Slashdot Mirror


User: LehiNephi

LehiNephi's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
362
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 362

  1. Re:lowering price? on Samsung SSD 850 EVO 32-Layer 3D V-NAND-Based SSD Tested · · Score: 4, Informative

    They're not stacking silicon wafers on top of each other. Rather, they're putting more layers of oxide, semiconductor, etc onto each wafer in order to produce the 3d stacking. Yes, it's more complex. But it's a pretty mature technology.

  2. Re:Major /. faux pas on NASA Tests Aircraft With Shape Shifting Wings · · Score: 1

    "noise during takeoffs and landings"? I've been on plenty of airplane flights, from a Cessna up to a 747, and on none of them have I ever noticed noise from flaps. I don't get the whole fuel-savings bit, either. That's kinda the point of flaps--increase lift at lower speeds, with a corresponding increase in drag. When you're landing, your engines are running at reduced power anyway, and when you're taking off, the flaps don't stay extended for very long--just the first few minutes of flight. Now, if you told me they were making wings that could alter the thickness of the airfoil or the length of the wing in-flight, I'd be interested.

  3. Re:what happens when the batters wears out? on Will the Nissan Leaf Take On the Tesla Model S At Half the Price? · · Score: 1

    Do you have any idea how much money you could be saving by doing your own maintenance? Your local auto parts store has frequent sales on oil and filters for $25 for a set. Changing the oil takes a whopping 10 minutes. And unless you're driving 20k miles per year, you certainly don't need to be changing the oil every 3 months. A brake fluid flush *might* take you a couple of hours but requires no special tools (a combination wrench set, a short piece of hose, a jar, and a jack and your lug wrench is all you need). The AC "service" was probably just a matter of topping off the coolant (another 10 minute job). A transmission fluid/filter change is slightly more expensive and time-consuming, but again, no more than an hour.

  4. Re:Oh noes, I can't drive X miles on Will the Nissan Leaf Take On the Tesla Model S At Half the Price? · · Score: 1

    Um, 2 miles can NOT be leisurely walked in 15 minutes. That's a 7:30 mile pace, which is a pretty decent running pace, depending on what kind of shape you're in.

    Make it 30 minutes, and you're about right.

  5. Re:It's a barter transaction on If Ridesharing Is Banned, What About Ride-Trading? · · Score: 1

    Good point. There's also the issue of "how do I get credits in the first place?" or, "I don't own a car but still want to participate!" The obvious way would be for people to buy "miles", but that makes it even easier for the city governments to argue that it's still the same service.

  6. Re:Good or Bad on How Good Are Charter Schools For the Public School System? · · Score: 1

    I think there's a false assumption here--that separating students into different schools based on academic performance is a Bad Thing. On the contrary, such segregation would enable the schools to tailor their teaching to the needs of their respective students. So the higher-performing students aren't held back due to a lower-performing student, and the lower-performing students don't feel lost because the teacher has to trying to teach an arbitrary curriculum at an arbitrary speed.

  7. Re:Yeah, like the present school system is working on How Good Are Charter Schools For the Public School System? · · Score: 1

    There is one thing, however, which I don't know how we can fix, at least not from a legislative or policy standpoint, and that is the lack of parental participation.

    While I agree with some of your points, I'll take issue with this statement. In my opinion, the lack of parental participation and school/legislative policy have degenerated in a vicious cycle. Schools try to do more to help kids, while discouraging/preventing parental influence on school policy. As a result, parents are less involved, which leads the school to do more, etc.

    As for "day long day care" - so true. Look no further than the push for 4k and Head Start, which have repeatedly and consistently failed to produce lasting benefits, while costing taxpayers *billions*. There's no educational justification for it.

  8. Re:Tigerdirect is the victim here on Former TigerDirect President Indicted In $230 Million Laundering Scheme · · Score: 1

    What was odd about the Fry's case was that many of the companies that got that business were actually lower-cost suppliers, like ECS. Right after that case broke, Frys stopped doing the really good CPU/Motherboard deals. So customers actually ended up worse off when they caught the guy.

  9. Re:Lousy ideas on Using Technology To Make Guns Safer · · Score: 1

    Speaking of which, automatic firearms are already banned, unless you go through a rigorous screening process. Nearly all handguns today, and many rifles, are semi-automatic (one trigger pull per shot). It's "semi" because although the gun automatically loads the next round, it will not automatically fire that next round.

  10. Re:Lousy ideas on Using Technology To Make Guns Safer · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's fairly well understood that the sound of racking (that's the proper term, I believe) a shotgun actually will not scare away an intruder. I wish it did--I'd much rather have the bad guy run away than have to shoot him.
    Secondly, if you want a larger spread, you don't get a larger barrel--it's 12gauge (or 40, or whatever) all the way down. You can get barrels with different chokes, which constrict the opening at the end of the barrel to various degrees.

  11. Re:Private enterprise... on A Twisted Clean-Tech Tale: How A123 Wound Up In Bankruptcy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem is that it wasn't exactly a private free enterprise. They received a $17.1m loan guarantee from the federal government, without which their plant would not have been built. Investors saw them as a bad risk, and appropriately declined to invest in them.

  12. Re:Just another cautionary tale on A Twisted Clean-Tech Tale: How A123 Wound Up In Bankruptcy · · Score: 3, Informative

    For perspective, the tax breaks given to oil companies amounts to about $2.4 billion/year (in the form tax breaks which are similar to the same tax breaks that every other industry gets for investing in expansion). Loan guarantees like the one A123 got totalled $90 billion in the "stimulus" bill passed in 2009.

    Government sticking its thumb on the scales of the economy is always a bad idea--whether it be bailing out banks or perpetual ethanol subsidies + ethanol mandates + import tariffs.

  13. Re:This isn't a bad thing. on US Birthrate Plummets To Record Low · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I'm afraid the data doesn't match up with your perceptions. The rich already pay a higher effective tax rate than those in lower income brackets on average (about 24%), while the bottom 50% pay an average of less than 2%. Yes, by all means, let's let the wealthy pay their proportionate share of taxes, by reducing their tax rates!

  14. Re:If you are young(ish), save for yourself on US Birthrate Plummets To Record Low · · Score: 1

    The current projections are for the Social Security Trust Fund to be depleted around 2037, last I checked. At that point, assuming the government only pays out what it brings in, benefits will be reduced by about 25%. I would assume with current demographics, the payroll taxes will pay for an ever-shrinking percentage of the original benefits, until the baby boomers die off in significant numbers.

    I don't know anybody under the age of 55 who is planning on receiving benefits from SS when they retire.

  15. Re:Bic on Ask Slashdot: The Search For the Ultimate Engineer's Pen · · Score: 1

    You can find Bic Clic Stic pens on amazon and ebay. They're my wife's favorite as well.

  16. Re:Calm before the hyperbole on A Suicide Goes Viral On the Internet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good point. It also sounds like at least some of the folks at Fox were trying to prevent the footage from going live, and they apologized immediately afterward. Buzzfeed, on the other hand, deliberately posted the footage with full knowledge of its contents.

    I think Fox has the moral (relative) high ground here.

  17. Re:Catastrophe on Complex Systems Theorists Predict We're About One Year From Global Food Riots · · Score: 3, Funny

    Malthus, perhaps. Hari Seldon, probably not.

  18. Anyone else have trouble parsing the title on Cash-Poor Sharp Mortgages Display Factories · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the title of this post isn't reason enough to reform the English language, I don't know what is. At first I though it had something to do with homeowners refinancing.

    Cash-Poor (adj) Sharp (adj/noun) Mortgages (verb/noun) Display (verb/adj/noun) Factories (noun)

  19. Re:Craigslist is a shithole on Craigslist Demands Exclusivity For Postings · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of other places to list ads, though none are as big. My preference is Bookoo, which *does* do some sort of radius searching (I forget how exactly it works), but still has individual local sites.

  20. Re:This cannot possibly be efficient on East Texas Getting Compressed Air Energy Storage Plant · · Score: 1

    Yes, PV=nRT (or some more accurate version of it). However, for this application, the volume is so huge that the air doesn't actually heat up all that much as it's compressed. Similar methods have been used for storing natural gas in salt domes for decades.

  21. Pipeline on wheels? on US Energy Transportation Network Gets Multibillion-Dollar Revamp · · Score: 1

    This smacks me as being a bit odd and inefficient. Given the volume being produced, wouldn't a pipeline make more sense? It'd be safer and cheaper in the long run. Of course, given the troubles the Keystone XL pipeline is having, maybe it's more economic to truck it than to try and get through all the red tape for a pipeline.

  22. Re:Private security theater is no better than publ on Sen. Rand Paul Introduces TSA Reform Legislation · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I used to travel abroad at my previous job, and I had similar, though often worse, experiences in other countries. For example, when leaving Luanda, Angola, here was the process:
    1. Arrive at airport, get in line
    2. Go through metal detector, have your itinerary checked against your passport
    3. Get in line for the check-in desk. Start filling out a passenger information sheet
    4. Get interviewed for a few minutes by a security person who again checks your itinerary against your passport
    5. Airline checks your itinerary against the passport and the passenger information sheet
    6. Move to the next line to actually check in
    7. Stand in another security line, bags get xrayed, you go through the metal detector
    8. Go into a small room to be interviewed to make sure you're not carrying any Angolan currency out
    9. Go wait in waiting area (not by the gate) until it's about time to board
    10. Go through another check of boarding pass vs. passport
    11. Bag search to *really* make sure you're not carrying currency
    12. Pat-down to *really* *really* make sure you're not carrying currency
    13. Another check of boarding pass against passport (by airport security)
    14. Another check of boarding pass against passport (by the airline)
    15. Go out the door to board a bus which takes you to the airplane
  23. Arbitrary efficiency standards lower costs? on UK Draft Energy Bill Avoids Banning Coal Or Gas Power · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uh, perhaps there's some measure in the law which places tariffs on higher-polluting sources, but I can't recall any time when mandatory, arbitrary efficiency/emissions standards have lowered costs. If higher efficiency truly creates savings, then the mandates aren't necessary. Witness the boom in demand for fuel-efficient cars as gas prices go up.

  24. Consistent problem? Or paranoia? on USPS To Ban International Shipping On Lithium Ion Powered Gadgetry · · Score: 2

    I don't recall hearing much in the way of incidents involving lithium-containing batteries combusting during shipping. This leads me to wonder which of the following is going on. Is it:
    1) A response to actual incidents?
    2) An over-reaction to the potential of an accident, much like the no-electronic-gadgets rule on airplanes?
    3) Something more sinister involving patents and/or protectionism?

    Given the USPS's boneheaded management style (e.g. you still can't buy first-class postage on their site, only the much more expensive Priority and Express), I'm thinking option #2, but that's just speculation

  25. Re:Obama knows how to play politics if anything. on GOP Blocks Senate Debate On Dem Student Loan Bill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The money has to come from *somewhere*. TANSTAAFL. A few things to note: The Senate bill would raise taxes permanently, and it will take ten years of that tax increase to cover one year of the student loan interest freeze. Secondly, the money cut in the House bill comes from a portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which is pretty much just a slush fund. The proposal is to cut spending which hasn't happened yet. Third, it's good to have educated workers. But that education ain't worth much if potential employers can't hire the graduates, and taking money away from potential employers makes it that much harder for them to hire those graduates.