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User: confused+one

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  1. Re:Safety Critical on Toyota Pedal Issue Highlights Move To Electronics · · Score: 1

    E-brakes are usually referred to as Parking brakes now. In some cars, they only engage 1/2 of the rear brake shoes. In others they only engage a small auxiliary brake shoe which is not part of the normal braking system, and is not designed to stop the car at highway speeds.

  2. Re:Safety Critical on Toyota Pedal Issue Highlights Move To Electronics · · Score: 1

    Honda puts air pressure sensors in the doors. The sudden increase in air pressure inside the door cavity, due to the collapsing sheet metal, initiates the side impact air bag. That gave them a faster response time.

    There's always more than one way to do something.

  3. Re:Conflict of interest. on Toyota Pedal Issue Highlights Move To Electronics · · Score: 3, Insightful

    you're off base here. Toyota shut themselves down until they had a fix in place and known good parts. Yes, the NHTSA did step in, as they should, but they did not shut down Toyota. In fact, they agreed that Toyota's plans were "acceptable" and left Toyota alone to implement them.

  4. price? on Gun With Wireless Arming Signal Goes On Sale Soon · · Score: 1

    7000 euro seems a little steep for a handgun. Especially a .22lr. You can buy a S&W 22A or Beretta U22 Neos for under $300, even at today's elevated prices.

  5. Re:Recharge time? on Lithium Air Batteries Get Boost From IBM and DOE · · Score: 1

    Most older houses have 60A or 100A service. My house was upgraded to a whole 150A service, 30 years ago, in order to support the electric baseboard heaters in the addition.

  6. Re:Dinosaurs are green, doggone it! on Dinosaur Feather Color Discovered · · Score: 4, Funny

    Barney has always bothered me... Why are we teaching our children to play with a large and obviously dangerous carnivore?

  7. Re:Just use a dummy first. on Skydiver To Break Sound Barrier During Free-Fall · · Score: 1

    OK, you've hit on the best idea right there! Get Mythbusters to test his idea first. If Buster (the dummy) survives, then out come the explosives!

  8. Re:TFA SAID, "RELATIVELY HARMLESS"!!! on Sound Generator Lethal From 10 Meters · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe rubber bullets are categorized as "Less than lethal" which puts them in a slightly more dangerous category than "mostly harmless". Your point is valid, nonetheless

  9. Re:TFA SAID, "RELATIVELY HARMLESS"!!! on Sound Generator Lethal From 10 Meters · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In military parlance, "relatively harmless" means something different than what it does in the civilian world.

  10. Re:Wise or not, what choice do they really have? on Why Firefox's Future Lies In Google's Hands · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know you're trying to be sarcastic and/or funny; but, there's a history lesson, sitting right there waiting for you... It goes by the name of Netscape.

  11. Re:No it really is 100% accuracy on Nano-Scale Robot Arm Moves Atoms With 100% Accuracy · · Score: 1

    Heisenberg aside. As a manufacturing engineer for an instrumentation company, I can assure you that nothing is ever 100%.

  12. Re:eating on One Variety of Sea Slugs Cuts Out the Energy Middleman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slugs aren't very energetic. It's doubtful that photosynthesis alone will provide the energy necessary to power your body and that meat based computer in your head. You would still need to ingest a fair amount of food, in order to extract the concentrated energy contained in it.

  13. So, now on Surgeon Makes Tutorial DVD For Conscious Open-Heart Surgery · · Score: 1

    you get to see all the blood and listen to the sound of suction, saw cutting through you ribs, the ribs cracking as they're spread, comments of the OR staff *oops*, the staple gun used to put it all back together... While they're working on YOU.

  14. Re:What about the domain parking, tasting, sniping on IPv4 Will Not Die In 2010 · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Having a domain name does not mean you have an unique IP address assigned to it. It's not one-to-one.

  15. Re:Uncomfortable on Using a Toy Train To Calibrate a Reactor · · Score: 1

    Nothing wrong with that... How about real trains. Have CSX carrying nuclear fuel bundles down track about 1/4 mile from where I'm sitting right now, on a fairly regular basis.

  16. Re:People Still Use DirectX??? on AMD Launches World's First Mobile DirectX 11 GPUs · · Score: 2, Informative

    And that makes perfect sense if you're targeting all those different platforms. There may even be perfectly reasonable reasons to use OpenGL over DirectX based on your coding requirements and the APIs. However, if you're target audience is Window and Windows Embedded only, and there are no requirements that are better served by OpenGL, there's no reason not to use DirectX.

    It's just a tool.

  17. Re:Not even close on NASA’s Contest To Design the Last Shuttle Patch · · Score: 1

    Not so. SpaceX Dragon was designed to be a manned capsule. The first test launch of Falcon 9 should be in March or April. SpaceX, under a COTS contract with NASA, has 12 missions booked with the Falcon 9 using the Dragon as a pressurized cargo carrier to the ISS. It appears they plan to work toward getting it officially man-rated after that.

  18. Re:Another Apple Trick on How Apple Orchestrates Controlled Leaks, and Why · · Score: 1

    Buh... WHAT?

  19. Re:Windows Mobile on Y2.01K · · Score: 1

    My phone (TMO Shadow WM6 build 18170.0.5.1) isn't affected either, apparently. So, that's all of us? Looks like it's only you then.

  20. Re:Simple fix on Best Buy $39.95 "Optimization" At Best a Waste of Money · · Score: 1

    I couldn't find that key; so, I tried adding it manually in HKLM. Now my machine won't boot...

  21. infrastructure on Thorium, the Next Nuclear Fuel? · · Score: 1

    Primary reason there is limited interest in thorium, right now. Infrastructure. Ore processing, refining, isotope separation, fuel rod manufacturing infrastructure. Most existing fission reactors rely on an U 235 / U238/ Pu 239 fuel. Industrial scale processing in the countries that process fuel is all set up for uranium and plutonium processing. It would cost 10's of billions of dollars / euro / rubles / yen / yuan / or what have you, to build the necessary facilities.

  22. Re:Street lights on The Long Shadow of Y2K · · Score: 1
    What this really solved was a problem for people who were:

    a.) had a fear of the dark or dark places

    or

    b) had poor night vision to begin with.

  23. Re:Wait for the Y10k bug on The Long Shadow of Y2K · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually I just fixed a 2010 bug, where someone did exactly as you suggested. They created a system back in 2000 or 2001 where the last digit of the year was used as a key. Someone realized there might be a problem back in early November...

  24. Re:But in the big picture. Have you seen it? on Launching Frequently Key To NASA Success · · Score: 1

    Methane? Well what type of lubricants are we going to get from a gas? You may be accidently considering abiotic origins or petroleum, but unfortunately "there is no indication that an application of the hypothesis is or has ever been of commercial value."

    No. I'm referring to the gas that's available in quantity. You need oil, think like a chemist and reform the methane into longer chain molecules.

  25. Re:But in the big picture. Have you seen it? on Launching Frequently Key To NASA Success · · Score: 1

    I agree on combustion for spaceflight. We have technologies that are better suited there. but, when trying to get off of the surface, the booster phase, combustion may remain the safest method for the foreseeable future. Until, as you point out, we've solved the energy problem and have a form of fusion reactor that we can wedge into a spacecraft structure.

    Free oxygen is damn near impossible to find. Anywhere. If plants weren't constantly replenishing the supply on Earth there would be none here either. I expect the only way to get free oxygen off Earth will be to split oxides. Not energy efficient at all, true. But, if you build a plant using solar power the cost in the decade time frame will be low and you do have the side benefit of obtaining the quantities of purified metals from the other electrode.