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User: AK+Marc

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  1. Re:What should happen but won't on US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Has Died (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    That's not what the Supreme Court said about the 9th and 10th. And the Amendment invalidated itself. It is only valid if there's no standing army, and there's a standing army, and the introductory clause is what invalidates the rest.

    If there were an Amendment saying "A good night's sleep being necessary for learning at school, the national curfew for under 18 shall be 9 p.m." Would the dependent clause have any effect on the independent clause? The gun nuts argue that it's irrelevant. The revisionist liberals indicate that since the Amendment itself indicates its purpose is for fresh children the next morning, that the Amendment obviously only applies on school days.

    So, when the guns are taken out of the equation, do you think that a dependent clause has any effect on the independent clause? On a Friday night in the middle of summer break, must the curfew be 9 p.m. because that's what the independent clause explicitly states? Or could it be later (or none at all) because the time anyone goes to sleep that night will have no effect on schooling?

  2. Re:Cam shafts work without the battery on Camless Internal Combustion and the Digital Age (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    Yes, it changes by cars. The only car to break a belt I was driving was an 8-valve, and it had 2 bent valves. They are about $5 each, so that's closer to $10. Of course, while doing it, you just do all the valves, but the actual damage in parts of the broken belt was under $10.

  3. Re:Ride sharing? on Uber Losing $1 Billion a Year In China (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    The only one legally allowed to pick you up on a hail is a taxi. That's what defines a taxi service. That they provide more doesn't mean they aren't a taxi, or that anyone else that does the same thing must be a taxi. If you look at the charges against Uber drivers (yes, they've arrested or ticketed a few, at least in Auckland), it's for responding to a hail.

    It's not that you are wrong because you are in NZ, but you are wrong because you are wrong. If a taxi company were to take packages as passengers for a hire profit, that wouldn't make CourierPost a taxi any more than Uber is a taxi.

  4. Re:Ride sharing? on Uber Losing $1 Billion a Year In China (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    So your local taxi company won't stop if you hail them (and they are available and all that)? Then it's not a taxi company.

  5. Re:Ride sharing? on Uber Losing $1 Billion a Year In China (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    All taxi companies have wheels on their vehicles. That doesn't make my bicycle a taxi.

  6. Re:What should happen but won't on US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Has Died (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    No, and I didn't lose my right to peacefully assemble when the EPA was passed. I'm not sure how those two things are related. The Amendment explicitly states that the purpose of the Amendment is to promote a well regulated militia. If there is no well regulated militia, then the Amendment is invalid. The purpose given is now invalid, thus the rest is invalid.

    This line of logic has made many other laws invalid. If the law includes a flawed stated purpose, then the rest of the law is invalid.

  7. Re:Correction Correction on Auschwitz Museum Releases Software To Rewrite Holocaust Nomenclature (thestack.com) · · Score: 2

    Because NAZI was a German party run by Germans and voted into power by Germans?

  8. Re:Revisionist history? on Auschwitz Museum Releases Software To Rewrite Holocaust Nomenclature (thestack.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not revisionist history. It's trying to change the descriptors of events. Camps in Poland were German camps, not Polish. The Poles weren't collaborators, but were subjugated. The Poles seem very concerned about the "true" history being lost, and the poor descriptions of events giving a false impression.

    Much like the secession states in the US Civil War seceded because of slavery as the primary reason, and hate of states rights as the second, though the current thought is the opposite of the second, and that the primary is a secondary or lower cause. One must be vigilant about how words are used if meaning is to be maintained over long terms.

  9. Re:Ride sharing? on Uber Losing $1 Billion a Year In China (thestack.com) · · Score: 1, Informative

    Nope. A taxi company picks up people on the street by hail. Uber doesn't. By definition it isn't a taxi company, no matter what your personal hatred of them warps your beliefs to.

  10. Re:So not only are they scumbags, but... on Uber Losing $1 Billion a Year In China (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    They have been declared by NYC to not be a taxi company. They've won more suits than they've lost (they haven't lost that many, despite the Slashdot coverage). They are compliant by degree of the government in many areas. So why do you have a problem with a company being legal?

  11. Re:Does China know is has Uber? on Uber Losing $1 Billion a Year In China (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    there were several conversations around how it was similar to Uber. Which no one there had heard of.

    How were they talking about Uber when they never heard of it?

  12. Re:Cam shafts work without the battery on Camless Internal Combustion and the Digital Age (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    Almost all gasoline engines in the US are. The massive low-compression V8s aren't. And by volume of engine sold, they are a minority. Even the LS-1 (5.7l V8) is an interference engine. You can't get high-compression without interference. The combustion chamber is just too small. And I've been in two cars with interference engines while they broke the timing belt (I owned neither, and was driving one at the time). The car just stalls, and damages about $20 in parts. Yes, it takes $2000 in labor to get to those $20 in parts, but the damage is tiny. A few bent valves.

  13. Re:Cam shafts work without the battery on Camless Internal Combustion and the Digital Age (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    Cams aren't as smooth as they look. Yes, they are elliptical looking, with no sharp corners, but from the perspective of inside an engine at the speeds they operate at, they slam open and shut the valves pretty fast. An instant-on solenoid would be hard pressed to match that speed (which is why they aren't used, they are instantaneous, yet too slow).

  14. Re:Cam shafts work without the battery on Camless Internal Combustion and the Digital Age (hackaday.com) · · Score: 2

    The problem is that when you are moving the valves at 200 Hz, the solid state will be issuing commands to the mechanical actuators faster than the actuators can respond. Sure, you can re-design the entire intake system with something that's faster to move, but that'd take billions of dollars, and everyone is waiting for someone else to do it, so they can all copy it.

    That's why the cam stays around. It's not only the control mechanism, but the actuator. You can replace the control mechanism with something solid state, but you can't do so until after you invent a new actuator. Hydraulic and pneumatic and electronic have been tried, and failed for various reasons. And nobody has had any success with new types of valves. The conditions inside a combustion chamber are just too rough.

  15. Re:Cam shafts work without the battery on Camless Internal Combustion and the Digital Age (hackaday.com) · · Score: 1

    the idea of parts flying around without protection is why I don't own an interference engine.

    The idea of A/C killing an elephant is why I don't allow electricity into my house.

    Note, your fear and the possibility of it happening are not related.

  16. Re:What should happen but won't on US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Has Died (theguardian.com) · · Score: 1

    Whether there's a standing army or not makes no difference,

    So the reason to have a militia is irrelevant to whether there's a standing army? Or a standing army is irrelevant to your stance on the matter.

  17. Re:What are the actual patents about on Apple And AT&T Sued For Infringement Over iPhone Haptic Patents (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    No, they don't. Only you are saying they do. You are arguing they do so you can argue they don't. The phone has them. The look and feel of the phone is protected. The rounded corners aren't specified in the look and feel, but are depicted in the diagrams. You are indicating that's important. Not me.

  18. Re:So many questions, no answers... on Microsoft Patents A Modular PC With Stackable Components (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 1

    Why was Justice Scalia declared dead by the justice of the peace without seeing the body?

    Because of the official reports listing him as dead listed him as dead, and there was no confusion on that matter. The JP just decides whether there needs to be a larger inquest. An old fat man dies of a heart problem. Move on.

    Why was there no autopsy performed?

    Because they are expensive, and there was no signs of any cause other than a heart problem in an old fat man.

    Why wasn't the Marshal's service along as a security detail this particular weekend?

    Because Scalia declined that. Did he kill himself, and was in on the conspiracy?

    Why does the owner of the ranch refuse to disclose who the other guests were?

    Because if he did, he'd never get another guest. Money over the truth or openness. Isn't that the American Way?

    Most intriguing...does the answer to all these questions begin with the letter "O"?

    So Obama flew to Texas and executed Scalia himself? If this was a conspiracy all the way to the top, why not just have Obama walk into a Supreme Court session and shoot Scalia in the face? He can then nominate a replacement, then pardon himself, and wait for the impeachment (or resign), but would never be prosecuted for the crime.

  19. Re:Where's the patent? on Microsoft Patents A Modular PC With Stackable Components (venturebeat.com) · · Score: 1

    http://www.cnet.com/news/hp-re...

    It was cuting edge at the time (1998), but the HP Sojourn should be prior art for this. It was a laptop with a dock (well, multiple docks). The base laptop was thin and light, and didn't have much I/O. You put on the I/O slice, and you have a CD drive, video ports, serial and more. And you can then put on another slice, and expanded battery slice. The ultrabook was expandable to a full desktop replacement (almost).

    And there have been other computers to do the same, just with everything in a chassis, not external slices. So this is an incremental change, and an obvious one at that. But that's how patents work in the US.

  20. Re:Battery life? on AT&T To Begin 5G Wireless Field Trials This Year (eweek.com) · · Score: 1

    If you find yourself drunk and lost in every city in the globe, perhaps the fix isn't better wireless, but fixing your alcoholism?

  21. Re:What are the actual patents about on Apple And AT&T Sued For Infringement Over iPhone Haptic Patents (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    The rounded corners claim is the same as if grocery stores claimed that they couldn't sell apples any more because Apple could sue them. Rounded corners aren't patented by Apple. Nor is the Apple. But deliberately copying Apple's logo to put above food apples to sell could be seen as a IP infringement. As is deliberately copying the look and feel of the iPhone. That is all.

  22. The NSA is used to ensure everyone involved signs things like the TTIP and TPPA.

  23. Re:Do People Still Watch DVDs? on Hollywood Escalates "DVD Ripping" Case To International Incident (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 2

    New stuff, catalog changes, storage, and other reasons should provide a value in the subscription, even if you could download it all. A quality movie is over 1G. That's $0.50-$1 to store it. Storing 10 new movies a month, vs Netflix, and Netflix is cheaper. So if Netflix is cheaper than "free" you'd be stupid to download.

  24. Re:Do People Still Watch DVDs? on Hollywood Escalates "DVD Ripping" Case To International Incident (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 1

    And, it's almost always cheaper to rent from a DVD rental place, then rip that and keep a copy than it is to buy the same thing, and the DVDs are in the shops months or years before it shows up on the streaming services.

  25. You've said a lot of nothing.

    Then let me be direct. Since a dog can catch a ball and can't understand a parabola, that's proof you are wrong.

    You are wrong. All evidence proves you wrong. Have you ever caught a ball? If so (and from how you talk about it, it's doubtful), what math did you do?

    You use brute force learning. Muscle memory and eye-hand coordination are terms for learning something without learning how you did it.

    I not only know why, but I know how to leverage the same facilities to do other things. Hell, I know why a few weeks of therapy is more than twice as effective as drugs at long-term curing of severe depression. I know why Ben Pridmore can memorize the order of 27 decks of cards in 3 minutes. I know why I was always better at math than my classmates.

    Then tell us. Otherwise, it sounds like you don't actually know.