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User: toddestan

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  1. Re:My favorite unit PSI on Fuel Efficiency Numbers Overstate MPG More For Cars With Small Engines · · Score: 1

    Considering that a pascal is a newton per square meter, it's the exact same concept, just with different units. Given that a square inch is a more useful measurement of area when dealing with something like a tire it's not hard to see how the PSI came about.

  2. Re:Worst physics nobel on 2014 Nobel Prize In Physics Awarded To the Inventors of the Blue LED · · Score: 1

    My experience is that the lights are fine, but the cheap wall wart power supply is what is actually dead. My guess is that they tend to get a power supply that is rated just high enough to run the lamp, and unlike most things that use a wall wart the light is going to be drawing the full amount of power any time it is on. Find a working power supply at the right voltage (most use 5 or 12V which is luckily common) that preferably has a higher amperage rating and you can usually revive these lights.

  3. Re: Let me guess... on HP Is Planning To Split Into Two Separate Businesses, Sources Say · · Score: 1

    My understanding of trademarks though is that if the mark is not in use (and they haven't built a Packard in a very long time) then someone else can use the name.

  4. Re: Here's the solution on Will Windows 10 Finally Address OS Decay? · · Score: 1

    I've never figured out that argument. Who, having experienced the crappiness that is iTunes on Windows, would want to buy a computer where the entire OS is created by the same company that made iTunes for Windows? I mean, it would be like running an OS created by the same people that wrote Java!

  5. Re:OS Decay is largekly a myth. on Will Windows 10 Finally Address OS Decay? · · Score: 1

    Actually, I wouldn't call registry corruption a myth, as it was a very real problem back in the Windows 95 and Windows 98 days. I'm sure that's one of the reasons why the registry is robust as it is now is from the lessons Microsoft learned the hard way from earlier versions of Windows.

  6. Re:Antecdotes != Evidence on Will Windows 10 Finally Address OS Decay? · · Score: 1

    Welcome to Windows prefetch. Basically, Windows will preload your programs and data that it thinks you might use into ram after you boot. The idea being that if the program is already cached when you try to launch it, then it will launch faster. The actual result seems to be lots of disk thrashing after boot, and the more ram you have the more Windows will thrash as Windows will prefetch until it's full. At least they toned it down a bit with Windows 7, as one of Vista's faults was that it was far too aggressive about prefetching.

  7. Re:The bigger Problem is their "updates" on Will Windows 10 Finally Address OS Decay? · · Score: 1

    Windows XP definitely got slower as the patches and service packs piled up. The original release of Windows XP ran acceptably on a P3 with 256MB of ram, which was a pretty typical computer when XP debuted. By the end, it was a total dog on a P4 with 1GB of ram, which would have have been a high-end machine back in 2001.

  8. Re:Study is quite incomplete on Which Cars Get the Most Traffic Tickets? · · Score: 1

    It's the Mercury version of the Ford Tempo, which didn't make the top 20 at all. And I'd be willing to bet Ford sold a lot more Tempos than they did Topazs...

    Probably the reason for that is all the Tempos were driven into the ground a long time ago by people who more or less considered them an appliance, whereas the Topazes were bought by older people who took a lot better care of them and drove them less. Now, the Tempos are gone, and these survivning Topazes have been passed on to their next (and probably last) owners, and are now being driven into the ground.

  9. Re: Simple answer on David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures · · Score: 1

    0F if there is salt on it.

  10. Re:FP? on David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures · · Score: 1

    I know that GM likes to rebrand automobiles and use different nameplates in the Canadian market, but a Pontiac Seville? That's a new one.

  11. Re:This is aimed at carriers like Verizon Wireless on Google To Require As Many As 20 of Its Apps Preinstalled On Android Devices · · Score: 1

    I find Bing to be really no worse than Google. But that's more of a matter of how far Google has fallen than anything about Bing.

  12. Re:There Ain't No Stealth In Space on The Physics of Space Battles · · Score: 1

    Actually, my guess is that most asteroids are pumping out far more energy in terms of reflected sunlight, which is of course how we detect them. A ship next to Earth is going to be bombarded with about 1.5kW of energy from the sun per square meter, which for any non-tiny ship would be a lot more than the 10,000 W or the ship might generate on its own. This presents a problem for the ship, as that energy has to go somewhere. Reflecting the light like a rock would stick out like a sore thumb, and the ship can't absorb the sunlight for very long either, as the energy has to go somewhere and the only option is to radiate it out into space (in the short term, the ship could absorb the energy and store it by doing something like heating water with it, but the ship could only play that game for so long). Probably the best solution would be to have a mirror that reflects the sunlight in a direction away from where you might think your enemy has any detectors.

  13. Re:May not take apart? What? on When Everything Works Like Your Cell Phone · · Score: 1

    The cool thing I remember about those old phones is that you could buy a battery case (for lack of a better term) that fit the phone and held standard AA batteries. Sure, it was bulky, but standard alkaline batteries will hold their charge for a long time compared to the rechargeables available at the time, which made it great phone to keep around for emergencies since it could sit in your glovebox (or wherever) for long periods of time and still work when you turned it on. You didn't need service to call 911 so that wasn't a worry. Sadly the phone got turned into a brick when the analog cell service was turned off.

  14. Re:Rent a Tesla for $1 on State of Iowa Tells Tesla To Cancel Its Scheduled Test Drives · · Score: 1

    Quite the opposite. A lot of rental cars are fleet-only affairs that you couldn't even buy if you wanted to. Well, not until the fleet owners dump them and they hit the used market. Current examples would be the Chevy Impala, which got redesigned for 2014, but the previous generation is still being manufactured for fleets only as the "Impala Classic" (*). Another example is the Chevy Captiva, which is a small SUV that is only available for fleet purchase. You can't buy one, but you may get stuck with one as a rental.

    (*) I believe these may be offered Canada alongside the new Impala, but I'm not sure.
    (**) The Captiva is actually a Mexican market car which you could buy if you lived in Mexico.

  15. Re:You know what this means on Breakthrough In LED Construction Increases Efficiency By 57 Percent · · Score: 1

    Why do you keep your Harmony remote charger in your bedroom? I understand if it's a dorm room or something like that, but I would simply move that crap to a different room.

  16. Re:Use a headhunter and resume writer on Ask Slashdot: Finding a Job After Completing Computer Science Ph.D? · · Score: 1

    Most of them want a candidate they can place quickly and easily. A Ph.D in computer science generally isn't something that fits that category. Sure, they'll take down your information just in case they happen to run across something that might fit, but that's about all they're going to do.

  17. Re:Bullshit on Secret Service Critics Pounce After White House Breach · · Score: 1

    Look up the Tueller Drill. Quite a bit of research has been put into this. If I remember right, even Mythbusters tested this once and confirmed it.

  18. Re:Looking for info on running 4k screens on NVIDIA Launches Maxwell-Based GeForce GTX 980 and GeForce GTX 970 GPUs · · Score: 1

    What are you talking about? Any desktop environment is perfectly happy running at 4K. Most games made in the past few years will render at 4K (whether your graphics card can handle it is something else entirely). 4K televisions are still a bit of a solution without a problem, but I could take advantage of a 4K screen on my computer immediately.

  19. Re:Winning the lottery on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 1

    I would just start checking dumpsters if your goal is to get an older computer to run Linux and a P4 is fine. Early LGA775 stuff (which is what a 3.8Ghz P4 would be) is common, and even if the computer doesn't run you could probably harvest it for parts and fix yours up.

  20. Re:If it's not like Vista or 8.0 (Vista II)... on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 1

    It'll probably work too. A lot of people complain about Vista, but if they ever actually used it they'd find it's not much different than Windows 7.

  21. Re:Aero Or Go Home on What To Expect With Windows 9 · · Score: 1

    Hey, at least in Windows 8 they brought back the go up a directory button. Though by this time I've gotten so used to using backspace that I don't even push it despite it being there.

  22. Re:Spoiler on Sci-Fi Authors and Scientists Predict an Optimistic Future · · Score: 1

    Looks like someone played Simtower back in the day? My guess that in a building that large most people would not leave the tower on an average day, so it's more like an arcology in SimCity 2000. It's an interesting point though, as the proposed design would not have living spaces in a lot of the areas where the jetstream would be found (the idea would be to let the wind pass though the open structure to reduce lateral stress) though those areas could not be completely empty as there would have to be elevator shafts passing through them.

  23. Re:Alexander on Who Is Buried In the Largest Tomb Ever Found In Northern Greece? · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily. If they can use DNA to prove that the remains are of St. Mark then they can't Alexander's.

  24. Re:One Sure Way on California Tells Businesses: Stop Trying To Ban Consumer Reviews · · Score: 1

    There's often going to be difference between an aftermarket charger and a counterfeit one. There are plenty of perfectly fine third-party chargers that are CE, UL listed, etc. that are safe to use. The counterfeiters generally don't concern themselves with that kind of thing and build about the cheapest thing possible.

  25. Re:STEM on When Scientists Give Up · · Score: 1

    That's assuming that the newbies can even make it to the front lines. With so many entry-level jobs going overseas or to H1-b's, a lot of STEM graduates end up having to find work in other fields.