plates and darkroom chemicals the magnify-enhance-magnify-enhance-zoom-enhance would have taken days if not weeks.

  11. Re:Truly a 1st world problem on FCC Chief Urges FAA To Ease Airplane Electronics Ban · · Score: 1

    I would prefer a cranky toddler in the seat next to me than an obese businessman. I'll even read to him to quiet him down. Works every time. Sam I Am, Oh Sam I Am......

  12. Re:Truly a 1st world problem on FCC Chief Urges FAA To Ease Airplane Electronics Ban · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Pilots can use them, passengers can't?" Here's why. I spent my career in aerospace, the final two years on experiments involving these Electronic Flight Bags (In my case, ruggedized PCs, not iPads.) There has been hundreds of hours of testing, both in labs and aircraft to show that a particular model of iPad will not cause electronic interference to the controls or other safety critical systems... for that particular iPad model only. The pilot can't just go buy the next gen fondle slab and carry it aboard. Only the model and rev that has been approved. New hardware would require the testing process to begin all over again.

    So, maybe if the avionics supplier who bought them from Apple and spent a lot of money going through the approval process would allow you access to their proprietary certification data, you could make a case to the FAA to allow you to use --that exact iPad-- during takeoff and landing. Good luck.

  13. Advertisers are pissed on Advertisers Blast Microsoft Over IE Default Privacy Settings · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I like it!

  14. Semiconductors DO degrade. was: Re:The CD format on Ask Slashdot: Storing Items In a Sealed Chest For 25 Years? · · Score: 1

    Semiconductors do degrade over time. They're made of pure silicon (an insulator) which has been precisely contaminated in specific places with very small quantities of dopants (e. g. boron, phosphorous) giving one side of the junction an excess of electrons and the other side a scarcity. Over time, the dopants diffuse across the junction, changing the characteristics of the transistor by leveling out the excess/scarcity gradient. A 25 year old transistor will no longer meet it's specs. A diode will have greatly increased reverse leakage. AND gates turn into MAYBE gates.

    Some capacitors will degrade quickly, some will last much longer. Ceramic capacitors will last a century, electrolytics at most 20 years. The electrolyte dries out.

  15. Re:Monsanto on In-Vitro Muscle Cells, It's What's For Dinner · · Score: 1

    By "behaves similarly to 'real meat' " do you mean it stands around and goes "moooo" or "oink"? because I don't think that's what they're planning.

  16. True telepresence at a meeting on Bell Labs Builds Cheap Telepresence 'Robots' · · Score: 1

    Will require a robot that can fall asleep.

  17. System problem, not software on Jaguar Recalls 18,000 Cars Over Major Software Fault · · Score: 1

    This design flaw was baked in before they wrote the first line of code. Before throttle-by-wire, the brake pedal had two independent kill mechanisms: an electrical switch to open the solenoid circuit, and a vacuum valve to dump the vacuum to the throttle servo. Either was sufficient to defeat the cruise control. Now it's all single thread. I don't want to go back to coil and points, but some control systems should have multiple override.

  18. Re:A lot more successful... on Build Your Own Camera, Launch It Like a Grenade · · Score: 1

    (Score:6, Spit-coffee-all-over-the-monitor-Funny)

  19. Re:To all "They're not REAL scientists!" posters on MythBuster Developing Light-Weight Vehicle Armor · · Score: 0

    Never ask anyone if they're from Texas. If they are, they'll tell you. And if they aren't, there's no need to embarrass them by asking.

  20. Self healing skin on NASA Green-lights $16.5M To Advance Future Jets · · Score: 1

    We're gonna' need that more and more!

  21. Plausible deniability on Tiny Transistors Could Be Used To Track Cash · · Score: 1

    Plausible deniability: Foil lined wallet. Microwave your cash every night. Wear a floppy brimmed hat and stoop when you buy the newspaper with a $20 at 7-11. They may scan the bill, but the cameras can't see your face. Your change is off the map. Purchase items of value (guns, jewelry) from private sellers with this cash. Sell the same way. Money laundering is a continuum, from a Cayman Islands corporation to painting a friend's house for cash.

  22. Re:Airships simply will not be practical, sorry on The Second Age of Airships · · Score: 2, Informative

    Let me piss on your raining on the parade. As the load walks off / is offloaded, water ballast or fuel is pumped aboard. The US Navy figured this out 80 years ago. What may be a problem is that airships were never just tied down at night and left alone. They were actively flown at the mast. There was always a crew aboard to adjust trim and ballast as the temperature or atmospheric pressure changed. This could be automated, but you still can't just turn it all off and let it sit.

  23. Re:Before you do it on Tattoos For the Math and Science Geek? · · Score: 1

    Agreed! 40 years ago, I had mutton-chop sideburns, shoulder length hair and polyester flowered shirts. Suppose those things had all been permanent? (Oh the horror!) Clothes can be thrown away, hair can be cut, or will grow back, piercings will heal over. The tattoo will be forever, or actually, will just look more blurry as the years go by.

  24. Holding it wrong on Experts Explain iPhone 4 Antenna Problem · · Score: 1

    You're holding it wrong. You have to grip it by the husk.

  25. Re:Help me benefit from media hype on Toyota Acceleration and Embedded System Bugs · · Score: 1

    Heel and toe braking. Downshifting for a corner, if you just drop it into the next lower gear, the engine inertia causes the rear wheels to lose traction while the engine is sped up. You'll go sideways on the entrance to a corner. You have to blip the throttle while shifting to raise the engine speed to match the next lower gear. Left foot on clutch, ball of right foot on brake, heel of right foot on throttle.