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  1. Re:Wrong use of money these days on GM's CEO Rejects Repaying Feds for Bailout Losses · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He didn't take the money, Treasury chose to invest the money under direction of both the Bush and Obama administrations, in order to keep GM and its supply chain from collapsing. While they lost money on the face of it, the economy gained value, likely in excess of the $10B loss. If the end result exceeds the scenario where government did nothing, then government did it's job by stabilizing the economy.

    This isn't personal. His job is to protect shareholder value. He indicated, in the interview, that if he paid back the $10B loss he would be opening GM up to lawsuits from every other shareholder who lost money in the bankruptcy.

  2. Re:The Machinery Looks Chinese? on Photos Stream Back From China's Lunar Lander · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's the Chinese flag. Or maybe you're just a racist.

  3. Re:assuming plutonium-238 is true on Photos Stream Back From China's Lunar Lander · · Score: 4, Informative

    1. It's necessary, without it the equipment freezes and gets destroyed during the 2 week "night". 2. It's an insignificant amount of radiation compared to what the Sun is doing to the surface of the Moon. 3. You're surrounded by naturally occurring radioactive materials, stop freaking out every time someone mentions the word "radiation", or starts talking about "uranium", "radon", "polonium", "cesium", or "plutonium". These are useful materials if correctly handled and applied. Need I remind you that bananas are a source of concentrated Potassium 40.

  4. Re:Can you imagine.. on Private Mars One Mission Contracts Lockheed For Exploratory Mission · · Score: 1

    Since the best case scenario, with the best case (but untried) technology all ready in place, is more than 40 days to Mars, it'll be too late by the time you get there.

  5. me too on Watch Out, Amazon: DHL Tests Drug-Delivery Drone · · Score: 1

    me too

  6. It might be nice to avoid the buildup of tens of thousands of weaponized drones on multiple "sides" before making the decision that "drones are bad".

  7. One word: Analog on Ask Slashdot: What's On Your Hardware Lab Bench? · · Score: 2

    As an electrical engineer, I have to say, some things are best done in the analog domain. A good oscilloscope is a must for checking low level sensor signals, amplifiers and filter performance.

  8. Re:Convince the Truck Buyers on Tesla Planning an Electric Pickup Truck, Says Elon Musk · · Score: 1

    reliability and durability should be higher with electric. Fewer moving parts. For what it's worth, Nissan and Toyota own the mid-size truck market.

  9. Re:The main issue with an electric pickup... on Tesla Planning an Electric Pickup Truck, Says Elon Musk · · Score: 1

    The VAST majority of 1/2 ton trucks are sold to people who only use them to drive around town. They might get used to haul a few plants, a couple pieces of landscaping lumber, or a couple bags of mulch every few months. Nothing more than that.

    Around here, they might get used to pull a boat trailer from the house, 20 or 30 miles (at most) to the boat ramp. Usually a couple times a year... I'm not seeing the problem with using the type of system Tesla has been using for this.

  10. Re:If UPS/FedEx use this technolgy in their trucks on Tesla Planning an Electric Pickup Truck, Says Elon Musk · · Score: 1

    UPS and FedEX both already have hybrid trucks in use in a handful of places.

  11. Re:market on Tesla Planning an Electric Pickup Truck, Says Elon Musk · · Score: 1

    They're out there. There are a couple of hybrid models in the 1/2 ton full size form factor

  12. Hard market to break into on Tesla Planning an Electric Pickup Truck, Says Elon Musk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Several manufacturers have gotten out of the U.S. small truck market recently. Ford and Dodge both dropped their small and mid-size offerings due to falling sales in the small truck arena. It's a hard market to break into and there's a lot of brand loyalty among the consumers.

  13. Re:This is why we can't have nice things... on Solid Concepts Manufactures First 3D-Printed Metal Pistol · · Score: 1

    They already do. These machines have been around in commercial use for nearly a decade (that I am aware of) -- perhaps a bit longer. The machines are wicked expensive to purchase (think price of a nice house) and expensive to operate. They typically only use them with materials that are hard to machine, on projects that have unusual geometries, or for one off custom design parts (like human jaw replacement).

  14. Re:Weeell .... Priorities? on UN Mounts Asteroid Defense Plan Following Chelyabinsk Meteor · · Score: 1

    You shouldn't consider the number of actual kill events. You should consider the number of events in general. Eventually a meteor will "get lucky" and take out a major city. Any such event, anywhere in the world, will have world-wide impact (no pun intended). It would be wise to prepare a solution, if we have the technology (which we do).

    What your suggesting by not preparing is like the insurance question: "I've never been sick, been in an accident or had my home damaged; so, why should I carry insurance?" You pay for the insurance policies because it's wise to do so. The economic fallout of not having insurance will literally ruin you, it could take decades to recover financially, should you actually have an incident.

  15. Re:Impossible technology. on UN Mounts Asteroid Defense Plan Following Chelyabinsk Meteor · · Score: 1

    But they do.

    Medical fields, electronics and semiconductor industry, chemical industry all spend billions each year. Automotive industry income sheets read in the billions per quarter and they all have substantial R&D expenses. The cost to build and maintain power plants and infrastructure runs into billions per year, nationwide.

    Research into lighting technology, not so much; but, without the supporting infrastructure there would be no electric lights to begin with. I referred to lighting and refrigeration specifically because those were two of the earliest technologies that drove buildout of electrical infrastructure and had the largest impact. (power plants were initially being built to support lighting -- all the other stuff followed).

  16. Re:Carbon is carbon on U.S. Will Not Provide Financing For New International Coal-Fired Power Plants · · Score: 1

    There's a potential work around. They could build funded natural gas fired plants, then come back later and construct a coal to syn gas conversion plant. It's not ideal. Carbon emissions overall would likely be higher (thermodynamics being what it is). It requires water. But it gets you there and the most expensive bits (electrical generation plant and distribution infrastructure) can be funded by World Bank, etc.

  17. Impossible technology. on UN Mounts Asteroid Defense Plan Following Chelyabinsk Meteor · · Score: 2

    Then we shouldn't do it. While your at it, please turn over all technology in your possession that didn't exist 200 years ago and, at the time, would have been considered impractical or impossible. Cell phones, automobiles, computers, implanted medical devices, plastics and synthetic fibers, electric lighting and refrigeration... to name a few items.

  18. Re:Weeell .... Priorities? on UN Mounts Asteroid Defense Plan Following Chelyabinsk Meteor · · Score: 4, Informative

    we have preliminary numbers. Russia has been hit by potential city shattering meteorites twice in a hundred years. If the Tunguska event happened over a populated area it would no longer have been populated. If Chelyabinsk had entered at a slightly steeper angle, it would have been significantly worse. As it is, it entered at a shallow enough angle that it broke up high in the atmosphere and reducing the effect of the shock wave. We have a reasonable handle on the larger nation killing, and extinction causing, world ending variety. What we don't have is sufficient tracking data on the smaller city killers.

  19. Re:Remember when on Motorola's "Project Ara" Will Allow Users To Customize Their Smartphones · · Score: 1

    Or make the tool. I have a rolling tool cabinet full of various tools; and, in there is a sorter containing all the various security bits I've run across. Not having the tool is really not an excuse, when it's readily available from at least five different reputable online vendors.

  20. Re:Remember when on Motorola's "Project Ara" Will Allow Users To Customize Their Smartphones · · Score: 0

    You can still open the Apple computers too. He's just too lazy to do it.

  21. Re:Enough is Enough on Chrome Will End XP Support in 2015; Firefox Has No Plans To Stop · · Score: 2

    They replaced the entire OS because the kernel stack was a tangled mess of spagetti that had numerous dependencies that made absolutely no sense. It was an unholy merger of Win9x and WinNT/2k with bells and wistles added throughout it's life (and three service packs).

  22. Re:Fantastic for corporate users on Motorola's "Project Ara" Will Allow Users To Customize Their Smartphones · · Score: 1

    And if we do do "some kind of" military work? No cameras allowed in production areas. -- that sign is prominently posted in places in our building.

  23. Re:Unrealistic to say the least ! on Motorola's "Project Ara" Will Allow Users To Customize Their Smartphones · · Score: 1

    While that number is low, it's not far off. you need power and communication. interchip communication for a phone is largely serial. So, you need a bus with a minumum of 2 or 3 dedicated pins for communication and 2 pins for power. One has to assume the RAM and some FLASH would be embedded on the CPU block. Additional memory space (flash) would also use a serial communication bus. You could either use the same bus as all the peripherals or add a bus specifically for memory. Similar answer applies for the screen, for the camera, and for all the other peripherals. Since they're trying to keep the modules more or less interchangeable, they either limit the bus width or run all the possible bus combinations to all the modules. The simple solution is one shared bus (KISS principle).

  24. Re:Clarke on Is Europa Too Prickly To Land On? · · Score: 0

    Darn. dkleinsc beat me to it.

  25. Clarke on Is Europa Too Prickly To Land On? · · Score: 0, Redundant

    "All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there."